Rebel Queen

by Michelle Moran

“Ah, the new recruit everyone’s talking about,” he said. I recognized him as the young captain of the guards. He closed his book and made his way over.

  I looked down, since I was sure I was blushing. “And why is that?”

  “Are you searching for compliments?”

  “I was searching for something to say,” I said, and I’m sure I sounded defensive. “You didn’t introduce yourself.”

  He gave a bow. “I’m Arjun, and the men are talking because you’re beautiful.”

  “I’m Sita, and I would much rather they talk about me because I’m skilled.”

  He grinned. “May I sit?” He indicated a respectable distance away, so I nodded. “I saw what happened,” he said, “and I’m willing to bet the only injury Kahini received today was to her pride.”

  “So she has a reputation.”

  “I wouldn’t say it too loudly, but yes.” Arjun looked over my shoulder to the entrance of the queen’s rooms, and when it was clear that we were alone, he said, “Be careful with her. She has the ear of the raja. You don’t know me, but I’m giving you honest advice.”

  “My father has already given me advice: the only words free of suspicious motives will be the ones I find in books.”

  Arjun realized that I was including him among my father’s suspects, but he continued, “Your father was the one who taught you to read?”

  “Yes,” I said quietly. I was afraid if I answered too loudly, he might hear the heartache in my voice. “He loved to read with me in English. Mostly we read Shakespeare.”

  “There’s a great deal to read in our languages. Hindi, Urdu, Marathi,” he said. “Have you read Rumi?”

  “The Persian poet?” Of course, I’d heard of him. But Father had been more interested in teaching me the Western classics, so I wasn’t familiar with him. “No.”

  “Well, he’s the Shakespeare of the East.”

  “Arjun-ji!” Kahini emerged from the queen’s room. You would have thought she was trying to sing his name, as if seeing us together was the very best thing that could happen for her. “I had no idea you were interested in talking to ganwaars. If I’d known that,” she said as she approached, “I’d have asked Gangadhar’s servant to pay you a visit.”

  At that, I rose from the bench and bowed formally to Arjun. “It was kind of you to introduce yourself, but I have duties inside.” Then I smiled at Kahini. “I’m glad to see your ankle has healed so swiftly.”

  That evening, the rani was too sick to join us in reading or writing. I was a little disappointed, and entirely for selfish reasons. I had been hoping that she might ask me to read for her again.

  Instead, I seated myself next to Jhalkari and wrote two letters, one to Father, the other to Anu. I wrote the letter to Father first, since that was far easier. For Anu, I wanted to be careful not to seem too pleased with myself.

  Certainly, it’s beautiful here. But I have trouble enjoying the sights and sounds without you. When I passed by the elephants’ stables for the first time, and saw the hardworking mahouts tending to these giant, gentle beasts, I immediately thought of you; how much you would enjoy watching them interact with one another, the sound of their trumpeting clear for miles around. I miss you so much, Anu. But every week I am earning money, and soon—very soon—there will be a dowry fortune for you. Then our dreams of seeing you as a wife and a mother will come to pass.

  I reread what I had written, then sealed the two letters with the rani’s wax. Anu would be so excited to receive a letter from the Palace of Jhansi. But then I noticed that Jhalkari had kept hers unsealed and asked why.

  She glanced at Gopal, who had entered and seated himself next to Kahini. “I pay a private courtier to deliver my letters. Consider doing that yourself. The Master of the Letters is in charge of correspondence, and any letter entering or leaving the palace is read by him.”

  I didn’t have anything to hide. Still, if Jhalkari didn’t trust Gopal, perhaps I shouldn’t either. “How much is a private courtier?”

  “Three annas,” Jhalkari said.

  It was the price of a cheap bangle. But I was saving for Anu’s dowry fortune, and I needed to buy at least two angarkhas soon. Plus, I’m ashamed to admit that the thought of the bookshop in town, with its blue and gold sign, crossed my mind as well. Even if Gopal did read my letters, what information would he gain?

  “Perhaps another time,” I decided.

  Jhalkari frowned but didn’t say anything.

  Then I took my letters and placed them in Gopal’s open cloth bag. “So you’ll deliver these?” I asked him.

  “Personally?” He peered down his nose at me. “No. But I will see that they get to their destination.”

  “Is he always so grumpy?” I asked Jhalkari when we went back to the Durgavas.

  She sat on my bed. “He thinks he was a raja in his past life.” She laughed. “Sort of like Kahini.”

  “Maybe that’s my grandmother’s problem,” I joked.

  “You don’t get along?”

  I didn’t intend for it to, but my voice grew quiet and cautious, as if Grandmother were in the room with me. “No! I think she suggested opium when I was born.”

  Jhalkari nodded. “Mine too. She didn’t want a girl. My father didn’t mind though.”

  I smiled. “Mine neither.”

  “And your father had two girls. Is your sister like you?”

  “Not at all. She’s sweet and pretty and well behaved. She’ll make a good wife someday. That’s why I’m here.”

  “That’s really kind of you.”

  “It’s not entirely selfless. It was this or a temple.”

  Jhalkari nodded. “It was this or a temple for nearly everyone here.”

  Chapter Nine

  During my third week as a Durgavasi, in the beginning of July, Sundari woke us early to say that we wouldn’t be practicing on the maidan.Apparently the rani was presiding over a ladies’ durbar that afternoon.

  Immediately, the other women were on their feet, sorting through their baskets of clothing and passing around one another’s jewelry. I sat on the edge of my bed. I only had one angarkha—the one Jhalkari had given me the first day I’d arrived. I couldn’t afford anything else. Not yet. Not if I wanted to save for Anu.

  “You can’t wear the same angarkha you’ve been wearing for the past two weeks,” Jhalkari said, sitting down next to me. In the early morning light, her resemblance to the rani was uncanny. “This is a durbar. It only happens once a year. I’ll go with you to the shops right now, and you can buy something.”

  “But there will be no time to fit it.”

  Jhalkari curled her lip, and I realized she was imitating Kahini. “I don’t know what you people do in the village, but here in the city, we buy things that have already been sewn.”

  I laughed, despite the fact that across the room, Kahini could hear us both.

  We stopped at the treasury, where the rupees we were paid each week were kept, and I withdrew an amount that Jhalkari assured me was sufficient to buy a silk angarkha and a simple necklace. Then we walked together through the heavy monsoon rain and headed to the shops at the base of the fortress.

  Jhansi was one of the most prosperous kingdoms in India. It was green and lush, filled with sheltering mango trees, orange trees, and rolling gardens. It had been created to be the emerald of northern India, a green and gold jewel rising from the sands of the Pahuj River. As I’d seen on my arrival, all five of the turreted gates leading to the city were indeed large enough for an elephant to pass through. I wondered what my family would think to see me walking through these gates with a pistol strapped to my hip and my friend Jhalkari for an escort. What great power and freedom the women of Jhansi enjoyed. We were allowed to shop without male relatives or husbands and spend money as we liked.

  It took three shops before we found angarkhas Jhalkari belie
ved were acceptable for a ladies’ durbar.

  “What about this one?” I held up an outfit tailored from purple Benares silk. It was exquisite. The top was trimmed in silver and the pants were stitched with pink and silver leaves.

  “How much?” Jhalkari asked the shopkeeper.

  “For the rani’s Durgavasi?” The man made a great show of twisting the end of his mustache, reminding me of Shivaji back home. “Ten rupees.”

  It sounded like a fair price, but Jhalkari laughed. “Does she look like the captain? She’s the latest recruit. We’ll pay five.”

  “Do I look like a beggar? Because that is what I’ll become if I sell my best pieces for five rupees. Eight.”

  “Five.” Jhalkari was firm. “There are dozens of shops in Jhansi, my friend.”

  “And how many of them carry pieces like this? With her coloring, she would be a queen in this purple. You won’t find it anywhere else.”

  Jhalkari arched her brows. “We’ll see.”

  I took that as my cue to put the angarkha back on the shelf, even though it was the prettiest one I’d seen all day. We were halfway out the door when the shopkeeper ran after us. “Six!” he exclaimed.

  Jhalkari turned. “Five, and we don’t need the matching slippers.”

  The man gave a vastly exaggerated sigh. Two women shopping inside the store giggled. I suspected they had just been on the receiving end of his complaints. “Five, without the slippers.”

  The way he wrapped my purchase! You would have thought we’d asked him to wrap cow excrement with the amount of sighing and head shaking he did. When we reached the street, Jhalkari rolled her eyes.

  “Such a performance! That angarkha is worth four rupees, and not a single anna more! That’s an entire rupee of profit for him.”

  “How do you know?” I was thinking that perhaps we really had robbed him of a meal.

  Jhalkari gave me a long look. “My grandfather worked for twenty years as a street sweeper so that he could save his money to open a sari shop. When he had finally saved enough, no one wanted to rent him a space because he was a Dalit. So he built a shop for himself and sold his clothes to other Dalits. By the time I was ten, I could tell you the price of a piece of silk coming from anywhere from here to China.”

  “He must have been an extraordinary man.” Even today, you might be surprised to know, the idea of a Dalit touching silk is practically unthinkable.

  “He was. He died hoping Father would take over his business. But Father wanted to be in the army. They wouldn’t take him because he wasn’t a Kshatriya, so he became a sepoy for the British instead. Mother never gave him a son, so he trained me.”

  As we walked, two British women passed us, struggling with their skirts in the extreme July heat. Their skin had somehow turned red, making their blue eyes shine like aquamarines. I wondered at a race that could change its color like a chameleon.

  “Did you see them?” I asked Jhalkari after a moment.

  “Who? The British women?”

  “They were red.”

  “That’s what happens when you burn.”

  I shrieked. “Who burned them?”

  “No one.” Jhalkari laughed. “It’s the heat. They’re not built for the sun like we are.”

  “How horrifying.” To turn a painful red every time you walked out the door. “So why do they wear such heavy gowns?”

  Jhalkari turned up her palms. Who knew why the British did what they did? We had come to another shop, and I could see the rows of necklaces inside, hanging from silver hooks like waterfalls of brightly colored gems. “Did you know,” Jhalkari said, hesitating on the first step, “that the rani’s father had no sons, so he raised her like one. I’ve heard the British call her the real Raja of Jhansi. And do you know what they say about Raja Gangadhar?”

  I looked behind us to make sure no one was listening to our conversation. “What?”

  “They call him the rani.” She waited to see my reaction.

  “Who says that?” I whispered. If anyone heard us, I was fairly certain what would happen to our positions in the Durga Dal.

  “The British soldiers. They’ve all been to his plays and seen him perform. We’re going to see one in two days, so if you see another necklace you like, you should buy it. There’ll be lots of plays to attend.”

  I dressed in my new angarkha when we returned, with purple bangles and a large amethyst necklace. Jhalkari pressed a silver bindi between my brows, and when I strapped my weapons onto my waist and looked in the mirror, instead of feeling pleased, I felt a growing uneasiness about how much I had changed since arriving in Jhansi.

  The woman in the glass had spent more than her father earned in a month on her purple angarkha, and that was without taking into account what her new silk slippers and heavy necklace had cost. She was the same woman who had suddenly grown used to cool baths, soft sheets, and plush rugs after only three weeks in the palace. And now, when she thought about returning to Barwa Sagar, instead of feeling pride, she felt a deep irritation that, for seventeen years, she’d been confined to purdah without ever knowing that life could be any different.

  At first, I’d thought it was the clothes themselves that were making me feel so uncomfortable. But that wasn’t it. The changes you couldn’t see in the mirror were just as great as the changes you could, and I was afraid that when I went home, no one would be able to recognize me. When I told this to Jhalkari, she laughed.

  “You think there’s a single Durgavasi who hasn’t changed since coming here? The ones who were here before me say that even Kahini has grown more attractive.”

  But that afternoon, as the ladies’ durbar progressed, I found it hard to believe that Kahini could ever have been less beautiful than she was now. The queen’s room was crowded with petitioners, and while the rani was dressed in an exquisite sari of cinnamon-colored silk, it was Kahini whom most of the women were watching. Like the rani, she was dressed in Benares silk, but the eggshell blue of the fabric made her skin look luminous, and the rani’s beauty paled in comparison. A diamond ring glinted from her nose, and thick clusters of diamonds glittered from her anklets. Even her bare feet were studded with gems, and each time they moved, her toe rings caught the light. I wondered how Kahini had come by such jewels. Perhaps they had been gifts from the rani.

  Because the petitioners were entirely women, there was no need for discretion or mystery. The rani reclined on a pile of silk cushions, while we sat on velvet cushions of our own. A trio of female musicians made light music in the courtyard, and throughout the afternoon, each petitioner who approached the rani pressed her forehead to the ground in the deepest gesture of namaste, offering bowls of tilgul—little balls of sesame and molasses—in return for sugarcane and rice. After this exchange, their petition was read, and the rani discussed its detractions or merits.

  Toward the end of the afternoon, a young girl stepped forward. She presented the rani with her gift in a simple terra-cotta bowl. The little round sweets looked like all of the others that had been presented; yet Kahini rose from her cushion, aghast. “This girl is from a village,” she said. “Who knows what might be in that bowl?” She took the vessel and crossed the room to an open window. Then, with a single motion, she dumped the contents out, as if the girl had offered a gift of dung.

  The young petitioner began to weep and hurried away. She had given the only gift she could afford, and it was discarded like trash.

  Kahini resumed her seat next to the rani. The musicians were still playing, but now the remaining petitioners appeared frozen in their spots.

  “Kahini,” the rani said, “please return to the Durgavas.”

  “Your Highness,” Sundari began, “I’m sure Kahini—”

  “This is not a request.” The rani’s voice was sharp, although she never raised it above a whisper. “Now.”

  Kahini did as she was told.


  “Where is the girl from Rampura?” the rani asked. When no one stood up, the rani’s voice softened. “Do you all see this woman?” she said, nodding toward me. “Sita comes from the village of Barwa Sagar. And do you think I care? Now, where is the girl who was standing here?”

  There was no movement among the two hundred women before us. The rani was pregnant and eager to conclude the day’s business. But she could not abide injustice.

  “Sita, will you say something please?”

  I stood; I had never spoken before a crowd. “What the rani has told you is true,” I said. “I am from the village of Barwa Sagar, just as this woman here”—and I indicated Jhalkari—“is a Dalit from another village.”

  A murmur of surprise passed through the women.

  “Do not be embarrassed. Some people are so impoverished all they have is gold. We, however, have pride.”

  The girl stood, and the rani motioned her forward. She had come with a request for land. Her father had died without any sons, and their farm was being given to the father’s youngest brother, a drunk and a cheat. This girl had come all the way from Rampura, against the advice of her elders, to see what could be done.

  “And what did your elders think would happen when you arrived here?” the rani asked.

  The girl concentrated on her feet. “It was said I would meet with shame,” she admitted, “for trying to change the way of things, and that no one would help me.”

  “Well, from this day, the farm belongs to you, and anyone who thinks to challenge this, challenges the law of Jhansi!”

  “Well done!” said a male voice, and someone began to clap. Immediately, the women rushed to cover themselves with their dupattas, and many of them pressed their foreheads to the ground. “Resume your places!” the raja said.

  The rani stood from her cushion, and she looked pleased to see him. “Your Highness.”

  “Like something out of one of Rumi’s poems,” he said. He crossed the room and recited: “ ‘The lion is most handsome when looking for food.’ You were born to do this, Manu.”