It took several moments for her to recover, but when her voice was steady she went on. “We will issue our own proclamation now. Let it read that men and rajas of all faiths must come together to rebel. The British are not coming peaceably.”
Calls were made for volunteers, and in Jhansi alone fourteen thousand men came forward to be trained as soldiers. And if you have ever poured water into an anthill and watched the ants scurry to save themselves, this is how our city looked over the next few weeks. Both day and night, you could hear the rumbling of carts as they passed through the streets. People were moving families, guns, food, anything you could think of. Temples and treasuries were emptied, and the money used to buy weapons. I was there when two hundred pounds of gunpowder arrived from Gwalior, a neighboring kingdom that was too cowardly to stand against the British, but too greedy to resist selling us their ammunitions and arms. A magazine was constructed down the road from the palace in order to house so much gunpowder and ammunition. Meanwhile, guns, swords, arrows, and knives began filling up the armory. Six new cannons appeared, along with eight gunners from Kalpi, a neighboring city where the British had chosen one girl from every house to be used as a comfort woman. The men brought with them the knowledge of manufacturing brass balls, and the production went on all day and all night.
The rani also reached out to farmers, telling them to burn their fields, poison their wells, and chop down any tree that grew on their land. There would be nothing for the British when they arrived, not even water. The farmers themselves would have to survive on whatever they could stockpile or hide.
As a carryover from our days in the Rani Mahal, Arjun and his guards spent their evenings with us in the queen’s room, and no one protested.
“I heard the British left their wounded soldiers to die while they plundered the temples in Nagpur,” Mandar said. She moved closer to the brazier. It was the first night we’d needed a fire. “Nagpur is only a three-day ride south.” Meaning it wouldn’t be long before they were doing the same in Jhansi. I thought of Barwa Sagar and what might happen there, but Barwa Sagar was a tiny village. Surely the British had no business in such a place.
“These British soldiers have no allegiance to anything but money,” Moropant swore.
“The governor-general, Lord Caning, has condemned their behavior,” the rani said, looking into the burning coals. “The British papers are saying that Queen Victoria is critical as well.”
“Are you hoping for a change of heart? Because this fire began when the Company first came to India. It’s just taken two hundred and fifty years for the flames to start spreading.”
But I didn’t want to hear any more talk of flames. I rose from my cushion and went outside. Frost covered the ground, gleaming under the cold moonlight. I shivered, and behind me Arjun asked, “Do you ever wonder how many more nights we have to look up at the moon like this?”
“Yes.”
“I wanted to marry you, Sita.”
I turned to stare at him in the moonlight. Although it was pointless to cry, tears blurred my vision. “A woman lives and dies a Durgavasi.”
“You don’t think the rani might have made an exception for you and me?”
That was exactly what the rani might have done. And now it was too late. The reality was so unbearable that I couldn’t look it in the face or I’d be crushed under its weight. I allowed Arjun to wrap his arms around me, and inhaled his scent of charcoal and cedar. He whispered, “If we live through this, I want you to marry me.”
“But—”
He put a finger to my lips. “You are going to survive. When the British come, we are both going to live to see the end.”
In February, dismal news came from neighboring kingdoms—stories of looting, destruction, and rape. And in the midst of all of this, there were the kingdoms of Scindia and Orchha, both providing soldiers to help the British.
When Holi came, the streets of Jhansi should have been filled with children throwing colors in celebration, but the skies were overcast and the city was silent. We were all sitting in the queen’s room eating roasted nuts. Anand held one up and said, “My real mommy used to make these for me.”
The look on the rani’s face would have pierced your heart. These nine words were crushing to her, and my first thought, of course, was that Kahini had done this. If not for her, the rajkumar might have lived and the kingdom of Jhansi might never have been annexed. There would have been no march to Delhi, no massacre at Kanpur, no retaliation by the British. I looked across the room and our eyes met. She didn’t flinch. She wasn’t even the first one to look away. And I thought again about telling the rani everything I knew. But who would she believe? Me, or her favorite cousin, the woman who had helped her keep the raja happy when he was alive?