He married her that night, in a small Bundela ceremony. A sword exchanged instead of garlands. Back in Pune, Kashibai heard the news while stringing jasmine for the evening prayer. She did not weep. She simply stopped stringing flowers.
Mastani looked up. “I did not take him. He chose. And I would die before I lie—I love him as fire loves the wind.”
Radhabai, meanwhile, conspired. She forbade Mastani from entering the main palace. She declared Mastani’s son, Krishna Rao, illegitimate. When Bajirao left for a campaign against the Siddis of Janjira, his mother locked Mastani in a garden pavilion—a beautiful prison. Bajirao returned from Janjira wounded—not by a sword, but by fever. He had ridden for seven days without sleep to see Mastani. But the palace gates were barred. Kashibai stood at the threshold, her hand on the lock.
But the court was not so kind. Bajirao’s mother, Radhabai, was a Brahmin orthodox who saw Mastani as a Muslim (her mother was a court dancer of Persian origin). The priests called her a Yavani —a foreigner. The generals whispered that she was a spy.
“I am never late, princess,” he replied, eyes gleaming in the torchlight. “I arrive exactly when destiny intends.”
“Bring her to the palace,” she said quietly. “If my husband has chosen a second wife, she will live under my roof.”
When Bajirao’s army arrived, it was Mastani who opened the sally port at midnight. She met him not with flowers, but with a drawn scimitar.