Set against one of these walls was a carved wooden door, a shadow within shadows, almost indiscernible in the musty gloom. As he stood recovering his breath, Jayanta considered the door with mixed feelings. He liked what was behind it – it was one of the few islands of comfort he had in an otherwise hostile palace. He could always withdraw to that door knowing he would be welcome, knowing he wouldn’t be judged and jeered at. Still, whenever he came away from that door, he brought back with him an intolerable sadness that clung to him – like the smell of cannabis – for days on end. He had often gone past that door in search of solace, only to return with an even greater longing to be consoled.
But today was different. He wasn’t here to give or seek comfort. Today was about stealth, about cunning.
The prince walked to the door and pushed at it, knowing it wouldn’t be locked. As the door swung silently on its hinges, he was met with a rush of cannabis smoke that made his head reel and his nose twitch in irritation. The next moment, he let out a big, rollicking sneeze.
“Is that you, my son?”
“Yes, mother,” he replied sniffling and blinking the last of the sparks from his eyes.
“Shut the door, will you? It gets cold here.”
The prince did so, before stepping deeper into the room. The chamber was both large and lofty, relatively well lit by three tall, east-facing windows. But much like the landing and the staircase outside, it was cold, the marbled floor icy underfoot. The highlight of the sparsely furnished room was a giant four-poster bed, overflowing with faded sheets and woollen blankets, pushed against one wall. The only thing that occupied the chilly expanse between the bed and the windows was a tall wooden easel and a high stool placed in front of it.
The woman who stood at the easel was tall and regal in her bearing, yet her disheveled appearance was at odds with her natural poise. There was something careless about the way she wore her clothes, as if in disdain of palace etiquette, and her hair, streaked with grey, fell down to her waist in an unkempt, tangled mass. More striking, however, was her gaunt, pallid face, with its sunken cheeks and black, haunted eyes.
That face was now turned in Jayanta’s direction, and for just a moment, a flicker of joy flared in those hollow eyes.
“Jayanta, my darling child,” the woman waltzed halfway across the room, then stopped as if distracted. “Have you closed the door? It can get cold if it is left open.”
“I did, mother.”
The prince waved away a few stray tendrils of smoke that wafted before his face and glanced to his left. There, flush against the wall, concealed in the shadows cast by the windows, he discerned the outline of four heavy ironwood chests, bound and riveted with copper and iron bands. Jayanta’s pulse quickened at the sight of the chests – what had brought him to the chamber was in one of them.
Apprehensive that he might have accidentally let slip his motives, the prince jerked his head around and back at the woman. Blushing faintly, he studied her eyes to see if she suspected anything, but the woman merely stood there, staring at him with a blank face.
Relieved, the prince transferred his attention to the woman’s palms and fingers, black and grubby with soot. In her right hand, she held a small piece of charcoal that she kept rolling between her fingers. Following Jayanta’s gaze, the woman looked down at her hand, and her face brightened.
“Let me show you what I am drawing today. Come, come.”
Jayanta wanted the woman to take him into her arms, embrace him and lock him away from all that was wrong with his world, but instead, he allowed her to take him by his elbow and lead him to the easel.
“Look at that!” Eyes shining with excitement, she pointed at the stretch of white cotton fabric drawn tight across the easel. “What do you think of it?”
Swallowing hard at the lump forming in his throat, Jayanta looked at the easel. The drawing was only half done, but he could see a reproduction of one part of the cliff that surrounded the royal palace. A part of the cliff that was visible from the chamber’s three windows; two towering crags with a deep cleft down the middle, the crag to the left sharp and pointed, its sister to the right rounded and subdued.
“What do you think?” the woman asked again.
“It’s lovely, mother,” the prince cleared his throat.
“It is, isn’t it? I decided to make it just this morning.”
Jayanta’s eyes drifted to the walls of the chamber. On every wall, there were drawings and paintings, dozens of them, some made from charcoal like the one on the easel, others from inks and still others from vegetable dyes. Some were black and white, some in soft tones of brown and pink, while the rest were a profusion of colours.
But every one of them depicted the same scene of the two craggy cliffs with the cleft down the middle – from the same perspective of the room and the three windows. Apart from the colours and the shading, nothing ever changed from painting to painting.
That had been the way with Shachi and her paintings since the time she had withdrawn into this remote corner of the palace, becoming a recluse, pulling the chamber around her like a cloak, like a prison. She painted the cliffs – her last remaining contact with the world outside – almost every day, transferring her passion onto cloth and canvas, treating each painting she made as if it were unique, without once realizing that every effort of hers only resulted in capturing the monotony of her view of the world.
“It is nice,” she said, admiring the sketch.
As she reached out to apply a few light strokes of shading to the cleft, she added, “I thought the cliffs looked very nice against the rising sun, so I had to try this one. I meant to.” she paused to look at Jayanta. “Did you shut the door after coming in?”
“Yes, mother,” the words left Jayanta’s lips in a small sob. Fighting to keep the tears from his eyes, the prince put his head on his mother’s shoulder, hiding his face in the crook of her neck, trying to lose himself in the jumble of her hair. Not for the first time, he mentally cursed his father for what had become of his mother.
Sensing something was the matter, Shachi raised her left hand to stroke her son’s face gently, smearing charcoal across his cheek. “Are you alright? Do you want to eat or drink something? There should be something to drink somewhere–”
Her eyes looked around the room uncertainly, and then she lost interest, her hand dropping back to her side.
“No mother, I’m not thirsty or hungry.” Remembering what he had come for, Jayanta took a hold over his emotions. Lifting his head, he steered his mother toward the bed. “Come, sit down. I have brought something for you.”
Jayanta extracted a small silken pouch, tied at the mouth with a drawstring. He glanced at Shachi, and seeing her eyes widen in anticipation, he nodded.
“Pass me your chillum, mother.”
Shachi reached for the short, conical clay pipe that rested on a side table, and handed it to her son. “I hope you closed the door–” she began again, but Jayanta interrupted her.
“I have closed the door, mother,” he said. Conscious of the harshness that had crept into his tone, he gave Shachi a lopsided smile. “Don’t worry. Just sit back and enjoy this. It is the best ganjika available in Devaloka.”
An unearthly stillness infused the room as Jayanta began filling the chillum with a mixture of cannabis seeds and leaves. Once the preparation was ready, the prince handed the pipe to his mother, and fetched a small charcoal brazier that burned in one corner of the room. Putting the chillum to her thin lips, Shachi lit the cannabis with the brazier. Inhaling deeply, she let the smoke run out of her nostrils as she leaned back against a pillow.
“Aah,” she let out a satisfied sigh and smiled. “This ganjika is indeed divine.”
Seeing that rare look of contentment on his mother’s face, Jayanta was reminded of his early childhood, when his mother was generally content with life. Of the time when Shachi was still very much a part of the royal palace, and not a piece of its forgotten history, dwindling away in
her chamber like an overlooked footnote.
Shachi’s betrothal to Indra was the sorry outcome of a treaty struck between the devas and the asuras after a series of attacks and counterattacks had left both sides bloodied and gasping for relief. The devas and asuras negotiated a truce under which neither would attack the other nor covet the other’s territory, and as a token of good faith, Puloman, who was then the lord of the asuras, offered Indra his daughter Shachi’s hand in marriage.
Indra was compelled to accept Shachi as his wife in order to keep the covenant intact, and so she came to Devaloka as its queen, where she soon gave Indra a son – Jayanta – as his heir. There was no real affection between the king and queen, though. Theirs was a marriage of convenience, a fact that Shachi accepted, allowing her husband to pursue his amorous pleasures with the many apsaras in his court.
Not many years after Jayanta’s birth, the armistice between the devas and the asuras started buckling. Both sides alleged that the other was infringing into their territory, and before long, the war of words led to increasingly violent skirmishes. The bickering left Shachi torn, with both the devas and asuras questioning her loyalties; Indra even offered to return her to her father’s dominions. Shachi, however, roundly refused to leave Devaloka, insisting that her place was by her husband’s side.
The pact between Devaloka and Patala ultimately ended when the asuras launched a surprise attack on Amaravati. The devas were caught napping, the palace was on the verge of falling, and though the threat was repulsed in the nick of time, the devas suffered grave losses in the long and gory battle. Before the blood spilled on the palace courtyards had a chance to dry, whispers sprung up like ghosts and floated through the halls of the palace, suggesting that the attack was the handiwork of a traitor, whose unseen hand had guided the asuras to the palace. Fingers were pointed at Shachi, first in private, then openly. She and Puloman were accused of having plotted her marriage to Indra, so she could come to Amaravati and send its secrets back to her father.
Jayanta still remembered the day when Indra had come to Shachi’s bedchamber and demanded to know the truth. Cowering behind his mother, clutching at the hem of her shawl in terror, Jayanta remembered watching Shachi plead her innocence as Indra cursed and ranted at her. Indra finally had to accept his wife’s word for lack of evidence, but he had his revenge by banishing her to her chamber and barring her from setting foot in his court again.
That was the beginning of Shachi’s hermitic existence. With no confidants or well-wishers around her, she spent all her time in her chamber, reading and painting, with only Jayanta and a few servants for company. She was still sane in mind, but even that didn’t last long, for one day, news arrived of Puloman’s death at the hands of his son-in-law. Indra had invited Puloman to Mount Meru to discuss another truce, but in reality it had been a trap – Puloman and his entire entourage were slaughtered in cold blood by an army of devas, with Indra himself driving a sword through Puloman’s heart. The news of her father’s murder sent Shachi over the edge, setting the spiral of cannabis addiction and cliff painting in motion.
The last of the cannabis was smouldering in the chillum. Jayanta reached across and took the pipe from his mother’s nerveless fingers.
“Was it as good as you had hoped for, mother?” he asked.
“Mmmh,” Shachi didn’t even bother forming words. Her eyes had acquired a glazed, faraway expression. Just to be sure, the prince waved his hand in front of her face and flicked his fingers, but Shachi didn’t flinch.
Jayanta rose from the bed and went over to the chests. Given his mother’s usual state, he knew he could have tried to go through them without resorting to drugging her. But there was always a chance that she wouldn’t have approved, and would have tried to stop him, raising a fuss that could have drawn the attention of servants. That, in turn, would have called for a lot of explaining…
He couldn’t afford any of that.
He had first heard of Ahi from his mother. This was after her exile from Indra’s court, living as an outcast in her chamber, dedicating all her time to reading ancient parchments salvaged from the vaults of the palace library. Shachi read a lot, and as she had only Jayanta around her, she often ended up telling the child about the fascinating things she had read.
“Its name is Ahi and it is counted among the worst possible curses in all three worlds.” Jayanta still remembered his mother’s words. “It is so ancient that most of those living today have forgotten about it – which is good, because we are safe as long as it slumbers.”
“Where does it slumber, mother?”
“At the bottom of an unknown ocean, my child. It can be awakened only by a secret mantra, that too only if uttered by someone with asura and deva blood flowing in his veins.” “How come no one knows about Ahi or the mantra that can awaken it?”
“Because no one bothers to read these old texts anymore,” Shachi had replied, pointing to the chests. “They just lie rotting in the library. Nobody values old things, old knowledge.” Jayanta knelt before the first of the four chests, recalling that conversation. It had come back to him the night before, as he lay on his bed, wide awake and burning with the desire for vengeance.
Pushing the lid right back, Jayanta stared into the open chest. It was filled with palm-leaf scrolls and parchments, some bound together with yellowing cotton yarn, some just a loose scatter of leaves. Everything inside was decaying and crumbling; everything was covered by a thin layer of dust that came away on his fingers as he pushed and prodded at the pile.
Dusting his fingers, the prince realized there was a lot of work to be done. The text with the mention of Ahi could be in any of the four chests, each packed to the brim with palm-leaf manuscripts. He would have to open every scroll and scour every leaf before he found the relevant text – if he found it at all. Then, even if he did find the text, there was no guarantee it would contain the mantra needed to raise Ahi.
It all amounted to a great deal of effort, but an effort worth taking if Ahi was, indeed, one of the worst curses in all three worlds.
Sisters
The white mare nuzzled Vishakha’s hand in the hope of finding another handful of grain. Upon discovering that the hand was empty, the horse snorted and gave a small, dissatisfied shake of its head, but it allowed the queen to continue stroking its long, smooth neck.
“You are such an adorable creature,” Vishakha spoke to the horse softly, brushing its cheek with the tips of her fingers. Her voice was tender, full of affection, and her eyes shone with pleasure at the sight of the magnificent beast. Kshapanaka stood a few paces away, watching her with an indulgent smile.
The sisters were inside the royal stables. Outside, the bright, sunny morning was full of stable noises – horses neighing and whinnying, stable hands whistling and chitchatting while they pitched hay and groomed the animals, the heavy roll of carts bringing in hay and grain– but within the building, all was quiet.
“Greetings, my queen,” a male voice abruptly broke the hush. “And my greetings to you too, Councilor Kshapanaka.”
Both sisters turned to see a wiry man standing respectfully by a door. Attired in the uniform of a palace official, he additionally sported the badge of the Warden of the Imperial Stables on his arm. The Warden’s skin was the colour of bronze, his hair that of silver.
“Is that you, Keeri?” Vishakha squinted at the Warden doubtfully.
“I take it as an honour that the queen not only recognizes me, she even remembers my name,” the Warden smiled and bowed, his chest swelling with pride.
“What happened to your hair?” Vishakha clapped a hand to her mouth in amazement. Her words rang with old warmth and familiarity. “It’s all white.”
“Age lays its claim on each of us in different ways, my queen,” Keeri replied with another smile. “In exchange for my youth, it brought me a gift of silver.” After a brief pause, the Warden added, “I was told you are here to…” He hesitated, his eyes flickering to Kshapanaka as he tried
to assess the mood.
“Yes,” Vishakha’s tone was matter-of-fact. “I am here to see the horse.”
Keeri shuffled his feet and cast another doubtful look in Kshapanaka’s direction. The councilor, for her part, kept her face expressionless, but the Warden could see she would rather have been elsewhere.
“Are you sure about this?” Kshapanaka spoke at last.
“I am,” her sister gave a firm nod.
Seeing the councilor give a faint shrug, the Warden swept his hand down the aisle. “Kindly step this way, your honour.”
The three of them walked down the aisle that turned twice at right angles. Stalls filled both sides of the aisle, nearly half of them occupied by horses munching on hay. Grooms ran about, some fetching water while others washed horses or cleaned out the stalls. The Warden and the sisters took a narrower aisle and walked some distance, slowing down as they approached the stalls at the far end.
Keeri didn’t have to point the horse out. It was in its stall all by itself, the adjacent stalls lying vacant. The horse was a big, grey stallion with a long face and black, doleful eyes. Its black hide was visible through its silvery coat, and its mane had started yellowing with age. Perking up its ears, it stared at the visitors with a mixture of interest, misery and malice.
“Please be careful, your honour,” the Warden said softly. “Don’t get… too close…”
Unmindful of Keeri’s warnings, Vishakha walked up to the horse. As the Warden drifted to a lame stop, Kshapanaka observed her sister take out a handful of grain from a small bag. Vishakha extended her hand, and the horse instantly snuffled up the offering. One more handful, and the queen slowly reached out and stroked the stallion’s neck and shoulder. The animal responded by stretching its neck forward, and Kshapanaka blinked as the beast lay its chin on top of Vishakha’s head.
The Conspiracy at Meru Page 7
