Gods, Kings & Slaves: The Siege of Madurai

by Venketesh, R.

  Within a week, Parakrama moved to Veera’s palace. From then on, he was only allowed to spend Fridays with his mother. The strain was telling on the boy, and he complained that Veera was too exacting when it came to training him. The queen mother warned him, ‘Never disobey your uncle. He is driving you so hard only because you’ve spent too much time with us moping ladies.’ Parakrama’s complaints reassured both the queen mother and Sunanda that Veera was keeping his word.

  Veera was happy to mentor the young prince. The king himself supervised most of his training, and some of the best soldiers were drawn from the regiments to tutor the boy. Veera noted with pride that he had picked up a lot of tricks in so short a time. The first time he hurt himself he had cried and had even proudly shown his wound, a crimson-red scab, to his mother. But now, the boy was getting better at hiding pain, Veera was informed. He was also becoming more accomplished in military skills.

  Parakrama asked Veera one day, ‘Uncle, why do you spend so much time with me?’

  Veera flinched, but immediately collected himself and said, ‘A king has to be well trained. I had the benefit of a gurukulam. After my guru Rajadityan’s death, the gurukulam is no more, so there is no better place than the palace to train you to be a king. And you are too mild-mannered for a prince, Parakrama. At your age your father and I had broken every piece of pottery in this complex.’

  Parakrama smiled; his mother had told him the stories. ‘Uncle, times have changed. There are no Chola girls to duck into ponds either.’ The boy laughed, making Veera wonder how much the boy really knew.

  Within a few months Parakrama was being drilled into becoming a perfect soldier. The scent of sweat filled his senses for the next two years, and he had no moment to spare for leisure. The training would have killed a peasant but the blue blood that ran in his veins made him go on. But it was not the training that had worried him initially, but moving out of his home. He had dreaded living in the same palace as Radhika. His initial interactions with the queen were very few, her reputation as one whose tongue was sharper than a sword prompting him to stay away.

  Sunanda knew that no decision was taken in the palace without Radhika being consulted. However, she warned Parakrama – her message hidden by a curtain of words – that she wanted no ties to be formed with Radhika, merely because of this transfer of residence. ‘Radhika does not come from our class and she hates me. Try not to get on her wrong side.’

  She could not have been more wrong.

  Parakrama had never been more surprised in his life. The queen had such a knack of making people comfortable that he never felt awkward in her company. Soon he was closer to her than with the king. The care that she took of him rivalled that of Sunanda herself, and after a year or so he began calling her ‘Amma’, mother. But on his weekly visits to his mother, he could see Sunanda’s face darken whenever he spoke of the queen.

  Girls of the royal family had been trained to smile without showing any teeth, laugh without being heard and not to speak unless spoken to. Radhika was nothing like them. She enjoyed a good laugh and broke into tantrums when she felt thwarted. Parakrama loved her, for she was the antithesis of the hypocrisy that existed in the palace.

  The queen was equally fond of him; the young lad reminded her of Veera when she first met him, unshaven and gawky, at Akshayan’s funeral, begging her to marry him. Parakrama would finish his work at the palace where he was being apprenticed to the various departments and would then rush back. He would spend an hour or two with Radhika whose company he greatly enjoyed. The king was not pleased, however. In fact, they even argued in his presence that he was again spending too much time with the ladies. The king pronounced his verdict, ‘He has spent more time with ladies. It is time he bonded with men.’

  A forlorn Parakrama turned to Radhika, who to his surprise winked at him. When the king went to wash his hands, he whispered, ‘He is angry I spend so much time in the palace.’

  Radhika whispered back, ‘He is jealous he can’t come back early from his kingly duties and enjoy life like us.’

  Veera was content. After Akshayan, most of his associates had turned out at best to be fringe friends. He was developing an excellent relationship with Parakrama.

  Parakrama’s tutors had been instructed to be strict with the boy. He was disciplined whenever he deviated from the royal norms of behaviour. Veera knew this was the age when he and Sundar had been lured by girls, but he did not find much resistance from the boy on that account. Parakrama himself desired to grow up with an impeccable character. He had seen the descent of his father into moral ineptitude and his grandmother had never ceased to lament on the lack of discipline which had destroyed her only son. And there were the dark rumours that Sundar had killed his father, the late King Kulasekharan. He felt ashamed being the son of a suspected murderer and he wanted to make amends for what his father had done.

  *

  Parakrama had just hit the bull’s eye which served as the target for his arrows. He insisted that the assistant remove the embedded arrow and the next arrow pierced the hole the previous one had made.

  Seeing Veera watching his archery practice from his balcony, Parakrama called out to him, ‘Your Highness, why don’t you come down and join me for a competition?’

  Veera knew for certain he would lose. Instead, he retorted, ‘Why doesn’t the prince come up and determine the taxation laws for the next year with me?’ The boy smirked. Parakrama hated official business and it had to be drilled into his head that a ruler had to carry out different responsibilities, not just military duties. He made it a point to spend time with the boy and Radhika, too, enjoyed these get-togethers. She would finish the palace’s evening prayers where she was required to be present and would then join her newfound family.

  Before a decision was taken in court, Veera would discuss it with Parakrama the night before. Radhika would come to the starlit terrace where the two would be animatedly discussing the pros and cons of a problem and listen to them.

  During one such meeting, Veera showed him the scar left by the arrow that had nearly killed him in Lanka, ‘an arrow dipped in poison,’ he told Parakrama.

  ‘Datura,’ corrected Parakrama, ‘and you went into a delirium and the Buddha came to you in a dream in which he asked you to take his tooth and the Lankan king came running after it.’

  Radhika laughed.

  ‘Don’t listen to too many stories,’ Veera chided him, though it was rather difficult to hide his pleasure. More stories of his bravery abounded than he could have accomplished in a lifetime, but he refused to dwell on it. ‘The next time they may even tell you I swam across the strait to single-handedly defeat the Lankans.’

  ‘How could you, Your Highness? Akshayan would have come with you,’ the boy said.

  Suddenly, the memory of Akshayan came flooding back. The terrace became silent; even the wind seemed to stop blowing as both the king and queen retreated into their memories. Whereas Radhika thought of her first love, Veera remembered that when Parakrama was conceived, Akshayan had been guarding the lovers. The boy stared at them, wondering what had he said that proved such a dampener.

  *

  Parakrama had never been close to Sundar. Veera was the ideal he looked up to, the chasm between them bridged at last. The boy was on equal terms with him. He would throw questions at the king when he least expected them, ‘Why are we enacting this drama, Uncle? I am your enemy’s son and still you treat me as your own.’

  Veera wanted to yell, You are mine! Instead, he would say, ‘We are not enacting any drama, Parakrama. There is no personal enmity between him and me. It is the throne that is to blame. But for the throne, we would never have fought. Our lives have to be led for the benefit of the Pandyan people, not for our personal gains. You will succeed me; what grudge do I bear against you? There are some things that each king should teach his successor.’

  Parakrama was not satisfied with the official answer. He could feel a strong undercurrent but he could not comp
rehend it fully. Why did the royal couple love him when they could get back no recompense? He was by now very fond of the queen and king. If only they had been my parents, what a happy family we would have made. He guiltily brushed aside the thought.

  *

  Parakrama’s training of five years was over. From an uncouth boy hiding in the women’s quarters, he had become a warrior. His slender body was hard as granite, his shoulders broad and muscular. His athletic build was admired by the palace girls and his prowess in wrestling and archery was dreaded by his opponents. Sunanda was genuinely surprised. Her mild-mannered son had turned into a well-built warrior. His voice had become gruff and his body had become a war machine.

  Veera wanted to appoint him a provincial governor to gain some experience. However, Radhika suggested it ought to be done only after his anointment, since Parakrama would then serve with authority of his own rather than as an appointee of the emperor. Veera recalled the freedom he had and the gains he had experienced in Cannanore, so he agreed.

  A date was fixed in accordance with the birth star of the prince and the crowning function was arranged in the Meenakshi temple, as such functions always were. Sunanda and the queen mother frequently came to the main palace to oversee the arrangements. Sunanda could still not come to terms with Radhika. First it had been Veera who had so happily settled with her when the entire royalty had predicted their marriage would end badly. Now it was her son. Of every four words he spoke, one would be about the queen. But had it not been for Radhika... If she had revolted, Parakrama would never have got this chance. Sunanda even had an inkling that it had been the queen’s idea in the first place. She had known that hers was not to be a routine life – she had encountered ups and downs like a sea during a storm. Her sexual exploits had been before marriage and not even once afterwards. Born a princess, she thought she was destined to be an empress, but that never happened. First, she was the king’s daughter-in-law, respected by all, then she became a traitor’s wife. Now, she was going to be the queen mother some day. People who had shunned her for six years were re-seeking her friendship and those within the palace were deferential to her. And it was within Radhika’s control to have prevented this, but she hadn’t.

  Excitement electrified the city as preparations for the anointment speeded up. There was a festive atmosphere and people from nearby villages came in droves to see their future king. Among them was a solitary visitor, who approached the palace gates slowly. Heavily built, the man walked with a very slight stoop that showed weariness rather than poor health. He looked haggard but regal, and his eyes were sharp despite his age.

  The guard on duty thought he was a soldier from a time when war was common in these parts. The scars on his face attested to that fact. When the old man told the sentry he wanted to see the king, the soldier laughed. ‘On business of state, I presume?’ The other sentries let out a loud guffaw. Men sought audience with the king on a regular basis and most would have shied away once they were ridiculed. Not this man, though. Instead, keeping a straight face, he said, ‘Tell him Rajadityan asked me to see him. If he does not want to see me, I will go away.’ The tone was polite yet carried a trace of menace.

  The man waited patiently as the sentry went to give the message, looking at the seemingly familiar buildings of the palace complex till word eventually came for him. The old man had not stepped into Madurai since the time Kulasekharan was king – he noted that the late king’s presence had now been reduced to a bust on a pedestal in a circular garden near the gate. The stranger sauntered towards the bust and admired it. He cleared the cobwebs under the neck of the statue and shooed away a spider. The soldiers looked at him closely; he certainly did not look like the usual unannounced visitor to the palace.

  When the message came to Veera, he was in an important discussion. ‘Your Highness, an old man outside wants to see you. He says Rajadityan sent him.’

  Veera would have dismissed the message with an impatient wave but curiosity assailed him. Rajadityan had been dead for six years. Then a foreboding came over him. It must be somebody important, he thought. ‘Send him in and ask him to wait in the reception hall. I will be there in a minute.’

  The stranger was ushered in. He kept standing, perhaps because the sentry did not request him to sit. When Veera came into the audience hall alone and found the stranger standing, he stopped in his tracks. In the large hall they could clearly hear each other’s sharp intake of breath. The older man waited for the emperor to recognize him for it would have been an insult to introduce himself. It took a mere moment for Veera to recognize him.

  Veera was shocked. It was Vikrama! Was this the same man who had once played a great role in the affairs of the empire? His beard now covered his regal features, which explained why the guards had failed to recognize him. The memory he held of his uncle, when he rode into Madurai victoriously from Lanka, came vividly to mind. How people changed behind the mists of time.

  ‘Your Excellency,’ said Vikrama. Veera flinched at the sound of his title. Guilt overcame him. Vikrama had once told him that he would be the ideal heir if he had succeeded in his rebellion. Yet, after ascending the throne, Veera had not even set out in search of him. ‘I heard of your crowning,’ he continued in a deferential tone, ‘Your Excellency, and I thought you would ask for me.’

  ‘I wanted to, Uncle, as soon as the situation settled down,’ Veera replied feebly. He had indeed once thought of rehabilitating Vikrama, but then an inner voice had stopped him. What if he asked for the throne?

  ‘Eight years is a long time for an emperor to trace a vagabond in the forest,’ Vikrama said, almost icily. ‘But, don’t worry, I would not have been found until I wanted to be.’

  Veera felt ashamed, knowing that deep down he had thought of Vikrama as competition. He desperately wanted to change the topic. ‘Thank God, Uncle, you have come. We are about to anoint Sundar’s son as the crown prince.’

  Vikrama smiled as if he was scoffing.

  A maid brought a silver bowl full of steaming porridge and placed it on the engraved table before the seated men.

  ‘I have not come here for the function, I came here to warn you,’ Vikrama announced.

  ‘There will be an hour,’ continued Vikrama, ‘when trouble will arrive at these very doorsteps. Be prepared, Veera, for it is not far away. We shall have tribulation in this place, mark my word. There is trouble brewing for you. In case you need me, I will be behind the Pasumalai, the bovineshaped hill.’

  His words startled Veera. He realized the trouble had to be threatening enough for Vikrama to come and warn him. On the other hand, he thought the old man could have gone senile. How could the monarch of the Pandyan empire be in danger? It was the biggest empire in the region now and any rebellion would be crushed mercilessly.

  ‘Your words are a mystery, Uncle, but why don’t you wait so that we may discuss it in detail? Meanwhile, I will send for our family members.’ Leaving Vikrama in the hall, Veera sent word for the queen mother and Radhika to meet him.

  To the seated Vikrama, Veera’s exit meant his warning had been taken as the babble of senility. His lips curved in a sad smile. Vikrama wanted to stop him, to make a remark with such scorn in his voice that it would freeze Veera in his steps. There was a huge void between the ruler of the empire and reality. The chasm was unbridgeable. But he did not take any more steps to warn his nephew. He was not one who would tempt fate. Expressing his concern for the empire was his duty and he had honoured it. What was bound to happen would happen.

  Vikrama stood up and turned to leave. The sun had now climbed high up in the cloudless sky, and it was already quite hot. But his walk was brisk. The sentries looked on once again as the mysterious visitor made his way towards them and then walked away without pausing to turn back. One of them stared at him, a niggling doubt in his mind. He recognized his gait – the old man looked exactly like their king from behind; perhaps their king would look like this when he was old. But then the man quickly disappeared o
ut of sight, consumed by the throngs of citizens enveloping him.

  A few minutes later, the guards sprang to attention as the king himself came rushing out. It was then that they realized the old man’s importance as the king asked them if they had seen him leave. Veera scanned the roads outside the palace, but the man who could have been king had not left a single trace of his passage. Veera smiled; his uncle was as agile as ever, but had age clutched his brain rather than his feet? Vikrama’s words had piqued his interest. Did Vikrama still receive word on all the news of the empire? he wondered.

  By the next day, Veera had forgotten Vikrama’s words. The coronation of Parakrama Pandyan as the crown prince was planned with all pomp. The only person absent was the boy’s father but nobody missed him.

  *

  Sundar, who hadn’t heard about his son’s anointment, was still in a state of dejection. He felt impotent. How it had felt to be seated on the throne of Madurai! How it felt to have it as his own before fate had intervened and he was thwarted by his brother!

  When he left Madurai years ago for a life of refuge, not even a thousand men had followed him. Now, not even fifty remained. Those who had enjoyed the pleasures of life with him did not want to share his privations. Sundar was not used to the rigours of a nomadic existence. In contrast to the palaces he had lived in, he was forced to sleep in caves and subsist on the tiniest meals. His money was running out and so was the support of his in-laws. If he had brought either his mother or that detestable Sunanda with him, a group of Cholas might have supported him. But since both of them had chosen to stay back, he was at a disadvantage. Veera had taken pains to warn the Cholas that if they offered covert support to Sundar, their towns and villages would be razed to the ground.

  He was weary of this hunted life, yet he could do very little to alter the course of events. Whenever he had talked about drumming up support and retaking Madurai he had been discouraged. ‘Let us leave him alone,’ his associates had warned him, ‘Veera’s fury is to be feared.’