Ritoban Chatterjee
Chapter 1: The Stolen Queen
The chandelier above the Durbar Hall shimmered like a suspended constellation, each crystal catching the firelight from antique lamps placed along the carved marble columns. Outside, the Rajasthani dusk had settled into velvet darkness, and peacocks wailed somewhere in the thorny quiet of the palace gardens. Inside, the Mahaveergarh Palace buzzed with curated charm—foreign collectors, art connoisseurs, and minor royals sipped wine and traded glances beneath centuries of fading murals. They had all come to see it—The Dream of Jodha Bai—a painting whispered about in closed circles, unseen by the public for over two hundred years.
On a raised platform, draped in silk, the painting glowed under museum lighting. The queen sat by a lotus pond, veiled yet unmistakably sensual, her eyes catching the viewer’s gaze like a secret dared. The frame was Mughal gold, chipped in one corner, but otherwise untouched by time. At precisely 7:45 p.m., the Maharaja’s voice rang out over the hall, announcing the official opening of the exhibit. A polite round of applause followed, and flute music from the inner zenana drifted in like perfume.
By 8:10, the painting was gone.
The silence that followed the discovery was not immediate. It was, like the air before a desert storm, breathless and waiting. A waiter stumbled first—he had been carrying a tray of silver tumblers when he saw the empty frame. A second later, a woman screamed. By the time Inspector Rajveer Rathore arrived, the Durbar Hall had been locked down, and thirty-seven guests stood corralled in embroidered panic. No one had seen a thing. No alarms. No noise. No broken glass. Just one painting, gone like a whisper.
Rajveer walked slowly to the dais, his black boots echoing on the marble. His face was unreadable under the yellow light. He had been posted to Mahaveergarh six years ago, and this was the first crime inside the palace walls since the smuggling incident of ’97—and even that had involved opium, not history. His eyes scanned the surroundings, then rested on the mahogany CCTV monitor wheeled in by a sweating technician. A shaky recording looped: at 7:58 p.m., a figure in a cream shawl moved past the camera outside the exhibit. The shawl lifted briefly, revealing a right wrist marked by a tattoo. A camel. Stylized, almost Persian in its curve.
Rajveer leaned in.
“Pause it,” he said.
The technician froze the frame. Blurry, grainy, but visible—the hump-backed beast inked in black, the line art curling like a calligraphic flourish. Rajveer’s jaw tightened. In Rajasthan, a camel tattoo wasn’t rare. But this design—it looked old, regal, something out of forgotten scrollwork. He scribbled a note in his leather-bound pad.
At 8:40, a palace staff member came running into the Durbar Hall, panting, face white as ash.
“Sir… below the floor… behind the display…” he wheezed.
Rajveer followed him past the dais, where a loose marble tile had been pried open. Inside the hollow space—no more than a foot deep—lay a cloth bundle. Dust-covered, fragile. Rajveer opened it slowly, revealing a leather-bound book, its pages brittle and yellow, the ink faded but elegant. A royal insignia—Mahaveergarh’s crest—was embossed on the cover, along with a name nearly rubbed out by time.
Devyani.
“Who’s this?” Rajveer asked aloud.
The staff exchanged glances. One elderly caretaker stepped forward, voice hesitant.
“Queen Devyani, sir. A consort. From the 1930s. Her name is not… often mentioned.”
Rajveer arched an eyebrow.
“And why is that?”
The man hesitated. “She… disappeared, sir. Some say she died in the plague. Others say she was banished.”
Rajveer stared at the diary.
“Send this to forensics,” he said, then paused. “No. Wait. Get me an art historian. One who can read this.”
The caretaker cleared his throat. “Sir, there’s one already in Rajasthan for the exhibit. Anaya Rao. From Mumbai. She translated the Rajasthani ballads on the display cards.”
Rajveer nodded once.
“Get her. Now.”
Across the palace, under a jharokha balcony, Anaya Rao sat alone with her drink, ignoring the ripples of drama swelling through the stone corridors. She had seen the empty frame. She had heard the whispers of theft and scandal. But what interested her more was the smell—old books and sandalwood drifting from the cellar. She had felt something strange earlier while examining the tapestries. A pull. A silence with meaning.
When the guard came for her, she was already on her feet.
Back in the hall, the guests had begun to murmur louder. Some demanded to leave. Some accused each other. The Maharaja himself had retreated into the Blue Room, face pale and hands shaking over a glass of brandy.
Anaya arrived beside Rajveer, her travel bag still slung across one shoulder. She brushed her thick hair behind her ears, unbothered by the tension. Her eyes fell on the diary.
She picked it up gently, cradling it like a lost child.
“Devyani,” she said aloud, tasting the name. “Why does that sound like a ghost?”
Rajveer looked at her, then nodded at the CCTV still.
“Someone stole a queen tonight. But it may not have been the first time.”
Anaya opened the diary. The first page had a date—2nd October, 1934—and a line written in elegant Hindi.
“They took away my name, but not my memories. One day, the walls will speak for me.”
She looked up, her eyes shining with intrigue.
“The queen didn’t disappear,” she said softly. “She hid herself in ink.”
And somewhere in the palace, behind shuttered doors and stitched smiles, a thief with a camel tattoo carried a painting that once belonged not to the present—but to a voice the palace tried to erase.
Chapter 2: Ink and Ashes
Anaya Rao sat cross-legged on the marble floor of the palace study, her shoes discarded and her shawl pooled beside her like a forgotten curtain. The diary of Queen Devyani lay open in her lap, its pages feather-light and slightly charred at the edges, as if someone had once tried to burn it but lost their nerve. The ink, faded to sepia, still danced in graceful Devanagari—an old dialect with soft curves and broken rhythms. She had read enough royal memoirs to know when something was authentic, and this—this was no forgery.
Across from her, Inspector Rajveer Rathore leaned against an antique bookshelf, arms folded, watching her with barely concealed impatience. The heavy door to the study was shut, muffling the distant arguments of palace officials and furious royal descendants.
“So?” he asked. “What does the queen say?”
Anaya didn’t look up. “She says… they silenced her with velvet gloves.”
Rajveer’s brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”
“It means they erased her gently.” Anaya flipped a page, pointing to a poem scrawled in the margins. “Listen to this:
In the mirror behind the moonlight hall,
a dancer waits with no face at all.
Her anklets whisper stories lost,
of love that came at too high a cost.”
Rajveer straightened. “You think it’s metaphor?”
“No. I think it’s a map. A metaphor would have been less… deliberate.”
She traced the faded lines with her finger. “She mentions a mirror, the moonlight hall, and a dancer with no face. That’s not poetry. That’s instruction.”
Rajveer exhaled, walking to the window. The palace beyond glowed faintly in the night, its sandstone façade bathed in amber light. “Why now?” he muttered. “Why bring all this back?”
Anaya closed the diary carefully. “Because someone wants us to. The painting was a trigger. But this diary… this was planted. No one accidentally stashes a royal consort’s memoir under an exhibit floor. Not unless they want to be found.”
Rajveer turned back to her. “You think the thief wanted us to find the diary?”
“I think the thief is following the diary,” Anaya said. “Or descended from someone who was meant to.”
He looked unconvinced.
She stood, brushing marble dust from her kurta. “You still don’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust puzzles that begin in poetry.”
“Then you’re going to hate what comes next.”
She walked past him and opened the door.
Outside, the night air had turned colder. A light breeze whistled through the palace arches. Anaya followed a memory from the diary’s pages, searching for the “moonlight hall.” Rajveer followed her reluctantly, muttering something about wild goose chases and over-imaginative scholars.
They passed through a courtyard flanked by elephant statues, their trunks raised in perpetual salute. Beyond it lay the Moonlight Hall, so named for the polished white marble tiles that shimmered silver under moonbeams. At one end, a grand mirror framed in ivory still stood, veiled by thick drapes.
Anaya paused, heart thudding. She reached out and pulled back the drapes.
The mirror had cracks spiderwebbing across its surface, but it still reflected the room—except for one thing.
There was no reflection of the opposite wall.
Rajveer noticed it first. “Where’s the wall?”
They turned together.
The actual wall was solid sandstone, but in the mirror, it shimmered strangely—like a curtain of mist. Anaya stepped closer, pressed her palm to the stone. Cold. Uneven. She tapped twice.
Hollow.
She smiled. “Velvet gloves,” she whispered. “Gentle erasure.”
With some effort, she found a groove and pushed. The panel gave way with a sigh, revealing a narrow stone passage. Dust exploded into the air, making Rajveer cough.
“You go first,” he said, pulling out his flashlight.
Inside, the corridor was damp and echoing, the air thick with centuries of stillness. Paintings hung crooked on the walls—half-finished portraits, some slashed, some faded into nothing. At the far end was a wooden door sealed with rusted iron.
Rajveer turned the handle.
Inside was a chamber—small, circular, and lined with tapestries. In the center, on a crumbling pedestal, lay a frame covered in red cloth.
Anaya stepped forward, heart racing. She lifted the cloth.
Beneath it was a painting. Another queen. Another Jodha?
But this one was different.
Her face was turned. Her anklets were prominent. And there was no signature—except for one tiny mark in the corner.
A camel. Drawn in Mughal calligraphy.
Anaya looked up at Rajveer.
“She signed it,” she whispered. “Devyani painted this.”
And suddenly, everything clicked.
The thief wasn’t stealing a painting.
They were reclaiming a legacy.
Chapter 3: The Camel Mark
It was nearly dawn when Anaya stepped out of the hidden chamber, blinking into the faint indigo light bleeding into the palace courtyard. Her hands were smudged with age—ink, soot, and time clinging to her fingers like whispers from the past. In her arms, she carried the painting they had found hidden behind the Moonlight Hall, wrapped in the same red cloth that once veiled it from view—and from history.
Rajveer followed silently, flashlight off, jaw set in unreadable tension. The discovery of the painting had rattled more than his investigative instincts—it had shaken the foundation of everything he had grown up believing about the palace, his lineage, and the polished fictions passed down at royal dinners.
They walked in silence through the corridor of lion frescoes, past faded mosaics and chandeliers that hadn’t been lit in decades. Somewhere in the distance, a temple bell rang—its chime soft but unmissable, like a warning disguised as prayer.
Once back in the study, Anaya placed the wrapped frame on a table and turned to Rajveer.
“She signed it,” she said quietly. “The camel mark. It’s on the corner.”
He didn’t speak.
“She wasn’t just a consort. She was a painter. Possibly the real artist behind The Dream of Jodha Bai. The version displayed at the exhibit may have been Devyani’s original, or it may have been a replica crafted to erase her.”
Rajveer narrowed his eyes. “Why would anyone erase her?”
Anaya crossed her arms. “Because history prefers clean lines. Queens who obey. Artists who are male. Love stories without scandal. But if Devyani had an affair with a court artist—or was one herself—she became dangerous to the royal narrative.”
Rajveer exhaled slowly. “You think the thief knew all this?”
“I think they’ve known longer than we have.”
She opened the diary again, flipping to a page marked with a star. A passage near the bottom caught her eye.
He inked the camel on my wrist, saying I should carry the desert with me. But I told him: the desert was already inside me, dry and patient and waiting.
She looked up. “It wasn’t just a symbol. It was a connection. A mark of love. And now… maybe of lineage.”
Rajveer walked to the window. Outside, the sky was warming to pink, but the palace still slept, its secrets too exhausted to rise with the sun.
“Have you heard of Sajid?” he asked suddenly.
Anaya blinked. “No. Who is he?”
“A desert guide. Used to work for the palace’s heritage tourism wing. Disappeared last year. He had a tattoo—same design. Camel in Mughal calligraphy.”
Anaya’s heartbeat quickened. “Do you have a photo?”
Rajveer walked to a cabinet and retrieved a thin file. Inside were a few grainy pictures—tourist IDs, camel fair registrations, and one black-and-white photograph of Sajid standing beside a camel. His sleeve was rolled up. The tattoo was unmistakable.
Anaya traced the outline on the photo. “He could be a descendant.”
“Or someone who believes he is.”
Rajveer flipped through the file. “There’s more. He was obsessed with Devyani. Used to claim she was never given her due. Told tourists that she had painted most of the Mughal-themed miniatures the palace owns. Everyone dismissed him as a romantic.”
“Maybe he wasn’t wrong.”
Rajveer closed the file and rubbed his temple. “This is getting bigger than art theft.”
Anaya smiled faintly. “It always was. You just didn’t see it yet.”
There was a knock at the door. A guard entered, breathless. “Sir, the Maharaja requests your presence. Urgently. There’s a media team outside. Word has leaked.”
Rajveer cursed under his breath.
Anaya held up a hand. “Let me go instead.”
He frowned. “You’re not palace staff.”
“No, but I’m the distraction you need. While I handle the press, you can go back to Sajid’s trail. Find out who his family is, who he was in contact with before he vanished. The painting’s just the start. The real story is in the blood.”
He hesitated, then nodded.
Outside, the courtyard had begun to stir. Guards moved faster. Doors slammed louder. And in the east, the sun edged higher, throwing long shadows through the ancient palace corridors—shadows that now held meaning.
As Anaya stepped toward the entrance hall, she caught sight of her reflection in a mirror.
For a second, just a flicker, she saw a different face behind her own.
A woman in royal silk, eyes burning with purpose, anklets glinting like small weapons.
Then it was gone.
But the queen had signed the crime.
And the palace was finally beginning to read.
Chapter 4: Echoes in the Courtyard
The morning breeze carried with it the smell of marigolds, dry earth, and old limestone. Anaya stood at the palace gates, flanked by two guards in crisp uniforms, her eyes adjusting to the flashing cameras and murmurs of the press. Behind her, Mahaveergarh loomed—a tired fortress awakened by scandal. Journalists jostled forward like bees around honey, hurling questions laced with urgency and suspicion.
“Was the painting insured?”
“Who is the suspect?”
“Is it true the thief was a palace insider?”
Anaya raised a hand. “Please. The investigation is ongoing. What I can confirm is that a historically significant artwork has gone missing—and that a second, previously unknown painting has been discovered on the premises.”
Murmurs rose. Microphones pushed closer.
“Another painting? Of what?”
“A female figure,” Anaya replied, careful with her tone. “We’re verifying authorship, but early evidence suggests it may have been painted by Queen Devyani herself—an overlooked royal figure who may have played a far greater role in the palace’s artistic history than previously believed.”
That was all she gave them.
Back inside, Rajveer moved through the servant quarters, questioning elderly retainers and scanning dusty ledgers. Most of the palace’s old employees had either died or moved away, but one name repeated in whispers—Begum Salma, a former maid who once served in the eastern wing where Devyani had lived.
She was now ninety-three and nearly blind, living in a village two hours away.
Rajveer drove out just after noon.
The village of Kalapathar was a speck of ochre and blue on the edge of the desert, its mud homes crouched low against the sun. He found Begum Salma under a neem tree, her thin frame wrapped in white, eyes clouded but alert. She smiled faintly when he introduced himself.
“You’ve come for her,” she said, before he asked anything.
“For who?”
“Rani Devyani. She used to paint by the window. Always in silence. Only the rustle of her anklets and the scratch of brush on canvas.”
Rajveer sat beside her on the charpai. “Tell me what you remember.”
Begum’s voice was soft, almost melodic. She spoke of a queen with laughing eyes and steady hands. Of secret meetings at midnight with a court artist named Muneer. Of paintings hidden behind fabric walls. Of an heir born in silence and taken away before he could cry a second time.
“His wrist,” she whispered. “When he was born, he had a birthmark. Shaped like a camel.”
Rajveer’s breath caught.
“And then?”
“They said he died. But she never believed it. She wrote to him. Painted him. Waited for him.”
“Where did the child go?”
“They never said. But I remember, after she vanished, a guard left the palace quietly. Took nothing. Just rode out into the desert with a satchel.”
She touched Rajveer’s hand. “If her blood returned to reclaim what was hers, do not stop him. Sometimes, what we call theft is really remembrance.”
Back at Mahaveergarh, Anaya had returned to the secret chamber.
She examined each painting on the wall—half-finished faces, shadows of women with absent eyes, landscapes blurred as if time itself had wept over them. One canvas drew her in. A dancing girl. But instead of a face, there was a mirror—carefully attached where the face should be. Anaya caught her own reflection.
It startled her.
Because it wasn’t just her face.
Behind her—reflected only in the painting’s mirror—stood a figure in red silk, veiled, anklets glinting.
Anaya turned sharply. No one.
But the air held a chill.
She stepped back, her heart pounding.
Devyani had left more than paintings.
She had left presence.
Chapter 5: Bloodlines and Betrayals
By the time Rajveer returned to Mahaveergarh, the sun had dipped low behind the palace domes, casting long shadows across the sandstone walls. The desert air had cooled just enough to stir the jacaranda trees in the courtyard, their purple blossoms trembling in silence. Dust clung to his shoulders, but he didn’t stop to shake it off. He walked like a man unraveling—each step slower than the last, as if the palace itself weighed more now than it had that morning.
He didn’t report to the palace guards. Didn’t call the district office. Instead, he climbed the winding staircase to the study, where a golden pool of lamplight spilled across the floor and Anaya sat cross-legged, her brows furrowed over the brittle pages of Queen Devyani’s diary. Scrolls, old maps, and painting catalogues formed a fortress around her, and beside her sat a half-drunk cup of tea gone cold.
She looked up as he entered, her eyes catching the shift in his posture before he spoke.
“You found something,” she said softly.
Rajveer closed the door behind him and walked over to the table. He didn’t sit. He opened the leather folder in his hand, laying out two items in slow succession: a black-and-white photo of Sajid, the missing desert guide with the camel tattoo—and an ink sketch from Devyani’s diary, brittle and faded, of a man cradling an infant. The baby’s wrist bore a small, unmistakable mark: the silhouette of a camel, drawn in one bold brushstroke.
“He wasn’t a myth,” Rajveer said quietly. “Devyani had a child. A boy. Conceived in secret, likely with the court artist Muneer. The records say he died. But according to the maid who served Devyani… the child was taken away. Smuggled out. By a trusted guard.”
Anaya leaned forward. The photo and sketch were decades apart, but the resemblance was uncanny. The birthmark. The bone structure. Even the eyes.
“So Sajid—he’s not just obsessed with Devyani’s legacy,” she whispered. “He is her legacy.”
Rajveer nodded. “Most likely her great-grandson.”
Silence bloomed between them, heavy and reverent. For a moment, all the palace’s grandeur felt like nothing more than an elaborate tombstone—history built on secrets and decorated with gold leaf.
“He wasn’t stealing,” Anaya murmured. “He was reclaiming.”
Rajveer sank into the chair across from her, fingers rubbing his temple. “But that doesn’t change the law. A painting was still taken from a secured exhibit. The press is swarming. The royal family is furious. If I don’t bring someone in soon…”
“They’ll spin the story,” Anaya finished. “And Devyani will be erased again.”
They sat in silence. Then she reached for the diary, flipping to a page Rajveer hadn’t seen before. A dated entry, near the end.
“The walls grow smaller each day. They whisper my name, but not my truth. They will remember me wrongly unless the blood I bore remembers me first.”
Anaya closed the book.
“She knew,” she said. “She knew someone would come looking. That her story wasn’t over.”
Rajveer stood again, walking to the arched window. The desert stretched out in the distance, infinite and unknowable.
“If Sajid took the painting,” he said, “where would he go?”
“Not to sell it,” Anaya said. “He wouldn’t risk that. He’d want to protect it. Restore her name.”
They looked at each other. And then, at the same time, both spoke the name aloud.
Jaisalmer.
A forgotten mural Anaya had spotted earlier had shown Devyani and Muneer visiting a desert shrine near the outskirts of Jaisalmer, years before her banishment. It was a place far enough to vanish, sacred enough to matter.
Rajveer nodded. “We leave at dawn.”
Anaya looked at the sketch again—of the man and the child, of the mark passed down like an unfinished signature.
“He’s not the thief,” she said softly. “He’s the signature the queen left behind.”
Chapter 6: The Royal Forger
The road to Jaisalmer stretched like a ribbon of memory across the desert, unwinding between dunes and scattered acacia trees. Rajveer drove with one hand on the wheel, the other gripping the camel-marked sketch on the dashboard as if it were a compass. Anaya sat beside him, flipping through the diary once more, her voice low as she read aloud Devyani’s cryptic notes—half memoir, half map.
“They forged more than paintings, Muneer. They forged memory. Made me a muse when I was the hand behind the brush.”
The sun burned high, but inside the SUV, the air was sharp with tension and dust. Neither of them said it aloud, but they knew what they were chasing wasn’t just a man or a missing painting—it was a fracture in history, a wound that someone had finally dared to reopen.
They reached the outskirts of Jaisalmer by mid-afternoon, navigating narrow alleys baked golden by the sun. Locals pointed them toward an abandoned haveli near the ruins of Kuldhara, a ghost village wrapped in stories of exile and silence.
The haveli was crumbling—latticed windows missing their panes, faded murals peeling off like old bandages. Yet, it breathed with presence. As they entered, the floor creaked beneath their steps, and the scent of turmeric and old oil paint lingered in the air.
In a back room, under layers of dust and cloth, they found what they hadn’t dared hope for: easels. Pigments. Brushes laid out as if their owner had just stepped away for a moment. And on the wall, protected by a pane of thick glass, hung the original Dream of Jodha Bai.
Anaya approached slowly, her breath caught in her throat.
“This one… it’s real,” she said. “I can feel it. The brushwork, the layers, the strokes—they’re not for display. They’re for memory. Intimate. Defiant.”
Rajveer scanned the room and found another object: a small box of letters, yellowed and tied with string. Inside were pages addressed to “A.D.” — Aurat Devyani. The handwriting was unfamiliar, but precise.
Each letter was a confession. And one in particular stood out.
“I could not let them bury your name, my queen. I copied your work, yes. But only to protect the original. Yours lives in the dunes now, among our people, not their glass vaults.”
— Sajid
Anaya’s fingers trembled. “He’s not just a descendant. He’s the guardian of a legacy.”
Suddenly, footsteps echoed behind them.
They turned.
A man stood in the doorway, lean, sun-browned, a scarf wrapped around his neck. His wrist bore the familiar mark. The camel. Older now than in the photo. But unmistakable.
Sajid.
He didn’t run.
He stepped forward, hands raised slightly, his voice calm but firm.
“You’re here for the painting,” he said. “But you’ve already found the truth, haven’t you?”
Rajveer didn’t answer.
Anaya took a step forward. “We’re not here to arrest you. We’re here to understand.”
Sajid looked at the painting. “That’s all I ever wanted. For someone to look at her work and see her.”
He walked over, pulled a hidden latch in the wall. A compartment slid open to reveal another frame—an almost identical version of The Dream of Jodha Bai, but cruder, flatter.
“The forgery,” he said. “The one I replaced at the exhibit. The real one never belonged in that palace. It belonged here. In her story.”
Rajveer stared at him. “You knew they’d come after you.”
“I hoped they’d find her instead,” Sajid said simply. “Now tell me—will you take me in? Or will you take her home?”
Silence hung in the air, thicker than the heat.
Anaya turned to Rajveer.
“Well?”
He didn’t answer at first. Then, slowly, he reached into his pocket and took out a folded cloth. Inside it was Devyani’s diary. He placed it on the table, beside the painting.
“No one’s going to believe this,” he said. “Not unless we make them.”
Anaya smiled. “Then we write a new exhibit.”
Chapter 7: Sandglass and Signatures
The sun dipped low behind the dunes as Anaya sat on the carved stone steps of the haveli, watching grains of sand swirl in the wind like golden whispers. Inside, Sajid carefully wrapped the real Dream of Jodha Bai in layers of muslin and padded cotton, his fingers reverent, movements slow. It wasn’t just a painting—it was inheritance. A truth that had survived time, silence, and betrayal.
Rajveer stood by the window, arms crossed, watching the sky darken. The haveli had become a temporary sanctuary, a breathing museum of rebellion. For the first time in years, the past did not feel like something to archive. It felt alive.
“We can’t just walk this into the palace and expect applause,” Rajveer said.
“No,” Anaya replied. “But we can make sure it never disappears again.”
She turned toward a low wooden box beside her—containing the letters, the diary, the confession, and a statement penned just hours ago in Sajid’s firm, deliberate hand. At the bottom was the mark: the camel, drawn like a signature.
“It’s not just about the art anymore,” Anaya said. “It’s about authorship. Attribution. History belongs not just to the victors, but to the unseen hands.”
Sajid emerged from the back room, carrying the carefully bundled painting. His expression was calm, but his eyes betrayed a question—one he hadn’t yet asked aloud.
“What happens now?” he said finally.
Rajveer looked at him, then at Anaya.
“We make it official,” she said. “We exhibit both paintings. Side by side. The original and the forgery. And we tell the real story—how a queen was silenced, how her legacy was painted over, and how it survived because someone chose not to forget.”
Rajveer added, “But the royal family won’t like it.”
“They don’t have to,” Anaya replied. “Truth doesn’t need permission.”
They left at dawn the next morning, under a sky that looked bleached clean. In the back of the SUV, the painting lay cradled like a sleeping child, flanked by Devyani’s diary and Sajid’s statement.
When they reached Mahaveergarh, the palace looked different—less majestic, more burdened. The press had moved on, bored by the lull. The Maharaja, when informed of the discovery, demanded a private audience.
Inside the Blue Room, under chandeliers now dulled by politics, Anaya laid out the painting and the documents. She didn’t flinch when he raised his voice, didn’t blink when he dismissed the diary as “emotional fiction.” She waited until he was done, then handed him the note Devyani had written on the final page of her journal.
“If silence is royalty’s weapon, then memory must be the people’s reply.”
The Maharaja said nothing.
He didn’t have to.
By the following week, Mahaveergarh Palace issued a statement confirming the authenticity of a newly discovered painting attributed to Queen Devyani. An exhibition was announced: Two Queens, One Canvas.
At the center of the exhibit stood both works—one stolen, one forged. One silenced, one screaming across time.
And beside them, on a raised pedestal, sat Devyani’s diary. Open. Uncensored. A queen’s voice no longer lost in marble.
Chapter 8: The Past Always Signs the Crime
The day the exhibition opened, Mahaveergarh Palace stood still.
The courtyards, once teeming with tourists snapping photos in front of gilded arches, now buzzed with a quiet reverence. Visitors didn’t chatter. They read. They lingered. They looked closer. For once, the palace wasn’t merely architecture—it was confession.
At the heart of the royal gallery, two paintings stood side by side, each lit from above by a single overhead beam. The Dream of Jodha Bai—real and replicated—seemed to watch the watchers, as if waiting to be seen properly for the first time. Their frames were nearly identical, but only one bore the faint camel-shaped mark in the lower right corner.
A velvet plaque below the original read:
Artist: Rani Devyani of Mahaveergarh (1902–1935)
Restored and Returned by Sajid Muneer, 2025
Historical Attribution Revised by Anaya Rao and Inspector Rajveer Rathore
Visitors stood in silence before the display. Some with folded arms. Some with tears in their eyes. Some with notebooks in hand, sketching, recording, remembering.
Sajid didn’t attend the inauguration. He watched from a small rented room across the lake, binoculars resting beside his tea cup. He didn’t need applause. The truth was no longer hidden, and that was enough. For now.
In the exhibit’s final section, Devyani’s diary lay open beneath glass, its final page enlarged and printed on the far wall. Beneath her words, a single line stood out in embossed gold:
“The past always signs the crime.”
Anaya watched from a distance, arms crossed, a quiet satisfaction in her chest. She had fought for many forgotten artists before—unknown sculptors, unnamed manuscript illustrators—but this was different. This wasn’t just about the art. It was about erasure, and who gets to be remembered.
Rajveer joined her, his posture finally relaxed. No uniform today—just a loose shirt, sleeves rolled, sunglasses tucked into his collar.
“You did good,” he said.
She turned to him, half-smiling. “We did.”
“You think the royals will let this version of the story last?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s out there now. Once the truth is named, it becomes harder to kill.”
They stood in silence as schoolchildren shuffled into the gallery, their voices hushed, their steps hesitant. One girl stopped before Devyani’s diary and leaned in to read aloud.
“She painted in silence. But the silence was loud,” the girl whispered to her friend.
Anaya felt her chest tighten.
“Devyani didn’t need to be rescued,” she said. “She just needed to be remembered.”
Later, as the palace lights dimmed and the crowds faded, Anaya walked back to the Moonlight Hall alone. The cracked mirror still stood behind the drapes, untouched. She looked into it, half-expecting the queen’s silhouette again.
But tonight, there was only herself.
And that, somehow, felt exactly right.
End
