Stop
!
He straightened and stared at the city, the deer forgotten, the mango he had been about to pick before he saw the doe abandoned. It took a moment of steady pranayam breathing to restore him to the sense of calm he had experienced when stalking and catching the deer.
He focussed on the sight before him. His beloved Ayodhya resplendent in the sunlight of a new day, a new season, a new harvest year. He walked forward, eyes fixed on the blazing city. Before they had grown old enough to be sent to gurukul, he and his brothers had spent any number of days here in the shade of this mango grove. Playing, fighting, racing, all the things that young boys and young princes alike were wont to do. He had come here today hoping these nostalgically familiar environs would cleanse his mind of the nightmare that had broken his sleep. So far he hadn’t been entirely successful.
His feet found the edge of the knoll and he stopped, poised ten yards or more above the raging river. It was the point where the Sarayu roared around a bend in the valley, tumbling over rocks and boulders with the haste and energy of a river still in the first stage of its lengthy course. The sound was thunder sustained. He spread his arms, raised his face to the warm golden sunlight, and laughed. Droplets of spray drifted up slowly, catching his hair and simple white dhoti, like diamonds glittering in the sunlight.
When he returned to the grove, the ache at the back of his neck was lessened considerably. He thought he could manage some naashta now. Not the lavish buffet that Susama-daiimaa laid out each morning, enough to feed an army garrison, but just a fruit. His eyes sought out the large green kairee he had been about to pluck off a low-hanging branch when he had spied the deer. Found it, plucked it and smiled as a few loosened leaves fluttered down around his head like a bridegroom’s welcome. Ah, now there was a question that could easily be answered. How did a raw green mango taste on the first day of spring? A question worthy of one of his Uncle Maharaja Janak’s famous philosophical councils at Mithila court. He would solve the mystery in a moment.
He nursed the kairee in his palm. It was heavy, firm, filled with the thick juice of the king of fruits. But this was not truly a king yet. Not even a crown prince. Simply a prince in waiting. And yet, a kairee was more than a mango. For you had not truly lived until you had tasted the unspeakably teeth-keening sourness of a kairee, bitten into the mustard-yellow flesh, green skin and all, tearing bits with the edges of your teeth, teasing the fruit, sucking on the succulent sourness within. He patted his waist, checking that the small packet of salt was still there. He drew it out and opened it carefully, seating himself cross-legged on the dry grassy earth. Kairee and salt. He was ready to discover heaven on earth once more.
He licked the kairee’s tip, wetting the skin. Then dipped it into the salt. Grains of brownish-white namak stuck to the parrot-green fruit. The tart aroma of the kairee mingled with the earthy smell of the rock salt now. He raised it to his mouth, shutting his eyes in anticipation of the sourness that would explode on his palate in a moment.
The small downy hairs on the backs of his arms—he had his mother’s smooth near-hairlessness rather than his father’s hirsuteness—prickled in anticipation.
The fruit was almost at his mouth when he heard the high, keening cry. Followed by laughter and hoarse yells. And, even above the roar of the river and the cacophony of birds singing in the thickly growing trees of the mango grove, the unmistakable sound of a bow-string twanging.
He frowned and listened. The hand holding the kairee froze. The other hand, poised above the salt, ready to dip the kairee the moment his teeth had broken the skin, scooping up more salt to cut the sourness, hovered.
A moment later, he heard it again, the distinct quaver of a tautly strung bow speaking to the wind. And this time there was an answering voice, as familiar as the first: a dull thwacking sound.
A metal-headed wooden arrow striking flesh. And the squeal of a beast in pain.
Rama shot to his feet with a swiftness that the doe would have envied. The unbitten kairee was tossed aside, the salt packet overturned. An instant later, he was speeding up the knoll. He stopped at the rise, leaning out with the easy confidence of a fifteen-year-old in perfect command of his bodily reflexes.
The scene below couldn’t have been clearer had a gypsy nautanki troupe been performing it with puppets for toddlers.
The doe lay by the edge of the river, within reach of the grass. In a few seconds it would have been in the grass and virtually invisible. The arrow had struck it high on the foreleg, stunning it.
There was a lot of blood but Rama thought the wound wasn’t fatal. Most deer died of shock at the moment of impact, slow blood loss or infected wounds. His fists clenched as he saw the doe struggle to rise again, bleating with pain then flopping back on the glistening stones of the river bank.
The perpetrators of the crime—he thought of it as nothing less—were a group of at least a dozen burly, fair-skinned northerners. They were clad in the wolf-pelts and bear-pelts of the Garhwal tribes, a loosely related clan of mountain people who lived on the lower slopes of the Garhwal Himalayas, some yojanas north and west of Ayodhya, outside Kosala borders.
They came a few times a year to trade at the melas. They were probably here for the Holi celebration; Ayodhya’s Holi feast was renowned throughout the Arya nations, and the city had always maintained an open-house policy during festivals and melas. But that didn’t include hunting within sight of the city. From the wineskins they all carried—and kept swigging from—Rama knew they were drunk and seeking good sport. One of them, a young loutish oaf who could barely hold his bow straight, was trying to finish off the doe. The others were egging him on with yells and sadistic suggestions, speaking the crude pahadi dialect of the mountain tribes.
Rama sprinted along the knoll, running down to a point where the overhang doubled back upon itself. He leaped down to the lower path, deftly dodged a cobra sunning itself on a rock—the snake hissed in warning but made no move to attack him—and bounded down the last two yards, landing in the thick, bouncy kusalavya grass. In a moment, he was at the bank of the river.
He ran without care for arrows and reached the wounded doe. He knelt by its side, examining it.
Above the roar of the river, almost deafening now that he was down here, he heard the surprised shouts of the Garhwalis.
The doe turned her head to stare up at him. His heart broke when he saw the fear and confusion in those large terrified eyes. Her lips parted as if she wanted to speak, to explain her plight, but only a sharp mewling sound emerged. He tore a strip from his kurta, glad he had worn it in expectation of a nippy wind. Wrapping the cloth around her injured leg, he tied it tightly enough to staunch the bleeding until the arrow could be removed. The doe kept turning her head, her teeth baring as she reflexively tried to reach and remove the thing embedded in her flesh. Rama touched the top of her downy head, and whispered softly: ‘I will be back to help you.’
Then he stood and turned to face the men.
NINE
Dasaratha looked up at the tall, imposing figure that stood before him at the front gates of his palace. He knew he couldn’t delay his response by even an instant.
‘Mahadev,’ he began, using the universal term of respect that elevated the honoured visitor to the level of a great god. ‘My adherence to tradition is as sincere as any of my illustrious ancestors. You have my unhesitant and joyful agreement to fulfil any desire you name. As is the custom, whatever you wish to ask of me, I shall give it without question, be it my proudest possession.’
The seer’s craggy face, brighter now in the growing daylight, smiled at the king’s words. He brought his heavy staff down hard on the packed earth of the avenue, punctuating his first words with a solid thud.
‘Ayodhya-naresh, hum prasan huye. You have pleased me greatly with your reply, lord of Ayodhya. Now, I exhort you to remember this promise you have made me in the sacred presence of your own mahaguru and marg-darshak Vashishta himself, as well as these other associates.’
Vishwamitra gestured at Sumantra and his attendants, who had been so terrified when the seer began to speak that they had dropped flat on their faces in the dust of the avenue, where they still lay, too scared to even look up at the fabled Brahmin.
‘They shall be my witnesses,’ Vishwamitra added, and struck the ground once more with his staff, underlining the pact with the gesture.
Dasaratha wanted desperately to steal a glance at Guru Vashishta, who hadn’t uttered a word since they had emerged from the gates. But he guessed correctly that this was one situation where his protocol was clear and unambiguous.
‘Mahadev,’ he said, bowing once again with his hands folded. ‘I beg of you, give me the honour of performing the customary arghya and welcoming you into my humble abode.’
The brahmarishi looked up at the palace, towering above all other structures on the vast avenue.
‘Of course,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Of course. But do you not wish to know what boon I am about to ask of you?’
Dasaratha kept his hands joined and his eyes directed downwards at the seer-mage’s dusty bare feet. ‘Mahadev, I have already sworn to give you whatever your heart desires. It would honour me greatly if you would utter your sacred request within the walls of my abode. It is not seeming of me to keep you, a great and esteemed guest, standing on this public causeway. Please, do me the honour.’
And without further ado, he gestured to the attendants, who were still frozen. After a sharply whispered order from Sumantra, they scurried forward with the arghya bowl and items, almost falling over their own feet in fear. They were so nervous that the attendant holding the heavy jug filled with Ganga-jal, the sacred water of the Ganges, almost spilled it on the maharaja himself.
In silent exasperation, Sumantra took the jug from the attendant and bent down himself, indicating to Dasaratha that he was ready to pour.
But before Dasaratha’s fingers could make contact with the visitor’s dust-caked feet, an oddly familiar voice rang out across the silent avenue.
‘Stop, Ayodhya-naresh! Do not debase yourself by touching the feet of this vile creature. Rise to your feet at once!’
***
Kausalya was in her pooja room when Kaikeyi burst in. She was absorbed in praying to the Mother Goddess Sri in her avatar as Devi the Provider, patron deity of married women and mothers. The room was dense with the fragrant smoke of agarbattis. The thick agarsticks were delicately scented with jasmine, musk, pinewood, ashwood and lotus, and they mingled to form a heady cocktail of aromas that helped Kausalya empty her mind of everything except the countenance of the devi.
The room was silent except for the occasional ringing of the bell placed before her on the wooden altar. As she reached the end of a cycle of mantras, she picked up the bell and shook it rhythmically, filling the chamber with its sweet pealing.
She was ringing it when the door—shut but not bolted; there had never been any need to bolt the door—was struck a blow by a hand heavy with bangles. She knew this without turning around. The exact instant that she finished ringing the bell, the intruder entered. Kausalya heard the harsh clattering of heavy gold bangles and knew at once that a woman had entered, and the woman could only be Second Queen Kaikeyi. The bangles were solid gold and Third Queen Sumitra always favoured silver. In any case, Kausalya couldn’t imagine timid Sumitra entering her chambers without announcing herself well in advance, let alone barging in like a roughneck at a cheap tavern. There was no doubt in her mind that this rude invader was Kaikeyi, even before the intruder spoke loudly and harshly.
‘You hussy! I know what you’re up to. You won’t succeed.’
Kausalya put the bell down carefully and bent forward to touch her forehead to the feet of the statue of the devi. She smelled the familiar reassuring aroma of the red clay used to mould the effigy and the scent of the vegetable pigments with which She had been painted in the traditional bright parrot green, peacock blue, red ochre, yellow ochre, seed saffron and lavender.
She sent up a silent prayer to the devi, asking for succour and calm.
It occurred to her at that instant that she was in the perfect posture for a decapitation. But she wasn’t afraid. Kaikeyi’s tongue was sharper than her dagger. Kausalya joined her hands together one final time as she rose to her feet, then turned to face her rude intruder.
Kaikeyi was a portrait of feminine rage that would have inspired any Kali worshipper. Except that Kali was never this self-indulgent or luxuriously bedecked.
The second queen was overdressed as usual, burdened by heavy gold ornaments and ritual symbols of her regal position as well as her marital status. The large red bindi on her forehead blazed angrily against her flushed pale skin, like the third eye of Shiva rather than a symbol of bridehood. Kausalya almost expected her to have four arms and a divine weapon poised to strike in each hand.