Prince of Dharma (8 page)

Starting with the invasion of Ayodhya. 

Yes, she recalled how eagerly, excitedly, nervously this fool had blurted out his findings and eventual conclusion at their last exchange, and how impatiently she had waved him away, hardly caring whether he thought she was agreeing to his requests or simply dismissing him. She hadn’t expected the wretch to have the gumption to actually follow up that ill-voiced demand. 

And yet here he was, voicing it again, mumbling on in his fractured ganja-scattered syntax about how his talents and hers would make a perfect union of yoni and lingam shakti, the meshing of female and male energies that resulted in the perfect circle of tantric power. How they would form a new order together, the Order of Lanka, and after the Dark Lord’s arrival, they would preside as the high priest and priestess of their new religion. 

She resisted the urge to laugh aloud at his impudence. High priest and priestess indeed! This fool would drop dead with terror if the Dark Lord appeared before him even for an instant. And did he really think that by helping feed her sacrificial fire with a few young Brahmin boys—for which he had been well paid—he had earned the right to make these ludicrous demands? Really, the human capacity for arrogance was only exceeded by its capacity for ignorance.
Arrogant, ignorant gaddha
! 

Sensing that he wasn’t getting through to her quite as effectively as he desired, the tantric stopped his rambling and looked at her dully. He was waiting for her response. 

She surprised him by smiling warmly. Or as warmly as her wizened, paralysis-stricken right side allowed. 

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘you have great vidya, great kala. This knowledge and art would be an immense aid to me in my rituals. The Dark Lord desires acolytes such as yourself to join His cause. We are islanded here in the midst of these deva-worshipping hordes, tiny isolated islets in an ocean of wretched Brahman. We must join together and ensure our lord’s victory.’ 

She paused, opening her purse and reaching into it once more. ‘As recognition of our new alliance, I offer you in our lord’s name this special dispensation. Use it as you see fit to recruit new acolytes to His cause. There is much, much more where this came from. The Dark Lord knows how easily these mortals are seduced by the lure of gold. Keep as much as you think fit as your own reward. You have served Him well and He is greatly pleased.’ 

She held out a handful of gold and silver rupees that would be enough to purchase a comfortable house in the upper avenues of Ayodhya. His pupils dilated even more as he stared roundly at the small fortune in her fist. His throat jumped as he swallowed, and he nodded dumbly, acquiescing. He held out his hands, cupped together, to receive the lavish payment, probably more money than he had ever seen in all his wretched life. 

She turned her hand to drop the coins into his open palms, then pretended to lurch sideways, spilling the money across the floor. It jangled and clanked and rolled in several directions at once. He stared dully at the coins for a moment, then dropped hard to his knees and began scrambling around frantically. 

Manthara watched him for a moment, then she parted the folds of her thick robe and pulled out the long curved dagger she had sheathed in a specially made leather-lined pocket. She had poured several drops of a potion of her own making into the sheath before sliding the dagger in before she left the palace a half-hour ago, a precaution she took whenever she went on one of these illicit nocturnal forays. As she exposed the dagger to the smoky candlelight, the tip of the wavy blade gleamed yellowish-green with the lethal poison. She gripped the dagger’s hilt tightly in both hands, the double-grip ensuring a steadier stance with her deformity. 

Then she bent and struck the tantric on the back of his neck with the dagger. Just a prick, barely enough to break the skin. He seemed not to feel it at first, still pawing the floor in search of his lost reward. Then, after a moment, he stopped, grew still, and slowly reached up to touch the back of his neck. The tiniest spot of blood came away on a fingertip. He stared at it for an instant, then put the fingertip in his mouth, sucking. Slow recognition dawned on his scrawny features. He started to raise his eyes, seeking out Manthara. Before he could find her, the poison—admitted through his blood as well as through his mouth by now—took effect. His nerves spasmed and he fell face-down on the floor, the coins he had managed to gather falling again noisily. 

Manthara watched his death throes for a moment, then turned to the serving girl. Her face had turned as white as a Brahmin’s dhoti. She was pressed back against the door, as if trying to melt into the wood and disappear. 

‘Take the bag to the carriage,’ Manthara said harshly. ‘Make sure the footmen don’t know what it contains. Place it in the usual khazana box inside. Carefully. You bruised the last one.’ 

The serving girl looked as if she would bolt. Her hand crept down to the door latch. But at the last moment, her eyes returned to the spasming, choking tantric on the ground and she remembered the fate that befell those who crossed Manthara. She darted forward, picked up the gunnysack, threw it over her shoulder like a bag of potatoes, and preceded Manthara out of the door. 

Manthara stayed a moment, surveying the foul-smelling candle-lit room. There was something here that could be used to her advantage. There was always something. She pulled a scarf from within the folds of her robe, an anonymous silk garment used by the titled and untitled queens alike in the maharaja’s palace—but only by them. With a smile as sly as a mongoose toying with a cobra, she reached down and placed it in the dead tantric’s fist, as if he had snatched at his assailant in his last moment. There. That would fox his fellow tantrics, give them something to get worked up about. Anger could be useful. 

Leaving the shack, she was caught unawares by the brightness. She raised her deformed right hand, snarling. The wretched purnima moon. Full and bloated as a pregnant witch, it glared down at her, omniscient and grim as a judge. In her clan, Chandramukhi, the moon deity, had been a revered and feared totem. All clan panchayat judgements had been passed on purnima nights like this one. Even though her loyalties had changed long since, it was difficult to shrug off the instinctive fear drummed in by those youthful rituals. She drew the cowl of the robe over her head and walked as quickly as her hunchbacked gait would permit. 

Her moon-cast shadow danced before her all the way down the alley, mocking her silently. She spat on it before climbing into the carriage and kept the drapes drawn tight all the way back to the maharaja’s palace. 

KAAND 1

ONE 

‘Kausalya!’ 

The winding corridors of the First Queen’s Palace reverberated with the booming voice. The female guards at the entrance goggled at the large barrel-chested man striding towards them, then hurriedly lowered their spears and bowed to their king. Men were forbidden in the First Queen’s Palace, with only one exception. Maharaja Dasaratha, ruler of the kingdom of Kosala, was that solitary exception, yet it had been so long since he had last entered these chambers that some of the female attendants stirring sleepily or peeping through silk curtains and ornately filigreed panels took several startled moments to identify the loud-voiced visitor. Some scrambled to cover their modesty with whatever was at hand—satin cushions, a billowing drape, a silver flower vase—while others deliberately flaunted their nudity, seeking to attract the eyes of the maharaja by posturing coyly in doorways and on luxurious shaasan. They knew that apart from the three queens in their individual palaces, there were three hundred and fifty more wives in the king’s palace. Yet it never hurt to try. 

But the maharaja’s eyes did not stray to those distracting feminine bodies or those alluring almond-shaped eyes. He strode through the First Queen’s Palace with an energetic gait that belied his considerable bulk and age. 

‘Kausalya,’ he called again. The calling was more by way of giving her advance warning of his approach. It had been a long time since he had come to these chambers and he covered up his anxiety and nervousness with bluster and authority. It was an effective disguise; to the startled serving girls, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to see the maharaja striding through the palace, calling his maharani. 

He passed through the last of the forerooms and emerged into a small chaukat, a square without a roof. Glancing up at the sky as he stepped around the delicate sculptures and the marble fountain in the centre of the chaukat, he saw that dawn was just breaking, turning the sky several shades of purple. A soft dewy precipitation made the air cool and fragrant here, carrying the aroma of the first queen’s famous gulmohur gardens. He glanced nostalgically at the statue of Kama that towered above the fountain and the lotus pool, smiling wistfully at the sugarcane bow and flower-arrow held daintily in the marble god’s chubby hands. He remembered when Kausalya had first installed this fountain, showing it off with great pride—she had personally conceived the whole arrangement, as she had the interiors of most of her palace. He had watched wonder-struck, holding her in his arms at the base of this very fountain, beneath the midnight-blue sky of a Varsha night, as a gentle drizzle fell on them. Seventeen long years separated that day from this one. And yet, the sight of the fountain brought back the memory as clearly as if it had been just days ago. 

‘Kausalya,’ he called again, gently this time, as he passed into the inner chambers. A young serving girl, lying on a shaasan squealed and sprang to her feet, then froze, wide-eyed as a doe before a chariot, transfixed by the sight of her king bearing down on her. Dasaratha put a hand out, gripping the girl gently by the shoulder—and moved her aside gently. His elbow brushed her as he passed her, and he heard her emit a tiny gasp. He walked on without a backward glance. 

He noted the distinct change in decor as he entered his queen’s private chambers. A muted, almost sombre effect achieved through sober colours and exquisitely chosen furnishings and artefacts displayed at perfect aesthetic intervals. Even the mashaal stands and candelabra were arranged artistically, their fluted vents designed to conceal their true purpose, which was simply to provide an upward exit for the smoke and heat of the flames. He shook his head wryly as he trod carelessly over intricately embroidered eastern carpets without even noticing their unusual weaves and patterns. It was like stepping through a doorway between ages, back into the past. 

He paused, struck by the sensations coursing through his body. Once he had spent almost every single waking hour in these chambers, and all his sleeping ones. It was startling to see how little it had changed. 

The chamber was empty. He was about to turn away, about to look elsewhere for Kausalya, when something caught his eye. The flash of a familiar face at the far end of the room. There, by the window, in an alcove where the flickering light of the mashaal barely reached. It drew him like an apsara drawing a traveller to her enticing embrace. 

It was a portrait of Kausalya and himself. From back then. He winced at the difference between himself then and now, the slender, tautly muscled limbs that had thickened and softened, the torso that had seemed sculpted and so sharply masculine then and was now filled out and almost rounded, the face that was so clear and bright with ambition then, now turned dark and fleshy, the hair … Enough, enough. Bad enough that his physicians berated him constantly for his excess weight and lack of exercise; he didn’t need a picture from the past to rub salt into the wounds. At sixty-three years of age, physical appearance was the least of his concerns. 

But he could stand to look at Kausalya a moment longer. Or an eternity. Her beauty still took his breath away. He reached out, compelled to touch that soft face, that smooth cheek unlined by years of care, childbearing and motherhood. She was a picture of Arya perfection: doe-eyed, raven-haired, wheat-complexioned, delicately featured, small-limbed, large-breasted … In her carefree smile, he could see himself, young, strong, unaffected by these mystery ailments and unaccountable fainting spells. 

The sound of bells brought him out of his reverie. He turned with a rustling of his silk dhoti to see Kausalya, a pooja thali in her hands, standing in the doorway of her bedchamber. Unlike his own weary, illness-plagued body, Kausalya’s beauty had matured like a ripening mango, swelling just enough to enhance her femininity. And her eyes, those deep dark eyes he had once swore he could see his soul mirrored in, those eyes were still the same. Still smouldering. Except that right now, at the sight of him standing uninvited in her private bedchamber, they were closer to blazing. 

‘Ayodhya-naresh,’ she said, using his formal title. ‘What brings you to this forlorn part of the city?’ 

He grimaced as the barb struck home. The First Queen’s Palace was right beside his own, linked by a common corridor, no more than a few hundred yards away. 

‘It’s good to see you haven’t lost your wit, Kausalya,’ he said, walking towards her. ‘Nor your sense of dharma.’ The second comment was directed at the pooja thali in her hands.