by J. S. Bangs
The stone shook—no, the stone didn’t shake, Mandhi shook—it was not a stone, it was Aryaji. Her fingers were light against Mandhi’s skin, not the brutal weight of the stone over the basket, but her maidservant, telling her to awake.
She opened her eyes. Her chamber in Sadja’s palace. The sheet over her was bunched and kicked aside, her nightclothes nearly torn off in her struggle. Aryaji crouched next to her, a hand resting gently on Mandhi’s shoulder, a look of concern on her face.
“Another nightmare?” she asked.
“What do you think?” Mandhi snapped, then regretted it as she spoke. More softly, she said, “The same one. In the basket. I told you….”
Aryaji nodded, her eyes wide, her face wracked with anxiety and confusion. A moment of pity for the girl crossed Mandhi’s mind before being swallowed in the thunder of her own anger and sorrow. She rose to her feet, tidied up the twisted nightclothes around her waist, and told Aryaji, “I’m going to Ashturma-kha.”
“Again?” Aryaji said. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Lace up my choli,” Mandhi said, gesturing to the garment on the ground next to her. “And yes, now, in the middle of the night. If I’m not sleeping, neither is he.”
Aryaji complied, bowing her head mildly and biting her lip. She helped Mandhi put her choli on and tied the lace loosely, for Mandhi still didn’t have a choli which fit her milk-heavy breasts—and oh how they hurt without Jhumitu to nurse them. She winced when Aryaji tugged the final lace shut as tightly as she dared. The pain added to the storm-waves of anguish roaring in Mandhi’s chest.
“Done now,” Aryaji said. She hesitated. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“No,” Mandhi said. The girl was terrified of Ashturma, Sadja’s regent and the acting ruler of Davrakhanda. Mandhi didn’t want fear diluting her anger. “I’m going.”
She stormed out the door. Ashturma slept in a room next to Sadja’s chamber, and two guards waited at his door, a lamp hanging on the wall to illuminate them in pale yellow light.
“Halt,” the first said as she approached. His expression was stern, but it melted when he recognized Mandhi. “Oh, it’s you again. The regent of Davrakhanda sleeps—”
“I don’t care,” Mandhi said, marching past him and throwing aside the heavy curtain over the door. The soldiers snickered. She had their sympathies, and they had never once tried to physically stop her.
The chamber was dark, but Mandhi didn’t need to see. She walked forward until she nearly tripped over the regent’s sleeping form. A sharp noise of pain sounded from him as her toes kicked his side, then a rustle as he sat up.
“Where is Jhumitu?” Mandhi demanded.
A groan. “You again? Those guards—”
“Where is Jhumitu? It’s been a week since I was captured by those Kaleksha and you haven’t put an hour of effort into finding him.”
“How many times have I told you that they left Davrakhanda?” Ashturma said. “And I spent many hours of effort, finding and flogging those who had participated in the kidnapping.”
“And no effort at all finding my son—”
“Because they sailed to Kalignas that very day, before I even discovered you were missing.”
“And? You have boats. You can sail after them.”
“I cannot spare the men, and I need Sadja’s permission for that kind of endeavor—”
“Have you asked him?”
“I sent messages—”
“I doubt that,” Mandhi said. “And why haven’t you let me go search for him?”
“Will you pester me with the same questions every night?”
“Every night I wake up with nightmares and without the touch of my son, yes, I’ll come in here and demand you answer for it.”
“You cannot go because I was charged with the care of Davrakhanda in Sadja’s absence, and that includes the care of you, his hostage—”
“Lies! Sadja’s hostage is the Heir, the very one you lost and have refused to pursue!”
“And I won’t put you in further danger,” Ashturma said. There was a rustling in the darkness, and she sensed that he had stood. “Now get out of my chamber, or I’ll put a guard at your door to ensure you never leave your room.”
“You already don’t let me out of the palace—”
“You see what happened last time you left?”
“That’s watery beer, Ashturma-kha. The palace knows what happened, and their sympathies are with me. Give me men, give me a ship and I’ll sail to Kalignas myself—”
“I wouldn’t dare let you—”
“I don’t care what you dare!” She raised her voice to nearly a scream and reached out to grab the collar of his kurta. His hand flew, and he grabbed her by the wrist.
“Be careful, my hostage Mandhi,” he said, his voice slipping from annoyance into anger. “You are too confident that I cannot rule my own palace and do with you as I please while Sadja-dar is gone. I let you come in here because I sympathize with you and I don’t want to add to your anguish. But that doesn’t change my answer, and if you let this pride get away with you…”
Mandhi shook her wrist free. “I’ll return to my chamber,” she hissed. “Let me know when you have decided to do your duty and properly search for the Heir of Manjur.”
She left the room in more anger and turmoil than when she had entered. Upon returning to her own chamber, she found Aryaji still there, folding the sheets by lamplight.
Mandhi threw herself onto the bedroll and put her head in her hands. She was breathing heavily, and the heat in her blood made it impossible to sleep. She looked up at Aryaji, who watched her with a piteous, concerned expression.
“Don’t worry about me,” Mandhi said. She winced and rubbed her swollen breasts. Since Jhumitu’s absence, Mandhi had let out her milk into a bowl twice a day, buttering her fingers and massaging her swollen nipples until she could squeeze out the drops of white liquid. She felt like a nanny goat being milked, but it relieved some of the pain.
And already her milk was coming more slowly. If she recovered Jhumitu, she would need a nurse-maid. When she recovered him.
She leaned back against the wall. She closed her eyes. “What can we do, Aryaji?”
“Nothing, Mandhi—”
“No! There’s always something. Your uncle Nakhur found out which boat they sailed with.”
“Yes,” Aryaji admitted.
“Did they take a nurse with them?” Mandhi asked. Surely they weren’t so stupid as to head out to sea with an infant and no one to nurse him.
“Oh, yes,” Aryaji said. “I thought I told you. Two Amuran prostitutes—”
Mandhi groaned in disgust.
Aryaji winced. “Who else do Kaleksha sailors know that could nurse? One had recently given her newborn child to Ashti, so they paid her and a companion to come with them and nurse.”
“Given a child to Ashti?”
Aryaji looked abashed. “You know. The whores, they don’t usually keep their children. They… give them to Ashti. In the sea.”
Mandhi flushed with horror. “At least he won’t starve. And the second woman?”
Aryaji sighed. “A sailor’s superstition. They won’t sail on a ship that has just one woman aboard. There must be at least two, or else it angers Ashti.”
Mandhi groaned. “But they’re a week ahead of us. And the journey…”
“Two months to reach Kalignas,” Aryaji said.
“But if we followed them? I’m sorry, I cannot forget the idea.”
“My father says we couldn’t catch them on the seas. Every boat sails with the same wind. There are Uluriya here who would give us a boat, and maybe even a crew—but when we reached Kalignas, then what?”
“You are too practical,” Mandhi said flatly.
Aryaji shrugged. “I’m telling you what my father said.”
“We could hire mercenaries,” Mandhi said. “How many do we need? We’re not fighting a war, just retrieving a child. A dozen men shoul
d be sufficient.”
“Most of the mercenaries in Davrakhanda are also Kaleksha,” Aryaji said. “They’d never do it.”
“Wouldn’t they? They would know something about the place we’re going, at least.’
“And the money,” Aryaji said. “Now we’re talking about hiring a ship and a crew and a private army. Mandhi, our hearts burn for the Heir, but where would we get this money? We might find someone to give us a boat, but also financing the fighting—”
“We… I don’t know.” She leaned forward and rested her head in her hands. “I don’t know, Aryaji. I’m just thinking, of something, of anything.”
The anger and frustration in her gut bubbled up, and she suddenly found herself crying. “My son, Jhumitu. Aryaji you don’t understand, he’s the only thing. In the last year…”
Her sobs came harder now, and her words came in jags with her tears. “My father died. My husband died. Taleg is gone, my father is gone, and all I have is Jhumitu. Not even Srithi is here. The only thing I have was taken—oh, my breasts hurt and I can’t sleep—Jhumitu, Jhumitu—”
Aryaji came forward and put her arms around Mandhi’s neck and pressed her cheek against Mandhi’s tear-soaked face.
“Everyone I know is in Virnas, Srithi and Veshta, and even Navran—what I wouldn’t give to see Navran, even—and here I am in Davrakhanda—I hate this place, I hate it, I hate Sadja-dar who brought me here—and I want my son.”
She spat the last words with unexpected violence. Aryaji recoiled a little, then leaned forward and embraced Mandhi again, pressing her hand against Mandhi’s other cheek and running a hand through her hair.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, Mandhi.”
Mandhi rested her head on Aryaji’s shoulder and let her tears soak Aryaji’s clothes. “What can we do?” she asked between shudders of sobs. “What can we do?”
Aryaji hushed her. “I don’t know,” she said.
Mandhi looked at the sky. The distant sea murmured, and the stars glittered in the foam of the harbor. Her heart felt like lead, sinking into the sea, to settle into the silt and die.
“You should sleep,” Aryaji said. “There’s still many hours before dawn.”
“Sleep,” Mandhi said quietly. “Sure.”
She stretched herself out on her mat and rested her head on the cushion. Mandhi sat beside her and held Mandhi’s hand. Sleep seemed as absent as the moon. She watched the ceiling and listened to the whisper of the ocean. Sorrow and anger burned beneath her ribs.
Sometime before dawn she fell into another restless dream.
* * *
“Nagiri-kha is here,” announced a servant at the door of her chamber, standing at stiff attention. “She inquired after you.”
“Really?” Mandhi said. It was mid-morning, but she had slept late and hadn’t stirred from her room. An untouched tray of tea and roti lay beside her.
“She’ll be on the north porch, if you’d like to see her,” the servant said.
Mandhi took only a moment to consider. “I’ll come,” she said softly. Nagiri was not the person she most wanted to see, but it was better than nothing. Aryaji rose from her position by the door to follow her.
“I’ll let her know,” the servant said. He bowed and slipped away.
Mandhi rose to her feet, and Aryaji leaped up next to her. Mandhi put a hand on Aryaji’s shoulder. “You can stay,” she said. “I won’t be gone long.”
Aryaji bowed her head. “Is something wrong?”
Aside from everything? But Mandhi shook her head. “I just… I’d like to go alone.”
“If you say so, Mandhi.” Aryaji sat down and picked up the bit of embroidery she had been working on.
Going through the palace halls by herself was a cool breath of excitement and relief. Aryaji’s company was fine, but it had been too much. The soreness in her belly was not healed, and Aryaji was too cloying, too earnest, too devoted. Nagiri was sympathetic, but she had her own interests. And at least she might distract Mandhi a bit.
She found Nagiri in the shade of one of the potted palms on the east balcony, looking up at the white stone cliffs which rose from the back of the palace to the inland plateau beyond. She sat with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face, and when she saw Mandhi her scowl only deepened.
“Sit down,” she demanded.
“Good to see you, too,” Mandhi said.
“Oh, whatever. I don’t have time. I only get to come to the palace when my father’s visiting now, and I have to make the most of the time.”
“Really?” Mandhi said, trying to pretend to care. She sat on one of the cushions across from Nagiri.
“Yes, he has me confined to our house,” Nagiri said, apparently oblivious to Mandhi’s tone. She sighed deeply and looked at Mandhi with her lips pulled down in a pout. “I’m supposed to get betrothed at the end of the summer.”
“The same man?”
“Chadru-kha,” Nagiri said. She flicked at a fly that had landed on her choli. “Way off in Kshayudi. They even want to hold the betrothal out there.”
Mandhi tried to muster some sympathy. “Having to move to the inland part of Davrakhanda. Miserable. It’s not as if I had to move to Davrakhanda from Virnas—”
“Oh, quiet.”
“—and then had my child stolen.”
Nagiri made a noise of irritation. “Well, if you’re just going to pout, then maybe we can’t help each other.”
Mandhi stretched her legs and touched Nagiri’s feet.
Nagiri gave her a strange look. “Is that how friends greet each other in Virnas?”
“No. I’m just stretching.”
Nagiri sighed and moved so Mandhi’s toes could no longer reach her. “Well, if you’re interested in hearing it, I might have an idea to solve both of our problems.”
A wave of hope swelled in her chest, only to break against the stones of reason. She couldn’t keep her disbelief out of her voice. “Nagiri, and how are you going to do that?”
The girl laughed softly. “Well, my father is interested in Uradha-kha and his son Chadru-kha mostly because they’re related to the regent Ashturma-kha.”
Mandhi’s frown deepened at the mention of Ashturma-kha’s name.
Nagiri noticed it and her eyes glittered. “See, you don’t like him either.”
“And he doesn’t like me now that I’ve been waking him up at nights.” Every night in the eight days since Jhumitu had been taken.
“Well, you’ll like my plan, then. What if Ashturma-kha is no longer regent?”
“That might help,” Mandhi said, though she had no confidence that Nagiri could possibly do that. “At least I might feel better.”
“A less timid man would have sent people after the Kaleksha,” Nagiri asserted. “But Ashturma-kha is afraid of Sadja-dar’s disapproval. He’s kept it quiet, kept anyone from sending news from Majasravi. I heard that from my father. But I’m going to give the regent what he’s afraid of.” She leaned forward and grinned wickedly. “I’m going to send a note to Sadja-dar telling him about Jhumitu’s disappearance. I get a note to Majasravi—or rather, if you do…”
Mandhi pieced it together immediately. If they alarmed Sadja sufficiently, he would return to deal with Ashturma-kha. He would fulfill Mandhi’s wish and send someone after the Kaleksha, and with Ashturma-kha’s disgrace Nagiri’s father would find a way to back out of the wedding.
“Not a bad plan,” Mandhi said. “But Ashturma-kha swears he already sent messages to Majasravi.”
“And you believe him?”
“No.”
“Then you understand,” Nagiri said. “And you owe me one after I got you out of the palace.”
“Eh, it might be better if I’d stayed in that night.”
Nagiri fell quiet. She looked at her toes for a bit, curling and uncurling them, playing with the hem of her sari. “I’m sorry about Jhumitu.”
The wound in Mandhi’s chest swelled with pain again. She closed her eyes against th
e tears welling up at their corners. A heavy breath. Her voice cracked, but she managed to speak. “It’s not your fault.”
“Sort of it is,” Nagiri said, and to Mandhi’s surprise her voice was thick with regret. Either she acted well, or the feeling was genuine. “I mean, if I hadn’t pulled you out of the palace, it would never have happened.”
“I wanted to go,” Mandhi said softly. “It was my choice.”
“Well anyway,” Nagiri said, breathing heavily. “At least maybe we can help each other out. But I think the letter to Sadja-dar should be in your hand.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s your son, obviously,” Nagiri said. “And it would look strange if I were writing to Sadja-dar about it. He might not even believe it coming from me.”
Mandhi murmured. “Of course.”
“So do we have a deal?” She looked at Mandhi with a curious mixture of urgency and desire, thinly covered by her haughty exterior.
“You just want me to write to Sadja-dar in Majasravi?”
“And make sure you cast Ashturma-kha in the worst light you can,” Nagiri said. “That’s the important thing.”
“Recovering Jhumitu is the important thing.”
“Right,” Nagiri said, her voice cracking a bit. “I meant beside that.”
Mandhi nodded. She doubted it would help, but she might as well do something. “I’ll write to Sadja-dar later today.”
“No no, not later today,” Nagiri said firmly. She snapped her fingers and waved one of the servants over. “Bring us a writing desk,” she commanded. “My friend and I must compose a letter.”
“I have my seal in my room,” Mandhi offered.
“Get it in a moment,” Nagiri said. The servant left, and Nagiri leaned close and whispered cheerily. “We have to make sure it sounds bad. Something that will definitely bring Sadja back to Majasravi, sooner rather than later.”
“I’ll try,” Mandhi said. A strange feeling. The hope that had failed her earlier returned, cautious but growing.
“It’ll be fine,” Nagiri said. She patted Mandhi’s hand. “Sadja-dar will return, I’ll come back to the palace, and I’ll never have to set foot in Kshayudi. You’ll see. Everything will be fine.”