On the other hand, Jahanara had made clear to her sisters that the royals were to present a united front to the nobles of the court. Roshanara, true to her reputation, was not complying. Indifferent to her duties to the royal family, Roshanara had decided to come here instead of joining the rest of the noble ladies and her royal sisters when the shooting started.
As Smidha, Monique, and Ilsa walked from the covered galleries and into the jasmine-scented night, they could see Roshanara had installed herself on the central platform of the garden where she had apparently rousted a number of her brother’s dancing girls and a pair of blind musicians and commanded them to perform for her.
Her thoughts were interrupted when Roshanara, her back to Smidha and the Mission women’s approach, flung a goblet at one of the dancers for no other reason Smidha could see than it entertained her to do so.
The goblet clipped the side of the girl’s head, sending her sprawling in what Smidha hoped was a welter of wine, not blood.
Roshanara’s drunken laughter filled the garden as the dancers stopped abruptly.
Disgusted if not entirely surprised by the princess’s behavior, Smidha shook her head. Where Jahanara had stopped indulging in temper tantrums once she came of age, Roshanara had frequently indulged even the slightest inconvenience by beating her nurses.
Slowing, Smidha’s heart swelled when her gaze found two particular women among the dancing girls. Glad neither had been Roshanara’s victim, she gave each woman a tiny nod. Both gave somewhat more obvious nods in return, but Smidha doubted very much that Roshanara would notice.
Setting herself as if to carry a heavy load across uneven ground, Smidha stopped a few steps from the platform and cleared her throat.
The musicians, their performance already drowned by the constant arrhythmic percussion of the battle and Roshanara’s behavior, stopped playing. They were long accustomed to taking such inaudible cues from Smidha.
“Roshanara Begum, you will come with me,” Smidha said.
“What is this?” Roshanara asked, refusing to turn and look at her.
“You will come with me,” Smidha repeated.
“I will do no such thing, servant.”
An angry Monique stepped up next to Smidha and, before the older woman could stop her, said, “Jahanara Begum commands it, Roshanara.”
The outburst got the princess’s attention. She turned her head and glared at Monique. “I don’t care if you are Jahanara’s pet ferenghi, you will not speak to me in such tones. I’ll have you whipped.”
Monique smiled. “You are welcome to try.”
Roshanara’s expression slipped from angry hauteur to angry suspicion before she mastered it.
“Come with me, now,” Smidha said.
“You think you can threaten me?” Roshanara asked, voice rising as she got to her feet.
Smidha laughed. “Threaten? Why would I threaten you?”
“I—”
“When we can just make you come along?” Smidha interrupted, lifting her chin.
The two dancing girls rushed the platform and, vaulting it with the smooth grace born of hard training, grabbed the princess.
“Unhand me!” Roshanara screamed. “I have done nothing wrong!”
Smidha tutted, raised a forefinger before the princess’s face and waggled her head as if instructing her. “You have done a great many wrongs, Shehzadi; we are just seeing to it you do nothing wrong for the next little while.”
Roshanara screamed again, struggling to free herself from the dancing girls, to strike at Smidha.
The response from her captors was immediate and, from their smiles, something they rather enjoyed: one thrust a knee into Roshanara’s gut with an economical move Smidha presumed she’d learned defending herself from highborn bastards thinking they could take advantage. When Roshanara reflexively folded over her abused belly, the other girl wrenched the arm she held behind the princess’s back.
“I would not give these young women yet another excuse to mistreat you, Roshanara.”
“I have done nothing!” Roshanara gasped.
Smidha sniffed and regretted it. Roshanara’s breath was redolent with wine. Nonetheless she pointed at the girl who was being helped to her feet by the remaining members of her troupe.
Roshanara followed the line of Smidha’s finger to rest on the dancing girl. She tossed her head, dismissive. “That, that’s nothing!”
“No, Roshanara, she is someone. She is the girl you hurt out of petty spite, for no other reason than you could.”
“No, it is nothing. Nothing compared to what I will do to you once Aurangzeb rules!”
Smidha hoped she kept the sudden thrill of fear she felt run down her spine from reaching her face and asked, “You admit to working for the pretender?”
“Pretender?” Roshanara scoffed. “Can you not hear the sound of his guns? He is the strongest!”
Smidha shook her head and passed the nearest dancer a length of silk cord to bind their prisoner with.
Roshanara’s struggles were more violent but no more effective this time. She ended up facedown on the grass and gasping for air as the girls bound her hands together behind her back.
“Here I was, worrying Jahanara’s order to confine you might be excessive.” Ilsa’s tone was light as she stepped close to Roshanara, but Smidha did not miss how one hand cupped her belly and the baby growing there. “But now I wonder if we shouldn’t just throw you to your brother? Perhaps from atop the nearest tower?”
“Ferenghi bitch!” Roshanara spat. “You and yours will be first to die!” A sudden heave bounced one of the dancers off her back.
“That’s not very nice,” Monique said, straddling the princess with a length of dark silk in one hand. Leaning down, she ground an elbow into the small of Roshanara’s back.
When the princess’s head came off the grass, Monique slipped what turned out to be a silken bag over it.
“You seem entirely too practiced at that, Monique,” Ilsa said.
Monique grinned. “Papa was right: there is no such thing as a misspent youth.”
“Really?” Ilsa asked.
Monique shrugged, still grinning.
Smidha shook her head. These people were almost as
