“Oh, I love you, Urvashi. I swear I love you.” Jayanta took a few more faltering steps toward the apsara, his voice choking and floundering with emotion. “My passion for you runs far deeper than you think. Far deeper than my father’s ever can…”
“Now really?” The apsara mimicked the prince’s tone. “What makes you believe so?”
“I have been thinking of nothing but you these past few days. I couldn’t bear the wait to see you, and every moment was agony. But look at father – he banishes you from his chamber because the Maruts have made fools of themselves in Sindhuvarta. You call that passion? And look how he’s gone off somewhere with Menaka. With Menaka, not you.
” Detaching herself from the parapet, the apsara walked toward Jayanta, her hips sawing seductively, her face softening in the shadows of the approaching sunset. For a fleeting moment, the prince thought he had made some headway, gained a hold on her affection. Then he saw her eyes and realized he was wrong.
“Our king has been thinking of nothing but the pride of Devaloka these past few days. And you? All you did during that time was think of me. How can you even compare yourself to your father? On top of that, you had the gall to suggest that Narada and I were jesting here. Listen to yourself – how selfish and petty you sound.”
“That was meant only for Narada, not you…”
Before Jayanta could essay any further into another tremulous defence, Urvashi snapped her fingers under his nose, silencing him.
“Enough,” she reprimanded. “If you want to be treated with dignity, learn to be half the man your father is. You want to take your father’s place in my bed. First go and get the Halahala from the human king. Be of some use to the devas, prove your worth, then come to my bedchamber. Else return to your mother’s lap, callow boy.”
Jayanta stormed out of the chamber, slamming the heavy door behind him, sparing no thought for the deep reverberations that echoed through the quiet palace. He rushed headlong through the maze of passages, blinded by grief and anger. Bursting into his own room, he hurled himself on the bed, burying his face in a velvet pillow as the first fat tear broke free of its shackles and rolled down his cheek.
He didn’t know for how long he lay there weeping his heart out, but when he finally surfaced, red-eyed, the chamber was almost dark, the cliffs outside his window a black silhouette against a deep purple sky riddled with dozens of silvery stars.
Callow boy, she had called him, addressing him the way his father had not long ago, when dismissing him after he had offered to lead an army to Sindhuvarta to get back Veeshada’s dagger.
Sniffling and wiping his eyes, Jayanta sat up in his bed.
Yes, he would bring the dagger to Amaravati. He would bring the dagger and heap humiliation on his father, the great Indra. And on Narada and on all the Ashvins and all the Maruts– and on all the devas and apsaras who had dared snigger at him.
He would uproot the human kingdom from its foundations if the need arose, but he would find the Halahala and bring it, he swore to himself.
* * *
“So the king wants to know if the barbarians now commandeer ships.”
“We have reason to believe that the Hunas might be amassing ships to attack Sindhuvarta through the Anartas,” Shanku said by way of explanation.
“The Anartas,” the Mother Oracle’s voice inflected with surprise and mild admiration. “By sea… That’s clever of the barbarians.”
The two women were seated on a wrought-iron bench, high on a knoll in a wooded reserve a little to the north of the palace. The bench overlooked a small portion of Ujjayini, and the palace and lake were partly visible through a break in the shrubbery. The park itself was full of tall, shady trees where birds and squirrels nested, and peacock, black-naped hares and chital frequently sauntered onto the intersecting bridle paths. The spot afforded peace and seclusion, and had become a favourite haunt of the Mother Oracle; she had told Shanku, plainly and quite insistently, that she preferred it here to being anywhere in the palace.
It was obvious to Shanku that her grandmother was having trouble adjusting to Ujjayini.
The first couple of days hadn’t been so bad, when the grandeur of the palace, the lake surrounding it, and the bustle of Ujjayini itself had captivated the Mother Oracle’s interest. Then the attacks had occurred, and she had been escorted into the safety of the Labyrinth along with the rest of the royal household. After an entire night spent deep in the bowels of the palace, hot and claustrophobic, she had emerged in the morning in a foul temper – one that hadn’t entirely left her since.
To top it all, there was hardly any distance between her and the palace dungeons, where Brichcha, the son-in-law she so utterly despised, languished.
It was to take her grandmother’s mind away from the palace that Shanku had suggested a visit to the park. The Mother Oracle had been delighted to discover it, so every evening they came and sat on the bench watching the sun go down. Shanku liked the company of the old woman, listening to the tribe’s adventures and hearing stories of her mother, whom she now barely remembered.
“Will you be able to find out about the ships?” she asked.
The Mother Oracle shrugged. “If the birds and the clouds tell me.”
“You will ask them, won’t you?” Shanku probed.
“Isn’t that why I am here?” the Mother Oracle turned and peered at her granddaughter. “To ask these questions on behalf of the king?”
Shanku nodded and turned away, struggling to decipher the oracle’s mood. She detected grudging reluctance– probably even hostility … in her grandmother’s words. It disquieted her.
Sensing her confusion, the Mother Oracle’s voice softened. “Of course I will, my child. The Wandering Tribe always keeps its word.” She reached a withered hand out and stroked the girl’s hair softly. “Does it still hurt?”
Shanku still wore a bandage around her head, the effect of her fall the night of the attack.
“A little, but not much,” she smiled at her grandmother. “Dhanavantri says the wound is healing well and I should be fine in a day or so.”
“So you didn’t go to the one they call the Healer?” The Mother Oracle looked closely at Shanku.
“No. The Healer has had to tend to so many of our severely wounded that I didn’t have the heart to go to him for something as small as this.” She looked toward the city, which was turning golden in colour. “Ujjayini owes the Healer so much.”
“I fear when the time comes, the price he will exact from Ujjayini will be adequately steep,” remarked the Mother Oracle.
“Why do you say that?” Shanku swung around sharply. Instead of replying, the old woman sniffed and changed the topic. “Don’t you remember how you did it… the disappearing, I mean?”
The girl looked down at her hands and shook her head.
“You must… remember something, child,” the oracle’s tone was gentle, helpful. “What did you feel at that time… what you were thinking… something.”
“I saw the demon’s foot coming down on me and I desperately wanted to be somewhere else.”
“Where?” The Mother Oracle pressed.
“Anywhere. I… just wanted to not be where I was.”
“Then you must try to do it again, child.”
Shanku stared at her grandmother in puzzlement.
“It is a gift that you have. Like the gift I have of being able to read signs. We all have gifts, though most of us sadly never discover it for ourselves. It’s not a choice, we just have it. But knowing you have a gift and doing something useful, something good with it – that is a choice. That is why you must learn to master your gift, child. Master it, control it, and wield it with wisdom.”
Grandmother and granddaughter sat in silence for a while, watching a flock of egrets sail over the city, returning home to roost. The sun was turning orange, bleeding its colour into the sky, and overhead, the bats had begun stirring.
“There is another thing the king would like to know,”
said Shanku. “Last week, a Huna scout we had captured near the frontier died in his cell in Sristhali under suspicious circumstances. We believe he was killed by someone from our side, a traitor who didn’t want us to learn anything from the scout. Do you think…”
She stopped on seeing the oracle shake her head.
“For that, I would probably need to visit Sristhali, and even that might amount to nothing. And this incident happened last week, you say.” The Mother Oracle shook her head more definitively. “No, I don’t think I can be of help here.”
She began to rise from her seat and Shanku reached over to help her. As she grasped her granddaughter’s arm for support, the oracle spoke again in a voice that, to Shanku’s mind, was layered with hidden meaning.
“But if the purpose is to find out if the enemy is near, then yes, the enemy is near. I think your king is already aware of that.”
* * *
Vikramaditya was about to set foot on the terrace when he heard her laugh.
It was a clear, liquid sound, filling and lifting into the air. It mingled with the fragrance of the jasmines blooming nearby, and intertwined with the soft moonbeams that shone down through the tatters in the clouds, a concoction of delight and enchantment that made the breath catch in the samrat’s throat.
It was the first time he had heard Vishakha’s laughter since that fateful morning when she had set out to ride with her sister. She had come to their bed to wake him, and when he had drowsily tried to grab her and pull her to him, she had slapped his hand away in play and leaped out of his reach. He remembered having mumbled something about it being unfair to have woken him and deprived him of a kiss, to which she had laughingly retorted that if he wanted a kiss from her, he would have to come after her.
He hadn’t gone after her. He had snuggled back to sleep, instead. Vishakha had punished him for that with two years of cold, indifferent silence.
Vikramaditya had lost count of the number of times he had wished he had risen to Vishakha’s bait that morning, and accompanied her and Kshapanaka to the meadow. If he had been with them, perhaps he would have prevented Vishakha from accepting her sister’s challenge to try riding her mount. And even if he had let Vishakha ride Kshapanaka’s horse, perhaps he would have ridden by her side to make sure the unpredictable beast behaved itself. Perhaps he would have sensed the horse’s impatience with its new rider, and would have stepped in before it reared and threw his wife off its back. Perhaps, even after her fall, he would have been able to rush Vishakha back to the palace quicker so Dhanavantri could attend to her sooner…
Vishakha’s laugh issued from the terrace once again, a softer lilt that infused the king with warmth and hope, making the day’s cares and worries drain magically off his shoulders. Vikramaditya ached to catch a glimpse of his wife’s smiling face, the sparkle of mirth in her eyes, the carefree toss of her head whenever something struck her as being funny. Yet he hung back in the shadows of the doorway to the terrace, reluctant to take a step further for fear that he might disturb the moment, making it unravel and fall apart like an illusion.
“You have to be with her, Vikrama,” the samrat heard Queen Upashruti’s words echo in his head. “You have been with her all the while she wasn’t there. Now that she is coming back, help her make that journey. Be brave, my son, because Vishakha needs you to be brave now more than ever.”
Steeling himself, the king took a deep breath and walked onto the terrace. His mother was right. It didn’t matter that his wife still didn’t recognize him. It didn’t matter that this broke his heart and crippled his spirit. The only thing of consequence was that he loved Vishakha and would wait for her to rediscover her love for him.
Vikramaditya didn’t have to look to find Vishakha. Two large and wide ornamental swings nestled in one corner of the terrace, partially concealed by a cluster of hibiscus shrubs. A low murmur of voices came from the direction of the shrubs, and as the king approached, he could tell that Vishakha had Kshapanaka for company.
It was probably a footfall that gave him away, but by the time the samrat rounded the corner, the two siblings from the erstwhile kingdom of Nishada had fallen silent and were looking expectantly in his direction. In the light of the four decorative lamps suspended from the swings’ crosspieces, Vikramaditya could tell that the sisters had been threading red and pink hibiscus flowers into garlands as they sat chatting. The king sensed a twitch of jealousy, unreasonable yet overwhelming. He felt like an intruder, unwanted, unwelcome.
“Samrat, what a lovely surprise!” Kshapanaka’s eyes lit up with genuine delight on seeing Vikramaditya, and her tone was inviting. “I didn’t know you were back in the palace. Come, sit with us.”
“I…” Seized by uncertainty, the samrat fell back again. He glanced at Vishakha, who met his gaze for a moment before looking at Kshapanaka. The queen then dropped her eyes to the garland lying on her lap.
“I didn’t know you were here,” the king fumbled. “I was… it wasn’t my intention to bother the two of you.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. We were just making garlands.” Kshapanaka looked at her sister briefly, and even in the dim light, Vikramaditya could see the glow of affection in the councilor’s face. When she turned back to him, Kshapanaka’s eyes wore a thoughtful expression.
Leaning to her right, the councilor looked down at the floor of the terrace. There, by the side of the swing she sat on, was an open clay bowl used to burn incense. The samrat could see that the bowl was full of cold ash.
“Oh no, it has gone out again.” Reaching down, Kshapanaka picked up the bowl. “Why don’t you sit, Samrat? I will go and find someone to fill in some more sambrani and charcoal.”
“You don’t need to go. You could summon a servant to do it,” the king offered a token suggestion, knowing his words sounded hollow and insincere. He realized what Kshapanaka was doing, and he felt ashamed at having let jealousy take hold of him, however fleetingly.
“No, I’ll do it,” Kshapanaka smiled as she got off her swing. There was decisiveness in her tone and manner as she walked tactfully away, leaving neither Vikramaditya nor Vishakha with an opportunity to lay a protest.
As the councilor’s footsteps faded away, Vikramaditya stood awkwardly by the swing, knotting his fingers. He stole a glance at Vishakha, who sat with her head bowed, twirling a hibiscus between thumb and forefinger.
“Can I… sit?” The samrat pointed at the empty space on the swing beside his wife.
Vishakha raised her head, looked at him and nodded.
Vikramaditya lowered himself down and began swaying back and forth in gentle arcs. The space between the king and his queen quivered with stilted silence, overpowering them both, stretching across the terrace as if it intended to take a hold over the entire palace and the lake. It amplified the faraway clomping of horse hooves on the palace causeway, which lay at the end furthest from the terrace. To the samrat, it felt as if the palace was holding its breath, listening in on what he had to say to Vishakha.
“Lovely moonlight,” Vikramaditya looked up at the sky.
Vishakha followed his gaze, nodded again and looked down at her lap.
Seeing he was making no headway with small talk, the king took a different tack. “What were you and Kshapanaka talking about?”
“We were… she…” Even though the light was low, the samrat observed a blush steal across Vishakha’s face. “She was telling me how we were afraid of the king, how we used to hide from him. It seems she once jumped into the palace lake because the king rode onto the causeway and she had nowhere else to run. I used… she says I used to tell her the king would kill us if we didn’t behave ourselves.”
“Which king is this?” Vikramaditya framed the question nonchalantly, but his eyes were sharp as they considered the queen.
“King Mahendraditya.”
“Do you remember him?” the samrat asked.
“He was a big man,” Vishakha nodded. “He had a loud voice and a big, black beard. I think that wa
s what scared us. But I also seem to think of him as being very kind.”
Vikramaditya nodded. There had been nothing small about King Mahendraditya. Burly in build, his father was prone to exaggerations – a boisterous laugh, a roaring rage, and a large heart that always had room to spare for friends. Legend had it that when Avanti’s soldiers had found Mahendraditya lying mortally wounded on the battlefield, his stomach cut open by a Saka sword, the first thing their king had asked for was his battle-axe, so he could hunt down the Saka warrior who had inflicted the grievous injury.
The samrat also recalled his father being the antithesis of King Vallabha, Vishakha and Kshapanaka’s father and the late king of Nishada. Vallabha had been a gentle, soft-spoken man full of civilities, so it was only natural the sisters found the loud, hard-swearing Mahendraditya intimidating. It had taken Mahendraditya over a year to earn the young girls’ trust and confidence– that too only after he had followed Kshapanaka into the palace lake to save her from drowning. Later, after Vallabha and his court had been publicly executed by the invading Huna army, Mahendraditya had emerged as a surrogate father to the girls, building a deep, affectionate bond with them that lasted until the day the king left the palace gates one last time, borne on four shoulders to the cremation ground across the Kshipra.
“Who else do you remember?” Vikramaditya tried to keep his tone gentle despite his eagerness.
“My mother and my father. And Itti tai.” A sadness crept over Vishakha’s face. “Kshapanaka tells me they are all dead… that they were killed by invaders.” Then, as if realizing the drift of Vikramaditya’s question, she looked directly at him. “By who else. you mean here?”
The king shrugged and inclined his head vaguely, reluctant to force the conversation where he wanted it to go.
The Conspiracy at Meru Page 4
