‘Aye,’ said one of the others, muttering a two-line sloka from the Devi’s Kavach, a common prayer of protection recited daily by women, literally ‘Goddess’s Shield’. ‘Devil’s work it was, though,’ she added.
‘What did you do next?’ Kausalya asked. She motioned to the daiimaas to take a seat, taking one herself as she did so. They elected to squat on the floor on their haunches, as daiimaas were wont to do. ‘After you saw Rani Kaikeyi change into this … serving maid? You couldn’t have left her in the Second Queen’s palace then, could you?’
‘No, we couldn’t, my lady,’ Susama said, giving Kausalya a grateful look for being so understanding. ‘For she clearly was not the Second Queen, not any more at least. So we took her to the witch’s chambers—’ She stopped, a hand covering her mouth reflexively. ‘I mean, Manthara-daiimaa’s chambers.’
‘That’s all right,’ Kausalya said, gesturing to the woman to go on. I think she’s a witch as well.
‘But there we had another setback.’ The old woman’s eyes flashed with something akin to anger. After all, she might be a daiimaa by profession, but by birth she was still a Kshatriya, even if only a Kshatriya serving other Kshatriyas. A trace of her birth-pride still burned in her. ‘The hunchbacked daiimaa refused to recognise this woman as her maid; she said that she had never seen her before in her life, and that we were feeble-minded to think that she was her servant.’ She shook her head, remembering. ‘She said many other words besides.’
‘Foul words all, for no songbirds sing in a dragon’s cave,’ said one of the others.
‘So we took the poor wretch to our own chambers, and tried to put her to bed. But about an hour or two ago she woke with a scream that near killed us with fright, and when we fetched a lamp to her bedside, she began shuddering and shaking like a thing possessed.’
Susama paused, glancing fearfully at the woman lying unconscious on the diwan. ‘After we calmed her down, she began speaking. And once started, she could not seem to stop. Like a waterfall, she gushed words. She was not speaking to us so much as speaking things that weighed heavily upon her young heart, poor soul. She spoke of terrible things, my rani.’ The daiimaa looked up hesitantly at Kausalya. ‘Horrible things that make us ashamed even to repeat them.’
‘Tell me,’ Kausalya said reassuringly. ‘Tell me everything. I must know.’
Susama nodded and glanced at the other daiimaas as if to say, See? I told you she would listen. After a moment to clear her throat, she went on. ‘From the torrent that came out of her mouth, we understood some but not all she said. One thing that recurred several times was how she served Manthara, Manthara, Manthara.’
‘Every third word she said was the witch’s name,’ said the southern daiimaa, looking as if she would rather spit than speak the hunchback’s name herself.
‘She spoke of foul things done in the dark of night. Of visits to tantriks. Of deals struck over silver coin. Of Brahmin orphans stolen from ashrams. Of rites performed in praise of the Dark Lord.’ She looked up hesitantly at the First Queen again. ‘Balidaans!’
Sacrificial offerings. Kausalya’s blood ran cold. So, the things Sumitra had claimed to have seen, the secret pooja room with the yagna chaukat still filled with ash and half-burned human bones, that was all true. The old crone was offering human child sacrifices to the Lord of Lanka right here under this very roof! Sri have mercy on our souls.
‘And at the very end, when she was winding down, like a child at the end of a long night of fevers and chills, she spoke of the evening of the procession, this past evening itself. Of how she had been trapped still in the hidden chamber, half starved and out of her mind with delirium and sickness for the past several days – she had lost count how many days – when suddenly she found herself free and at large. Only this time she was upon the street, in our clutches, being dragged towards the palace. And then she understood what had happened, for she knew enough of the witch’s workings to follow her evil schemes.’
Susama paused to cough twice, hoarsely, clearing her throat. One of the other daiimaas offered her a bud of clove, pointing to her throat, but Susama shook her head in refusal. She went on after clearing her throat once more.
‘She believed that Manthara had somehow projected the Second Queen’s soul into this body,’ pointing at the serving girl asleep on the diwan, ‘and had taken Rani Kaikeyi’s own body and used it for some nefarious deed. She didn’t know what that might be, but she did know that during the time she was running about the street shouting madly, she was Rani Kaikeyi. Even below the consciousness of the rani’s aatma she was still herself, present in that body. The rani’s presence in her physical form caused her to look almost like Kaikeyi-maa, transforming her very flesh and features, but after a while she could not sustain that bhes-bhav and so she reverted to her natural form … this form.’
Kausalya nodded to show she understood. ‘During that time, when Rani Kaikeyi’s soul inhabited her body, where was Rani Kaikeyi’s own body? Did she know that?’
The daiimaa shook her head. She glanced at the other old wet nurses. Both of them looked blank as well. ‘No, my rani. She did not say.’
‘And this nefarious deed for which Manthara needed Kaikeyi’s body, did she give any hint what it might have been? After all, when Kaikeyi’s aatma was transplanted into her body, she might have been able to learn that from Rani Kaikeyi perhaps?’
‘All she said, my queen, and I quote her as well as I can recall, is this: “Kaikeyi goes to do the Dark Lord’s work now.”’
Kausalya stared at the daiimaa.
TWENTY-ONE
Dasaratha took a step towards Kaikeyi. His hands were shaking with rage. His entire body felt as if it had been set on fire, and the fire threatened to engulf and consume him completely.
‘You witch!’ he roared. ‘You drugged and duped me somehow, using what vile sorcery I know not. That is why I was not aware of anything we said or did. You tricked me like an asura in human guise. Sumitra and Kausalya were right. I should have cast you into the royal dungeons rather than hear a word you spoke!’
She stood her ground calmly. Her expression hadn’t changed a whit. When she spoke, her voice was just as composed as before. ‘Is that how you will honour your vows, raje? Is this how you fulfil your promises to one who saved your life not once but twice, and risked her own life both times?’
He faltered. ‘What promises, what vows? I made no vows to you, you asura in mortal guise! I made those oaths to a mortal woman. You are no more mortal than the King of Lanka himself!’
Her eyes gleamed darkly. ‘Did you not see me touch the guru’s feet earlier tonight? Did he cast me off with a Brahman mantra and declare me anything but that which I am? Do you doubt the evidence of your preceptor’s divine intuition and vidya, raje?
He crushed his own hand into a fist. The bones of his knuckles crackled. ‘How do I know that the woman I saw is the same one that stands before me? I have seen much sorcery at work these past few weeks. I trust no one and nothing any more.’
She was silent for a long moment. Finally, she seemed to arrive at some inner conclusion. Her silence and calm unsettled him more than any amount of shouting or hysterics would have. A seed of doubt planted within his heart began to grow steadily, sprouting roots. What if she is Kaikeyi? I did promise her two boons once. What if she is telling the truth?
‘Very well,’ she said at last. ‘I respect your anxiety. These are warlike times again, and I understand the pressures and strains of kingship during a time of war better than any other woman. Did I not witness the manner in which the last asura war crushed my own father’s spirit and resolve? And when the other Arya nations threw up their hands in despair and pleaded their inability to send their forces to our aid, did I not see with what terrible self-affliction my father fought tooth and nail to keep the asura wolves from our door? Yes, I understand warlike times. Your anxiety is justified, Ayodhya-naresh. Go on, then, set your mind at rest. Call Guru Vashishta this very instant
and prove to yourself for the second time tonight that I am indeed Kaikeyi, your queen, wife and long-time lover. Go on then, for our business here is by no means done, and already the moonless night creeps steadily towards the new dawn.’
Dasaratha stared at her, his anger fading in sharp, hot pulses. Would an asura speak thus? He recalled the twice-lifer that had attacked him in his own sabha hall. Ravana, come in the garb of Vajra lieutenant Bheriya. That one had been quick to take advantage of his isolation and weakness, wasting no time on mere talk and rhetoric. Again the doubt assailed him. What if this really was Kaikeyi?
She read his indecision upon his face. ‘What stays your hand, raje? Why do you not unbar the door and call for your attendants and guards? Why do you not send for the guru at once?’
She took a step towards him, her payals tinkling melodiously, incongruously. ‘Could it be that you harbour a doubt yet? A suspicion that I might actually be who I appear to be in truth?’
By way of answer, he looked down at his clenched fists, cursing the star beneath which he had been born.
She laughed. An unaffected, open-mouthed, heedless laugh. Not unlike the Kaikeyi he had met and loved once. In another time, another place. ‘What a fine dilemma we are faced with then! And how is it to be solved, pray tell?’
‘The boons,’ he said too loudly, then lowered his voice before going on, forcing a rein upon his emotions. ‘The boons I granted you. When and how did the event occur? What was the day, where was the place? What were the circumstances?’
She stopped laughing, but a trace of a smile lingered still. She was not afraid, he saw. An asura would surely be afraid if it was in danger of being exposed. Even Ravana himself, were the dark lord returned yet again in human garb, would not waste time laughing and talking when he could eliminate his greatest foe in a few quick moments. For that matter, Ravana would have killed him as he slept, naked and defenceless. The doubt grew as she replied confidently and easily.
‘It was at the same shrine of Vishnu, deep in the Kaikeyavan woods where I had sheltered and nursed you back to health the first time you were struck down in battle. We had fought back the asura forces and retaken the plateau of Kanwa after days of bitter fighting. Your first wounds had somewhat healed but you were too quick to return to battle. And then, on the sixth day, when we began to believe that the tide had turned at last, the Lord of Lanka himself appeared at the head of a great host. And the battle began anew. This time, to the death. For we knew that either we must break their resolve or we ourselves would break upon that resolve.’
And a terrible battle it had been, Dasaratha remembered. Filled with more bloodshed and brutality than any he had ever fought before. He remembered himself doing things he would never have dreamed of doing, violating every rule of war in the Arya code. He had set aside his great ancestor Manu Lawmaker’s own rules of morality during warfare, had thrown away all considerations except the burning need for victory. And he had set about orchestrating a massacre like nothing else witnessed before. At the end, he had seen the tide truly turn, a victory within his grasp, and despite the awful price he had paid – by violating his own moral principles as well as by sacrificing so many brave Kshatriya men and women – at that crucial point where every commander sees a battle turn decisively, Ravana had launched a personal attack.
Dasaratha, he who had been named by his parents for his future prowess in warfare, literally ‘he who rides ten chariots at once’, had been caught in a pincer movement by the demonlord and his two sons, Meghnath and Akshay Kumar, and cut off from the rest of his army by a force of asuras that had crept up from behind specially for this mission. Within moments, their purpose had been crystal clear. Eliminate the leader of the mortals and the mortal armies would lose heart and falter. And their plan had been faultless. That day, for the second time in the same battle and perhaps only the third or fourth time in his entire military career, Dasaratha knew he faced certain death. But he fought on relentlessly, a force of nature as unconquerable as the sun whose effulgent disc he bore upon the armour of his House Suryavansha shield.
But Ravana had been smarter and more vicious than anyone could have expected. The demonlord violated a basic rule of combat when he cut down Dasaratha’s horses beneath him, then smashed the King of Ayodhya’s chariot to smithereens with mighty blows from the maces and clubs in his twenty arms. Dasaratha still recalled the screams of agony of his magnificent Kambhoja stallions as they were butchered before his startled eyes. He had leaped from his shattered chariot to engage in handto-hand combat with the lord of demons then, challenging him as one commander to another. And that was when the rakshasa king had committed yet another violation of the rules of conduct: he had refused Dasaratha’s challenge and ordered his asura forces to converge en masse on the mortal.
Dasaratha might still have fought his way out of that impossible situation. The devas knew he had done so before, partly by sheer bravado, partly by his prodigious skill at facing large numbers single-handed. But Ravana’s ingenuity still had more arrows of brilliance in its quiver. The Lord of Lanka also joined the fray, attacking Dasaratha from one side while his forces covered the other three sides. Using a constant series of plunging and withdrawing attacks, in the manner of hyenas or wild dogs attacking a mighty lion by nipping it constantly in the nether parts, the asuras and their commander had inflicted many wounds upon Dasaratha, until he knew that soon he would fall from sheer blood loss if not from a fatal blow. Once he fell, his armies would withdraw, shaken by the loss of the leader whose sheer courage and iron control had held them together thus long. And Kaikeya would fall as well, lost for ever.
And at that crucial moment, again she had appeared, like an apsara out of Indra’s court, bent on being his salvation and his avenging angel both at once. He saw a flurry in the asura ranks, and then the creatures began flying left and right, cut to bits by a chariot that rolled over them like the celestial juggernaut, Jagganath himself, riding out of Swarga-lok to avenge the destruction of that heavenly realm by the Lord of Lanka. And then Sumantra had appeared in his chariot as well, leading the maharaja’s first Vajra, commanded by Captain Bejoo, attacking in their devastating four-way action, using a combination of elephant brute strength, chariot speed and power, lethally accurate shortbow archers, and armoured cavalry. They had cut a trail wide enough to extract Dasaratha. But it was Kaikeyi herself who reached him first and pulled him aboard her chariot. And it was Kaikeyi who faced the brunt of the Lord of Lanka’s wrath when he saw his prize wrested from under his very nose – or noses. Dasaratha recalled standing shoulder-to-shoulder alongside Kaikeyi as they fought back the demonlord’s crushing blows from the helm of her chariot, Kaikeyi driving her horses forward at the same time. And somehow, miraculously, with the aid of Sumantra’s death-defying loyalty, and Captain Bejoo’s ferociously disciplined Vajra, Dasaratha had left the field for the second time in that conflict.
And once again he had been unconscious when he was driven away, succumbing to his multitude of wounds.
This time when he had awoken, in the same serene spot in the Kaikeya-van, the battle as well as the campaign was over. Reinforcements had arrived from Gandahar and Banglar in the nick of time. Ravana’s forces had pulled back, unable to face such large numbers of fresh Kshatriyas. The battle was credited solely to Dasaratha, for Kaikeyi had downplayed her role - with Sumantra and Bejoo’s willing support. And so it was that, having won the last battle of the Last asura War, he had lost his heart to the princess of Kaikeya. And there, in a shrine to Lord Vishnu and Devi Lakshmi in those very woods where she had taken him to safety the first time, Kaikeyi and he had sworn their vows of marriage alone together. And he had sworn two further vows: two boons that he would grant her in exchange for saving his life. No matter what they might be, or what their price.
‘And I said I did not wish anything from you then apart from my desire to become your queen,’ she said now, watching him with much the same expression that had been on her face that memorabl
e day in the forest. ‘But you insisted that some day, whenever I pleased, I could ask you to honour your vows, and you would grant me those two boons without question or debate.’
He looked at her, weighing her words, his life, the years between then and now, the things he had done and said and the things he had meant to do and had never done; the many, many things he had left undone.
‘Did you not mean those vows then?’ she asked.
And what could he say? He brushed away the tears rolling down his face, hot salt tracks searing his cheeks. ‘You know I did, Kaikeyi! And honour them I must, as the devas are my witness. But these things you have asked of me, tell me, what good are they to you? How will it serve you to send my Rama into the forest for fourteen years of exile?’
She shook her head. ‘Do you think I wish that? Do you think I would ask these things if there were some other way to accomplish this? All I wished was to be a queen, raje. Not the first, second or any other number. Just a queen. Your queen. You did not grant me that wish, because you did not admit to me then that you were already betrothed to another, to Kausalya of Banglar. Had I known that, I might not have given you my heart so readily. Nor bared my body to your needs.’
She looked away, her eyes brimming with tears now. And he wondered, Can asuras cry? ‘But I bore that lash all these many years. In the certain knowledge that when the time came, you would make my son king.’
‘But Rama was born first,’ he cried. ‘He is the eldest. He must be the one to succeed me!’
‘Have younger sons not ascended the throne of Ayodhya before?’ she demanded fiercely. ‘Have they not done so in other kingdoms where the oldest were either too feeble or too weak in the arts of war, or simply uninclined to kingship? There are many precedents for it; even the Lawbook of great Manu allows for exceptions. And my Bharat is only younger than Rama by a few days. But above all, heed this, Dasaratha: There would have been no Rama had I demanded my first boon then and asked that you set aside Kausalya for ever and share only my bed.’
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