“I’m one of the rani’s Durgavasi,” I said.
He used one side of his face to smile, as if he was a puppet and his master was too lazy to raise both sides. “Really?”
“Yes. She fought with the rani in Jhansi and has come to fight alongside her again,” Arjun said.
For a very brief moment the guard sobered. “Well, there’s no fighting here. Haven’t you heard? They’ve opened the treasury. We are all rich! There’s been a ceremony,” he continued. “Saheb has been crowned Peshwa, and Rao Saheb has been made his viceroy.”
They held a ceremony declaring Saheb Peshwa when all of India was falling apart? When General Rose and his army would arrive any day?
The guard began whistling a merry tune, and we fell into line silently behind him.
People were feasting and dancing in the halls, congratulating one another as if they were part of a wedding baraat. It took our guard twenty minutes to find the rani. No one knew where she was. Several people suggested the Durbar Hall on the first floor. When she wasn’t there, I was told to go upstairs and look through the women’s rooms. I checked each chamber. I even went to the roof terraces. Then someone said the rani was on a fourth-floor balcony.
“The fourth floor is the rajanivesana,” the guard said, looking doubtful because the raja’s apartments were there.
But I knew the rani. “That’s where she is,” I said. She’d be with Mandar, Kashi, and Anand.
We trudged the four flights up to the apartments, and we heard her before we saw her, shouting about waste and something else I couldn’t make out over the music and singing.
The guard stopped at the door leading to the raja’s apartments. “Is this all you need me for?” he said. I imagined he was eager to get back to his drinking.
“That’s it.” Arjun’s voice was clipped.
As soon as she saw us, the rani was overwhelmed with joy. I hugged Mandar and Kashi. Even Anand wanted a warm embrace. Then I saw the Nawab of Banda, sitting cross-legged on the floor. He pressed his hands together in namaste, and we joined him at the rani’s invitation. As soon as we were seated she wanted to know everything, what had happened in Barwa Sagar, if we had heard about Jhansi, how we had reached Gwalior without being seen. She was very sorry to hear about my losses. She didn’t say anything about her own father, and I certainly didn’t ask.
Fireworks began exploding in the warm night air.
“I’ve warned them that General Rose is coming,” she said. “But Rao Saheb wants the celebrations to last two weeks.”
“These men ignored the rani’s advice in Kalpi,” the Nawab of Banda said. “If they haven’t learned from her by now, I doubt they ever will.”
There was a knock on the door. Kashi answered and a well-dressed man appeared. It was Saheb. A feather sprang jauntily from one side of his bejeweled turban, making him look as if he were about to grow wings, and thick clusters of pearls hung around his neck.
“Look at yourself, Saheb!” said the rani. “Dressed for a baraat when this is a war! Look at your entire court!”
“At least I have one!” He stomped back out without telling us why he’d come, slamming the door behind him.
“He’s like a child,” the nawab said wonderingly.
The celebrations went on for another nine days.
Then, on the twelfth of June, just before midnight, there was an urgent knock on the rani’s door. A messenger was there: General Rose had reached Amin, one day’s journey to the south. The rani gave Kashi a blue velvet satchel similar to the one she’d given Arjun. “Tomorrow morning,” she said, “I want you to take Anand away from here.”
Kashi looked stricken as the rani told her where to go and what to do if they should be discovered. Then she turned to me, and to my surprise, took my hands in hers. They felt cold, despite the summer’s heat.
“I’m not leaving you,” I said, in case this was going to be her request.
“I know. You’re too stubborn and foolish, like the man who wants to marry you. But if something should happen to me on the battlefield, Sita, I don’t want you to stay in Gwalior.”
“Please don’t talk like this,” I whispered.
“We all die. Some of us are fortunate enough to die fighting for justice.”
“And I can’t think of a more just reason than this,” Mandar said quietly. “They are taking over India kingdom by kingdom.”
Below, word was spreading about the British advance, and with the exception of a few pockets of drunken men, the singing had stopped.
“Sita, promise me you’ll flee. With Arjun if he’s alive, by yourself if he isn’t,” the rani said. “I can’t prepare for this battle unless I have your promise.”
I gave it to her. She exchanged a glance with Mandar; they seemed to have made a quiet pact between them that made me remember Jhalkari, and my heart ached deeply. I hope you have reached Svarga, I thought.