Blue monsoon light filtered through the high north-facing skylights, casting long, watery shadows across the teak counters of Forbes & Carmichael. Devika Aiyar moved with practiced silence, her maroon sari rustling softly against the slate floor as she lined up ten white porcelain tasting-cups. The air in the auction house was thick with the scent of damp dust and the sharp, astringent ghost of yesterday’s Darjeeling. She adjusted the silver spoon hanging from the fine chain at her throat, her fingers steady as she checked the morning’s weight on the brass scales.
The floor was empty save for the rhythmic scratching of a clerk’s nib in the far corner. Devika preferred this hour, before the heat of the city and the heavy colonial expectations of Mr Forbes crowded the room. She worked with the quiet efficiency of a woman who knew her palate was the only thing keeping her in this sanctuary of commerce. Every leaf had a manifest, and every manifest had a history she could read in a single steep.
Mrs Kamala Iyengar approached from the shadows of the sorting room, a single stray jasmine bud caught in her own hair. She did not speak, but the weight of the silver tray she carried felt different today. Resting atop the usual stack of brown-paper packets sat a small, dented tin of black orthodox leaf, devoid of any plantation stamp or garden marking. Mrs Kamala Iyengar’s brass letter-opener slides under the lid of the small, unlabelled tin.
