And the poet, Baldev. He was an older man, heavyset as only the wealthy could afford to be, with a square jaw and nose that was a firm, aquiline blade. That noble face of his was a rictus of fury, and of fear.
“I found this one outside,” the soldier who’d dragged Rao in said gruffly.
“One of yours, is he?” This was asked of Baldev, by another soldier.
Baldev looked at Rao.
Rao thought of the way he had eked a space out for himself at these salons, slowly coaxing one of Baldev’s followers into extending him an invitation. He thought of the questions he’d asked Baldev, once the poet’s mistrust had thawed somewhat and he’d begrudgingly come to believe that Rao was not a man with ill intentions and was merely what he’d claimed to be: a Parijati man with a scholar’s bent, high ideals, and a desire to see Ahiranya free.
He thought of what Baldev had revealed to him. The secret half shared after the last salon.
I know someone who may be able to help you.
“I do not know this man,” Baldev said, looking Rao up and down with visible scorn.
“Are you sure of that?”
“I do not consort with men who are not of my own people,” said Baldev. His voice was sonorous, a rumbling velvet made for poetry and politics. Now, it was weighty with deliberate distaste for the drunk Parijati man sprawled upon the floor—and for the soldiers surrounding him. “This house is full of depraved Parijati lechers like him. By all means, arrest them all. I would be glad to see my land free of them. He is no acolyte of mine.”
The women, the men, all studiously avoided looking his way. He returned the favor and stared at the floor.
“Fine,” said another soldier. He spoke softly, but the cuff of silver on his upper arm marked him as the commander. His eyes were unblinking. “I have a few simple questions for you, poet. Answer with innocence, and you may go.”
“A riddle, is it?” Rao glanced up and saw that Baldev’s smile was mirthless. It was only the puckered tightness of that smile that told Rao he was afraid at all.
As he should have been. Beneath the knife edge of adrenaline, beneath the watchful patience that long years of court and weapons training had inculcated into him, Rao was afraid too.
“Did you have any involvement with the attack on the regent’s mahal?” the commander asked.
“No,” said Baldev.
“The night the conch sounded—you were here?” The commander’s voice was mild.
Silence. Perhaps the reality of what lay before Baldev was sinking in.
“Yes,” Baldev said finally. “We were here. My acolytes and I.”
“Preaching a rebel political ideology,” the soldier prompted.
Baldev said nothing.
The commander took a single step forward, hands clasped behind him.
“Do you have many women come to your… lectures?” The commander’s gaze slid to the women huddled together, shaking faintly with fear. “Speak. Or I’ll gut another man.”
“No. Not many women.”
“Are you sure, poet?”
“Women of repute don’t often enter pleasure houses.”
“We hear Ahiranyi women don’t worry much for their reputation,” said one of the other soldiers. Another next to him laughed. Those two, Rao noticed, did not wear exactly the same uniforms as the rest. They did not have the regent’s mark on their turbans, and the man’s common-speech Zaban did not have the lilting Ahiranyi accent. “What are these women, then? Whores?”
“Hold your tongue,” their commander said evenly.
“Sorry, Commander Jeevan,” the man said. He did not sound particularly repentant.
“Speak,” the commander said to the poet.
“Maidservants,” the poet said stiffly. “Nursemaids. Respectable enough.”
“You’ll have no trouble remembering one particular woman, then: small, young. No taller than that one over there.” He gestured at one of the women, who let out a small exhale—of terror and anger both—without raising her gaze. “Dark skin. You know her?”
“That could be any number of women.”
“She called herself Meena.”
“No,” said Baldev. “I don’t know this woman.”
“Until recently,” the commander continued, “she was a maid at the regent’s mahal. She tried to kill his guest. A messy business. Luckily she was stopped.” A pause. “We wondered,” he said, “where a woman may go to learn such things. A maid. And here you are, poet.”