With trembling hands, the rani opened the envelope.
In it, Saheb detailed the British retaliation. When the Company’s soldiers reached the site of the massacre, they discovered that none of the British dead had been buried. Their mutilated bodies had been dragged into a well and the stench was unbearable. The hair of the victims had lodged itself in the trees, caught on shrubs, and still blew about in the wind. Several witnesses attested to the fact that three of the women and children had survived the massacre and the butchering by hiding beneath dead bodies. The next morning they were thrown into the well alive, alongside the corpses of their friends.
When the British commander, General Neill, heard of this, something in him must have broken. He began arresting every man he could, even men who had never been to the House of the Ladies. They were forced to clean the blood from the floors with their tongues. The Muslims who were arrested were sewn into pigskins and hung. The Hindus were executed by Dalits. The remaining prisoners were tied across the mouth of cannons that were then fired. This, we learned, was how Azimullah Khan’s soldiers had killed the men they had taken hostage. A nearby village protested the deaths of the innocent civilians at Kanpur as inhumane and was set on fire. Anyone who tried to flee was shot and killed.
“They’ve taken up a new cry,” the rani read. “ ‘Remember Kanpur!’ The British newspapers cover nothing else, Manu. They’re calling you the Rebel Queen, since it was under your rule that the sepoys rebelled. Be ready for anything. Azimullah Khan and his general have given the British every excuse they need to wage war on India.”
The rani looked ill. “Is that it?”
The messenger looked tremendously sorry for himself. “No. The rebellion in Delhi has failed. Yesterday, Delhi was retaken by the British.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
1858
Be it known to all people belonging to, or residing in the Government District of Jhansi, that owing to the bad conduct of the sepoys in Kanpur, valuable lives have been lost, and property destroyed. But the strong and powerful British Government is sending thousands of European Soldiers to places that have been disturbed, and arrangements will be made to restore order in Jhansi.
Until our soldiers can reach Jhansi, the Rani will continue to rule in the name of the British Government and according to the customs of the British Government. I therefore call on all great and small to obey the Rani and to pay their taxes to her, for which they will receive credit.
The British Army has retaken the city of Delhi and has killed thousands of rebels. We will hang or shoot all rebels wherever they may be found.
The British government was sending soldiers. The rani’s advisers believed that this was the English government’s way of saying that the Company had been wrong to remove her, that the rani would now rule again, only this time with the British government’s blessing.
“Nowhere does it say that,” Moropant corrected them. “Until our soldiers can reach Jhansi,” he read. “Until then.”
Men’s voices rose in the Durbar Hall. The rani drowned them all out by saying, “I will write and ask them to clarify my position. In one breath, they’re calling me the Rebel Queen. In another, I’m administering justice with their approval. So let them tell me where I stand.”
A man arrived in the Durbar Hall claiming he was a messenger from the rani’s secret admirer. He said these last words in English, leading me to believe the man whose message he was carrying had to be British. At this, the rani’s cheeks turned very pink.
“Hand my Durgavasi the letter,” she said, and the old man gave me a thick note sealed in a large blue envelope. I sliced the paper open with my finger. The first line read, “For the Rani of Jhansi, from Major Ellis.” I handed her the letter, and she read the contents and passed it to her father, who said, “It’s settled then.”
“The British have no intention of keeping me on the throne of Jhansi,” the rani said, and I could hear the pain in her voice. “The warrant for my arrest still stands.” She lowered her head as if something heavy was pressing it down. “They have no intention of coming peacefully. Major Ellis warns us to look at Lucknow as an example of what’s to happen here.”
Lucknow was burned to the ground; its women raped, its men and children slaughtered. The rani covered her eyes with her hand. This treachery by the British was too much. Then I glanced at Kahini and wondered what the rani would think if she knew how deep the treachery spread.