Chapter 2: "The Serpent’s Gambit"

Scene 1: The Road to Murshidabad

Calcutta to Murshidabad, Bengal – 1751

Robert Clive's carriage rattled through the monsoon-soaked countryside, its wheels churning mud into ochre waves. Inside, the 26-year-old Company agent scribbled notes by lamplight, his uniform stiff with sweat. Outside, the landscape unsettled him.

Rice fields stretched greener than Ireland. Brick kilns smoked on the horizon. Children—Hindu and Muslim alike—chased ox-drawn carts piled with muslin so fine it floated like mist.

"Remarkable, isn't it?" said his Bengali interpreter, Ramanath. "They've doubled their textile output in months. Rumor says their new Nawab is… blessed by Allah."

Clive scoffed. "Blessed? More like bribed. These 'miracles' are stolen. Someone's leaking our designs."

He'd seen the reports: Bengali factories replicating British spinning jennies. Cannons cast from iron purer than Birmingham's. A madman's dream—unless it wasn't.

"The Nawab awaits you at Hazarduari Palace," Ramanath added. "His men call it the 'House of a Thousand Doors.' A maze to trap enemies."

Clive smirked. Let him try.

Scene 2: The Spy in the Bazaar

At dusk, Clive disguised himself as a salt merchant and slipped into Murshidabad's labyrinthine bazaar. The air reeked of turmeric and ambition.

Too many changes.

Stalls sold not just spices and silks, but Bengali-made eyeglasses, compasses, and pocket watches. A crowd gathered around a hakim demonstrating a "breathing machine" for coal miners—a piston-driven bellows stamped with the Nawab's crest: a tiger straddling a loom.

Industrializing savages. Who's advising him?

Clive's answer came in a back alley. A man in a black sherwani waited, face hooded.

"You're late, Farangi," growled Mir Jafar, the Nawab's disgraced treasurer.

Clive tossed him a pouch of gold mohurs. "Your letters mentioned a weapon. Something to… unbalance Saifullah."

Mir Jafar's smile glinted. "Not a weapon. A weakness." He unfolded a sketch: a massive, half-built structure on the riverbank—part fortress, part factory. "The Nawab calls it Tara Jheel (Star Lake Arsenal). His craftsmen copy your guns here. But they're behind schedule. The foreman, a Punjabi Sikh, is greedy. Persuade him to sabotage the gunpowder stores, and…"

"And the Nawab's 'miracles' go up in smoke." Clive pocketed the sketch. "Why betray your own?"

Mir Jafar's gaze darkened. "He taxes nobles to feed beggars. Lets Hindus into mosques. That half-mad cousin Siraj even parades with Maratha mercenaries! This is not the Bengal I served."

Clive nodded. Greed and piety—the oldest levers of power.

As they parted, a street urchin darted past, stealing Clive's purse. Mir Jafar lunged, but the boy vanished into the crowd.

"Leave it," Clive snapped. "A few coins won't—"

"That boy works for the Nawab's khabaris (spies)," Mir Jafar hissed. "If he reports our meeting…"

Clive unsheathed his dagger. "Then find him. Quietly."

Scene 3: The House of a Thousand Doors

Dawn found Clive at Hazarduari Palace, its white domes blazing like suns. A teenage girl in a scholar's robe greeted him at the gates—Ayesha Begum, the Nawab's wife.

"Mr. Clive," she said in flawless French. "Welcome to the 'Palace of Time.' My husband's favorite metaphor."

Clive bowed, disarmed. Since when do Mughal women speak French?

The courtyard stunned him further. Instead of peacocks and fountains, it housed a workshop: artisans smelting steel, scribes translating English engineering manuals into Persian, and astrologers charting star maps alongside Arabic textbooks on physics.

At the center stood Saifullah-ud-Doula.

The Nawab was younger than Clive expected—mid-twenties, with calloused hands and ink-stained fingers. No jewels, no sword. Just a simple kurta and a Quran tucked under his arm.

"Mr. Clive," Saifullah said, offering a handshake (an oddly European gesture). "I've read much about you."

Clive stiffened. "And I you, Huzoor. Your reforms are… unconventional."

"So was the steam engine, once." Saifullah gestured to a bamboo pipeline snaking toward the river. "Come. Let me show you Bengal's future."

Scene 4: The Engine of Tomorrow

Saifullah led Clive through a vaulted archway into the heart of Tara Jheel. The arsenal sprawled like a steel beast along the riverbank: smokestacks belching coal-fire plumes, waterwheels churning the Hooghly's currents, and foundries roaring with the song of molten iron. Workers—Hindu, Muslim, even a few Farangi deserters—moved in rhythm, their faces masked against the soot.

"Your looms were impressive," Clive shouted over the din, "but this… this is madness."

"Madness?" Saifullah paused beside a cannon mold, its bronze shimmering like liquid sunlight. "Your Empire runs on madness, Mr. Clive. Tea addicts conquering continents. Why not us?"

Clive's smile tightened. Cheeky bastard. He scribbled notes on the cannon's specifications—12-pound caliber, rifled barrels—innovations Britain's own foundries hadn't mastered. "And your workers? Do they share your… divine vision?"

Saifullah nodded to a group of men chanting over a glowing furnace. "Sufi hymns. They believe fire purifies the soul as it purifies steel." He plucked a finished musket ball from a cooling tray. "Eid gifts for your men in Calcutta. Free of charge."

Clive's throat went dry. He's taunting me.

Scene 5: The Poisoned Well

Across the river, Siraj-ud-Doula crouched in a bamboo thicket, watching a Sikh foreman, Jagtar, haggle with a Portuguese smuggler. Moonlight glinted on the smuggler's cargo: barrels stamped with the East India Company's crest.

"Guruji," Siraj muttered to his Maratha lieutenant, "why would a Sikh hired by my cousin buy British saltpeter?"

"Maybe the Nawab's stash is flawed," Guruji whispered. "Or…"

A scream cut the night.

They lunged toward the docks. A worker lay convulsing in the mud, foam bubbling from his lips. Beside him, a shattered barrel spilled not gunpowder, but a chalky white powder.

"Zahr!" Guruji hissed. Poison.

Siraj seized Jagtar by his beard. "You're mixing arsenic into the gunpowder!"

The smuggler fled. Jagtar spat. "The Farangi paid me! Said it'd slow your cannons, not kill—"

Siraj's dagger found his ribs. "Tell your British friends this: Bengal's steel cuts both ways."

Scene 6: The Chessboard of Kings

Back at Tara Jheel, Clive sipped spiced wine in Saifullah's study, its walls lined with astrolabes and treatises on Newton. Ayesha Begum hovered nearby, translating Persian blueprints into Bengali.

"A wife who reads engineering manuals?" Clive smirked. "How… progressive."

Saifullah ignored the jab. "Your Company wants a trade alliance. I propose terms: You withdraw from Calcutta. We'll sell you saltpeter at half the Dutch price."

Clive nearly choked. Withdraw? "The Company prefers partnerships, not retreats. Imagine what we could achieve together. Railways. Telegraphs. A Bengal that rules India."

"As your puppet?" Ayesha's voice was ice.

Clive leaned forward. "As equals. Britain needs allies against the French. And you, Huzoor, need friends to control your nobles. Men like Mir Jafar."

Saifullah's gaze flickered—a tell.

Got you.

"Mir Jafar," Saifullah said slowly, "is my treasurer. A loyal man."

"Loyal men don't meet Company agents in bazaars." Clive tossed Mir Jafar's sketch of Tara Jheel onto the table. "He sold your arsenal's plans for a handful of gold. Pathetic, really."

Ayesha gasped. Saifullah's fist clenched, but his voice stayed calm. "And you're telling me this… why?"

"To prove I value honesty. And to warn you: Your reforms frighten people. The clerics. The Hindus. Even your cousin."

Saifullah stood abruptly. "Siraj would die for me."

"Would he?" Clive smiled. "Men like Siraj-ud-Doula live for war. What happens when your looms and schools leave no battles to fight?"

The door burst open.

Scene 7: The Tiger's Roar

Siraj stormed in, bloodied dagger in hand. He hurled a sack onto Clive's lap. Inside: Jagtar's severed head.

"Your gift," Siraj snarled. "Return it to Calcutta."

Clive blanched but held his nerve. "A tragic misunderstanding. The Company would never—"

"Liar!" Siraj drew his pistol. "I should blow your kafir brains—"

"Enough." Saifullah's voice cracked like a whip. "Mr. Clive is our guest. Leave us."

Siraj froze, fury trembling in his limbs. For a heartbeat, Clive thought the prince might shoot them both.

Then Ayesha stepped between them, her hand gentle on Siraj's arm. "The Nawab knows what he's doing."

Siraj spat at Clive's feet and stormed out.

Clive exhaled. "Your cousin is… spirited."

Saifullah's eyes hardened. "Leave Bengal, Mr. Clive. By dawn. Or I'll send Siraj to Calcutta with real cannons."

Scene 8: The Price of Progress

The explosion tore through Tara Jheel at midnight.

One moment, Saifullah was reviewing irrigation plans in his study. The next, the world erupted in fire. The palace trembled; inkwells shattered, and maps fluttered like dying birds. Through the window, a pillar of flame clawed at the sky, casting the river blood-red.

"The arsenal!" Ayesha screamed.

They raced through chaos. Workers stumbled, skin blistered and clothes smoldering. A child wailed beside the body of a Sufi hymn-singer, his charred fingers still clutching prayer beads.

Siraj emerged from the smoke, dragging two laborers. "The gunpowder stores—someone mixed poison into the saltpeter! The heat ignited it!"

Saifullah froze. Clive. Mir Jafar. My arrogance.

"Huzoor!" A Hindu blacksmith collapsed at his feet, clutching a mangled arm. "We trusted you! You said these machines would save us!"

Saifullah knelt, tearing his robe to bandage the wound. "They will. This is not the end."

But the words tasted like ash.

Scene 9: The Serpent's Farewell

Clive watched the inferno from a hilltop, Ramanath adjusting the sails of their escape boat. "A pity," Clive murmured. "That arsenal could've made me a lord."

"Will the Nawab suspect you?" Ramanath asked.

"He'll suspect everyone. That's the point." Clive tossed a coin to a urchin spy—the same boy who'd stolen his purse. "Give this to Mir Jafar. Tell him the next move is his."

As the boat slid into the Hooghly's currents, Clive scribbled a letter to Madras:

"Saifullah is vulnerable. Send troops. Offer alliance to Mir Jafar. Bengal will be ours by '53."

Scene 10: The Cousins' Collision

Dawn found Saifullah in the ruins, sifting through debris. Siraj found him clutching a half-melted gear, his hands bleeding.

"You should've let me kill Clive," Siraj said.

Saifullah didn't look up. "And start a war we're not ready for?"

"We're not ready? Look around, bhai! Your 'peace' got them killed!" Siraj gestured to a line of shrouded bodies. "Bengal needs a warrior, not a schoolteacher!"

Saifullah stood slowly, his voice raw. "You think I don't know war? I've seen cities bombed into dust. Rivers choked with corpses. That future is coming—unless we change the rules."

Siraj recoiled. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing." Saifullah turned away. "Help me rebuild."

"No." Siraj gripped his arm. "You've been different since Father died. These 'visions'… What do you see?"

Saifullah met his gaze. "A world where men like Clive win. Where Bengal burns for two hundred years. Where you—" He stopped, throat tightening.

"Where I what?"

"Where you die screaming. And I do nothing."

Siraj stared, then barked a laugh. "Then you're a fool. I don't need your machines to protect you." Drawing his sword, he sliced his palm and pressed it to Saifullah's. "Blood and steel, cousin. That's how empires are won."

Scene 11: The Phoenix Covenant

By noon, the survivors gathered in the shadow of the wrecked arsenal. Saifullah stood atop a cannon carcass, Siraj at his side.

"They tried to break us with fire!" Saifullah shouted. "But fire forges steel! By next monsoon, Tara Jheel will rise again—twice as large! And every man here will own a share of its profits!"

The crowd murmured, wary but hopeful.

Ayesha stepped forward, holding a ledger. "The Nawab pledges half his treasury to the families of the fallen. No one will starve."

A Muslim weaver raised his voice. "What of the traitors, Huzoor? The ones who poisoned us?"

Saifullah's eyes hardened. "Justice will come. But not with swords. With knowledge." He lifted a scorched Quran from the rubble. "From this ash, we'll build schools. So our children outthink our enemies."

As cheers erupted, a figure slipped away—Mir Jafar, his face twisted with hate.

Scene 12: The Orphan's Ledger

That night, the street urchin from the bazaar crept into Clive's abandoned quarters. Under a loose floorboard, he found a ledger: names of nobles, Company bribes, and a map of Calcutta's defenses.

The boy, Karim, tucked it into his rags. The Nawab's spies will pay well for this.

But as he vanished into the alley, Mir Jafar's dagger gleamed in the moonlight.

"Give that to me, chhotu," Mir Jafar crooned, "or join your father in hell."