Chapter 60: Malini

MALINI

Malini waited until she was sure that Priya would be long gone. She waited hours, in the strange light of the seeker’s path, sat at the writing table, no pen in hand. Then she rose to her feet and left the tent to ask for the whereabouts of Commander Jeevan.

As she’d expected, she was soon informed that Commander Jeevan and his men had returned to Bhumika’s retinue some time ago. When one of Rao’s party had gone to seek them out, approaching cautiously with a lantern held above his head to mark his presence, he’d found no signs of the camp.

“The Ahiranyi vanished,” said Rao. “Left, as far as anyone can tell, of their own accord.”

Rao had brought her food. Clean, simple fare, carried from the monastery: pickled vegetables; fermented beans; roti, cooked to char over the shared fire. She ate it without really tasting it. She’d thought—hoped—Aditya would come question her. But his reluctance to engage with his fate apparently extended even to this. It was Rao instead who stood in her tent, his hands clasped behind him, watching her with careful eyes.

“I told them to go,” Malini said.

Not true. It didn’t matter, of course. Truth and lies were both tools, to be used when most necessary. And she had made a vow to Priya that she intended to keep.

“They could have been useful,” Rao observed.

“Most were not,” said Malini, bluntly.

Rao’s eyes narrowed, a little. Canny. “The one who saved you…”

Malini shook her head. “I am in their debt,” she said. “They saved me from prison, and saved my life. If they’ve chosen to return to defend their nation—I cannot begrudge them. I can only be thankful.”

“Aditya told me you made them a promise.”

“I did,” said Malini. “And I’ll see it fulfilled.”

Rao looked at her for a long moment. “Malini,” he said. Hesitated.

“Yes?”

He lowered his gaze. “Nothing. The camp is packing up. Shall the men arrange you a palanquin?”

She shook her head.

“No need,” she said. “I’ll walk.”

As they neared the end of the seeker’s path, sunlight bled through the trees, untainted by the strange rain-like wash of night.

“No candles,” one of the men was barking at the others. “No pipe smoking, men. Don’t forget that.”

At first glance, the lacquer gardens of Srugna were a grand valley monastery, an ideal worship ground for the nameless. The valley walls were covered in a delicate, rich profusion of leaves of deep green and burnished yellow. The ground was rolling grass and meadow flowers: purple, pink, blue, as small as beads. Between them were trees, delicate and long-limbed, heavy with the weight of fruit and young leaves, berry dark.

But none of it was real. The weather in Srugna was not suitable for the meadow flowers of Dwarali, the sweet grasses found in parts of Alor.

Malini looked at the high tree-ringed slopes that surrounded the gardens, encircled by a vast reservoir of water; the narrow entry across a bridge of woven root and vine. The monastery was both well protected from invasion and terribly vulnerable.

She felt that knife-edge balance keenly when she crossed the bridge. Beneath her lay a chasm, sharp-rocked. The bridge itself was a fragile weft, rocking alarmingly with the motion of their bodies crossing its surface.

Once they were across, Aditya fell into step beside her. “The garden was carved—built—according to the vision of the first Srugani priest of the nameless. He was told to ‘go to the valley of the lotus, and build within its heart a palace to me, a place of lac.’ So he did.”

Aditya took her hand. He led her to the fine, gem-hung trees surrounding the entrance to the monastery. Placed her hand against the surface of the bark.

Lac. Lacquer. Sweet, resinous.

Not simply a name after all.

She drew back her hand.

“Anyone,” she said, “could burn this place to the ground, by error or design. You know that, don’t you? It would take barely a spark.”

“No more than one candle,” a new voice agreed. A priest approached them, clad in the blue robes of the nameless, his voice and his expression tranquil. “But we are priests of the nameless, princess, and we surrender ourselves to fate. It is our calling.”

“Come,” Aditya said, gently urging her forward. “Let me show you your new chambers.”

A simple room. A bed. These luxuries, after so long, should have overwhelmed her.

She sat on the ground and quite carefully resisted the urge to scream.

They lived willingly within an unlit pyre, the fools. She felt the knowledge close over her skull like a vise.

Fire. Burning. It was lucky she did not believe in fate, because these things seemed to be following her. Waiting for her.

“Princess Malini,” said a voice. It was quiet but warm. “I am so glad you live.”

She turned her head to the door. Her old teacher’s favorite disciple stood before her. Like all sages, Lata was austere. She wore her hair in tight braids, bound in a corona against her skull. Her sari, covered by a gray shawl, was pristine.

“Lata! I did not expect to see you,” said Malini in surprise.

“I accompanied the Aloran prince,” murmured Lata. “As you asked me to.”

Malini was lucky some of her many messages, sent during her confinement before she was meant to burn, or hastily written and paid for with bribes of jewels before her imprisonment in Ahiranya, had reached their targets after all.

“I am so very glad you did,” said Malini warmly, though her heart felt cold. “Please. Come and sit.”

Lata sat down by her side.

“How shall I begin, princess?” Lata said, cocking her head to one side. Those were the words of a sage—a kind of rote offering. “What knowledge do you seek?”

“Everything,” she said. “Tell me everything.”

According to Lata, the large bulk of the forces seeking to overthrow Chandra were based in Srugna and upon the road to Dwarali. There was no place for them in the monastery, confined and dangerous as it was. Only lords and princes interested in politicking, or who sought the measure of Aditya, had chosen to come to the lacquer gardens.

“Well,” murmured Malini, when Lata was done. “If the highborn men want politicking…” She stood. “You’ll have to act as chaperone and as one of my ladies,” she said. “Can you do so?”

“I’m sure I can manage,” Lata said.

“Then first,” said Malini, “I need to bathe.”

She bathed in cold water, and tried not to think of Priya offering her a ladle of cold water in the Hirana; Priya kneeling, gazing at her. Her hair was combed as best as it could be, after its long mistreatment. Lata gave Malini one of her own saris. The blouse was so loose that it gaped—but it would be hidden beneath cloth, so would have to do. Malini had no jewels. No marks of status. Nothing to signify her worth.

Then she looked up, at the window.

Of course.

With Lata’s help, she bound her hair into a knot, and carefully pinned in place a crescent of freshly plucked lacquer flowers.

The men quieted abruptly when she entered the rooms. There was no sign of Aditya, and no sign of Rao either.

She’d interrupted a game of catur. But she understood that games of dice and strategy were not simply an amusement to highborn men. She inclined her head—a graceful motion she knew emphasized the vulnerability of her neck and the regality of her bearing—and said, “I fear I’m interrupting.”

“Princess.” The men did not stand, but they inclined their heads in equal respect. It was enough. “No apologies are necessary. Are you searching for someone?”

“Lord Narayan,” she said, finding his face among the lords present. “I am so sorry for your loss. Prince Prem was a great friend to my brother Aditya. I greatly admired him.”

“Thank you, princess,” the young man said, suddenly somber. “It is a great sorrow to us to lose him.”

“I grieve with you,” Malini murmured. She crossed the room toward him, each step slow and deliberate.

As she did, she looked at each of them in turn. “You seem ill at ease, my lords.”

The Dwarali lord was the one who spoke first. “We thought Emperor Aditya would return with an army.” His mouth was unsmiling. “But it is not to be, I see.”

Malini shook her head. “I could not bring him an army,” she said. “Only myself. But I will do all I can, my lords, to see him upon his throne.”

“Perhaps now,” one of the Srugani lords murmured, ire in his voice, “he’ll consider giving us the war we came for.”

She exhaled a breath. Turn of the neck, just so, to emphasize the flowers of lac bound in her hair. She was an imperial princess of Parijat. That carried weight.

“Believe me, good lords,” Malini said, with a demure lowering of her lashes, even as she kept her spine straight, her shoulders a firm line. “My brother Aditya will see your old glory restored. You will have what you once had. Control of your own kingdoms. Places of authority and respect in the imperial court. The glory of the empire, molded by loyalty, will be as it once was.”

And that was why they were here, wasn’t it? They were bound to belong to Chandra’s remade, twisted Parijatdvipa—bound by the same oaths their ancestors had taken to repay the bloody, terrible sacrifice of the mothers who had formed Parijatdvipa in the first place. The sacredness of that promise still echoed through Parijatdvipa from those ancient deaths. They wanted only what they had always had—equality, clout, and prosperity—and Malini could ensure that Aditya provided that.

Better a weak emperor, they no doubt thought. Better a reticent emperor who wishes to be a priest than a zealot who will take what is ours and make it his own.

“And when,” said the same Srugani lord, “will we have all we’ve been promised?”

“The hour is late,” said the Dwarali lord who had first spoken, rising to his feet. “May I guide you back to your room, Princess Malini?”

“I’m not sure that would be wise,” murmured Lata.

But Malini only smiled, and said, “By all means, my lord. Accompany me.”

“You are Lord Khalil,” she said, as they stepped out into the velvet dark, Lata trailing after them. “Lord of the Lal Qila, are you not?”

“I am,” the lord acknowledged.

“Your wife thinks very highly of you, Lord Khalil,” said Malini. “She described your defense of your fortress against the Jagatay with great admiration.”

“And great detail, no doubt. That woman has an unhealthy interest in military strategy.” He gave her a sidelong look. “I know you wrote to Raziya, Princess Malini. She shared many of your letters with me. I was—intrigued.”

“I thought perhaps you had been,” she said. “You’re here, after all.”

Lord Khalil gave a rumbling laugh that was not entirely full of good humor.

“A choice I am beginning to strongly regret. I miss my home. My horses. And this place…” He looked around with distaste. “I would not allow my best horsemen to enter this place,” he said. “We’re hemmed in on all sides. What good are horses on terrain like this?” He waved a hand, in obvious disgust at the profusion of glossy flowers hanging from the rockery. “I wait here at the emperor’s pleasure. But I fear his pleasure is to remain here and meditate.”

“He was kind to wait for me,” said Malini. “Kind and noble, like a highborn of old.”

The lord snorted derisively. “I have little patience for his form of nobility.”

“I appreciate your frankness,” said Malini.

“My apologies. We do not have time for flowery words in Dwarali.”

Malini, who had read his wife’s elegant missives and had once enjoyed Dwarali poetry, refrained from commenting upon this claim.

“How many advisors from Dwarali have been sent home in disgrace?” Malini asked mildly. “And how many executed? To be frank in return, Lord Khalil: Chandra’s form of highborn honor will not favor you. Not as Aditya’s will.”

“Or as yours will,” the lord said. “But you have a point. The burning of women—that was not well liked, I’ll tell you that, princess. But raising your fire priests above the kings and lords who’ve given Parijatdvipa its greatness…” He clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “That was ill thought-out.”

“I warned you he would do as much,” Malini reminded him.

“That you did,” Khalil acknowledged. “You worked very hard to seed ill will toward the false emperor in your missives,” Khalil said. “This, my wife told me too.”

“Your wife is a canny woman.”

“That she is.”

They walked for a moment in silence. Birds fluttered above them. The sky was bright with stars, the lacquer garden gleaming strangely.

“A cruel emperor is unpleasant,” Khalil said. His tone was light, almost conversational. “But if he protects the interests of those close to him, he can be forgiven a great deal.”

“Chandra does not even protect the interests of his own family,” Malini said. And ah, that was more honesty than she should have given.

“And that is the crux, is it not?”

Malini walked on. Steady, sure. “Aditya will always protect the interests of those loyal to him,” she said. “I can promise you that, my lord.”

“Aditya will indeed,” Khalil murmured, gazing at her with shrewd eyes. It was not Aditya, his eyes seemed to say, that would protect his interests.

But that was all right. Malini’s interests were aligned with Aditya’s own, after all.

“I leave you here, princess,” said Khalil, bowing his head.

“My thanks,” murmured Malini.

She and Lata waited as he walked away.

“They are kinder to their women in Dwarali,” said Malini to Lata, when he was long gone. “I took a risk.”

Then, to herself, she muttered: “Someone has to.”