The Rise of Hastinapur (20 page)

Pritha nodded. ‘I was with my father and I overheard the attendant announce his visit. What do you think he is after?’

Susharma closed his eyes and frowned in effort, counting something with his fingers. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it is not midsummer or midwinter, so this is not the usual time when we get visited by sages. If he had to forego his prayers and come here, I wonder if he does not have something set on his mind.’

Pritha sat back in her seat, cross-legged. The arrival of Durvasa had set about a little thought in her mind, one which had begun to buzz all morning after she had returned to her chambers. She had herself heard tales of Durvasa’s mad rage, of how he had once cursed Indra, the king of the gods himself, so that the ocean of milk had to be churned and the nectar of immortality extracted from it. Then there was that tale that began the Bharata race itself, whose descendants now ruled over Hastinapur with such an iron fist, of how he placed a curse on Shakuntala that she would be forgotten by her husband. And then there was that little fable about the man they called Rama, and how sage Durvasa caused the death of the great king’s brother.

All these tales Pritha had heard before, in the numerous plays that artisans and singers staged on Kunti’s streets every night. Kunti was the city of the arts – there were more singers and poets in Kunti alone than in all the other Great Kingdoms combined. It was sad that it was so, because Kunti had been blessed by untold quantities of land, and if only her people stopped lazing and began to till their lands, it could feed all of North Country two times over. But they would not, Pritha knew, as long as they could rely on Shurasena for their foodgrains, which the shore kingdom paid in return for Kunti’s spearmen.

‘Princess,’ said Susharma, leaning forward, his mouth once again orange. ‘Will you please sing, or else the king will behead me!’

‘Susharma,’ said Pritha, dispensing with respect. ‘I shall give you two diamonds from this necklace.’ She pointed to her neck. ‘I brought it here from Mathura. You know, I am certain, how good diamonds are in Mathura.’

Susharma’s languid eyes travelled down to her neck, to where she was pointing. He nodded.

‘All I shall ask of you is that you leave me in peace, and if my father were to ask you how my lessons have been going, you shall say words to keep him happy. All I ask of you is that my father will not come to me again and tell me that you have gone to him with a complaint. Will two diamonds suffice for that?’

Susharma nodded again.

‘You can trade them for a farm that will keep your family free of hunger for all their lives, Susharma,’ said Pritha, and at the lack of interest that she saw in Susharma’s eyes at that idea, she shrugged morosely. Young men in Kunti either became singers, poets or soldiers. Each house had acres and acres of land attached to it, and yet it did not occur to anyone in the kingdom that they could produce food from it. She sighed and said, ‘You could do what you wish with them, of course. They are your diamonds.’

She waved him out of the room with a promise that she would have the diamonds ready for him the next day, and after he had left, she got back to thinking about Sage Durvasa. If the tales about him were even remotely true, it meant two things: that he was a man slaved by anger, yes, but also that he was a man of great power. They said that the sages who disappeared into the mountains to the north for six moons of the year went past a rock gate to the abode of the gods, and that they sat upon the ocean of milk looking at the Protector laying on his side upon the snake that went around the universe. If Durvasa drew power from there, it meant that she could use that power to launch an attack on Mathura.

Or perhaps an open attack was not necessary. If Durvasa agreed to help her, they would need to wage no war, kill no people. They could devise a way by which her brother and sister could be rescued, and Kamsa would not even know. He would not chase after them if they managed to escape Mathura; from her father’s words it appeared that Mathura’s safety lay in the fact that it was surrounded by well protected waters. Draw him out of his walled city and Kamsa was no more than a fangless serpent.

But now only one question remained. Would Durvasa help her? At once she cursed her plain appearance; how she wished that she could sway her hips this way and that and whisper into the sage’s ear so that he would do her bidding. She had heard that sages came down to earth to fulfil their baser urges for half a year, after having denied themselves for seasons at a time. She got up and walked to the mirror. She grimaced at what she saw. She would someday take a knife and carve that nose into shape, she thought, and turned around to inspect her profile.

A knock was heard on the door, and Agnayi bounded in.

FOUR

‘H
ow does the wife of the fire god,’ said Pritha, without looking at the direction of the visitor, but smiling all the same into the mirror. ‘I am surprised he has not burnt you yet with his passion.’

‘Oh, do stop, Princess,’ said Agnayi as she marched up to the mirror and held Pritha in both her hands. ‘I have not seen you for moons and moons, and yet I see you in all my dreams.’

Pritha coloured. She pushed away the other girl’s hands and said, ‘I have only been away a month, Agnayi, not long enough for you to narrate forlorn love poems.’

‘Ah, Princess, would that I be a man so I could carry you to this bed right now and make love to you. You look lovelier than the first dewdrops of winter.’ Agnayi held Pritha’s cheeks in her hands, and leaned forward to kiss her nose.

‘If someone were to hear you,’ said Pritha, ‘they would think you were getting paid in gold to praise me to the skies!’ Her gaze floundered to the mirror for a moment.

‘But it is true, Princess,’ said Agnayi. ‘Any man in North Country would be lucky to have you by his side.’ She took Pritha’s hands in hers, and their fingers entwined. Pritha returned the pressure of Agnayi’s palm. ‘Such soft hands,’ the girl murmured with her eyes closed, and Pritha gave a short, disbelieving laugh.

‘We continue on this path for a little longer, and there shall be scandal at court,’ said Pritha, allowing her hands to relax. ‘You will be the ruin of me, girl!’

‘The court today is too busy to hear the words of young maidens in love, Your Highness. So if you let me, I will wave the attendants away, and we can draw the curtains over the windows and dull the lamps just a little bit…’

‘What a filthy mouth you have, Agnayi. I am going to put in a word about you with my father. It is time we found a nice boy for you.’

Agnayi disengaged her hands from Pritha’s and led her to the mirror. She placed her hands on her shoulders, and Pritha covered them with her own. A little pang came to Pritha’s heart as they both stared at their reflection. Agnayi’s nose was straight and thin, as though some lovelorn sculptor on Kunti’s streets had painstakingly created it. And her lips had such divine form. Pritha wondered if she could just reach out and touch them with the tip of her thumb.

‘When such beauty is in front of me every day,’ whispered Agnayi in her ear, ‘how shall I ever give my heart to a boy?’

‘You and I cannot make children, Agnayi,’ said Pritha. ‘I do hope you remember that.’

‘Ah, children, for whose sake do we have children, Princess? Only for ten years or so they are ours, then we become theirs.’

‘Says the girl who finds a different man to share her bed every night.’

‘Princess!’ Agnayi leaned around and looked straight into Pritha’s eyes, her face contorted into an expression of shock. Then she said, ‘Well, you cannot blame me. Some of the new stable-boys know their way around a bed.’ She touched their foreheads together. ‘I could ask them over one of these nights, if you would like to see for yourself.’

‘Again, again, that filthy mouth of yours,’ said Pritha.

‘Not the filthiest part of me, Princess,’ said Agnayi, leaning in, and then threw her head back in laughter. ‘I have missed you so, Princess. I am just glad that you are back.’

They walked to the bed, hand in hand, and sat on it. For a few minutes neither of them spoke. But their eyes kept meeting and looking away, as though something sprang up in their minds but left before they could reach out and grasp it. Their hands too fidgeted about each other, uncertain. At last Pritha said, ‘What do you know about Durvasa?’

‘The sage?’ On Pritha’s nod, she said, ‘Old, for one.’ She looked at her. ‘Too old for you, certainly.’

‘Oh, is that all you ever think of?’ said Pritha in irritation. ‘I need to make him agree to something.’

‘With due respect, my lady, it is the man that ought to persuade the woman.’

‘Not if it is the woman’s work and the man has nothing to gain from it.’

Agnayi frowned. ‘Do you have something in mind, Your Majesty?’

‘I – well – I need to take the sage into confidence about something, and we need to go to Mathura together.’

‘Mathura? But you have only just returned.’

‘I shall tell you the complete story later, but now I must ask you – will the sage like me the way I look or do you think I need to – make changes?’

Agnayi’s frown deepened. ‘I do not like this, Princess. If you want to have the sage, that can be arranged. Leave it to me. But this journey to Mathura that you speak of – that sounds dangerous.’

‘It is, my dear,’ said Pritha, ‘and that is why I must trust you to keep my secret.’ She took both Agnayi’s hands and kissed them. ‘I can trust you, can I not?’

‘Just promise me that you shall be careful, Princess.’

‘Of course, I will. I am so glad to have you in my life, Agnayi. I promise you I will bring you such great diamonds on my return.’

‘I shall be glad, Princess, if you return safely.’ Agnayi got up from the bed and went to the mirror again. She looked at Pritha and said, ‘Come here, and I will dress you up so that the sage cannot take his eyes off you. He will be potter’s clay in your hands.’

Dressed in a blue gown with little gold spots (which Agnayi had burrowed out of her closet) and a white linen hood, Pritha stood in front of her father’s throne. She kept her head bent, but every second or so she lifted her gaze to see if she could spot the sage. Only two men accompanied her father; one was the court astrologer who kept throwing serious glances at her as he spoke – she knew him well.

The other – well, he looked no more than a boy, this stranger, with a head shaved smooth but for a tail of black oiled hair that dangled over the back of his neck. Every time he turned to speak to the king it fell over his shoulder. In his hand was a golden coloured staff with a sapphire perched on the tip. His arms were lean but wiry, and his calves and thighs suggested he had walked long distances in his young life. The third time she stole a glance up at the visitor, she saw his face and thought of just one thing: light.

For a deep yellow light seemed to glow upon the boy’s face at all times. Pritha knew not how the trick was achieved; she was reminded of mud dolls she had seen on the streets at the spring fair in which holes were carved on all four sides so that lamps could be lit in them and covered with little pieces of brown linen. The dolls glowed as though they were small rubies themselves, and when hung on doorways on moonless nights, looked very pretty indeed.

The boy looked like one such doll, except in yellow.

Pritha looked around the room to see if there was anyone else, and at the same time her nose perked up, alert. It was said the sages from the North had queer powers; was it possible, then, that Sage Durvasa was present in the room but was invisible? His vessel of sacred water stood at the foot of the young man, so he could not be far away. In the middle of his speech the man’s eyes rested on her, and he smiled and inclined his head in a bow. Pritha averted her eyes and looked down at the ground.

‘Come, Pritha,’ said her father, ‘pay your respects to Sage Durvasa.’

Pritha stepped forward, looking up only enough to make certain that she would not trip on the stairs. When she looked up, she saw that the young boy had stood up now, staff in hand, and was holding his right hand up, palm facing toward her in a sign of blessing. So Agnayi had been wrong, thought Pritha, as she went down on both her knees at his feet. She placed her hands on his toes and touched her forehead to them.