“What is it?” Shanku asked again, this time gentler and more encouraging.
Taking a deep breath and sitting up on his saddle, Kalidasa blinked and looked straight down the path they were following.
“I am… I have been seeing things in my head for some time now. Images… visions. I see them all the time.”
Shanku knew what the giant was referring to.
“It’s like… they are like dreams, but I see them in my head even when I am awake,” he continued. “Even right now…” He broke off and glanced at Shanku. “I know it doesn’t make sense. I must sound like a fool. I’m… sorry I brought this up.”
For the briefest of moments, Shanku was tempted to tell the giant that she understood every word of what he was saying, but doing so would mean having to explain how she had ended up at the samsaptaka training ground that morning. That was a secret she wasn’t yet prepared to share with anyone.
“No, it’s fine,” the girl reined her horse to a slow walk. “Tell me what you see.”
Feeling reassured, Kalidasa recounted everything that the girl had already heard while hiding in the mulberry thicket.
“I keep hoping these visions will go away, but every day they grow stronger,” the giant bit his lips in nervousness. “Dhanavantri prescribed me an unction to help me sleep better, but it is not helping. I am afraid… I am going insane.”
Glimpsing the helplessness in Kalidasa’s eyes, Shanku felt rattled. She had always seen the giant as a pillar of strength and self-possession. She had grown up believing nothing could shake his composure, so the sight of him, shoulders slumped, looking drawn and anxious, was disconcerting. She was overcome with a sudden rush to hold him tight and assure him that he was just fine.
“No, you are not,” she said, instead. “Let us talk to Dhanavantri once we get to…”
“I don’t think Dhanavantri can help. But you might be able to.”
“Me? How?”
“Perhaps we can ask the Mother Oracle if she can find out what’s happening to me.” Kalidasa looked at Shanku hopefully. “I don’t know. she might not be able to…”
“There is only one way of knowing whether she can or cannot.”
Spurring her horse with a flick of the reins, Shanku began pulling away from Kalidasa. Up ahead, the watchtowers of Ujjayini were poking into the air amidst the treetops. As she rode, she threw a glance over her shoulder at the giant.
“What are you waiting for, councilor?” She tossed her head in the direction of Ujjayini. “Let us go ask the oracle.”
* * *
Shukracharya couldn’t make up his mind whether it was himself or the mandala that vexed him more.
It wasn’t just vexation. There was also anxiety.
He had consulted the bones over and over since the time they had revealed that Kubera had finally granted Indra an audience. But each time he had wanted to learn the outcome of the meeting in Alaka, the bones had been at their enigmatic best.
A yaksha is being sent to claim that which the human king has promised to protect.
The bones could only mean Veeshada’s dagger, but the high priest struggled to make sense of this. He understood that Kubera had been tempted with the promise of apsaras, ever the fail-safe bet when it came to the stupid yakshas. But why would Indra trust the yakshas – whose intentions the devas had always been suspicious of – to claim the Halahala for him? And what purpose would sending one yaksha to Ujjayini serve? They were powerful and wily beings, well versed in the black arts, of that Shukracharya had no doubt. Still, what could a lone yaksha achieve where the Ashvin cavalry and the Maruts had failed?
Therefore, he had repeatedly gone back to the mandala in search for answers, but all he got from the bones was what they had already told him.
A yaksha was coming to Ujjayini to spirit away the Halahala that Vikramaditya had somehow concealed in the tree in the cremation ground. No matter how inconceivable this seemed, the revelation bothered Shukracharya, robbing the pleasure he had been deriving from observing Vishakha selectively regain her memory – and watching the samrat sink lower into despair. Even the joy of the destruction of Amaravati was quickly paling in the face of the threat from the unknown yaksha.
He had to do something to foil this yaksha.
Sighing in annoyance, the high priest lay on his mat and stared up at the ceiling, counting the minutes to dusk, when he could make the trip to the cremation ground and do what needed doing under cover of darkness.
* * *
“You know what hurts the most, Harihara?”
Vetala Bhatta’s choice of address was intentional – dropping the honorific title of ‘king’ and calling Harihara by name showed he was in no mood to adhere to protocols and niceties in this conversation. It was a calculated move. Not only was he senior in age to the king of Heheya, as an ambassador of Avanti, he had played a crucial role in brokering the alliance between the young Harihara and the more powerful King Mahendraditya. The Acharya was now leveraging age and shared history.
“You know what hurts most?” he asked again. “It is the sneakiness with which you have conducted this whole affair. If you remember, old king Mahendraditya used to say that he would rather die from a sword buried in his chest in broad daylight than an arrow shot under cover of darkness. That you chose to go behind our backs saddens me.”
Sitting across the chief councilor with drooped shoulders, his feet shuffling in discomfort, King Harihara looked every inch the man whose life was coming apart around him. The single lamp set on the table between the two men threw the king’s shadow on the wall behind, looming like a past sin over him, ready to dig its claws in and devour him.
“I did what I think is right for my daughter,” he mumbled, knotting and unknotting his hands.
“Like every father should,” said the Acharya. “Yet, you don’t have the courage to look me in the eye. Could that be because deep in your heart, you know that this is not in your daughter’s best interests? Or are you ashamed at not having taken Avanti and its king into confidence?”
“I would have told you,” Harihara protested. “I would have told each one of Sindhuvarta’s kingdoms when the time was right.”
“You would have told us when it would have been too late,” the raj-guru said levelly. “Too late to stop you.”
“How does any of this matter to anyone?” Harihara threw up his hands angrily, resorting to blunt defiance. “Vikramaditya is free to choose whether or not to accept my daughter’s hand in marriage. But he doesn’t have a right to decide whom I should get her married to.”
Vetala Bhatta scrutinized the king. Vikramaditya had been correct. There was resentment here at being passed over as a prospective father-in-law of the Samrat of Sindhuvarta.
“The samrat’s objection is limited to Shoorasena.” The Acharya paused for a moment, his tone changing and becoming acidic. “It hasn’t been more than a few months since King Siddhasena left us, murdered by the very one you want to make your son-in-law. The dead king must be very proud of the friendship he shared with you.”
Harihara squirmed under the councilor’s severe gaze. A tchik-tchik-tchik chirp, repeated in quick succession, broke somewhere nearby. Glancing up, the raj-guru spied two house lizards scrambling up a wall, one in hot pursuit of the other.
“Okay, Siddhasena is dead anyway, and the dead perhaps don’t matter,” Vetala Bhatta waved a dismissive hand. “What about Princess Rukma? Is she pleased with this match?”
“Why wouldn’t she be? My daughter has been raised to find happiness in the happiness of others.”
“Is that so? I would like to hear this from her. If she says she has no objections to marrying Shoorasena, this topic ends here and I shall take your leave. Go on, call her.”
Harihara remained seated miserably in his chair. Vetala Bhatta sighed inwardly in relief. He knew he had taken a gamble there, and his bluff could have been called.
“Now let me tell you something, Harihara.” The Acharya leaned in
and dropped his voice. “The Samrat also cares greatly for your daughter’s happiness – that is why he is against this proposed alliance. The kingdoms of Sindhuvarta – at least Avanti, Kosala, Vatsa and Matsya – have decided that Shoorasena has to answer for what he has done. Punishment will come to him, one way or the other. Now, if Princess Rukma marries him, she will suffer for his sins too. Vikramaditya doesn’t want that happening to her. The question is, do you?”
Harihara stared at the raj-guru, eyes round with anxiety and indecision.
“You won’t knowingly send your daughter into trouble and uncertainty, would you?”
The king shook his head slowly, the first clear indication of surrender.
“Now, the Samrat understands a father’s concerns,” Vetala Bhatta’s voice was soft and mollifying. “He knows you acted as any father would, and he bears no grudge against you. In fact, he has even sent a proposal for your consideration.”
“Which is?” Harihara’s face lifted with hope.
“You need a suitable match for Princess Rukma. Why not consider Prince Shashivardhan?”
The king was silent for a while as he considered the possibility.
“Shashivardhan is not a king yet,” he said slowly.
The Acharya was taken aback for a moment. Then he got it.
“But he will be. King Chandravardhan…” the councilor stopped to pick his words carefully. “I don’t know if you are aware of all the reports, but King Chandravardhan is not doing too well. There is a possibility that he may never recover enough to dispense the duties of a king. And Shashivardhan is already taking charge of those responsibilities.”
“But… will he become king of Vatsa?”
“Of course,” the Acharya said in surprise. “Why should we assume otherwise?”
“I don’t know,” Harihara shrugged. “The prince is known to have a problem with drinking and gambling. It has often been said that he is a full-fledged drunkard.”
“That is a gross exaggeration. Anyway, matrimony has a way of mellowing men down. A wife like the princess is perhaps all the anchor he needs. You can take it from me that Shashivardhan has his heart in the right place.”
Harihara still looked unhappy.
“And if the choice is between a drunkard who can be reformed and a murderer who will definitely face retribution, which would it be?”
The old councilor’s voice was calm and reasoning. There was even a disarming smile on his face. But the eyes that shone back at Harihara in the lamplight were hard and pitiless, pinning him in a pincer-like grip.
“What assurance can Avanti provide that Shashivardhan will be king of Vatsa?”
The two men assessed one another like combatants across the table.
“A coronation might not be possible just now, but if you want, we can have it formally announced that Shashivardhan would succeed Chandravardhan to Vatsa’s throne,” said the councilor. “That should satisfy your lingering doubts. We will even take this proposal to Kausambi on your behalf, if you wish. Now what do you say?”
The king nodded slowly, but he still sat hunched on his chair.
“There is only one problem, Acharya,” Harihara sighed. “Messengers bearing my proposal to Shoorasena have already left for Girivraja. There is no way I can call them back, which means Shoorasena will inevitably receive my letter.”
He paused and swallowed hard. “What if he accepts Rukma’s hand?”
“Then I’m afraid you will have to tell him the princess’s hand has already been taken.”
* * *
The taverns by the riverfront were emptying the last of the day’s patrons as Shanku stepped off the boat and onto the steps of the ghat. Revelers hugged and clapped each other on the backs before breaking into smaller knots, some stumbling up the steps and back into the city, others teetering down to the boats that were waiting to ferry them home. The night was full of bonhomie and song, and Shanku couldn’t help feeling buoyed by the cheer of the moment.
It helped that she herself had spent a few good hours in the company of her clansmen of the Wandering Tribe. When word of the oracle’s desire to see them had reached the tribe, the clansmen had come to Ujjayini in good numbers – far more than had been expected, and many times more than the palace could accommodate. A potential embarrassment had been averted, however, when the chief of the clan – Shanku’s granduncle – had announced that the tribe did not wish to impose upon either the palace or the city; they were happy to camp outside Ujjayini, since they preferred the vast, open countryside anyway.
The tribe had set up their tents at the base of a hill a mile to the west of Ujjayini, from where the clansmen visited the Mother Oracle in small, manageable groups. That evening, they had invited Shanku to dine with them, and on her grandmother’s pressing, she had agreed. In retrospect, it had been a good idea.
The girl now picked her way up the darkened ghat, heading for the City Watch picket just inside the western gate, where she had tethered her horse.
Shanku was still some distance from the gate when she turned and cast an idle glance over the river. There was no particular reason to do so – she had simply felt like it. But, owing to that pause, she happened to spot the small boat gliding up to the ghat. Again, it wasn’t anything specific that made her stop and observe its lone passenger, a dark smudge of a figure hunched against the night. It could have been anyone returning to a city of thousands. The boat docked, the passenger disembarked, paid off the boatman and started mounting the steps.
Dwelling on what the oracle had had to say to Kalidasa earlier in the evening, Shanku was about to resume her trudge to the city gate when a wayward finger of light from one of the tavern windows fell across the approaching figure. The beam lit the figure’s face for only a fraction of a second, yet Shanku discerned a beard – and an eye-patch over the left eye!
Instinct made the girl step behind a nearby tavern’s wall. She poked a cautious eye out and looked down the ghat. The Healer kept climbing, head down, eye on the steps.
Sticking to the shadows, Shanku watched the Healer draw level with her, and then move on toward the city gate. Slipping out of cover, she raced down the steps on her toes, hoping the ringing of her anklets wouldn’t carry. She looked back now and then, checking if the Healer had detected her, but he had disappeared from sight, through the gate, into Ujjayini.
“Aiy, aiy,” she shouted, waving her hand to attract the boatman’s attention. “Stop there!”
The boatman had already rowed a few metres into the Kshipra, but he slowed and looked toward the ghat and the silhouette at its lowest step. “I am going home,” he said. “It is late.”
“Come here,” Shanku motioned with her hand, frantic.
“I have to go home,” the boatman grumbled, staying in his place in the water. “Please get another boat.”
“I don’t want to cross,” the councilor pleaded. “I want to speak to you, that’s all.”
“About what, girl?”
“There’s a coin in it for you.”
It worked. The boatman drew the boat in. As it nudged the ghat, he asked, “What do you want to know?”
“That man you just dropped off…” Shanku thumbed in the direction of the city gate.
“Yes, the Healer…” The boatman paused. “What about him?”
“The Healer. yes.” It struck her that the Healer was one of the most well-known faces in Ujjayini these days. “Where did you bring him from?”
“The other bank,” the boatman said matter-of-factly.
“Do you know where he was coming from?”
“Why do you want to know, girl?”
Shanku turned her face such that light from one of the taverns fell across her features.
“Councilor… it is you,” the boatman’s voice echoed with fear and embarrassment as he recognized his interlocutor. “I am… stupid of me… I didn’t know…”
“Do you know where the Healer was coming from?”
“I… No, your honour.
I don’t… I am a poor boatman, your honour. I don’t dare ask my passengers where they come from and where they go, your honour. Pardon me…”
“Were you the one who took him across as well?”
“I was, your honour.”
“When was this? I mean how long ago?”
“After sunset, your honour. Same as usual.”
Same as usual.
“Are you saying you have ferried the Healer before as well?”
“A few times, your honour. He always departs after dark and returns around the time the taverns shut. Only once did I take him across late in the afternoon. It was the first time, if I recall correctly.”
“And he asks you to wait for him?”
The boatman nodded. “He pays well.”
“You just take him across the holy Kshipra and back?” The boatman nodded.
“You know nothing about where he goes?”
The boatman shook his head.
“But he makes this trip often, and almost always after nightfall.”
The boatman nodded.
“Here is the coin I promised.” Shanku dropped a copper ring into the man’s hand. “But remember, mention nothing of this conversation to the Healer, clear?”
“Yes, your honour.”
The girl had turned to climb the steps when the boatman spoke again. “There is one thing I can tell you, councilor. Whenever the Healer returns, his clothes and feet are covered in layers of fine ash.”
Visions
The clang of metal as swords clashed against one another; the heavy drum of hooves on hard, sun-baked earth; the roar of voices, hooting and screaming as they hurled shrill war cries at the sky. All these merged into one deafening din as he charged across the plain.
Gripping the horse under him with his knees, his arms thrown tight around the steed’s thick, sweaty neck, he bent low in his saddle, offering as little resistance to the wind as possible. The horse’s mane whipped across his face, the coarse hairs stinging his flesh and getting into his eyes, making him blink, but he kept his head down, peering at the line of trees that marked the edge of the plain. As another wave of cries and hoots broke from behind him, he turned in panic and threw a glance over his shoulder.
The Conspiracy at Meru Page 17
