“The queen… the king’s wife… Queen Upashruti, I mean.”
“Anyone else?”
“There was the raj-guru…” Vishakha paused for a bit. “Kshapanaka pointed him out to me this afternoon. He doesn’t look like the raj-guru who used to tutor Kshapanaka, me and the other children in the palace. This raj-guru is thinner and older.”
Vishakha tilted her head and frowned, as if something was bothering her. “I suddenly seem to remember another man,” she said. “Very strong, massive forearms and shoulders, with a thick red beard and huge earrings. Very fierce looking. I don’t know whether he was here in the palace, though I think he was.”
The samrat’s heart skipped a beat.
Amara Simha!
“What about the other children in the palace whom the raj- guru tutored?” he pressed. “Do you remember any of them?” Vishakha shook her head and looked away.
The samrat could feel a heavy weight crush his chest. “You don’t remember me?”
Vikramaditya posed the question in spite of himself, in spite of knowing what her answer would be, knowing he was setting himself up for disappointment.
Vishakha didn’t answer for a long time. She just sat on her end of the swing, staring down at the hibiscus in her hand, caressing its petals softly between thumb and forefinger.
“I was told… Kshapanaka tells me you are… we are married.” Vishakha finally raised her head to look at Vikramaditya. Her voice was timid and unsure, her eyes large and filled with fear. “You are… my husband. But I don’t remember… I am sorry.”
The samrat raised a hand to reach out to Vishakha, but he changed his mind and let the hand drop limp by his side. Instead, he nodded and gave her a smile of reassurance, which he knew was crumbling at the edges. As he looked away, the queen spoke again.
“Will you help me remember?”
Vikramaditya turned sharply to Vishakha. This time, in her eyes he saw more than fear. He saw hope and expectation. He saw a search for promise.
“I will.” The king couldn’t trust himself to say more without breaking into sobs of relief. He felt the tears stinging his eyes as he stretched to pat Vishakha’s hand. The queen instantly gripped his hand, squeezing, seeking comfort in touch.
“What if I don’t – what if I can’t?” she whispered, her lips trembling. “What if… this is the way it will be until the very end?”
“I will help you remember.” Not willing to consider that possibility, Vikramaditya forced resolve into his voice. For the first time in years, Vishakha had reached out to him – he wouldn’t let this moment pass. “I will do everything it takes. I will fight death itself, if need be, but you will remember. It is a promise.”
They had hardly sat a minute in silence, holding hands, when they heard the shuffle of approaching footsteps. Looking up, they expected to see Kshapanaka returning, but instead, they were rewarded by the sight of the Healer.
“Ah, so you are here!” the Healer exclaimed on seeing Vishakha. Then, on finding the king seated by her side, he stopped abruptly as if in confusion. “Oh. oh, I didn’t know you were here too, Samrat.”
“It is a wonderful moonlit night and we were admiring its beauty,” Vikramaditya replied.
“Indeed it is.” The Healer looked down at their entwined fingers. “It is late. The queen should be resting. Come, child. Let us go inside.”
Vishakha looked at the king, who nodded once. Releasing his fingers, the queen rose.
“Come, don’t dally,” the Healer’s manner appeared brusque, even agitated, as he waved his hand, urging speed. “You shouldn’t be out here so late. You should be asleep. Come now.”
As Vikramaditya gained his feet, Vishakha cast one last look back at him, and the king knew she wanted to stay. The Healer, however, was already herding his patient away into the palace. Watching the retreating figure of the Healer, something stirred and squirmed its way forward in the samrat’s mind.
It was the morning Vishakha had started recollecting bits and pieces from her childhood in Nishada. Despite the overarching gloom wrought by the rakshasa attack just two days earlier, the palace of Ujjayini had burst with hope and excitement on learning about the improvement in the queen’s condition. Palace Guards were dispatched to fetch the Healer from the hospice in the palace ground, and much of the royal household was crammed into Vishakha’s bedchamber, waiting with bated breath for the Healer to show up.
The Healer had eventually arrived and made an assessment of Vishakha’s progress – and that was when Vikramaditya noticed it. For a fleeting instant, the Healer had looked more shocked than excited or pleased with the evidence in front of him. The expression on the Healer’s face had passed in the twinkling of an eye, but in its passing, like an inefficient servant, it had left a trace of itself behind in Vikramaditya’s memory.
Now, allowing the scene to unspool in his mind’s eye, it struck the king that more than just being shocked, the Healer had appeared positively perturbed and worried – even panicked – at the change he was witnessing in Vishakha. Perhaps, in that fraction of light and shadow where indecision nested, the Healer’s eyes had even betrayed fear.
And besides fear, something else– greed?
As he followed the Healer and Vishakha out of the terrace, the samrat pondered over what the Mother Oracle had said to him the morning he had gone to see her.
Beware of the stranger in the palace, wise king.
Gift
Shanku’s first instinct was to duck for cover.
Seized by a frenzy of panic, her eyes darted about her, looking for a place to hide, but out on the open steps of the palace bath, there was nothing to offer her concealment.
Standing exposed in the middle of the steps, rooted to the spot with five steep stairs behind her and four in front descending to the large, rectangular bath, Shanku realized that no matter what she did, she would be discovered by either Queen Upashruti, or by one or the other of the maids attending to the Queen Mother.
Turning red with embarrassment and wondering what explanation she could proffer for her unexpected appearance at the royal bath, the girl watched as one maid oiled the queen’s hair, while another slathered sandalwood paste on the queen’s arms. A third maid was busy laying out a fresh set of clothes, while the Queen Mother herself sat on the edge of the bath, her feet dipped into the water up to the knees. None of the women by the pool was looking in Shanku’s direction – but a subtle tilt of the head or even a slight raising of the eyes was sufficient to reveal her presence to them.
A sudden flutter of wings from the pigeons roosting amid the rafters overhead startled Shanku. And as if that was all that was needed for her brain to kick into action, it occurred to her that she knew precisely what she had to do to escape from the bath undetected.
She just had to concentrate on being somewhere else.
The thought was still making its way through her mind, when Shanku felt the bath blur and dissolve before her eyes. The sensation made her head spin mildly, forcing her to blink a couple of times.
When her vision stabilized, Shanku found herself staring at a fat, white silkworm crawling across a broad, bright green leaf with serrated edges. The worm and the leaf were just inches away from her nose, making Shanku jerk her head back in revulsion as the worm arched its back and reared on its stubby hind legs, stretching and waving to grab at a tight bunch of black mulberries that overhung the leaf.
“You will rely solely on your senses of smell and hearing, is that clear?”
Shanku froze, before realizing that the words had come from a fair distance away, and given their context, couldn’t have been directed at her. She recognized the voice as Angamitra’s.
“Listen to the wind and the small changes in its pitch as the birds fly past,” the captain of the samsaptakas continued in a high, clear tone infused with authority. “Still your breathing so you can catch the whisper of a leaf falling to the ground.”
With great economy of movement, Shanku turned to h
er left and peered through the leaves of the mulberry bush. She had already guessed where she was – in a training camp in the western quarter of Ujjayini, used exclusively for the training of young samsaptaka recruits. Pushing a branch gently aside, she peeked out in the direction of Angamitra’s voice to see the captain standing in front of a row of seven young men wearing blindfolds. The samsaptakas were nearly fifty yards away, in the middle of an open field, out of earshot. Shanku’s eyes flitted right and left, taking in the heavily wooded training ground with its camouflaged mud pits and ingenious rope traps, before returning to Angamitra and his seven blindfolded cadets.
“Teach yourselves to tell the smell of a horse from that of a mare,” Angamitra instructed the new recruits. “To discern the smell of fear from the smell of excitement in a man’s sweat. Master the senses of smell and hearing, for these are the skills of the predator. Master these and you can fight even if you have been blinded.”
Letting the branch fall softly back in place, Shanku exhaled in relief. It was sheer luck that she had ended up behind this dense thicket of mulberry bushes. She could well have appeared somewhere in that open field, in plain view of Angamitra, which would have left her with a lot of explaining to do.
You must learn to master your gift, child. Master it, control it, and wield it with wisdom.
Shanku frowned at the thought of the Mother Oracle’s words. The previous night, standing before the tin mirror in her bedchamber, she had tried using what her grandmother had termed her gift. She had wanted to see if she could disappear from where she was and appear in her bed. At first, nothing had happened – and then, suddenly, Shanku had found herself on the uppermost terrace of the palace, looking down over the lamp-lit causeway and the black waters of the lake.
Rattled by the experience, she had quietly returned to her room, but daybreak found her filled with the resolve to have another go. Once again, she had tried to move herself from one end of her bedchamber to another – only to end up on the steps of the palace bath, almost under Queen Upashruti’s nose. And now she was here, in one overgrown corner of the samsaptaka training camp, miles away from the palace.
She was nowhere near controlling her gift, much less mastering it. And at the rate she was going, she would end up making a complete fool of herself, appearing somewhere unannounced and uninvited, an embarrassment to herself and those around her. She knew she had to exercise more care and caution while experimenting with her gift, but she had no idea how.
“How are the new recruits faring? Are they learning anything, or are they just a waste of your and Angamitra’s time?”
Shanku jumped on hearing Vetala Bhatta’s voice.
“The new recruits are… yes, I think they are okay,” Kalidasa’s voice sounded more distant to Shanku’s ears, probably on account of a shift in the early morning breeze.
Both voices had come from the direction of a path that wound through the trees, leading away from the training ground toward a forest of wild trees and shrubbery. The path bordered the thicket where Shanku was concealed, and followed the natural curvature of the mulberry bushes. Taking utmost care not to make a noise, planting her feet softly on the dew-damp grass so her anklets wouldn’t chime, the girl edged over to the bushes adjoining the path.
“What I meant is, will they make good samsaptakas?” Shanku detected an undercurrent of impatience in the Acharya’s otherwise calm tone.
Crouching to see through a small gap in the leaves, the girl observed Kalidasa and the chief councilor standing in the middle of the pathway, watching the cadets as they went through their exercises.
“We will know only after their training is complete, raj-guru,” the giant answered with a shrug and a mild note of resignation. “We can only hope they will. We lost nearly a dozen samsaptakas during the asura attack, and good samsaptakas are hard to replace.”
“At least you have a larger pool to choose from now,” Vetala Bhatta countered. “The last I heard, the number of soldiers volunteering to join the samsaptakas has doubled ever since the asura attack. You are an inspiration for Avanti’s soldiers, Kalidasa.”
“I agree.” Shanku heard Dhanavantri speak moments before the physician’s broad bulk stepped into her line of vision, almost blotting out the Acharya’s lean frame. Though he had his back to her, Shanku could tell the physician was grinning.
“I reckon half of Avanti’s soldiers want to become a Kalidasa by throwing an asura into the palace lake,” Dhanavantri continued with a chuckle. “As long as the other half doesn’t get it into their heads to start writing poetry, it should be fine with me.”
As a small bubble of laughter burst and scattered along the path, Shanku caught herself smiling at the mental image of Avanti’s barracks filled with dreamy-eyed soldiers scratching on palm leaves with quills. The councilors on the path eventually fell silent and returned to observing the cadets of the field.
“I presume the two of you didn’t come all the way here to discuss how my new recruits are faring,” Kalidasa turned and looked down at his companions. “May I know what brings you here?”
Though couched in the mildest of terms, the bluntness of the question had plainly stumped the Acharya and Dhanavantri. Noticing the two councilors exchange glances, it dawned on Shanku that she shouldn’t be eavesdropping on this conversation. Yet, by moving around, she risked exposing herself. She was also certain she didn’t want to try using her gift once more – there was no telling where, and in how much awkwardness, she would end up. Two near disasters were enough for one morning, she decided.
Moreover, her curiosity had been piqued.
“We are a bit… concerned about you, Kalidasa,” the raj-guru spoke gently.
“Concerned about what?” the giant looked puzzled.
“You haven’t been your usual self of late. You look distracted, as if something is weighing on your mind.”
Kalidasa turned to consider the field, deep in thought. “Well, I haven’t been sleeping too well,” he offered almost grudgingly.
“Why is that?” asked Dhanavantri.
Kalidasa kept staring into the field for a moment longer before turning his attention to the physician.
“My sleep is disturbed because I see things while I’m asleep. And I don’t fall asleep easily because of the things I see flash through my mind.”
“You are disturbed by dreams?” asked the Acharya.
“I don’t know if they are dreams,” the giant replied.
“What do you see?” asked Dhanavantri.
Kalidasa didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he ran his fingers through his hair, brushing it back, knotting it into a ponytail. Shanku could see his eyes looked troubled.
“The things I see don’t make much sense. Sometimes, I am on a horse, charging across an open plain. I know there are others behind me, all on horses, all galloping, but I have no idea who they are. Everyone is shouting. Don’t ask me how I know this, but there is a lust for blood in the air. And there is this man riding right behind me. He is after me, and when I turn to look, he raises a bow with an arrow nocked in place. He points the arrow in my direction, draws the bowstring back and shouts at me.”
“You don’t recognize this man?”
“It is too hazy,” Kalidasa shook his head. “He somehow seems familiar, but I am almost sure I haven’t seen the man before.”
“What does he say when he shouts at you?”
“I don’t understand a word of what he says.”
“What happens then?”
“Nothing. That is the end of it. But this image keeps coming back to me, sometimes when I am asleep, sometimes when I am awake. I can’t say if it is something I dreamt that comes back to me when I am awake, or if it is something I imagined when I was awake that returns to haunt me in my dreams.”
“There are others like this one?” the Acharya placed a gentle hand on Kalidasa’s arm.
“A fire has been lit and people are sitting around it,” the giant nodded. “Again, I don’t know
who these people are. Everything is hazy. I know I am there, and I know the fire has been lit for me. Why? I have no idea, but I know the fire has something to do with me. One of the figures by the fire stands up and he – it looks like a man – is holding a dagger. I instinctively know the dagger is meant to hurt me. I can feel its cutting pain, the fear surging up my throat, my heartbeat going faster… Then there is nothing. It just ends.”
“Are there any more?” Dhanavantri probed.
The way Kalidasa paused for just a fraction of a second, Shanku could tell he was in two minds. He turned and started ambling slowly down the path.
“There are more, but… they aren’t as persistent, so I can’t remember them.”
Shanku thought the giant wasn’t being entirely honest and it made her wonder why.
“Since when have you been seeing these sequences?” Vetala Bhatta fell in step beside the giant. The physician joined them a moment later.
“The past few days. They just flash through my mind when I am least expecting them. They come‖” Kalidasa snapped his fingers, “.and they are gone.”
The three councilors slipped from Shanku’s view, their voices and footsteps fading as they drew away. She shifted on her haunches to keep them in sight, but the shrubs restricted her vision.
“I shall give you something to calm your nerves and induce sleep,” Dhanavantri’s words, assured and reassuring, floated to her ears. “Let us watch for a few days and see if…”
A thieving breeze blew the rest of it away.
* * *
“Are you sure you are going through with this decision of yours?”
King Harihara, seated on a thick cotton quilt and bent low over a writing table, paused shuffling between a stack of palm leaves, his face clouding with annoyance. For a moment he was quiet, sour-face, shoulders hunched, elbows pressed against his ribs, hands holding the palm leaves perfectly still, contemplating the inkwell on the table. He gave the impression of a stork caught in an unexpected cloudburst … stiff, awkward and unhappy.
Queen Sumayanti stared back at her husband, her delicate features rid of all expression. She was a small woman with a plain face that was ageing gracefully, imparting her with a charm and dignity that youth had denied her. Sitting upright on the edge of her chair, legs crossed, hands clasped daintily over an upraised knee, she was a picture of poise and self-possession.
The Conspiracy at Meru Page 5
