The Sandalwood Princess (3 page)

“Nothing, mistress.”

“Then be silent.” She turned back to Amanda. “Once and only once in my life have I loved,” the rani said. “I speak not of ordinary love, which I have possessed in abundance. I speak of a great, all-consuming love, such as most persons merely read of or see performed in drama, but never experience in their lives. In your legends, it is the love of Tristan and Isolde. In mine, it is that of Krishna and Radha.”

After a moment’s consideration, Amanda said softly, “You mean sinful love, I think.” She blushed as she spoke, not for any missish reason, but because to speak of sin to the rani was... oh, absurd, really. Her morality was not defined by the Church of England or English society.

“Yes,” the Indian woman answered calmly. “Sinful love.” She lazily drew upon the waterpipe.

While she awaited the rest of the story, Amanda gazed about her, trying to memorise her surroundings, for it would be the last time, perhaps. Thick with smoke and incense, these chambers would have frightened the ladylike Eustacia, and most gently bred British ladies. They would have per
ceived the place as a den of iniquity. Certainly it fit their image of the Rani Simhi as a dangerous woman whose history comprised one long career of sin.

Perhaps it
was
sin, Amanda reflected. Nonetheless, the princess’s world was fascinating, and Amanda had been happier here than anywhere else she could remember. Whether legend or history, the universe her Indian friend revealed was a dream world, captivating as a fairy tale. It was also just as safe as one, for Amanda could never enter its pages.

A light breeze wafted from the garden, carrying the scent of flowers and the fresh fragrance of the carved vetiver entryway.
Something else,
Amanda thought, drawing an appreciative breath.
Agarwood?

“My husband became one of the most powerful princes in India,” the rani continued. “Thus the British soon arrived, to persuade him to accept their protection rather than that of the French. Among them was one, tall and fair. In his hair gleamed the golden light of the sun, and in his eyes the glistening sea. I saw him and love consumed me. This passion caused me to risk death, the punishment for adultresses. Richard Whitestone became my lover, and in time, I ran away with him.”

Padji cried out, “Oh, mistress, would that I’d cut out the dog’s heart!’’

“Hold your tongue,” said his mistress. “My friend does not wish to hear your ignorant babbling.” She turned back to Amanda. “He is like a child sometimes. He thinks everything may be resolved by cutting out hearts. One cannot explain to him. He is not a woman.”

Amanda’s gaze slid from servant to mistress. She understood. “Your lover betrayed you.”

The princess shrugged. “Men are easily confused. One night I awoke, and found my lover gone.”

“He took everything,” Padji growled. “The jewels-”

“He took from a thief,” his mistress corrected. “Merely to abandon my husband was insufficient payment for his selfish cruelty. I stole from his treasures, took what he held truly precious, gold and jewels. Yet this was not entirely revenge. My lover and I must live on something, and he was not a wealthy young man.”

“Still, he took everything? Abandoned you and left you destitute? Whether you’d stolen the treasures or not, that was a despicable thing to do,” Amanda said indignantly.

“There is more to be unfolded,” the rani answered, “as it was unfolded to me. I later learned my husband had persuaded the Englishman to seduce and take me away.”

Amanda’s mouth fell open.

“My husband had grown to fear my influence. He was eager to be rid of me, but dared not kill me, for fear of an uprising. If I committed adultery, however, my own people would pursue me and put me to death, while he stood by, innocent, the injured spouse.”

“Good heavens.”

“As I told you, he was politic. Still, he also betrayed his English ally. He’d promised Richard Whitestone a considerable reward, which he failed to deliver. Thus my lover took his payment from me.”

“That hardly excuses him,” Amanda said, rubbing her forehead. “I know you believe each matter also contains its opposite, but all I see in this is villainy.”

“So it is, memsahib,” Padji solemnly agreed. “I might have caught and killed him, but my mistress would not permit it Even then—”

“I was betrayed. What of it?” the princess interrupted. “Women are always betrayed. Yet I prospered. Did not this Englishman show me the Fire of Love, which
so
few experience? Did he not release me from my husband and carry me to safety? Within months my husband lay dead of fever—and I was spared the
sati.
Instead of burning on his pyre, I was free, many miles away. Did I not find another husband, worthy and loving, who gave me strong sons and showered me with wealth?”

All while she’d spoken, her voice calm and cool, the rani had continued stroking the statue.

After a moment’s silence, she said, “Though he took all else, Richard Whitestone left me this figure. One night, as I lay weeping for him, Anumati came to me in a dream. In time, she said, I would discover the meaning of this suffering, and its end. The one object my lover had left me was her gift to me, which she would fill with all her blessings. This was her promise, and she kept it.”

She must have observed dissatisfaction in Amanda’s face then, because she laughed. “Ah, my young friend, the matter of love still troubles you.”

“You speak as though you forgive him,” Amanda said, “yet he behaved abominably in every way. He behaved like a—a prostitute. Then he stole all you had.”

“Merely the acts of a desperate man. Yet I have no doubt he loved me. Such passion cannot be feigned. Perhaps that made him most desperate of all, for ours was the love that is madness and rapture at once.”

“If it
is
a sort of madness,’’ Amanda said reflectively, “then no wonder it is treacherous. As you said, most of us only read about it—yet the stories are always tragic, as yours
seems.’’

“What tragedy?” was the cool response. “I found happiness after.”

“But destructive, at least,” Amanda argued, without quite knowing why she needed to argue. “I don’t know about Krishna and Radha, but what about Tristan and Isolde? What about Romeo and Juliet?”

“Ah, yes,” the princess said.
“Romeo and Juliet.
I have read this work of your great poet many times. A fine scene, that in the garden. She calls to her lover, as I called to mine in my sorrow and loneliness.” In English, then, she quoted as she gazed towards her own garden, “‘O! for a falconer’s voice, / To lure this tassel-gentle back again.’“

The Rani Simhi was still a beautiful woman. As she softly uttered the longing words, her face softened, too, and for an instant, Amanda saw in her profile the young girl who’d known rapturous passion. For that instant, Amanda almost envied her. Almost.

“Would you lure him back?” she whispered.

The princess’s gaze, dark and liquid, came back to her. She smiled.

Padji shifted restlessly.

“We bore Padji beyond his little patience,” his mistress said, her voice brisk again, “and I keep you overlong with my tales. Yet he understands,” she added, throwing her servant a warning look, “that you must know the story, because now the statue belongs to you, my dear friend.” So saying, she held the sandalwood figure out to Amanda.

Stunned, Amanda took it.

“Anumati’s is a woman’s gift, to be passed from mother to daughter. I have no daughters of my blood, but you have become the daughter of my heart. Thus I pass the Laughing Princess to you. May all her blessings enrich your life, as you have so enriched mine, child.”

There was no holding back the tears men, a monsoon flood of them, so that Amanda scarcely saw the heap of gifts Padji began piling before her, barely comprehended the rani’s affectionate words of farewell. Silks, kashmir shawls, perfumes, and incense—a rajah’s treasure. In vain Amanda protested this largess. The princess waved away all objections.

“If you remained with me, my daughter, thus would I adorn you,” she said. “Also, I would find you a fine husband, tall and strong and passionate. Unfortunately, I could find no one worthy in time.”

Amanda gave a watery giggle. Indian women were often wed at puberty. At six and twenty, even by English standards she was at her last prayers.

“That is better,” the rani said. “We part with smiles.” She embraced Amanda, then added, “If I find you a husband, I shall dispatch him to England, never fear.”

In the flurry of gift giving and leave taking, they did not hear the soft rustle in the dark garden beyond or the feather-light footsteps fading into the night.

Amanda thoroughly loathed
the palanquin. She objected on principle to human beings used as beasts of burden. However, the rani always provided a palanquin to collect her English friend and bring her home again. Rather than professional bearers, who were notoriously untrustworthy, four of the rani’s own sturdy, well-armed servants carried it.

They made their way speedily through the dark streets, Padji at their side to terrify any prospective evildoers with his muscular hulk and monstrous sword. Amanda doubted even Queen Charlotte’s safety was so well provided for.

All the same, Amanda had never travelled with so much wealth, and the jewels in the lacquered box made her anxious. Still, who could know what she carried? Spies. Spies lurked everywhere. Not to mention that everyone by now had heard of the master thief, the Falcon. His vision, it was claimed, penetrated stone walls.

Roderick called the stories typical native nonsense. Certainly, he admitted, India abounded in cutthroats and thieves. Nonetheless, no man could turn himself into the night breeze and slip through keyholes. No man slithered into gardens in the guise of a snake, or flew through windows in the form of a dove. That, supposedly, was how the Falcon had made off with one woman’s ruby necklace, and another’s diamond bracelets. More likely, Roderick told his sister (when Eustacia was not nearby), the women had bestowed the jewels upon their lovers, and accounted for the missing gems as supernatural thefts. Lately, everything was blamed on the Falcon.

Yet Amanda had heard other tales—of documents, letters, political secrets bought or stolen, then sold. Always, one name was whispered: the Falcon. Only one name, but she little doubted it comprehended a vast network of spies and mercenaries, as likely controlled by the East India Company as by an Indian mastermind.

She sighed. She would miss India, but not its atmosphere of suspicion and treachery. She had grown accustomed to the stench, heat, and din of Calcutta, yet she would not miss those, certainly. Apart from the rani, her one friend, what would she miss, really?

A cry sheered the night, like a dying bird song, and the palanquin halted. Amanda heard Padji’s voice in sharp Hindustani: “What message?”

“For the woman,” an unfamiliar voice answered in the same language.

Amanda peered through the shutters.

In the darkness she made out Padji’s immense form, then a flash of metal, whistling as it swooped to his neck, so swiftly she had no time to cry out a warning before the gleaming blade lay upon the servant’s throat. Amanda blinked. That must be Padji’s own sword, because his hand hung empty now. How had the man done it?

“Lay down your weapons,” the strange voice commanded the bearers, “or he dies.”

“Run, fools!” Padji cried. “Take her away. I die for—”

“No!” Amanda cried, before the bearers could move. “Do as the pig says.”

“A wise woman,” the voice said softly. “Down on your knees, my elephant,” he told Padji.

“I kneel to no thieving pig. Cut my throat, then, fool, and the others will fall upon you.”

“No!” Amanda screamed.

Too late. Silver gleamed as it swept through the air, and Padji crumpled to the ground. Instantly, the bearers set down their burden. To Amanda’s amazement, the intrepid attacker fled, pursued by four shrieking avengers.

Amanda pushed open the palanquin shutters and scrambled out. She stared at the dark heap on the ground.

“Oh, Padji,” she whispered. Shaking in every limb, she crept towards him. Gingerly, she reached out to his shoulder, then jerked her hand back. What was she thinking of? The thief must have cut his throat. He’d be covered with blood ... sticky ... ghastly.

She scuttled back hastily, struggling to control the spasm of nausea. One ... two ... three deep breaths. Then she looked about her, while her heart seemed to pound in her ears. She was not far from home. Even if she could have endured touching the body, she certainly could not carry it with her. She returned to the palanquin and quickly collected her belongings.

The robber had chosen the site well. Large gardens sprawled on either side of the dark, narrow passageway’s high walls. The houses’ inhabitants were too far away to hear cries for help. Normally, the gates at both ends of the passage were kept locked. Tonight, though, with virtually all Calcutta’s upper crust at the rani’s celebration, it must have been more convenient to leave the way open. Or else the thief had broken in. Alone? Amanda glanced anxiously about her. A risky business for one man, wasn’t it?

She held her breath, but the only sounds she made out came from a great distance: hoofbeats and voices. Nearby she heard only her own heart thundering.