MAHABHARATA SERIES BOOK#2: The Seeds of War (Mba) (15 page)

He would have her. 

On any condition. 

‘Yes,’ he said hoarsely. 

‘I accept,’ he added.

And then he moved towards her, and she towards him, in a blurring of emotion and flame. 

And the rest was white satin bliss. 

6

The next several months of Shantanu’s life passed in that same blurring rush of lust and fire, hot seminal passion spent upon cool satin skin. His nameless wife, whom everyone addressed simply as ‘Queen’, ‘Rani’, or ‘Your Highness’ exchanged with him every manner of pleasure imaginable between man and woman. He had her whenever he desired, as often as he desired, with never a complaint, look of weariness, or gesture of denial. She was like a river in spate, always roaring with passion, brimming with desire, overflowing her banks with lust and love. Her body undulated between his hands and his hips like water poured into a human vessel, seeming to take whatever shape he desired. And not merely the arts of the bedroom, she was equally immaculate in her conveyance of the arts of queenship: her conduct, behaviour, speech, generosity, social skills and royal bearing won the hearts of the entire court and the love of the people as well. Nobody could desire more in a queen, and even more amazingly, nobody did. Nor was she dominating or interfering: she let him have his way with the kingdom as he did with her, and somehow that only made him feel more responsible for his every action or word, more considered and just in his judgement, more exacting in his pursuance of dharma. They were golden days and they passed with the speed of a dolphin racing downriver. Even the kingdom flourished, for the rich alluvial plains of the kingdom, nourished by the Ganga and her sister rivers, seemed to pour bounty upon them, producing the most plentiful crop ever recorded, and the most bounteous quality of harvest. 

When she gave him the news that she was to be the mother of his child, he was overjoyed. It was the diamond atop her tiara of accomplishments. He knew she would be a perfect mother just as she was perfect in all else she did. And she would give him the most beautiful, intelligent and capable child ever. 

He sighed and lay back against the ornate golden rack of the enormous bedstead. They were laying in their bedchamber after a session of lovemaking. The moonlight was soft on the marbled floor, the wispy curtains fluttered in a cool night breeze, and somewhere a nightbird was singing to its mate a song of sweet sad love. His life was perfect and about to enhanced by the arrival of a new level of perfection: parenthood. 

‘How long?’ he asked, smiling up at the curved ceiling, inlaid with precious stones and carvings. 

‘Soon,’ she said. 

He assumed she meant a few months. He had heard that women often did not ‘show’ their condition of motherhood until several months after conception. He did not know the exact numbers but he knew that the total gestation was about ten moon-months so he assumed she meant three or four or five months still to go. 

‘When our child is born,’ he said, ‘we shall have a grand celebration. I shall declare a feast day. There shall be—’

And he went on to describe all the wonderful things that would be done to mark the occasion of his first child. He did not even assume it would be a boy, merely that it would be his child, their child, and that was enough happiness for now. If it did indeed turn out to be a son, well, that would also satisfy the legal requirements of producing an heir and fell two deer with a single bow-shot. In which case, he would also…And he rambled on, spelling out the various things that he would be expected to do if it was a son and heir to the kingdom. 

When he looked around, wondering why she had not spoken for awhile or participated in his plans, he was surprised to see her gone from the chamber. Evidently, she had walked away while he was still speaking and he had no idea whether she had left a moment ago or several moments ago. 

Puzzled, he rose and walked through their chambers, expecting to find her at any moment. His search took him all the way to the queen’s apartments where he was surprised to find a flinty faced old daiimaa barring his way. 

‘My apologies, your highness,’ she said, ‘The queen cannot receive you at this time.’

He frowned. ‘I don’t understand. She was with me only a short while ago.’

The old woman looked up at him with a strange inscrutable expression. ‘It is her time, sire. She must be alone.’

He had no idea what she meant. ‘Time? What time?’

She gazed up at him with the same infinitely patient look which all aging daiimaas seemed to reserve for princes and yuvarajas. ‘A woman’s time, my lord. Her confinement.’

He stared at her. ‘Confinement?’ He had heard the time before. It meant… ‘You mean to tell me that she is with child. Yes, I know this already. I wish to see her and have words with her.’

But she raised a hand as he tried to step around her. ‘Please, sire, I dare not bar your way but she bade me tell you personally that if you enter her chambers now, you do so against her will and thereby break your promise.’ The daiimaa swallowed nervously and joined her palms together. ‘I am only repeating my mistress’s message. Please, do not judge me harshly for it.’

‘No, of course not,’ he said, irritated by her obsequiousness and her sudden concern. He was not the sort of king who went about ordering the execution of daiimaas simply because they prevented him from…from what exactly? Bursting in on his own wife while she was pregnant with his child? He could not fathom how there could be anything objectionable in that. But he knew that the mysteries of women’s bodies, especially those mysteries they chose to keep to themselves, were sacred and unassailable. And those words by the daiimaa – ‘if you enter her chambers now, you do so against her will and thereby break your promise’ – had chilled him to the bone. So it had begun at last. The things that she chose to do which he would neither question, comment upon, criticize by word, deed, gesture or expression, and never stop her from doing herself. This was apparently the first. She intended to confine herself to her chambers for the duration of the pregnancy and only see him…when would she see him again? After the birth of their child? Months from now? He felt a surge of panic, as an addict of soma feels when told that there would be no further supply of his precious honey wine for an untold length of time. Months? He could not stay without her for months! Not like this, without even being able to see her, speak with her, touch her! 

‘How long do these things usually last?’ he asked tentatively, not looking directly at the daiimaa because he was quite sure that she had been one of his many daiimaas in his infancy, which meant he had probably suckled at her wet teats at some time and it embarrassed him to be asking questions that reminded them both of that bond that linked them. 

‘In her state, your majesty,’ he heard her reply with evident relief, ‘no more than a day or three. Perhaps even hours, if the goddess wills it.’

He had a moment of disorientation wherein he was confused about whether, by the term ‘goddess’ she meant his wife. But the earlier part of her reply obfuscated that query altogether. ‘You mean months, of course,’ he said, certain that he must have heard her wrong. Of course she meant months. He had only just made love to his wife less than an hour earlier, her belly had been flat as ever. She could hardly conceive, gestate and produce a child within a few hours, at most a day or three! It was impossible. 

Not to a goddess, he heard himself say. And you know she is no ordinary mortal woman. 

He looked down at the daiimaa and saw her looking up at him strangely. ‘Why, no, your highness. She is almost ready! I saw her only moments ago, before she sent me out here to await you and she was in the final stages of her labouring. The child has already turned and is coming soon. Perhaps even within the hour. The queen is blessed in her womanly perfection and it is possible she might deliver herself of your heir within—’

He turned on his heel and walked away, unable to listen to more. 

Madness! 

A woman who had made love to her husband only an hour earlier, then told him she was with child, then came to her chambers and summoned her daiimaas to her, and was now ‘in the final stages of her labouring’ and about to deliver herself of child ‘within the hour’. 

Impossible! 

But not for a goddess. 

He went to his throne room rather than his bedchamber, and sat in the vast empty hall, upon the great seat where his father and ancestors had sat before him, surrounded by the might and splendour of the Puru nation and the Bharata race. 

And he waited. 

It was all he could do. 

7

‘Your majesty!’

The old daiimaa’s cry was cracked and heart-rending. She shambled in as quickly as she could, raising her arms in relief as she caught sight of the lone figure seated upon the throne at the far end of the hall. 

‘Come quickly!’ she cried. ‘Stop her!’

He rose at once from his seat, soma spilling from the goblet, running over his hand. He cast the goblet aside and ran from the throne chamber. The palace corridors were brightly lit and there seemed to be people clustered everywhere, speaking in whispers – the atmosphere was tense and curiously unnatural. The night on which the heir to the Bharata line was born should be a bright, cheerful night, a night of feasting and revelry. But he sensed that the unusual circumstances of the birth had unnerved everyone, just as they had unnerved him. He caught fragments of conversation as he raced through the corridors, the footfalls of his mandatory king’s guard echoing behind him: Yesterday…slender waisted as a newly wed…today delivered of child…Unnatural…Uncanny…Impossible… All his own anxieties and fears spoken aloud, the echoes of the whispers filling the endless corridors of the great house. 

He burst into her chambers, startling the daiimaas, all of whom were sitting or standing around in a state of distress. Some cried out as if fearing the entrance of a rakshasa. They silenced themselves perforce when they saw it was their king. The sleeping chamber was in disarray, the usual evidence of childbirth – hot water vessels, towels and cloth, some blood and unguent bodily fluids drying stickily on the bedding. All the things one might expect after a queen had birthed a child. 

There was no sign of his wife or the newborn life she had just released from her body. 

The daiimaas avoided his eyes, looking down as if in shame. 

‘Where is she?’ he thundered. 

One woman, nervous but strong, younger than the old wrinkled one who had come to him in the throne room – and was no doubt still shuffling her old bones back here again – pointed to a doorway. 

He leaped across the bed and went through the doorway. 

Racing through ante chambers, he found this led to the way out of the rear of the palace. He pounded down the rear steps of the palace where several of the bhojanalaya staff stood around, looking as unsettled and unsure as the daiimaas upstairs. He looked around, seeking her familiar feminine shape, the distinctive way she walked, swaying her hips, exactly like a queen of the world. There was no sign of her in the dark night. 

‘Which way?’ he shouted. 

A fat young man, probably a cook in the royal bhojanalaya, pointed. 

Outside the palace compound? But that way led…out of the city! Why would a newly delivered mother take her newborn and leave her bed, her home, and walk out of the city itself? It was madness, all madness. 

Suddenly, he understood the reason why his father had forewarned him. He had been too young then to understand, had only thought of pleasure, of taking, of getting, of enjoying. 

There was another side to those things, there always was. He had learned that painful lesson often as a king, a warrior and a commander of armies. 

He was about to learn the same painful lesson now as a man. 

He leaped on the first horse he saw, throwing off the man riding it. The man grunted in surprise as he fell, landing on his side with a thump, but recognized his king and bowed his head silently, joining his palms, making no complaint. 

Shantanu rode through the city, startling the few citizens out and about at this late hour. Most appeared to be standing around in groups near the palace complex. The word had surely spread about the queen delivering a child as well as of the strange circumstances surrounding the event. He glimpsed nervous faces turned up towards him as he flashed past. Until today, everyone had accepted the queen as she was for what she was, her considerable charm, wit, intelligence, eloquence and numerous other skills negating the obvious lapses – Who was she? What was her family? Where was her homeland? What was her name? But now, everyone’s unspoken doubts and suspicions had been proven true: the queen was no normal woman. She was something other than normal. 

What that meant exactly, he knew he was about to find out. 

From time to time, when people saw him coming and recognized him, they pointed out the way to go. Some even called out to each other: ‘The king! The king! Show him where she went.’ And others standing further on the road lifted their hands and pointed. 

He left the city behind and rode through the darkness of a moonless night, finding his way by instinct. Once outside the city avenues, there were a dozen different ways to go, depending on one’s destination. There were no citizens here to point the way – evidently none wished to follow the queen on her strange night errand. But he was certain he knew where she had gone.