“Your words carry no weight,” Yudhajit said unexpectedly. “We know that the imposter is on the sunwood throne. He controls everything, your minds, your souls, your words and actions even…you are no longer Bharat my sister’s son. Merely a puppet in his power.”
Imposter? What is he babbling about?
Bharat was too shocked to find any words to reply at once; before he could manage even a perfunctory, polite response, his uncle spoke again in the same vaguely dismissive monotone.
“Stand aside or join our cause,” Yudhajit said. “Either you are with us or against us.”
This last statement Bharat had heard often before – it was the tired refrain of all tyrants, arrogant asses and bullies everywhere. Those arrogant and selfish enough to want everything their way right now and incapable of tolerating any difference of opinion. It was the kind of thing his uncle might say, but it also confirmed that old Somasra was right. Talk would achieve nothing good here, but it might well make things worse.
But what was he babbling on about before that? What did he mean by ‘the imposter is on the sunwood throne’? Is he talking about Rama? What madness is this?
He had used his peripheral vision to scan the frontline as he walked from the gate. He knew every one of the six men and two women in the fore, all seated astride horses, kitted out in full battle regalia. They were all leaders of substantial armed forces, representing three major kingdoms and three smaller holdings that were pledged to Ayodhya – and more importantly, paid taxes. From the unnatural silence and fierce glassy-eyed stares on all their faces, and the way they had stayed quiet while Yudhajit had spoken, Bharat deduced that they deferred to Kekaya in this matter. Which was odd in itself; at least two of the smaller holdings and one of the large kingdoms were not allies of his mother’s homeland by any stretch of definition. For them to take up arms against the might of the Kosala nation thusly, unprovoked and unjustified, and to defer to Kekaya thus – to Yudhajit no less, known for his arrogant and abrasive manner – was a mystery of vast proportions. He could not fathom it, nor understand what power Yudhajit could wield over them to make them act thus.
“Am I to assume that my uncle speaks for you all as well?” he asked aloud, raising his voice so that it could be heard several yards back down the raj-marg. Formal politeness had failed, it was time to try something different; needling might elicit a better response. “And that Kekaya now commands you all like a single hand holding a half-dozen reins?”
The glassy stares remained fixed on a point beyond Bharat – even beyond the outer wall of Ayodhya, he suspected. They were the kind of yojanas-long stares that he had seen on the faces of sentries posted on remote mountain posts and left alone for long years without respite. This was beyond passing strange now, he decided. Something was certainly peculiar here.
Then he caught a flicker of an eye, the movement of pupil within the white, and without turning his head an iota, he fixed his attention on the eighth member of the frontline party.
He had never seen the man before in his life, he decided. Who was he? Which kingdom or holding did he represent?
Without staring directly at the man, all he could tell for sure was that the man was exceedingly fair. He had skin wholly unlike most Aryas, whose complexion may start out as fair in some mountain tribes but was burned to sallow wheat or maize by adulthood if not the dark brown or even jet black of the majority of his people. This man was so fair that Bharat’s mind instantly related his complexion to Rama’s – he was as white as Rama was black-skinned. So white, the skin almost seemed to glow faintly reddish, as if the skin were barely sufficiently tinted to conceal the blood flowing beneath it. Bharat would have assumed him to be an albino, except that there was colour in his eyes and hair: jet black eyes that seemed almost all-pupil, giving him an unnaturally intense gaze, as if he could see everything and anything and his hair was a contradiction too—grey as ash. It shifted and stirred in the bracing autumn wind that blew through the Sarayu Valley, setting the pines and elms along the ridges shirring in the distance.
Bharat had never seen a combination of these things in any person before: Ash grey hair, black eyes as large as an animal’s, and albino white skin. As acting king-regent of the Kosala nation, he had met any number of videshis visiting Aryavarta from distant lands across the great oceans to the west, as well as the many fair-skinned tribes and nations from the vast plainslands beyond the great North-Western frontier ranges (beyond his own mother’s homeland Kekaya). But no one like this. No race that he knew of could have such a combination of characteristics. Could intermarrying with videshi envoys and traders produce such traits? Trade had only increased over time and a steady influx and outflow of foreigners was a common sight in port towns and on the trade routes, so internecine relations were commonplace and fruitful. Perhaps, he supposed doubtfully. Either way, those eyes…they were unlike any human pair of eyes he had ever seen. So big, so…strikingly intense!
Bharat realized that the man was the only one not staring fixedly ahead like the other seven in the frontline. Not just that, he was the only one glancing at Bharat occasionally – and smiling secretly from time to time!
Bharat turned to look at the man openly. It was time to try the last arrow in his limited diplomatic quiver.
“And who might you be, sir?” he asked boldly, addressing the fair stranger. “By what authority do you come here and whom do you claim to represent?”
The man smiled again – a fleeting, furtive smile that appeared and vanished almost instantly. He turned his large eyes in this direction and Bharat was startled to see how oddly they bulged out of the smooth glacé surface of his face. Suddenly he felt strange almost feverish and the ache in his recently dislocated shoulder surged to unbearable levels. It was all he could do to resist crying out. He distinctly saw the stranger smile a thin dark smile – displaying teeth that were as grey as the hair on his head!
Then white heat exploded in his forebrain and his vision blew out like a blast of a bellows striking a furnace. Pain, unspeakable pain, screamed in every nerve-ending and his muscles and bones seemed incapable of supporting so much as a feather let alone his living weight. He felt himself sinking to his knees – No! No! I cannot show weakness at such a time! – and one hand gripped his forehead as if seeking to quench the white fire that blazed within the cage of bone, while the other dangled limply by his side, useless and shouting agony. He felt the dull thud of his knees striking the dust of the raj-marg and the world swayed from side to side, appearing and disappearing in a fog of pain and chaos.
Through the fog, the pain, the blinding white light-heat that raged in his brain, he heard the stranger’s voice speak out calmly, almost quietly, with seductive tone:
“I am the vengeance of Ravana come to life. Come to wreak justice upon Ayodhya. And to end the reign of Rama the imposter.”
THREE
Lakshman stood at the fringes of the War Council, not liking what he heard. There was too much talk of preparations and preparedness, talk which reminded him too closely of the last several months – the last several years, for that matter. Sometimes it felt as if his life had been one long endless war; only the battles kept changing location. Just that morning before leaving his chambers he had promised Urmila that he would free himself from the usual routine of statecraft and court and attend her for a while. She had not looked very convinced when he made the promise, knowing that his promises were only as good as Rama’s willingness to honour them—and if that meant honouring them at the cost of some important chore or assignment, well, they both knew which one would take priority.
It was not even Rama that was responsible, it was Ayodhya. In a sense, the kingdom had always been the real wife he left behind when he left for exile fourteen years earlier; in many ways, it still was the wife he had come home to. The days after his return had been rich with euphoria yet tinged with a sense of great tragedy and sadness; the knowledge of why they had left in the first place and under what circumstanc
es they now returned. This was not the Ayodhya he had bid farewell to almost a decade and a half ago; it was a different woman. He knew her well on sight, despite the relatively minor ravages of time and aging, the inevitable decays of entropy, the normal maturation and greying at the fringes – no matter how cleverly concealed by artful dyeing. Yet her soul was the thing. He had once heard a kusalavya bard sing in his father’s court – Dasaratha loved musicians, artists, performers of all ilks, had patronized them to the detriment of his royal treasury at times – that sometimes the souls of men grew older than their faces. It was so with his wife: she had aged beautifully, gracefully, majestically… and yet, that graceful growth deceptively concealed the dying within. Sometime in the long sojourn, in the parting of hearts and minds and souls, she had lost her way; it was there in her eyes to be seen, if you knew how to look. And after all those years abroad in foreign lands, in videshi forests battling brutal beasts, he knew; oh, how he knew. He knew the instant he set eyes upon her again, on their return. She had changed somewhat on the outside, and too much on the inside. Far too much. She was no longer the one he had left, whom he might have loved – whom he had believed he loved during those long lonely years of self-denial, but now knew was merely a stranger waiting to become a lover, perhaps a companion, someday a wife. Whom was he speaking of now? Ayodhya or Urmila? Was there a difference? For Lakshman, perhaps not. For Lakshman, perhaps never. His name said it all: Lakshya-maan. He Who Adheres To His Chosen Goal. He had adhered. Still, he adhered. And would always adhere. And that goal, his goal, was never Ayo…Urmila…never Urmila…it would never be, could never be, should never be Urmila. It was always Ayodhya, and what was best for her. He was hers, she his, in life, in exile, and until death did them apart.
At some point, he sensed Rama’s eyes upon him. He had spent so many years, each broken into infinite moments of watchful alertness, the all-day all-night every-waking-and-sleeping-moment level of alertness that drove some men mad and turned others into something other than mere men, that he knew at once when those crow-black pupils were turned in his direction. He turned his head a fraction and gazed into Rama’s eyes across the chamber full of agitated war ministers, generals and advisors. Rama, seated upon the sunwood throne that had once borne the weight of Dasaratha and before him, Aja and Raghu and so many other great, legendary kings of the Suryavansha Ikshwaku line all the way to the beginning, to the sungod Surya himself and his mortal offspring Ikshwaku, the bringer of light to Prithvi-loka. Rama sat well upon that throne, perhaps even better than their own father – although Lakshman would never speak that thought aloud, on pain of death – and was already a legend unto himself. The tales of his adventures in exile had done the rounds of so many taverns and ashrams in the past fourteen years, Lakshman sometimes wondered if perhaps the legend had become more real to people than the man himself. Yet if there was ever a man who could live up to and perhaps even exceed the lofty standards of his own mythic legend, that man was Rama.
Rama held the mutual gaze for a moment, his eyes sparking with that quiet fire that Lakshman knew indicated deep process: the burning fire of deep contemplation that always resulted in extraordinary insights and command decisions. Even though he was now the only man not speaking in that babbling chamber apart from Lakshman; the moment he did choose to speak, his words and thoughts would cut through the babble like a sword through rotting vines. He tilted his head a fraction, visible only to Lakshman in that crowded chamber, and Lakshman raised his own chin a mirroring fraction, acknowledging.
It will begin soon, be ready, Rama’s gesture had meant.
Ready already, Lakshman had responded.
On cue, the doors of the chamber were thrown open as a white-faced captain came in, bowed and said in a voice urgent enough to end every conversation within:
“Maharaj, there is a crisis at the gates. Yuvraj Bharat has fallen.”
Shatrugan emerged from the sally port with a roar. He carried a fistful of javelins, each as heavy as a sword, as easily as if they were dry tindersticks. One javelin was already clutched in his throwing arm, balanced on his shoulder, ready to be released. He took a step forward, turning this way then that, seeking a target. His powerful muscles bulged – he had refused to take the time to strap on body armour – and his Adam’s apple worked vigorously in his throat. When he had ascertained that nobody in the frontline – or the lines visible behind – was making any gesture of aggression, he turned his attention to the slender figure at the end of the row. The pale white stranger sat his horse as calmly as the others to his left, but unlike them, his smooth face twitched with a sardonic smile.
“You!” Shatrugan roared. “You did something to him! I saw you!”
The stranger turned unearthly eyes upon Shatrugan, eyes that seemed to be all-pupil with only the hint of a white eyeball visible in the socket – like a rakshasa, Shatrugan thought grimly – and flashed a broad grin. A
white rakshasa with grey teeth—or are they green?
“I spoke to him,” the white stranger said. “Perhaps the truth was more than he could bear?”
Shatrugan felt something as he stared directly at the man on the horse. A piercing pain in his brain, the front of his brain specifically, as if a needle had been inserted through his forehead and its poison-dipped tip was spreading its venom across the entire forebrain like acid eating into flesh. He snarled and threw one arm up, using the handful of javelins to cover his face, as he pulled back the other javelin and lobbed it at the white stranger.
It flew through the air and passed precisely through the space where the stranger’s head ought to have been—but wasn’t anymore. The stranger straightened his head, still grinning, and glanced back casually at the tree trunk behind him from which the back end of the weapon poked out, quivering. “A fine throw. You have some skill with the weapon.”
Shatrugan realized the pain had vanished. It had vanished the instant he lobbed the javelin.
A second shaft had already transferred itself from his right hand to his left where it now hung suspended above his shoulder, ready to throw. He drew that arm back and had the satisfaction of seeing the stranger’s neck tense, eyes narrow and smile freeze. He grinned as well, displaying his broad teeth.
“Best of three throws, shall we say?” Shatrugan said. “Or shall we make it best of five?” He jerked his head back towards the gate, yards behind him. “There’s plenty more where that one came from.”
This time the albino rakshasa, or whatever in hell the being was, did not respond. He didn’t smile either, Shatrugan noted with grim satisfaction.
Judging it to be safe to take his eyes off the white stranger, he bent down beside Bharat’s prone form. Setting the fistful of javelins down within easy reach, he felt his brother’s neck, searching for a pulse. The skin was awash with sweat, which was unlike Bharat, but rather than fever-hot, it was ice-cold. At least there was a pulse, a strong steady one. That was good news.
He glanced back at the rampart where the old veteran Somasra stood along with his younger associate. “If I should stagger, trip, or so much as spit wrong, loose a full volley at that white bastard,” Shatrugan said.
The oldun nodded once to show he understood and turned and passed instructions to the long triple row of archers standing ready with bows strung and drawn and arrows set to the haft. One gesture now and more arrows would fly at the albino stranger than any ten men could dodge. Or ten rakshasas.
Without a single wasted action, Shatrugan dropped his javelin, picked up Bharat and hauled him up onto his shoulders in one smooth motion. His thighs bulged with the effort, as did his biceps, and he rose from the squatting posture to a full stand, turned, and strode back to the sally port, passing through without a backward glance. The door was shut and bolted behind him instantly, and he set Bharat down on a shaded bench, gently grabbing his brother’s head and resting it slowly against the cut-pine logs that made up the pillar against which he rested.
Bharat’s eyes fluttered open a
lmost at once. “Where—”
“Shhh. Shantam. You’re safe.”
Bharat groaned and raised his uninjured hand to his forehead – pressing the palm there as if feeling the aftermath of the same pain Shatrugan had experienced moments earlier. Shatrugan imagined how intense that pain must have been though it had lasted only a moment for him. A few more seconds and he would have fallen too, he had no doubt. It took a lot to bring Bharat down, he knew. He was glad now that Bharat had insisted that they both not go out together.
“Some kind of asura maya,” Bharat said, then gestured for water. It was handed to him at once by a waiting soldier. He sipped carefully and Shatrugan watched the intelligence return to his eyes again.
“Yes, I know. I felt it too. Bastard tried it on me.”
Bharat looked at him quizzically.
Shatrugan shrugged. “I tossed a javelin at his ugly skull. It seemed to work.”
Bharat sputtered water. “You—”
Shatrugan patted his arm, gently because it was the dislocated shoulder. “Don’t worry, he ducked in time. But it did the trick. The pain stopped right away.”
Bharat’s eyes flicked from side to side, mind working furiously. “Still.
That was not appropriate under the circumstances. We were attempting a diplomatic parley.”
Shatrugan chortled. “Yes. Sure. Of course. They knocked you down using sorcery, would have knocked me down too in another second. But I should still have tried to talk to them, right? Well, diplomacy can go suck a lemon!”
Bharat seemed about to respond then stopped. He grinned and nodded. “You’re right. To hell with diplomacy. They made the first move.”
A commotion. The dense rows of armoured soldiers parted to reveal a dark form moving like wind across water. Rama. Followed closely by Lakshman, Sita and an entourage which included, Shatrugan noted, the entire War Council.
RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA Page 16