Chapter 21 Matangi’s Request
Chandra’s hand shot out and fastened on Matangi’s wrist. The man whose pocket she was about to pick glanced back suspiciously when he saw how close Matangi had gotten. He tucked his bag of coin more securely into his belt and moved away hastily.
Matangi watched him disappear into the crowd and turned sulkily toward Chandra. “Why stop me? He was easy pickings.”
“When you are in this temple compound, you are going to curb your inclination to thieve. Even if it were easy pickings,” said Chandra, dragging the reluctant girl with her.
“Who be you to tell me what to do?” asked Matangi belligerently.
“Someone who vouched for you so you can enter the temple and fulfill your mother’s last wishes.” Chandra raised her eyebrows at her. “Or should I mention this to the elder who took an exception to you?”
“No, don’t do that,” said Matangi, shaking her head, her eyes panicked.
Chandra stopped abruptly and rounded on the girl. “What does Veer mean by hiring the bandits to be part of this troop here? What is his plan?”
Matangi turned a deep red at the mention of Veer’s name.
“Oh! For heaven’s sake, stop blushing every time his name comes up,” said Chandra, rolling her eyes. “He is not even that handsome.”
“Don’t need to act so lofty. I’ve seen you watching him too,” said Matangi pouting.
“Yes, I have,” said Chandra, not bothering to deny what was true. “To see what he is up to.”
Matangi pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Methinks that is not the entire truth.”
“Whatever.” Chandra shrugged, her thoughts instead on Matangi and how tough her life must have been.
No place to call home and separated, for the most part, from the only person she called kin.
It was natural for her to attach herself to someone who looked like he could offer her protection, family, and stability.
Veer had that look to him. No matter how much of a disguise he was in, there was no hiding that he came across like protector, a man who was capable of bearing burdens on his broad shoulders.
Matangi was an oddity, though. Women rarely lived a life on the road, out of the company of family in these parts. But the siblings had no one except each other, no parents or other relatives to take them in.
When Chandra had been working in secret in Amaravathi, she hadn’t given the bandits a second thought, other than to get rid of the pest they had become for her kingdom’s trade. Now she knew it was a little more complicated than that.
She was fascinated to learn most of them had occupations before they elected to join the bandits—farmers, cattle herds, and weavers. They were deserters from the kingdom of Thianvelli, fleeing from an oppressive regime.
Chandra and Matangi reached one part of the temple compound.
Although it was the crack of dawn, a festive crowd of people from the surrounding villages and pilgrims from far-off places already milled about in the courtyard.
Bright green banana trees complete with the overhang cluster of ripened fruit—said to represent prosperity—adorned the sides of every doorway.
Designs made from finely ground limestone decorated the black granite floor of the courtyard, their eye-popping color and intricate designs a testament to a girl’s skill.
The nutty smell of offerings made from ghee permeated the air, triggering memories of childhood delicacies.
The festival was only a few days away now, so preparations were going at a brisk pace. Several stone mortars were arranged on one side of the courtyard and women were pounding turmeric, needed in large quantities for the anointing of the idol.
They went to their assigned empty spot and joined the other women.
Chandra raised her pestle—a long cylindrical wooden piece nearly the height of a grown man—its added heft made it easier to grind larger quantities needed for an occasion such as the annual festival.
Matangi joined her with a similar pestle, smoothly segueing into the rhythm, alternating her strikes with Chandra’s.
Fine dust rose and spilled in a halo around the area, staining the bottom edge of sarees, a sunflower yellow.
Chandra became aware of the disgruntled expression still on Matangi’s face and asked, “What’s the matter, Matangi?
Are you still upset that I didn’t allow you to steal?
You can’t have it both ways, you know. If you want to be involved in temple duties and fulfill your mother’s wish, you need to give it up. ”
“What do you care what I want?” she said, sulking.
Chandra was taken aback. A slow burn of annoyance began at the girl’s belligerence. “Speak plainly, Matangi,” she said sternly. “I am not a mind reader. I cannot know what is bothering you if you don’t tell me.”
Matangi responded to the authority in the voice. She reluctantly revealed the source of her distress. “My brother and some of my friends are not allowed into the temple.” Her eyes wide with earnestness, she begged, “Please. Will lady ask Agrani for permission for them too?”
Chandra frowned, not breaking her rhythm. “You do realize we are strangers here. I can’t change the rules the people of this place have made.”
“But lady can ask…” pleaded Matangi.
“I have already called enough attention to myself. I can’t do more. I’m sorry.”
Matangi’s face twisted with disappointment that turned to anger. Her eyes glittered with tears.
“Spoken like a lady who never had to face this kind of rejection. You’ve done me no favor getting just one person permission to enter. My friends and brother think I am too big in the head when they see me in the temple, but they stay out.”
“I understand what you are saying…”
“Big lie!” Matangi cried. “How would lady understand what it feels like, to be a stranger among your own? How could you understand the looks the townspeople give me when they see my tattoos? They think I don’t have the right to expect decent things because I wasn’t born into the right caste.
” Matangi’s eyes shone bright and she hiccupped, her voice choking.
“Now my friends are angry and jealous that I am enjoying things that should belong to them, too, and I don’t know how to make right. ”
Their pestles fell silent.
“You’re right,” said Chandra, her hands clutching the wooden rod hard.
“Perhaps I don’t know exactly what you are going through, but I do understand more than you can guess, Matangi.
” She thought of her own estrangement from family and the reaction of polite society when she was unfortunate enough to come across them and imagined having to face that kind of discrimination all her life.
She sympathized with Matangi’s predicament, more than she expected.
But they were here on a mission. Like Veer said, lives were at stake, and she had to make difficult choices.
“You can’t change the world overnight. Learn to pick your battles.” Guruji’s said that to her often when she complained of the injustices she had seen during her work and of her own inability to do anything about it.
Something in Chandra’s tone seemed to click with Matangi or perhaps she sensed it wasn’t an idle claim. After a while, Matangi said, “You speak odd. Is what my brother is saying true? You be a princess of Amaravathi?”
Chandra stiffened and glanced around hastily. But the jangle of bangles that came from the synchronous pounding of multiple pestles, coupled with the gossip of assembled women, made their conversation relatively private.
A woman came over and crouched down to sample the yellow dust they had in the mortar. “This needs to be ground finer. I can still feel the flecks of turmeric between my fingers,” she instructed before leaving.
“’Tis all right,” said Matangi, lowering her voice slightly. “I only know ’‘cause I overheard my brother say. Won’t be telling no one.”
Chandra breathed a sigh of relief. Matangi continued. “So that must mean Veer really is a prince. And you two married for real?” The end of her sentence sounded as if she were hoping for a different answer.
“Yes.”
Matangi was so crestfallen that Chandra was compelled to add wryly, “He is too old for you, Matangi,”
“Pfft. Don’t know what lady’s talking about,” she said, turning her face away in embarrassed silence.
Chandra glanced up to realize that Matangi had been stealing glances at her for several moments, her mouth hanging open.
“What?” she asked.
“You be that princess of Amaravathi?! The one who tried to kill her husband on their wedding day and given punishment for it?” she asked in a hushed voice.
Chandra stilled, her pestle falling silent. Matangi seemed to have realized her gaffe and didn’t probe further but bent to her task. But not before Chandra saw the mixture of horrified fascination and pity in the girl’s eyes.
Nausea pooled in her stomach and her throat ached with humiliation. Really, she should have gotten used to such looks. But every time she thought she had grown a shell that shielded her, something came along to prove that it was as fragile as the wind.
The woman who had been doing the inspection came their way again and expressed her satisfaction of the texture of the turmeric powder.
Chandra crouched to scoop the powder in the round depression of the stone mortar into a container.
Job done, she was about to get up, eager to get away for a moment to gather her composure, when Matangi stopped her with a hand clutching her forearm.
“I be sorry, Princess, I…” Matangi looked miserable.
Before she could go any further, Chandra stopped her. “It’s not necessary. I’m quite used to it. But you are to call me Chandra when we are in public until I say otherwise. Is that understood?”
Matangi nodded frantically, eyes wide. “I…Princess…er…Chandra, don’t know if you are aware, but my brother and the prince plan to rob the temple.”
“What!”
Chandra was so flabbergasted by this news that she didn’t even chastise Matangi for using the word “prince.”
Matangi grabbed her hand, her face tight with worry.
“I heard him when he was talking to my brother. They be stealing the idol just before the immersion. Have it all planned too. I tried to get my brother to not agree, but he be adamant.” She lowered her head and her voice turned bitter.
“Would’ve helped if my brother and his group were allowed into the temple to pray. ”
Chandra understood now why the girl had begged her, to find a way to allow other people inside the temple. You instinctively shied away from committing a crime if you considered the object sacred.
“I thought Princ—Chandra might not know about it. You don’t look like you’d agree to this sort of thing.”
Thoughts and arguments skittered in Chandra’s brain.
She needed to talk to Veer. How dare he make plans like this without telling her anything?
All those excruciating nights for the past two weeks, when she was forced to endure his company, for the lie he told Agrani about them being newlyweds, and he couldn’t find the time to mention such an important thing to her?
She needed to speak to him as soon as possible and didn’t think she could wait until the evening when they were alone. She had an idea how to get his attention fast.
“Matangi, I need you to do something for me…”