Page 74 of The Secret Keeper of Jaipur

I find the Maharani Indira much changed. Her hair, without my signaturebawchioil, has thinned. It’s more salt than pepper now. I used to meet her in the drawing room—the same place I met with Maharani Latika only two days ago. Now the dowager maharani lies in the mahogany bed amid satin pillows stuffed with goose feathers. The table next to her bed contains many jars of ointment and bottles of pills. Vases of sea hibiscus, magenta roses and sunsetchampakdo little to disguise the medicinal odor.

The old queen is smaller, shrunken, her cheeks are hollow. Before, she seemed to fill the room with her bawdy jokes and gin-infused laughter. Now she lies quietly with her eyes closed.

“Wait a little while and she will wake up,” the nearest lady-in-waiting says to me. I study the dowager’s face. The skin around her mouth and cheeks, so used to stretching into a smile or a laugh, has gathered into folds, making her appear older than her seventy years.

One thing that has stayed constant is her love of jewelry. Her neckline is adorned with akundanchoker, its teardrop-shaped diamonds and cabochon rubies reflecting the light from the open doorway. Her matching earrings also feature teardrop diamonds surrounding a center ruby. Pearl and ruby bangles, now too large for her thin arms, threaten to slide off her wrists.

Another noblewoman indicates an armchair by the maharani’s bedside, and so I sit, setting my carrier on the floor beside me. I think back to the day Her Highness first received me and changed my life forever.

Twelve years ago, after the dowager hired me to cure the Maharani Latika of her depression, rumors spread—as rapidly as the macaques jumping from tree to tree—of my incredible powers to heal royalty. Everyone wanted a piece of me then. My business grew to the point Malik and I worked from dawn till sundown to fill orders for henna applications, custom oils and healing lotions. If not for the generosity of this woman, all of that may never have happened.

The maharani opens her eyes, still sharp and filled with mischief as they once were. “Lakshmi, you’re thinking so loudly, my dear. You woke me up.”

Her face is gaunt, but her smile is radiant.

She offers me her hands and I take them. The many ruby, emerald and pearl rings are loose on her fingers.

“Your Highness, I am surprised to learn you’ve returned to Jaipur. The charms of Paris aren’t enough for you?” I tease.

“The men certainly are.” She releases one of her spicy laughs. “And the food is divine. But after a while, I missed our turmeric, coriander and cumin. I longed for the scents of ripe mangos. Those whitest of whiterath ki rani.”

She rubs her thumbs over the henna design on my hands. “And this.” She pulls my hands closer to her nose and inhales the plant’s lasting aroma as well as the geranium oil I use to moisten my skin.

“The scents of my India.” She closes her eyes.

Has she drifted off to sleep? Slowly, I start to remove my hands from hers. Then her eyes pop open. “Tell me, my dear, what have you been up to since we last met? And catch me up on news of my young friend Malik.”

I open my mouth to speak, but she interrupts me by lifting her hand. She twirls her gnarled index finger in a circle. “Let me see.”

Her eccentricities make me smile. I lift thepallu, whichI had respectfully covered my hair with, and let it fall over my shoulder. Then I turn my head in one direction and then the other.

“Excellent, my dear. Still a well-shaped head. The mark of a good entrance into the world. Excellent.”

From my previous dealings with her, I know the Maharani Indira feels that if a person’s birth had been easy, if they’ve left the birth canal unscathed, their karma is good and that karma will follow them into their present life. Whether or not this is true doesn’t matter. She is headstrong in her beliefs and contradicting her is futile.

“Thank you, Your Highness. I’ve brought my henna supplies with me. If you will permit me, I would like to decorate your hands while we talk.”

She raises her splendid brows in surprise. “Well, now.” She glances at the nearest lady-in-waiting. “I think that can be accommodated.” The other woman gestures to an attendant, who brings a table for me to set my supplies.

I remove her rings and hand them to the nearest noblewoman. Then I open a bottle of clove oil from my carrier to warm her hands and massage them. My fingers, of course, are naked. My hands are too often immersed in soil or applying poultices to wounds to warrant decoration.

Her skin is like apeepal-leaf skeleton: dry but pliable. She watches as I pull her fingers one by one, smoothing the crevices between them. I roll my thumb over the fleshy part of her palm. When was the last time anyone touched her in this way? I wonder. As a royal, she has the power to allow intimacies; but no one may take that liberty without permission.

“Any special requests?” I ask.

“I trust you to do what you think best, my dear.”

She closes her eyes as I start drawing with the henna paste I brought with me from Shimla. I tell her about my work at the Healing Garden in Shimla, my marriage to Jay—

“Ah, that explains the lovely redbindion your forehead. So you married that doctor, the one we appointed as royal physician in Shimla for the adoption that never was? My dear, you do astound me!”

My heart flutters in my chest. The dowager is a clever woman. Did she ever consider that we deliberately sabotaged Niki’s adoption? All these years we’ve let her think he was born unhealthy and, therefore, unfit to be adopted as the Crown Prince of Jaipur. If only she could see the robust cricket-obsessed boy Niki is now.

Some lies are best kept secret.

I tell her how Jay offered me the opportunity to work at the Community Clinic he founded; how he’s worked hard to treat the local people in the holistic manner that’s most comfortable for them.

“He sounds like an honorable man,” she says. Her voice is fainter now. She is beginning to sound drowsy.

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