“And how many women do fifty men need?” I wanted to know.
Deepan flinched. I’m sure my bluntness offended him. The women in his house didn’t stand in the company of men, wearing pistols on their hips and quivers of arrows on their backs. They were quiet and demure. Two months ago, my sister had been one of these women.
“Ten,” he said quietly. “They took ten girls.”
“I can’t just save Anu,” I said to Arjun.
He nodded. “I know.”
Deepan led the way while the rest of us rode. The sun was up, but the village was silent. It was harvest time. The fields should have been teeming with people harvesting barley, wheat, peas, and mustard. But unlike the burned fields surrounding Jhansi, these fields had been abandoned.
“When we reach the chakla,” Arjun told his guards, “no one fires. If British soldiers are killed, the entire village will pay. I will buy the women out of servitude. Then we’ll return them to their homes.”
“And if their families don’t want them?” one of the guards asked.
“Then we will use what the rani so generously gave to us to buy them a home where they can live together.”
The chakla turned out to be a small house built next to the Temple of Durga.
“Stay here,” Arjun said to me when we arrived. “We’re supposed to be men from this village. If they recognize you as a woman, they’re going to wonder where we have come from.”
I remained with the others while Arjun dismounted and walked with Deepan to the wooden door. An officer answered and they were taken inside. A hundred terrible scenarios passed through my mind. What if the British killed them? What if they refused to let Anu go?
But in the end, gold was more tempting than flesh.
Deepan came out first. He was followed by nine girls, and finally Arjun. It took me a long moment to recognize her. She was thinner, with dark hollows under her eyes. But it was the roundness of her belly that made my breath catch in my throat. I dismounted as swiftly as I could and ran toward her. I didn’t care that there were officers watching us from the windows.
“Anu!” I said. “Anu, it’s Sita!”
“I know who you are.”
It wasn’t her voice. It was the voice of someone distant and hard.
Arjun said, “Go with Deepan and take her to your house. I’ll meet you there once we’ve delivered the rest of these women to their homes.”
“No. I’m not going back there,” Anu said, and I could hear the torment of the past four months in her voice. Then she shrieked, “I want Ishan!”
I glanced at Deepan. She was pregnant with another man’s child. A British child. Not even the most understanding husband would take back a wife in such condition.
“Take me back!” she screamed. “Take me back to my home!”
She was like someone possessed. But none of the other women appeared surprised. I looked at Deepan, since it was his decision.
“Yes. Let’s go to our house right now,” he said.
I put her in front of me on the horse, but she sat as far forward as she could. She didn’t want to feel my touch. When we reached Shivaji’s home, the knot in my stomach had grown so tight that I’m sure I could have pressed my hand there and felt it.
I helped her down, and Deepan slowly opened the door. The other women rushed forward, but as soon as they saw my sister, they drew back. One of them covered her face with her hands and began to weep. But it was Ishan’s reaction that broke her.
“That isn’t my wife.”
“Sita, you should take her,” Deepan began, but my sister pushed her way inside the house. “Ishan,” she begged.
“You aren’t my wife.”
“Ishan!” She clung to his legs, forcing him to push her away. “Ishan!” She sounded like a wounded animal.
I stepped forward to take Anu in my arms but she resisted. “You’re not my sister! You’re not my family. This is my family!”
The other women were crying. The men had tears in their eyes.
“Ishan!” my sister shrieked. “Please! Just look at me.”
But his face was averted. “Go away!” he cried.
Then the fight went out of her. She went limp in my arms, repeating his name over and over like a mantra. I carried her back to our empty house, and she threatened to kill both the child and herself. I told her about Gopal and the letters. But it wasn’t enough.