To Love A Murderer | ✔

06 | A Gathering of Information

This will not do.

"This will not do," she repeated hoarsely, clearing her throat once, then twice.

Lilavati rose to her feet, steadying her unsteady bearing.

Then, her stomach rumbled.

She flushed.

She had not eaten in a while, she realised. And while she was used to living on limited rations of food, often having to survive only on what she could find in the wild for weeks when she wandered, her body could not go on without having food for more than two days.

When was the last time I ate?

She mused to herself. It must have been that little roti and water I'd had the morning I went to trial. Oh, how everything has been changed in just a span of two days!

Now Lilavati had a new problem: finding some food.

She tightened her saari, adjusting its white folds and began to observe the palace, looking for any trees or plants that bore fruits. Her search was not long nor in vain, she considered, as she happened upon a rich orchard of orange trees, the branches almost bowed with the weight of the juicy fruits.

She reached out, standing on the tips of her toes to grab the orange, but it was slipping out of her fingers, barely out of reach. She cursed her average height, and it took a few more irritating attempts to grab two oranges from the lowest branches.

Huffing, she sat below the tree, and began to peel the orange. It seemed as though even the fruits here could not have been imperfect—as they were the sweetest oranges she had ever tasted, with a small tang that lingered in her mouth even after she had finished eating the oranges.

"Swami," she giggled, feeling girlish in a way she had never felt so before, "Even your oranges are perfect! Long must have been the labour to create such a beautiful land, and you let me into such a pure place even though I malign the very area with my sins!"

Her words lingered in the orchard for a few moments after she had spoken, the disquiet soaking into the land and yet the world remained unchanged.

Her hunger somewhat assuaged, Lilavati rose to her feet and began to make her way back, but stopped in her tracks as a dasi carrying a plate approached her. She could see the confusion in the handmaiden's face as she looked at Lilavati, but she could not understand the reason behind her confusion.

"Lady," the dasi addressed her, her head bowed, "I have been sent to bring you food."

Lilavati blinked and then looked at the plate in the handmaid's hands.

She could imagine one of her Lord's witty remarks: Thinkest thou that I wouldst leave thee without nary a bite to eat? Nay, thou art mine responsibility now, and I will not be known to neglect mine duties.

She took the plate from the dasi's hands and thanked her curtly. The dasi bowed, a gesture which stunned her, and left.

As she had expected, the food was exquisite. She had not quite tasted food this rich before, unless it was the one time she had shared in a lugal's meal when Iltani had been invited to dine in the palace with the rest of the priestesses of Ishtar in the lugal's hopes that Ishtar would bless him. She smiled at the memory of Iltani explaining to her various things, her henna-painted red lips moving and her bronze-tanned arms gesturing to many things in near-excitement.

Even as the memory made her smile, a pang of pain struck her heart as she remembered Iltani's last words: If you can find it in your heart to forgive me...

And the one whom she had believed would never harm her, backed by the force of a friendship steeped in deep trust and long years, had betrayed her and delivered her unto justice.