‘The deceitful husband and his harlot. Caught together at last by the betrayed wife. Someone run and fetch the royal kalakaar quick. This will make a portrait worth hanging on my bedchamber wall. Or perhaps my bath-chamber wall.’
Dasaratha started up at the sight of Kaikeyi, flushed from the climb, eyes burning with feverish hatred and fury.
As if her barbed tongue wasn’t enough, the second queen carried a shortspear in her hand, and wore a sword at her waist. She was dressed in full battle armour and looked every inch a warrior-queen.
She raised the shortspear in her right hand, squinting against the setting sun as she prepared to cast it.
FIVE
They were at the lip of the woods, yards away from the first gnarled trees, when they heard the thunder. At first Rama thought it was coming from the thicket, but almost immediately he realised that was an auditory illusion created by the close-growing foliage: the woods were bouncing the sound back at them, which meant the source was actually—
‘Behind us,’ he said, turning and dropping to his knees, pulling his bow and and stringing his arrow in a single smooth motion. A peculiar fetor rose from the ground, a stench as if some beast had died, rotted, and then been roasted to ash. It crept into his nostrils, threatening to nauseate him. He suppressed the urge and scanned the periphery of the cliff edge, searching for the origin of the rumbling. Beside him, Lakshman had fallen into the same defensive stance, arrow strung and ready. Through the knee that was pressed to the ground, Rama could make out the cause of the sound more easily; what had sounded like a distant rumbling from a monsoon cloud was in fact the approaching thunder of hoofbeats, the rumbling of chariots, and a deeper, heavier sound.
‘Bigfoot,’ Lakshman said, voicing Rama’s thoughts. ‘Ten or more in battle armour.’
‘Horse, a hundred or more,’ Rama added. ‘Wheel, about twenty, lightly armoured.’
Vishwamitra, still behind them, said calmly, ‘Sixteen elephants. Battle-armoured and shielded. With eight horseback warriors and one chariot apiece.’ He added what all three of them knew by now. ‘Vajra.’
Rama and Lakshman both smiled and relaxed their aim. Rama started to rise, returning the arrow to his quiver as he did so. The brahmarishi’s voice stopped him.
‘String your dhanush-baans and keep your aim steady, rajkumars.’
Lakshman looked at Rama, perplexed. ‘But these are Ayodhyans approaching. Surely they cannot mean us any harm, gurudev?’
‘From the time you left Ayodhya, you are no longer merely Ayodhyans. You are pilgrims on a holy mission. Anyone and anything that stands in our path must be treated as a potential enemy.’
Seeing their confusion, the brahmarishi added more gently: ‘I am sure this issue can be resolved with a few words. But even so, it is required that we support our words with strong actions. I ask you once again, string your bows and do not hesitate to unleash them if these approaching Kshatriyas should happen to disregard my requests. Do not forget, you are now oathsworn to me, and I command this action. Whatever happens from this point on, you yourselves shall be blameless. I take full responsibility for all consequences.’
Rama had already restrung his bow. Lakshman followed a brief instant later. Both their faces had lost their smiles of anticipation and were tense and grim now, intent on following their guru’s orders. Rama refused to allow the slightest shred of doubt to enter his mind: what the guru said was the same as any commander would expect of his troops. Without total obedience no military unit could survive long. He waited calmly, his entire concentration focussed on the space at the end of his arrow’s projected trajectory, as the sounds of the approaching Vajra grew louder and closer.
A Vajra attack force was a small elite squad of mounted and wheeled warriors supported by a retreat line of elephants, divided into sections of one elephant, eight horsemen and one chariot each. Four additional chariots acted as scouts. Typically, the chariot and horse units rode deep into enemy territory to launch quick stabbing forays, inflicting as much damage as they could in the shortest time, then pulling out before the enemy could recover and retaliate. When the enemy did rally and give chase, the elephants provided effective dissuasion.
During a large battle, the Vajra were sent to make repeated short attacks at the flanks of the enemy’s main force while the main battle was being fought in the vanguard; the Vajra soon became an irritating and costly distraction which provoked the enemy into chasing them away from the main body, thus splitting their resources and stretching them thin. Stripped for speed, the Vajra’s swift chariots and light horse would lead the enemy on a merry chase—all the way into a cul-de-sac of armoured battle elephants waiting at a predetermined location. The horse and chariots would then loop back smartly, fan out behind the pursuing forces and drive them directly towards the elephants, boxing them in. Then the slaughter would begin. Each akshohini of the army had its own Vajra squad, named after the mythical thunderbolt of Lord Indra, ruler of the devas.
The Vajra that appeared at the rim of the cliff, the first horses snorting as they breasted the top of the rise, was the best of all its brother-squads in the maharaja’s army.
Father’s personal Vajra, led by his best captain
.
The chariots rolled smartly across the burnt field, fanning out. That instantly told Rama that they weren’t planning to attack. A Vajra always attacked in straight-arrow formation, presenting the enemy with a single chariot as target.
And they haven’t strung arrows
. The horses that followed also fanned out behind the chariots, and he could see that their riders had no flailing maces and ball-chains at the ready. He picked out the lead chariot and targeted the Vajra captain standing at the helm, hands by his sides despite the lurching motion of the fast-moving chariot.
A Vajra bowman’s hands are for holding his bow or his bride, not for clutching the sides of a chariot like a milksop toddler.
He had heard the words spoken when he was barely a boy of six, watching the Vajra captain yell them at a ragged line of new recruits struggling to learn the art of firing a bow from the helm of a rattling chariot. Now, his arrowtip marked the throat of the same man. The sound of a hundred and twenty horses ought to have been deafening, but the immaculately trained riders and charioteers—and their equally disciplined mounts—moved with surprisingly little sound across the grass-matted field.
The only reason we heard them coming was because they came by the raj-marg and weren’t trying to be quiet.
The lines of gleaming chariots and sleek Kambhoja stallions filled his field of vision, looming larger in his heightened window of perception, the approach made more ominous by the relative lack of noise.
They’ll run us into the ground if they don’t stop … now.
As if hearing his thoughts, the Vajra captain raised his arm. The bowstring tightened between Rama’s thumb and forefinger, the taut cord thrumming in the soft breeze from the valley.
‘Halt!’ called the captain. The chariots and horse came to a halt, their line filling the field to either side of Rama and Lakshman. If the approach had been relatively lowkey, then in contrast the silence that followed was deafening. Rama’s attenuated hearing picked up the unmistakable sound of elephants honking and plodding ponderously up the steep gradient of the cliff-road.
They’ll take a few moments to catch up.
His arrow followed the Vajra captain as he unhelmed himself and stepped down from the chariot, his magnificent black horses snickering before the charioteer quietened them with a gentle tug of the reins. The head of the maharaja’s own Vajra squad strode towards Rama and Lakshman, face creased in a cross between a frown and a smile.
He was a squat, heavyset man, making up in muscle what he lacked in height. A face as ugly as the hog badger after which he was nicknamed was mostly covered by a bushy moustache and burns and a beard as brown and bristly as a hog badger’s fur. Bejoo. Or Bejoo-chacha, as Rama and his brothers had always called him, using the ubiquitous Arya ‘uncle’ for endearment, giggling amongst themselves at the notion of calling someone Hog-Badger-uncle. He carried no weapon or shield, but even so Rama’s voice rang out in warning.
‘Come no further, captain, or my arrow flies to your breast.’
In fact, Rama’s arrow was aimed at the squad-leader’s throat, rather than his breast, which was protected by a close-woven chainmail coat. Although he had instinctively picked a needle arrow, whose sharp and unbarbed tip could easily penetrate the chainmail, the unhelmed man’s throat made a much more attractive and comfortable target. Except that this wasn’t just a target, it was Bejoo-chacha, a Kshatriya he had hero-worshipped growing up.
Captain Bejoo raised his eyebrows. ‘You would put metal in my breast? This same breast on which you played as a babe, bouncing on my knee, tugging at my beard until my eyes watered? Come now, Rajkumar Rama Chandra. You would no sooner shoot me than I would raise an open sword to your bare neck. Put that shortbow away and let me have words with the sage.’
Rama kept his arrow strung and his bow taut. ‘Mahadev,’ he said, addressing the brahmarishi without turning around. ‘What is your desire?’
Vishwamitra addressed Captain Bejoo directly.
‘I have no business with you, Kshatriya. Return to Ayodhya and let us proceed on our journey. We have much ground yet to cover and the sun waits for no man.’
Captain Bejoo’s face grew stormy. ‘I do not ride out for my health, mahadev. My liege’s orders bring me here. Maharaja Dasaratha himself ordered me to follow after Rajkumars Rama Chandra and Lakshman and join with them in their mission.’ He gestured proudly at the row of mounted horsemen and armoured chariots. ‘He sends his very own Vajra to assist them in their fight against the asura intruders.’
Vishwamitra sounded unimpressed. ‘Nevertheless, we do not require your services. Turn your chariot around and go back the way you came. We have no time to stand here and waste breath.’
Bejoo took a step forward, his thick hairy hands bunching into fists. Like most high-ranking Kshatriyas, he wasn’t accustomed to taking orders from anyone except his supreme commander, the maharaja. Had the brahmarishi been any ordinary Brahmin or purohit, his head would lie at his feet by now, never mind the sin of killing a Brahmin. Rama understood and sympathised with Bejoo’s frustration at being spoken to so curtly. But his sympathies didn’t loosen his bowstring by so much as a fraction of a millimetre.
Bejoo looked at Rama, his bushy brows beetling with anger. ‘Rajkumar, make the sadhu understand that I have direct orders from your father. I cannot disobey the maharaja’s command and return without my duty discharged.’
Rama’s aim never wavered for an instant. ‘Captain Bejoo, my sword and my brother’s swords are oathsworn to
Brahmarishi
Vishwamitra now. I urge you to do as he suggests. I am sure my father would understand your position.’
Bejoo scowled at the emphasis on the sage’s title. He shook his head, emphasising a word as well in response. ‘Your
father
the maharaja’s orders were explicit and left no room for interpretation. To return with my mission unfulfilled would be to openly disobey Maharaja Dasaratha. I cannot do such a thing.’
‘And I will not permit you to accompany us. Heed your young prince’s wise words, Kshatriya. Return to Ayodhya. Do not delay us further.’
Captain Bejoo studiously ignored the sage and kept his eyes on Rama. ‘Oathsworn you may be, rajkumar. Yet you are prince to the sunwood throne. Your father named you liege-heir today, to be crowned on your sixteenth name-day this very month. Your first duty is to the seat and people of Ayodhya and the kingdom of Kosala. You must understand why the maharaja sent me to accompany you. Two young boys … princes … can hardly face wild asuras in the Bhayanak-van alone. You need our support to accomplish this perilous mission.’
Perilous? You mean suicidal, dearest Uncle Hog-Badger.
Aloud he said: ‘I understand my father’s reasons for sending you, captain. But my oath leaves no room for interpretation either. The brahmarishi has rejected your request and asked you to leave us be. Pray, heed his word and mine as well. Return to Ayodhya.’
Bejoo scratched his beard, looking perplexed and put out. He was torn between disobeying his maharaja’s orders and flouting the will of his crown-prince-in-waiting. Behind him, the Vajra waited as quietly as it could, the well-oiled chariot wheels barely creaking, the horses keeping their heads down and snorts to a minimum: a careless snicker or a squeaky wheel could mean disaster in an ambush. As Rama waited for Bejoo’s decision, the first of the Vajra’s elephants crested the top of the cliff-road, raising its trunk triumphantly but silently, its discipline forbidding it from issuing its habitual honk of glee on accomplishing the difficult ascent. It was followed closely by its companions, all beautifully decked out in burnished armour, their gold-ringed tusks blazing in the afternoon sun. The ground beneath Rama’s knee shivered under their weight.