Rebel Queen

by Michelle Moran

  At last we rejoined the others in a large hall. Yet another great fire was burning and everyone was warming themselves next to the smokeless flames. “What happened?” Jhalkari asked.

  “She said we must all come for dinner and that an answer would be given afterward.”

  “Is this good or bad news?”

  “I don’t know.” What would be expected of us at dinner? Only two of us spoke English, and most of the guardsmen had yet to master the use of a knife and fork.

  A man in a handsome black suit arrived to announce that our rooms were ready.

  “We have no rooms here,” Arjun explained. “We are staying at Brown’s Hotel.”

  “That may be, but the queen is allowing you to stay the afternoon, and expects you will want to change for dinner.”

  “We haven’t brought any changes of clothes,” Arjun said. “They’re all at the hotel.”

  The man looked down his long nose at us and sighed. “Your trunks will be fetched, then brought back to the hotel when you’re finished with them.”

  “Do the cooks understand that Indians never eat meat?” Arjun asked.

  “They have been appraised of all possible situations,” the black-suit answered. “Including the possibility that our guests have never dined at a table on chairs.”

  I passed an angry look at Arjun, who said in Marathi, “Not now. We’re so close.”

  We followed black-suit through another series of halls into a wing of the palace reserved for guests. We passed a large window and saw white flakes falling from the sky. Jhalkari was the first to rush to the window, then the rest of us followed.

  “What is it?” Jhalkari exclaimed.

  Black-suit gave a second heavy sigh, as if this day was turning out to be the most trying of his career. “Snow. It’s what happens when it’s very, very cold.”

  I translated, and we all stood and watched the snow for a while, until black-suit cleared his throat and said, “You may behold the wonder of snow from your rooms, if it pleases you, for the next two hours.”

  The rooms were as grand as the palace itself, with vast windows overlooking a garden, and mahogany furniture pressed up against blue and gold walls. Although there were rooms for each of us, the men all sat with Arjun in his chamber, and Jhalkari stayed with me. We sat in a pair of blue velvet chairs and watched the snow falling, like thin wisps of lace, from the gray and black sky.

  After some time, Jhalkari leaned forward and asked, “What was she like?” She had lowered her voice, even though she had spoken in Marathi.

  “Polite. Reserved. Intelligent, like the rani.”

  “She’s the largest woman I’ve ever seen. Her chin: there are two of them!”

  “Jhalkari!” I scolded her, then giggled.

  “I wish we could take the snow home, so everyone could see.”

  We looked out over the strange, unfamiliar landscape. “I have a positive feeling about this,” I said. “Why would the queen ask us to dinner unless it was to relay good news?”

  Despite the opulence I’d seen all day, it was nothing compared to the lavishness of that evening in Buckingham Palace.

  More black-suited men with white lapels had arrived to deliver our trunks, and we dressed in fresh clothes. Jhalkari chose a sari trimmed in gold and stitched with golden leaves. She wore the same rubies on her neck and wrists, but changed her ruby tikka, which trailed from the center of her hair down the middle of her forehead, to one of emerald and gold. For myself, I decided on a sari of rich purple bordered by elaborate silver paisleys. The rani had given me a set of rare violet sapphires to match.

  I believe we all have images of ourselves in our heads, but they’re rarely the images other people have of us. Whenever I imagine myself, for example, I am twelve years old, dressed in the rough cotton angarkha that my father sold two of his carvings to obtain. But in this moment, when I saw myself in the glass, it was as if I were seeing myself for the very first time. I placed the sapphire tikka in the center of my hair. The jewels dipped onto my forehead and a large violet sapphire hung between my brows. The sapphire nose ring completed the picture.

  “You’re as beautiful as the rani,” Jhalkari said. “And definitely more beautiful than Queen Victoria.”

  I laughed, but Jhalkari was serious.

  “It’s a shame you became a Durgavasi. I don’t mean that as an insult,” she said quickly. “Sometimes, I think it’s a shame I became one as well.”

  “You married,” I reminded her.

  “But there will never be any children,” she said quietly.

  I looked at myself in the mirror, with gold gleaming from my neck and across my fingers. “We came here with a purpose,” I reminded her. “If we succeed, imagine how life in Jhansi will change. The rani might reward us and our families in ways we can’t imagine.”

  “Perhaps,” Jhalkari said. She sat on the edge of the bed and stared out the window. “Do you really think this queen is going to restore the throne of Jhansi to the rani?”

  “Of course. Don’t you?” I had to believe it to be true.

  “No. I believe what my husband does: if she had wanted to do it, she would have already done so.”

  The same black-suited man who’d brought us to our rooms arrived to escort us to the dining hall. Jhalkari and I waited in the hall while he knocked, without success, on several doors. We knew all the men were in Arjun’s room, but we kept this to ourselves, so we could watch him heave heavy sigh after sigh. Finally he knocked on the very last door, and Arjun emerged with the other guards. He was dressed in a kurta of silver and white, with silver churidars and silver juti. When his eyes found mine, they traveled first to my neck, then to the folds of my sari, and finally to my eyes. He said softly, “Sita.”

  “This way,” the black-suit said before I could respond.

  We followed him down a series of gaslit halls to the dining room, where another black-suited man announced our arrival. Inside, three cut-glass chandeliers presided over a long mahogany table the length of the rani’s audience chamber in the Panch Mahal. Perhaps it was the light reflecting in the mirrors, or maybe it was the special ornamentation for Christmas, but nothing had ever looked so beautiful to me. Everything was red, and silver, and gold. A handsome damask linen spread across the table, which was filled nearly to bursting with glittering crystal and china. Next to every plate were multiples of silver cutlery: two spoons, four forks, two knives. And the glasses were so wide that a person could place a fist inside of them. The room was already half-filled with guests, and I noticed that there were as many women as men.

  We were expected to stand in front of our chairs and wait until another black-suit pushed them forward after we seated ourselves. My place was near Arjun, and across from us were the empty chairs for the queen and her husband, Prince Albert. As I reached forward to take the cream-colored napkin from the table, as Mrs. McEgan had instructed us back home, another man arrived. He was unbelievably handsome—Indian, but dressed in an Englishman’s clothes. His suit had two tails following behind him like a pair of ducks. I had never seen an Indian man in formal British clothing before.

  A black-suit led him across the room, and all of the women paid attention as he walked. When he arrived at the seat next to me, he pressed his hands together in namaste and made a polite bow.

  “I heard that the Rani of Jhansi was sending ambassadors to England,” he said, “but I had no idea they would be so beautiful.”

  He looked from me to Jhalkari, who was seated on the other side of Arjun, and I’m sure I turned several shades of pink. Then this Indian man took my hand and kissed the top of it. I had never been treated with such disrespect. Arjun rose from his seat, and several of the guards around the table did the same.

  “It’s an English tradition,” the man assured them with an amused look.

  There was deep alarm on the British gues
ts’ faces; they had no idea what was happening.

  “Molesting a woman is not a tradition in any country,” Arjun said in Marathi. “You will apologize.”

  The man bowed very, very deeply. “I am sorry.”

  Everyone resumed their seats.

  “I was only practicing British courtesy,” the man explained to Arjun. “Forgive me. My name is Azimullah Khan.” When Arjun didn’t respond, Azimullah continued, “My patron knows your rani. In fact, they grew up together.”

  “What is his name?”

  “Nana Saheb.”

  Well, this got everyone’s attention. Although I’ve already mentioned this story, it probably bears retelling, on account of the fact that it played such a significant role in the rani’s life. When she was young, the rani was known as Manikarnika, or Manu for short. She was raised at the court of Baji Rao II, and her father treated her like the son he’d wanted. He allowed her to dress like a boy and play like one, too, even though this might have diminished her chances for a successful marriage. Of all the children at court, the rani’s closest friends were Tatya Tope and Nana Saheb. The first boy was the son of Pandurang Rao Tope, an important nobleman at the Peshwa’s court. And of course, everyone has heard of Nana Saheb, the adopted son of Peshwa Baji Rao.

  Many people thought the rani would marry Saheb, but it didn’t turn out this way. In 1817, Saheb’s adopted father was defeated by the British. His treasury, lands, estates, even his furniture, which had been passed down from generation to generation, was confiscated. In return, he was told that he and his heirs would receive an annual pension of nearly eighty thousand British pounds. But when the Peshwa died in 1851, they refused to give Saheb his father’s pension.

  I don’t know how the heirs of other defeated rajas reacted, but Saheb responded the same way the rani did. By petitioning the Company to restore his kingdom, and on failing that, at least his father’s pension. We’d all heard the stories of Saheb’s appeals, and this was partly why the rani’s father was so suspicious of any attempt to negotiate with England. Saheb told him what sort of fruit such appeals would bear. But the rani, like Saheb, was utterly persistent, and now here we were, representing two separate cases of British injustice and hoping the queen could solve them both.

  “So of all the men in Bithur,” Arjun said, “Saheb chose you.”

  Azimullah grinned. He was truly an extraordinary-looking man, with lightly tanned skin, black hair that fell in waves, and light green eyes. “You may insult me as you wish, but I am very popular here.”

  “Is that why you haven’t returned for two years?”

  Azimullah looked a little surprised by this.

  “I’ve heard the rani talk about you,” Arjun said.

  “Your rani may say whatever she wishes, but this is hard work.”

  I leaned forward. “What? Attending dinner with the queen?”

  “Convincing her that Indians are capable of ruling.”

  “And it’s taken two years to do this?” Arjun said.

  “No. She was convinced of this the moment she met me. Now she needs to be convinced to act. And that takes time.” When Arjun glanced at me, Azimullah laughed. “You didn’t think you were going to come here and receive an immediate answer, did you?”

  I glanced around the table, but everyone was chatting happily in English. We might as well have been a group of the queen’s servants for all the attention they were paying to us. “We were told there would be an answer tonight.”

  “Ma’am,” he said, and although he was using a polite form of address, I knew he was doing so in a belittling way, “that’s not how things work in England. An answer may come tomorrow, or the next day, or not at all, but when it does, the queen will send it by letter.” I’m sure he could read the shock on my face, because he added, “You didn’t think she was going to make an announcement here? In front of all these guests?”

  “I did. That is what she told us she would do.”

  “Ma’am, I was raised by these British at the Kanpur Free School. Nothing they say is to be believed. A squat woman wearing a crown—”

  I gasped, and Arjun turned red.

  “None of them can understand us. Do you think she can wave her fat hand and make this better? She doesn’t have that kind of power. Parliament is making the decisions.”

  “She’s the queen,” Jhalkari protested.

  “And everything she does must go through Parliament. Trust me,” he said. “I have lived with these people. I know their habits. They wear shoes in their houses and bathe once a week. They may look clean, but they are dirty on the inside, both morally and physically.”

  “Are they blind as well?” I demanded. “Or can’t they see how you despise them?”

  Azimullah smiled. You would have thought for all the world that we were talking about civil things, like the weather. “Oh, yes. They’re blind as well. That’s why, when I return, I will give Saheb my carefully considered opinion.”

  Arjun didn’t bother hiding his disgust. “And what will that be?”

  “That British men are weak and can easily be defeated. He simply needs to rise up.”

  We didn’t speak again that evening. After all, Azimullah Khan didn’t know everything. Our circumstances were different, and the queen had liked us. But when the queen arrived at the banquet with Prince Albert on her arm and dinner was served, I began to wonder if she was really going to address the rani’s plight that evening. There were boiled potatoes, a green vegetable I’d never seen, steamed carrots in rich sauce, and great heaps of meat. And everyone seemed far more interested in eating than in why we’d come. The conversation turned from the weather, to food, to riding in Hyde Park. Then suddenly, the queen stood and everyone rose. A servant announced, “Her Majesty, The Queen will be retiring for the night.”

  Arjun and I looked at each other. We rose from our seats and before we could utter a word in protest, the queen was gone. The other guards looked in our direction.

  “Where is she going?” Jhalkari said. “What about Jhansi?”

  Azimullah looked extremely satisfied with himself. “Jhansi is probably the furthest thing from her mind right now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tomorrow is their Christmas Eve festival. There are parties to attend.”

  Days passed. Then weeks. Finally, we left England in January. We had been given an audience with Queen Victoria, we had dined at her table, and a week after the Christmas holiday, we had been invited back to court to meet important members of her Parliament. But ultimately, Saheb’s ambassador was right. She had allowed us to travel all the way from Jhansi and then back again to India without any verdict. There would be no triumphant return. No great reward.

  Jhansi was still lost. The British queen was more interested in India’s dogs than her people.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  1855

  In the short time that we’d been gone, everything had changed.

  We rode through Jhansi in stunned silence. The Temple of Mahalakshmi, where we always fed the poor, was closed, its colorful windows boarded and covered with signs in English that read, THIS TEMPLE IS SHUT. And next to it, on a vast stretch of land enclosed by a crude wooden fence, the British had set up a butchery. These days, when I talk to Westerners, there is only one thing they know about India, and it is that we hold the cow sacred. Some have the misconception that we believe our ancestors come back as cows. This is absurd and couldn’t be further from the truth. We simply never slaughter any animal that gives milk, and the cow is especially sacred to us since babies will drink their milk if their mothers no longer have any to give. So of all the offensive things the British could do, this butchery was by far the worst. The slaughtering of cows was terrible, but to see it happening next to the most sacred place in Jhansi—it would have been more acceptable if the British had destroyed the temple completely.
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  The bookstore whose blue and gold sign once enthralled me with its promise of “Books: Hindi, Marathi, English,” now read simply “Books: English.” And everywhere we looked, the red and black Union Jack snapped in the cool breeze. It was as if the British had made a game of seeing how many places they could mount a flag. It flew from the tops of stores, from the balconies of houses, even from the well where women drew water each morning.

  When we reached the Rani Mahal, it looked as if someone had taken the palace and draped its bright walls in a heavy gray sheath. Part of it was the weather: the sun appeared only through breaks in the clouds. But it was the garden as well. Everything was bare, as if Lord Vayu, our god of the winds, had focused all of his strength on my home. The trees, the shrubs, the flowers, even the bushes, were entirely devoid of leaves. Home, I thought, realizing that for the first time, I was calling a place home that wasn’t Barwa Sagar.

  There was no one to greet our return. We had sent a letter ahead, detailing what had happened in London. Perhaps it hadn’t arrived.

  Or perhaps it had been met with too much disappointment.

  I felt embarrassed in my fur-lined cape, gifted to me under far different circumstances, and when I dismounted, I took it off and carried it in my arms. Jhalkari and the soldiers did the same. A guard bowed very low before letting us inside, but the halls were silent.

  We climbed the stairs. And there, in the rani’s Durbar Hall, was Azimullah Khan. No person on Earth could have been more unexpected—or less welcome to us. Next to him was another man who I assumed was Saheb. The rani was dressed in a soft blue angarkha of pattern chiffon with white rabbit’s fur trim at the wrists and neck. She looked regal on her silver cushion in front of them. As soon as she saw us, she rose and asked, “Why didn’t anyone tell me that you’d returned?”

  I looked around the room and saw the other Durgavasi starting to rise. Azimullah turned to see us, and I wished I could wipe the smug look from his face.