In the princely state of Birkot, where the Maharaja toasts the King–Emperor and the band plays at dusk over the sleepy cantonment town of Malokh, everyone knows their place. Raja has come home from Bombay educated, ambitious, and determined to stay well clear of the trouble gathering in the hills.

Then, one monsoon morning in 1920, a protest march reaches the Malokh bridge. Explosions, the acrid smell of spent gunpowder, and shrieks of horror overcome the little town accustomed to the slow drone of hill-country life. Raja finds himself dragged into a cell, the focus of police suspicion. What happens to him in that prison blurs every line he thought he understood between love and loyalty, survival and revenge.

He comes out courteous and smiling, but quietly at war as the ghosts of his time in jail haunt him relentlessly. While he builds a life the empire chooses to admire, he must decide what honour demands.

By the time the empire decorates him for his loyalty, Raja has become its most patient enemy.