PRINCE IN EXILE

by AKB eBOOKS Ashok K. Banker

  ‘Father of our nation, if he only knew it.’

  ‘Dushyanta fell to his knees before Sakuntala, begged her forgiveness and entreated her to return to Ayodhya with him. She relented, and they rode back together as king and queen, exactly as she had once dreamed, at the head of a great procession. And Sakuntala got everything she had ever desired, but most of all she had the love of Dushyanta.’

  Into the silence that followed, a nightbird called mournfully, as if asking for something it knew it could never have.

  Rama said, ‘And did they live happily ever after?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘You know the story as well as I do.’

  He was silent for a moment, then turned and faced her. ‘Of course they did. Otherwise the poet who composed that drama wouldn’t have got paid a single coin for his work!’

  Sita laughed. ‘Maybe so. But maybe it was also because it’s true. They did live happily ever after.’

  ‘A tragedy with a happy ending.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘That’s what Guru Vashishta once said to us, when explaining prosody and the art of composition. He said that to be truly memorable, a story must be in essence a very sad tale, a great tragedy, but with a happy ending.’

  ‘Why?’

  He shrugged. ‘Because that is the kind of story that pleases the human heart the most to hear. Great sadness, great suffering, great odds, but in the end, jaya.’

  ‘Triumph.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Rama sniffed the air, suddenly distracted. A raat ki rani had just blossomed somewhere, its eloquent fragrance whispering softly on the night wind. He looked at Sita to see if she smelled it. She nodded, inhaling too. They stood, enveloped in the perfume of the night.

  The river sang to them.

  NINETEEN

  Dasaratha woke to find himself lying on a bed of dried rustling leaves with the taste of blood and iron in his mouth. He groaned and tried to raise himself. He was disoriented and confused, unable to remember anything at first. All he knew was that he must get up at once, move, get away from this place, get to safety. There were asuras here, he was surrounded and in great danger. Move! Flee!

  As he put weight upon his feet, a searing pain in his right leg pierced through the fog that filled his brain. Suddenly he remembered everything with crystal clarity. The flurry of arrows, the sharp agony in his right shoulder as an arrow struck deep enough to hit bone, the bristling staffs of half a dozen arrows embedded in his charioteer’s face, neck and chest – poor devil – and the screams from all around as his rally was broken by the unexpected fury of the asura rebuttal. Yaksas, he remembered himself thinking as he clenched a fist, the pisacas have been reinforced by yaksa longbows. The yaksas were deadly with their enormous curved bonewood bows, deadlier even than Mithilan bowmasters.

  He heard the ghoulish cries of the pisaca and yaksa forces as they came thundering down the gorge, and heard his own voice calling out to hold fast, hold fast, even as his lead horse whinnied and succumbed to its own arrow-wounds. The other horses lost their rhythm and stumbled chaotically, tumbling pell-mell on the steep crumbling way. Dasaratha saw that there was no help for it, the chariot would go over regardless of what he did, and leaped just in time. As he flew, the corner of the footboard of the chariot slashed his leg, gouging flesh from his calf, and threw him over on to his head.

  He fell badly, partly upon his wounded shoulder and head, cracking or breaking his collarbone as well. The arrow snapped off, the point digging deeper, probing bone. The voice of Sumantra called out from somewhere close behind, shouting his name, calling out that the maharaja had fallen, rally to the maharaja. A great cloud of dust swirled up the gorge like a dervish out of hell, and through the seething, boiling cloud, Dasaratha saw the asura forces emerge, roaring and gnashing their teeth. He groaned, not for his own wounds and pain, which he hardly felt at all in the heat of his battle-fury, but for his exhausted forces. The reinforced asura numbers would surely break the back of this rally as well now. Would this battle never end? How much more must Dasaratha pound these wretched beasts, pound them with all the might of his army, the dwindling forces of Kaikeya and Kosala, the beleaguered and all-butbesieged men and women exhausted and depleted after three days and nights of sleepless, endless battle.

  He started to rise, to reach for his sword, his lance, anything. But his foot would not take his weight, his shoulder refusing to respond, the arrowhead driven into some vital muscle juncture that left his arm dangling uselessly. And in that moment, the worst of all such moments he had faced in his time, Dasaratha knew that he would die here in this dust-riddled gully close to a strategic plateau. He knew yet again, a thing so easily known and even more easily forgotten, that the only true rewards of war were ash and dust, nothing more. Not gold, not glory, not peace – that most foolishly sought prize of all, as if wholesale butchery and hatred could ever engender a thing as bloodless and innocent as peace – only blood, and dust and ash. The asura forces had engaged with the front line of his host, Sumantra bravely and desperately struggling to hold a brutally battered line against the juggernaut. Dasaratha had found and gripped a throwing spear and now he clutched it in his left hand, ready to go down, taking as many as he could with him. The roar of battle filled his ears, the dust and stench of death his nostrils.

  Then he heard a thundering of hoofs and wheels as a chariot rode up alongside him, enshrouded in its own cloud of dust, but before he could turn and see who it was, the first of the enemy was upon him, and he was battling for his life. He saw one pisaca go down in a screaming, writhing bundle, then another’s throat slashed to bloody ruin by the spear he was swinging like a sword, then he glimpsed one clever bastard leap down from the ridge, upon him.

  A blow struck him full in the mouth, the lunging pisaca’s hammerhead shattering two teeth and filling his mouth with the rusty, oceanic flavour of asura ironrock, the dread lohit stone, and he lost all awareness.

  He breathed heavily now, half kneeling, half crouched, trying to overcome the swimming of his senses, the flaring behind his eyes. His mouth still dripped blood, his lips swollen fat and feeling like wine bladders filled to bursting. He wiped the blood and spittle and dust from his eyes with the back of his cuff, careful to avoid the swollen mess around his mouth. Then he looked around.

  What place was this? How had he got here? It seemed to be a tiny clearing, thickly shrouded by bushes and the thin, sturdy soldier pines that were such an integral part of the Kaikeya landscape. The ground around him was bare except for pine cones, and the pile of leaves on which he had lain.

  He remembered nothing of this place, nor of how he had got here. Yet from the stillness of the forest around him, and the faint mewling cry of a khushibird somewhere not far away, it was easy to deduce that it was safely distant from the battle. He tried to stare up at the sky, barely visible through the close-growing trees, new agony shooting through his shoulder and leg, his vision blurring and swimming, and all he could tell was that it was either very early morning or close to end of day.

  Then he heard the unmistakable sound of someone coming, the familiar jangling, slapping sound of chain-mail striking leather. The swishing of a blade as it cut through undergrowth. He hopped back, resting his back against a pine for support, seeking a place to hide, a weapon, something to defend himself with, even as the khushibird grew silent, and the visitor appeared, cutting a swathe through the dense bush beside which he had just awoken. Dasaratha exclaimed.

  ‘Rajkumari?’ He dropped the dried branch he’d picked up in sheer desperation. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Kaikeyi strode towards him, her handsome face wreathed in that sly smile that was so talked about amongst the kings of the seven kingdoms. Any of those young kings with whom he sat on the war councils would give an arm and a leg for the hand of Kaikeya’s princess. But one rumour had it that she had sworn never to wed, while another, more malicious, suggested that perhaps she preferred to be wedded to a sword tha
n a man. She smiled that smile at him now, resting a hand on her hip. Even through the armour and battle leathers, her buxom rounded body was unmistakably feminine. She swung the sword in the other hand with practised ease, reminding him that he was looking at the most accomplished woman swordmaster in the seven kingdoms, winner of every mêlée worth entering.

  ‘Who do you think it was that carried you from the gorge and brought you here, Dasa?’

  He stared at her, uncomprehending. ‘You? But you were only to lead the rearguard. The last I saw of you, you were far behind. On the plains.’

  She shrugged, the gesture a curious mixture of feminine delicacy and Kshatriya strength, the quintessential mix that marked the best and bravest warrior-queens of Arya. In that moment, Dasaratha saw the queen she would become. A legend among legends. He saw the vision even before she spoke the next words.

  ‘Rearguard, vanguard, what’s the difference?’ she said. ‘Fighting’s fighting.’ She flicked her sword past his right ear, so close he could feel the wind of its passing, then wiped the blade clean on the tree trunk behind him. He glimpsed blood and smelled asura innards on it, then she withdrew it as smoothly as she had drawn it, and sheathed it in a single action without even glancing down at her scabbard. ‘You’ll be pleased to know we cast them off the canyon and the plateau. Our flag flies from the high ground now.’

  She came closer. Dasaratha could smell the sweaty, womanly odour of her now. It was powerfully exciting. He had fought alongside women before, but never had he been rescued by one. Let alone one who then went on to win the battle that he himself had struggled at for three long days.

  ‘But it was you that broke the back of their host,’ she said softly. ‘All I did was push the blade in one final time, and twist hard.’

  She used her hand to demonstrate, making a jabbing and twisting gesture at his midriff. Her other hand touched his bare chest and remained there. Her palm felt cool and hard on his fever-hot skin. She leaned closer, her palm sliding up to grip his shoulder.

  ‘You did your father and your kingdom proud,’ he said. ‘And I owe you my life.’

  She leaned closer, her palm sliding to encircle his waist. Her armour jangled. ‘Not a whole life. But perhaps a part of it, yes.’

  ‘How will I repay you, rajkumari?’ He wondered if his breath was as harsh as it sounded, his heartbeat as loud. His head had stopped swimming, but now it was fogging over in a completely different way, not the mist of disorientation but the miasma of arousal.

  ‘By making me a queen,’ she said, and pressed her lips against his. The pain in his mashed mouth was tremendous. Blood seeped out of his split lips and into her mouth. Her body drove him back against the tree, hard. The angles of her armour dug and poked his limbs, pinning him immovably. He placed a hand upon her and she gasped.

  After that, everything was a blur. Just like after he was struck by the pisaca’s hammer in the gorge. Except that this time he knew he would remember every single thing that followed.

  Dasaratha came awake with a start and reared up.

  ‘Deva,’ he said, gasping for breath.

  The chamber was dark and still around him. The only illumination came from diyas strategically placed at intervals behind pillars, so that their soft, flickering glow backlit everything but fell directly on nothing. It made for an unsettling, gloomy obscurity in which one could see people and things but not their finer details. After all, this was a place one came to when one wished to retire from the world, when one had a grievance with things or people; a place where one didn’t want to see anyone clearly.

  He was in the royal Anger chamber, or kosaghar as it was called in Sanskrit, a remote section of the royal annexe where members of the royal family came when seriously aggrieved about something. Except that he couldn’t recall anyone using the chamber for years.

  He sat up, trying to make sense of his condition. He appeared to be lying on the floor. His ang-vastra was half draped carelessly around his waist, his dhoti lay flung to one side. His shawl appeared to have fallen several yards away. His travelling chair was set by the doorway of the chamber. Even from this distance, in this gloom, he could tell at once that the doorway was barred shut. There was no way to tell time in here, but he had the impression that several hours had passed. Nothing made sense.

  He tried to recall what had happened and found his mind a blank.

  ‘Deva!’ he exclaimed again in frustration.

  The sound of payals approached, tinkling softly. The sound was hypnotic. Dasaratha sat entranced, his eyes lowered. For some reason, vision was clearer there. As if in a dream, he saw a pair of shapely feminine feet come into view, saw the gleam of the gold anklets with their tiny bells encircling two exquisitely curved calves. They approached him, stopping a yard away. Then the woman knelt before him in a supplicating gesture, offering him something in her outstretched palms, a jal-bartan of some sort. Her jewellery resounded musically in the echoing emptiness.

  ‘Kausalya,’ he said with great relief. ‘I must have fallen asleep. I had the strangest dream.’

  The woman leaned forward slightly. Her face came into the flickering light cast by one of the hidden diyas, limned in the grainy half-glow like a figure in a painting blurred by water.

  ‘A good one, I trust, my lord,’ she said.

  Dasaratha rubbed his face, wishing he could remember something, anything. ‘I don’t know if you could call it good. Intense, surely. So real. So immediate. I could even taste the blood on my— Kausalya?’ He reached out, a sudden doubt assailing him. His heart clenched in the vice of an invisible fist. ‘It is you, isn’t it, my love?’

  ‘Your love, yes. Your only true love. Then, now, and always.’ She raised the jal-bartan again. ‘Take some more tonic, my lord. It has done you a world of good already. I cannot last recall when you were so amorous.’

  He frowned. ‘Amorous? But—’

  ‘Drink.’

  He was thirsty, no doubt. He took the jal-bartan from her palm, raised it to his mouth and took a sip.

  His gorge rose in his throat. He turned and spat out the mouthful, spilling the container on the floor in the same motion. ‘The devil take me! What is that foul thing?’ Even in the dimness, he could see the strange viscous way the fluid puddled and scattered, its dark maroon shade lending it a macabre texture. For a second it almost seemed to move of its own volition, like a living thing in fluid form. He swore and snatched up the ang-vastra, and wiped his mouth, rubbing hard. ‘Are you trying to poison me?’

  ‘The precise opposite, my lord. It is an elixir. An elixir that restores life and energy, giving you the strength and potency of a man ten years younger. Prepared from an old and timeless recipe. Of course, I cannot vouch for the taste being as palatable as one might wish. After all, it is a medication of sorts.’

  He stared at her. That voice. It couldn’t be - wasn’t - and yet—

  He lurched to his feet, the ang-vastra slipping to the floor, leaving him completely exposed. But his nakedness was the least of his concerns. He stumbled around a pillar, found a diya and picked it up carelessly, spilling its oil on his hands as he turned back. Ignoring the scalding oil dripping from his fist, he held the little clay lamp up, casting a clear pool of light upon the woman who still knelt, smiling up calmly. How could he ever have thought she was Kausalya? This was—

  ‘Kaikeyi? But how?’

  She stood, raising her eyebrows. ‘How, my lord? You came to me here, in the kosaghar. Do you not recall?’

  He looked around, still feeling as if his dream had been the real experience and this was in fact the dream. But then it came to him: Manthara’s unannounced entry into his sickroom, Sumantra’s ire at her disturbing Dasaratha at that late hour in his ailing condition, Manthara’s insistence that he come to see Kaikeyi at once in the kosaghar, his deciding to go against Kausalya’s strenuous objections …

  Of course he was in the kosaghar. Where else would he have been? In a forest clearing near the border of the Kaikeya
kingdom? That was years ago, another place and time. Just an old memory of a younger man.

  He looked down at his nakedness, suddenly more aware of it than of the hot mustard oil scalding his hand and wrist. ‘How did I fall asleep? My garments?’

  She picked up his ang-vastra and dhoti and stood, stepping towards him, the payals tinkling. ‘You were tired, exhausted really. I gave you a goblet of my tonic to drink. It soothed you. Soon enough you fell asleep.’ She held out the clothes. ‘Shall I garb you, my lord? Give me the lamp. It must be very hot.’

  He handed her the lamp without protest, still unable to shake the sensation that the dream was still continuing. She even looked slimmer, younger, her face smoother and unwrinkled, her limbs more slender and shapely, much as she had looked that day in the Kaikeya woods years ago. It’s the light in here, he told himself. And your illness. That’s all it is.

  She took the lamp from him and set it gently on the ground. As she bent over, the pallo of her sari came undone, the top turns of the upper part of the garment falling loose. His breath caught in his chest. He stopped, his dhoti only half wound around his waist.

  She stood, not yet adjusting her sari. He averted his eyes, asking brusquely, ‘How long have I been here?’

  She replied sweetly. ‘But a few hours. In another hour or two it will be dawn.’

  ‘Dawn?’ He was shocked. ‘But that’s impossible. It was early yet when I came to the kosaghar. How could so much time have passed?’ And why is it that I don’t recall a single detail of what transpired here? The last, unspoken question was the one that troubled him the most.

  She unravelled her sari further, preparatory to winding it properly again. She took her time about it, unashamed of her nakedness before her husband. He tried to ignore the dryness in his mouth as he watched her adjusting her garment leisurely. She talked as she redraped herself. ‘We talked a great deal when you came. And then, afterwards, we—’