The Star-Touched Queen (3 page)

The first time I had snuck up the rafters, my heart raced so fast, I almost didn’t hear all the debates between the courtiers, the advisers and my father. Women weren’t allowed in the inner court sanctum and getting caught would mean severe punishment.

Over time, sneaking above the sanctum became easy. Now, I could wriggle my way through the empty space like a blind lizard. Safely perched in the rafters, I curled my knees beneath me and snuggled into my hiding spot. I didn’t know how many hours I had spent perched in this corner, listening to them. Up here, I could pretend that I ruled over them all, silent and mythic. From here, I could learn what no tutor could teach—the way power settles over people in a room, the way language curls around ankles like a sated cat or flicks a forked tongue in caution, the way to enthrall an audience. And I could understand, almost, the lives and histories scrawled into the lines and lines of the records stowed away in the archival building. The inner sanctum was where my father met foreign dignitaries, it was where the war meetings were held, where crops were discussed and decisions were made. It was the heart of the kingdom and at its throne, my father. According to the archives, he had ruled since the age of ten. If he had siblings, the records never mentioned them.

I flattened myself against the wall and settled in to listen. Whatever I had missed from the beginning had taken its toll on the courtiers. Even from my hiding spot, some faces gleamed white and the air was thick and sour with anxiety.

The inner sanctum held every reminder of the war that had raged on for at least six years. Dented helmets lined the walls like iron skulls. It unnerved the courtiers. Some of them refused to sit beside the armor of the dead, but father had insisted. “We must never forget those who served us.”

Each time I clambered into the rafters, the helmets seemed to grow in size and number. Now, they covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Even though they had been cleaned and scraped of blood, their presence haunted the sanctum. Sunlight glinted off the metal, haloing the helmets so that it looked like my father held court before ghosts.

“Sire, we cannot abide by this decision. There must be a different way to end the war,” said Ajeet, a baby-faced councilor with a receding hairline he hid beneath a massive
pagri
. He trembled where he stood, small hands knotted at the base of his ribs like he’d sunk a dagger to its hilt far into his belly. Given the flash of anger on the Raja’s face, he might as well have.

“We still have enough soldiers,” he cried. “The medics have become more skilled. We might even win this war and sacrifice only a few hundred more.”

I frowned. Couldn’t Ajeet see the helmets on the walls?
People
had filled that armor. Heads, once brimming with their own hopes and joys and miseries, had worn those helmets. What was only a “few hundred more” to the kingdom could be someone else’s lover, brother or son. It wasn’t right to honor the dead with inaction.

“You can and you will abide by my decision,” said the Raja, his voice hard. He looked careworn, dark eyes sunken so that for a moment they looked like the depthless hollows of a skull.

“But the rebel kingdoms—”

“The rebel kingdoms want the same thing that we do,” said my father harshly. “They want food in their bellies. Warmth in their hearths. They want their children to live long enough to possess a name. They fight us out of desperation. Who else will hear their pleas? A decade-long drought? Failing crops? Sweating sicknesses?”

“But, Your Majesty, they turned on the capital.”

“Exactly. Their desperation means they have nothing to lose. We are the only losers in this war,” he said. “We cannot fight from the fringes. We need to bring them here. Now, do as I say and arrange the
swayamvara
.”

A wedding?
His tone sent a frisson of ice down my spine.
But all of my half-sisters of marriageable age are already betrothed. The only one who isn’t is—

“—the moment the rebel kingdoms hear about Princess Mayavati’s horoscope, they will not go through with the wedding,” said another of my father’s advisers. Jayesh.

On any other day, I liked him. His voice was soft-spoken, his perspective far more liberal than the rest of the court. But in that moment I hated him, hated him for the words that leapt out of his mouth and chained me to the spot.

Everyone, including me, had thought my horoscope was enough to ward off any proposals. In seventeen years, it hadn’t failed me. But now the possibility of a life lived in unwed freedom disappeared, pulled out from under my feet in a matter of seconds.

“Your Majesty, I mean no disrespect, but the princess’s horoscope is reputed to have foretold a rather disturbing marriage. One that would partner her with death and destruction. We could offend the—”

The Raja raised his hand. “Hearsay has no place in diplomacy. Our duty is to our people and I will not see them harmed because of superstition. We need to bring the enemy to our court. We need to end this war.”

End the war
. I knew he was right. Even from the sidelines of the court, death pressed all around us. Jayesh bowed and sat down. I knew they were saying other things. Exchanging details and days, parsing out my life between them like it was ribbon fit for tearing. It was a miracle I didn’t stumble through the gap in the rafters. I knew my father better than most did. I had watched him for years. Beneath one plan was always ten. Usually I could find the cracks in his words, pry them open and see what lay beneath the layers of diplomacy, sweet talk and vengeance. But not now. His voice was monotone. Pained, almost. He spoke with the finality of stone and my heart broke beneath it.

“The
swayamvara
will be in a few days’ time,” continued the Raja. “The rebel leaders will be welcomed as guests and suitors for my daughter’s hand. Draw up a new horoscope and hide any evidence of the original. Make it convincing.”

A tremor snaked from my head to my toes. Distantly, the clang of the court notary’s bell echoed through the walls. Feet shuffled. Voices, sonorous and hard, yielded and blended into one another until only silence remained in the sanctum. I pulled my knees to my chin, back pressed against the wall. Marriage. All I knew of marriage was what I saw in the harem wives—pettiness and boredom with only the comfort of silk and gossip.

There were times when I saw my betrothed half-sisters lost in thought, their faces aglow with hope and wonder. Maybe they thought they would be leaving Bharata behind for a new city that would welcome them with sweet-smelling arms and a husband waiting with a smile fashioned just for them. But I had listened to the stories of the wives and I saw what lay ahead. Another harem. Another husband. Another woman scurried away behind a lattice of elephant bone, staring out to a scene forever marred by the patterns of a gilded cage.

I glanced below me at the empty sanctum. In every tomorrow I had imagined,
this
was never one of them. There were never any prospects beyond the life of a scholarly old maid, but that was a fate I had looked forward to—to live among parchments and sink into the compressed universes stitched into lines and lines of writing. To answer to no one.

There was another sorrow, tucked beneath my surprise. Although I had never envisioned marriage, I had thought of love. Not the furtive love I heard muffled in the corners or rooms of some of the harem wives. What I wanted was a connection, a shared heartbeat that kept rhythm across oceans and worlds. Not some alliance cobbled out of war. I didn’t want the prince from the folktales or some milk-skinned, honey-eyed youth who said his greetings and proclaimed his love in the same breath. I wanted a love thick with time, as inscrutable as if a lathe had carved it from night and as familiar as the marrow in my bones. I wanted the impossible, which made it that much easier to push out of my mind.

3

FAVORED DAUGHTERS

Somehow I left behind the rafters and climbed down the rungs and left the honeycombs of Bharata’s archives. I didn’t care if anyone saw me or asked questions. Bharata had already discarded me. I was no more than a guest in my father’s home, whittling away the time until a palanquin bore me away to a different cage.

I was halfway to the harem when I heard feet pounding the walkway behind me.

“Princess Mayavati, the Raja Ramchandra of Bharata requests your immediate presence in the gardens.”

I drew my veil over my head before turning. Why did every guard always say the “Raja Ramchandra”? As if I didn’t know my father’s name.
Oh,
that
Raja. I thought you meant one of the other rulers.
Fools.

“Now?”

The guard blinked. He was young and handsome in a vague, unmemorable way. I had half a mind to ask if he was going to throw in his name with the pack of wolves that would come to Bharata and claim my hand in the
swayamvara
. I must have unknowingly grinned because the young guard masked a flinch. He probably thought I had unleashed some curse on him.

“Yes, Princess. He’s waiting for you in the gardens.”

That was new. My father never waited for anyone.

“And if I say no?”

The guard stepped back. “I—”

“Don’t worry, it was only a question.”

“Does that mean—”

“—which is to say,” I said slowly, “that I will come with you. Lead the way.”

He turned on his heel and, after a moment’s hesitation, began marching back down the path. Guilt twinged inside me. He was only doing his duty. He hadn’t even done anything openly insulting, like some of the harem wives who would spit on my shadow.

I toyed with the idea of apologizing, but thought better of it. My words were out and that was that. Around us, my father’s court shimmered in the early evening. Even though the sun had gone, the sky remained a rich turmeric yellow. A bright vermillion peeled at the edges of the clouds, fading somewhere into the tangle of trees. Around me, the silver reflection pools lapped up the last light and in its waters burned flat flames.

The entrance to the gardens of Bharata was cleverly constructed so that the gates marking it looked like a snarl of roses at first glance. On closer inspection, wrought iron bloomed beneath the petals before snaking upward to bolster the trees—fig and
neem
, sweet almond and tart lime—into living pergolas. My father’s guards circled the gardens. In their scarlet robes, they looked like vicious trees poised to spear the sun should it fall.

“One moment, Princess,” said the guard quickly. “I believe His Highness is concluding a discussion on matters of state with the crown prince.”

Beneath my veil, I arched an eyebrow. If my father was discussing anything with the crown prince, it would be his extravagant ledger. Without waiting for an answer, the guard bowed awkwardly and left. The moment I knew I was alone, I left the path, following the harsh voice of the Raja to a secluded copse of trees. In the middle of the clearing, my half-brother cowered in the Raja’s shadow, his head bent as he toyed with the sleeves of his jacket.

“How dare you embarrass us?” the Raja thundered.

“It wasn’t my fault, Father, that peasant disrespected me—”

“He sneezed.”

“Yes, but on my jacket.”

Skanda, my half-brother, was a fool. Where the Raja favored wisdom, Skanda favored wealth. Where the Raja listened, Skanda leered.

“Would you like to know the difference between us and everyone else?” demanded the Raja.

“Yes?”

“Nothing whatsoever.”

“But—”

“The worms do not take heed of caste and rank when they feast on our ashes,” the Raja said. “Your subjects will not remember you. They will not remember the shade of your eyes, the colors you favored or the beauty of your wives. They will only remember your impression upon their hearts and whether you filled them with glee or grief. That is your immortality.”

With that, he strode out of the grove. I ran back to the garden’s path, out of breath and hoping he hadn’t noticed my presence. By now, the sun had slipped behind the palace, transforming everything that surrounded it to a rosy gold.

As the Raja approached, I saw him as I always did—illuminated and beyond reproach. But as he came closer, new details leapt forward. There were weary creases at the corners of his eyes and a new slope to his shoulders. It didn’t look right. I felt like I was truly seeing him for the first time and what I saw was a man stooped in age, wearing a thinning pelt of greatness. The moment our eyes met, I averted my gaze. Seeing him like this made me feel as if I had stumbled into something private, something I wasn’t supposed to know. Or, perhaps, just didn’t want to.

I knelt before him, the tips of my fingers brushing against his feet in the customary symbol of respect and deference.

“It is good to see you, daughter,” he said.

I knew my father in his voice, in his words. The moment he spoke, all of the previous strangeness was forgotten. My father was not known for a pleasing, diplomatic tone. His voice had the gravelly lurch of a thunderclap and all the solemnity of sleep, but the sound clung to me in well-worn familiarity. It lulled me into safety and for a moment, I thought he would say that his meeting with the courtiers had been a sham, that he had no intention of marrying me off to strangers, that I would stay here forever. This was no heaven, but it was the hell that I knew, and I preferred it far more than whatever beast of a country awaited me.

All of that half-hope slipped away with his next words.

“In the manner of the old kings, we are holding a
swayamvara
for you,” he said. “You will get the chance to choose your own husband, Mayavati.”

His voice filled the courtyard. Cold sweat turned my palms clammy and my practiced calm fell away. My mind scrambled for an escape, but everything felt too close, too slippery and, worst of all, hopelessly out of reach.

He stared at me expectantly.

“Yes, Father,” I forced out.

I grimaced, sure he must have heard the curt edge to my speech. I thought he would scold me, but instead he lifted my chin.