‘I am sorry, Amba.’ It’s the way he says my name, not Highness, not Princess, but Amba, like he’s known me for a long time. It’s been so long since anyone called me by my name. I am ‘sister’ to Ambika and Ambalika, my parents said ‘daughter’ for all of us, Salva, maybe sometimes, but even he reduced me to a single endearment – my love, my beauty, always my.
Oh, I thought I was so clever, so lucky with my world settled into place, my future laid out in front of me like a familiar road. All it took was one man with his chariot and his dark, deep eyes to upset it all. All it takes is this one man, who lets me sob after he’s apologized to me. Not talking any further, not giving me explanations, but I know he understands what he has stolen for me. I know he understands that I weep not just because I am far away from home, but also because my life – that well drawn map – has now been erased as though someone poured water all over it and the ink is smeared. It is frightening to not know. To be left to the whims of my karma.
I draw a jagged breath when I’m done crying. He pulls me towards him, so my back is against his chest, and he strokes my hair. ‘There now,’ he is saying, almost crooning. ‘There now, Amba, it’s going to be all right, you’ll see.’ While I have been closer than this to Salva, it was always us kissing, his hand moving down my shoulder to find my breast, and this feels as though I am being held by my father, except I never was held by my father, nor did I have such confusing feelings for him. As I am thinking all this, I suppose my body shifts or tenses or some such, because he is releasing me, and patting my back gently to indicate that our moment of intimacy is over.
‘Better?’ he asks, and I nod. He stands up then and reaches a hand down to me, which I grab and let him pull me to my feet. I assume we’re going to make our way back down to the others now, and I turn obediently, but he spins me around lightly and points to the distance. ‘Look.’
I squint and even though the light is dying now, I see structures and roads in the distance, so far away and so small. We are on the very top of the hill and that is ... ‘Hastinapura?’ I ask and he smiles and nods.
‘If you look a little that way,’ he points, ‘you can see the top of the new palace, set apart from the city, because my stepmother never could get used to so many people around her.’ I can sort of make out a dome and a high wall, but not much more.
‘Did you and your father move there as well?’ I ask.
‘No, my father did for a while, but I stayed at the old palace – there – so I could keep an eye on the city. Besides my stepmother and I are of the same age, and I suppose I was young and foolish then.’
‘You have not married,’ I say, and at this he takes a step back and looks at me sharply.
‘You mean to say they don’t tell that story the length and breadth of the land? I’m disappointed,’ he says, lightly, but doesn’t explain what he means. Instead he turns to me and I see the corners of his mouth curling upwards, ‘So what was that exceedingly foolish song you were singing on the way up?’
I laugh, and explain about Lalita’s song.
‘Ah, so her people were farmers,’ he says, and I shake my head.
‘She was born to the Dom caste in Kashi.’ I’m not sure how he will take this. I know the Doms are scary and known for their eerie profession, but I also know that Lalita is the kindest, sweetest, most human person I have ever met, and I will defend her till the end if I have to.
‘How do you feel about that?’ he asks.
And I lift my chin, ‘She is still Lalita, and the only maid I choose to have by my side, so you can tell your stepmother that if she objects.’
Bheeshma laughs. ‘My stepmother is not a conventional woman, as you will see when you meet her, but I still see no reason for anyone to know about Lalita’s previous life. That is, if you think your sisters will know not to babble. Besides, Yashas is a one-time prisoner, chattel from a battle won, and he is the most loyal man I have ever met.’
‘Ambika knows better and Ambalika is easily distracted with baubles,’ I say. He looks at me admiringly. ‘What?’ I ask, embarrassed by his scrutiny, ‘What is it?’
‘I had heard of the beauty of the princesses of Kashi,’ he says, ‘but I had not heard of their wisdom. Or their kindness.’
It’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. I do not know what to say next, and turn my face to the sky for inspiration. Luckily he saves me by saying, ‘I’m going to keep your knife.’
I open my mouth to object but he says, before I can, ‘I have to.’ And I know he does, and I cannot hate him today, not after everything, not when I’m so worn out with my tears as well, so I say nothing.
‘Now, shall we go back?’ he asks.
‘Without their dinners?’ I ask and he says, ‘Ah, but I did kill some rabbits’ and we go back to where he almost shot me to find their corpses stacked up on top of each other.
‘You said my singing scared them away!’ I say, indignantly.
‘So it did, now we’ll only be able to eat half our share and not be uncomfortably full, which is a shame. I was looking forward to it.’
And we go back to the others and Lalita teaches us more songs, and Bheeshma tells us wild tales using his hands to throw up shadows that look like animals, and Yashas glowers happily keeping an eye on all of us, and we go to sleep with a smile on our faces, and somewhere in me I realize it’s our last happy night together, which is what makes it so sad.
Chapter Eight
It is only moments after Queen Satyavati emerges to greet us in the palace halls that I realize I do not like her. For one thing, she is startlingly, ridiculously beautiful, even at her age, younger than my mother, but old enough to have mothered me, nonetheless. Something about her tall and slender frame, the way her hair lies in one long braid over her left shoulder, a head ornament glittering in the middle of her forehead, the mustard flower colour of her sari which sets off her burnished brown skin, darker than any of ours, but dark like something rich and expensive, which makes us look sallow and unhealthy.
Then I notice the way she greets us, very properly but with no warmth. The water for our feet is brought out by serving girls who move with the same grace she does, and even though they do not smile, I see slight mocking in their eyes when they sit in front of us with the bowls, like they’re thinking who are these gawky little girls and couldn’t our prince find any better women? It’s not fair to judge us like this straight from a long journey, we’re all dishevelled, our fine wedding clothes no better than rags with all the dust gathered around their folds, and Bheeshma made us take off our jewellery so we wouldn’t attract dacoits.
The queen touches a scratch Bheeshma must have received during his fight with Salva, her face concerned, but only lightly. I wonder if she is capable of any deep emotion at all.
‘What’s all this?’ I hear her saying. ‘Did you let one of the men get the better of you in battle?’
‘I’ll explain another time,’ he tells her, and as I’m watching them, I see her roll her eyes and he smiles at her expression, and if I thought that Bheeshma and I were intimate during our journey together, it is nothing compared to this. I can’t explain it, not even to myself, but that brief moment when he hides a smirk and she looks at him, half-exasperated, half-amused, they could be a couple that have been married for a long time. I wonder what sort of nest of snakes we are sitting amongst.
The maids finish and leave, and we are still sitting there, facing her. Lalita has been taken away by the servants almost as soon as we arrive, and I hope that Ambalika won’t start sucking her thumb or letting her mouth fall open so that we do not look any more ridiculous.
‘You must be tired,’ the queen says, her voice a drawl. Men might call that tone ‘caressing,’ I think of it as ‘lazy’. ‘My woman will show you to your chambers. Mo?’ An older maid appears, quite a senior one – she wears three or four gold bangles and the others only beaten copper ones – but she looks kind nevertheless.
‘Come, my ladies,’ says Mo
, which is a strange name, but perhaps it is common in their part of the world.
I stand up and face her, ‘Please, I should like my own maid. Lalita. I am unable to manage without her.’
At this the Queen Satyavati’s eyes grow very large and her eyebrows rise and she says, ‘Goodness, child, your maid has been waiting on you for the last three days, I should think you’d be glad for her to have a good rest as well.’ And the way she says it, with pointed astonishment, I sound like the most selfish creature on earth. Even though all I wanted was to make sure Lalita was being treated well.
‘Do not worry,’ the queen goes on. ‘We have many very capable maids over here in Hastinapura.’ Implying that Kashi does not. ‘You will be looked after well. As soon as your little maid is rested, someone will show her the way to your quarters.’
I look around for Bheeshma, hoping his friendly face will offer me some comfort, but he has already vanished, his task done.
Oh, that queen Satyavati is everywhere! We have been in the palace for the last two days, and not an hour goes by that she doesn’t send for us, or send us a ‘little present’, usually some fruit, but also some new pairs of anklets, swathes of silk, and my sisters think she’s being very lovely and welcoming, but I know it’s all part of her plan to spy on us. The maids she sends with the presents all have that half smile of superiority when my sisters exclaim over the goodies, they think us yokels who have never seen nice things before. ‘Stop it!’ I hiss to Ambalika as she lifts out a string of pearls, just a single string, not even the five lines that we have had before, and the way she coos over it, like she’s never seen something so beautiful before. She just looks at me, startled, as does Ambika when I pinch her to stop her gushing over the pears on a wooden plate shaped like a fish. ‘As if you’ve never seen a pear!’ I snap, and Ambika says, ‘Well, not in a long time, crosspatch! Just smell this one. It is nice of the queen to think of us.’
I think I am the only one who sees through her. Either that or I am going mad, one of those women who is unable to trust anyone. Like my grandmother before she died, always suspecting people of putting poison in her wine.
There are some things I have learned about the queen though. I learn that she was not always the person she is today, so forbiddingly royal, so correct in everything she says and does. I bribe this information out of one of the younger maids, a girl called Janaki, who Lalita told me was amenable to small treats and given to talking a lot. Lalita does some of the work, by beguiling Janaki with sweet words and compliments, until the girl’s head was almost completely turned. Meanwhile, I started to save her little bits of fruit, and then when I saw how her mouth fell open at the sight of some out-of-season fruits that the queen had sent one day, I took to giving her one at a time, a reward for all the stories she tells me. She is very young, younger than Ambalika even, and very foolish, but because no one takes her into any account, she is always in a room when stories are being told.
I hear that Queen Satyavati was born to a fisherman, but it turned out that she wasn’t born to him after all, she was actually found inside the belly of a fish along with a twin brother. ‘They were the children of an apsara and a king,’ says Janaki, her eyes wide as she tells me this fairy tale. ‘And then her foster father decided that she should marry a king. So, he arranged the marriage with our King Shantanu.’ She rolls her eyes heavenwards, piously, ‘Mayhisnamelastforeveringlory.’
‘But why did King Shantanu want to marry a fisher-girl?’ I asked Lalita later, as she brushed out my hair. ‘Surely, he could have had his pick of any young princesses. And he already had a son, didn’t he?’
Lalita has slipped into the Hastinapura ways so seamlessly, it is as though she has always been here. This is useful in this palace of secrets, people trust her – the older maids, the guards, she gives the impression of light dancing across a water’s surface, not something you’d pause to wonder about. So people tell her things, and these things, she tells me later, when we are alone. I know that she does not trust the Queen Satyavati any more than I do, which gives me comfort. I know that she stands behind me – even though she is only a maid, it is nice to have someone on whom to lean when the ground beneath you is shaky and uncertain. I will admit it – she is my friend now, not just any maid. I like her loyalty, yes, but I also like her smile when she tells me the palace gossip, like a cat fetching a mouse to her master. I like the way she tells stories, and I like her, why can’t I just admit that? My mother would never be friends with the maids, but the Queen Satyavati has her own special friends, three of them who laugh together and understand what the others are saying without having to be told, and no one could call her not regal for it.
‘She was bewitchingly beautiful, Your Highness,’ said Lalita then about Queen Satyavati. ‘And the story is that she led King Shantanu quite a dance. She turned him down many times.’
‘Turned him down? But why? Did she think she would get a better match?’
Lalita laid down the comb she was using and sat down on the bed facing me. ‘Highness, did you never wonder why Prince Bheeshma was not the king?’
There had been a faint voice at the back of my head asking me this very question, but I had ignored it. Much as I had ignored the vague feeling of disappointment I had that Bheeshma hadn’t appeared to talk to us since he brought us to the palace.
‘The queen wanted her children to be next in line to the throne,’ Lalita said, gently. ‘So the prince, they called him Devavrata then, took a vow that he would never marry or have children. Which is why his name—,’
‘The one who made a terrible vow,’ I said slowly. It was all becoming so clear to me now. ‘Didn’t his father stop him?’ I asked.
‘He didn’t want to rob Devavrata of his rights,’ said Lalita, and I know she was using the name ‘Devavrata’ so we’d feel like all of this was happening to someone else, ‘but he was quite ill with love and worry for the queen, so Devavrata decided to do it himself. And no, the king didn’t stop him then.’
‘Well,’ I said, and then found I couldn’t speak any more. Lalita seemed to sense this, because she went to comb my hair again, stroking my head gently. We sat in silence for some time, and then she said, ‘I have heard that the young prince Vichitravirya is actually quite nice, Highness.’
‘Three brides!’ I said, and she caught my eye in the mirror and we both laughed, because we could not weep.
I am not going to be one of Vichitravirya’s queens. Not when I was promised to one man before, and that one man might still be waiting for me. I know I sound fickle even to my own ears, but I feel like my life has been neatly divided between that morning and the mornings before and after it. Before, when I only saw one of my futures, the only future, then I learned to embrace it. No, that’s unfair as well. I grew up with Salva, and I loved him as a girl loves her father’s home before she is married and sent away. Salva is everything I used to love, my idea of what sort of queen I would be is tied to him. He knows the inside of me, the place from where I began to grow outwards.
But with Hastinapura, and Bheeshma, what lies ahead looks different. They are the future I could have, an ending I never even dreamed of because I was so sure how my story would go. All my life I thought I was on a straight road, and it turns out it forked in front of me after all.
I could be this queen or that queen. I could still go home and marry Salva – didn’t Bheeshma say he would let me go? – or I could stay here and be one of Vichitravirya’s three queens. He will love Ambalika the most, that is obvious, given a choice between us. I am older than him, to start with; Ambika is too spiky and it is unlikely he will want to make the effort to crack that hard outer shell and be sure of her sweetness underneath. No, the easiest path for him is already there, Ambalika with her fairy-tale princess face and graceful little ways, she will always be the queen he loves the most, and I don’t think I can commit my life to always being second best. To always be competing with my sisters for our husband’s affection.
&
nbsp; Maybe if I could just talk to Bheeshma, let him know I am all right with not being a queen, in fact, isn’t it better in many ways to just be a princess for the rest of your life? You don’t have to rule or produce heirs, you just have to be royal and kind. Not even just, since no one expects justice from you. I wonder if I can convince him of this, but I also wonder if I’d rather go home and be with Salva.
Salva – I can picture his face so vividly in front of me. That face that I love so well, even now. Salva, who will grow old with me. Salva, who will love our sons and toss our daughters high till they shriek with joy. Salva, who will greet me before he greets anyone else. Salva, who will promise me to never turn to a concubine for companionship. For other things, maybe. Men have needs and I do not want to worry myself on that account, because there might be times when I simply do not wish to be bedded. But he will not choose to talk to a concubine, or tell her his worries, why would he, when I will always be there?
Girls of the Mahabharata Page 10