‘What?’
Before he knew what was happening, the boat tilted and Kattappa splashed into the water. Panic gripped him as he tried to swim. The current was swift but his hands got hold of some reeds. Reeds! His legs sank into the soft mud of the riverbed. Water came up only to his chest. He could hear the laughter of the madman fading away. He waddled to the shore, dragging his leg behind him. When he reached, he collapsed, catching his breath.
The next moment, ropes made of vines fell on his body, and before he could even cry out, tightened around him. He was lifted up, screaming and struggling, and before he could blink his eye, he was being carried away through the canopy of the jungle. The smell of Vaithalikas assaulted his nose and rough hands gripped him. The world around him turned and tossed—sometimes the sky was below and the jungle above, sometimes he plunged head down and was lifted up at the last moment. The Vaithalikas carried him from tree to tree, across the roaring mountain streams and above cascading falls.
Just as it had started, it stopped. The ropes uncoiled and he landed on his buttocks. He tried to stand up. Pain shot through his injured leg and ribs. His scream of pain was drowned out by the vibrating ululations and drumbeats in the forest. Then everything became silent.
Meanwhile, in the chamber of Skandadasa, the upapradhana was poring over ancient books taken from the palace library. There was so much to do and three months’ absence had made work pile up on his table. Someone knocked at the door. Rubbing his tired eyes, Skandadasa went to answer it. A man stood in the shadows, avoiding the light from the lamp Skandadasa was holding in his hand.
‘The slave has crossed the river,’ he said crisply and vanished into the darkness. Good, Skandadasa thought. Kattappa had taken the bait. This was the first piece in the elaborate trap he had laid for the Vaithalikas.
He returned to his books and was flipping the leaves of the manuscript when something made his heart jump to his throat. Fool, fool, fool! He slammed his fist on the table, scattering the books everywhere. The lamp went off and the acrid smell of the burnt wick pierced his nose. Skandadasa felt like banging his head on the pillar. He had not done his homework, he had not studied enough. He was not worth the chair he was sitting in.
With trembling hands he rubbed the flint to light the lamp again. He fished out the manuscript he had last read. He brought it near the lamp. There was no mistaking it. In the three-hundred-year-old manuscript there was a picture of the crude Gaurikanta stone. He had seen it sometime back, tied like a charm, in the waist-band of the slave Kattappa. One of the missing stones. He had sent the slave across the river instead of apprehending him and questioning him about how he acquired it. The slave was not as simple as he had thought. Skandadasa felt betrayed. He gritted his teeth and swallowed the bitter truth. With renewed vigour, he started working. By Amma Gauri, he would unravel the sinister conspiracy against his motherland and make sure every culprit was hanged.
TWENTY-ONE
Jeemotha
The merchant ship cruised downstream towards the city of Mahishmathi. On either side of the river Gomukha the jungle peered into the water, as if the river held some secret. When the ship slipped past, things slithered into the river or scampered away into bushes. Except for the creak of the planks and gentle rhythm of the paddles, the wooden ship on which Jeemotha was standing was silent. But even that noise irritated Captain Jeemotha. Silence was the biggest ally in his profession. They should have no knowledge that he was coming. He hoped the creaky sounds of the ships would not carry far—perhaps the drone of the crickets would drown it.
Jeemotha was standing at the prow of the leading ship, looking at the silhouette of the Gauriparvat peak. It was twilight, and darkness had swept over the banks of the river. He could have reached the city in five days if he had used rowers to speed up, but he was letting the ship drift. He had received an owl from Pattaraya about Skandadasa’s spies and decided to postpone his arrival at Mahishmathi. The forced delay came as a respite to Jeemotha. He was yet to collect all the merchandise he needed to trade. When the ships reached the spot where the river Gomukha met the river Mahishi, he ordered them to enter the smaller river. Gomukha split into many rivulets upstream, and his oracle Nanjunda had promised to guide them to a few villages from where they could collect their items.
The villages belonged to various tribes that lay beyond the borders of Mahishmathi. It was surprising that Mahishmathi had not bothered to conquer them and make them a part of the empire. Over the past three hundred years, most of the known kingdoms in the land between the Snow Mountains and the three seas had come under Mahishmathi’s suzerainty. Yet, this cluster of more than seven hundred independent villages, spread over the hills and jungles between the Gomukha river and table land, had been spared. It suited Jeemotha. Otherwise, it would have been difficult to source the merchandise. Jeemotha suspected that the villages had been left alone for strategic reasons. If they came under Mahishmathi, Jeemotha would not have been able to do his trade, and without the trade Jeemotha was in, the economy of Mahishmathi would have collapsed. All for a few stones—and they called him the pirate, Jeemotha thought wryly
The air was humid and warm, just like it was before it rained. He was perspiring from every pore of his body, but he had chosen this night after consulting the oracle. Nanjunda might be a drunkard, and even half-crazy, but he was seldom wrong about the weather. With distaste, Jeemotha eyed the old man lying drunk out of his senses on the deck, holding an empty pot of toddy to his chest. The kind of company an honest businessman had to keep to make a living! he sighed.
Jeemotha had not given a rat’s ass for oracles and holy men for the better part of his life, but now he was slowly becoming aware of his own mortality. He was in his mid-thirties, too old for a pirate and damn lucky to have kept his head on his shoulders for so long. Most of those who had started business at the same time as him were either resting in the muck two hundred feet deep, or had hung ten feet from the ground until crows cleaned the flesh off their bones. He had been lucky so far, but he was smart enough to know that luck wouldn’t last forever.
Signs that the tide was turning for him had been evident from the previous month. It had forced him to abandon his disdain for religion and depend on the likes of Nanjunda. True, the oracle’s tongue was liquored up, and half of what he said did not make any sense, yet it soothed Jeemotha’s heart. The oracle had promised him success in this mission and blessed his ship. Well, not his ship exactly, for he had stolen it after murdering its crew, but oracles weren’t fussy about such details. A few extra pots of toddy had helped. Jeemotha dismissed the thought—he was trying not to be cynical. He should have faith, is what the oracle said. Faith can move mountains, the oracle said. So be it. He would try to have more faith when he wanted some mountain to be moved.
Getting old forced one to be spiritual, he thought. After he had made sufficient money, maybe he would think of settling down somewhere. He would build temples and have many devadasis. That was the path to respectability. He would bring sculptors from the east coast and get them to build beautiful, ornate temples, of which he would be known as the patron. Future generations would praise him as a man of piety. Maybe they would even call him a saint. He had no objection to that. He was as saintly as the next man. It all depended on today’s mission.
As a rule, he never got involved in politics. Politics was a game that was more dangerous than piracy. You needed to be truly evil to survive in politics, Jeemotha used to tell his friends. If the last voyage had not ended in disaster, he would not have agreed to what he was doing now. He had been forced to burn down his own cargo when the royal ships of Mahishmathi surrounded his fleet under the command of Senapathi Hiranya. He was carrying illegal gold water hidden in caskets that were supposed to contain oil. He had no choice other than to sink the ships and escape. In the sulphur powder that made the ships go up in a puff, his dreams too had exploded. He was lucky to have escaped with his life.
He was sitting in a tavern, dr
owning his sorrow in toddy and cursing Skandadasa—after whose appointment as upapradhana his business had suffered terribly—when a man had approached him. A former sailor who called himself Keera, the man had spoken about a fantastic plan to get fabulously rich. Jeemotha had dismissed the man’s talk as a drunkard’s banter, until he mentioned the name Bhoomipathi Pattaraya.
Many weeks later, he had found himself sitting across the powerful bhoomipathi in one of the nondescript taverns bordering Kadarimandalam. Pattaraya was disguised as a cattle merchant with Keera acting as his servant. Pattaraya did not touch liquor while he talked, and this had filled Jeemotha with misgivings. An evil man without vices was the most dangerous of all.
The offer Pattaraya made was too good to be true. But when he heard what he was supposed to smuggle in and out of Mahishmathi, Jeemotha had sprung up, toppling the pots of toddy from the table. He had screamed at Pattaraya that the whole plan was too audacious and fraught with danger. He didn’t want anything to do with it. Pattaraya upped the offer and they haggled like good merchants until the rooster crowed dawn. By the time they parted, Jeemotha’s greed had won over his good sense, and here he was, scouting for his goods.
So far, he had managed to grab three hundred black slave children from an Arab slave galley, and almost as many women from raiding more than thirteen villages—a labour of more than two months. His captives were now in the lower decks of his ship, chained like animals. The upper two decks contained silk cloth from China, barrels of flavoured oils from Rome, horses from Arabia, and pearl ornaments from the silver islands—all purchased with the advance money paid by Pattaraya.
With him was a copper plate token, the licence to trade in the empire of Mahishmathi, a licence issued by the minister of treasury and taxes, Bhoomipathi Pattaraya himself. That was the cover for Jeemotha. There was always a demand for slaves from the nobles of Mahishmathi, but of course it was never in the open. The profit from selling slaves would be his, which—even after bribing various major and minor officials—was substantial. This year was Mahamakam, and Pattaraya had promised that his friend Khanipathi Hidumba would take all the boys for a huge price. The women would be purchased by Devadasis, a majority of them would be snapped up by Kalika. This had been the process many times before. He could understand Devadasis like Kalika paying him money. Her business yielded a lot of wealth; but from where did Khanipathi Hidumba get his money from? He was almost sure that it was the Mahishmathi treasury that was paying for the boy slaves. Either way, it made it possible for corrupt people like Kalika and other bhoomipathis to trade in slaves. If he was caught, they would hang him like a common pirate.
There were other minor pirates like Kathavan but Pattaraya had choosen to give the token to trade only to Jeemotha. There was a major condition attached to it. He would have to smuggle a slave ironsmith and some stones to Kadarimandalam and hand them over to the bastard Princess Chitraveni. From the elaborate scheme Pattaraya had laid out, Jeemotha was sure it had to be Gaurikanta stones. He suspected that the slave carpenter would be one of the experts who knew what to do with the stones. Dark rumours had always floated about the secret group of slave carpenters who created magic with the stones, who could summon djinns that protected Mahishmathi.
When Pattaraya had elaborated on his plan, the first thought in Jeemotha’s mind was to escape with the stones and the slave carpenter to some other country once they had boarded his ship. Any king would give a fortune to know the secret of Mahishmathi. It would have been much more than the slave trade could bring him in a lifetime. As if reading his thoughts, Pattaraya had casually remarked that the course of the river Mahishi flowed southeast through the Mahishmathi kingdom, down to Kadarimandalam. Jeemotha got the hint. Any misadventure from the pirate and Pattaraya would revoke his token to trade and send the Mahishmathi navy after him. He was sure to be captured as the entire course of the river, after the Patalaganga Falls to the sea, ran through the Mahishmathi empire or its vassal states. Jeemotha tried to negotiate for payment in gold coins, but Pattaraya had refused to part with even a copper of his own.
An official would never risk losing his money, and would never pay a businessman. It was always a one-way street. It was such a tough country to do business, Jeemotha thought bitterly. The risk was entirely Jeemotha’s, but if he was not ready to accept the offer, there were others who would. Jeemotha had no choice but to agree to Pattaraya’s terms.
The sky was now a sheet of black clouds above him, and lightning cracked ominously in the distance. It was going to rain, and he had to be out of the bloody village with his catch before it started. A breeze made the sail flutter.
‘Idiots, I told you to tighten it,’ he hissed. Two sailors quickly clambered up the main sail mast to secure it. A patch of sail snapped and flew away like a huge bat over him. An ill omen. He cursed. This mission had to be successful. Had he not bribed the oracle’s god with a sacrificial goat before they ventured out? He hoped the oracle’s god would keep her word. Time was running out for Jeemotha. And, it would be a waste of good meat.
Jeemotha hated the river Gomukha and its winding, shallow course. He was more at ease in the wide open sea. The river was treacherous, with hidden rocks and shifting sands. If he had a choice, he would not have ventured out on a new moon night in this river. It was sheer madness, but between madness and ruin, Jeemotha would any day choose the former. This was his last hope. But where was the village the oracle had promised? Soon, it would be dawn. And it would be difficult to hide his ships.
He shook the oracle, calling out, ‘Ayya, ayya.’
Nanjunda blabbered some expletives and turned to the other side. Jeemotha lost his temper. He kicked the oracle between his ribs and Nanjunda sat up with a cry.
‘Whore son, where is your bloody village?’ Jeemotha said, slapping Nanjunda across his face with the back of his hand.
‘Shantam, papam! Kali Mahakali…Heaayaaa…’ The oracle stood up, grabbing his ritual sword and shaking the trinkets on it.
‘The time has come, the time has come.’ He jumped up and down on the deck and threw saffron powder on Jeemotha’s face. The pirate’s next kick was aimed between Nanjunda’s legs, and this time the oracle’s shriek was more heartfelt. The sword fell from his hands and he sat down on his haunches, clutching his groin.
‘If you don’t shut your stinking mouth, your time will come soon. Where is the village?’ Jeemotha grabbed Nanjunda by his hair.
Fear was writ all over the oracle’s face. He made a whimpering noise, and when Jeemotha picked up the ornamental ritual sword, Nanjunda blurted, ‘You have to walk from here.’
‘You said it was by the river.’
‘It used to be. The river changed course a few years ago. It…it is only as far on foot as the time it would take to chew a betel nut.’
Jeemotha considered that. Leaving the ship was risky. But there was no point going back without achieving what he had come for. He let go of Nanjunda’s hair and stood up. He turned to Keera, ‘Anchor this somewhere safe. We are going to the village.’
Keera wanted to say something, but thought better of it, considering the mood of his superior. Soon a party of six warriors, armed with axes and swords, jumped into the marshy riverbank. Keera was holding the oracle by his neck as they waddled through shallow waters and climbed to dry land. Nanjunda was carrying a rooster in his hand and his ceremonial sword, wrapped in a red cloth so that it wouldn’t jingle, on his shoulder.
Something scurried away as the men started walking towards the village. It took some time for their eyes to be acclimated to the darkness. Bushes clustered as inky blots and the trees appeared to have all their leaves fused together. They were nervous that even the sound of leaves being crushed underfoot was too noisy, and every time a twig snapped, they froze. Jeemotha felt uneasy. Vicious remarks about the ancestry of the oracle rose in his throat, but he suppressed them.
‘Is a betel nut and a coconut the same in your village, old fool?’ Keera asked the oracle, and th
e warriors chuckled.
Jeemotha hissed, ‘Quiet.’
They could see the village in the distance now. It was nestled at the foot of a hill. A country dog barked and soon its pack took up the call. Jeemotha cursed under his breath. They halted under a tree at the edge of the clearing. It was a fairly large village, and Jeemotha counted up to sixty-three houses before the main street forked and the curvature of the hill hid what was beyond. Under the banyan tree at the junction, a lamp was still burning and someone lay huddled near it. Other than that, the entire village was shrouded in darkness, and the huts looked like lumps of coal fallen from a giant’s sack.
Jeemotha turned when he heard the jingle of bells from the oracle’s sword. Nanjunda was sitting cross-legged and his warriors were standing in a half-circle around him. The oracle’s eyes were closed as he mumbled some mantras in a hushed drone. The rooster in his hand tried to flap its wings when the oracle lifted it above his head. A good rooster wasted, thought Jeemotha, but such rituals were important for his men. It was supposed to bring luck. Fat luck I’ve had so far, thought Jeemotha, and waited impatiently for Nanjunda to finish his ritual.
‘Can I light a fire for the puja?’ the oracle asked.
‘Why not? We should have brought some drummers and dancers too and invited the villagers for the party. Bloody fool,’ Jeemotha hissed. The oracle put back the arana wood hurriedly. He would have to go without fire.
‘Without fire, the blessings of Chudala Kali will be half,’ said Keera.
Jeemotha was getting restless. ‘You will get all the fire in the world once we are done with our work,’ he said. He could sense the uneasiness in his superstitious men but this was not negotiable. Fire was too risky. Someone might wake up, someone might see the light.
‘Hurry,’ Jeemotha said, and the oracle started muttering his mantras at a vigorous pace. His men also started mumbling mantras and, despite himself, Jeemotha closed his eyes and said a silent prayer. He needed all the help he could get from the gods tonight.
The Rise of Sivagami : Book 1 of Baahubali - Before the Beginning Page 20
