“Foolboy,” Priya cursed. “He knows he needs to wear it constantly.” She clutched the bead tighter, the heat of it radiating against her skin.
“My fall must have scared him,” said Sima.
“It did.” Priya exhaled, frustrated. “But I told him I can look after myself. I saved you, after all.”
Sima shook her head. Drew on her sari blouse over her damp shoulders, brushing her hair back from her neck. “That won’t stop him from worrying,” said Sima. “He’s trying to protect you.”
“He’s a child,” said Priya. “Doesn’t he know it’s his elders’ job to protect him, not the other way around?”
“Why would he know that?” Sima asked bluntly.
Sima was right, of course. He’d had no one, before Priya had brought him to the mahal. If his family had been farmers, they’d probably died of starvation when their crops had grown rot-riven, leaving him alone. He likely came to Hiranaprastha without anyone to care for him.
“Besides,” Sima went on, “most of us, we see children with rot that bad, and we look away. There’s no point crying over something you can’t fix.”
“Even a sick child?”
“Especially, maybe,” Sima muttered, smoothing down the sleeves of her blouse. “There’s so many of them, you’d never stop. Priya, you’re kind to care about him. Kind for all the little things you do out in the city, but you’re going to break your heart over that boy when he dies. And hewilldie.”
“My heart is fine,” Priya said, a little stiffly. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
After an uncomfortable silence, Sima spoke again, more gently.
“Give him a few days. He’ll stop worrying. I’ll tell Gauri you’re not well.”
Priya uncurled her fingers and stared down at the bead. A few days. That made sense. But Rukh had asked her not to climb the Hirana for a single week. If he was worried about her safety, why set a time length at all? Why not ask her to give up the job entirely?
Something wasn’t right. She’d known that, when Rukh had made his request. But the certainty had only grown stronger.
I need to speak to Bhumika, she thought. Dread coiled in her belly.I need to do it now.
“How long until sunset?” she asked.
“Not long.”
If only he’d been honest with her. She hadn’t known he had any guile in him.
“I’ll simply have to worry him, then,” Priya said. She lifted the thread up and looped it over her own wrist. “I’ll return it to him in the morning.”
She made her way swiftly down the servants’ corridors, the mazelike routes created so they could travel through the palace without crossing paths with the nobility. Eventually, she emerged into the central garden of the mahal and began to walk toward the rose palace.
Lady Bhumika was a woman who valued privacy and beauty, and her quarters reflected that. Instead of living in the grand opulence of the mahal, she maintained her closest household in the rose palace: a manse within the rose garden that lay at the heart of the grounds. Its doors were surrounded by fronds of flowers: sheaves of white and burgundy, pink and glorious red.
Usually the doors of the rose palace were flung open, the sumptuous carpet of the living room crowded with visiting highborn women who sat under a ceiling inlaid with a starburst of emeralds cut to resemble leaves, listening to music and drinking wine, laughing and playing the kind of frivolous games of politics that Priya had little patience for.
But today the doors were shut, the air painfully quiet, and there were only two people at the entrance. The sour-faced senior maidservant, Khalida, was speaking to another woman. The other woman was carrying a case at her side. It was open at the top, and even from a distance Priya could see its contents. Vials. Calipers. She was a physician.
Priya stopped in her tracks as both women caught sight of her.
“Girl,” Khalida said. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to clean my lady’s chambers, ma’am,” Priya said, bowing her head in respect, keeping her voice demure.
“Not today,” Khalida said. “Our lady is unwell. She doesn’t have time for you. Go away now.”
At another time, Priya would have pushed or bribed or cajoled Khalida into allowing her entrance. But time was running short before dusk and the physician was still standing by, looking between them. Priya knew there would be no bending of the rules around a stranger. So instead she bowed her head again. “Ma’am.”
She turned and walked away. As she did so, she heard the physician’s voice rise in a question, and Khalida’s voice respond.
