I translated, and we all stood and watched the snow for a while, until black-suit cleared his throat and said, “You may behold the wonder of snow from your rooms, if it pleases you, for the next two hours.”
The rooms were as grand as the palace itself, with vast windows overlooking a garden, and mahogany furniture pressed up against blue and gold walls. Although there were rooms for each of us, the men all sat with Arjun in his chamber, and Jhalkari stayed with me. We sat in a pair of blue velvet chairs and watched the snow falling, like thin wisps of lace, from the gray and black sky.
After some time, Jhalkari leaned forward and asked, “What was she like?” She had lowered her voice, even though she had spoken in Marathi.
“Polite. Reserved. Intelligent, like the rani.”
“She’s the largest woman I’ve ever seen. Her chin: there are two of them!”
“Jhalkari!” I scolded her, then giggled.
“I wish we could take the snow home, so everyone could see.”
We looked out over the strange, unfamiliar landscape. “I have a positive feeling about this,” I said. “Why would the queen ask us to dinner unless it was to relay good news?”
Despite the opulence I’d seen all day, it was nothing compared to the lavishness of that evening in Buckingham Palace.
More black-suited men with white lapels had arrived to deliver our trunks, and we dressed in fresh clothes. Jhalkari chose a sari trimmed in gold and stitched with golden leaves. She wore the same rubies on her neck and wrists, but changed her ruby tikka, which trailed from the center of her hair down the middle of her forehead, to one of emerald and gold. For myself, I decided on a sari of rich purple bordered by elaborate silver paisleys. The rani had given me a set of rare violet sapphires to match.
I believe we all have images of ourselves in our heads, but they’re rarely the images other people have of us. Whenever I imagine myself, for example, I am twelve years old, dressed in the rough cotton angarkha that my father sold two of his carvings to obtain. But in this moment, when I saw myself in the glass, it was as if I were seeing myself for the very first time. I placed the sapphire tikka in the center of my hair. The jewels dipped onto my forehead and a large violet sapphire hung between my brows. The sapphire nose ring completed the picture.
“You’re as beautiful as the rani,” Jhalkari said. “And definitely more beautiful than Queen Victoria.”
I laughed, but Jhalkari was serious.
“It’s a shame you became a Durgavasi. I don’t mean that as an insult,” she said quickly. “Sometimes, I think it’s a shame I became one as well.”
“You married,” I reminded her.
“But there will never be any children,” she said quietly.
I looked at myself in the mirror, with gold gleaming from my neck and across my fingers. “We came here with a purpose,” I reminded her. “If we succeed, imagine how life in Jhansi will change. The rani might reward us and our families in ways we can’t imagine.”
“Perhaps,” Jhalkari said. She sat on the edge of the bed and stared out the window. “Do you really think this queen is going to restore the throne of Jhansi to the rani?”
“Of course. Don’t you?” I had to believe it to be true.
“No. I believe what my husband does: if she had wanted to do it, she would have already done so.”
The same black-suited man who’d brought us to our rooms arrived to escort us to the dining hall. Jhalkari and I waited in the hall while he knocked, without success, on several doors. We knew all the men were in Arjun’s room, but we kept this to ourselves, so we could watch him heave heavy sigh after sigh. Finally he knocked on the very last door, and Arjun emerged with the other guards. He was dressed in a kurta of silver and white, with silver churidars and silver juti. When his eyes found mine, they traveled first to my neck, then to the folds of my sari, and finally to my eyes. He said softly, “Sita.”
“This way,” the black-suit said before I could respond.