The Starry Rift by Jonathan Strahan

Author:Jonathan Strahan [Strahan, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Viking
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

In the heat of the midday, a figure in voluminous robes came hurrying down the cool corridor to the zenana. Heer. I had summoned yt. Because yt was not a man yt could enter the zenana, like the eunuchs of the Rajput days. Yt did not fear the skills Leel had taught me. Yt knew. Yt namasted.

“Why have you done this to me?”

“Memsahib, I have always been, and remain, a loyal servant of the House of Jodhra.”

“You’ve given me into the hands of my enemies.”

“I have saved you from the hands of your enemies, Padmini. It would not just be the end of this stupid, pointless bloody vendetta.

He would make you a partner. Padmini, listen to what I am saying; you would be more than just a wife. Azad Jodhra. A name all India would learn.”

“Jodhra Azad.”

Heer pursed yts rosebud lips.

“Padmini, Padmini, always, this pride.”

And yt left without my dismissal.

That night in the blue of the magic hour Salim Azad came again to the zenana, a pattern of shadows beyond the jali. I saw him open his lips. I put a finger up to mine.

“Ssh. Don’t speak. Now it’s time for me to tell you a story, my story, the story of the House of Jodhra.”

So I did, for one hundred and one nights, like an old Muslim fairy tale, seated on cushions leaning up against the jali, whispering to Salim Azad in his Rajput finery wonderful tales of dashing Kshatriya cavalry charges and thousand-cannon sieges of great fortresses, of handsome princes with bold mustaches and daring escapes with princesses in disguise in baskets over battlements, of princedoms lost over the fall of a chessman and Sandhurst-trained sowar officers more British than the British themselves and air-cav raids against Kashmiri insurgents and bold antiterrorist strikes, of great polo matches and spectacular durbars with a hundred elephants and the man-bird-sun kite of the Jodhras sailing up into the sky over Jaipur, for a thousand years our city. For one hundred nights I bound him with spells taught to me by the nutes of the Hijras Mahal; then on the one hundred and first night, I said, “One thing you’ve forgotten.”

“What?”

“To ask me to marry you.”

He gave a little start, then waggled his head in disbelief and smiled. He had very good teeth.

“So, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes.”

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