Dasaratha drew himself up as straight and tall as he could manage. He had rigorously followed every formality of protocol so far, prolonging the inevitable as long as possible. Now, he could dally no longer. It was time.
‘Ayodhya ke vasiyon, sada khush raho,’ he said, uttering the customary prayer for an auspicious beginning to the sabha.
Ye all who dwell in Ayodhya, may you live happily here for ever
.
Sumantra responded with the customary ‘Maharaj ki jai hon!’
‘Long live the king!’ echoed the assembly lustily.
The court crier then introduced their visitor, adding an extra flourish to his litany: ‘Brahmarishi mahadev saprem swami tapasvi mahantya Vishwamitra atithi satkar ka swagat hai.’
Brahma-anointed great master, supreme lord of penance and wisdom, our honoured guest the sage Vishwamitra now graces us with his esteemed presence.
Guru Vashishta now made a formal introduction of their great guest, presenting him to the sabha at large and to the king in particular. Dasaratha knew that this was all for the benefit of the assembled observers and court recorders, but he had never been so glad of the time-taxing formalities of royal protocol. Vishwamitra turned and offered a namaskara to each minister and pundit in turn as Guru Vashishta called out their names. Even Jabali managed to reduce the sourness on his horsey face to about a third of its usual grimacing disapproval as he was presented to the seer-mage.
Dasaratha used the time to try to think through all the various options available to him. But the introductions went surprisingly quickly and before he could even concentrate properly, Sumantra was at his side again, whispering to him to commence with the formal agenda of the sabha.
With an invocation to his guest to be seated, Dasaratha enthroned himself, resisting the urge to sigh as the massive gold-plated sunwood throne took the oppressive weight of age and indulgence off his weary feet.
‘Khamosh! Sabha jaari hain!’ the crier sang out.
Silence, court is in session
.
With an uncharacteristic absence of sound—no lavish silks to rustle noisily or elaborate court jewellery to tinkle and clatter today—the occupants of the sabha hall bowed to the maharaja and seated themselves. A fifth of them took the gaddis provided, the rest simply sitting cross-legged on the ground in traditional Arya style.
Mahaguru Vashishta spoke in formal Sanskrit highspeech. ‘We are greatly honoured to have with us here such an illustrious and legendary guest. On behalf of this sabha and every citizen of Kosala, I offer Brahmarishi Vishwamitra every courtesy and respect—sampurn atithi satkar—that Ayodhya has to offer. We are your humble servants, mahadev. Please, grace us with your wisdom and tell us how we may serve you.’
Vishwamitra rose, took a small step forward and addressed Dasaratha directly.
‘The blessings of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva be upon you and your lineage, Ayodhya-naresh Dasaratha. I am pleased to be here in the nation of the Suryavanshas. Sadly, my business here is not pleasure, but necessity. As time is of the essence, I will come straight to the point. It is my unfortunate task to inform you all that the greatest crisis in the history of the Arya nations is upon us.’
SEVENTEEN
The princes had begun to slow the instant Rama’s hand went up. Bharat’s chariot, barely behind Rama’s lead, came up beside Airavata and Bharat began protesting about Rama unfairly calling a halt. He broke off as he saw what lay ahead of them. All four princes brought their horses and chariots to a halt.
‘The first gate is shut,’ Lakshman said incredulously. ‘That hasn’t happened on a feast day since … well, since the Last asura War.’
The gate was indeed shut. Or raised, to be more accurate. The enormous drawbridge of the first gate had been hauled up to wall the only gap in the fifty-yard-high stone abutment that was the city’s first line of defence. The raising of the bridge exposed the twenty-yard-wide moat which teemed with magarmach and gharial and deva knew what other water-dwelling predators. The moat walls were ten yards straight down, making it impossible for the deadly beasts to climb out—they had little islands in the moat on which to rest and breed and fight amongst themselves. Lakshman had always wondered what would happen if the moat was neglected during one of those pounding seven-day monsoon downpours and allowed to overflow its banks. But it had never happened in Ayodhya’s history. Ayodhyans took great pride in maintaining their city.
Had the moat creatures been able to crawl ashore right now, they would have found considerable prey to feed on. A large crowd of travellers was gathered on the raj-marg, milling about restlessly, chattering to one another. They had quietened and turned at the sound of the approaching horses and chariots, but none of them seemed fearful. These are people grown in a time of peace, Lakshman thought. They’ve forgotten the horrors of war already, barely twenty-two years after the last invasion. Or perhaps they just want to forget.
As the dust cleared, the travellers recognised the crown heirs of Kosala and several of them started forward, calling out anxiously in commonspeak.
‘Rajkumaron! Aap hi kuch kijiye, na. Hummey andar jaane nahi de rahey hain.’
Princes, do something. They’re refusing us entry into the city
.
The brothers exchanged glances.
‘I guess we should talk to the gate-watch,’ Bharat said, preparing to get off his chariot.
Rama stopped him. ‘You and Shot wait here. Lakshman and I will go and talk to them.’
‘Whatever you say, bade bhaiya,’ Shatrugan said, but grinned to show he didn’t mind. The reference to ‘big brother’ was a long-standing joke on the few weeks’ age difference between Rama and his siblings. They all accepted his evident maturity as far more important than those crucial weeks, but even had they not been so convivial, Arya law left no room for doubt. Firstborn was first-born. And first-born always led. Bharat, the second-oldest by two weeks, had long ago got over any childish sibling envy at this fact and come to accept Rama’s seniority.
Rama and Lakshman dismounted and tossed their reins to their brothers, who caught them deftly and tied them loosely to their chariots. Then they turned to make their way through the crowd, a task not as easy as it seemed. Besides the desperate pleas of the commoners to grant them access into the city, they were hampered by the surprising amount of luggage and cartage that blocked the raj-marg.
‘Looks like these Holi revellers came to spend more than just a feast-day in our fine city,’ Lakshman said as they manoeuvred through the carts, buggies and mounts—and the foot-travellers sitting cross-legged on the road.
‘The Holi celebrations last seven days. It takes most people twice that long to recover from all that carousing and feasting.’ Rama’s voice sounded distant and distracted.
Lakshman shot him a glance, waving away a Tamil who was trying to show him his pedlar’s licence. The man was dressed in a lungi and had a coconut-cutter’s scythe tucked into his waistband. Lakshman wondered how the flimsy waist-cloth managed to stay up and hold the weight of the knife.
‘Are you all right, bhai?’ Lakshman asked quietly. ‘You looked like you’d seen a rakshas yourself when Bharat and Shatrugan told us about the happenings in the city.’
Rama glanced at Lakshman. His eyes contained a faraway, lost expression, not their usual alert sharpness. ‘I had a dream something like this would happen.’ He seemed about to say more but was silent.
‘Something like this? You mean a rakshas invading Ayodhya? That’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it? When did you dream this dream? Maybe if you tell Guruji, he can interpret it properly. After all, seers can see visions of things to come. Maybe your dream was a prophecy.’
‘I’m no seer.’ Rama’s voice was cold. ‘It was just a stupid dream. I don’t want to talk about it.’
Lakshman was surprised. ‘Why are you so touchy about it? I was only suggesting—In the name of Shiva!’
Lakshman was face to face with the rear end of a mithun, a buffalo-bison crossbreed from the north-eastern hills. The mithun was all of seven feet tall, even at the flank, and as Lakshman stared at the unexpected apparition that had seemed to appear in his path out of thin air, the mithun’s shaggy tail rose suddenly. Rama laughed as his brother side-stepped quickly to avoid whatever might follow that ominous action. In his haste, Lakshman swerved around a pair of red-faced children struggling to move a stubborn, braying donkey and came face to face with a bare-waisted man juggling half a dozen knives. He dodged the lethal display and almost stepped into a small cook-fire on which a dark-skinned Malayali couple were roasting rice dosa pancakes.
The southerners glared up at him as he backed away, apologising. He bumped into a stark-naked long-bearded fakir and recoiled, doing a respectful namaskar as the holy man continued playing his wooden bow, drawing a piercing monotonous tone from the single-stringed instrument as he rolled his eyes back into his skull, lost in his ecstatic bhakti.
Still grinning, Rama pointed up ahead at the relatively clear grassy shoulder of the raj-marg. Lakshman nodded with relief and left the king’s highway for a few yards before joining with Rama up ahead. Lakshman shook his head in bemusement. ‘This bunch doesn’t need to enter the city. They’ve got their own Holi mela right here!’
They reached the gate without further adventure or discussion. Here the crowd on the raj-marg had overflowed on to the grassy shoulders on either side for several dozen yards in both directions. Lakshman noticed a stick-thin goat-bearded man perched quite comfortably on the crook of a shepherd’s short-stick, surrounded by a shaggy mountain horse, several northern-featured women and an astonishing number of children playing around them all. Gandaharis, he noted, from the northernmost Arya nation.
An ageing senapati stood at the head of the platoon of armed soldiers before the first gate. While his men were dressed in the traditional white and red of the gate-watch, he wore a distinctive saffron-and-black uniform with the Sanskrit letters corresponding to P and F stitched on his shoulders in decorative gold embroidery. Lakshman recognised him at once.
‘Senapati Dheeraj Kumar, General of the Purana Wafadars, our battalion of veterans of the last asura war.’
The senapati saluted his princes smartly, his movements belying his age.
‘Rajkumars. Quads of soldiers are already out seeking you and your brothers. I have orders.’
‘Senapati Dheeraj Kumar,’ Rama said, using the general’s name out of genuine familiarity: the youngest of the senapati’s sons had attended Guru Vashishta’s gurukul in the same batch as the four princes. ‘Why are these people not being allowed into the city?’
The grey-haired veteran shrugged unhappily. ‘What can I say, my prince? Never before has Ayodhya turned away its own brothers and sisters. But this is a strange day. And I have my orders. I am to escort you directly to your father’s palace, under my guard.’
‘But what about these people? When will they be allowed in? They’re not rakshasas and asuras, they’re just ordinary commoners wanting to attend the maharaja’s Holi feast.’
Lakshman saw that the motley band clustered on the rajmarg were watching the discussion eagerly. Several had picked up their belongings or boarded their mounts and vehicles, expecting that the rajkumars would secure entry for them into the city.
The senapati pursed his lips. ‘Rajkumar Rama, what you say is true. But the beast that entered earlier was able to change his bhes-bhav to resemble the great Brahmarishi Vishwamitra. His devilish deception fooled almost everyone, including the gate-watch and the maharaja’s guard, and even the maharaja himself.’
He gestured at the crowd gathered along the highway, now occupying almost a quarter of a mile of the road and still absorbing newcomers who were arriving with increasing regularity as the sun rose higher. ‘How are we to know that one of them isn’t an asura in disguise too? Or all of them?’
Rama smiled wryly. ‘In that case, senapati, how do you know we aren’t asuras too, my brothers and me?’
Dheeraj Kumar’s jaw slackened. Then he regained control of his dignity and nodded with a sharp smile. ‘Well spoken, rajkumar. But I have my orders. Please.’
Rama sighed. There was no point arguing further. The senapati was only doing his job. Still, Lakshman felt his brother’s embarrassment.
Several moments later, when the gate-watch soldiers cleared the raj-marg of commoners to allow the rajkumars’ chariots and horses to pass through, Lakshman felt even more acutely embarrassed. Every pair of eyes was on the four princes as they rode with their armed escort.
And as the commoners were kept at bay at spearpoint while he and his brothers rode across the lower drawbridge, he felt like dying of shame. Yet, he noted, not one of those poor folk spoke a single word against the rajkumars. Instead, they cheered and blessed their princes with long life, fruitful marriages and all the usual Arya blessings.