Rebel Queen (6 page)

“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.

T
hat 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.

“Rapunze
l
!”

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

W
hen 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.

Anu waited on my bed while I fetched a small package wrapped in cloth, and when I took it from the basket where I’d hidden it several weeks before, her dark eyes went big. She was a seven-year-old miniature of our mother, I realized. “For you,” I said, holding out the package.

She felt the edges of the gift. “A diary?” she guessed. I had taught her to read and write when she turned six. “Like yours?”

“Open it.”

She unwrapped the cloth and took out a book. “It
is
a diary!”

I shook my head. “Look inside.”

My sister’s eyes grew red and weepy as soon as she did. The pages were filled with every memory I had of our mother. Good ones, bad ones, the times when we sat together in a quiet place and she sang ragas to Lord Shiva. “Thank you, Sita. Thank you!” Anu hugged me as tightly as she could. “But why? It’s
your
birthday today.”

“Because I know you would make Maa-ji very proud. And I want you to know her.”

“When you pass the trial,” Anu said suddenly, “will you come back here to visit me?”

“Of course. We’ll never be apart for long.” If a trial is ever called, I thought.

“Is that a promise?” She looked up at me with our mother’s eyes.

“Yes. And now it’s time for puja.”

I led her into our puja room and I let her ring the bell, so the gods would know we were there. Then we knelt before the images of Durga and Ganesh and I recited the Durga mantra. We touched the gods’ feet with our right hands, then touched our foreheads with the same fingers. Finally, I lit two sticks of incense and prayed that the day would go smoothly for us, and as always, that a trial would be called for soon.

A
few days later, while I was practicing archery with my father, the gods answered my prayer. Shivaji arrived in our courtyard with the unbelievable news. “The rani has retired one of her Durgavasi,” he said. “There’s going to be a trial in twelve months.”

“I’ll be seventeen. I won’t even have to lie!”

Shivaji was about to reply when I heard Anu cry, “Sita!” She came running over to join us. “There’s a bird on the ground and his wing is broken!” We walked over to where she pointed and saw a small bulbul with dark feathers and bright red cheeks nursing a
broken wing by keeping it close to its tiny body. Anu reached down and scooped the bird into her hands. “Can it be fixed? Does anyone know how to help him?”

Warring emotions crossed Shivaji’s face—the desire to begin our lesson, and the desire to help. “My youngest son might be able to mend it. He has a gift for healing. Sometimes he visits the animal hospital to be of service.”

While Shivaji returned with his son, I fetched my dupatta and drew it over my head, covering my hair with the light scarf women wear around their necks.

“You remember Ishan?” Shivaji said as an introduction.

The boy next to him smiled shyly. I’d heard he’d recently celebrated his fourteenth birthday, but he was slight for his age, the youngest and smallest of his brothers. He bent to touch Father’s foot with his right hand, then immediately touched his third eye and heart. This is a typical greeting in India, especially if a younger person has not seen an elder in some time.

“Ishan?” Grandmother said from the door. She hurried out into the courtyard and Anu instinctually stepped closer to me. “Just look at him!” Grandmother said, as if she was seeing a wondrous animal for the first time. “Exactly like his father. Tall and handsome.”

In reality, he was none of these, but to watch Grandmother you might actually believe it. Grandmother was like an opal. You could never be sure which colors were really there, and which were just tricks of the light.

“The gods have always blessed you, Shivaji.
Three
sons, and not a single daughter.”

“Perhaps that’s why I feel so attached to your grandchildren,” he said. “They are the little girls I never had.”

I never felt more grateful to our neighbor than I did in that moment.

But even with Father standing beside her, Grandmother didn’t bother to hide her disgust. “I keep reminding Nihal that sons make up a house’s worth. He must remarry, or he’ll be fated to rot here with only daughters as heirs. Aren’t I right?”

Our neighbor looked deeply uncomfortable. He tugged at his mustache, and his son looked at the ground. Finally, he said, “It’s not for me to say what another man should do. Ishan, why don’t you go take a look at the bird?”

My sister was still cradling the little bulbul in her hands, pressing him against her chest for warmth. Reluctantly, she offered the creature to Shivaji’s son, who took him to a small table below our kitchen window.

Anu stood next to him while he worked. He asked her to hold the bird steady while he wrapped a strip of linen around its body, immobilizing the bird’s broken wing. The two of them worked quietly together. I glanced at Shivaji and saw that he wore a thoughtful expression on his face.

T
hat evening, I went to our puja room. I prayed before the statue of Durga, the goddess of female power and the slayer of demons. I asked for help not just in passing the trial, but also in saving the kind of fortune that would find my sister a respectable husband.

“Someone tender,” I prayed, “who will take care of her when Father has passed and I am away.”

I touched my forehead to the jute mats, then lit a second stick of incense and watched the smoke curl around the goddess’s body. Long before I was born, Father had taken great care to carve each of her ten arms wielding a different weapon; soon, I would be using most of those weapons in a trial that would determine not just my fate, but Anu’s.

A sniffling sound echoed from down the hall. When I rose to investigate, I found Anu on her bed, weeping.

“Why are you crying?” I asked.

She buried her face into her pillow.

“Anu?”

She turned and faced the wall. I sat on her bed and waited for her to speak.

“Nobody wants me,” she said at last.

“Who told you that?”

“You did. You’re going away.”

“Anu . . . I’m going away to try to give you a better life. Don’t you want to marry and have children?”

“I want to be with
you
.”

“But if I pass this trial, I’ll be living in the city as a soldier. I will never marry. I will never have children. Don’t you want more for yourself?”

“You’re going to leave me here with Dadi-ji.”

“And Pita-ji. Remember that.”

“He’s always busy.”

“Yes, but never too busy to read to you.”

She smiled a little. Then the fear came back into her face and she whispered, “Please don’t leave me here with her.”

“Anu, I’m not leaving forever. This will always be my home.”

And you should know that these were not empty words. I really did believe what I was saying.