Rama’s expression darkened abruptly. Lakshman saw him and thought of a barkha cloud passing across the sun. ‘Tell me what happened.’
Shatrugan chuckled. ‘It was almost funny at first. There were two Vishwamitras, but one was a sudra hunter. It was only when he started throwing whole quads of soldiers around that Father realised he wasn’t a sudra hunter. And then—’
‘Be quiet, Shot.’ Bharat’s voice was quiet but firm. He had seen the expression on Rama’s face. ‘It’s all under control now, bhai. The seer-mage Vishwamitra arrived to visit Father on an urgent mission. Only a rakshas arrived at the same time, disguising himself as Vishwamitra. There was a lot of confusion. But the real Vishwamitra and Guru Vashishta exposed the rakshas and dispatched him using Brahman sorcery. Father’s called us all back to the palace just in case there are more intruders around. We should go.’
They were all silent, watching Rama closely. Lakshman had never seen his brother grow so serious so suddenly. Rama had nodded distractedly during Bharat’s explanation. It was as if Rama had expected to hear something along those lines.
‘What is it, bhai?’ Lakshman asked gently.
Rama glanced at him. He seemed to realise that they were all staring at him and that he might not be behaving quite as might be expected. ‘Nothing. It’s nothing. I just … Bharat’s right. We should return to the palace as soon as possible. We should be within the seventh wall at a time like this.’
Lakshman saw Shatrugan frown and look at Bharat questioningly. Bharat shook his head, silencing Shatrugan again. Shatrugan shrugged.
They began trotting their horses down the raj-marg. After a moment of tense silence, Rama seemed to shrug off his sudden cloak of tension with a visible effort. He glanced around at his brothers, giving them a smile. Lakshman felt relieved. He had been worried there for a moment.
The news from the city was shocking enough, but Rama’s reaction had been even more alarming. It was good to see Rama looking like his brother again.
‘Hey,’ Rama called out in a more cheerful tone. ‘What say we race back to the first gate? Order of arrival decides who gets to colour the others’ faces first, agreed?’
‘Agreed!’ cried the three of them in happy unison, ululating and crying encouragement to their horses as they began raising a dust-cloud that filled the breadth of the raj-marg.
The four brothers shot forward like a single arrow from the same bow, heading home to Ayodhya.
***
On the uppermost rise of the mango grove, high above the rajmarg, the doe lowered her head and watched the four mortal boys ride away. The head of the arrow still stuck out from her leg, but the wound had stopped bleeding; Rama’s hurried tourniquet had been rough but effective.
Still reluctant to endure the pain of changing that might well open the wound once more, the doe licked around the edges of her injury, trying to come to terms with what had happened today. She had been sent here to Ayodhya on a mission. That mission itself was simple enough: to accompany her uncle Kala-Nemi on the long journey north, aid him in infiltrating the great mortal city of Ayodhya, and wait until he accomplished his own assignment, which was to assassinate a certain mortal named Rama Chandra, first-born son of Maharaja Dasaratha. So when Kala-Nemi had assumed the bhes-bhav of the seer-mage Vishwamitra, a brilliant idea suggested by her cousin Lord Ravana during their briefing, she had taken the form of a deer, a favourite disguise that had fooled humans many times before, and waited in the woods outside the city. In the event that Kala-Nemi failed—unlikely but certainly possible, given the presence of that ancient enemy of the asuras, Guru Vashishta—she would take up and execute the same assignment.
But something very peculiar had happened as she waited for her uncle’s return. That strange mortal boy had found her unexpectedly. Taken her by surprise. Even her heightened rakshas senses had not warned her of his presence until he had her in his grasp. That itself was so unusual as to be a first in her lifetime. She was young by rakshas standards—barely five hundred years old to her cousin Ravana’s five thousand years— but like all rakshasas, she was preternaturally tuned to any risk or threat. Yet she had sensed nothing, just the pleasant northern wind, the spray from the river, the scents of flowers and unripened mangoes—and the next instant, the mortal boy had her in his arms, enfolding her like a lover in his warm embrace. It had taken her breath away, shocking her speechless and immobile for several vital seconds. She, Supanakha, who was called the river-tongued by her fellow rakshasas back in Lanka!
The only explanation she could conceive of now, coming to terms with that bizarre capture, was that he had posed her no threat or risk, and hence his body odour and aura had been so benign that her finely attuned senses had included him as part of the environment itself. It defied everything she had learned and experienced about mortals, but there it was, the only logical answer. And when he had touched her, had there actually been affection in that embrace? Could a mortal, those brutal, rapacious two-legged beasts, actually feel affection for a four-legged mute animal?
But there was more confusion, and other questions too. When those vile intoxicated men—behaving more like normal mortals in her experience—had attacked her without provocation, once again the boy had behaved uncharacteristically. He had saved her life. And dressed her wound. And risked his own life and limb to stop her attackers. Altogether, it was too much for one morning.
Now, she licked one last time at her healing gash and prepared herself for the change. Painful as it might be, she must return to her true form. She needed hands rather than hoofs to remove the arrow before it festered.
She focussed on the change, using the emotions swirling within her to try and distract her mind from the inevitable pain. Even so, when it came, it was tortuous. The arrowhead, deeply embedded in her doe form, remained where it was as her living flesh and tissue morphed and transformed around it, cutting and tearing her changing flesh and tissue, causing greater internal bleeding and damage than the original flesh wound.
Finally, she could take no more. She screamed. A scream neither wholly deer-like nor Yaksa-like. Simply the scream of a living being in terrible agony.
Damn you, damn you mortals all to hell!
The change complete, she stood naked at the edge of the forest, tears rolling down her furry anthropomorphic face. Her large curved ears twitched several times as she reached gingerly for the arrow. Her clawed fingers probed cautiously at the edge of the torn skin. The good news was that the arrow hadn’t gone into bone yet, just flesh. If she could just pull it out, the wound would heal naturally. That was one of the benefits of being a Yaksa: she would heal the wound in a day or two and in a week the scar would be barely visible. But right now, that didn’t console her much.
She screamed again when the arrowhead tore its way out of her arm. This time, it was less the bleat of a wounded doe and more the shriek of an outraged rakshasi. The birds and creatures of the riverbank sensed the difference and grew silent and still.
The cry echoed in the sunlit valley, rippling down to the river and the raj-marg that ran alongside it. By the time it reached Rama, a good chariot-length ahead of his brothers, it had almost faded to nothingness. Still, he raised his head a fraction, his grin of triumphant concentration fading as he sensed the suffering of another living creature.
A moment later, the faint echo was driven out of his mind as he saw what lay ahead, and he held up his hand, calling a halt to the impromptu race.
SIXTEEN
Maharaja Dasaratha paused at the entrance of the sabha hall. He had expected the news of the morning’s events to spread like wildfire through the city; already, the captain of the guards had brought word that a substantial crowd was amassing outside the palace gates. But it had barely been half an hour since he and Guru Vashishta had escorted Vishwamitra to the reception hall of the palace. How on earth had all these people collected here so soon? The sabha hall was designed to accommodate two hundred seated official court delegates and a thousand observers.
As far as he could tell at a glance, it was filled well over capacity in both respects. The sheer press of the crowd forced him to pause at the entrance to take in this unexpected scenario.
The crowded hall buzzed with the chatter of a hundred excited conversations. Dasaratha caught the words ‘rakshas’ and ‘Vishwamitra’ spoken by several different voices with varying degrees of awe and amazement. What was that old Arya saying? ‘Yesterday’s rumour, today’s legend?’ Never truer.
Even the court crier, a young stripling with a high-pitched falsetto voice that grated on Dasaratha’s nerves, was distracted enough not to have noticed his maharaja’s arrival; leaning on the court standard, he was whispering energetically to a particularly attractive serving girl bearing a water jug. The crier seemed more interested in looking down the girl’s blouse than in keeping the Suryavansha emblem aloft. In ages past, that lapse alone would have cost the youth his life.
But Dasaratha settled for clearing his throat gruffly. The serving girl gasped at the sight of the king and instantly melted away into the crowd. The crier leaped to attention, blushing bright crimson, as he struck the standard thrice on the wooden floor and sang out the traditional entree.
‘Kosala-narad Ayodhya-naresh Suryavansha Raghuvansha Aja-putra Shrimad Maharaj Dasaratha rajya sabha mein padhaar rahein hain.’
King of Kosala, lord of Ayodhya, heir of House Suryavansha and House Raghuvansha, Son-of-Aja, The Honourable Emperor Dasaratha now graces the royal assembly with his esteemed presence
.
By the time the litany of ancestral lineage and royal titles had ended, the chatter had died away to a whisper which also subsided as Dasaratha strode the forty-yard length of the ceremonial red carpet to the royal podium. As he climbed the seven silver-plated rose-petal-bedecked steps to his raj-gaddi, he was rewarded by a dignified silence: his presence still commanded enough respect to ensure that nobody chattered once he entered a room. His right knee wobbled slightly as he reached the top and he resisted the urge to grip the ornately carved arm of his throne for support. For the first time in his long reign, the enormous gold-filigreed bulk of the Suryavansha throne seemed much too large for his frail and weary body. As he reached the seat of Kosala unaided, he sent up a silent prayer to his ancestors, asking for strength to endure the rest of this startling and difficult day. He turned around to face his court.
Sumantra had done the impossible as usual, assembling all the important officers of the court within the short time it had taken Dasaratha and Guru Vashishta to complete the welcoming formalities to honour their great visitor. Every single one of Ayodhya’s eight cabinet ministers was present in the front row— Drishti, Jayanta, Manthrapala, Vijaya, Siddhartha, Jabali, Arthasadhaka, Ashoka—and Sumantra made nine. It was odd to see them dressed today in uncharacteristically commonplace homewear—spotless white cotton dhotis and kurtas—until he reminded himself that it was Holi and an official holiday. Obviously, they had been preparing to begin the Holi celebrations when summoned to court. No doubt, if Sumantra’s hard-riding chariots had arrived a few moments later, the eight chosen representatives of Ayodhya’s eight major constituencies would have been washed in rainbow hues, faces and clothes stained with the coloured rang powders and tinted waters symbolising the arrival of spring. As it was, they all looked unusually fresh and alive today, clearly infected by the same excitement that was sweeping the entire congregation. Only Jabali, the stern Grekos-influenced rationalist, looked sour-faced.
But then Jabali always looked sour-faced.
Guru Vashishta and Brahmarishi Vishwamitra had followed Dasaratha on to the podium. As the seer-mages turned to face the sabha together, a collective murmur rose from the sizeable contingent of Brahmins that made up more than half the mass of the crowd. They were witnessing a sight that their forefathers would have given a right arm to view. Dasaratha’s eyes flicked across what seemed to be every last one of the city’s prominent Brahmins and purohits, all clad only in the traditional white dhoti with the black thread marking their caste criss-crossing their bare chests and bellies. And quite considerable bellies they were, Dasaratha noted wryly. From the expressions of devotional ecstasy on their well-fed faces, he could see that they were struggling to keep from prostrating themselves and kissing the sacred feet of the divinely ordained Vishwamitra.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dasaratha caught Pradhan-Mantri Sumantra stealing a sideways glance. The court recorders sitting off to one side, their quills poised over their parchment scrolls, were watching him intently, waiting for his first words. The ministers were waiting, their attendants and secretaries were waiting, the Brahmins were waiting, the courtiers were waiting … even the royal guards, present in five times their usual strength, were clearly stiff-necked with anticipation even though their discipline compelled them to stare directly ahead.