The Vengeance of Indra

by Shatrujeet Nath

  The councilor and the samsaptakas had ridden with very few halts in between, and their arrival in the middle of the night had taken the garrison by surprise. Amara Simha had already got some wind of the happenings in the garrison town, and he hadn’t budged from his saddle as Atulyateja brought him up to date on the ex-governor’s treachery, summarizing the events that had led to the arrest of Chirayu, Aatreya and everyone else who had played a part in Ghatakarpara’s kidnapping.

  “Wait until it is light, councilor,” the garrison commander suggested, eyeing the tired faces before him. “You have ridden hard, and there is more riding ahead of you. Your horses need rest too. Stretch yourselves a bit, catch a little sleep if you can. Do come.”

  The offer was tempting and sensible, and Atulyateja was persuasive. A quarter of an hour later, washed and in a fresh set of clothes, Amara Simha found himself at a table with the garrison commander, Angamitra, Dattaka and a pitcher of firewater for company. Dattaka filled the four cups, and once they had quenched a bit of their thirst, the brawny councilor stared across the table at Atulyateja.

  “Where, according to Satyaveda, have the Sakas taken Ghatakarpara?”

  “To their fortress in the town of Ki’barr.”

  “Ki’barr,” the councilor repeated. He nodded at Angamitra. “Will you fetch the scout and the interpreter, please?”

  Once the samsaptaka had left, Amara Simha had another question lined up.

  “Any idea since when Satyaveda has been playing us?”

  “I haven’t got around to questioning him in such great detail, councilor,” Atulyateja replied. “I thought it would be pertinent to ask the palace before interrogating him. I intended sending a message to Ujjayini in the morning, but now that you’re here…”

  “Let the palace know of his arrest, but otherwise, you are free to interrogate him,” said Amara Simha. “Find out everything you can — since when he has been in the pay of the Hunas and Sakas, who his contacts are, what sort of information he has passed on so far, whether there are other Huna or Saka spies this side of the border… everything of consequence.”

  “I definitely shall, but in my understanding, he had no direct contact with the savages. All information was passed through Aatreya, who was the intermediary.”

  “Hmm…” The councilor took a gulp from his cup. “And it is this merchant’s daughter who alerted us to the kidnapping?”

  “She did, though she had no clue about what she was leading us into. She didn’t even know her father was involved in the racket. Poor girl… she only wanted the prince — I mean, the soldier she has fallen in love with — to be found.”

  “Does she now know the truth about her beloved soldier?”

  Atulyateja nodded. “It came as a shock to her. Everything has been a shock for her.”

  They were silent for a few moments.

  “And Ghatakarpara?” Amara Simha looked quizzically at the garrison commander. “Was he serious about this girl?”

  “I don’t know, councilor. But if there is anything I know about my friend, it is that he is not shallow. He would never play with a woman’s feelings or take her for a ride. Ghatakarpara is a man of honour, and he wouldn’t give his word lightly. If the girl thinks he loves her, it’s because he has given her reason to think so.”

  “So, he reciprocates her feelings,” Amara Simha sighed. “Damn, how this complicates matters! Did he even realize what he was getting into? He is a scion of the Aditya dynasty — how is he ever going to be with the daughter of a merchant… now the daughter of a traitor? How is this not going to end in heartbreak?” He set the cup down on the table hard, his voice ringing with with anger and anguish. “Why do young people not think before falling in love? Why can’t they see the pain that they are inviting upon themselves? Why does love hanker for so much sorrow and punishment? Why is love so foolish?”

  Amara Simha sat staring morosely at the table, while Dattaka and Atulyateja looked at one another, at a loss for words. At last, the councilor stirred and looked at Dattaka.

  “You did well by solving the mystery surrounding the Huna scout’s death. Now I can proudly say that a relation of mine helped nab the traitor Satyaveda.” He smiled at the young commander. “Well done! A promotion is in order.”

  “Thank you for trusting me to solve the scout’s murder, councilor,” Dattaka answered, glowing with pride.

  Given the lateness of the hour, it took Angamitra a little longer than usual to shoo the Huna scout into the room. The scout looked frightened at having been woken up and marched so late in the night, and when he caught Amara Simha staring balefully at him, he shrank and whimpered unintelligibly. The interpreter followed a few moments later, blinking and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “Forgive me for having disturbed your sleep,” Amara Simha addressed the interpreter. “But there is something I need you to ask this fellow.”

  The interpreter nodded.

  “Ask him if he knows where the town of Ki’barr is.”

  The interpreter put forth the question, and the scout replied with a nod. Without being prompted, he pointed westward and said a couple of words.

  “That way,” said the interpreter, pointing in the same direction.

  “Ask him how far the town is from here.”

  Again, the interpreter and the Huna prisoner exchanged words.

  “He says it will take us three days to get there.”

  Amara Simha drained his firewater and rose from the table. “Tell him that he has two days on the outside to get us there. Two days.” He raised his index and middle fingers to stress his point. “If we are not there by the evening of the day after, I will wring his neck and kill him. Tell him that.”

  The interpreter spoke, and the Huna turned pale, and paler still, until it looked like he would faint. Finally, he turned to the councilor and nodded weakly.

  “Good that we understand each other,” said Amara Simha.

  Addressing the others in the room, he added, “I suggest we all catch what little sleep we can. Once the sun is up, we shall depart for the Fortress of Ki’barr.”

  Yah'bre

  Hearing the stomp of approaching feet and voices raised in anger, Ghatakarpara braced himself.

  What came through the door of his cell would probably be ugly, but the important bit was that somebody was finally taking notice of him.

  That way, it had been a calculated risk.

  A key was rammed into the lock, and the next instant, the door swung wildly on its hinges, kicked in by a foot wearing a rough shoe made of horsehide. A leg followed the foot through the widening crack, followed by a tall, bearded man with a swarthy complexion. The elderly woman charged with minding the prince entered next, joined by two other men, both bearded and bearing swords.

  The group’s leader glared at Ghatakarpara, then dropped his gaze to the earthenware pitcher that lay in many pieces by the wall next to the door. The woman took up a shrill rant; it struck the prince that this was the first time he had heard her utter a word in the two days they had been acquainted as captive and jailor. Not that he understood anything of what she was saying, for her dialect was alien to him. Listening to her nagging, grating tone, he immediately wished she would go back to being quiet, but there was no letting up as the woman railed and pointed vigorously from Ghatakarpara to the shattered pitcher to a bruise on her forearm near the wrist.

  Seeing that the woman would go on forever if given the choice, the leader raised a hand, calling for silence. Eyes fixed on Ghatakarpara, he drew a short sword and approached, and then, moving quickly, he grabbed the prince by his shackled wrists. Simultaneously, he put the blade to Ghatakarpara’s throat and pulled him close; the sword nicked the prince’s skin, drawing a trickle of blood.

  “Why hit?” he growled, thrusting his face down into Ghatakarpara’s. The prince noticed that the man’s beard had flecks of grey and he was missing a tooth, so the air whistled through the gap as he drew breath.

  “What want, uh?�
�� The man said, struggling to thread words in Avanti. He jerked his head at the woman and the broken pitcher to make himself understood. “Uh?”

  Ghatakarpara sneaked a glance at his minder, who stood nursing her wrist and looking at him with resentful eyes. The two men who had accompanied the leader stood by her side, waiting and watching. Ghatakarpara gave the woman a sour, vindictive smile.

  “If you are asking why I threw the pitcher at her,” he replied, turning back to the leader, the smile still in place, “it was to see if she could do anything apart from bringing me food and water. Looking at the speed with which she fetched you all, I realize she can.”

  “You think funny?” the leader scowled, bearing down on the prince. “You think funny on us? You... buťut yei or be dead.” Not finding the correct equivalent in Avanti, he substituted with words from his strange tongue, but the way he drew the sword across the prince’s throat, miming the slashing motion, needed no translating.

  “I don’t think funny on you,” Ghatakarpara said a trifle too smugly, knowing he was pushing his luck, but wanting to show them that he wasn’t the sort to be rattled easily. “On the contrary, I want to have a serious talk with you about your own safety and well-being.”

  The leader blinked, trying to understand what had been said and failing miserably. He shot a glance over his shoulder at his men, whose faces were blank too. Reassured that he was still their linguistic superior, he turned back to Ghatakarpara.

  “What speak?” he asked, shaking his head to show that he didn’t comprehend.

  “You should let me go,” Ghatakarpara sighed, deciding to keep it simple. “Otherwise, you will all be destroyed, I assure you.”

  “Oh.” This time the man understood and grinned. “Oh. I so afraid.” He gave a mock shiver and grinned even wider.

  “Nice. I would like to see that grin when the weight of Avanti’s forces is breathing down your backs and you bandits have nowhere to run.”

  The man ogled in confusion. “What?”

  “Yes, I bet that possibility didn’t even strike you,” Ghatakarpara smiled. “Of course, why would it? You have no way of knowing who I am or who my uncle is.”

  “We know. You Gharakapara. Your uncle Avanti king. What think? We Saka foolish, don’t know?”

  “Wha... what did you say?” The prince’s mouth fell open. “You are Sakas?”

  “Yes, Sakas.”

  The man nodded grimly, then realizing that it had only now dawned on their prisoner, he grinned. “We know you. You no know us. You still think funny on us, uh?” It wasn’t humanly possible to grin any wider, but the prince thought his captor just did. “We will pak’ui se...” again a substitution. Then, slowly, searching for the right words, “You... we will give to uncle... for land in Avanti he give us. Okay?”

  Ghatakarpara understood, and his heart sank. From the moment he had returned to consciousness and realized that he was being held hostage, he had thought that his captors were mountain bandits, and that he was being held in one of their hideouts along the frontier between Gosringa and the kingdom of Matsya. The assumption had been formed on the back of the conversation between his attackers that evening outside Udaypuri — his assailants had spoken in dialects of Avanti, the hotchpotch lingo of the bandits. And even after figuring out that he was being kept a prisoner, it had never once crossed the prince’s mind that his captors might know of his identity, or that they could be planning to leverage him to extract a ransom out of Avanti.

  They won’t pay if he’s dead. They want him alive. The prince suddenly remembered overhearing this as he lay with his senses slowly ebbing out of him. The men who had attacked him, he now understood, were locals from around Udaypuri, hired to kidnap him and hand him over alive to the Sakas. Ghatakarpara also realized that had the man leaning over him not referred to himself as a Saka, he would probably never have guessed his captors were savages from the Marusthali — for he had come to expect all savages to sport the hriiz on their foreheads. Whereas, he now remembered, even though the Hunas and Sakas had a common religion, unlike the Hunas, wearing a hriiz was not binding on the Sakas.

  “What do you think Samrat Vikramaditya to be?” the prince scoffed, even though he felt a lot less confident. “My uncle will not trade with filth like you.”

  “No?”

  The leer vanished abruptly, replaced with a hard, brutal sneer. Lifting Ghatakarpara’s shackled hand, the man brought his sword’s point to rest near the base of the prince’s index finger. Tracing a light path, he drew a faint line across the base of all four fingers, nicking the skin just enough to get the blood to swell out in trickling droplets.

  “No? We send one finger. Then we send one finger. Then one finger. He trade, no? I think he trade, Prince Gharakapara.”

  Ghatakarpara was undecided whether to headbutt his captor or drive a knee into his groin — both were attractive options and easily achievable under the circumstances — and had wisely concluded that neither would serve much purpose as long as he was in chains, when the man unexpectedly shoved him away. The prince staggered back in surprise. As he fought to retrieve his balance, the Saka pointed his sword straight at the prince’s face, his arm rigid and extended.

  “You s’apale... be nice.” He pointed to the woman and shook his head in a warning. “Not hit... s’ apale. You hit, one finger to uncle — I cut.”

  Turning on his heel and sheathing his sword in one fluid motion, the leader snapped something at the woman and his two companions and marched out of the cell. One of the men followed without a moment’s delay, but the other stood and stared at Ghatakarpara insolently. The prince understood that from now on, he would be under watch, the one surveying him from the door being the first to be saddled with the task.

  As the woman made her way to the door, Ghatakarpara called after her. “I want water.”

  The woman paused, glanced at the sentry, then turned to the prince with a malicious glint in her eye. She surveyed the broken pitcher and discovered that one broken piece miraculously held a shallow amount of water, an inch deep and as wide as a human palm. With sadistic intent, she kicked and nudged the broken piece in Ghatakarpara’s direction, the water inside it sloshing and tipping and spilling over the uneven edges. When the piece was within the prince’s reach, the woman turned and left the cell. The door shut with a bang, the lock turned heavily and the shuffling of footsteps faded into silence.

  Ghatakarpara watched the piece of broken pottery come to a wobbling halt with less than enough water in it to quench a bird’s thirst. His mind was not on the water, though, but on the implications of what he had learned. The Sakas knew who he was; they had probably always known, which was why they had had him kidnapped with the aim of ransoming him to Avanti. He guessed that the savages would use him to negotiate an entry into Sindhuvarta, and in addition, would bargain for some territorial control over Avanti and Matsya. There was no immediate threat to his life, but the Sakas could carry out their threat of mutilation should Avanti offer resistance. Yet, the prince was aware that his uncles as well as the rest of the council would not want him harmed in any way — which meant that most of the Sakas’ demands would be met.

  And that, he decided, was unacceptable.

  He would not be the reason for the savages getting a foothold in Sindhuvarta once again. He would not let the barbarians win so easily. If only he had the key to his shackles and the door...

  The prince blinked and stared at the jagged piece of earthenware, lying where his minder had kicked it. The piece had begun quivering on its own accord, and as he watched, the ounce of water inside it rose into the air, looping and defying gravity, stretching in strange, elliptical shapes. There was hardly enough water there, still the globule shifted and moulded itself — and in the twinkling of the eye, it had eerily formed the shape of a small key.

  It hung in the air a foot off the ground, shifting and dripping, but somehow holding its shape, as if by some exotic magic. A crude but distinct key shape, elastic and
wobbling.

  Mesmerized, Ghatakarpara dropped to a crouch and crept forward, reaching for the key with his manacled hands. He touched its surface tenderly, expecting it to break into a shower of droplets and collapse to the ground. Instead, the water shifted thickly mid-air, as though held by a magnetic force. Losing the shape of a key, the globule slipped between his fingers and ran heavily into the cup of his right palm, where it pooled, not one drop spilling to the floor.

  Ghatakarpara stared thoughtfully at his palm for a moment, before tossing the water into the air. Up it went in an arcing splash, breaking into a dozen globules of varying sizes, and these were all still rising when the prince tried staying them with his mind. Immediately, the globules and droplets eased to a halt, suspended two feet over his head, bobbing dreamily. One by one, the prince willed the globules to loosen and fall, and one by one each globule plopped into his palm, settling obediently to form a pool once again.

  Ghatakarpara stared thoughtfully into his palm for a long time.

  ***

  “I always thought he was a bit of a fool, but I find it hard to believe that Satyaveda betrayed our trust and sold his loyalty to the barbarians.”

  “I don’t.”

  “No?” Dhanavantri faced Varahamihira in surprise. “How come?”

  “Satyaveda always had a vicious streak. He was vindictive, not the sort to let go of a grudge. You remember the time he was a courtier here and one of the palace guards failed to greet him...”

  “Oh yes,” the physician nodded, catching on. “It was dark and raining, and the guard said he didn’t see Satyaveda standing in the shadows, but Satyaveda insisted the man had deliberately ignored him.”

  “Right, and look at the furore Satyaveda raised. He wanted the poor guard stripped of his rank and punished for disrespecting the throne. He petitioned every courtier, every palace official to support his demand. He came to me, urging me to take the matter up with the rest of the council...”