I laugh again. “Urinating thanedars aside, it’s a nice place. Javeribad. My papa used to take me there when I was a boy to seek blessings at the Sant Javer temple. We’d tie scraps of cloth around…” I pause, suddenly embarrassed by the way I’ve been talking—even more so by the captivated look on her face.
“Around the branches of the old banyan tree outside,” Gul finishes my sentence in a soft, almost wistful voice. “People said that if you had a problem, all you needed to do was whisper it into that scrap of cloth and tie it around the tree. Sant Javer would take some of your troubles for his own. Which”—her eyes gleam with sudden mischief—“is quite a lot of work for one dead man, even if he was a saint. Don’t you think? Or maybe he’s a living specter.”
The joke isn’t that funny, but something about the way she says it makes me laugh again.
“If Sant Javer really wanted to help, he could do something about the poor rain we’ve had in Ambar over the past few years,” I say. “I miss eating levta.”
“Levta? You mean the black mudfish that breed in rain puddles?” Gul looks repulsed. “They’re so slimy!”
“They don’t taste bad fried.” I grin, remembering what some of the men in the tenements say. “Though you can eat them raw for added virility.”
“That sounds even more disgusting!”
The conversation leads to what we would eat for the rest of our lives if given a choice. I pick chandramas; Gul picks sohan halwa, a sticky Ambari sweet made of ghee, milk, flour, and sugar. We argue over the best way to ride a horse (Gul: bareback; me: saddled) and agree that the best sighting of the two moons takes place in the villages, where you can also see the stars, unlike the city, where magic can block them out.
Talking to Gul feels almost like talking to Bahar again. Not because they speak about the same things or even in the same way, but because of how light and unfettered I feel during our conversation—like a boy flirting with a pretty girl on an early spring day, the boy I might have been, perhaps, if Papa had not fallen ill.
The more we talk, the more of an excuse I have to look at her, to make note of her long, straight lashes, the tiny freckle in the hollow between her clavicles. I move closer almost by instinct, and it’s only the catch in her breath that reminds me of where we are, making me draw back.
“I’m sorry. I’m standing too close to you.” My voice emerges gruffer than usual.
“Not that close.”
Does she know how breathless she sounds? Does she care? I glance back in Malti’s direction, but she’s still riding Dhoop and laughing.
“She knows,” Gul says flatly. “She knows we’re … friendly.”
Friendly. Is that what we truly are? Is that what this strange buzzing underneath my skin means, now as I stand, less than an arm’s length away, close enough to slip a hand into hers?
“We are not friends, Gul.”
“Siya, remember?” A note of laughter enters her voice. “Though I don’t mind being called by my real name. Even if it is by a nonfriend.”
Had she been a simple non-magus girl, I might have smiled. Responded to the flirtation with one of my own. But there is nothing simple about this girl. Or the laws I’ve broken to get her in here.
“I am no one to you.” I turn away from the hurt I see in her eyes. “It’s best you remember that, Siya ji.”
A little before the sun is vertically overhead, I whistle for Dhoop to come back to me. The whistle is sharp, and, as a pony, Dhoop is trained to obey its call, though this will change as he and Malti grow older and they grow more independent as horse and rider. He trots back to me and licks my face.
The princess, on the other hand, appears put out. “So soon?”
“It will soon be time for your afternoon meal, Rajkumari,” I say, smiling. “Aren’t you hungry after your ride?”
Malti continues to pout. “I’m not that hungry!”
“Come, Rajkumari. We can’t keep Cavas from his work at the stables, can we?” Gul is smiling at Malti as well, but there’s a coolness to her tone now that wasn’t there before. “Besides, it looks like it is going to rain soon.”
She’s right. Rain clouds, so far away when the morning began, approach swiftly now, a gentle rumble going through the sky. Malti sighs but doesn’t argue anymore. The walk back to the stables is silent, hot despite the approach of the rain. By the time we reach the stables, a light drizzle begins, dampening the back of my tunic along with sweat. Another serving girl waits there, parasol in hand, to escort Malti back to the palace.
I expect Gul to leave with them, but to my surprise, she doesn’t move, her gaze fixed somewhere behind me. I turn around to see what she’s looking at and spy the three princes walking in the distance: Crown Prince Sonar, his cruel, handsome face laughing at something his brother, Prince Jagat, said. Lagging at the end is Prince Amar, his shoulders stooped from the weight of his thoughts.
I’ve seen many a serving girl pause at the sight of the princes, stare at them with open longing. Gul’s face, however, looks the way it might if a levta in all its slimy glory leaped out of the mud and onto her lap.
A drop of rain slides down her cheek and then another. It has been relatively dry this Month of Tears—though the clouds seem to be making up for that now, soaking through our clothes.
“My supervisor told me that women cannot visit Raj Mahal without the raja’s permission. Is that true?” Gul asks me.
“Yes. There is a rekha—a boundary you cannot cross in certain parts of Ambar Fort if you are a woman.
