The Thirteenth Day (4 page)

Then there were Atirathis and Maharathis
.
Members of the nobility who were good at killing people (as all good nobles should be) were called Atirathis. The title gave them a personal guard of up to 10,000 men funded by their respective kingdoms, and a reputation for murder they had to live up to every time on the battlefield. Members of the nobility who were so good at killing people that the bards and poets made it look like a fine art were given the title Maharathi. They got a personal guard of 60,000 troops and were targetted by every man on the opposing side.

Some of the richer members of the ‘class’ would just buy their titles or have it gifted to them. I had heard that they were even calling Yudhishthira a Maharathi in some parts. Useless coward couldn’t hold a bow to save his life.

Both sides had a good number of Atirathis. We counted hundreds at the start of the war, including Bhagadatta, Kritavarma and Jayadratha. The Pandavas, too, were well-endowed with them—Ghatotkacha, Satyaki and even the woman Shikhandi.

Maharathis were fewer. I did a quick tally on my fingers. The Pandavas had only Arjuna, Bhima, Dhristadyumna, Drupada and old Virata; while we had begun with Grandsire, Drona, Shalya, Suyodhana and myself. Extravagant bounties had come up on all our heads but only one Maharathi had fallen in ten days—Bhishma.

Bhishma’s presence itself was worth an akshauhini, though I’d never admit it to his face. The old man and I never hit it off, sparring against each other at every given opportunity. He never stopped questioning the nature of my support for Suyodhana and I gave it straight back by taunting him about his spinelessness around the Pandavas.

Still, the old bugger was right. The only way to return home was by ending this war immediately.

And I owed Suyodhana that much.

It all began with a public archery tournament. I had entered the competition hoping to win a quick purse of money when the Kuru princes arrived to compete with much fanfare.

Most of them were average, even below par. The oaf, Bhima, took a muhurat to fire a shot and Sushasana didn’t even know which end of the bow was up. But the crowd loved them. One of these boys would be their king one day.

The only brother who knew why he was there was Arjuna.

We met in the final round.

To defeat Arjuna in an archery tournament would have been humiliating for the Kurus. A few questions and some open purse strings gave them everything they needed to know about me.

And so, as I was taking my first shot at the target, Bhima stepped out of the audience and spoke, ‘Hey suta...charioteer boy, stop horsing around.’

I turned and looked.

‘This is a serious contest between Kshatriyas. There’s no room for you here. Pack up and go before we make you leave.’

The words hurt. And I forgot that I had worked hard to get there and had more right to be at that tournament than he did. But I could do nothing. It was the command of a prince.

Just as I was getting ready to leave, a hand clasped my shoulder and held me back.

It was Suyodhana.

He looked at Bhima and said, ‘He won’t leave till he completes the tournament. You need not concern yourself with Arjuna losing to someone out of the Kshatriya classes. Radheya is the new king of Anga.’

Back then, Anga was a small principality that didn’t need more than a governer. Some people say that he made me king just to get back at Bhima. However, that matters little.

Suyodhana was the first person to see me as something more than what I appeared to be.

The council tent appeared in view. It was a large, square wooden house covered with cloth dyed in regal Hastinapura red that could accommodate the fifty-odd kings of our confederation. All surviving kings were required to report to the tent for our post-battle meetings. It was Grandsire’s idea to preserve the myth that every king had a say in our cause when, in fact, he was the one who took all the decisions.

The numbers in the tent had been depleting steadily since the battle had started. Over the past ten nights, Grandsire had dominated these meetings. His age and experience meant that no king could dare to argue with him or press a point beyond reasonable limit. A fact he knew, and took advantage of. I had sat in as a silent spectator to these councils, more as Suyodhana’s personal advisor than a council member. Tonight would be different.

The two sentries standing outside the tent grinned at me. They were my men, trained by my people and drafted secretly into Suyodhana’s personal bodyguard to act as my eyes and ears looking out for the king. They had been the ones to inform me of Bhishma’s fall almost as soon as it had happened. Their job also involved keeping me informed about troop movements in the Pandava corner and of the various happenings in the enemy camp through an intricate spy network they had made, the details of which they refused to divulge. I didn’t bother with this trifle as long as the information was good and accurate, as it consistently had been over the past ten days. They had been serving Suyodhana for nearly four years now, but they had been in my employment for more than ten. I doubted that anyone knew about their relationship to me. No one in our army knew, certainly not the generals. I approached them. One was a short, thickset slab of a man with large side whiskers called Varahamira and the other was a tall reed who went by the name Shatrujeet.

‘So,’ I asked, ‘is the circus gathered?’

Shatrujeet grinned, ‘They’ve been at it for two hours now. Cheeping like parrots. Where have you been?’

Varahamira interrupted, ‘Forgive him, my Lord, respect still does not grace the precincts of his tongue, nor wisdom, his thick stupid skull.’ He glowered at Shatrujeet to emphasize his point. They were an odd couple, those two. Varahamira was polite to a fault, loyal as a puppy, knowing his place and sticking to it with a tenacity that would have done old Grandsire proud. Shatrujeet had a tongue that constantly tested my patience.

I waved off the remark. Varahamira started mournfully, ‘My Lord, as my colleague pointed out, they have been discussing the consequences of today’s events for over two hours now and have enquired about your whereabouts from time to time.’

This time Shatrujeet interrupted, ‘It’s a good thing the walls are so thin at places…allows us to listen in without being found out. If the army came to know what was being discussed there in the name of ‘strategy’, they would turn tail and scamper. Everyone’s blaming everyone else. Started with a couple of princes telling Sushasana that he could have saved Grandsire by getting riddled with arrows in his place. Lord Suyodhana is standing up for his brother and so is Shalya, but the younger princes won’t listen. Oh, and they’re all looking for you now to see if you’ll take the responsibility for Grandsire’s plight since no one else is doing it.’

Varahamira nodded his head, ‘Among the names discussed yours
has
featured prominently, sire…even though you weren’t actually on the field of battle. They believe your refusal to take the field cost Grandsire. Apart from that, very little has happened. Guru Drona stepped in a little while ago, but we haven’t heard anything from him. Complete panic is threatening to ensue.’ Then lowering his eyes, he added gravely, ‘It would be best if you entered now.’

I rubbed my palms and blew into them. It would be a long night.

The sabha was in full swing when I arrived, our allies having taken sides already. Nearly all of them were shouting at each other, cawing like monkeys in a menagerie. At the northern end of the room was a platform on which was installed a seat which, before tonight, had been occupied by Grandsire. Rows of hard wooden chairs were placed before it for our thirty-odd remaining allies. Couches, felt Grandsire, were not fit to warm a warrior’s buttocks during war, leading our allies to grumble about soreness at the end of each night. A Speaking Staff was normally used to control the flow of conversation, but it wasn’t doing much good tonight. In the centre of the platform, Suyodhana stood thumping the staff repeatedly on the carpet in an attempt to bring the meeting to order. Next to him, Guru Drona sat in padmasana on the floor with his eyes closed, muttering under his breath. Sushasana was sitting beside him with an expression that a dying calf may have taken pity on while Shalya rubbed his shoulder and spoke in his ear.

My arrival may have passed unnoticed as the herald announcing my entry gave up after a few feeble attempts at making his voice heard over the din. Not wanting to attract the attention of the warring confederates, I slunk across the room, keeping to the wall, bowing my head deep.

Chandravarma, a minor king who had contributed a few thousand chariots and his own limitless stupidity to the cause was trying to make a point, ‘…Prince Sushasana’s carelessness in the protection of Grandsire has been noticed by all. The prince seeks glory, and a chance to do battle with Bhima, that is all. He does not have the maturity to do what is in the best interest of the army, and today, we have to bear the unfortunate consequences of his action.’

The noise grew even louder, many voices in agreement, a few in squashed dissent.

Suyodhana strode up to Chandravarma and hit him hard between his eyes with the staff.

The noise evaporated in an instant. Suyodhana loomed over our prone ally, waved the staff in front of his eyes, and said with quiet ferocity, ‘This is the Speaking Staff. In this council, you do not speak unless you are given the staff.’

Suyodhana had a strange beauty to him. Even the Pandavas would admit to that. He had large eyes that could hold no sadness for long, a long straight nose and thick lips covered by a beard that framed his mouth without running over his cheeks. He was very careful about his looks, and I think that his skill with the mace came from wanting to avoid being hit on the face. I knew for a fact that his black armour with gold stripes and matching dhoti was specially created for him by an armourer in Mathura because Suyodhana wanted to die looking his best.

He glared at the other kings in the room, challenging them to contest him, which none of them did, petrified as they were of his rage. An uneasy silence filled the hall.

Then Guru Drona spoke in his patient rumble, ‘Putra, this is a council of kings—the apex of civilization. You do not strike an ally down, no matter how unbecoming his conduct.’ As one, all heads turned towards Guruji. ‘Ah, I see the king of Anga has finally deemed us fit to be graced with his presence. Yes, you, Radheya, don’t try and play chameleon.’

So the old fox was play-acting meditation, sensing the mood of the room before committing himself to an opinion. Cunning old bugger.

My move. ‘Well, I could hardly interrupt the conversation when more important people like yourself chose to sit silently. Besides, as he just pointed out, Suyodhana did have the Speaking Staff.’

Suyodhana grinned and shook his head. Chandravarma was stirring in one corner, with a huddle of minor kings nursing him back to consciousness.

Guru Drona got up and took the staff from Suyodhana. He looked at me and smiled. A set of white teeth rolled out of his greying beard, ‘This person, for one, is very keen to know what you have to contribute to this council. Or did you not know there was a war going on? It’s been ten days of war you’ve successfully avoided till now. Skulking in your stables eh, suta? Ha! Old habits die hard.’

It was a poor attempt at humour; undoubtedly employed by Guruji to portray himself as a man who was making light of a very difficult situation. The sniggers that issued from the mouths of my allies—those near me were wise enough to restrain themselves—came more out of relief than any real appreciation of Guruji’s comic talents.

I had heard suta remarks more times than I cared to remember. But my skin still hadn’t thickened sufficiently to mask the flush on my cheeks.

I was born to Queen Kunti—the result of an affair with a nobleman. To conceal their little tryst, I was given away to be ‘never-heard-from-again’. An old charioteer called Adhiratha adopted me and his wife named me after herself. So I became Radheya, son of Radha, and spent my childhood in the stables learning my father’s trade. If life had gone on in that fashion, I would have been a suta, a charioteer like my father, married a nice girl and led a peaceful life.

I wouldn’t be standing in this sabha feeling like a school boy before a thrashing.

Drona was practising archery in the forest that morning when I had gone to collect wood. He was younger back then. He wore a saffron dhoti and carried a bow in his hand. There was nothing extraordinary in it. A brown-coloured piece of animal bone and wood, wearing the dullness of a well-used instrument. He placed his toe on the base of the bow and curved the top end to meet the bowstring. When the string was tied, he pulled back the string and let it twang.

I can hear the sound even now.

He took out an arrow and fired it into a wooden bull’s eye some few metres away. He did it slowly and I could see all the muscles in his arm flex and fade through the skin. Each arrow hit the centre of the bull’s eye, at the same place. I watched, completely in awe of his performance. I don’t think he even noticed me. After he finished practising, he walked away and probably forgot about it. But it left a lasting impression me. The thought that some day I could be like that—graceful yet deadly—stayed with me.

I let the remark pass along with the muted giggles of our allies. We had bigger concerns at hand. ‘Guruji, I am here to serve the Kauravas. Now that Grandsire is not on the field, my enmity with him is at an end. I will bring my Anga contingent into battle and submit to the authority of my commander-in-chief.’

This created a stir in the hall. Suyodhana took the staff from Drona and banged it hard on the floor once again. ‘Welcome back, Radheya. Better late than never.’ The room began to murmur and Suyodhana banged the staff on the ground again and growled menacingly at the gathered kings, ‘The purpose of this assembly is to appoint our new commander-in-chief. Would anyone wish to nominate themselves or any of our allies assembled here?’

The room grew silent for a few minutes. The younger kings wouldn’t dare put themselves up for the reckoning, instead hoping for the patronage of some of the more ancient ones. In truth there were only a few names that could be considered seriously. I looked around scanning the faces. There was Suyodhana, but he would never nominate himself for the task, and his lack of tactical sense ensured that no one else would either. The rest of his brothers were not senior enough to vie for the position with the possible exception of Sushasana. Unfortunately, Sushasana had been given the responsibility of protecting Grandsire today, and had failed miserably at the task. He was lucky to be breathing in the tent tonight much less being given the command of the remaining akshauhinis of Bharatvarsha’s finest.