The Last Queen Read online

  Dedication

  To my three kings:

  Abhay, Anand, Murthy

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Major Characters

  Prologue

  I. Girl

  Guavas

  Manna

  Lahore

  Hovel

  Horse

  Shalimar

  Scorpions

  Banquet

  Gurdwara

  II. Bride

  Sword

  Zenana

  Sheesh Mahal

  Transformations

  Wedding

  The Royal Game

  Birth

  Dejection

  Mehfil

  Illness

  Decision

  Departure

  III. Queen

  Jammu

  Chand

  The Stillborn

  Amritsar

  Sher Singh

  Coronation

  Love and Hate

  Jawahar

  Treachery

  IV. Rebel

  Kathmandu

  Calcutta

  England

  Koh-i-Noor

  Prophecy

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Praise for Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

  Also by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Major Characters

  Rani Jindan Kaur: the last queen of Punjab. Daughter of the royal dog trainer, Manna Singh Aulakh, she became the youngest wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Mother of Maharaja Dalip Singh and queen regent during his reign

  Maharaja Ranjit Singh: the greatest Sikh ruler, he built a powerful Sikh empire and protected it from the British

  Maharaja Dalip Singh: youngest son of Ranjit Singh

  Fakir Azizuddin: Ranjit Singh’s ambassador, and adviser to Jindan during her early years in the Lahore court

  Rani Guddan: one of Ranjit Singh’s wives who became a close friend of Jindan

  Jawahar Singh: brother of Jindan

  Lal Singh: nobleman in the Lahore court

  The Dogras: three brothers who rose to eminence under Ranjit Singh

  Gulab Singh: the eldest brother, later became ruler of Jammu and Kashmir

  Dhian Singh: the second brother, was Ranjit Singh’s wazir and continued as wazir for Kharak Singh, Chand Kaur, and Sher Singh

  Suchet Singh: the youngest brother

  Rani Pathani: wife of Dhian Singh, she befriended Jindan

  Hira Singh: son of Dhian Singh, and Jindan Kaur’s first wazir

  Pandit Jalla: Hira Singh’s adviser

  Kharak Singh: oldest son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, he became king after Ranjit Singh

  Chand Kaur: wife of Kharak Singh and mother of Naunihal

  Naunihal Singh: son of Kharak Singh

  Bibi Kaur: wife of Naunihal

  The Sandhawalias, Ajit Singh and Lehna Singh: relatives of Chand Kaur and members of the powerful Sandhawalia clan

  Mai Nakkain: chief queen of Ranjit Singh and mother of Kharak Singh

  Mangla: Jindan’s favorite maid

  Avtar: Jindan’s chief guard

  Maahi: Jindan’s attendant in later years

  Jung Bahadur: prime minister of Nepal

  Aroor: Dalip’s attendant in England

  Lord and Lady Login: guardians of Dalip Singh after the annexation of Punjab

  Major Henry Lawrence: an agent of the British and, later, Resident at the Lahore court

  Prologue

  Lahore, 1839

  JINDAN HASN’T SLEPT FOR TWO nights now, waiting by the sickbed of Maharaja Ranjit Singh along with his other wives. They’ve recited the Guru Granth Sahib until their throats are raw. Birth and death are subject to the command of the Lord’s Will. . . . He who believes in the Name becomes victorious. They’ve given away their finest Kashmiri shawls, jewels, cows, horses, elephants, sacks of gold coins. Jindan doesn’t own as much as the other queens. She came to her marriage empty-handed and has never cared to cajole gifts from her husband. But she, too, has gifted a triple-stranded gold necklace to the Jagannath temple hoping for the recovery of the Sarkar, as his people lovingly call him.

  She kneels on the marble floor, grateful for the stone’s coolness, and rests her head against the carved gold bedpost. As the maharaja’s youngest wife, and his favorite, she’s allowed certain liberties. The other women sit straight-spined, palms joined stiffly. Some of them send her cutting glances from under their veils. She doesn’t care. It’s stuffy in this room with too much whispering, too many people—Hindustani vaids, European physicians, the senior courtiers, servants, priests, punkha pullers—and of course the wives, covered from head to foot as custom dictates. Above her head, the canopy bears down, a solid sheet of beaten gold. It oppresses her. Surely it oppresses the maharaja, too. He’d prefer to lie on the roof, she knows, in sight of the stars, as was his pleasure on summer nights. He’d breathe better there in the open with the city that he conquered and made his own stretching out beneath him. The intricate, beloved tapestry of Lahore, city of myth, fashioned from the wilderness before time began by Lav, son of Ram.

  But to whom can she say this? Who will listen to her? The power she possessed even a few days ago, as the Sarkar’s favorite queen, has faded.

  In a corner of the chamber, the chief minister, Wazir Dhian Singh, his thin, sharp face chiseled from granite, stands still and stern though he must be as exhausted as they. More so, because he has been going back and forth every hour, informing the nobles waiting in the Diwan-i-Khas of the latest developments, reminding Kanwar Kharak Singh to stay close by so he can get to the chamber right away if the king calls for his eldest son and heir. Making sure the army is kept in readiness, just in case the British decide this is a good moment to cross the Sutlej River. In the city they whisper that were it not for Dhian Singh, the day the Sarkar dies the kingdom would shatter like a mud pot dropped by a careless housewife.

  Dhian watches the doctors with keen suspicion as they administer medicines and poultices. Where his master is concerned, he trusts no one. When Ranjit Singh mumbles, he’s the one who interprets the sounds rightly and strides forward with a lota of water. He holds the gold pot to the maharaja’s lips, raising his head as tenderly as a mother. The maharaja takes a slow sip and whispers something. Dhian’s eyes widen and, for a moment, dart toward Jindan. He looks troubled, but he touches the maharaja’s hand to his forehead, a gesture of fealty. What is he agreeing to?

  Jindan’s temples pound. The mirror-tiles on the walls glitter mockingly. Bits of Dhian’s story float up in her mind: how he came from distant Jammu, young and hungry, knowing no one in the big city. A common trooper, he caught the Sarkar’s attention and rose rapidly, even though he wasn’t Sikh but a Hindu. Her husband was always open-minded that way—quick to spot talent and even quicker to reward it. Perhaps that is why he invoked lifelong loyalty in so many men.

  Jindan wishes the Sarkar would open his eyes. Look at me, she wills him. Just once. Then she feels selfish. You don’t need to look at me. Just open your eyes, that’ll be enough. How small he appears in the bed, as though he’s shrunk in these few days. The women have started a new chant: They who practice truth and perform service shall obtain their reward. She joins them, lips moving automatically to the familiar words, but inside her head a different litany plays: What will happen if he dies? What will happen to my baby, my Dalip, who is not even a year old?

  She pushes away that traitorous thought. The king has weathered worse. Illnesses, accidents, injuries, hunts and battles gone wrong, his thigh clawed by a tiger, a spear tip brea
king off in his chest. Didn’t he survive them? The smallpox in his childhood that took his left eye. The disease in the brain, a few years back, that caused him to fall to the ground, unable to move the left side of his body for days. Didn’t he triumph over them all, ruling the greatest kingdom left in Hindustan? The only man with enough power to hold back the British? That’s how it’s sure to be again. A few weeks and he’ll be laughing that raucous bark of a laugh, asking for his favorite horse, Laila, to be brought to him, feeding her lumps of jaggery with his own hands before springing onto her back. He’ll be calling for more wine, more dancing girls, fireworks, pleasure boats, wrestlers, qawwaali singers ferried all the way from Lucknow. And after they’ve all left, it will be just the two of them, intertwined in the cool underground chambers of the Summer Palace, her lips traveling over his body the way he likes . . .

  She’s reeled back into the present by Dhian Singh’s announcement that the queens must return to the zenana quarters. Jindan gathers her courage and protests. “Let the others go; I need to remain. I won’t be in anyone’s way.” She knows how to make herself small and invisible. She learned it in her village childhood from her brother, Jawahar. A useful skill when one needs to escape chastisement. “I have to be here when my Sarkar calls for me, as he surely will.” She imagines her husband’s hand reaching for her, finding nothing. But Dhian shakes his head, courteous, implacable.

  Jindan is forced to adjust her veil and file out with the other queens. They don’t look at each other. If they see their fear reflected in another’s eyes, it’ll become real. It’ll bring the Sarkar bad luck.

  The ministers have lined up in the passageway outside. The Crown Prince, Kanwar Kharak Singh, stands at their head, looking confused. He’s a good-hearted man but weak and, she’s heard, overfond of opium. Dhian straightens Kharak’s jeweled turban for him, disapproval obvious in his fingers.

  A servant rushes up with a gold bowl containing saffron paste. Jindan knows what it’s for. In the presence of his courtiers, the Sarkar is going to put a tika on Kharak’s forehead, binding them to the new king in loyalty so that his beloved Punjab will be safe after he’s gone.

  * * *

  THE HAVELI THE KING gifted Jindan when she gave birth to Dalip ten months ago is her favorite place in the world. She has never owned a home before this. Her childhood was spent in a village hut belonging to a foulmouthed landlord who was always threatening to throw them out. The haveli has a few small rooms; its walls are plain yellow sandstone, its floors, slabs of gray, its windows, no more than slits. It is nothing like the palatial homes where the important ranis live, with majestic arches and domes, walls inlaid with precious stones, and mosaic floors intricate with Mughal designs. She wouldn’t have felt at home there; the Sarkar, a perceptive man, and kind when statecraft allowed him to be, knew that.

  But tonight she strides blindly through the house, taking no comfort in it. Her maid Mangla, who has been watching over baby Dalip, hurries forward to ask how the Sarkar, God protect him, is doing. Jindan shakes her head. She can’t speak.

  “Dalip is hungry,” Mangla reminds her.

  Jindan’s breasts ache, full and heavy. It would be a relief. But no. She has only a little time. She must use it in the best way.

  “You give him milk,” she tells Mangla. “You lie down with him.”

  Usually, Jindan loves nursing Dalip. His weight in her arms, his sucking mouth, that sudden joyful release in her chest. The way his trustful limbs slacken when he falls asleep. But tonight she’s glad that she started him on cow’s milk a few weeks ago. He’s a good baby. He mostly sleeps through the night. Even when he wakes, he will not cry for her. He’s used to being with Mangla because of all the nights Jindan spends with the Sarkar. That’s a good thing. If Dalip cries, she can’t think. His distress cuts into her like a saw.

  “Eat something,” Mangla begs. “You haven’t eaten since yesterday. At least drink a little buttermilk. I made it the way you like, with salt and crushed mint.”

  Jindan is touched by Mangla’s concern. But she can’t. She must stay focused. She must carry out the resolution that came to her when she was sent away from the Sarkar’s chamber.

  In her bedroom, she takes her thick braid and knots it to one of the bars of the window. This way, if she nods off she’ll be jerked awake. Her plan is to stand at the window all night, facing the samadhi of Jhingar Shah. He was a great saint, the protector of the qila. His spirit still resides in his tomb. When Dalip had the bloody flux, she fasted and prayed there for twenty-four hours, and the next morning her baby opened his eyes and smiled at her.

  She’ll beg the saint for his blessing all night. Tomorrow, the Sarkar will be better.

  She tightens the knot to make sure it won’t come loose. She faces the samadhi and clasps her hands so hard the skin turns white. She feels the prayer pulsing in her belly.

  If Jindan wants something badly enough, she can make it happen. She believes this completely. Isn’t every major event in her life, all twenty-one years of it, proof of this?

  How else could she, a girl from a no-name family on the outskirts of a small town, end up in Lahore, city of emperors? How else could she possess a haveli in the heart of this fortress textured by centuries of history? How else could she, the daughter of a dog trainer, become the Sarkar’s favorite queen? How else could she give him what many of his wives, though they were married to him in his prime, failed to produce: a son to delight his old age?

  She is about to learn how wrong she is.

  I

  Girl

  1826–1834

  1

  Guavas

  I’M DREAMING OF MOUNTAINS, ICY and terrifying, when a surreptitious sound wakes me. It’s very early, the sun barely risen. I sit up cautiously on the frayed charpai I share with my mother and my older sister, Balbir. I must not disturb them. Once they’re up, the morning will no longer be mine.

  Silence all around except for Biji’s mild snores. Then I hear it again, the cautious click of a wooden door. I extricate myself from under Balbir’s leg. She’s a greedy bedmate, a stealer of pillows in the summer and of our shared quilt in the winter, quick to pinch me if she thinks I’m being insolent, and quicker to complain that everyone treats me better because I’m prettier.

  I hurry out to the yard. The charpai where my brother Jawahar sleeps is empty. But the hanging chain-latch on the outer door still sways lazily. I rush outside without changing my night salwar-kameez. I have only two other pairs anyway, both for school. I don’t bother with sandals. Where we live, on the muddy edge of Gujranwala, it doesn’t matter.

  My brother’s off on another adventure. I’m determined to share it this time.

  Jawahar’s adventures mostly have to do with stealing food, because we never have enough to eat. Unlike the children of poorer families, we can’t beg either. That would destroy our father’s reputation as a big man. Our father, Manna Singh Aulakh, works—and lives—in the Badshahi Qila in Lahore; he’s told us that Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Sarkar himself, speaks to him every day. It wouldn’t do for the townspeople to see his children begging. My mother is the hardest worker I know, a skilled embroiderer of phulkari shawls. But there are many talented women in our village and not enough business. So Jawahar steals. He usually sets his spoils next to the wood-burning chulha for Biji to find: corn from a khet, grain laid out to dry, mangoes from someone’s orchard. Biji accepts them wordlessly, thankful and ashamed at the same time. Jawahar always keeps aside something for me: a juicy apricot, or a handful of sweet jamuns that turn my lips purple. We sit on the bank of the grass-choked stream that stutters along behind our hut, pretty enough but sadly devoid of fish. I listen with hushed breath as he tells me how he crept into the orchard, how he managed to outrun the guard dogs. At eleven, he’s only two years older than me, but there’s no one in the world I admire more. I want to be a provider like him, not just a mouth to feed.

  Today, I’ll prove myself.

  I run down the d
usty path and when it forks—cornfields to the left, orchards to the right—choose the orchards, praying to Waheguru that I have chosen correctly. Is it appropriate to pray on a thieving mission? It must be, for there’s Jawahar, loping along, bony-shouldered, barefoot like me because he broke his chappal straps months ago. I catch up with him, panting.

  Hearing footsteps, he whirls around, fists up. When he sees me, he scowls. “Go home, Jindan. Now.”

  I beg. “Please, veer. Please.”

  Finally he gives in, mostly because time is passing. Soon the farmers will come to water the trees, and we must get away before then. I slip my delighted hand into his. We run to the guava groves.

  High in the branches, we search for the riper fruits. I’m proud of how I scrambled up the tree, keeping up with Jawahar, though in the process I ripped my salwar at the knee, which is bound to earn me a beating from Biji. There are fewer guavas than I’d hoped for.

  “Not the season yet,” Jawahar explains, “but later you won’t be able to get into the grove because the farmer will hire guards.”

  I bite into a fruit that’s green and tart. I know I’ll get the runs if I eat too many, but I’m so hungry. Jawahar’s deft fingers seek out the best guavas. He drops them into his jute bag. He gives me a couple to tie into the corner of my kameez. The bag is getting respectably full. He whispers that he might be able to trade with a neighbor who’s not too finicky about where things come from: a handful of guavas for a bowl of wheat. Then he stiffens. There’s a green turban in the distance.

  “The owner,” Jawahar whispers. “Quick! Jump!”

  He’s down already, ready to run. But the ground looks so far.

  “Come on, Jindan.”

  Panic freezes me. The turban bobs, closer now. I’m crying. We’ll get caught because of me.

  “Do what you did when you went up, only backward.” His voice is calm and patient. “One foot at a time. I know you can do it.”

  I start down, still sobbing. But I’m too slow.

  Jawahar says, “I’m going to distract him. You take the bag and run. Go by the river path. The grasses will hide you. Put the bag in our special place behind the broken kiln. Don’t tell Biji anything.”