Rebel Queen

by Michelle Moran

  Our group approached the rani, and we all took turns touching her feet, then pressing our hands together in namaste. Then everyone was talking at once and more cushions were being arranged around the room. Arjun, Jhalkari, and I were asked to sit to the left of Saheb, and the rani asked whether the queen had changed her mind about restoring the kingdom of Jhansi to her control.

  Our letter had not arrived.

  “Queen Victoria has many interests,” I said, “but giving prompt answers is not one of them.”

  “Yes,” the rani said quietly. “My friend Saheb has been here for several days, and although my father isn’t here at the moment, he agrees with Saheb.” We all waited to hear what it was her father agreed with. Finally she said, “The British have no interest in returning Jhansi. But there are forty-four Indian soldiers for every one British soldier here.”

  “That’s two million Indian soldiers compared to a mere forty-five thousand British men,” Saheb said. “When word gets out of this Circular Memorandum—and it will—there is going to be a revolt. The pot has been boiling for long enough.”

  “It’s time to boil over,” Azimullah said quietly.

  “What is the Circular Memorandum?” I asked.

  “A document issued by the East India Company giving orders to commanding officers that Indian women are to be taken from every village and set up in special houses for the use of British men,” the rani answered darkly. “And any girl seen speaking with a man may be denounced as a prostitute and sent to such a house.” Her voice was steady, but I could hear the rage underneath, like a fire beneath smoldering coals.

  “How can this be?” Jhalkari exclaimed.

  No one else in the room was incensed. Clearly, this had already been discussed. I thought of Queen Victoria, who was probably dining at her glittering table as we spoke, and I wished I had known this before. “Have any girls been denounced?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Without a trial?” Arjun pressed. “Without any intervention?”

  “They are simply taken away,” the rani confirmed. “And now that the Kutwal know they have this power, they’re going from house to house, demanding bribes.”

  “The Kutwal have always been corrupt,” Arjun said. The Kutwal are police. And it is true, they have always been tainted by corruption. No good family will give a son willingly to the Kutwal.

  “This is happening in every village?” I said. I immediately thought of Anu in Shivaji’s house. Had the local Kutwal visited them yet? Had they been able to pay the bribe?

  “Yes. And the girls who are sent to these houses are being used and then discarded if they become diseased. Their families don’t want them back, and now, I have no means to help them,” the rani said. “No power and no money.”

  “The sepoys are going to rise at last,” Azimullah predicted, “and we will all be prepared.”

  “People are talking about this memorandum,” the rani told him. “But for those who haven’t lost a wife or a daughter yet, for those who won’t believe it until they see it, Azimullah has brought us a gift from France.”

  We all followed her gaze to a very large item beneath a blanket in the corner of the room. Saheb stood and unveiled his ambassador’s gift. It was a large metal machine.

  “A printing press,” Saheb said. “We will print this despicable memorandum in every language in India. And we’ll distribute it to every village. I am going to march on Delhi. Ten thousand men strong.”

  “With what aim?” Arjun asked.

  “To restore the Mughal emperor to power. Under his rule, India will return to a land of kingships, just as it was before the British came.”

  Imagine the Mughal emperor as the pope and all of the kingdoms in India as Catholic countries under his rule. Saheb was proposing to restore the defeated emperor to power, and in return, the emperor would see to it that all of the kingdoms the British had conquered would return to Indian rule.

  “The ten thousand are Saheb’s men,” Arjun said. “What other kingdoms will join you?”

  “Any who don’t wish to live under British rule,” Azimullah replied. “Because you’re either with us or against us.” He boldly turned to face the rani, but I could see the conflict on the rani’s face.

  “As I’ve told you, if I give aid to the sepoys and the British succeed in defeating them, what will the British do to me? Or, more important, to Jhansi? My situation is difficult. I have to remain neutral.”

  “And your conscience lets you do this, even after this memorandum?” he raged. “Suppose you do not aid the sepoys? They will believe you supported the British,” he warned. “What will happen to Jhansi then?”

  As soon as the rani dismissed us, I hurried down the stairs to the Durgavas to write Anu a letter. She had to be warned about the memorandum and what the Kutwals were doing. She had to hide if they came to Shivaji’s home. The moment I was finished, I went to Gopal and instructed him to post it for me. Then, as I was returning to the Durbar Hall, I met Arjun on the landing. In the light of the softly swaying oil lamps, his face looked as if it had been carved from stone.

  “So what do you think of Azimullah’s with us or against us threat?” I asked.

  Arjun looked around. Mandar was standing near us; Moti was talking with Kashi a few steps away. I doubted they were paying us any attention. “The British must be stopped,” he said. “And I have always believed the sepoys might revolt. But I worry about letting Azimullah lead any sort of revolution.”

  “Yes. But I understand now why Azimullah is so bitter,” I said.

  “Sita, I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”

  We stood together in the flickering light, letting other guardsmen pass us by.

  “That last day on the ship . . . why did you walk away from me when I said you were beautiful?”

  I couldn’t believe he would even ask such a thing. “After you told Jhalkari you wanted to marry someone else?”

  He stared at me, and I could see he was shocked.

  “You told her you wanted to marry someone from Jhansi.”

  “Yes,” he replied. “You.”

  “But I’m not from Jhansi.”

  His eyes were wide. “Sita, in . . . from . . . those are just words. Of course I meant you.”

  I placed my hand against the wall to keep myself steady. Why would he admit such a thing to me now? We had failed in London; I was never going to be released from the rani. How could he even mention such a wonderful possibility when he knew it was beyond hope? “I’m a Durgavasi, Arjun. I’m twenty-one years old with a father to support. Let’s not ruin the friendship we have with daydreams now.”

  I know I sounded bitter. And I know I saw regret in his eyes. But he bowed to indicate he understood, then escorted me into the Durbar Hall.

  Inside, I choked down the feelings that threatened to overwhelm me. I would survive this. I’d survived worse things. After all, I was bamboo, and bamboo bends. It doesn’t break.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  There are only a handful of times in my life when I can tell you exactly where I was when such and such event occurred. When my mother died, for example. I can still smell the turmeric and cardamom that was in the air, and tell you exactly how the rain sounded as it dripped from the corner of our house into a clay pot outside. When I was told that I had been made a Durgavasi, when I learned of young Damodar’s death, when the rani discovered that Jhansi would no longer be hers . . . These are all times I can recapture in my mind with a photograph’s precision. And when the rebellion arrived in Jhansi? This is a moment forever etched in my memory.

  We were eating peanuts in the Durbar Hall. The rani was reading a letter from Captain Skene, regarding the sepoys in the nearby cantonment of Meerut. They were refusing to obey British orders. Then, like a wind, word started to spread that sepoys were disobeying orders in Jhansi, too. That mor
ning, a hundred men had been sent to the whipping post for refusing to do as the British commanded. I looked across the hall at the male guards. They had been joining us for evening tea ever since we had moved into the Rani Mahal; the palace was too small to live separate lives the way we once did. Our eyes met and we knew.

  The rani cleared her throat and continued reading Captain Skene’s letter. She never said how she’d come by the stolen copy, but the rani had spies all across Jhansi.

  The troops here, I am glad to say, continue staunch and express their inbounded abhorrence of the atrocities committed at Meerut and Delhi. I am going on the principle of showing perfect confidence, and I am quite sure I am right. . . . All will settle down here in Jhansi.

  We were still marveling at the naiveté of his words when a messenger arrived, escorted by four of the rani’s guards. As soon as we saw him, we rose, and the rani did the same. He bowed deeply, but the rani waved off such formalities. “What’s happening?” she demanded.

  “Your Highness. The sepoys have burned two of the barracks inside the Fortress of Jhansi, and now a third one is burning!”

  There is an expression you have in English: The color drained from her face. Well, this is exactly what happened when the rani heard this news. She turned so white that the messenger stepped forward, thinking she might faint.

  “Your Highness!” Sundari said.

  The rani held on to Sundari’s shoulder for support.

  For two days you could feel the tension in the city; it was as if Jhansi was an instrument improperly strung and so taut its strings threatened to snap. We all attended to our duties the same as before, but we were waiting to see what would happen next.

  When it happened, we were practicing in the front of the Rani Mahal before the sun came up. Shots rang out and all of us froze. Kahini was the first to sling her bow over her shoulder and run. We followed behind her as more shots rang out and people began running from the crowded marketplace. A short man in a sepoy’s uniform made his way toward the gates and asked to see the rani. We took his pistol and his sword and let him through. The rani was in the courtyard: when he saw her, he rushed to touch her feet and bowed.

  “The sepoys of Jhansi are rebelling against the British, Your Highness! A man named Havildar Gurbaksh is leading the seventh company of the twelfth regiment, and they have taken over Star Fort.”

  There were three forts within the city of Jhansi. The one that had once been the rani’s home, Star Fort, and Town Fort. Only the magazine in Star Fort held supplies and ammunition.

  “What else?” the rani said. I could see that she was doing her very best to look neutral. Because if she openly supported the rebels and the British subdued them, they would kill her.

  The short sepoy shifted from foot to foot. “Two officers have been killed, and the rest of the British are fleeing for their lives. Captain Skene is trying to persuade his people to take refuge in Town Fort.”

  I thought of Dr. McEgan and Mrs. McEgan, who had helped us prepare for our journey to London. I also thought of Major Wilkes, and hoped he hadn’t returned from England with his fiancée.

  “Who sent you?” the rani asked.

  The sepoy looked at his sandals. “No one, Your Highness. I came on my own.”

  So the other sepoys didn’t trust her.

  The rani sent her Durgavasi and her personal guards to assemble inside the Durbar Hall. As we did, the two hundred soldiers the British had allowed her to hire made a protective ring around the Rani Mahal. She remained downstairs with Arjun and Sundari.

  “What are we doing?” Kahini demanded on our way up the stairs. “Why aren’t we helping the rebels at Star Fort?”

  “That’s assuming the rani wishes to help them,” Mandar said.

  Inside the Durbar Hall, there was barely room to stand, let alone sit. The room had been built for fifty people, but with all of the mahal’s servants crowded inside, there were nearly two hundred. I stood near one of the windows, and Jhalkari and I tried to make out what was happening below. Smoke filled the marketplace, and people were running and closing up their stalls, but there was no sign of any flames.

  “The British can last quite some time in Town Fort,” Jhalkari said. “It was designed to withstand a siege. There’s a well, and at least a week’s worth of food.”

  Finally, the rani appeared with Arjun, Sundari, and her father. After speaking briefly with Kahini, they asked Jhalkari and me to follow them into her personal chamber. When we were seated, it was her father who spoke.

  “There are sixty-six Europeans in Town Fort,” he said. “More than half of them are women and children.”

  “So the question is now, what do we do for them?” the rani said. “There must be something we can do.”

  In contrast to Queen Victoria, I thought, who hides behind her Parliament and does nothing.

  We all looked at one another. None of us wanted to be the first to respond.

  “Think rationally, Manu,” said her father. “You only have two hundred men—all of them are needed to guard this palace. You know what happens during times of rebellion. Pretenders to the throne crawl out of the earth like worms drawn by flood.”

  I thought this was a very clever analogy, but I wondered if it would happen now. Weren’t we all fighting for the same cause? To rid India of the British?

  “I could talk with the sepoys,” the rani said.

  “Why should they trust you when you’re taking a British pension?” Moropant asked.

  I could see the hurt on her face. “Then at the very least, we should tell them to flee. Get out of Jhansi, and take shelter in Sagar or Datia.”

  “And you think they don’t know that?” Kahini said rudely.

  “I think their plan is to wait it out,” Sundari countered. “Let’s send your Dewan to warn them,” she suggested. “As a gesture of goodwill, we can send some of your personal guards.”

  And this was what the rani did. Forty men accompanied the Dewan to Town Fort.

  We waited all day for word. By nightfall only the Dewan had returned. The rani’s guards had joined the rebellion.

  The Dewan shook as he recounted the scene. “It was chaos, Your Highness. The women were in a panic and the children couldn’t be calmed. Captain Skene is not going to flee from Town Fort. After seeing your men joining forces with the rebels, he believes you’re setting a trap.”

  No one slept more than a few hours that night. The Durgavasi stood guard in the rani’s chamber, and as soon as the sun rose, there was a commotion beyond the gates. We hurried to the window just in time to see two men walk past the guards and shout the rani’s name from the courtyard below.

  “Rani Lakshmibai!” one of them cried.

  The other one shouted, “Rani of Jhansi!”

  Neither of them was carrying weapons, but they still looked threatening. The rani hurried to the window, and when the men caught sight of her face, they gestured wildly.

  “Your Highness, you should probably step back,” I said.

  “No, let them speak. What is it that you want?” she shouted down.

  “We want to know which side you’re on! Do you stand with the British, or do you stand with us?”

  Her response was very clever. “I stand with justice—for my people, for my son, and for my kingdom.”

  The men exchanged looks. Then they decided she meant she stood with the rebels, and one of them raised his arm in the air, and shouted, “Har Har Mahadev!” In English, this would be like saying, By the Grace of God!

  The other one took up the shout, and the pair left as quickly as they’d come. But their intrusion served as a warning to us: we now knew the rani could count on the guards outside the mahal the same way she could count on the British. Her only real defense was her Durgavasi and her remaining personal guards.

  Nothing of any consequence happened the rest of t
hat day, though we kept waiting for the sound of gunfire, or the din of voices to tell us that a mob was growing outside. But the marketplace was eerily silent. I wondered how the British were surviving in Town Fort. Did they think the prolonged silence meant they were safe? Had Captain Skene realized that the rebels had all the time in the world and it was the British for whom time was running out?

  The next morning the rani requested breakfast to be served in her chamber while she discussed private matters with Sundari. There was no sign of the rebels who had forced their way inside the courtyard the day before. I sat with Moti in the Durbar Hall, hoping that it was going to be another quiet day, when raised voices echoed near the gates, followed by the sound of heavy boots on wooden stairs. Immediately, I reached for my bow, and Moti was on her feet, wielding her knife. I yelled for the rani to stay inside her chamber just as her father burst through the door.

  “Are you determined to kill me?” he asked.

  Immediately, I lowered my weapon. “I’m sorry, Shri Moropant.”

  He pushed aside my apology with a wave. “Two British soldiers have been killed. One a captain, the other an ensign. They were delivering letters to the fortress when it happened.”

  “It was sepoys who killed them?” I confirmed.

  “Yes.”

  The rani heard her father’s voice and emerged from her chamber. He told her the same thing he had just told us, then boots once again thumped their way up the stairs. I reached for an arrow, but it was Arjun. “I have a messenger from the fort, Your Highness. May I send him inside?”

  “Of course.”

  An Englishman appeared, dressed in the most ridiculous fashion I had ever seen. He was trying to imitate Indian dress, but his cotton churidars were too small, his juti too formal, and his pale skin contrasted starkly against the black fabric of his kurta. His face showed extreme fatigue, and something else I had never seen on a British soldier before—fear.

  “Your Highness,” he began, then he collapsed at the rani’s feet. “My three companions have been killed!”