When we reached our house, my father stopped in front of our door and took my palm. “I am going to remarry,” he wrote.
I wasn’t shocked. My father had waited years. It was time. “Who?”
“Avani.”
This did shock me a little. Widows rarely remarry in India. Certainly, it happens, but it is as common as snowfall in the summer. Yet they were the perfect match—they had seen each other daily for many years. We no longer knew each other well, but it seemed likely that she felt great affection for him. He waited for my reaction.
“I don’t know why I never thought of it,” I said. Then something occurred to me, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bring me a certain joy. “Have you told Dadi-ji?”
“Yes. She was upset.”
I imagined the shouting, pacing, and throwing of things. But obviously Father felt passionate enough about Avani that he had risked Grandmother’s wrath.
“And Anu?” I asked.
“She was the one who suggested it,” he said.
I went to bed that night feeling like a vessel brimming over with sweet water.
Chapter Eighteen
I returned home from Anu’s marriage to find the road leading to the Panch Mahal completely empty. There was no one in the street, not even a chai wallah selling tea. At the doors of the Panch Mahal, there was no one to take our horses back to the stables. One of my escorts left three soldiers in charge of our mounts while the rest of us went inside.
“I’ve never heard it so silent here,” I said. The entire palace felt abandoned. On our way to the queen’s room, we spotted a servant and stopped him in the hall.
“What’s happening? Where is everyone?”
The old man peered closer at us. “Where have you been?”
“In Barwa Sagar! What’s happening?”
The old servant stepped back, slightly offended. “The raja is ill. He collapsed in the baradari three nights ago.” He cleared his throat and took some time before continuing. “The rani has called on a British physician.”
Immediately, my heart plunged. “Where is he now?”
“In his chamber.” The old man looked at me. “Are you Sita Bhosale?”
“Yes.”
“The rani has asked that you join her in his chamber immediately.”
I turned to the soldiers and pressed my hands together. “Thank you.”
The old servant motioned for me to come, and I followed him down a magnificently painted hall to a pair of elaborately carved wooden doors. The servant pushed open the doors and disappeared, leaving me alone with several guards. When he returned he said, “You are not to go beyond the entrance chamber. The rani will meet you there.”
I was about to enter the raja’s personal chamber: few people were ever invited here.
The old man held the door open for me, and I entered.
The only way to describe the room would be to use the word grandiose. Nothing was tasteful. The walls were red, the color so glossy that I knew the painters had employed a trick women use in Barwa Sagar, rubbing hibiscus flower over them in order to make them shine. An ostentatious chandelier hung from a gold and yellow star-patterned ceiling. The furniture was silver. The padding on the couches and cushions was bright blue. It was an assault on the eyes.
The rani arrived as I entered, and her face looked stricken. I bowed and pressed my hands together. “Your Highness, I’m so—”
She waved away my pity. “He is with Dr. McEgan. He can be trusted,” she said, before I even asked.
“What are his symptoms?”
Vomiting, lethargy, an unwillingness to eat. “Then last night, he couldn’t feel his legs. It was as if he was paralyzed, like Damodar. His own physician suspected poison,” she said, “but his taster is well.”
I heard the raja’s voice—as clear as if he was standing on stage—shout, “I will not have an Englishman tending to me. Get out! Out!”
The doors swung open again, and an Englishman emerged, looking completely unflustered. His voice was soft and kind when he said, “Summon Major Ellis. Begin making plans for yourself and for Jhansi. Your Highness, the raja is very ill.”
The rani waited until the doctor left before covering her eyes with her hands.
“What will you do?” I asked her. The raja couldn’t be that ill; he was still strong enough to shout.
“I don’t know. The question is, how do the British define heirs?”
The child was taken from his mother on the fifteenth day of October. I remember this because that evening there was a hunter’s moon, the only full moon that appears in October. It was as bright and red as a giant ruby. I was watching it from the courtyard outside the queen’s room when I heard screams. The sound was so pitiful that I rushed inside to see what was happening.
The rani was surrounded by three of her advisers and was cradling a little boy in her lap. He was no more than three, and tears streamed down his tiny face, pooling on his pudgy cheeks. His lower lip turned down, and he was shouting repeatedly for his mother.