I paused to catch my breath, then led him away from the rani’s door to a niche with a statue of our god Shiva dancing in an aureole of gold flames. I told him what I had told Jhalkari, adding that now Kahini was missing. “Do you think I could be wrong? Before her marriage, a servant discovered her with a letter to a lover. That’s why she became a Durgavasi. Two days after the servant exposed Kahini, he was found floating in the Ganges. . . .” Had she been a murderess even then?
“It doesn’t take much to imagine Kahini plotting out a life for herself as the rani and Sadashiv as the raja,” Arjun said. “Or perhaps she plans to poison Sadashiv as well, once he’s on the throne. A widowed rani who doesn’t commit sati has a great deal of freedom.”
Kahini had killed Damodar. She had killed the raja, her own cousin. An image of my grandmother taking me to the Temple of Annapurna to sell me as a devadasi entered my mind. “When do you stop trusting family?” I said.
“When the proof is irrefutable. If Kahini is wise, she’ll realize that people are watching her now. She was foolish to expose hemlock in your murti and think Rajasi would accept that it was yours.”
I was sharing a chamber with a woman who killed the Raja of Jhansi and his child—Damodar had only been a few months old. The most innocent creature on earth . . . how different life would be if not for Kahini! Instead of Damodar’s ashes being scattered into the Ganges, he would be alive, delighting his mother. And the little boy who was now living in his place? He would be safe with his real mother, snuggling at her breast. I thought of all the lives Kahini had ruined. Why hadn’t she tried to poison me as well?
Two men on the stairs interrupted my thoughts. One was a guard, the other a messenger. Arjun and I stepped away from each other, and I hated to think how we looked to them.
“News from Kanpur,” the guard said. His face was grim, as if someone had taken the edges of his lips and pulled them down with tiny weights.
“The rani is sleeping,” Arjun told him.
“Wake her. What this man has to say is important.”
Arjun knocked until Sundari answered. It was obvious she’d been sleeping as well.
“A messenger from Kanpur,” Arjun said. “Tell the rani it’s urgent.”
“Letters from Kanpur,” the messenger said. “From Saheb.”
A few moments later the rani appeared.
The messenger stepped forward to touch the rani’s feet with his right hand, then straightened and handed two envelopes to her. In the flickering light of the oil lamps, she unfolded the first one and frowned. “I don’t understand why he is in Kanpur,” the rani said. “He was going to march to Delhi to return the former emperor, Bahadur Shah, to his throne.”
The rani continued to read. Saheb had stopped on his march to Delhi. He had decided to retake the city of Kanpur from the British. The siege of Kanpur had taken three weeks.
The rani stopped reading, unable to go further, and handed the letter to Arjun, who read: “There was a massacre and three hundred British men, women, and children were killed.”
Saheb claimed he had arranged for the safe passage of British citizens to the city of Allahabad, in the north, and that what ultimately happened was the fault of Azimullah Khan.
Saheb sent the British to the banks of the Ganges, which was in full flow. Forty boats awaited, but they had trouble launching in waters so rough. Azimullah Khan became impatient and shouted that if the British didn’t leave at once they would all be killed. Panic ensued, and in the chaos that followed, shots were fired. Saheb’s general, Tatya Tope, ordered all the British men killed; the one hundred and twenty women and children were taken as prisoners.
They were taken to a villa called Bibighar, meaning House of the Ladies, a house for prostitutes. The British women would be used as prostitutes. And why not the children? Weren’t there soldiers who would enjoy a British boy? Or generals who might like a young British girl?
Azimullah Khan disagreed: he wanted all of the prisoners killed. When the men refused, he threatened them with death.
“The only thing I heard clearly above the gunfire,” Saheb wrote, “were shouts of ‘mummy,’ but the mothers couldn’t protect their children. I couldn’t protect them. Allah forgive me, Manu. I hope you will forgive me as well. Azimullah and Tatya Tope wish to drive the British from our land by whatever means necessary. You must know I would never have condoned this. But I’m afraid we’ll all suffer for their actions.”
I imagined the terror the children felt as they looked to their mothers, searching their eyes for signs of reassurance that never came.
The letter seemed to have no end of horror. Saheb reported that some of the women and children survived the shooting. But they were not allowed to live. A prostitute favored by Azimullah Khan gathered several butchers, who carved up the survivors, removing their genitals and breasts.
None of us spoke when Arjun finished reading. Was it possible we lived in a world where such things could happen?
“Your Highness,” the messenger said, “I ask that you read the second letter as well.”