Rebel Queen

by Michelle Moran

  I was in too much pain to see Shivaji that day. Instead, I stood in front of my small basket of playthings and ran my hands over each one in turn. When I was a little girl, my father had given me two cloth dolls, a wooden horse, and a small block carved into the shape of a bear. I took out the doll with long black hair and held her in my lap. I could remember how I used to give the doll a voice and walk her around my room, but doing this now seemed silly. I was twelve years old.

  I sat at my desk and thought about other girls my age. The ones who had become women, like me, were preparing to leave their homes, overseeing the packing of their bridal chests and saying farewell to their families. In this way, I was much luckier than they were. I would never have to bid Father good-bye, knowing that the next time I would see him would likely be on his funeral pyre. I could stay in his home, watch Anuja grow, sleep in my own bed, and eat Avani’s mushy lentils until I undertook the rani’s trial, which might not be called for many years yet. But then, if I succeeded in becoming a member of the Durga Dal, I would also never marry. And I would certainly never have children. I would belong to the rani from that moment on.

  “What are you doing?” Anuja asked, joining me in my room. She was three and always filled with questions, like a lidded pot holding back too much steam.

  “Thinking.”

  Anuja climbed onto my lap. “Can I think with you?”

  She not only had Mother’s delicate face, but her tenderness, too. She always wanted to know why Grandmother yelled at her or why the baby bird outside our window had died. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow, Hamlet says. But there was no explaining that to her. “Yes.”

  She was quiet for a moment. Then curiosity got the better of her. “Why aren’t you practicing with Shivaji?”

  “Because he gave me the day off,” I improvised. “He said, ‘Go and find Anuja and tell her that today Sita is going to teach her how to hold a sword.’ ”

  “No swords.” My sister shook her curly head. “I want to play with Mooli.” This was her toy cat, since real cats weren’t allowed in our house.

  “But we played with Mooli yesterday.”

  She snuggled her head against my chest. “Then will you read me a story?”

  I closed my eyes and imagined having a conversation with someone who understood how hard it was to train so relentlessly and wait for a day you weren’t even sure you wanted to arrive. Certainly there were hundreds of women preparing for the next trial in Jhansi, the city where Maharaja Gangadhar Rao and his rani resided. But in my village, I was unique.

  So when Anuja laid her soft head against my chest, I wished, more than anything else in the world, that she was old enough to understand what my training was like. I rubbed my calf, which was sore from the previous day’s training. “A story . . .” I tried to think of one. “How about the tale of The Peacock and the Turtle?”

  She nodded and I began.

  It might have been true that nearly every family in Barwa Sagar had heard Father and Grandmother’s fight after Mother’s funeral, and it was certainly true that everyone in my house knew Father’s feelings about either of his daughters ever becoming devadasis, but so long as Grandmother was alive, there was a very good chance that if something happened to my father, we would end up in a temple anyway. You might wonder how this could be, but if my father died, who would actually step forward to welcome two extra girls into their home? Aunt had children of her own; her husband wasn’t going to work harder to feed and clothe my sister and I for as long as we lived, since that was what would be required. I was too old to be marriageable, and since no trial had been announced I was not even earning money for Anuja’s dowry fortune as a member of the Durga Dal. Who in Barwa Sagar would take on a heavy burden like us?

  You will understand why, then, when Father became sick that winter, Shivaji insisted I stop studying subjects like Hindi and Sanskrit—both of which I was proficient in anyway—and study horseback riding instead.

  “Every member of the Durga Dal knows how to ride,” Shivaji wrote in father’s small red book. “I know you’re afraid to see her on a horse, but we’ll find a gelding before we give her a stallion. It’s her only weakness.”

  My father was wrapped in three layers of heavy clothing, resting beside our charcoal brazier. The doctor had said it was a sickness of the lungs and not to expect any improvements for several weeks. But he had instructed Father to take in hot vapor with eucalyptus oil three times a day—Ayurvedic medicine.

  If you don’t know about Ayurveda, it is the oldest medicine in the world. It is based on several Vedas—what we call certain texts composed in ancient Sanskrit—written more than two thousand years ago, and it details everything a doctor should know, from eye and nose surgeries to the delivery of a child who isn’t positioned right in the womb. A hundred years ago, British physicians came all the way from England to watch our doctors perform surgeries on patients. They took what they learned with them across the seas and spread their new knowledge throughout Europe. Some people find it unbelievable that the Vedas can still be relied on more than two thousand years later. But really, why is it so surprising? Sanskrit was the language Pingala used two thousand years ago to write about poetic meter; a treatise that mathematicians later realized was really about binary numbers.

  Even with Ayurvedic medicine, however, Father hadn’t left his room for two days. I’d brought him half a dozen books, but anyone who has ever been sick can tell you that reading for pleasure and reading to pass the time are two very different things.

  Father’s pen hesitated beneath Shivaji’s words. Finally, he wrote, “Where will we get a gentle horse?”

  “Give me permission to work with Sita every morning and I’ll find one.”

  “When is there time? We study languages in the mornings.”

  “And how will that help her,” Shivaji wrote, “if the rani announces a trial next year? Sita may pretend she’s seventeen, but her skills won’t lie. Nihal, she must learn to ride.”

  Father stared out the window onto Shivaji’s land, which bordered our own; a thin layer of frost had settled over his fields, giving them the appearance of a wide glass lake. Now that the rice had been harvested, there was little for Shivaji to do. It was the best time to teach me to ride. “Fine. We will no longer study Hindi or Sanskrit,” Father wrote.

  Shivaji twisted the ends of his mustache in thought. “I don’t see the point of English poetry either.”

  My heart beat swiftly. No one could have been more grateful to their teacher than I was to Shivaji, but I knew his limitations. If you have ever looked at a tree blowing in the wind and thought that it resembled a woman’s long hair, or seen a cloud passing by that reminded you of a turtle, then you were someone with too many flights of fancy for Shivaji. I stared at Father and silently begged him not to stop our morning readings. In a day filled with swordsmanship, archery, and shooting, it was the only time when my mind felt free, like a hawk liberated from its tethers.

  “The point of English poetry,” Father wrote, “is to make Sita a better soldier.”

  Shivaji raised his eyebrows until they practically disappeared in his long mass of hair.

  “What are Sita’s best subjects?” Father went on.

  “Archery and swordsmanship,” Shivaji wrote.

  “Because both of these things require rhythm. Shooting four arrows, one after the other, into a bull’s-eye requires not just accuracy, but timing. It’s no different from reading Shakespeare’s sonnets.”

  I had never thought of archery this way. But the act of reaching back into my quiver, drawing an arrow, knocking it, then letting it loose—there was a cadence to it when it was done right. It was poetry in action, the way Shakespeare intended his words to be. “Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon.” Iambic pentameter, echoing the natural rhythm of the human heart—and the rhythm of practicing weaponry with Shivaji in
the courtyard.

  Shivaji looked at me for confirmation, and I was surprised to hear myself saying, “It’s true.”

  He blew the air from his cheeks. “Tomorrow, then. I’ll find the horse, you find the time.”

  After Shivaji left, my father pointed to the chess set balanced on the wooden chair across the room. He had carved it from mango wood and teak years ago, before I was born. We usually played in the evenings, but we hadn’t played since he’d first become sick.

  “Are you sure?” I wrote on his palm. “Perhaps you should rest.”

  He laughed. “And give up the chance to win?” My father hadn’t won in several months. The student had outgrown the teacher. “I know you wouldn’t let a sick man lose.”

  I grinned. “I think I would.”

  But out of three games, my father won two.

  “Either your mind is distracted,” he wrote, “or you really do feel sorry for me.”

  Maybe it was a little of both.

  “You’re nervous about the riding,” he guessed.

  I shrugged.

  “You shouldn’t be.” He held up one of the chess pieces and wrote, “Every skill you master is like another chess piece, designed to bring you closer to the king. You can do this.”

  “I hope so.”

  “You’ve mastered chess. You’ll master this as well. If you don’t let this get in the way.” He reached out and tapped my head.

  W hen Shivaji came back later that afternoon to tell Father of his plan to borrow a horse from the local overseer of wedding baraats, I was certain the animal would arrive bedecked with flowers and draped in satin. After all, its sole purpose in life was to carry a bridegroom through the streets to his bride, and any of the horses I’d ever seen wore gem-studded saddles and silver bells. So when Shivaji arrived in our courtyard the next morning and the horse was bare, I’m embarrassed to say that the first thought that came to my mind was that it was naked. My second thought: the beast was enormous.

  To say I was scared is like saying a mouse has slight reservations about the cat that prowls around its hole. I had never seen a horse up close, and had certainly never touched one.

  But Shivaji motioned me forward. “Sita, this is Raju. Raju, meet Sita.”

  I could hear nothing except the blood rushing in my ears. I was too paralyzed to reach out and pat the horse’s muzzle, as Shivaji was doing. I prayed that it wouldn’t take a bite out of me.

  “It’s a horse,” Shivaji said, “not a wild bear. Come.”

  He took my hand and guided it to the horse’s long face. Father had given me strict instructions not to disobey Shivaji, no matter how frightened I might be. “Animals can smell fear,” he’d warned earlier, before lying back on his pillows and closing his eyes. I didn’t want to disappoint him, especially in his weakened state, so I stroked the white hair along the horse’s nose. “He likes it,” I said to Shivaji, surprised.

  “You see? It’s nothing to be afraid of. Every bridegroom in India has ridden one of these. Even Anuja is interested in it.”

  I turned and there indeed was Anuja, eager to see what sort of beast had taken up residence in our courtyard. She had obviously escaped Avani’s watch, because her hair was unbraided and still hanging in wild curls. And instead of wearing juti to protect her feet, she was standing barefoot on the hard-packed earth.

  “It’s a horse,” Shivaji said to my sister. “Would you like to come and see?”

  Her eyes went big, and I was thankful for any distraction that prolonged my having to mount the thing.

  Shivaji picked her up and carried her toward Raju, who sniffed her and gave a giant sneeze.

  “He likes you!” Shivaji said. “Horses only sneeze on little girls they like.”

  Anuja laughed. She reached and patted his muzzle. “His fur tickles.”

  “It’s called hair. And I think he’s saying he’d like you to climb on his back.”

  He slid Anuja into the saddle, holding her there while she giggled. It made me feel ashamed that I had been terrified of the prospect of doing the same thing only a few moments earlier. Then a sudden shriek made us all turn.

  “Do you have any idea what the neighbors will say if she breaks her neck like this? What sort of family allows a girl on a horse?” Grandmother’s voice was shrill. She hurried into the courtyard without any juti on herself.

  Shivaji gathered Anuja into his arms and set her down.

  “Get into that house!” Grandmother screamed. Anuja ran back inside, then Grandmother turned her gaze on me. “There will be no dinner for either of you tonight.”

  “It was my fault,” Shivaji said.

  “It is her fault!” Grandmother pointed at me. “The one who plans to ride around Jhansi like an uncovered whore, with her hair streaming behind her and a sword in her belt!” Other women might have stomped back across the courtyard. But Grandmother glided away like a ghost, with just as much care or tenderness for the living.

  I approached the horse slowly. Shivaji said the horse was wearing an English saddle, and I shouldn’t be scared, but no creature had ever looked so frightening to me. I found it difficult to concentrate. I glanced across the courtyard and saw Avani, who had come out to wash our linens in a bucket on the steps.

  “Your mind is wandering.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. Then his voice grew very low, although the only person who could have possibly heard us was our maid. “Tell me, Sita. Who will support this family when your father is too old to work?”

  “Me.”

  “And you alone. You must become a member of the Durga Dal. Your father saved my life twice in Burma and I owe him this.”

  My father had never told me this story. I wanted to question Shivaji further, but his look was firm.

  It took three attempts before I successfully mounted Raju. But I did it, and I felt immense gratitude when the lesson was done and he hadn’t thrown me from his back.

  That evening, after Father was served hot tahari in his room, my sister and I were instructed to leave the kitchen. Anuja stared at the pot of rice and potatoes, inhaling the warm scents of garlic and peas. “But I’m hungry.”

  Grandmother’s smile was as thin and sharp as the curve of my scimitar. “You should have thought about that before following your sister onto that dirty animal today.”

  Anuja didn’t understand. “But why?” My little Anu’s voice sounded so small.

  I nudged her in the direction of my room. “We’ll read,” I said with a cheerfulness I didn’t feel. “Food for the mind instead of the stomach.” When we got inside, I took The Brothers Grimm from my shelf; a treasure Father had given me for my tenth birthday, telling me it had come all the way from Jhansi.

  “Cinderella or Snow White?” I asked.

  “Rapunzel!”

  I read the story, hoping my sister would fall asleep and forget about her hunger, but just as her eyes began to close and her lashes brushed against her cheeks, Grandmother swung open the door. She was carrying a tray with a lidded bowl.

  “Tahari!” my sister said, and ran to Dadi-ji, throwing her arms around her legs.

  “Get off!”

  My sister immediately backed away. It wasn’t tahari. The bowl was too small.

  “Stand.”

  We did as we were told. Then Grandmother lifted the cover and began to spoon salt from the bowl onto the floor.

  “Kneel.” When neither of us moved, she threatened, “Lift up your kurtas and kneel or I will fetch the stick!”

  I lifted my kurta first, showing Anu how to obey, and pressed my knees into the salt. But when Anu followed, it hurt her soft skin and she stood up again.

  “Kneel down!” Grandmother grabbed her arm and forced her into position. If Father hadn’t been deaf, he would have heard her screams from Shivaji�
�s fields. “You will stay this way until I return.”

  Tears made thick trails down Anu’s cheeks, and her cries became hysterical.

  “Dadi-ji!” I exclaimed. “She can’t breathe—”

  “Enough! You will be quiet,” she threatened Anu, “or I will bind your mouth shut.”

  I glanced at Anu and made my eyes wide, in case she didn’t believe her.

  Grandmother came for us an hour later. By then, Anu had wept herself dry. But I could never tell Father. If I did, Grandmother would simply wait until I was accepted into the rani’s Durga Dal, then punish Anu by doing this again—or something even worse. I carried my sister to the charpai in her room and poured her a glass of water.

  “Why does Dadi-ji hate me?”

  “She doesn’t hate you,” I whispered. “She’s had a very difficult life, that’s made her very angry and mean.” I pulled back the covers and waited for Anu to wiggle inside. “Do you remember the kitten who wandered into our courtyard last month?”

  “The one with the broken leg?”

  “Yes. And what happened when you tried to touch her leg?”

  “She bit me!”

  “Like Dadi-ji. Pain can make us miserable creatures.”

  “But what hurts Dadi-ji?”

  Nothing, I thought. She has a son who loves her, kind neighbors, and enough to eat. “Her pain is not outside, like the cat’s. It’s in here.” I touched Anu’s heart. “When things hurt inside, there’s no healing them sometimes.”

  “So she’ll always be mean?”

  I hesitated, wondering if I should lie. But what was the point? “Yes.”

  Chapter Five

  1850

  When a woman celebrates her sixteenth birthday in Barwa Sagar, it’s nearly always with a special dinner she shares with her husband and children. Her father-in-law’s house is decorated with flowers, and her husband might buy her a small gift—perhaps a new comb or a very special sari. Since I had no father-in-law’s house to decorate with roses, I celebrated my sixteenth year by giving a present instead of receiving one.