Jhansi Fort — May 1857
The sun rose like a dull blade above the fortress. The sky, usually sharp and golden in early summer, hung gray and choked with ash. The air smelled of soot and sweat, blood and burned grain. The walls of Jhansi had held, but inside, the city was suffocating.
Outside, thousands of British troops circled like vultures. Inside, a slow, invisible enemy crept in through every breath.
Hunger.
In the narrow lanes below the palace, a woman collapsed beside a well. Her child whimpered, too weak to cry. A dog barked, then fell silent. Grain stores were nearly empty. Wells had been poisoned. Fields set alight by long-range artillery. The siege had begun—not with cannon fire, but with a knife made of patience.
In the war chamber, Rani Lakshmibai stared at the grain tallies without blinking. Beside her, Ghaus Khan and Tatya Tope exchanged glances.
"Two weeks," Khan muttered. "If the rains don't come early, we'll be eating dirt."
Lakshmibai tore a corner from the tally scroll.
"Then we start feeding them hope," she said. "Hope fills the belly longer than rice."
British Encampment – Siege Wall
Major Ellis walked the perimeter of the British encampment with the methodical air of a man inspecting a mausoleum. He watched as Indian laborers—poor, coerced, or bought—dug trenches and erected barricades that would soon crush their own people.
General Hugh Rose stood atop a ridge, peering through a spyglass.
"They still don't surrender," he said.
Ellis smiled faintly. "The queen plays a long game."
"Then we play longer," Rose said. "Starve the soul. Then break the body."
Inside the Fort — Rumors and Rats
As days bled into nights, unrest spread through Jhansi like fever.
"Why is the queen hiding?"
"Where's the relief army?"
"They say Gwalior betrayed us…"
Lakshmibai heard it all.
She climbed to the tallest tower, visible to the city, and every morning she stood there—motionless. Unshaken. Her silence became a kind of roar.
She refused to vanish into shadow. Even if her stomach was as empty as theirs.
But then came the next blow.
The Water Breach
A young sentry ran into the court, barefoot, bleeding.
"My queen—the British sabotaged the eastern well. We lost our last clean water source."
Tatya cursed under his breath. "They want us to surrender by thirst."
Lakshmibai didn't flinch. She turned to Rani Laxmi, a widow who had trained the underground militia.
"Evacuate the eastern quarters. Distribute vinegar and boiled neem—purify what's left. No one drinks until we control the chaos."
"And if the people rebel?" asked Ghaus Khan.
She looked him dead in the eye.
"Then I'll speak to them myself."
Temple Square – The Queen's Stand
The temple square overflowed with starving citizens, armed only with desperation. A woman screamed that her child had died of thirst. A man raised a brick in the air. "Where is your war now?" he shouted.
Then silence.
The queen arrived.
No guards. No sword. Just dust on her feet and a jug of water in her hands.
She walked through the crowd. Slowly. Deliberately.
She poured half the jug into a communal pot. The other half she drank in full view.
"I drink as you drink," she said. "I starve as you starve."
Her voice carried across the square.
"But if we kneel now, you will still be thirsty tomorrow—only under someone else's boot."
A child stepped forward and drank from the pot.
Then a second.
No one raised a brick again.
Flashback – The Starving Maratha Camp (Young Manikarnika)
(Flashback montage)
Young Manikarnika sits in a tattered tent, surrounded by exiled Maratha warriors during the Peshwa's downfall. Rain seeps through the roof. A pot of rice is split among twenty.
A veteran coughs, bleeding from his gums. "The British feed their horses better than we feed our soldiers."
Manikarnika watches her father give away his share. She follows.
Even then, she knew—hunger was not the enemy. Surrender was.
Meanwhile — Inside the Enemy's Camp
Among the British tents, a messenger arrived with a coded scroll from Calcutta.
Ellis read it under candlelight:
"Do not allow Jhansi to fall to rebels. If not occupied within 30 days, the Queen's government will hold the East India Company accountable."
He crushed the scroll.
Then he summoned the mercenaries.
The Smoke Assassins
Five of them. Dressed in ash. Faces covered. Masters of silent kills.
Their orders: Infiltrate the palace. Kill the queen. Break the spine of Jhansi.
They entered through the sewer tunnels beneath the fort, guided by a map purchased from a local traitor.
But the queen already knew.
The Trap
In the dead of night, Lakshmibai stood in the Hall of Silence, a corridor rarely used—except by ghosts and secrets.
She waited with only two guards.
When the assassins emerged, she didn't run.
She didn't call for help.
She attacked.
The first fell with a dagger to the throat. The second met her blade in a whirlwind of steel. The third gasped—she turned his own knife into his ribs.
The fourth tried to flee—shot clean through the skull by Ghaus Khan waiting in the gallery above.
The fifth, wounded, tried to beg.
She dragged him to the parapet and held him over the edge.
"Tell your masters," she said, "this flame does not flicker. It consumes."
She let him fall.
The Letter from Tatya Tope
Days later, a messenger arrived from the outskirts.
Tatya Tope's letter was brief:
"Reinforcements en route from Kalpi. 300 cavalry. 4 cannons. We strike at dawn, 11th June."
Lakshmibai read it aloud to the court.
A ripple of energy swept through the stone walls.
After weeks of rot and ruin, the tide was shifting.
Final Montage – Before the Storm
Lakshmibai is seen sharpening her sword at night, whispering to it like an old friend.
Ghaus Khan oversees the mounting of cannons made from melted temple bells.
Children carry water in shifts. Women stitch crimson flags.
Inside her chamber, the queen bathes in silence. Then dons her battle armor again—for what may be the last time.
She ties her hair. Paints her forehead with sandal paste. Straps her sword tight.
Outside, the city begins to hum.
Not in fear.
But in fury.
Closing Lines
Atop the walls of Jhansi, as the first rays of dawn stabbed the darkness, Rani Lakshmibai stood with her war banner fluttering behind her.
She looked across the valley where the British cannons gleamed in rows.
Then she whispered:
"You laid siege to my walls… but I was never inside them."
End of Chapter Five