I dismounted Sima and thanked him with an affectionate rub on his neck. The hostlers who came to take him to the stables regarded him with awe.
“Take good care of him,” I said. “He saved my life.”
The hostlers gave me wide-eyed nods as they led him away, offering him bits of cucumber as they went. I turned back to my travel companions, who had also dismounted.
“All of you saved me,” I said. “I will never forget it.”
Nikith held out the garland to drape it around my neck, but I took it from him and placed it on Nallini’s neck before she had the chance to react. I did the same for Parushi, who tried to step away until I commanded her to be still. Tara knew better than to argue after that, and even Thevan stepped forward without protest. My hand brushed his cheek as I placed the string of flowers around his neck, and I was pretty sure I imagined him leaning into it for a moment?—long enough to blink, no more?—before his face went to stone again.
Then I took the last garland from Chetan and inhaled deeply as I tried to calm my pounding heart. This would be the hardest garland to give.
“Chaaya saved me more times than I can count,” I said to him. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do the same for her.”
My last words came out as a whisper, and Chetan blinked away tears. He wouldn’t look me in the eye, even as I draped the garland around his neck. Nikith’s gasp was echoed by the crowd. I, the rani of Ullal, had just garlanded a simple florist.
Chetan lifted the flowers with his long, knobby fingers and stared as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, then he fell to the ground in a kneeling bow. All around me, people followed his example, dropping to their knees in an expanding ripple.
Nikith was the first to stand, and he gestured at the nearby hornists. They raised their curved tutaris and made the air ring out with their brassy calls as the dhol players struck their drums in an intricate rhythm. Their tempo increased as they rapped on both sides of the drums faster and faster until they sounded like rain falling in the middle of a summer storm. Whoops and whistles went up from the crowd as they cheered, until finally the dhol players struck their drums with three firm strikes as the trumpets blared their last note.
Silence fell over all of us, and Nikith stepped forward, spreading his arms wide. “The rani has returned!”
I tried to demand a council meeting as soon as we were inside, but Tara gently?—and Parushi not so gently?—suggested that I should eat and clean up first. I told them I’d have food brought for all of us during the meeting, but I finally relented when they reminded me that Nallini’s injury should be checked as well.
We took her to the infirmary, where I insisted that she get a bed by one of the seaside windows and echoed Tara’s command that she be given the best possible care. The healers glanced at each other through the corners of their eyes; all of them wondered why this stranger was of such importance, but none of them dared to ask. Though I hated all the whispers, explaining who Nallini was seemed impossible without creating more questions than I cared to answer.
“They weren’t just wondering about Nallini, you know.” Tara gestured at my mud-splattered sari. “Most of them were probably also wondering why you look like that.”
“A little dirt never hurt anyone.” I pretended my finger hadn’t just caught in a hole in the cloth. “And it certainly doesn’t make me any less capable.”
“Of course not. But it’s not the way people expect their rulers to look.”
“It’s foolish to judge people based on their appearance.” I remembered the hot, heavy saris I’d had to wear in Banghervari. Everyone thought they were impossibly beautiful. In reality, they were beautifully impossible. “I will not turn myself into a peacock for their benefit.”
“Then do it for yours.” Tara’s voice was low as we passed through the redbrick hall. “You need people towantto listen to you.”
“I’ll consider it,” I said, but I already knew she was right. While I didn’t need to dress as I had in Banghervari, maybe I could find something else here. My own balance.
I thought about her words when I returned to my chambers, where a group of ladies waited, ready to scrub me from head to toe. Layer upon layer of dirt and ash flowed off me. They untangled small branches from my hair and rinsed my curls over and over until the water ran clear.
Dressing as I had in Banghervari was not an option. The people of Ullal didn’t want a gleaming idol to worship. Nor did they want a mud-covered slob who stomped around with her hair in knots and sticks jutting out of it. They wanted an effective rani who could care for her country, defend it, and advocate for it. A rani that could listen and be listened to, and whose word was an unbroken promise.
I could be that person. I just had to figure out how.
My head snapped toward the window as I realized I could see Matanta’s mountain in the distance. This view wasn’t the one I was used to?—I had been so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t realized they’d brought me to my uncle’s quarters instead of mine.
But they weren’t my uncle’s rooms anymore. As the rani of Ullal, these were my quarters now. They’d moved all my furniture and belongings into this room and arranged it much like my old room, although they needed a few new pieces to fill the larger space. I resisted the urge to command them to move it all back.
This was my room?—and my role?—to fill.
Chapter 42
My days formed a rhythm long before I understood the song. Soon, my routine became second nature, and I began to use the size of my bump to mark the passage of time. Between being able to keep more food down and Tara’s expert ministrations, I?—and my little one?—flourished now that we were back in Ullal.
Outside my window, Matanta’s mountain called to me, but I couldn’t visit him yet. I needed to ask a question, and if the Spirits weren’t pleased with it, I wouldn’t return?—nor would the child I carried within me. I couldn’t take the risk of going until Ullal had an heir.
Although visiting Matanta before my baby was born wasn’t an option, I hoped that I might be able to call the adaiman to me. Every day, I’d wake up when the chill of dawn still clung to the air. Without rousing anyone, I’d take my tambura out to the gardens, where Thevan was inevitably waiting. He’d discovered me one day and had insisted on guarding the stepwell until I was done. He knew of my craving for sweet pongal, so he always brought a steaming bowl of the sweetened rice and lentil porridge flavored with cardamom and cloves. I’d eat as he carried my tambura to the stepwell, and then he’d leave me so I could play.
The adaiman always refused to come, so eventually I’d stop and return to Thevan, who waited by the stepwell’s door. He never asked why I played, but we talked about almost everything else as we walked?—from the antics of our army’s recruits to the new ways Sima had found to harass our hostlers to the morale of the people of Ullal. Our conversations were so different from the ones I’d had in Banghervari. There was no subtext, no worries about how to guide his reactions, and no concerns about being seen as too weak or too strong. We could both just be ourselves.
