Sita sent a prayer to her devi as Rama dodged the stallion’s powerful back-kicks, while struggling simultaneously with the rope. If one of those kicks landed anywhere on Rama, they would smash bone certainly, likely do worse damage. But Rama had nowhere else to go to avoid the flailing hoofs. All he could do was hang out over the edge of the raft, pulling away on the rope without a pause. Worse, the other horses picked up on Kamabha’s panic and began turning their heads, tossing their manes and threatening to kick out at any moment. If they joined in the fray, there would be no way for Rama to avoid them.
The logs chose that precise moment to strike.
The bulk of the load had managed to get snarled up in a nasty tangle at the bend, rolling over each other noisily, scraping and groaning as they struggled to resume their downward course. They were all on the east bank, and with every muscle-wrenching yank, the raft pulled farther away from them and closer to safety. But when they were two-thirds of the way across, almost close enough for Sita to run and jump on to the raft, a solitary log freed itself from the tangle and swung round in elliptical circles, gaining momentum as it whirled around in the roaring torrent. Sita saw it and held her breath rather than yell another warning: the three men were struggling to cope with their existing problems, there wasn’t anything further they could do. She thought at first the log would turn around a few more times, then make its way downriver, bypassing the raft. And that was what seemed likely to happen. But then a fresh wave of meltwater joined the flow, creating an eddy. And at the last possible moment the log came around with greater force, and struck Rama’s side of the raft a hard glancing blow.
The entire raft shuddered at the impact, starting to swing around at once. Sumantra lost one hand-grip on the rope, and the raft was twisted right out from beneath Rama’s feet. The horses went berserk, flailing like wild things rather than thoroughbred Kambhojas. Sita watched, horrified, as Rama clung to the rope for one agonising moment. She was at the water’s edge already, calling out to Sumantra, who was poling the raft the last few yards. The pradhan-mantri’s face was bathed in sweat, his cheeks red from the effort. Lakshman had grabbed the rope and pulled it as hard as he could, keeping out of the way of the snapping jaws of the horses. He was facing the wrong way to have seen what had happened to Rama.
Rama swung out over the river, the raft already too far for him to reach with his feet. He managed to put one hand over the other on the rope, and Sita’s heart leaped with relief as she saw that he was going to pull himself to shore. The rope was strong enough to carry his weight easily - it had to be, to be able to pull a raft-load across the river. Rama put another hand over, then yet another … he would have made it in another two or three hand-lengths. But that was when the rest of the logjam chose to free itself from the tangled snarl, and resumed its downriver journey. The rolling logs swung out into the river’s flow, stretching out across the Tamasa’s width, and their far edges passed directly beneath Rama. Even though he had raised his feet to keep them well out of the water, two logs were still tumbling over each other as they turned, and the higher one struck the back of his ankle a slight blow. At that force and speed it was enough to dislodge him. Rama lost one hand-hold, then the other immediately after, and the next instant he was in the river, washed downstream along with the pile of logs.
Sita screamed.
Lakshman turned and saw Rama gone. He stopped pulling and would have raced to the far side of the raft, but by then the horses were completely out of control. Sumantra called to him to finish pulling and get them to the bank. Lakshman froze for a moment, then he saw Rama’s arm break the surface, flailing above the white rush. Sumantra shouted to him again to bring the raft to shore first, or they would all go into the river.
Working with demonic strength, Lakshman pulled on the rope, bringing the raft the last yard or so to the west bank. The minute it struck shore, Sumantra ran the lead stallion on to solid ground. Kamabha’s fellows followed him in quick succession, leaping on to the bank. But the last horse’s rear hoofs slipped on the wet edge of the raft, knocking the vessel away from the bank, and as Sita watched, the beast slipped into the gap and fell into the river. It screamed in terror as the powerful current caught hold of it and yanked it away, kicking out madly, striking the muddy bank underfoot. But the current drove it away from the bank, and in another moment it was lost, floating downriver after Rama and the pile of logs. Barely a second or two had passed since Rama had fallen in.
Lakshman shouted Rama’s name and let go the rope. He would have leapt into the river after Rama, but Sita shouted to him to stop.
‘The horses!’ she yelled above the roar of the river. ‘Faster by land!’
Lakshman caught her meaning and instead leapt to the bank. Both of them caught hold of two of the unsaddled horses and, gripping their manes, vaulted on to their backs. The horses whinnied, startled, but they were on dry land again, and knew better than to throw off human riders.
Sita turned the head of her horse and pressed him to a gallop, racing around the horseless chariot and the lead stallion, still fretting and giving Sumantra a hard time. The pradhan-mantri turned as they rode past. He shouted something incoherent to Lakshman that Sita didn’t catch, then she was well away and riding like the wind.
Except for the low, muddy site of the raft crossing, the riverbank was a good yard higher than the water. Trees grew along the west bank but not very closely. Sita forced her horse to ride along the narrow patch of crumbly bank directly beside the water, bending to avoid the low-hanging boughs that stretched out over the river. Leaves caught in her hair, and branches raked her back, but her eyes were fixed on the roiling white water, searching for sign of Rama. She saw the horse first, snorting desperately as it struggled to keep its head above water. She scanned the river ahead anxiously, kicking her heels to keep her horse from slowing.
Then she saw him, a dozen yards ahead. He had caught hold of a loose log and was clinging to it. She shouted excitedly to Lakshman, who was close on her heels, and pointed. He shouted back in acknowledgement. Rama was using his strength to swing the log around, trying to turn it just enough for the current to catch it and do the rest. It was a battle he was losing. Sita reined in her horse - despite the river’s force, it was slowing at this point, its banks growing wider apart. If only she had a rope she could toss to Rama to pull him ashore. Before she could even glance around for a tree with vines that could be used, she heard a loud splash just behind her and turned to see Lakshman in the river. He had leapt off his galloping horse!
Sita raised her head to watch, and almost got it knocked off by a low-hanging bough. She ducked just in time to avoid it, feeling a strand of her hair yanked out by the roots by the greedy branch. When she was able to look up at the river again, Lakshman had reached the far end of the log and, as she watched, put his weight against it. It swung all the way around, as Rama had desired, and Lakshman let go at once, striking out for the bank but looking back over his shoulder. Rama was carried around by the river’s force, and at the appropriate point he struck out for shore as well. Lakshman reached out and grasped his hand. Rama took it with a teeth-flashing grin, and both brothers hauled each other ashore.
Sita jumped from her horse and half tumbled, half bounded down the crumbling wall of the east bank. She landed in the water beside her husband and brother-in-law, and all but leapt on to Rama, embracing him, kissing him, rubbing her hands across his face and head. Her tears fell on his wet cheeks.
‘You fool,’ she said. ‘You fool, you fool, you fool.’
He kissed her back, on the forehead and eyes, gently first, then with a passion that matched the river’s rage.
‘No more than you.’
They stayed that way for several minutes, clinging to the roots of a tree that had broken through the underside of the bank in their effort to reach the river, the water tugging furiously at their legs as if wishing it could have them again. A loud snorting came to them from upriver and they glanced that way wearil
y to see the horse that had fallen in clambering on to the bank again. Its fellows, the horses ridden by Sita and Lakshman, came to its aid, tugging with their teeth and pushing at its flanks. The three horses nuzzled each other affectionately, glad to be reunited.
Sita looked at Lakshman and touched his cheek, thanking him wordlessly for going to Rama’s rescue. No words were needed. She knew he had done it for himself, not for her, but wanted him to know that by doing so he had saved her life as well. He nodded, wiping a tear from his own eye; or perhaps it was only river water.
After a while, Lakshman said to Rama: ‘If we still had the shakti of the maha-mantras, this would never have happened. Even a hundred logs wouldn’t have been able to dislodge you from the raft.’
Rama didn’t speak, only kept looking out at the river surging past them.
Sita glanced at one brother, then the other.
It took her a moment to understand what Lakshman was saying. Rama and Lakshman had been stripped not only of their kingdom, inheritance and family, but also of their acquired gift of Brahman strength.
She recalled Guru Vashishta’s words on the last leg of their journey from Mithila to Ayodhya: ‘Rama lost all access to Brahman shakti the instant be unleashed the Brahm-astra. As did you, Lakshman, for you also shared in that unleashing. That was the price you both paid for uttering the celestial mahamantra of destruction. The moment the two of you used the Brahm-astra to destroy Ravana’s invading armies, you lost forever the chance to tap into and channel the shakti of the force that binds the universe. You were returned to your former state of normal mortality. Never again will you be able to achieve superhuman feats of strength, skill or speed.’
At the time, she had not realised the full import and implications of the seer-mage’s words. But now, with their mortality brought home so brutally by the encounter with the raft, it seemed almost like another level of punishment. As if losing everything else hadn’t been enough. After another moment, the full implications hit her with a force equal to the log ramming the raft.
They were entering fourteen years of exile in a jungle almost as notorious for its perils as the dreaded Southwoods. A place known to be rife with berserker rakshasas. And probably more infested now than ever, with the straggling survivors of the eastern forces of the asura army left here and there, as Yudhajit of Kaikeya had explained just last night. To the Rama and Lakshman who had been infused with the maha-mantras Bala and Atibala, even an army of rakshasas would have posed no mortal danger. But they were no more that Rama and Lakshman. The shakti of the maha-mantras no longer flowed through their veins.
They’re only human now. And what chance do mere mortals have in a place like Dandaka-van?
No chance at all, whispered a little voice inside her head. Not a chance in hell.
ELEVEN
Kausalya turned and saw Bharat standing inside the threshold of her antechamber. She hadn’t heard him enter, which meant he must have done so very quietly indeed. That itself was such a change to the Bharat of just a few weeks ago: it seemed inconceivable that the old boisterous, loud Bharat could have been replaced by this silent, gentle young man with an air of almost regal dignity and quietude about him. The thought wasn’t very comforting. He’s holding himself too tightly, she thought as she looked up at his sweat-wreathed face. Let some of your pain go, Bharat, release it before it cuts you up inside.
Seeing that he had her attention, he came forward at once and bent to touch her feet in genuflection. She laid her hand on his head in the customary gesture, and as he rose she was disturbed to see his handsome young face carrying lines of weariness that had been absent only the night before. He has aged an era in just one day, she thought sadly. It reminded her painfully of two occasions on which she had seen Rama after a long absence: the first was when her son had returned home after his seven years at Guru Vashishta’s gurukul. The second was after a mere two weeks’ separation - this past week when she had arrived at Mithila for Rama’s marriage - yet it was after this second time that the change was the most strikingly evident. The first time, she had seen that her little child had become a full-grown boy. The second time, she had seen the boy grown to manhood, matured and wisened by his experiences in the Bhayanak-van and in the battle against the asura invasion.
She saw the same look on Bharat’s face now. He has become a man today. He had been forced to become one. In his own way, Bharat had endured a lot: seeing his mother exposed as the pivot of a devilish plot to unsettle the sunwood throne, bring his father to the brink of early death and send his brothers and sister-in-law into long exile, these were no less a challenge than battling asuras. In a way, this battle was a much harder one to fight. At least in a physical challenge you could use a sword and dhanush-baan to bring down your enemies, all of whom were horned or physically distinctive enough to set them apart from human allies. Here, your enemies were your own people, those you loved and trusted most, and your weapons were only endurance, fortitude and spiritual resilience. It was a war Kausalya had been fighting all her life, and she felt and empathised with Bharat’s burden.
‘Maa,’ he said in a voice so weary it tugged painfully at her heart. ‘I have dealt with the situation as best as I was able. But there are still pockets of trouble throughout the city. Senapati Dheeraj Kumar has made sure that there will be patrols constantly monitoring every trouble-prone locality, but—’ He sighed, rubbing his eyes. ‘It is difficult even for our good soldiers to fight their fellow citizens. They have no stomach for this kind of fight. Besides, there is unrest in the ranks of our own army. Many feel that grievous wrong has been done here and that the Suryavansha line cannot brook such injustice.’
‘Even so,’ she said gently, trying to reassure rather than disagree, ‘as long as the Suryavansha line prevails, they must serve it without question or doubt.’
He inclined his head. ‘That they do, Maa. That they do. It is what makes the whole situation so painful.’
He looked at a diya burning nearby, in the pooja thali she had set down only a moment ago. She waited for him to continue. When he did so, his voice was steadier. ‘Our spasas have just brought us word that the news has spread to other parts of the kingdom, and there is unrest in the north of Kosala.’
Kausalya noddd. The foothills of the Himalayas, marking Kosala’s northern border, had always been a contentious region. The mountain clans, or pahadis as they were commonly known, tended not to accept any kind of leadership easily, even of their own tribe or clan, let alone that of a king in distant Ayodhya.
‘They say that the pahadis may press home their advantage by attacking the plainsfolk over the river waters dispute. You already know the trouble we’ve had there in the past year. Anticipating trouble, I have ordered the senapati to send a full akshohini there to pre-empt and prevent any outbreak of violence. But we cannot patrol the entire kingdom as we do Ayodhya. Before the night is over, it seems inevitable that we shall see Kosalans shed Kosalan blood on our own lands.’
His voice cracked slightly at the end, betraying the emotional toll this admission cost him.
Kausalya spoke gently. ‘Son, you have done your best. Whatever happens, I know you shall deal with it honourably and justly.’
‘Yes, Mother. But there is so much resentment. So much doubt. And anger. And suspicion everywhere. Even my own companions look at me strangely and ask me how I could not have known that my governess was a witch and my mother a pawn in the control of the Lord of Lanka.’ He looked at her, his face twisted with pain and confusion. ‘How do I even begin to tell them anything? As it is, nobody seems truly to want to hear my side of the story. It’s as if they have already judged me and deemed me guilty! And the citizenry … they are so pitifully confused and angry.’ He indicated a purpling bruise on his shoulder. ‘Someone in a crowd threw a stone at me. The lieutenant of the PFs riding with me wanted to charge them with lances drawn, to teach a lesson. I stopped them by putting my own horse and person in their way. It was a lesson I would not s
ee taught, not today, not ever. But when I dismounted and tried to explain myself to the people huddled on that street corner, they began dispersing without listening to me.’
She put a hand on his shoulder, not knowing what to say. There was nothing to be said.
He shook his head as if trying to clear it and not quite succeeding. ‘But I did not come here to burden you with all these matters. I came here to see my father. How is he now?
She couldn’t have hidden the truth even if she had wanted to do so. Her face would have revealed what her words tried to soften or deny. ‘Not good. Still unconscious. Our best hope now is that he passes away peacefully in his sleep. He has suffered much.’
Bharat nodded, his face impassive now. This pain is greater than all the others combined, and so he has no face to put upon it. She was struck by how much he was like Dasaratha in such moments of crisis. Dasa too had reacted strongly, emotionally, to the smaller, more niggling problems of statecraft, but when confronted with the truly large issues, or a great crisis, he had always grown quiet, almost withdrawn and detached. The heart can only bear so much and no more, so at this point it resigns itself to destiny. Now that the thought had occurred to her, she could see that young Dasa in his son standing before her.
At that instant, the thought came to her, clear as the sound of a temple bell in a silent forest glen.
He will make a good king. A better king than his father. A wise and just king who feels passionately for the plight of his subjects and yet has enough iron in his blood to mete out justice when it needs must be done.
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