For a fleeting moment, the councilor imagined she saw remorse and repentance in the steed’s big, black eyes.
“Why don’t you come here?” Vishakha invited Kshapanaka. “It is your horse, after all.”
“I don’t think I can. It took too much away from me for too long.”
“It is only an animal,” the queen reasoned. “I’m sure it didn’t mean any harm.”
Kshapanaka shook her head and turned away to hide her tears. The green meadow, the golden sunlight, Vishakha sitting astride the horse – this grey beast, her mount – the exhilaration in Vishakha’s laughter, the laughter choking and dying in a sudden screech of panic– Her life had come apart that morning and it was all because of this horse.
“Take good care of him,” Vishakha said to Keeri, giving the horse a pat on the neck.
“In spite of everything, you forgive him too, your honour?” the Warden looked incredulous.
“What is there to forgive? He didn’t ask me to ride on his back. It was my decision, so how can this poor beast be faulted for what happened?”
“It is true what they say of you and the Samrat sharing the same heartbeat, my queen,” Keeri bowed. Inclining his head at the stallion, he added, “I shall take good care of him. You have my word.”
Emerging from the stable, the sisters picked their way back toward the palace, choosing to walk instead of taking the palanquin.
“What did Keeri mean when he said the Samrat and I share the same heartbeat?”
“He meant it in connection to the horse.” Noticing the queen’s bemused expression, Kshapanaka said, “After the accident, everyone in the palace – maybe even everyone in the city – was of the opinion that the horse should be put down.”
“You mean killing the poor beast?” Vishakha looked horrified.
The councilor nodded. “But Vikramaditya wouldn’t allow it. He said the horse was innocent, that killing it would be the lowest form of vengeance. He insisted that no matter how deep our love for someone was, that love should never colour our judgment of what is fair, just and right.”
Vishakha lapsed into a brief silence. When she spoke next, her voice was subdued. “He loved me a lot, didn’t he?”
“More than anything else; he still does. There wasn’t a day he didn’t come to your bedside and speak to you.” Kshapanaka paused and looked her sister squarely in the eye. “You remember the horse; you remember Keeri… but nothing of Vikramaditya? There has to be a faint memory of the Samrat somewhere…”
“I am trying my best, sister. I swear I am.”
Noticing the tremble of self-doubt and guilt afflicting Vishakha’s voice, Kshapanaka put an arm around the queen’s shoulder and drew her close. They walked in that fashion up to the causeway, and were about to step onto it when Vishakha spoke, her tone wistful.
“I wish the white mare hasn’t been claimed by anyone. I would love to have her as mine. Maybe then I could ride to the meadow and see…”
“We can make enquiries about the horse, but why do you wish to visit that awful meadow?” Kshapanaka asked sharply. “I fail to see why that terrible place fascinates you so much. Even my horse, for that matter. Why did you insist on seeing him? What morbid fancy has struck you?”
“I…” The queen stopped and swallowed. “I want to go back and see everything that happened that day. Who knows what memory that might trigger? It might just help me remember the Samrat.”
“Oh, I didn’t see it that way,” the councilor’s head dropped apologetically. “But I doubt if the Healer will allow you to ride a horse just yet, that too all the way to the meadow.”
A curtain fell over Vishakha’s face at the mention of the Healer. “Where did the Healer come from?” she asked.
“Nobody really knows. He says his home is on the banks of the Lauhitya, in faraway Pragjyotishpura. We are just lucky he came to Avanti when he did.”
“There are times I am afraid of him,” the queen said timidly. “The way he looks at me. I get the feeling he doesn’t want to cure me… I feel he wants something else that has nothing to do with me… that he wouldn’t care about me as long as he got what he wanted.”
“The Healer scares you?” Kshapanaka looked at Vishakha in surprise and let out a small laugh. “There is nothing to fear from him, sister. His remedies have worked on half of Ujjayini’s citizenry, and he has brought so much of you back from the darkness. It is just your mind up to some tricks – trust me, he means none of us any harm.”
“You are probably right,” the queen gave a small, broken smile as they reached the end of the causeway and entered the palace.
* * *
“What do the physicians treating him have to say?”
Councilor Yashobhavi didn’t reply immediately. Instead, for a moment, he stood with his arms crossed in deference, observing the drops of rain that fell from the eaves and spattered on the waxy green leaves of the lemon shrub that grew just outside the balcony.
“They say it is possible he might recover a bit, your honour,” he said with a noncommittal shrug. “But then, at other times, they also say the paralysis may be permanent.”
With a shake of his head, King Baanahasta turned away from the councilor. Leaning his elbows tiredly on the balcony’s wooden parapet, he took in the sweep of Kausambi, with the Yamuna meandering away far to his right.
“What about you?” the king looked back at the councilor. “Have you noticed an improvement in Chandravardhan?”
“I like to think I am seeing a change for the better, your honour. But you have seen the king for yourself. I doubt there has been any improvement, to be honest.”
Baanahasta nodded faintly. The report of the calamity that had befallen Chandravardhan had reached Matsya three nights earlier. Baanahasta had left for Kausambi immediately, riding almost without cease to look his friend up. The alliance between Matsya and Vatsa went back a long way, and he and Chandravardhan had been friends much before either of them came to inherit their thrones. Vatsa had been a rock of support in the early stages of the Huna-Saka invasion, and along with King Mahendraditya, it was Chandravardhan who had convinced Magadha, Kosala, Heheya and the Anarta Federation to join the war against the barbarians.
Yet, the moment he had been ushered into the palace and been escorted to Chandravardhan’s bedchamber, Baanahasta had regretted coming.
The sight of his friend, broken and helpless – an empty husk of the man who had once embraced life in a bear hug– had not just saddened Baanahasta; it had also made him painfully aware of his own lengthening years. Mahendraditya had been the first to go. Four years ago, Chief Jayandhara, father of Yugandhara, had died in his sleep. King Siddhasena was also no more now, and here Chandravardhan lay in a precarious condition. It was disheartening to imagine that in a matter of time, this generation would pass entirely into Sindhuvarta’s history.
“Where is Shashivardhan?” Baanahasta asked, pushing himself erect and looking around. “I haven’t seen him since I came.”
“The prince has gone to Prayaga, your honour. A boat capsized in the Yamuna yesterday morning. Eight of Prayaga’s citizens drowned, six more went missing.” Yashobhavi paused. “The prince did the right thing by going personally to offer his condolences.”
“He went unsupervised?” Baanahasta raised an eyebrow.
“I had to stay here to welcome you.” If the councilor understood the implication behind the question, he made no sign of it.
“How is he… faring?” Baanahasta raised his hand, fingers curled around an imaginary goblet, twice toward his lips in rapid succession. The gesture and its meaning couldn’t be confused for anything else.
“He needs encouragement from time to time,” Yashobhavi nodded with a sigh.
“He needs to take responsibility,” Baanahasta was firm. “One day he will be king of Vatsa.”
“I don’t know, your honour…” The councilor let the sentence trail, inconclusive.
“What do you mean by that, councilor?” Baanaha
sta looked at Yashobhavi sharply. “He will be king of Vatsa.”
“I guess he will, your honour.” Again, a pause. Except for the patter of the rain, the afternoon was silent. The palace household appeared to be in siesta.
Yashobhavi finally turned to Baanahasta, but owing to his squint, the councilor appeared to look over the king’s shoulder at something behind him.
“I sometimes fear for Vatsa, your honour,” Yashobhavi’s stoicism seemed to melt a little. “The time that lies ahead of us - it is going to be rough. It will demand men of steel. The prince. he is kind, well intentioned. But he is a king for fair weather and peaceful times.”
Even as he inclined his head, a shadow passed over Baanahasta’s face. He knew exactly what the councilor meant. The same thought had been troubling him ever since he had received news of Chandravardhan’s illness. Deep in his heart, he too feared for Vatsa.
And that fear, in turn, stoked in him a greater fear for Matsya’s own future.
At that moment, Baanahasta heard the creak of a door opening some distance away. Turning around, the king looked up in the direction of the first-floor balcony from where the sound had come. He saw a woman step out of a room, shut the door, and walk away from them.
“That’s… Princess Pralupi, isn’t it?” Baanahasta asked.
“Yes, your honour.”
“What’s she doing here? I would have thought she would have left for Ujjayini. You know… considering what her city has been through.”
“As soon as we heard, Prince Shashivardhan offered to have her escorted to Avanti, your honour. But she chose to stay here.”
“Really?”
“She said with King Chandravardhan being in the state he is in, being the only daughter-in-law of the palace, her place was in Kausambi.” There was something cryptic in Yashobhavi’s tone that Baanahasta couldn’t quite decipher. “That was pretty nice of her, I suppose.”
The councilor nodded, but his expression remained unreadable.
Suddenly, an idea flashed through Baanahasta’s mind. He looked at Yashobhavi with bright eyes.
“Just occurred to me – why don’t we ask Vikramaditya to have Dhanavantri sent over to take a look at Chandravardhan?” he snapped his fingers in excitement. “Dhanavantri is possibly the best physician we have in Sindhuvarta.”
“A good idea, your honour, but I doubt if the Samrat will be able to spare us the services of Dhanavantri. We could ask, and the Samrat might even agree in his kindness, but after the three attacks on Ujjayini, it would be selfish on our part to take this request to Avanti.”
The king looked out over the wet courtyard once again, deep in thought. A few days ago, an emissary from Vikramaditya’s court had arrived in Viratapuri, bringing news of the first two attacks and their cause – the Halahala and the samrat’s word to protect it. The account of the Halahala had dazzled Baanahasta, filling him with pride, and though he worried that Vikramaditya had incurred the displeasure of the devas and the asuras, he felt reassured that the young samrat had been entrusted the task by none less than the Omniscient One.
Now, however, there had been a third attack on Ujjayini, one severe enough to cripple the city. It was true that the attack had been rebuffed and the rakshasas repelled. It also proved that the samrat and his Council of Nine were still very formidable, and that the Omniscient One had chosen his warriors wisely.
But the third attack also alerted him to something that was worrisome for the other kingdoms of Sindhuvarta.
Baanahasta didn’t doubt Vikramaditya and his councilors’ commitment to keeping Sindhuvarta safe from the invaders, but he understood that the dagger with the Halahala had inevitably changed everything. Hereafter, Vikramaditya and Avanti’s attention would always be divided – and it would increasingly fall on the rest of Sindhuvarta to keep the barbarians from the Marusthali at bay.
The rest of Sindhuvarta would have to bear the penalty of the samrat’s promise to Shiva, Baanahasta thought glumly.
* * *
By the time the caravan of fifteen trade carts rolled out of Amaravati’s eastern gate, the sky had purpled from horizon to horizon, and the stars were winking awake. Merchant devas rode on horseback alongside the trade carts, each laden with goods as diverse as spices, silks, dyes and ganjika, while hairy, dwarf-like kimpurusha minions trotted in front, holding torches and lighting the way. Three palanquins bearing apsaras were also part of the caravan, which was bound for the town of Devaprastha, the old capital of Devaloka, far to the east and under the shadow of Mount Kanchanshringa.
The devas guarding the east gate gave the caravan no more than a cursory glance. None of the guards even registered the rider who brought up the rear, a nondescript figure in a crumpled cloak who stooped over his horse, head down and face averted from the torchlight. It was only after the caravan was well past the gate that the rider risked a quick, sly peek over his shoulder at the guards, who had returned to their idle chitchat.
The rider stayed with the caravan, waiting for the night to draw around them as they headed into the sparsely forested countryside. He kept to himself, discreetly lagging behind so he wouldn’t attract attention; to his relief, none of his companions seemed particularly interested in him. They rode that way for a few miles, until the road meandered into a dense thicket of wild ashoka trees. The rider slowed his horse’s pace even more, before drawing to halt at a sharp turn in the road.
Cocking an ear, he listened to the receding squeak and rumble of the carts’ wheels and the clip-clop of hooves. He waited until the caravan was out of earshot, before wheeling his horse around and riding back in the direction of Amaravati. However, on reaching a fork in the road, instead of continuing due west, the rider picked the narrower path that led away in a northwesterly direction.
The rider pushed his mount hard, paying scant regard to the fact that the scorching pace would only tire the beast quicker, and when the moon finally rose behind him two hours later, he had put many miles between him and Amaravati. The horse, however, was in need of rest, so he was forced to slow down. When they came across a mountain stream, he reined in and dismounted to let the beast quench its thirst and catch its breath.
The rider knelt over the bubbling stream, scooping out handfuls of water to splash on his face. As he straightened, the moonlight shone on the soft, fleshy features and mean, narrow eyes of Jayanta.
It had taken Jayanta three visits to Shachi’s chamber – and three rounds of sedating her with ganjika – before he had finally excavated a text that mentioned Ahi. He had read the text with a sinking heart, for though it had much to say about Ahi’s destructive powers, there was nothing about the mantra needed to wake the monster. Jayanta was on the verge of despair when it occurred to him to go through all the chests anyway. After two more visits and much meticulous searching, he had finally brushed the dust off a bunch of palm leaves buried at the bottom of the fourth chest. Moments later, eyes moist and shining with delight, he had clasped his mother in a tight embrace of gratitude for having preserved the texts that she had once borrowed from the vaults.
Finding the text with the mantra was just the beginning. There was still a lot of work left, a lot of ground to cover, before he could initiate the rituals that would raise Ahi. And time was short– Jayanta wanted to be back in the palace before his father returned to Amaravati. Yet, because this was to be a surprise – an awakening, a slap in the face– to all those who thought so little of him, he had to adopt great secrecy every step of the way.
The prince didn’t expect anyone in the palace to take much note of his absence. No one there ever cared what happened to him – though that would change when he presented his father with Veeshada’s dagger – as long as he kept out of trouble. But he still had to guard against the garudas. They missed very little, and if one of them were to observe what he was up to, the news would travel quickly to Narada and Brihaspati’s ears, and they would send someone to stop him. For the same reason, relying on any of the conventional means of le
aving Devaloka was out of question– someone was bound to notice and become suspicious. That left him with just one resort: this detour.
Getting away from the palace had been easy enough, and Jayanta was certain no one had recognized him as he had slipped into the market and joined the caravan to Devaprastha. Now all he needed to do was use the cover of darkness to get to the mountains to the north where the kinnaras dwelt.
There another challenge awaited him – finding and convincing a kinnara to take him to Sindhuvarta and the kingdom of Vikramaditya.
Vyala
The rain and the dark were like co-conspirators, Pallavan decided as he sloshed through a trench of knee-deep water, his head bowed under a thick shawl. Working in tandem like a pair of tricksters, they were doing everything in their capacity to lead him astray, keeping him from the path that led to his journey’s end.
The rain, of course, had set in much before the dark. It had started as a light drizzle in the afternoon, steadily gaining force as the day wore on. At sundown or thereabouts, it had crossed the line into malevolence, covering the whole of Girivraja, flooding its streets with water and driving its people into the safety of their homes. In fact, around the time Pallavan had set out on his mission, the floodwaters were reaching up to the threshold of many low-lying houses, and threatened to seep into the caravanserai where he was putting up.
Pallavan now picked what he assumed was the right direction and pressed forward, pulling the shawl low over his head. The shawl had ceased offering protection from the rain ages ago, but at least it still hooded his face from curious eyes … not that there had been any on the streets in a long while. For good measure, he had disguised his face under a theatrical beard made of goat’s hair, but he could feel the beard coming unstuck at his left temple, the glue undone by all the water that had been raining down.
Moving from street to lane, lane to alley, the councilor headed toward what he hoped was the quarter that housed Magadha’s palace officials and members of the Magadhan royal council. He ploughed on through the swirling waters, slowly losing track of time, the nibble of despair and hunger growing inside him with every passing moment. Then suddenly, fortuitously, he turned a corner to find himself at a junction where the street he was on bisected an avenue.
The Conspiracy at Meru Page 8
