“In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus returned home after an absence of twenty years and wasn’t sure whom he could trust. So he successfully disguised himself as a beggar,” I insisted.
The rani ordered Mandar and Priyala to buy clothes from the farmer who owned the field. When they returned, the rani and I headed to a small hut to change. We removed our clothes in silence, and when we emerged, the queen looked for all the world like a peasant. Before we remounted and rode on, she took my hand.
“Thank you.” She didn’t say what for, but I squeezed her hand and hoped she knew how much she meant to me. “Let’s ride.”
At a fork in the road, Arjun and I headed to Barwa Sagar. To the north, the rani and her group rode hard toward Kalpi.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was eight hours before we reached Barwa Sagar. We stopped only to rest the horses and give them water. Most of the villages we passed were peaceful; they had offered no resistance. Their women were taken to British whorehouses, their crops would be taken as a form of taxation.
As dawn quickened, casting a rosy glow across the village, no one came out to see us as we rode through. There were no boys tending to buffalo in the fields; all windows remained shuttered. Did they think we were part of the British army?
When we reached my family’s house, the plants in the courtyard had withered and there was no smoke coming from the kitchen. “Pita-ji?” I called, and nobody answered. We dismounted and entered the house; it was dark. We checked the rooms, and memories came rushing back to me: my sister curling up next to me on my charpai. The wooden chest where I had kept my favorite things, like the wooden block my father had carved into a bear for me. But nobody had been inside for some time.
“Maybe they fled,” Arjun said.
But that was impossible. Fled where? With whom?
I hurried back through the courtyard, and while the other guards waited, Arjun followed me to Shivaji’s house. There were voices. I could hear them, as low and faint as a slow trickle of water, coming from inside.
“Shivaji!” I pounded on the door. “Shivaji!”
Ishan answered. “My father isn’t here.”
Then his brothers appeared.
“Sita,” the eldest said. I remembered meeting him once with his father. His name was Deepan. “You should come into the kitchen.” Deepan led us inside and asked, “What do you know?”
“My father sent a letter saying that Anu was taken.” My voice was shaking. “He told us to bring money and help. We have both.”
“With the rani’s blessing,” Arjun added.
“That was in February,” Deepan said. He lowered his gaze to his lap. “Sita . . .”
“Just say it!” I cried.
“Your father is dead. The local Kutwal arrived and said he had orders to find the most beautiful women in Barwa Sagar. Someone had told him about Anu, and when they saw her, they arrested her at once. They had guns. It happened so fast. When she was gone, your father asked Shivaji to help him.”
I felt as if someone had robbed me of my breath.
“Their plan was to buy her back, Sita, but when they reached the chakla the British wouldn’t hear why they had come. So your father and Shivaji returned with more men. They shot them both,” Deepan said. “Your father died immediately. My father lingered for three days.”
Father. My father was dead. Shivaji was gone.
“We can take you to the chakla, Sita, but they won’t release her.”
“What about Avani?” I whispered. “And Dadi-ji?”
“Your father’s wife committed sati,” Deepan explained. “No one could stop her.”
I covered my mouth with my hands. Avani had not been able to envision a life in which she had been made a widow twice. Was she afraid that no one would take care of her? Had she asked someone to write to me and gotten no response?
“Your grandmother fell ill and died within the month.”
Regret, as hot and searing as fire, burned through my body. When I had first arrived at Jhansi, Jhalkari had warned me not to send my letters through Gopal. But I had wanted to save money. My act of thrift had cost me everything.
If someone had told me that my acceptance in the Durga Dal would come at the cost of my family, I can say with certainty I would never have continued. Whatever my fate might have been, I would not have risked my father’s life, or the lives of Anu or Avani, to save myself from the Temple of Annapurna.
“We are bringing my sister back,” I said.
But Deepan glanced behind him. “Sita, she has been gone for four months.”
I knew what he meant. Ishan didn’t want her anymore. “Is it true?” I turned to him. I wanted to hear it from his lips. “Are you casting her off?”
He looked away.
“Say it!” I screamed.
He began to cry.
Arjun took my arm. “Sita, let’s find her. Lead us to the chakla,” he said. “How many soldiers are there?”
The second brother guessed, “Maybe fifty. The British posted them in any village large enough to cause trouble.”