Gods, Kings & Slaves: The Siege of Madurai

by Venketesh, R.

  ‘Your Highness,’ Marco Polo saluted with folded palms. Veera offered him a seat with a gesticulating hand. Once the traveller was seated, the usual silence of strangers hung heavy in the air.

  ‘How was the Lankan expedition, Your Highness? I was hoping I would get to see you as I have heard so much about you,’ Marco Polo started.

  Veera shrugged, ‘As usual, nothing different.’ He continued, ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Nearly a year, sire, and I love your land.’

  ‘I guess you say the same wherever you go,’ Veera prodded him. The visitor could only smile.

  Amidst his vehement protestations, Marco Polo was ushered into the dining hall. Veera’s mother was there, dressed simply as befitted her status. But Marco went on one knee and with folded palms said, ‘I salute you, Mother.’

  If he had said ‘Queen’, perhaps Veera would not have liked him so much.

  Over food, Marco related stories of Cathay and the Kubla Khan. Veera asked him about the extent of the Mongol’s territory in comparison to the Pandyans. They spoke with full mouths, the lunch tastier with the sense of comradeship that had already set in between the two and pervaded the entire room.

  When Marco left, he refused the present of an ivory tusk that Veera had fetched for himself from Lanka. ‘With due respect sir, I refuse. If I accepted all presents, it would only make my journey back home heavier and riskier, Your Highness.’

  Their friendship blossomed after that. They both accepted the reality that if either of their destinies called, they would have to go their own ways – Veera to his wars and Marco Polo to his wanderlust.

  The two could not have been more different, Veera with his smouldering dark hue and Marco, despite a tropical tan, as pale as a carcass. Yet, Marco’s varied experiences fascinated Veera. He often wondered whether Marco was making up his stories. Marco spoke of his family’s urge to travel. The place where he grew up, Venice, was the centre for commerce in the Mediterranean. Polo was only six when his father and uncle set out eastwards on their first trip to Cathay, and he had turned fifteen when they returned. The three of them then embarked on the most courageous journey to Cathay where Marco dreamt of meeting the Great Khan, Kubla.

  The Great Khan was far removed from the image of his clan – his grandfather Chingiz had killed more men than any conqueror in the known history of man – and was indeed hospitable. He had set up his court at Khanbaliq, which was an impressive city built by Kubla as his new capital after the Mongols took over China and established the Yuan dynasty. Marco’s father and uncle became friends of the Great Khan and the Polo brothers were well received in his capital.

  Veera was very curious about the Chinese. Their empire seemed ten times larger than the Pandyans and their habits were so different. The Chinese currency was paper money – the idea of paper substituting gold and silver was a total surprise even to the mercantile Polos.

  ‘Paper?’ Veera questioned unbelievingly.

  ‘I have a sample,’ said Marco Polo, and showed it to him. It looked like a thin piece of cloth that had been bleached. It seemed so fragile; it could be torn so easily. ‘People write on it and then bind it into books.’

  Veera was sceptical. ‘Even the rough palmyra leaves we etch on don’t last, which is why we have to leave our histories carved in stone. I don’t think this paper stands a chance as a medium for writing, let alone as currency.’

  Marco talked not just about the positive side of the Pandyan empire, but was frank about the errors in the Pandyan way of life. ‘Like a beehive that attracts the hunter, you are storing too much wealth in one place. Sooner or later, it is bound to attract a hunter. Your temples have too much wealth. Soon Madurai will be the richest city in this part of the world, and then you will need as much force to protect it.’

  Marco was a Christian – he believed in a god who died on a cross. In fact, he even talked of a saint from their religion called Thomas who had preceded him by a thousand years to Tamil land. He then suffered martyrdom at a place a couple of days’ march from Kanchipuram and his remains were buried in a hilltop cave a day’s march from Mylapore. When Marco wanted to visit those places, Veera discouraged him. ‘They are godforsaken places, most inhospitable to man. I don’t think civilization will ever settle there.’

  After six months, the inevitable happened. Marco Polo resigned himself to his wanderlust and left the shores of Pandyan land. Veera missed him very much.

  *

  The smothering love of his mother and the respect his campaign had earned him took up Veera’s thoughts in the days that came along. He had nothing much to do officially, for the king had not given him a new posting. His thoughts inevitably went towards women.

  On the battlefield, seeing the blood and gore and hearing the dying screams of men, Veera had not thought of women. Sunanda, of course, remained at the back of his mind, but when Veera came back from Lanka he had not been with a girl for two years. But surrounded by young maidens now, his masculinity was awakened. He knew he did not need just any girl – it had to be somebody like Vani. There were many others as voluptuous as Vani, but he needed someone to talk to, not just be a recipient of his lust. Vani always had a sympathetic ear to listen to his woes, whether real or imagined.

  One morning at breakfast, the maid serving him revealed her inviting cleavage a little too obviously.

  ‘What is your name?’ Veera asked her.

  ‘Veena, Your Highness.’

  ‘Where is Vani?’ he asked casually.

  The girl’s face stiffened. ‘She is married, Your Highness.’ It was a statement meant to indicate Vani’s unavailability and, in contrast, her ready availability.

  Veera didn’t miss the undertone, but he wasn’t interested. ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘In the quarters.’

  Veera thought, In this land of tropical weather, women become crones at thirty. Vani must have needed a husband. But he was still angry at her. He didn’t even look at the generous show the maid used as a last weapon in her losing battle as he washed his hands. She sighed and walked away. It was not every day one came so close to snaring a royal heir.

  The wail of a baby was what hit him immediately when he opened the door to Vani’s house. So she was a mother now. The least he had expected was a brat sucking at her breast. He was hurt. He had not seen her for two years, but Veera had no greetings for her. He went near the baby and asked without any preamble, ‘How old is he?’

  ‘He’s a year old,’ Vani answered.

  ‘You must have waited eagerly for my ship to lift anchor before jumping into another man’s bed,’ Veera said to her.

  Tears came into her eyes but she waited as he continued his tirade. ‘All the women I love cannot wait till I am afloat to rush into another man’s arms.’

  Vani replied with a quiet dignity in her voice, ‘Men are so self-centred. Can’t you think of any other reason why we hurry into another’s arms?’

  Veera was furious by now. ‘Lust, what else?’ he screamed. The boy howled after being rudely awakened. ‘The boy is angry too,’ he remarked.

  ‘All bastards are angry today,’ she replied.

  A streak of anger flashed across Veera’s eyes. That was one word he hated and his hand rose to slap her, but then it dawned on him.

  ‘You mean he is mine? Have I fathered a bastard?’

  Vani smiled, ‘Not one, my prince, but two.’

  ‘Twins?’ he queried.

  ‘No, Sunanda’s son is yours too!’

  Veera sat on the ground with a thud, as if the revelation had forced him down with its weight. Vani continued, ‘One question, Prince. Did you make love to her that fateful night?’

  After a moment of retrospection, Veera nodded.

  ‘And you made love to me too.’

  ‘It was the other way around. You made love to me,’ he said, remembering the night when one girl had walked out of his life and another had come to console him.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said
, ‘two bull’s eyes in a night and that too in the dark.’ She laughed at her own joke. ‘No wonder they call you the best archer in the empire.’

  Veera was humbled. ‘Sorry, Vani, I did not mean it.’ She rushed into him and wept on his chest. Veera was nervous. ‘What about your husband?’

  ‘My husband will not be back for a year. He is a physician, now posted on the northern frontier.’ And to soothe any guilt he felt, she added, ‘When your husband is away for years, you cannot expect us girls to be epitomes of virtue.’

  He found her body had changed with motherhood but she was as amorous as ever. And he was as passionate as any man with no outlet for a couple of years could be. When she lay spent, he got up and walked woefully to the cradle. His son was sleeping. He kissed the baby, who shivered at this strange touch.

  ‘Three bastards,’ he said ruefully.

  ‘Why bother? All of them are well accounted for,’ Vani cajoled him.

  ‘You will never understand. My children call other men their fathers, my father does not acknowledge my mother as his wife, all my women share another man’s bed. What is actually mine then?’ Veera wailed. Vani could sense the desolation in his voice.

  ‘My prince,’ she said, and held his head close to her bosom, her hands ruffling his hair. ‘Aim not at these little things. Strive for the throne, it could be yours and yours alone – something that no one else can claim to share.’

  *

  When Sunanda heard that Veera had returned, she had mixed feelings. She hugged her son Parakrama and whispered to him, ‘He is back.’

  Resigning herself to her fate, Sunanda had married Sundar the month after Veera left. On the nuptial night, she had entered his bedroom with dread. Sundar was drunk. She was surprised, for he had been sober at the ceremony. He had gotten up with outstretched hands. ‘Ha, welcome my wife, welcome. So at last you want to be the queen of Madurai. Yes, you will one day. But you will suffer before that.’ He had grabbed her by the shoulders and shaken her. The violence of his raging temper had made her shudder.

  ‘You whore, you thought you could cheat on me?’ he had screamed. ‘Did you think I did not know you have been trespassed upon? My mother is a fool but not me.’

  Then why, she’d thought, why do you need a used girl? You could have let me go!

  ‘You ask why I married you despite knowing this?’ he had said, reading her thoughts. ‘I’ll tell you: I wanted to deny him the thing he wanted most. To be a good hunter, you should think like your prey. There are two things he wants. I have already taken away one. The next will be the throne. I will make sure he doesn’t sit on it.’

  His saliva had sprayed on her as the slurred words hurried out of his mouth, propelled by his viciousness. But her trauma was not to end there. ‘You want to know how it is to have a spouse bed another person? Well, you have to undergo that for the rest of your life.’ She had not moved when his hand fell on her, and she caught the impact on her cheek and ears. He dragged her to the settee in the corner. It was then that the door had opened and a maid had walked in.

  What Sunanda saw next was a pale blur as her head spun in pain. Sundar made love to the girl with his wife in the same room. That night she had cried herself to sleep. She could do nothing else.

  After two months of trying to escape this torture, she had reached the limit.

  She paced up and down in her garden, full of despair. Tonight, I shall die, she’d decided. Death’s better than to lead a life so worthless. The right place to die was the pond where Veera had rescued her – maybe Veera would learn how much she loved him. She would tie a large stone to herself and walk into the deepest part of the pond. It would be better than dying in Sundar’s bedroom.

  Just then, her stomach churned and she felt faint and nauseous. She bent over the plants in her garden to retch. When the palace doctor came to examine her, he felt her pulse and declared she was with child. It was then that Sunanda felt she had her revenge on Sundar. Forgetting her resolve to die just an hour back, she smiled. A part of Veera was growing within her.

  The queen mother was happy. When it came to the question of succession, a prince with a ready heir was always more welcome. However, Sundar had the shock of his life. He knew he had bitten off more than he could chew. He could not claim it was not his child – that would be the worst insult to a man, especially for one who aimed for the throne. And he could not alienate his uncles by accusing a Chola princess of infidelity. Had he made love to her when he was drunk or was the child his brother’s son? Superstitious that he was, he thought it was heaven’s way of punishing him. It made Sunanda seem more repugnant so he avoided her as much as possible.

  The child was delivered by the royal washerwoman, who was a midwife too. The woman could not be found till they were told that she had gone to deliver the child of one of the girls who served Veera’s mother. A maid by the name of Vani.

  *

  It was almost a full year before Veera was given an assignment. By that time, his name was oft-repeated as the hero of the nation – the peace in Lanka had endured, the war was over and young blood was no longer being recruited into fighting for the nation. Veera was now a loved prince, but he remained unmarried. Along with the first consignment of tribute from Lanka, Parakrama Bahu had also wanted to send his daughter as a bride for Veera, but the prince had been non-committal to the several emissaries Kulasekharan had sent. Instead, he directed his fury at Meena, who had been enlisted to help him find a bride. ‘Why should he worry about my state of bachelorhood? He never gave me what I wanted and Sundar gets everything on a platter.’

  ‘Sunanda,’ Meera pointed out correctly, ‘is Sundar’s uncle’s daughter.’

  Veera glared at her.

  A dozen kings from the south also wanted their daughters to be the queen of the largest empire in the subcontinent. The bait waited, but the fish just didn’t bite. Even the Cholas wanted to secure their future; they’d selected a cousin of Sunanda’s as a prospective bride. The irony was that of all the possible intermediaries, they had requested Sunanda, who had refused bluntly. Later, she wondered why she had been so curt. Perhaps she did not want Veera in another woman’s bed.

  Veera was asked to go to northern Kanchi, where the Kakatiyas had grown bolder and raided Pandyan land across the frontier. He requested the permission of the king to take his mother along. The king agreed but placed a restraint on Tara, forbidding her to travel beyond Kanchi. Veera was pleased to know that his father still cared about his mother.

  When they crossed a thick forest along the way, Veera decided they should go on a hunt the next day. Akshayan could see the eagerness to hunt in the prince’s eyes. They stayed at the royal guesthouse, a day’s march from Kanchi. The place had been cleaned of pigeon droppings and cobwebs, and the incense had been lit when the lookouts had sighted the royal entourage half a day’s march away. They had been ceremonially welcomed, the inhabitants coming out in large numbers to have a look at him. It was not every day that the king’s son visited the outer reaches of the empire and the atmosphere was festive.

  It was the first time after Lanka that Veera and Akshayan slept in the same room again. Veera lay down on the lone cot and Akshayan spread a reed mat on the floor. Akshayan could not sleep because of Veera’s restlessness at night – he talked in his sleep, muttered, turned and twisted. He felt a twinge of pity for him. His ceaseless work was prodding him to forget the woman he loved and yet his mind refused to discard things better forgotten. For how long would this torture continue for him? Who could fill this vacuum, this emptiness? Akshayan felt helpless. How could he help? He prayed, Lord, let me find a way to help my friend out of this deadlock.

  In the silent night, as the entire world drowned in slumber, the gods were listening.

  They left for the hunt even before the sun rose. The villagers scared the animals and drove them towards the hunting party by beating their drums and shouting at the top of their voices.

  But the prince and his party were not the on
ly hunters that day. There was a lone assassin waiting with a spear behind a tree. His target was not an animal, though he had hunted many a time in the past, his objective being a two-legged creature – Veera.

  When the royal entourage came into view, the assassin saw the prince. Despite the hatred that he had built up against this man, he could not help admire how he looked. However, his eyes shifted to the man on the horse next to the prince. The man was obviously nervous, his eyes darting around as if he suspected danger. The group moved closer and stopped exasperatingly out of reach of his spear. He whispered, ‘Come closer, come closer.’ As if in answer, the group moved closer. All eyes were fixed on the other side towards where the drums were beating, except the man next to the prince.

  The assassin had no choice. This was a chance he would never get again. He raised his arm slowly and aimed the weapon at Veera – then he threw his spear with all his might. The moment the spear was launched, it seemed like all time had stood still. The entire convoy could hear the rustle of the bushes where the assailant stood and the whistle of the spear as it cut the wind in front of it.

  Veera thought Akshayan had suddenly gone mad. He had in one swift movement leapt before Veera and at the same time shoved him to the floor of the jungle. Sprawled on the ground and hurt by the speed of his fall, Veera could not comprehend what was happening. But within a second, he knew danger was afoot. In an instant, he remembered the arrow in Lanka and the same awareness came back to him. It was shattered by a yell of pain from Akshayan. Huddled on the floor, petrified and pinned down, he watched his friend fall, his hand clutching his neck.

  Everybody knew who the spear was intended for. Veera comprehended everything in a second. People ran helter-skelter searching for the doctor, and some were busy organizing a raid party to pursue the assassin. Veera yelled, ‘Send a patrol behind the attacker. Bring him back alive!’ Then he turned to Akshayan and held him in his arms. Akshayan’s jaw had dropped, his body arched and then he went limp. The spurt of blood from the ruptured artery was like a spring that had burst open. Akshayan wheezed and every exiting breath threw out bloody bubbles. Veera wanted to weep, for he knew the pain must be unbearable and the wound would prove fatal. The cloth the soldiers had tied over the wound did nothing to stop the flow. Veera yelled at those nearby, ‘Call the doctor immediately!’