She placed her hands firmly in her lap, resisting the urge to knot them into fists. ‘This poison, as you call it, has already tainted all our lives forever. I wanted to forget as much as you do. Otherwise I would not have taken you back when you came to me on Holi feast day.’ She glanced up at him sharply. ‘You do recall that you came to me, do you not?’
‘Yes,’ he said shortly, then rasped in a long, harsh breath. ‘I hope I do not have cause to regret it now.’
She stared at him, filled with an urge to shake him. Across the bed, Sumantra rose nervously.
‘I should go now,’ the prime minister began.
‘Sit down,’ Dasaratha said harshly, coughing once.
Sumantra looked at Kausalya uncertainly, then resumed his seat.
‘Dasa,’ she said softly, picking her words very carefully. ‘I have forgiven you a long time ago. I didn’t do it for you. I did it for Rama. For if I had retained the hatred and the bile all these years, it would indeed have poisoned me, tainted my very soul. Hate and love are good housekeepers; once let in the door, they tend to become masters of the house. I did not want my son to grow up under the blight of his mother’s hatred for his father’s other wife. I have seen sons like that. They do not grow into good men, let alone good kings. So I let the anger go. I turned hatred out of my doors. And I locked my heart away, never believing that it would ever be called into use again by you. Yet you were the one who came calling one day without warning or preamble. You knocked upon my heart’s door, and when I opened, you asked me for shelter. For forgiveness.’ She reached out and touched his hand lightly. ‘For love even.’
Dasaratha turned his face away, his expression inscrutable, his eyes shiny with some undefinable emotion. His jowls shook with the continuing tremors of his condition. Kausalya went on.
‘And I gave you what you asked from me, as best as I was able.’ Her voice sharpened despite her effort to control it. The steel crept back into it, hardening her tone. ‘But that does not mean I gave you an empty scroll upon which you could scribe anything you pleased. Our reconciliation does not give you the right to assume that you know me so well as yet. You can never know the Kausalya of all those lost years. That Kausalya is forever barred from you, locked in an abandoned prison of your own design. But this Kausalya,’ she looked down at her own hands now, seeking to control the emotions warring within her, ‘this Kausalya is yours. She belongs to you entirely. She lives only to serve you and to see her son rise above the downturns of her own past misfortunes. I think, if nothing else, I have proved that much to you at least. Do not question my loyalty ever again. Not even by mistake. For that is a mistake I cannot forgive.’
There was a long, heavy moment of silence after she had ended. The prime minister had taken to staring at the floor mutely, trying desperately to make himself invisible. But after Kausalya finished speaking, his eyes flickered to her face, then to Dasaratha’s sweating pale features. He seemed to want to say something, then thought better of it. He sighed a long, deep, unhappy sigh and clasped his hands together, staring down once more. A serving maid, no doubt waiting for a pause in the conversation, crept in quickly, picked up a pile of bowls that had been used to towel-wash the maharaja before he changed and took to his bed, and scurried out quickly as a mouse, never once raising her head to look at any of the three.
After the maid had come and gone, Dasaratha spoke quietly into the ensuing silence. He kept his face turned towards the far wall, his chin trembling as he attempted to form words and phrases without slurring them.
‘I did not question your loyalty. That has never been an issue between us. I only questioned the propriety of your adding your own voice and weight to Sumitra when she had that hysterical outburst. Bad enough that she should succumb to whatever nervous imaginings that have been plaguing her of late. But I was shocked that you should give credence to them as well.’ He added more tenderly, ‘That was all I meant to say. I intended no insult or injury to you, dear one. If I sounded like I did, then forgive me that trespass as well.’
He leaned back against his bolsters. Kausalya looked up and saw that his face was all but dripping sweat. She took up a fresh napkin to wipe him clean, then offered him a jal-bartan of cool water. He bent forward to sip it desultorily, then lay back again.
‘When does the fighting stop, Kausalya? When do these endless conflicts end and peace truly begin? Not just for our nation, or even for our family. I mean for our hearts. When will these wretched organs ever find lasting peace?’
Only in the grave. For that is the only time we finally travel beyond reach of mortal errors, beyond regret and reproach, sins of commission and of omission, free, if only briefly, between our countless physical lives and their inevitable conflicts of karma and dharma.
But of course she couldn’t say that aloud. Instead she said, ‘You should be at peace. You have earned the right.’
He looked at her, his chest rising and falling irregularly, breath wheezing raggedly from his partly open mouth. ‘You think so? I have earned the right to a little space to rest? A small season of peace and recovery?’
‘Indeed,’ she said, stroking his brow gently upwards, pressing back his sweat-oiled hair. ‘As much rest as you need. I did not understand it earlier when you told me. But now I do. You were right in your decision to announce Rama’s succession. He will lift the burden of kingship from your shoulders. That much at least he can do.’
But not the burden of husbandhood or fatherhood. Those will weigh you down until your very last breath, and nobody can help that, my love.
‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘You are right. It is time. I have already spoken with Sumantra. All the arrangements are ready. The council has already passed a formal motion accepting Rama as my heir-successor. Tomorrow I will pass on my crown to him at the sabha and step down from the sunwood throne.’
He paused, reaching up to grasp her hand. She could feel the shaking in his fingers. It took all her strength to keep her own steady as well as his.
‘Kausalya, I don’t understand all that has happened these past days. I have no conception of sorcery and the evil it can wreak. It has always been beyond my comprehension. I am a man of the flesh, of the earth, of the elements. But this much I know: you have raised a great man. You have moulded him into a person like few others that have ever walked this earth. That credit is all yours.’
She thought for a moment he was speaking of himself; then, with a warm flood of pleasure, she realised he was talking of Rama. She bowed her head, kissing his hand. ‘He is your son as well, my lord. He carries your blood, and your great heritage. It takes a lion to father a lion cub.’
‘Perhaps,’ Dasaratha rasped, his lungs clouding over again audibly. ‘But it takes a lioness to raise him like a lion.’
She accepted that gracefully. Across the bed, Sumantra released yet another long sigh. This one sounded less unhappy, more relieved. Kausalya looked up to see the lines on the prime minister’s face a little lighter. ‘If you will permit me, then, my liege and my lady, we have a few minor matters of formality to discuss concerning tomorrow’s coronation.’
Dasaratha rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. ‘Trust you to bring everything crashing back down to Prithvilok again, Sumantra! Don’t you enjoy visiting Swargalok when you get the chance? These moments of reconciliation are rare enough as it is without cutting them even shorter!’ He glanced at Kausalya with the faintest trace of mischief in his eyes. ‘If you were not here in the room, perhaps I might even learn just how fully recovered I am!’
Kausalya slapped her husband’s arm lightly. ‘Dasa! If the royal vaids hear you, they’ll have you chained to your bed for the rest of your life!’
‘Just as long as they chain you with me,’ he said, half seriously. ‘Close to me.’
Sumantra emitted a disbelieving laugh that turned immediately into an embarrassed cough of apology.
Dasaratha looked into Kausalya’s eyes with that intense, searching look, part forgive-me and par
t love-me-for-ever, that she knew so well. She shook her head, wagging her finger in warning, and was about to make some throwaway comment about how invalid kings ought not to attempt amorous forays into hostile territory when she saw Sumantra react to something behind her. The prime minister’s expression changed suddenly as a strange twisted shadow fell upon the bed, backlit by the mashaals in the outer room.
Dasaratha looked up too, and Kausalya, who had her back to the doorway, saw his face lose its playful, smiling mischievousness at once, so abruptly that it seemed a mask had been pulled from his face. Or perhaps a mask had been put upon his face. The shadow of the person who had entered behind Kausalya fell partway across Dasaratha, dissecting him in half.
‘My lords, my lady, pardon my interrupting,’ said a voice that was oddly familiar yet not instantly recognisable. ‘But I must needs have a word with the maharaja at once.’
It was the way the intruder said the word ‘maharaja’ that made Kausalya identify her. Kausalya did not wish to turn around, did not want to confirm what her ears were telling her. It couldn’t possibly be who she thought it was. And yet, now that she had heard that peculiarity of speech, she could not doubt it. An instant later, Sumantra confirmed it when he rose to his feet and spoke stiffly, almost harshly, quite unlike his usual impeccably polite official manner.
‘What could be so urgent that you need disturb the king in his sickroom at this hour of night? You could have discussed it with the preceptor, or if Guru Vashishta were not available, then you could have asked for me, surely?’
Now Kausalya did turn her head, if only to see how the visitor reacted. She saw the haggard pale face of the hunchback Manthara curl in a sly smile that barely concealed her snide disagreement with the prime minister’s words.
‘That would be impossible, Pradhan-mantriji. For this matter concerns the maharaja alone. You see, my lord,’ she went on, addressing Dasaratha directly without further preamble, ‘my lady Kaikeyi wishes you to come see her at once.’
Kausalya noticed the darkness spread across Dasaratha’s face, creeping to cover both sides now, leaving only part of one eye and a bit of his forehead illuminated. Manthara had taken another step into the room as she spoke, elongating her shadow.
Dasaratha raised himself to his elbow with an effort. ‘As you can see, daiimaa,’ the maharaja replied harshly, ‘I am not at my best for paying late-night visits at present. If the matter is urgent, Rani Kaikeyi will have to take it up with the preceptor or prime minister.’ He added, after a pause, ‘Or, if it is of a personal nature, it might be best if she addresses herself to Rani Kausalya directly. The First Queen has charge of all palace affairs while I am indisposed.’
Kausalya saw the gleam in the old woman’s eyes. For a second she almost thought the daiimaa’s eyes were green. But that couldn’t be. Manthara had plain black eyes, didn’t she? She put it down to a trick of the light and the angle.
‘That would be quite impossible, my liege.’
‘I see,’ Dasaratha said with a weary but unmistakable trace of anger in his tone now. The maharaja had never brooked subordinates who spoke back after being told what to do. Kausalya prepared to place a hand on his arm to coax him to calm down. It would not do for him to lose his temper at some tottering old wet-nurse and worsen his already deteriorated condition. ‘And why is that?’
‘Because,’ Manthara said with a sound somewhere between a sigh and a sly chuckle, ‘my lady has taken the vrath vows and retired to the kosaghar. She intends to remain there until she is parted from her mortal form. In short, she will starve herself to death unless your majesty goes at once and stops her.’
FIFTEEN
The moment Vibhisena entered the Hall, all conversation ceased. Actually, you could hardly call it conversation; cacophony was a more apt term. When you had a hundred different asuras from a dozen different species gathered together in one place, talking nineteen to the dozen all at once, that was what it sounded like.
Vibhisena walked toward the dais at the far end, taking care to avoid stepping on the long central carpet that traversed the length of the Hall. It was difficult to tell from its present soiled and scuffed condition, but the carpet was made from human skin. It gave Vibhisena the willy-nillies to imagine how many unfortunate mortals had died to make the six-inch-thick hundred-yard-long carpet. He felt worse when he recalled that the skin used was all taken from human infants while still alive.
Vibhisena kept his eyes raised to avoid having to look at the carpet. The seats of the great Hall were filled, every chair occupied by an asura chief. Unlike previous sessions, he failed to recognise any of those gathered here today. That was probably because most of the asura lords he knew had perished in the battle of Mithila, as it was now being called. These asuras gathered here today were the lowest-rung specimens of their species, catapulted overnight to chieftain status because of the sudden void in their leadership. Even so, Vibhisena was surprised to see any asuras here at all. The massacre of Mithila - as he preferred to call it - had been brutally efficient in its decimation. He presumed that these survivors must be from the few groups that had been sent north-west to Kaikeya and Gandahar, or perhaps even part of the contingent that had remained to guard Lanka itself. If so, they should count themselves doubly lucky, once for having escaped the fate of their fellows at Mithila, and once more for being rewarded with these promotions.
They watched him with hostile curiosity as he passed by. Vibhisena was a curious object in Lanka even to those who knew him well, and to these asuras he must seem like a most exotic specimen. He was certainly not what any of them might have expected. This was not the image that came to mind when one said the words ‘Ravana’s brother’.
He could imagine what they saw with complete clarity. A stick-thin albino-skinned rakshasa clad in Brahmin-white dhoti and kurta and toe-grip wooden slippers, choosing to walk the length of the Hall rather than be borne aloft by the servants at his disposal. It was an image they would be having a hard time reconciling with their expectations.
But the physical imperfections apart, what would baffle most of them was his outward appearance. How could Ravana’s brother, a rakshasa, be dressed like a mortal, a Brahmin no less? Why, he even had the caste marks of a real Brahmin, and the rudraksh maala around his neck, and to those who were sharp-eyed enough to note, the janayu thread around his torso, wound diagonally over one shoulder and tied at the waist. From the clicking and hissing and gruff mumbles all around, he could tell what they must be speculating.
There must be some subterfuge here, they were thinking, a part of some devilish new ploy of the demonlord to trick the mortals of Prithvi-lok. This Brahmin bhes-bhav was no doubt intended to be a disguise that Vibhisena would use to infiltrate some mortal city, most likely Ayodhya, in order to eliminate some mortal enemy. They were even speculating as to the identity of the target: Rama Chandra was by far the favourite choice.
He felt the hooded beady eyes of the nagas and uragas watching him suspiciously, their forked tongues flickering in and out of their slitted maws, hissing sibilantly. The danvas, pisacas, ditis, daityas, vetaals and other related sub-human species all stared with glittering red-veined eyes as he passed them by. The yaksa chiefs were morphing through various forms as they pleased, depending on their moods, and whims, one in the process of turning from a tiger into a rhinocerous, another seemingly content to stay half gharial and half albatross, with the wings of a garuda. The rakshasa chieftains were as surly and bloodthirsty-looking as ever, licking their fangs and tusks in restless anticipation. A trio of them, two females and a male, were engaged in fervent copulation as he passed, or perhaps they were resolving some dispute the rakshasa way.
Vibhisena’s wooden slippers clattered on the stone floor as he approached the dais. The Black Throne of Lanka sat empty as it had these past three days. He climbed the stairs to the top of the dais slowly and cautiously. This entire area was always slippery with blood and various internal fluids from the unfortunate asura chiefs
that Ravana routinely slaughtered for their various lapses and inefficiencies. The stench was incredible and the floor squirmed and writhed with a profusion of maggots, death beetles and other offal-feeders. Perhaps he ought to have the place washed down? He wondered how that would abide with the asura chiefs. It would be a stark contrast with Ravana’s methods.
He turned and faced the Hall, which had suddenly fallen still and silent once more. Every pair of eyes - and various other kinds of vision organs - was focused on him. He raised his voice to be heard, grateful for the sorcerous spell that made the speaker’s voice audible to everyone across the large Hall.
‘Friends,’ he said, ‘I am Vibhisena, brother to Ravana, Lord of Lanka. It was I who brought back my brother’s body from the place at Mithila where he fell.’
He paused to let them react. Not a single one gave him the satisfaction. He mused that they must already be aware of these basic facts at least. They would be wanting to know something more, something they did not already know. He obliged them.
‘My brother is not dead. Whatever you may have heard and believed, hear this first: Ravana is alive and well.’
That got a reaction. A burst of exclamatory sounds and noises erupted around the Hall. The trio of copulating rakshasas ceased their sexual activity. At least, two of them did; when the third, a female who didn’t want the male to stop his action, growled and bit him impatiently, the male rakshasa used his talons to slash her throat and let her body roll down the steps from his seat to the floor below; it writhed and shook in its death spasms, shaking exactly as if it was experiencing some macabre orgasm. Perhaps it was; with rakshasas, eroto-necrophilia was a finely developed art. Some orgasms were considered worth dying for.
Vibhisena averted his eyes from the thrashing naked female form before the dais and continued his speech. ‘He has asked me to speak to you on his behalf and let you know that Lanka remains in his command. Let none of you think otherwise. He retains his position as lord of the asura races and master of the island-kingdom.’
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