“You’re right,” said Chandra, her hands clutching the wooden rod hard. “Perhaps I don’t know exactly what you aregoing through, but I do understand more than you can guess, Matangi.” She thought of her own estrangement from family and the reaction of polite society when she was unfortunate enough to come across them and imagined having to face that kind of discrimination all her life. She sympathized with Matangi’s predicament, more than she expected.
But they were here on a mission. Like Veer said, lives were at stake, and she had to make difficult choices.
“You can’t change the world overnight. Learn to pick your battles.” Guruji’s said that to her often when she complained of the injustices she had seen during her work and of her own inability to do anything about it.
Something in Chandra’s tone seemed to click with Matangi or perhaps she sensed it wasn’t an idle claim. After a while, Matangi said, “You speak odd. Is what my brother is saying true? You be a princess of Amaravathi?”
Chandra stiffened and glanced around hastily. But the jangle of bangles that came from the synchronous pounding of multiple pestles, coupled with the gossip of assembled women, made their conversation relatively private.
A woman came over and crouched down to sample the yellow dust they had in the mortar. “This needs to be ground finer. I can still feel the flecks of turmeric between my fingers,” she instructed before leaving.
“’Tis all right,” said Matangi, lowering her voice slightly. “I only know ’‘cause I overheard my brother say. Won’t be telling no one.”
Chandra breathed a sigh of relief. Matangi continued. “So that must mean Veer really is a prince. And you two married forreal?” The end of her sentence sounded as if she were hoping for a different answer.
“Yes.”
Matangi was so crestfallen that Chandra was compelled to add wryly, “He is too old for you, Matangi,”
“Pfft. Don’t know what lady’s talking about,” she said, turning her face away in embarrassed silence.
Chandra glanced up to realize that Matangi had been stealing glances at her for several moments, her mouth hanging open.
“What?” she asked.
“You bethatprincess of Amaravathi?! The one who tried to kill her husband on their wedding day and given punishment for it?” she asked in a hushed voice.
Chandra stilled, her pestle falling silent. Matangi seemed to have realized her gaffe and didn’t probe further but bent to her task. But not before Chandra saw the mixture of horrified fascination and pity in the girl’s eyes.
Nausea pooled in her stomach and her throat ached with humiliation. Really, she should have gotten used to such looks. But every time she thought she had grown a shell that shielded her, something came along to prove that it was as fragile as the wind.
The woman who had been doing the inspection came their way again and expressed her satisfaction of the texture of the turmeric powder.
Chandra crouched to scoop the powder in the round depression of the stone mortar into a container.
Job done, she was about to get up, eager to get away for a moment to gather her composure, when Matangi stopped her with a hand clutching her forearm.
“I be sorry, Princess, I…” Matangi looked miserable.
Before she could go any further, Chandra stopped her. “It’s not necessary. I’m quite used to it. But you are to call me Chandra when we are in public until I say otherwise. Is that understood?”
Matangi nodded frantically, eyes wide. “I…Princess…er…Chandra, don’t know if you are aware, but my brother and the prince plan to rob the temple.”
“What!”
Chandra was so flabbergasted by this news that she didn’t even chastise Matangi for using the word “prince.”
Matangi grabbed her hand, her face tight with worry. “I heard him when he was talking to my brother. They be stealing the idol just before the immersion. Have it all planned too. I tried to get my brother to not agree, but he be adamant.” She lowered her head and her voice turned bitter. “Would’ve helped if my brother and his group were allowed into the temple to pray.”
Chandra understood now why the girl had begged her, to find a way to allow other people inside the temple. You instinctively shied away from committing a crime if you considered the object sacred.
“I thought Princ—Chandra might not know about it. You don’t look like you’d agree to this sort of thing.”
Thoughts and arguments skittered in Chandra’s brain. She needed to talk to Veer. How dare he make plans like this without telling her anything? All those excruciating nights for the past two weeks, when she was forced to endure his company, for the lie he told Agrani about them being newlyweds, and he couldn’t find the time to mention such an important thing to her?
She needed to speak to him as soon as possible and didn’t think she could wait until the evening when they were alone. She had an idea how to get his attention fast.
“Matangi, I need you to do something for me…”
