by Sarah Zettel
And to shade his face from casual glances so idle eyes might not realize this was Commander Makul who walked up to his prince and made the salute of trust.
“Thank you for coming,” Samudra said softly. He scanned the gardens all around with his soldier’s eyes, all his senses sharp. He saw the gardener whose shears he had heard before straighten up with a basket of cut greenery balanced on one hip and slowly walk away. Hamsa took note of his watchfulness and understood the reason for it. She circled the fountain, strolling easily, as if stretching her legs, but in reality taking up a post opposite his own, so she could clearly see the side of the garden that the fountain blocked from his view.
“Did Pravan see you leave?” Samudra asked the man beside him.
“He may have seen, but I don’t believe he marked it much.” Makul grimaced his distaste. “He was too busy holding forth among his favorites.”
“Yes,” sighed Samudra as he gestured for Makul to take a seat beside him on the bench. “It is a pity some of those have fallen under his spell. There are a few who might make good soldiers, if they were given a good officer.”
“We still have good officers among us,” replied Makul mildly, but the reproof was plain.
“I know, I know. But for how long?” There was no need to mask his bitterness. Already he saw it, how senior men looked to Pravan, aware of his place in the emperor’s esteem. Older men, wiser men, were beginning to defer to him, despite his recent fiasco in the mountains, and Pravan was taking note of each and every one of them.
Makul sighed and set aside his borrowed umbrella. He ran his hands through his hair. “You could end it in a heartbeat, my prince.”
“Not in a heartbeat, Makul. Not anymore.” Samudra stood. He could not be still. He needed to move, to try to escape from his words even as he spoke them. “Perhaps if my eyes had opened before the horse sacrifice … but now it is too late. Now there are only hard roads left out of this disaster.”
He faced the fountain and folded his hands behind him. He did not look at Makul. He did not want to see the older man’s face as Makul asked, “What is my prince saying?”
Samudra bowed his head. Shame weighed him down, shame and necessity, and neither left him the luxury of silence. “I am continuing the conversation we began in your home.”
He heard the hiss of Makul’s intake of breath.
“What has changed my prince’s mind?”
The sun was so hot. It beat on Samudra’s head and made the sweat trickle down his neck and back. It made yet another weight for his thoughts. The gardens around them were still. The trees seemed to wilt a little, despite the canals and channels that ran with water for them. Even the servants were allowed to take their rest and shelter now. The sun was too strong for bystanders and spies.
And need it too strong for you to be distracted from your purpose. You must speak.
“Pravan is planning another raid on the Huni,” he said. “He speaks of it to the emperor.”
Makul spun the umbrella in his thick, calloused fingers. The filigreed thing looked ridiculous in his big hand, but Samudra envied the other man its shade. “I know. I was not sure you did.”
“How could I not know?” He snorted. “The barracks are full of it, and if none will speak to my face, I do still have ears, Makul.”
“Are you doing this because Pravan has the emperor’s favor?”
Now Samudra could turn and face him. These words he could speak with all the fervor of his heart. This was nothing less than true. “I am doing this because men are going to die, Makul. Good men. I am doing this because if my brother tries to rule by either the sword of war or the sword of sacrifice, Hastinapura is going to fall!”
Makul bowed his head. He seemed smaller now, shrinking in on himself as Samudra had never seen him do before.
“Pravan is a fool with dreams of glory,” Makul said softly. “Divakesh is using him to root out the teachings of the Awakened One. He’s frightened the emperor somehow.”
“Chandra fears too much, Makul, he always has. I think Divakesh has told him that the Mothers will take the empire from him if he is not diligent enough in protecting their worship. He would believe that …” He saw how the demands of ruling wore our father down, sickened him, killed him. Oh yes, my brother would believe the Mothers would strike him down the same way.
Makul turned his face away. It was near blasphemy what they were now saying and even a man who harbored treason in his own heart might blanch to hear it spoken from another’s lips. “It is not only them,” Samudra went on. “You were right. Queen Bandhura is certain I am plotting against the emperor. She conspires to push me further and further away from my brother’s trust and affections.” He gazed again at the caged birds with their hooked beaks and sharp claws. “If I do not move soon, it will be too late.”
Samudra knelt at Makul’s feet as he had not done since he was a boy. “My battle-father,” he said. “Do not let it come to this. Understand, I beg you, that this is what I must do, although it tears out my heart. Do not leave Pravan and Divakesh to rule my brother.”
Makul looked at him a long time. Samudra saw understanding come to the old soldier, then belief, and last of all acceptance.
Makul bowed his head. His free hand plucked restlessly at the borrowed cloth that covered his legs. Samudra noted that the hand shook very little. “I am sorry it must be this way.”
“So am I, battle-father,” whispered Samudra. “Oh, so am I.”
“You know I have spoken of these matters with other men?”
Samudra nodded, his throat too tightly shut for speech.
Makul nodded. “They will be most pleased if I say you are ready to speak with them.”
Samudra swallowed, but his voice remained hoarse. “Will you tell them this?”
Now it was Makul who turned his face away. “If my prince desires that I should, I will.”
Samudra laid his hand on Makul’s shoulder. “I do not desire it, Makul, but it is what is required.”
Another silence fell between them. Samudra wondered what Makul was thinking and then was glad he did not have to know. But the strength came back into the old soldier’s face and his bearing straightened. “Your wisdom is great, my prince. May the Mothers guide your steps.”
Samudra stood, backing away, wishing with all of his soul that there was something he could say, some way to speak of love and duty, and the harshness of the dance of sacrifice that was the true heart of being soldier and prince. But there were no words for this. “Go now, battle-father. I thank you.”
Makul bowed once more and turned, becoming the old anonymous priest who had taken a stroll in the gardens and now must return to his duties at the temples.
Samudra watched, breathing hard as if he had just finished a race, his hands clenching the empty air over and over. Makul knew. He knew what Samudra was truly doing, and yet he would follow him anyway. Samudra wanted to howl until the heavens split open. He wanted to face down all the Mothers and demand to know why, why, this must be the price of Hastinapura’s safety. He wanted to call Makul back and say he would find another way.
But he did not move. He stood where he was and watched his battle-father walk away.
So consumed was he with his own pain, he did not hear Hamsa slip up behind him.
“My prince,” she whispered. “We are overheard.”
Samudra froze. “Where?”
“To the right, down the slope, beneath the stand of bamboo.”
He let his eyes wander in the direction she indicated. He saw it now, the patches of white and tan between the green stalks and stems. He nodded and touched Hamsa’s shoulder, then made a gesture of dismissal. She walked away toward the palace, and he made as if to sit down again.
Then, Samudra lunged down the slope, snatching up the spy by the shoulders and hauling him to his feet. At first, he saw only a gardener, ludicrously clutching a basket of pruned greenery and flowers. He was about to let go from sheer relief, but then his eye
saw what his mind could not at first take in.
Princess Natharie looked at him from under the wound cloth of the gardener’s plain turban. Samudra was so startled he stumbled a step backward. She, in return, drew herself up straight, making no attempt to hide or to flee, or to explain.
It was Hamsa who spoke and her voice was utterly shattered. “Great Princess, why are you here?”
Natharie also backed away, giving herself the space that such dignity as might remain to her required. “You know that, Agnidh. I am here to listen to the prince’s discourse with that … priest.”
The hesitation told him she had indeed heard what was said. Anger and incomprehension tore through Samudra. “Who sent you here?” he croaked. He could not stop staring. A woman of royal blood, here she was for anyone to see, anyone to touch or take, dressed in a loose smock to keep off the flies and with ragged, much-used sandals on her feet. How could she do this to herself? What was this woman?
She must have seen all this in his face, but she offered no apology, not even with her eyes. Instead, she offered a flat statement. “Queen Bandhura sent me.”
“Bandhura? Bandhura is using you?” Bandhura did this to you?
“Yes.”
He could not look at her. He could barely stand to be beside her. After all that had just passed between him and Makul his nerves were already stretched taut. After all he had thought and dared to believe about … this woman before him, how could he begin to confront her this way?
“Why would the first of all queens send you here?” Hamsa found the words that had eluded him.
Natharie gave a small, mirthless laugh. “You cannot guess, Agnidh?”
Samudra hung his head. He looked up to Heaven. He saw the black glimmer of the queen’s fountain and the burning blue of the sky and the silent green gardens in the glare of the midday sun. He saw everything but an answer he could understand. “Why would you do this?” he cried.
Natharie did not flinch. She did not even blink her eyes. “Because she offered me freedom and threatened my life.”
“She what? How?” Samudra felt the blood drain away from his face, and from his heart. He looked across to Hamsa. Hamsa had gone white.
Natharie sighed. She toyed with the flower stems in her basket. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, it matters!” Anger, so familiar, so useless flooded him. Anger at her, at Bandhura. Anger at himself for not having prevented this, all of this, every last wrong, broken, treacherous event that now surrounded him. Anger at Mother A-Kuha for driving him to this place with her riddles and her bloody, bloody dance.
Into this storm of anger, Natharie’s voice dropped like iron. “Samudra, what matters is that you have caught me, and I have heard what you said to the man in the priest’s dress.”
He folded his arms, the anger churning through him stirring all his arrogance. What was Bandhura thinking, sending such a woman out to spy on two soldiers? “What is it you think you have heard?”
Natharie smiled as she read the thoughts, but the smile was grim and without triumph. “I have heard that you are pretending to join a rebellion in order to bring it down. I also know that Queen Bandhura will use that pretense to denounce you to the emperor.”
And Chandra will listen. Not even drowning beneath his anger could Samudra pretend his brother would do otherwise. “Will you tell her?”
“I must tell her something.”
“You can say that you failed.”
She shook her head. “No, I can’t.”
“Why? Pride?” Samudra regretted the tone more than the words as soon as he had spoken.
“No.”
“Then why?”
She did not answer him and his anger flared again. “Do you know what the penalty is for one of your rank leaving the small domain? If your judge is feeling generous, you will only be beaten with bamboo strips until you fall unconscious. If not, you will be trampled to death.” See, now I have power over you. If no one else ever hears me again, you must hear me now!
But again, Natharie made no answer and Samudra felt himself tremble from the fury and the fear and the love; yes, the broken and disappointed love that tore at his heart.
“Why did you do this to me?” he whispered, unable to hide his anguish any longer.
In response, Natharie’s face went hard as stone. “That question is unworthy of you, Samudra.”
And she was right. Again. Samudra watched his hands as they curled into fists. You are not a boy. You are not a vain and foolish child. You are a man and you are a prince, and you are here with this woman. She is who and what she is and you must face it all. All of it, Samudra, not just what you wish you could see.
Samudra bowed his head, gesturing his apology. “No it is not unworthy of me, it is unworthy of you. Natharie …” Her name caught just a little in his throat. “What will you do?”
She bit her lip, glancing back toward the white walls and ivory gates of the palace. What is in your mind, Natharie? What is in your heart? “I will return to my mistress, and I will tell her what I saw. I think, however, I did not hear every word correctly.”
Samudra lifted his head. Hope that pierced almost as deeply as anger within him. “You will do this for me?”
She nodded. “My home needs you strong, and if you will not … if you cannot be emperor, then you must be the emperor’s sword arm, not this Pravan, and most of all not Divakesh.”
It was as if the sun rose in his private darkness, and by that light within he was able to see past his own danger and his own fragile schemes. “Bandhura will have yet more power over you.”
He had thought he would see her tremble, but instead, Natharie smiled once more, and this time that smile was sly. “Perhaps not.”
He cocked his head toward her. “There is something else?”
She nodded, but before he could ask what this something else was, she asked, “Samudra, will you trust me?”
He looked into her eyes for a long time. Was it only her beauty that he saw there? It was beauty enough to bring any man to his knees for her. Did he truly see her heart? She had courage, but she was also capable of subterfuge, and perhaps better at it than he. Was she lying to him with those eyes now?
It seemed to Samudra that his next words would change the whole of the dance, for good or for ill, and change it forever. “Yes, Natharie,” he said. “I will trust you.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, and he knew she understood how grave this was. “I hope it will not have to be for long.”
He wanted to touch her. He wanted to take her into his arms and kiss her and do so much more, to take his comfort in her beauty, even as she was in the clothes of a slave, her strong, fair face bare to the harsh sunlight. “I must let you go before you are seen.”
“Yes.” She bit her lip again. She reached into the basket and pulled out a branch of scarlet blooms. “Take these. If anyone wonders, you can say you were speaking to a gardener about the best tokens to bring me to show your affections.”
He stared at the delicate flowers she laid across his palm, and then looked up at her, and this time he knew the ache and the conflict he saw in her was real, because he felt its echo within his own breast.
“Take care, Great Prince.” She made obeisance as a servant would, then, resting the basket on her hip she left him, heading toward the shadow of the palace walls without once looking back.
“Take care, Natharie,” he whispered. “Take very great care.”
Then there was nothing to do but turn and walk the other way.
Natharie forced herself not to run across the gardens. She trudged. She was a weary laborer, going home to get out of the sun. The gardeners had a barracks to themselves, dug out of the earthen berm by the palace’s inner wall. Its turf roof was as carefully tended as the rest of the garden. Unless you knew the location of the narrow stair down to the doorway, you would pass the dwelling by.
Inside it was cool, but dark as a cave. The floor was packed dirt and the walls wer
e glazed clay. By the light of the hearth fire, Natharie picked her way between the sleeping bodies of the gardeners, snoring and wheezing away the middle of the day when it was too hot for any but madmen and spies to be out. It was the old woman who dozed beside the cookstove who had let Natharie stash her other clothes here. They were actually Ekkadi’s clothes. The woman had believed Natharie’s story that she was a maid of the small domain come to deliver a love note to the prince. She would probably entertain all her confederates with the story tonight.
But all she did now as Natharie crept past to retrieve her bundle was open one knowing eye and wink. Natharie winked back, snatched up the pile of borrowed clothing, and slipped out the door as quickly as she could. Although the foot of the stairwell was open to the sky, it was about as private as any other place she would find outside the palace. She quickly shed her soiled and sweat-soaked gardener’s clothing, and wrapped herself in Ekkadi’s simple servant’s garments. She left the others outside the door along with the silver ring she had promised the old woman, and ran up the steps.
The inner walls of the palace had a number of small doors in them for those who had no business coming and going through the grand gates as if they were the emperor. Each of these was guarded, of course, but at times some of the guards were more sympathetic to errands of love and mischief than others. Ekkadi, naturally, knew which these were and fortunately, Samudra and Makul’s conversation had not lasted past the time for shift change. Natharie was able to reenter the palace as easily as she had left it. She tried not to count how many men had now seen her come and go. She felt absurdly exposed. Already, she was becoming used to the idea that modesty required that she be closed away.
And it’s only been a few months. What will I be after years of this?
She bit her lip, remembering Samudra’s blunt recitation of the penalties should she be caught. If I have years yet.
She emerged from the dim and dusty servants’ stairs to be surrounded once more by the opulent confines of the small domain. She hurried at once to the library. There, Master Gauda knelt beside a figure wearing ruby-red silks and sliver veils and made a great show of dunning an ancient text into her. It was Ekkadi, but to the casual eye, she could be Natharie, as long as she was sitting down. Without a word, they retired to the dressing alcove to exchange their costumes and assume their proper stations in the world. With that, all was done and she could breathe again.
