We watched them for the rest of the performance.
When the play was finished, everyone in the audience clapped. Since this seemed to be the thing to do, I clapped as well. I would have thought the raja would have taken off his sari and wig as soon as possible, but he remained in costume while servants brought tea and sweets on platters. Then he hurried over to where the rani was sitting.
“Well?” he said, like a little boy searching for his mother’s approval.
“Kahini was right.” The rani grinned. “It was your best performance.”
The raja closed his eyes and let out a staggered breath. “Adesh!” he called, and the actor who had played his husband, King Dusyanta, came over. “Meet one of the finest actors the kingdom of Jhansi has ever known.”
Adesh pressed his hands together and bowed in front of the rani.
“You were magnificent,” the rani said. “Completely believable.”
Although he’d been exceptionally appealing in the false beard and heavy makeup he’d worn on stage, now without all the trappings of the theater, Adesh was even more handsome. He was much larger than the raja, with such broad shoulders and heavily muscled arms that I immediately thought of a bull. In fact, the only man I’d ever seen with a wider chest than Adesh was Shivaji.
“Your Royal Highnesses are much too flattering.” Adesh bowed again.
Then the raja put his hand—with painted nails and sea-foam bangles—on Adesh’s arm. It felt strange to see the raja dressed as a woman, resting his hand so tenderly against another man. Then he recited the lines Adesh had performed earlier, “ ‘Love torments you, slender girl, but he completely consumes me. Daylight spares the lotus pond while it destroys the moon.’ I could absolutely feel his pain when he said that, the same as if someone was taking a knife to my chest.”
The rani smiled briefly. “His Highness is tremendously passionate about his plays,” she explained to me.
The raja exchanged a meaningful look with Adesh. Then he said, “Major Ellis was completely distracted during the second act.”
“Perhaps there is a serious reason for that,” the rani offered. “The major is concerned about the sepoys. Let’s schedule an audience with him,” she said. “With the right words, the British might be persuaded to substitute their cartridges and their leather caps and we can put all of this unhappiness to rest.”
The raja gave an exaggerated sigh, as if he really didn’t care one way or the other.
Back in our room, Jhalkari was still dressed in the expensive yellow silk she told me her husband had purchased for her, waiting for me to ask the question she knew I was burning to ask. And finally, I couldn’t keep it inside myself any longer. I had to know. “Does the raja always take women’s parts?”
Moti and Heera both looked at us and frowned. But no one could fault me for asking, or even Jhalkari for answering.
“No, not always.” By which she meant, most of the time.
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh, why not tell her the truth?” Kahini said. She had a package in her hand, and I realized when she put it on my bed that it must be my murti. “On the night the rani’s child was conceived,” she said gleefully, “the rani went to my cousin dressed as a man.”
“You shouldn’t spread malicious rumors,” Jhalkari said.
“There’s nothing malicious! We were all there that night. She asked us to get her a man’s uniform.”
“Is that my murti?”
Already, Kahini was walking away. “Repaired as promised,” she said over her shoulder.
No one said anything more about the play, but after unwrapping my murti and seeing that it had been properly fixed, I lay awake for several hours thinking about it. Outside, the rain was coming down in heavy sheets. Tomorrow, the maidan would be too wet for practice, and we would probably have to train inside the Panch Mahal instead. I found it curious that while the rani rarely missed our trainings, the raja was almost never to be seen watching his soldiers. There was talk that he enjoyed riding his elephants, but in the month since I had been in Jhansi, I hadn’t seen him anywhere near the stables. Obviously, the theater was keeping him very busy.
Or perhaps someone in the theater.