Rebel Queen

by Michelle Moran

  “And what did you like best?”

  I knew he would ask this of me, so I had already thought of my answer. “The last page. Someone wrote their favorite expressions in the back. Was it you?”

  “No. I bought it that way.”

  One of the expressions written suddenly came to me, and now I quoted it for him. “ ‘Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.’ ” I should never have been so forward with the rani. Now, perhaps she would never forgive me.

  Arjun blinked slowly. “That’s one of my favorite lines, too.”

  As we were speaking, I had moved closer to him. So close, in fact, that I could reach out and touch his smooth face. Immediately, I stepped back. “Can you direct me to Gopal-ji’s chamber? I’m to deliver these to him.” I held up the letters the rani had given me. “She wants me to do it at once.”

  “Up the stairs, at the farthest end of the hall.”

  As I left, Arjun called, “Can you be in the courtyard tonight? I have something I want to give you.”

  I hesitated. “I can’t continue accepting gifts. How will it look—”

  “These aren’t gifts.” Arjun laughed. “I expect to be repaid.”

  I’m sure my mouth was hanging open.

  “I introduced you to Rumi. Now it’s your turn to introduce me to a great writer,” he said.

  I flushed, since that wasn’t what I’d assumed he meant. “But you don’t read English—”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, do you?”

  “Enough to read a little poetry.”

  I was stunned. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “You never asked.”

  Suddenly, I felt foolish. Why shouldn’t Arjun know some English when it was spoken all around him?

  When I reached Gopal’s chamber, a servant opened the door and escorted me inside. The walls were paneled in rich mango wood, so that in the light of the oil lamps, the entire chamber gleamed like a woman’s newly washed hair. Every few steps, there were heavy bronze lanterns on elaborate pedestals, and they were lit as well. Books were arranged on shelves that stretched from ceiling to floor, and at the far end of the chamber, Gopal sat hunched behind a desk. He looked up and I made a formal bow and the gesture of namaste, and then offered him the letters. “The rani asked that I deliver these to you at once.”

  “This is Kahini’s job,” he snapped. He looked over my shoulder, as if I was contriving to hide her somehow. “Will you be replacing Kahini now?” he demanded.

  “I don’t believe so. Perhaps Kahini is occupied,” I guessed. “So I was asked.”

  “Occupied with what?”

  Gopal continued staring at me, and finally I said, “I don’t know, and I don’t much care. I have delivered the letters to you as the rani requested. Is there anything I should deliver to her?”

  Gopal glowered at me. “No.”

  I was not invited to the rani’s chamber during her lying-in again.

  W hen the news came a week later that the rani was in labor, Sundari took me aside and asked what had happened between us. “Why hasn’t the rani asked to see you again since you’ve returned? What happened the last time you saw her?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, although, of course, I knew exactly. But Sundari kept staring at me. I hesitated. “I may have said something that led the rani to believe that I was overstepping my bounds.”

  Sundari sighed. “Tell me.”

  Reluctantly, I repeated the conversation. Then I waited for her to make a pronouncement.

  “You may be the quickest girl the Durga Dal has seen in quite some time, but you can’t follow even the simplest warning. At court, there is no telling whom you can trust. Your closest adviser may be plotting your overthrow. How do you sort your friends from your enemies? By keeping family close, Sita. Kahini is related to the raja. Yet you think you can walk into the rani’s chamber and criticize her family. Who are you? A girl fresh from the village, who’s never visited a physician in her life.”

  If Sundari had reached out and slapped my face, I would have felt less pain. The truth of her words stung like a physical blow. “I won’t say another word about Kahini,” I swore. “Or anyone else.”

  “I hope you get that chance. She’s about to give birth; if it’s a son, she might be in a forgiving mood.”

  As it happened, the gods smiled on Jhansi. The rani did give birth to a son, and without so much as a whimper, according to the servants who were inside the birthing chamber.

  The celebrations that followed were beyond anything I had ever seen.

  It may have been the coldest part of December, but for an entire week the city was filled with rejoicing people. They gathered in the streets to congratulate one another, as if someone in their own family had just been delivered of a boy. Sweets were distributed in the temples, and bells rang from morning until night, so that even though the weather appeared brooding, the city was cheerful.

  Inside the palace, the tables, columns, door lintels, and windows were all garlanded with bright bunches of winter flowers from the raja’s gardens. Loose rose petals were strewn across the courtyards, and jasmine oil burned continuously. The perfume of the flowers mingled with the scents of rich curries and roasted meats coming from the kitchens, and everyone in the palace was served two heavy meals a day, with thick lassi for drinking, and sweets for dessert. There were so many sweets prepared daily—puran puri, shira, anarasa—that it was impossible to taste them all.

  Per custom, the rani was confined to her bed for a month, wrapped up like a moth in the silk cocoon of her chamber, with the windows shut and no visitors permitted except her closest servants and Dr. Bhagwat. Even Kahini was forbidden from visiting. Sundari said she was following every child-birthing ritual: the walls of her chamber had been whitewashed, and she was wearing a sacred pavitram ring made of kusha grass for an auspicious recovery.

  Because we knew the rani was happy, we all had great fun in her absence, and everyone placed bets on what the child would be named. Eleven days after the child was born, a priest arrived for the naming ceremony. His name was to be Damodar. Rao would be added to signify his nobility.

  That afternoon, the raja organized a procession to celebrate Damodar Rao’s arrival.

  The Durgavasi weren’t part of the parade, but we were allowed to watch as Raja Gangadhar mounted his favorite elephant, a towering animal he’d named Siddhabaksh, and we followed the procession as it wound its way through Jhansi’s festooned streets. It was extraordinary to see Raja Gangadhar towering above us in his silver and velvet howdah as if he were a god. Mounted servants rode alongside him, holding up the three emblems of royalty: the umbrella, the chauri, and the silver rods. All three gleamed in the low winter sun. A retinue of soldiers on white horses followed, dressed in ceremonial uniforms. And behind them rolled a long procession of carriages carrying gifts for the prince of Jhansi: silks, tapestries, marble vases, wooden toys, and elaborate brass statues from Lalitpur.

  The people prostrated themselves as the procession went past. Even the British officers, whose flaxen-haired wives were protecting themselves from the weak midday sun by brocade umbrellas, stopped to stare.

  “There’s going to be a play tonight,” Sundari announced. “Something from the Ramayana.”

  The Ramayana is one of our holiest texts, and for the next three nights, parts of it were to be performed in celebration of Damodar’s birth.

  “Another Ramayana play. Oh joy,” Kahini said.

  But the truth of it was, she was probably glad to get out of the Panch Mahal. Since Damodar’s birth, none of us had been to the maidan, and our daily routine of practicing, bathing, and going to the temple had stopped entirely.

  We all dressed in our best angarkhas, wrapping ourselves in two layers of pashmina—gifts from the rani
upon Damodar’s birth. But in the courtyard, a thin layer of frost covered the ground, and Sundari decided that we should all go back inside and change shoes. The silk of our slippers would never survive the short walk to the raja’s baradari.

  As the other women made their way back inside, Arjun appeared from the shadows. He was dressed in a double-breasted coat and held a white bag. “Something to entertain you,” he said.

  The other Durgavasi raised their brows at what this might be, but inside, I knew there would be a book. When everyone was gone, I unwrapped his gift and held it up to the light of the flickering lanterns. It was a collection of poems by Hafiz.

  “I haven’t read him,” I said truthfully.

  “He was a fourteenth-century poet from Persia. People still make pilgrimages to his tomb.”

  “If you wait here, I have something for you,” I said, and hurried inside with the other Durgavasi.

  I changed shoes quickly. Then I took out a book I’d been keeping in a chest beneath my bed and wrapped it in an old dupatta. Jhalkari was watching me.

  “He must have been waiting for you in the courtyard,” she said. “It’s a cold night to be waiting for someone.”

  “Yes. We exchange books sometimes.”

  “What do you think he wants?”

  “I told you, we exchange books.” I didn’t wait for her reply. I hurried outside with my copy of William Wordsworth and gave it to him. “English,” I said coyly, “as requested.”

  He studied the plain blue cover and the simple black lettering. “And which one is your favorite?”

  “ ‘The Tables Turned.’ ” It was simply the first poem that came to mind. But Arjun nodded, as if my answer held greater meaning than it did.

  Chapter Fifteen

  1852

  Damodar’s arrival changed life in the Panch Mahal. We were no longer permitted to speak any louder than a whisper outside the rani’s chamber, and the gardeners who tended to the courtyards were instructed to do their work only when the little rajkumar wasn’t sleeping. Even the cooks were forced to change their routine, since the rani didn’t want the rajkumar breathing in the scent of the fire first thing in the morning. Instead, she placed rose petals by his head, and long strings of jasmine. Our training resumed again, but without the rani to oversee it, no one exerted herself.

  The raja visited his wife every morning and twice in the afternoons. He was so in love with Damodar it was a wonder he didn’t strap him on his back and take him each evening to the baradari. When the rani’s confinement was finished, we thought she would want to resume all of the things she had been forbidden from for so long. But it was another several weeks before she came to see us in the queen’s room. Even then, it was only a brief visit, and Damodar wasn’t with her. I bowed very low when she arrived, but she paid no more attention to me than to any of the other Durgavasi. The only women being invited to her chamber now were Kahini and Kashi; Kashi, because she had raised seven younger siblings.

  Then, on the last day of January, the Durgavasi were summoned to the rani’s chamber to meet the rajkumar.

  “I’ll bet he has his father’s nose,” Moti said.

  “And the rani’s hair,” Heera added.

  We looked at Kashi. She had seen the rajkumar dozens of times. “You’ve never seen a more beautiful child,” she told us. “Nine years in the making,” she said wonderingly. “It was about time the gods blessed them.”

  Kahini made a noise in her throat. “You think it was by praying she got a child?”

  “Kahini, the raja is your cousin,” Heera said severely.

  “And the truth is the truth,” Kahini answered.

  “Well, I don’t care if she went to him dressed as an English general,” Moti said. “Jhansi has an heir.”

  As we made our way to the rani’s chamber, I asked Jhalkari in a whisper why she thought the rani had gone to the raja dressed as a man. She looked at me the way you might look at a person who wants to know why breathing is essential for life.

  “Isn’t it obvious, Sita? It’s because he’s passionate about men.”

  The idea was shocking, mostly because I didn’t think this was even possible. Did everyone know this except me?

  Then Sundari announced, “Her Highness is ready.”

  The rani had never looked more beautiful. She was dressed in a cream and gold angarkha, and her hair fell in long waves over both shoulders. Thick clusters of pearls gleamed from her neck—a gift, perhaps, from Gangadhar.

  “My Durgavasi!” she exclaimed, delighted to see us.

  We gathered in a circle around the red and gold bassinet. The rajkumar was tightly swaddled so that only his face was visible. But with his thick, dark hair and delicate nose, he was as beautiful as Kashi had said.

  “Look, he’s opening his eyes!” Heera pointed.

  We all leaned forward to stare, and the rani said, “He can’t see very far, but if you put your face close to his, he can make out your features.”

  “Not everyone at once!” Kashi warned. “You’ll overwhelm him.”

  So we formed a line, and each of us took turns peering into his bassinet. Now, in Hinduism, we don’t believe in fate so much as karma. But the moment I peered into his bassinet, Damodar Rao gave an enormous smile. You probably think this is an exaggeration, since babies don’t even return their mothers’ smiles until they’re at least six weeks old, but this is exactly how it happened.

  “Did you see that?” The rani looked at the other Durgavasi. “He smiled at Sita!”

  “Perhaps he mistook her for a bhand?” Kahini offered. Meaning, a clown.

  “Stop it,” the rani said. Then she looked at me. “You’re the first person whose smile he’s returned.” She watched me intently, as if she could puzzle out my secret.

  But I was just as mystified. I had done nothing that the other Durgavasi hadn’t done. Maybe I had simply done something extraordinary in my past life to account for such luck.

  “Someday,” she said to me, “I want Damodar to speak English. Will you come in the evenings and speak to him?” she asked.

  I said quickly, “I would be honored, Your Highness.”

  “When the other Durgavasi leave today, why don’t you stay?”

  The other women remained in the rani’s chamber for another hour, cooing to the rajkumar and chatting with the rani, until Sundari announced that everyone should return to the queen’s room, with the exception of me.

  “I’m happy to stay as well, if you’d like,” Kahini offered immediately.

  “Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary. I’m sure the raja will call for you soon. I hear he has another play he’s putting on,” the rani said.

  “Yes, by Vishnudas Bhave. His Sita Swayamvar was performed for the Raja of Sangli. Gangadhar has hired him to write something new, set in Jhansi. He is paying double the salary the raja paid in Sangli. A writer like Vishnudas Bhave won’t accept anything less.”

  I could see the irritation on the rani’s face. “You may go,” she said.

  Kahini slipped out the door. For a few moments, the rani didn’t say anything, and I remained standing above the rajkumar’s bassinet. Then she indicated the cushion next to her bed and I sat.

  “Sita, I’ve been very disappointed in you these last few weeks.”

  “Your Highness, I’m—”

  She raised her hand, and I was silent.

  “There are times when I simply need you to listen.”

  Shame burned my cheeks and I lowered my head. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know you are honest, sometimes to a fault. But you must understand that Kahini is family. She may be irritating and arrogant . . .”

  And self-serving and malicious.

  “But she has done me a great favor. You must understand by now that the raja doesn’t visit me in my chamber.”

 
I couldn’t meet her gaze, so I mumbled my response into my lap. “Yes.”

  “Kahini was the one who suggested I go to him.” She looked over at Damodar in his bassinet. His dark lashes rested softy against his fat cheeks, a perfect child. “To hold him in my arms at night, to rock him to sleep with a song, to feel the weight of him against my chest when I feed him . . . He’s the greatest blessing in my life. Without Kahini, he wouldn’t exist.”

  I felt the same way you might feel to learn that the man you were hoping to marry has been married off to someone else, someone with greater charms than you could ever hope to possess. Nothing I could ever do for the rani could compare to what Kahini had done.

  “I want you to go to the theater tonight. The raja isn’t telling me what he spends on these plays. I want you to discover exactly how much this Vishnudas Bhave is being paid and how long he will be here.”

  I stared at the rani, wondering how she thought I could accomplish this.

  “My husband can’t keep anything in his stomach,” she said. In India, this means that a person can’t keep their thoughts to themselves. “I need this information, Sita. If the treasury is being depleted, it will change our relationship with the British. We don’t want to need them any more than we already do.” She looked at Damodar. “He is everything to me. Someday, he will inherit this kingdom. But first there must be a kingdom to inherit.”

  I won’t pretend I wasn’t nervous when everyone began preparing for bed and I was expected to put on a fresh angarkha and make my way down to the raja’s baradari. The rani had called for two of her men to escort me through the darkness, and I hoped that one of them would be Arjun, though if anyone had asked, I certainly would never have admitted to this. I waited for Kahini to leave, then changed into lavender churidars with a heavy purple cloak. When Jhalkari saw what I was doing, she raised her brows.

  “By the rani or the raja’s request?”

  The other women looked over to see how I would answer. “Both,” I said, since whichever answer I gave, Kahini would hear of it.

  I doubted that Jhalkari believed me, but she didn’t say anything more as I fastened my holster and crossed the Durgavas. Outside, two men were waiting in the dim light of the courtyard. Their breaths formed white clouds in the bitter night air. One of them was Arjun.