She had no idea what individual horror the captain had faced in the vinaashe thicket but she thought she understood how he must feel at this moment. While fighting those creatures in the dark, she had felt utterly alone. Part of that had been the lack of Nakhudi. But another part had been the odd silence in which the vetaals fought. It was like fighting ghosts. Except that her sword could cut these ghosts down at least. Thank devi for small mercies.
The clearing was the one the brahmarishi had spoken of, she saw that at once. There was the pit. And there was Lakshman, his back to the pool, sword raised, as if he had been fighting to keep the vetaals away from the water. She saw the discarded weapons at the edge of the pool and understood. Lakshman had been keeping the vetaals at bay while Rama dived in. So they had reached that far at least.
She looked around, seeking out the last two members of their band. Nakhudi and the seer.
Nakhudi appeared after a moment, her face grimacing in distrust as she emerged cautiously into the clearing. Sita flashed her a smile and a toss of her chin which asked silently, where the devil were you? Nakhudi shrugged sullenly in response, looking abashed. Her sword and her vastra were splattered with the purple-black ichor that the vetaals had for blood.
‘Shishyas!’
Sita turned at the sound of the brahmarishi’s voice. The word he used to address them jointly, students, was usual for a seer. All those who followed a guru were shishyas.
The brahmarishi was cross-legged, floating above the pool of water. A bubble of brilliant blue light encased him, pulsing alternately sky-blue and cloud-white with lightning flashes of gold. When he spoke again, she realised that he was addressing them through telepathy, not by the use of his vocal organs. Those organs were busy chanting mantras. She could hear the recitation continuing uninterrupted even as the seer’s words burned their way directly into her brain.
‘I have drawn the vetaals away from each of you by the use of this mantra. As long as I continue this recitation, they will be unable to resist its attraction and will stand immobilised as they are now. But once I cease the recitation, as I must do soon, they will renew their attack on you with greater ferocity. As you have all seen fit to disobey my direct orders and have come further into danger rather than returning to the safety of the river, I offer you one last chance of salvation.
‘Drive the vetaals into the pool. Every last one of them. Do it swiftly, do it now. Move!’
Sita needed no further urging. She sprang into action, sprinting to the edge of the pool. The vetaals had all clustered here, gazing up reverentially at the brahmarishi in his bubble of Brahman. She didn’t stop to count them but her eyes told her there were close to a hundred of them. Those were greater odds than they could survive. And yet all of them had preferred to die fighting than retreat dishonourably. She didn’t know if that made them foolish or noble.
Right now, it didn’t matter either way. She raised her sword and issued the battle cry of her kingdom and the House Chandravansha.
‘Satyamev Jaitey!’
Truth Always Triumphs!
Beside her, Nakhudi echoed the cry and together they attacked the vetaals. It was a strange, cumbersome slaughter, for most of the creatures hardly seemed aware of their presence– even when their swords hewed their limbs and cut them down like animals at a slaughterhouse. Some snarled, showing their gleaming teeth, and backed away. Working together, Sita, Nakhudi, Bejoo and Lakshman formed a line of flailing swords, steadily pushing the crowd of dazed vetaals towards the pool.
The vetaal closest to the pool stumbled and fell into the water. Sita watched as the creature raised its hands and thrashed about in obvious agony. It was if it had been immersed in a vat of boiling water. Or acid, she thought grimly, as smoke began to issue from the vetaal’s flailing limbs.
Gradually, the creature’s struggle diminished and it began to sink, literally melting into the water. In seconds, nothing remained except a bubbling mass of ichor that was quickly absorbed. Several more began to fall in, tripping over one another, and they all met the same fate.
‘It’s the Ganga water,’ Sita whispered in wonderment, speaking to herself as much as to the others. ‘Their corrupted flesh is being absorbed by the sacred water, freeing their trapped souls!’
What had felt like butchery a moment ago suddenly became a ritual of salvation. The four of them renewed their efforts, driving the remaining vetaals into the pool of sacred water. Above them, the brahmarishi continued reciting the mantras, the light from his bubble illuminating the strange yet miraculous scene below.
***
Manthara expected to be met with weeping appeals and hysterical cries when she entered the secret chamber at last. She had taken the time required to dismiss the rest of her staff for the night and lock her rooms. It wouldn’t do to have another foolish servant come wandering in now.
When she was certain she would not be disturbed, she recited the mantra that opened the portal and stepped through the wall.
The sight that met her was so unexpected, she froze for a moment, unable to accept the evidence of her eyes.
The devi herself stood before her, terrible in her black-skinned beauty. Her lips smeared with fresh blood, her eyes large and white in her dark face, her mouth gaping open, tongue lolling loosely. Her four hands were raised to either side. Her feet were splayed in the tandav posture, celebrating her victory over evil through the dance of death. And in her upper right hand was the traditional trident, its razor-sharp tines glistening with fresh blood.
Manthara gasped, her hands flying to her breast. Her heart stopped still for an instant. All her years of evil-doing, of inflicting torture and abuse and pain on the innocent, the young and the harmless, came roaring at her with the ferocity of a black bull charging. She forgot that she possessed immense power, enough to defend herself against a devi if need be. Perhaps not to win but enough to thwart a first blow or two and attempt to flee. She forgot everything except her sins and her awful acts, and believed wholeheartedly that the devi herself had descended to earth to punish her for her crimes against humanity.
She saw what she feared most, not the reality, which was far simpler: Third Queen Sumitra with her face and arms smeared with ash from the chaukat, posing in the familiar stance, the serving girl Sulekha crouching behind her like a dancer at a court performance, holding out her hands to create the illusion of a single woman with four arms.
That moment of disorientation was all the time Sumitra needed.
In that instant, as Manthara stepped in through the widening portal and gasped in shocked amazement, Sumitra reared forward and plunged the trident into the daiimaa’s breast.
Manthara shrieked and fell back, the weapon embedded an inch deep in her chest.
Beside her, the portal gaped, the mantra that commanded it to shut still unuttered.
KAAND 3
ONE
Mithila. City of saints and singers. Home to a million Videhans of all castes and creeds. Host to as many visitors on this annual festival. Wood fires blazed at the gates of the city and at every street corner, performing a dual function–keeping the city free of malaria-bearing mosquitoes as well as scenting the air. Mithilan women stood downwind of the fires, talking and laughing happily, letting the scented smoke blow through their freshly washed tresses. The fragrance would linger for days.
Unmarried girls walked carelessly through the market stalls, admiring, selecting, bargaining; in liberal Mithilan fashion, they went blouseless, their bare breasts visible beneath their flimsy translucent chunnris and odhinis.
Mithilan men, inured to the fashion, smiled and greeted men and women alike, unmindful of any sexual divide. Women merchants dominated the city’s trade, entire orders of women sadhunis clad in white attended the seminars and discourses taking place at various heavily attended venues.
Male Brahmins visiting the city for the first time walked with their hands raised high in the air. Freshly bathed and purified in Ganges waters en route, they were intent on avoiding accidentally touching their own nether organs as well as the bodies of other worshippers. Children tossed down handfuls of flower petals from the terraces and roof-windows of houses in the narrow winding streets, showering the visitors and citizens and shouting greetings. The streets, clean-swept each morning by the city’s meticulous administrators, were strewn with the petals, which would be allowed to lie until dawn the next morning.
Conch shells, trumpets and drums sounded from around the city, the high ululating voices of town criers calling the programme for the day’s events at the festival. Musicians, both secular and pious, filled the dance halls, music houses and even the streets with their songs. Bards held forth with ballads and endless epic compositions of their own devising at the city taverns, where soma and wine and ale flowed as lavishly as Ganges water at the ritual baths for the pilgrims. There were two types of spiritually inclined: Brahmins who walked naked and goosepimpled from the cold through the streets after their purifying baths, hurrying to attend special morning ceremonies; and soldiers and citizens tottering out of taverns. As the Videhan adage went, spirits were always high in the liberated city of Mithila!
An air of festivity and holiday abounded. Several citizens still carried rang-powder left over from the Holi festival and tossed handfuls into the air, producing clouds of red ochre, saffron, mauve, and parrot green. An entire rainbow spectrum of garments clad the Mithilans, contrasting brilliantly with the whites of the pilgrims. Soldiers and sadhus conversed at the large square junctions marked clearly with signs directing visitors to their destinations.
On the city’s fairgrounds a vast carnival was in progress. Gypsies, jugglers, acrobats, snake charmers, bear wrestlers, hawk-hunters … a hundred different varieties of entertainment jostled for attention and rupees. They had arrived for the Holi fair and had never left; their money bags sagged with coins. Chariot races, archery contests, sprint races, wrestling bouts, every manner of sport was going on.
Gambling halls raked in the money, occasionally paying out happily as well—cards, betting on sports, guessing games, even strip gambling, everything was fair game. But the most popular betting game of all was chaupat, the game of war strategy played on a board with carved pieces representing the four divisions of an Arya army, cavalry, elephant, chariot and foot-Kshatriya, with the maharaja, maharani and mantri presiding over all. The dice rolled endlessly, pieces took or were taken and coins changed hands endlessly, fortunes passing over the chaupat board and returning the same hour or day.
The four castes mingled and socialised in happy harmony. Mixed marriages were common; women kept multiple husbands if it pleased them; men kept more than one wife if they so desired. What one did in one’s bedroom was a private affair; marriage was a sanctified public ritual but one governed by the choices of its participants, not the state.
The city police intervened only to break up fights, prevent brawls and drunken disagreements, arrest pickpockets and burglars, or encourage order over chaos, not to control and rule. City magistrates urged complainants to settle their differences independently and come to higher authorities only as a last resort. Property disputes were the most common cause of litigation.
An hour before noon the town criers interrupted their seminar programme announcements to present a different engagement. The swayamvara of the rajkumari Sita Janaki, princess of Mithila. Today was the day the princess was to view suitors and, if it so pleased her, choose one as her husband.
It was not the first swayamvara conducted for the rajkumari. She was notorious for turning down suitors by the hundreds. But a rumour had spread through the city and the kingdom that today would be different.
It was whispered that this was the day when the rajkumari would actually choose a mate, finally ending years of speculation and broken hearts.
Like most rumours, this one had its basis in fact.
***
The assembly hall of Mithila’s palace was large enough to accommodate a hundred designated courtiers and nine times as many observers. It was filled to capacity today. The crowd thronging Devarata Avenue easily numbered over twenty thousand and was growing larger by the minute. A portly Brahmin trader seated on an ass with three servants on foot following gaped at the throng and compared it to the far smaller crowd outside the Hrasvaroma Hall nearby. A first-time visitor to the city, the rich Brahmin had come to attend a lecture at the Hrasvaroma Hall. The potentially titillating subject of the discourse was the inter-relationship between kama and bhakti: sex and devotion.
The Brahmin licked his lips and tried to decide whether to attend the lecture as planned or to visit the assembly hall. He decided to ask one of the palace guards milling with the crowd, lightly directing people to leave room for traffic to pass on the avenue.
‘Kshatriya,’ the Brahmin said, ‘what manner of programme takes place here today?’
The guard looked the stranger up and down, sizing him up quickly as one of those Brahmins who regarded the pursuit of spiritual and material enrichment to be closely related. ‘It’s the maharaja’s assembly hall, friend. No programmes here. Only official court business.’