Free The Mountain of Light by Indu Sundaresan Page B

old. Aziz let his eyes move upward, taking in her graceful figure under the gossamer, sea-green veil, that tight waist, that thinly muscled back bared beneath the strings of her choli, that long, curved neck bent under a mass of opaque indigo hair. On her right arm, just above the elbow, and gathered in the fabric of the veil, the Kohinoor diamond glowed softly. The ties of the armlet were pink-tasseled and hung to her waist. Aziz, who had seen and held the diamond in his hand when he took it from Shah Shuja over two decades ago, was mesmerized as the radiance of the sun percolated through the green of the veil and set the stone on fire. Thetwo surrounding diamonds were like paste beside it. She had ensnared the heart of his king, this woman, so firmly that he had given her the Kohinoor to wear. And, there was another reason. The baby she held, whom Ranjit Singh had named Dalip Singh, Prince of the Punjab Empire. A baby who could one day be king.
    â€œThis Emily, she is the Governor-General’s lady?”
    He didn’t answer immediately, and a young girl standing beside the Maharani turned and poked him in his chest. Azizuddin, who hadn’t really noticed her until then—because the women of the harem insisted upon having so many people hanging on to them—frowned and bent down to peer into her face. She grinned, flashing pristine white teeth at him, her cheeks deepening on both sides into dimples. Her blue-gray eyes were long and sloping, but it was her eyelashes that fascinated him—thick and so long that they brushed the tops of her arched eyebrows. She couldn’t have been more than ten or twelve years old. Wah Allah, Aziz thought, this child will grow up to break many men’s hearts. Who was she?
    She tugged hard at his beard, within her reach now, and whispered, “Answer the Maharani.”
    Aziz yanked his hair from her grasp; there was almost no one in the Punjab Empire who would dare to touch his person; he was the man who had the Maharajah’s ear, some said his affections also. He rubbed his burning chin and said, hurriedly, “Yes, your Majesty. He has another one, named”—that faltering again as he tried to decipher the word in his brain, “Fan-ee.”
    â€œHe’s a brave man to bring both of them along with him to meet the Maharajah. He doesn’t worry about them fighting? Or wanting his attention?”
    Jindan Kaur had been the only one of Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s wives who had accompanied him to the Sutlej River for this encounter with Lord Auckland, Governor-General of India. The others he had left behind at the fort at Lahore—timeenough for them to satisfy any curiosity they might have about the British embassy to the Punjab, because the British encampment was to travel through Punjab lands to Lahore, and perhaps beyond, as Ranjit Singh’s guests. The British wanted something from Ranjit, and it would take more than a mere meeting over the muddy waters of the Sutlej for that; this was diplomacy at its lengthiest best. In any case, in India, no decision was made either quickly or lightly, and it was often delayed so much as to not be necessary at all in the end, and the demanding side would be left with not a smidgen of discourtesy to be angry at, only a bafflement that it had all taken so long and yet they were where they had first begun . . . and damn it, everyone had still been so nice.
    â€œHe doesn’t, it would seem,” Azizuddin said with a trace of humor in his voice. The Maharani understood the politics of the harem well. And he knew, and she knew also, that it was the child Dalip who had been responsible for bringing her here with his king.
    The young Maharani swayed, rocking her baby. The infant pursed his lips, and turned his head to burrow into his mother’s breast, his arms and legs suddenly loose and puppetlike in sleep. She rested her nose upon his fragrant hair, thick and sleek already, just