Chapter 18: Malini

MALINI

Malini knew she was growing sicker. It was becoming more difficult to make herself speak. Quiet was simpler, easier. The needle-flower was a dark pool, enfolding her, pressing down upon her tongue.

Days passed. She had asked Priya to stay near her, to lie down beside her if she liked, and Priya had taken the request to heart. Often Priya sat by her and told her stories: more about the yaksa, but also silly, frivolous tales that she’d clearly dredged up from her childhood. Once, she told Malini about an elephant who asked its mice friends to save it from a hunter by biting through the ropes binding it.

“Do mice and elephants speak the same language?” Malini asked, when Priya was halfway into the story.

“Don’t pick holes,” Priya scolded. “Does everything really have to make perfect sense, my lady? It’s a tale for children.”

“I think it’s a fair question,” Malini said. She knew her voice was thin, reedy with exhaustion, but she managed a laugh when Priya gave her a mock frown. “Now, imagine if you were the size of an elephant and I were the size of a mouse. Would we really be able to have a conversation?”

“Well, you’d be too frightened to tell me how foolish my stories are, at least,” Priya said.

But as Malini grew sicker, the stories petered out. More often than not, Malini woke from nightmares to find Priya dozing on the floor beside her charpoy, head pillowed on her arms and her body curled on its side.

One night, she felt the charpoy shift; heard the creak of the frame behind her curved back.

Malini’s breath stuttered out of her. “Priya?” she whispered.

“I’m here.”

Malini turned over.

“I’m not dreaming?”

“No,” said Priya. “No, my lady.”

“That’s good.” Malini’s voice was a little hoarse. She curled her fingers against the weave of bamboo and saw Priya’s fingers mirror her own, a half breath of distance between Priya’s knuckles and her own. Malini could barely make out her face. In the night’s gloom, Priya’s skin looked ghostly dark, her mouth and jaw in shadow.

Perhaps it was the needle-flower that made Malini feel as if Priya would vanish at any moment, unspooling like the coil of smoke from a candle flame. Malini wanted to reach out and feel her skin; the reassurance of solid fingers and smooth nails, the dip and swell of knuckles, all of it real and proof of life.

But she didn’t. She stayed still and listened to Priya’s breath; watched the whites of Priya’s eyes, as Priya watched her in turn.

“Why does Lady Pramila hate you, my lady?” Priya asked suddenly.

“Did Pramila say something to you today?”

Priya shook her head. “No, my lady.”

“Jailers always hate their prisoners,” Malini said.

“The way she responds to you is not simply how a jailer responds to a prisoner, I think.”

“Is it not?” Malini frowned. “I thought it was. After all, power makes everyone monstrous. At least a little.”

Priya’s mouth turned down at the corners. She looked—worried, perhaps. That was good.

“Please, my lady,” she said. “I want to help.”

Malini wanted Priya’s pity. She wanted to bind Priya to her. She needed an ally. She had already been vulnerable in front of Priya, drawing her in, making a confidante of her. Now she would have to do so again. But ah, it was a hard thing to do: Making herself speak through the weight of needle-flower. Pouring out words. All of it was hard, and hurt.

There was a long moment of silence, as Malini drew on her reserves of strength and shifted, rising to her elbows. She stared at Priya through her curtain of hair, wishing she could read her better, wishing that her own mind were less swaddled by poison.

“Her daughter was my friend,” said Malini. “My lady-in-waiting. She rose to the pyre—both my ladies did so—and I refused. Pramila can’t forgive that. Part of her sincerely believes it was an honor for her daughter. An ascent to immortality. And part of her knows the truth: that the pyre was my punishment. That her daughter died, burning and in agony, because of me. And I continue living despite all my errors, and her daughter does not. Neither of those are things she can forgive.”

Priya swallowed visibly, shifting to mirror Malini’s position. “Why did he wish to remove you?” Priya asked. “Your brother.”

There were many things Malini could have said. I betrayed him. I tried to remove him from his throne. I saw him too clearly, and he hated me for it. But those were not truths that would help her now. What truth would?

Malini brushed her hair back and met Priya’s eyes.

“Because I am not pure.”

Priya’s eyes widened, just slightly.

Ask me, Malini thought, not looking away from Priya’s gaze, what makes me impure. If you’re brave enough, ask me.

But Priya did not.

“I am sorry, my lady,” she said instead.

“Pramila wants me to die on the pyre,” Malini said in return. “Sometimes she will sit by my sickbed and tell me how blissful immortality will be. And—sometimes—she will ask me to imagine how it would feel to burn. And I did. And I do, Priya. I do, and I do, and I do.”

When Priya startled, beginning to reach out as Malini’s voice wavered, Malini warded her away with a hand. “No,” she went on. “I’m—I don’t want to be comforted.” Suddenly she was shaking, grief and anger rushing through her, and she did not want to be touched. That would be too much. Too much, when her skin already felt overfull with feeling. A shallow breath. Her hands lowered. “Pramila thinks I’ll choose it. The pyre. The burning. But perhaps it will not come to that. If I grow any weaker, it will not.”

“No,” said Priya. “I suppose not.”

“So now you know,” said Malini. “I would ask you to forgive me for telling you my hurts, but I regret nothing I’ve done. I want you to know that, Priya.”

There. A real truth, unvarnished and laid bare.

Malini had peeled her heart open and poured her heart’s blood out before Priya, given her everything ugly and tender, metal and sweet about her past. And Priya…

Priya did not touch her, but she kept her hand near Malini’s own. She kept her eyes on Malini. Steady and sure.

“I’ve told you many a time, my lady,” said Priya. “I’m only a maidservant. You don’t need to even think of apologizing to me.”

“But I do think of it, Priya,” said Malini. “That’s all.”

Pramila came to visit her during the day. Malini only knew it because she woke warm from the heat of the midday sun, and because Priya’s voice had startled her out of her slumber, lifting her from the deep pool of drugged sleep to the shallows of almost wakefulness, where the room tipped lazily around her but she could still think. Still hear, as Pramila settled herself on the edge of the charpoy with a creak of wood.

“She’s resting, my lady,” Priya was saying. Malini kept her eyes closed, her breathing steady. “I can try to wake her if you wish, but she sleeps soundly.”

Pramila made a noise of acknowledgment. Cleared her throat.

“Your face,” Pramila said. “Does it pain you?”

There was a pause.

“No, my lady,” Priya replied.

“I should not have hit you,” Pramila said stiffly. “I have never beaten any of my maids before. It is beneath me. But here, in this place…” She drummed her fingers upon something solid. The Book of Mothers, perhaps. “The princess makes me forget myself.”

Malini would not open her eyes. She would not. It was enough to hear their voices.

“You think you love her a little, perhaps,” Pramila continued. “She is a dazzling mistress, for one as lowly and uncouth as you. But she uses everyone, girl. Even me. Why do you think I keep the guards away from her? It’s more than piety alone. They’d be taken in by her pretty face and sweet words. She’s a manipulative child. No matter what she says, remember you’re no more than dirt beneath her feet. Remember that the next time she asks you for a small favor.” Her voice lowered. “Remember that, the next time she provokes my ire.”

“Ma’am. I do not admire her,” Priya said, voice halting. “I only—I need to keep this position, ma’am. I have people to care for, who are reliant on me. I cannot lose my standing or my income.”

“Despite what the princess may say to you, I am the one who decides if you remain or not,” Pramila said, an approving note in her voice. “You’ve been a good worker, apart from one unfortunate lapse. You need not fear anything as long as you remember who it is more… prudent… to obey.”

“Oh, thank you,” Priya said. “Thank you so much, Lady Pramila.”

Malini heard the sound of Priya’s footsteps against the floor, drawing closer.

“Please allow me to help you more, Lady Pramila. May I… I could light incense in your study in the evenings, to sweeten the air. Or, I could make your favorite meals, if we have the ingredients? And I could—I could give the princess her medicine. I already take her the evening meal, after all. It would be no trouble to also give her wine too, before she sleeps.” Priya paused. Then she added, “She trusts me. She won’t fuss.”

There was a moment of silence. Pramila shifted; the silk of her sari rustled around her.

“Despite what you may believe, and what is sensible, I love the princess,” Pramila said haltingly, as if the words were being pried out of her. In a way, they were. Her voice wobbled. “I love her enough to want what is best for her, even if she doesn’t.”

“Then let me take this burden from you,” Priya said. “Please.”

“Fine,” she said. “As long as you remember who you are loyal to.”

“Of course, ma’am. Anything to be of use,” Priya said earnestly.

Malini opened her eyes, just a little. In the thin crescent of her vision, she saw Priya—face wide-eyed and guileless, hand outstretched—and Pramila placing the vial of needle-flower in her palm.

Dusk fell. Pramila returned to lecture Malini about the mothers. Malini half listened as she watched the door, wondering what Priya was doing. Pouring a dose of needle-flower obediently into Malini’s wine? Or perhaps tipping the whole bottle in, so that Malini would die swift and painless?

Unlikely. But she imagined it all the same.

Priya offered Pramila a bow and entered the room. As Pramila rose to leave, Priya spoke.

“Lady Pramila has given me the task of providing your medicine,” Priya said to Malini. Then she gave Pramila a sidelong look, as if seeking approval. Pramila nodded, and Priya kneeled down, holding the carafe between her palms.

Malini stared at it. Then she looked at Priya.

“I know something of medicine made of needle-flowers,” Priya said, voice quiet. Pramila, hovering by the door, was unlikely to have heard her.

There was a message, in those brown eyes, in the way she held out the wine as if it were a gift instead of poison; as if it were something precious cupped between her palms.

Trust me, her face said.

That was the problem with making allies. At some point, inevitably, there came a moment when a decision had to be made: Could this one be trusted? Had their loyalty been won? Was their generosity a façade for a hidden knife?

Malini made her choice. It was easier than it should have been.

“Do you?” Malini said, with equal softness. “Well. As it happens, so do I.”

She met Priya’s eyes. Without breaking their shared gaze, she took the carafe and drank deep.