The British cannons had been growling for a week, but inside the crumbling walls of the fort, the Queen was silent.
"I am going to ride to the eastern gate," the Rani said. "General Rose has five hundred men there. I have fifty."
"Is that... the Prince's hair?" Kashi whispered, her voice trembling. The young prince, Damodar Rao, had been smuggled out of the fort the night before, hidden in a basket of hay. Manikarnika.The.Queen.Of.Jhansi.2019.480p.Blu-R...
"Come here, child," the Queen said, not looking up. Her voice was calm, like the river after a storm.
She handed the satchel to Kashi. "You are not a soldier, child. You are a memory. You will crawl through the drainage tunnel after dark. You will find the old priest in the Peshwa quarter. You will give him this." The British cannons had been growling for a
"Where are you going, Maji?" Kashi asked, using the word for mother.
Kashi clutched the satchel with the baby’s hair to her heart. She dropped to the stone floor and crawled into the dark tunnel, leaving behind the fire, the cannons, and the legend that was already burning brighter than the fort. Kashi survived. The priest kept the lock of hair. And though the British took the fort, they never found the Queen inside it. Because the next morning, they learned she had galloped out, fought her way through the siege, and disappeared into the jungle—to fight another day. I have fifty
"Fifty?" Kashi gasped. "That is death!"