An Oblique Approach

The one Maratha woman she knew—had known for years—clutched her yet more tightly. But, for the first time since they had met again, under the most unexpected circumstances, stopped weeping. Her name was Jijabai, and her mind was lost in horror. But perhaps, Shakuntala thought—hoped—the horror would begin to recede and sanity return. Horror had begun for that woman when she had been taken from her princess. Now that her princess had returned, perhaps Jijabai could return also.

But there was nothing more that Shakuntala could do for Jijabai at the moment, beyond hold her. So she gazed elsewhere.

The Maratha woman seated immediately to the prince's right blew out her own cheeks, smiled broadly, and leaned into the prince's shoulder. The prince's arm enfolded her gently. She closed her eyes and nuzzled the prince's neck.

Shakuntala knew a bit about this one, from her conversations with the prince the day before. Her name was Tarabai, and she was the prince's favorite. Prince Eon had asked her to return with him to his homeland and become one of his concubines. Tarabai had readily agreed.

The prince had obviously been delighted by that answer. Almost surprised, like a boy whose idle daydream had come true.

Shakuntala had found his delight quite informative. She had been trained to observe people by the most observant man she had ever known. A man whose sense of humor was as keen as his perception—and that, too, that wry and tolerant way of perceiving people, Shakuntala had learned from him.

So, on the one hand, she was amused by the prince's delight. What woman in Tarabai's position—a Maratha captive cast into a hellhole of a slave brothel—would not have jumped at the chance to become a royal concubine? (A true concubine, in the honored and traditional sense—not one of the abject creatures which the Malwa called by the name. A woman with a recognized and respected status in the royal household. Whose children would not be in line for the succession, but would be assured positions of power and prestige.)

But there had been nothing supercilious in Shakuntala's amusement. Quite the contrary. She had respected the prince for his bemused delight. She had been taught to respect that kind of unpresumptuous modesty. Not by teaching, but by example. By the example of a man who never boasted, though he had more to boast about that any man produced by India since the days chronicled in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

(But that thought brought pain, so she pushed it aside.)

Tarabai's actions, and the prince's response, told Shakuntala much else. Her own father, the Emperor of Andhra, had possessed many concubines. Shakuntala had often observed them in her father's presence. Her father had never mistreated his concubines. But not one of them would have dared initiate such casual and intimate contact in the presence of others. Her own mother, the Empress, would not have done so. (Not even, Shakuntala suspected, in the privacy of the Emperor's bedchamber.)

A cold, harsh, aloof man, her father had been. Every inch the Emperor. He had brooked familiarity from no one, man or woman. Nor, so far as the princess knew, had he ever expressed the slightest tenderness to anyone himself. Certainly not to her.

There was no grievance in that thought, however. Her father had been preoccupied, his entire life, with the threat of Malwa. Years ago, Shakuntala had come to realize that, in his own hard way, her father had truly loved her. He had placed her in the care of a Maratha chieftain—in defiance of all custom and tradition—for no other reason than that he treasured the girl and would give her the greatest gift within his power. To that gift, the princess owed her very life.

(That thought, however, brought pain again. The princess forced her thoughts back to the moment.)

So, a gentle and tender prince as well as a modest one. A warm-hearted prince.

And a resourceful one!

Shakuntala repressed a giggle. Childish! Stop.

It was difficult. The princess had an excellent sense of humor, when her temper was not aroused. And, for all its tension, the episode had been rather comical.

The prince had found her in the cupboard where Raghunath Rao had hidden her. Just as planned. On a shelf barely big enough to fit a girl, a jug of water, a bit of food, and—her nose wrinkled slightly, remembering—a bedpan. With a stack of linens piled on top of her.

As soon as he had taken possession of the guest suite in a corner of the palace, Prince Eon had sped to open the cupboard and retrieve Shakuntala. In passable Marathi, the prince had begun to explain the details of the scheme. Shakuntala had kept her eyes averted, for the most part. The prince had been in a hurry to wash the blood and gore off his body. (The princess, hearing the sounds of the battle raging in the palace grounds, had been hard-pressed not to climb out of the cupboard and watch.)