The Vengeance of Indra

by Shatrujeet Nath

  “You wished to see me.” This time, tactically, the words were not framed as a question.

  “Don’t you want to know the truth?” asked Upashruti, staring into her son’s face.

  Vikramaditya looked away, steeling himself before replying. “I think I already know the truth.”

  The Queen Mother rose and took a step towards the samrat. When he turned to her, she said, “Don’t you want to hear the truth from your mother’s lips?”

  * * *

  The faces lining the sides of the road grew gradually in number as the little cavalcade neared the settlement of Mun’h. Curious faces, suspicious faces, some openly hostile. Faces that were tired and worn out and scoured by the harshness of the land around them. Men’s faces, women’s faces, even children, one or two with shy smiles. All upturned, all watching Kalidasa, their eyes trailing him until the riders were blotted out by the dust kicked up by the departing horses.

  The first onlookers had turned up as early as the day before, as Kalidasa was escorted by the Huna patrol past frugal farms irrigated by the morning dew in place of water. Poor farmers scraping an existence out of the hard, unyielding earth, and shepherds tending to emaciated goats and sheep that nibbled on almost nothing, had stopped to observe the parade as news of the arrival of Zho E’rami’s son had spread to the sparse Huna hamlets scattered over the desert. Later, when they had halted at a shallow well to replenish their sheepskin flasks, the women who were there to fetch water had nudged and whispered and tittered among themselves, ogling the giant brazenly while being coy and secretive about it, getting the leader of the patrol to give Kalidasa a lewd grin.

  “I don’t know about the shy’or, but the women seem more than happy to welcome you,” he had said with a chuckle and a wink.

  The men escorting him had all thawed towards Kalidasa over the course of the journey, the beating he had dealt them definitely not forgotten, but accepted with grace. They weren’t exactly friendly yet, but accorded him sufficient respect, having understood that they were dealing with someone above them in talent, ability and authority.

  Now with Mun’h a dark and growing smudge on the northern horizon, and the road leading to it full of people drawn there just to have a look at the stranger who claimed to be Zho E’rami’s son, the patrol had fallen silent and grown formal, knowing that fraternizing with the stranger could land them in trouble with the shy’or. Kalidasa welcomed this silence, for it provided him with the perfect opportunity to size up the town and its people before he met its chief.

  Mun’h, he had understood from his escorts’ conversations, was one of the four significant Huna settlements in the Great Desert, second in size only to its sister town of Se’shyi, which was situated further west on the banks of the Dark River. As there were no trade routes nearby, it wasn’t clear why Mun’h had come up where it had, though Kalidasa suspected that the small hill on which the town was built might have played a part in its early formation, probably as a defensive bastion. The town itself was a hodge-podge of leather tents and mudbrick hutments nestling to a larger stone structure on the hill’s crest, reminding Kalidasa of a fat sow with a brood of piglets suckling at it. From the midst of the stone building, a flag thrust out, fluttering on a flagpole like a beacon, announcing the town’s location to troops and travellers alike, and once they drew closer, Kalidasa noticed the faded sigil of the desert scorpion embroidered on it. Judging by the number of Huna warriors milling around — many now joining in the staring — he guessed Mun’h served as a garrison command, and the stone building was the fortified garrison and abode of the Huna shy’or.

  The patrol was still some distance from Mun’h when a posse of a dozen fully armed riders came out from the town to meet them. The posse was led by a Huna of superior rank, and he took charge of Kalidasa, dismissing the patrol and gesturing to Kalidasa, respectfully but firmly, to accompany him and his men back into Mun’h. Resuming his ride, Kalidasa looked over his shoulder once at the leader of the patrol that had intercepted him and then brought him this far. Their eyes met, and the Huna bowed his head and lightly touched the hriiz on his forehead with his forefinger — a token of respect and friendship among the Hunas. Kalidasa nodded and turned to face Mun’h.

  They entered the town through a wooden archway festooned with blue, yellow and red buntings, and these decorations continued along the one main, paved street that constituted the town’s thoroughfare. On both sides were shops — an ironmonger’s smithy, a bakery where men were baking dough balls on a metal dome inverted over a dung fire, a woman churning butter, a basket weaver — and here too people pressed and jostled against one another to catch a glimpse of Kalidasa. The Huna leading them had to routinely swing the switch he carried to force the townsfolk back from the road.

  By the time they arrived at the small stone fort and dismounted in its open courtyard, the sun was well on its westward course. The Huna officer gestured to Kalidasa, and the two men entered the fort, which was spare and martial, and lacked the comforts generally associated with dwellings of those wielding great influence. Kalidasa was taken to a medium-sized hall overlooking one portion of the desert, where he was told to wait. Again, fully expecting the shy’or not to hurry things along, Kalidasa settled down by one of the windows to bide his time when he heard a footfall by the door, and a voice that was rich with authority and accustomed to obedience addressed him.

  “Zuh te’i duz’ur Zho E’rami?”

  Kalidasa turned to find two men inside the door. The one who had spoken stood in front and was of average height and build, clothed in coarse cottons and wools. He could easily have passed off as an ordinary Huna peasant, but for the nobility and animal magnetism reflected in his eyes. Seeing the set of the man’s shoulders and the firm thrust of his chin, Kalidasa understood he was dealing with the shy’or.

  “Ma’a,” he nodded once. Then, looking the Huna up and down, he said, “Zuh te’i barr shy’or?”

  The Huna gave a small smile that wasn’t entirely cordial and shrugged. When he replied, it was in slow but grammatically proper Avanti. “You ask if I am the biggest chief. Let us first make sure you are who you say you are, shall we? Let me ask the questions, alright?”

  Kalidasa observed the Huna standing behind take a step forward. The man was huge, nearly as tall as Kalidasa himself, with a girth that was twice that of Kalidasa’s. To the untrained eye he could have looked obese, but Kalidasa knew there was hard muscle concealed under those rolls of fat. Kalidasa nodded at the smaller Huna.

  “You say you are the son of Zho E’rami. Why should I believe you?”

  “I can tell you exactly what happened the day father was killed... the entire garrison was killed.”

  “I know, I know. The rider dispatched by the patrol said you have the full story on Zho’s death, that you were the only survivor that day, that you witnessed the whole thing. My question is, how can I believe that is how things happened that day? There is no one else alive to contradict you, offer a different version of events, is there?”

  “You can ask me what you want about my father,” Kalidasa said gruffly.

  “I can.” The Huna stepped closer and into the light angling in from the windows, and for the first time, Kalidasa saw the great scars that crisscrossed the man’s cheeks, the one on the right coming straight down from cheekbone to jawline, the one on the left curving from just under the temple to the upper lip. The man’s skin was dark, leathery and deeply lined; together with the scars and the black hriiz etched on his forehead, his face appeared to be at perpetual war with itself.

  “I can,” he said again, looking thoughtfully at Kalidasa. “But the stories about Zho E’rami are a part of legends. Anybody could know about Zho. And what you don’t know you could pass off as having forgotten. After all, you were no more than a child when Zho was killed, right?”

  Not knowing what to say, Kalidasa stared at the Huna defiantly. The Huna stared back unperturbed.

  “You mean to say you would not accept m
y word?”

  “Why would I? You came to me claiming to be Zho’s son. The onus is on you to prove it.” He shrugged expansively. “You could be a spy from Avanti, for all we know. You don’t even wear the hriiz, and you expect me to...”

  “I don’t have the hriiz because everyone was killed before.”

  “I have heard that,” the Huna raised his hand and his voice. He was not accustomed to being interrupted.

  As Kalidasa looked at the man, his brow knotted in frustration, the Huna chief clasped his hands behind his back and walked to one of the windows to gaze into the desert, where the shadow of the fort was slowly creeping eastward. At last, he turned to face Kalidasa.

  “Tell me, who else was with Zho when he was killed? I mean the rest of his family.”

  Kalidasa blinked and jerked his head back as the picture of the four manacled figures being prodded and shoved into the granary sprang to his mind. It felt as if the image was lined with sharp, cutting edges, yet he forced himself to look at it, reliving the scene of the smoke-filled valley, the three wailing women and the haughty, unbending man.

  And closer to him, the man on horseback, facing the granary, giving the soldiers the signal to set it and the captives it held alight...

  “Other than father, I lost my elder sister Ei’hi, aunt Nei and her daughter Pli’isa that day,” Kalidasa muttered, slamming the windows shut on the scene in his mind.

  The answer seemed to please the Huna, but he looked at Kalidasa sharply. “What of your mother then? Wasn’t she there that day?”

  “My mother died while giving birth to me,” Kalidasa replied. “That was why my father named me Ga’ur Thra’akha. Death came for my mother, but even as it took her, it left me behind as a gift for father. Ga’ur Thra’akha — the Gift of Death.”

  With a nod, the Huna turned to face Kalidasa. “I admit that you seem to know things not many others do, which suggests that you speak the truth. But I need to be certain, so we shall have to wait a little.”

  “For what?”

  “For our droiba. The spells he casts will prove if you are Zho’s son or not.”

  Droiba. Kalidasa turned the word around in his mind, remembering when he had last heard it used. It was years ago, the night he and Vikramaditya had stormed the Huna encampment at Ujjayini’s cremation ground. It had been a new moon night, and their job was to find and rescue Betaal, who had been taken captive by the Huna droiba…

  “Why do we have to wait for the droiba?” Kalidasa asked.

  “Because he isn’t here. He is out in the desert with the yah’bre.” The Huna didn’t expand on that, so Kalidasa tried to figure out what that could mean. Yah’bre. Dust-souls. That didn’t help.

  “You wanted to know if I was the biggest chief,” the Huna looked up at his guest. “I am shy’or Khash’i Dur, chief of the b’wo line of Hunas. We are related to the x’sa Hunas by marriage, which makes me a distant relation of Zho E’rami. I have had the honour of meeting him a couple of times. A most remarkable man and warrior. Now, to answer your question, yes, I am one of the biggest shy’ors you will meet in the wide expanse of this desert. It is under my command that the great Huna army will cross the mountains and conquer Sindhuvarta.”

  * * *

  He had been a guest at the palace for almost a week before she chanced upon him one evening, quite by accident. She had been taking a walk along the shore of the palace lake when she observed him, sitting under an amlika tree, painting the palace as a flock of cranes skimmed over the dark water. It was from her handmaidens that she later learned that he was a gifted artist and musician from the foothills of the Riksha Mountains, and that he had been welcomed by King Mahendraditya himself, who was in admiration of the man’s skill with brush and vamsi.

  Their paths crossed just once during that first visit of his to Ujjayini. One evening, a recital was organized in court in honour of her and Mahendraditya, where the artist had to share the spotlight with two other travelling balladeers who were the king’s guests. But such was his talent that he effortlessly outshone the other two musicians, his performance leaving Mahendraditya so deeply impressed that the king singled him out for an endowment and invited him to dine with him and his queen. That was how Upashruti and Gandharvasena met formally for the first time.

  The same evening, while partaking dinner, Mahendraditya extended Gandharvasena the added privilege of staying at the palace as his guest whenever he was passing through Ujjayini. The artist accepted the offer with customary gratitude, but took leave of the king and queen the very next morning. He was not seen or heard of for over a year, and the palace had all but forgotten him when, one rainy evening, when Mahendraditya was visiting faraway Nishada, a guard announced that the artist was at the palace door, seeking shelter for the night. Aware of her husband’s promise of hospitality, Upashruti welcomed Gandharvasena and saw to it that he was looked after by the palace hands.

  The rain only intensified the next morning, and by afternoon, the Kshipra was rising and the streets of Ujjayini were flooded, making travel inadvisable. Upashruti pressed Gandharvasena against venturing out, assuring him that he was welcome to stay in the palace until the waters subsided; in return, the artist offered to paint a portrait of her. The painting was stunning in its tribute to her beauty, astonishing Upashruti, and as day progressed into evening, Gandharvasena kept her entertained by playing the vamsi, raga after melodious raga. And somewhere between rapturous ragas, she — increasingly lonely in the palace as Mahendraditya travelled the breadth of Sindhuvarta, rallying an alliance against the invaders — melted under Gandharvasena’s hypnotic gaze. That night, as the moon broke through the clouds and the world glistened wet in its soft, limpid light, Upashruti draped her arms around the artist’s shoulders and pulled him down to her breast, quivering and gasping with love.

  “I had...” she broke the silence between her and Vikramaditya, but then stopped. She looked out of the window with unseeing eyes, gazing inwards rather than at the world outside. “I... thought about telling your father... the king...” she corrected herself quickly. “I wanted to tell him everything. But he had so much on his mind those days that I didn’t have the heart to burden him further. Moreover,” her eyes dropped to her fingernails, bitten crudely in anxiety, “I could never summon the courage. How could I? He was so loving. He...” her voice choked as old memories stirred, “...he doted on me.”

  She wasn’t sure if Vikramaditya had flinched at her words, but he said nothing.

  It had only been that one night of transgression. The rain having let up, the artist left the palace the next morning without ceremony or courtesy; Upashruti learned of his departure only through the palace hands, and she had never laid eyes on him again — until that morning, bang in the middle of the streets of Ujjayini.

  In all the time that he had been in the palace, he had given no indication of being a deva. Was he really a deva, she wondered, really Indra’s son? The lord of the devas had been there with his elephant, so perhaps he was, after all. The shock of seeing him, handsome and virile, after so many years, came back to Upashruti. He hadn’t aged at all. He looked the same as he had that day, playing the vamsi as the rain beat down on Ujjayini. He had to be a deva.

  “I thought, over time, I would be able to break it slowly to your... the king,” she said. She turned to Vikramaditya, standing before her, silent, emotionless. “But once you were born he adored you so much that...” Upashruti’s voice shook with remorse, and she violently twisted and knotted the tassels of the light shawl she wore. “Then... one day he was no longer with us.”

  “I didn’t seek any answers, so why admit to all of this now?” Vikramaditya’s tone was flat.

  “Because I have always wanted to,” the words came out in almost a wail. “You have no idea what it is like to carry guilt in your chest. The weight can crush you.”

  “Yet, in all these years, you never said a word. It took Indra to bring it into the open.”

  Vikramaditya’s tone wa
s calm, but hidden in its folds, Upashruti felt the raw edge of accusation. She didn’t blame her son; she knew he was right. The guilt had remained even after Mahendraditya’s death, but she had expected time to set everything right. And it had. Until now. Now, all that she had once dreaded would resurface. All the shame, the outrage, the insults. Everything.

  “I expected you to come here without being called.”

  The samrat didn’t answer.

  “I thought you would want an explanation.”

  “It is not for me to ask for an explanation, mother. I do not need one. But what explanation can you offer that will put everything back the way it was for you this morning?”

  Looking up at Vikramaditya’s face, patient and full of pain, Upashruti realized with a shock that her son’s words had followed her own train of thought. She was the one with needs — the need to confess, the need to be forgiven, the need for redemption.

  “Are you angry? Are you ashamed of me? You have a right to be.”

  Vikramaditya thought this over for a moment before shaking his head. “I am not angry with you. Why should I be? You are the same person with the same secrets that you were this morning, before Indra’s arrival. You are still my mother. I have nothing to be ashamed of either. My father is Mahendraditya, the only father I care to have. Nothing can change that. I do feel a little cheated at having been told a lie all these years, but I think the only one who has a right to feel cheated is father, and he is no longer with us.”

  “You forgive me then?”

  “There is nothing I can forgive you for, mother. It is father who was wronged, not me. I can only accept...”

  “Don’t you realize people are bound to talk now, ask questions?” Upashruti cut in apprehensively. “You will have to listen to the whispers, deal with the gossip, Vikrama. Your people, talking about your father and your mother, questioning your paternity, doubting my character. Can’t you see how much I have wronged you?”