CHAPTER 1
Like all creatures of the desert, I had learned to sleep off the worst of the day’s heat and to enjoy the cooling breezes that came with the night. All around me, the city of Bikampur was springing to a second life, invigorated by the same chill air that rippled across the surface of my own skin and threatened to snatch my dupatta from my head. My ears were filled with the sounds of men and women conversing from their canopied rooftops, their low murmurs of conversation mingling with the cries of street vendors and the rattling of their carts on the limestone-paved streets. There was nothing that stirred my heart quite like the magic of a desert night, and I followed close on the heels of our guru, Varsha, as she led us out of the courtyard’s front gate.
“I heard that Govind Singh’s haveli has gems embedded in the walls,” Sakshi said to me, drawing me out of my thoughts. She was baiting me, fighting to keep a grin off her face.
“So?” I asked, giving her the shrug she expected, showing her just how unimpressed I was with such a paltry display of wealth. Once upon a time, when I was young and foolish, I’d made such comments in earnest, but those days were long past, and now it was a game I played with her and no one else.
Sakshi rolled her eyes with the drama of a performer and groaned. “Well, we weren’t all born in the lap of luxury like you, Razia. Who was your father again? The sultan of Nizam?”
My heart skipped a beat. Did she remember? I hadn’t mentioned him in years. I swallowed the knot of fear in my throat that always rose up at the mention of my homeland and kept my voice light. “No one so famous. But my father’s mahal did have gems embedded in the walls, and his throne was pure gold.” I hoped the details would distract her from my father’s precise identity. I trusted Sakshi with my life, but I’d never been able to make her understand the danger I was in, and I didn’t want to. She wouldn’t be able to sleep if she knew the truth.
“And you rode your first zahhak when you were four . . .” Sakshi heaved a wistful sigh. Her whole life, she’d always wanted to ride a zahhak, but had never got within a hundred paces of one. I relaxed a little as she stared off into the distance, no doubt imagining herself atop an azure-winged thunder zahhak. This was what she’d been after—a daydream. Sometimes I wondered if that was what she thought my past was—nothing more than a bedtime story I told myself to feel important.
“Enough of that nonsense,” Varsha chided, and I knew it was for my benefit. Unlike Sakshi, she hadn’t forgotten who my father was, and she was clever enough to know the dangers my identity might bring down upon our heads if anyone were to find out. “Razia, I don’t care if you grew up in a royal palace or a gutter, our clients don’t like arrogant girls. So you’ll act impressed, even if you think Govind Singh is a camel herder with delusions of grandeur.”
There was more truth to Varsha’s words than she would have openly admitted. Govind Singh was a wealthy man, to be sure, but he had made most of that fortune investing in camels, or more particularly, in camel-laden caravans, which ferried goods from the interior, across the trackless desert, to the port cities of the south and the west. It was a far cry from the ideal for a Registani nobleman; they were supposed to be ferocious warriors who enriched themselves through force of arms.
But whatever I thought about Govind Singh, my guru was right: I couldn’t afford to be arrogant. I was a hijra, and while I belonged to a wealthy dera, my social standing was below even the most debased laborer. That was the bargain I had struck to live as my true self. There were times when I regretted it—nights when I missed my family, and my zahhak, Sultana, and the palace, but they were surprisingly few and far between. As difficult as life could be here, at least my life was my own, and at least I was me.
“Hot samosas! Hot jalebis!” a street vendor cried into the darkness, as he shoved his cart in the direction of the bazaar.
“Want to go to the bazaar after we’re finished with Govind Singh?” Sakshi asked me, her eyes lingering over the samosa walla’s cart, stories of gem-studded palaces forgotten in the wafting aromas of fried pastry dough and spiced potatoes.
“If Razia does her job well, she won’t be going home tonight,” Varsha reminded her—and me too. She glanced in my direction. “And you will do your job well, won’t you, dear?”
“Of course, Ammi,” I replied. I even managed to sound cheerful about it, though inwardly I was dreading the night to come. I didn’t know much about Govind Singh, but nobody had ever told me that he was handsome. Still, he was rich, so that was something. If I did well, I might earn myself a pretty bauble or a few silver rupees. It wasn’t much, but it would go toward the money I was saving up to start my own dera someday. Then, I would take on young girls like me and train them in the fine art of making men desperate for their affections. Not that there was much art to it. I found that a wiggle of my hips and an alluring glance usually sufficed.
The houses around us began to shift as we made our way into the Neelam Mandi, the wealthiest part of the city. Gone were the mud-brick buildings in which the bulk of the city’s populace dwelled. Now, the gradually widening streets were lined with fine havelis of sandstone, their facades covered in intricately chiseled floral motifs. They stretched up above us, higher and higher as we walked, the tallest being five or six stories above the hustle and bustle of the street.
“When I’m a guru, I’m going to have a dera like that one,” Sakshi declared, gesturing to a tall building of pink sandstone, whose ground floor was ringed all around with arched doorways. The doors stood open, letting in the night air, but each entrance was guarded by a servant in a cheap white kurta wielding a sizable club.
“With the way you spend money?” Varsha laughed. “Sakshi, you’ll be lucky if you can afford a hut on the outskirts of town.”
“I’ve just had a lot of expenses this month is all, Ammi,” she replied, looking to me for support.
“Fortunately, she has a few years to save up,” I said, which brought a smile to Sakshi’s face, though I thought we both knew that there wasn’t a chance in the world that she would ever set foot in a house as beautiful as that one without being hired by its owners to do so.
“Not that it matters,” I told Sakshi, resting my arm across her shoulders. “Ammi has big plans for our dera, and a rising tide lifts all boats.”
“So I do,” Varsha agreed, but her tone told me not to say anything more, not out on the streets where people could hear.
I didn’t need the warning. I wasn’t stupid. If anyone found out that I was robbing our clients, I would be the one facing the punishment, and I wasn’t in any hurry to lose my head to the executioner’s sword just yet. Fortunately, I didn’t have time to linger on that line of thought, as we had arrived at Govind Singh’s home.
His haveli dominated one whole side of the Mahal Bazaar, its pink sandstone walls towering over those of its neighbors. The stone flowers and vines that snaked across the building’s facade were so delicately wrought that but for their color one could have been forgiven for believing that they were living, growing plants. A pair of men stood guard at the doors. Their colorful silk kurtas and gleaming armor set them apart from the common servants who served as the watchmen in the houses of the lesser nobles, as did the spears and shields they carried in place of the ubiquitous wooden clubs.