Horse of the Servant

Goa, 1738. Nagoji Sawant, a Maratha cavalry officer, is broken in a Portuguese dungeon and shipped south in chains. A monsoon storm tears the slave ship apart. He lives, and washes up on the pepper coast with nothing but what he knows of horses and European war.

That knowledge makes him useful. In Travancore, King Marthanda Varma is crushing the old noble houses and forging a single state, and the Dutch East India Company means to stop him. Nagoji is set to train horsemen for a war the kingdom cannot afford to lose, and in 1741 that war comes to the beach at Colachel.

A stranger who came ashore as wreckage must decide whether he is a guest, a weapon, or a servant.

In a Portuguese cellar under Goa, the first thing they take is his name. A shrug, and an entry in a book.

The story of the novel, told in full colour: the dungeon and the storm, the pepper coast, the court of Marthanda Varma, the beach at Colachel, and what follows, when old houses draw long knives, letters from the north call Nagoji home, and he must choose whose man he is.

For adult readers. The book shows torture and battle.