PRINCE OF DHARMA

by AKB eBOOKS Ashok K. Banker

  Sensing that he wasn’t getting through to her quite as effectively as he desired, the tantric stopped his rambling and looked at her dully. He was waiting for her response.

  She surprised him by smiling warmly. Or as warmly as her wizened, paralysis-stricken right side allowed.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘you have great vidya, great kala. This knowledge and art would be an immense aid to me in my rituals. The Dark Lord desires acolytes such as yourself to join His cause. We are islanded here in the midst of these deva-worshipping hordes, tiny isolated islets in an ocean of wretched Brahman. We must join together and ensure our lord’s victory.’

  She paused, opening her purse and reaching into it once more. ‘As recognition of our new alliance, I offer you in our lord’s name this special dispensation. Use it as you see fit to recruit new acolytes to His cause. There is much, much more where this came from. The Dark Lord knows how easily these mortals are seduced by the lure of gold. Keep as much as you think fit as your own reward. You have served Him well and He is greatly pleased.’

  She held out a handful of gold and silver rupees that would be enough to purchase a comfortable house in the upper avenues of Ayodhya. His pupils dilated even more as he stared roundly at the small fortune in her fist. His throat jumped as he swallowed, and he nodded dumbly, acquiescing. He held out his hands, cupped together, to receive the lavish payment, probably more money than he had ever seen in all his wretched life.

  She turned her hand to drop the coins into his open palms, then pretended to lurch sideways, spilling the money across the floor. It jangled and clanked and rolled in several directions at once. He stared dully at the coins for a moment, then dropped hard to his knees and began scrambling around frantically.

  Manthara watched him for a moment, then she parted the folds of her thick robe and pulled out the long curved dagger she had sheathed in a specially made leather-lined pocket. She had poured several drops of a potion of her own making into the sheath before sliding the dagger in before she left the palace a half-hour ago, a precaution she took whenever she went on one of these illicit nocturnal forays. As she exposed the dagger to the smoky candlelight, the tip of the wavy blade gleamed yellowish-green with the lethal poison. She gripped the dagger’s hilt tightly in both hands, the double-grip ensuring a steadier stance with her deformity.

  Then she bent and struck the tantric on the back of his neck with the dagger. Just a prick, barely enough to break the skin. He seemed not to feel it at first, still pawing the floor in search of his lost reward. Then, after a moment, he stopped, grew still, and slowly reached up to touch the back of his neck. The tiniest spot of blood came away on a fingertip. He stared at it for an instant, then put the fingertip in his mouth, sucking. Slow recognition dawned on his scrawny features. He started to raise his eyes, seeking out Manthara. Before he could find her, the poison—admitted through his blood as well as through his mouth by now—took effect. His nerves spasmed and he fell face-down on the floor, the coins he had managed to gather falling again noisily.

  Manthara watched his death throes for a moment, then turned to the serving girl. Her face had turned as white as a Brahmin’s dhoti. She was pressed back against the door, as if trying to melt into the wood and disappear.

  ‘Take the bag to the carriage,’ Manthara said harshly. ‘Make sure the footmen don’t know what it contains. Place it in the usual khazana box inside. Carefully. You bruised the last one.’

  The serving girl looked as if she would bolt. Her hand crept down to the door latch. But at the last moment, her eyes returned to the spasming, choking tantric on the ground and she remembered the fate that befell those who crossed Manthara. She darted forward, picked up the gunnysack, threw it over her shoulder like a bag of potatoes, and preceded Manthara out of the door.

  Manthara stayed a moment, surveying the foul-smelling candle-lit room. There was something here that could be used to her advantage. There was always something. She pulled a scarf from within the folds of her robe, an anonymous silk garment used by the titled and untitled queens alike in the maharaja’s palace—but only by them. With a smile as sly as a mongoose toying with a cobra, she reached down and placed it in the dead tantric’s fist, as if he had snatched at his assailant in his last moment. There. That would fox his fellow tantrics, give them something to get worked up about. Anger could be useful.

  Leaving the shack, she was caught unawares by the brightness. She raised her deformed right hand, snarling. The wretched purnima moon. Full and bloated as a pregnant witch, it glared down at her, omniscient and grim as a judge. In her clan, Chandramukhi, the moon deity, had been a revered and feared totem. All clan panchayat judgements had been passed on purnima nights like this one. Even though her loyalties had changed long since, it was difficult to shrug off the instinctive fear drummed in by those youthful rituals. She drew the cowl of the robe over her head and walked as quickly as her hunchbacked gait would permit.

  Her moon-cast shadow danced before her all the way down the alley, mocking her silently. She spat on it before climbing into the carriage and kept the drapes drawn tight all the way back to the maharaja’s palace.

  KAAND 1

  ONE

  ‘Kausalya!’

  The winding corridors of the First Queen’s Palace reverberated with the booming voice. The female guards at the entrance goggled at the large barrel-chested man striding towards them, then hurriedly lowered their spears and bowed to their king. Men were forbidden in the First Queen’s Palace, with only one exception. Maharaja Dasaratha, ruler of the kingdom of Kosala, was that solitary exception, yet it had been so long since he had last entered these chambers that some of the female attendants stirring sleepily or peeping through silk curtains and ornately filigreed panels took several startled moments to identify the loud-voiced visitor. Some scrambled to cover their modesty with whatever was at hand—satin cushions, a billowing drape, a silver flower vase—while others deliberately flaunted their nudity, seeking to attract the eyes of the maharaja by posturing coyly in doorways and on luxurious shaasan. They knew that apart from the three queens in their individual palaces, there were three hundred and fifty more wives in the king’s palace. Yet it never hurt to try.

  But the maharaja’s eyes did not stray to those distracting feminine bodies or those alluring almond-shaped eyes. He strode through the First Queen’s Palace with an energetic gait that belied his considerable bulk and age.

  ‘Kausalya,’ he called again. The calling was more by way of giving her advance warning of his approach. It had been a long time since he had come to these chambers and he covered up his anxiety and nervousness with bluster and authority. It was an effective disguise; to the startled serving girls, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to see the maharaja striding through the palace, calling his maharani.

  He passed through the last of the forerooms and emerged into a small chaukat, a square without a roof. Glancing up at the sky as he stepped around the delicate sculptures and the marble fountain in the centre of the chaukat, he saw that dawn was just breaking, turning the sky several shades of purple. A soft dewy precipitation made the air cool and fragrant here, carrying the aroma of the first queen’s famous gulmohur gardens. He glanced nostalgically at the statue of Kama that towered above the fountain and the lotus pool, smiling wistfully at the sugarcane bow and flower-arrow held daintily in the marble god’s chubby hands. He remembered when Kausalya had first installed this fountain, showing it off with great pride—she had personally conceived the whole arrangement, as she had the interiors of most of her palace. He had watched wonder-struck, holding her in his arms at the base of this very fountain, beneath the midnight-blue sky of a Varsha night, as a gentle drizzle fell on them. Seventeen long years separated that day from this one. And yet, the sight of the fountain brought back the memory as clearly as if it had been just days ago.

  ‘Kausalya,’ he called again, gently this time, as he passed into the inner chambers. A young serving girl, lying o
n a shaasan squealed and sprang to her feet, then froze, wide-eyed as a doe before a chariot, transfixed by the sight of her king bearing down on her. Dasaratha put a hand out, gripping the girl gently by the shoulder—and moved her aside gently. His elbow brushed her as he passed her, and he heard her emit a tiny gasp. He walked on without a backward glance.

  He noted the distinct change in decor as he entered his queen’s private chambers. A muted, almost sombre effect achieved through sober colours and exquisitely chosen furnishings and artefacts displayed at perfect aesthetic intervals. Even the mashaal stands and candelabra were arranged artistically, their fluted vents designed to conceal their true purpose, which was simply to provide an upward exit for the smoke and heat of the flames. He shook his head wryly as he trod carelessly over intricately embroidered eastern carpets without even noticing their unusual weaves and patterns. It was like stepping through a doorway between ages, back into the past.

  He paused, struck by the sensations coursing through his body. Once he had spent almost every single waking hour in these chambers, and all his sleeping ones. It was startling to see how little it had changed.

  The chamber was empty. He was about to turn away, about to look elsewhere for Kausalya, when something caught his eye. The flash of a familiar face at the far end of the room. There, by the window, in an alcove where the flickering light of the mashaal barely reached. It drew him like an apsara drawing a traveller to her enticing embrace.

  It was a portrait of Kausalya and himself. From back then. He winced at the difference between himself then and now, the slender, tautly muscled limbs that had thickened and softened, the torso that had seemed sculpted and so sharply masculine then and was now filled out and almost rounded, the face that was so clear and bright with ambition then, now turned dark and fleshy, the hair … Enough, enough. Bad enough that his physicians berated him constantly for his excess weight and lack of exercise; he didn’t need a picture from the past to rub salt into the wounds. At sixty-three years of age, physical appearance was the least of his concerns.

  But he could stand to look at Kausalya a moment longer. Or an eternity. Her beauty still took his breath away. He reached out, compelled to touch that soft face, that smooth cheek unlined by years of care, childbearing and motherhood. She was a picture of Arya perfection: doe-eyed, raven-haired, wheat-complexioned, delicately featured, small-limbed, large-breasted … In her carefree smile, he could see himself, young, strong, unaffected by these mystery ailments and unaccountable fainting spells.

  The sound of bells brought him out of his reverie. He turned with a rustling of his silk dhoti to see Kausalya, a pooja thali in her hands, standing in the doorway of her bedchamber. Unlike his own weary, illness-plagued body, Kausalya’s beauty had matured like a ripening mango, swelling just enough to enhance her femininity. And her eyes, those deep dark eyes he had once swore he could see his soul mirrored in, those eyes were still the same. Still smouldering. Except that right now, at the sight of him standing uninvited in her private bedchamber, they were closer to blazing.

  ‘Ayodhya-naresh,’ she said, using his formal title. ‘What brings you to this forlorn part of the city?’

  He grimaced as the barb struck home. The First Queen’s Palace was right beside his own, linked by a common corridor, no more than a few hundred yards away.

  ‘It’s good to see you haven’t lost your wit, Kausalya,’ he said, walking towards her. ‘Nor your sense of dharma.’ The second comment was directed at the pooja thali in her hands.

  She raised her eyebrows, feigning surprise. ‘Dharma, my lord? A big word to use for a small act of daily habit. Surely all your queens begin their day by offering a few basic prayers to the ancestors, the gods, and to their lord and master? No decent married woman in Kosala would do any less.’

  He shifted his gaze, pretending to examine the view through a latticed window. The dawn was just breaking and he could glimpse the neatly arrayed rows of flowers and smell the strong, arousing odour of jasmine, always her favourite. He knew her comment was directed at the fact that his second queen, Kaikeyi, was more likely to be sleeping at this hour than performing the ritual dawn prayer. He resisted the provocation in the comment with a small effort. It had been a long time since anyone had dared to rebuke or taunt him.

  ‘Kausalya,’ he tried again, ‘how have you been, my queen? I trust all is well with you? You do not want for anything?’ He tried to put as much sincerity as possible into his voice, to sound suitably regal and king-like to deflect any further arrows of sarcasm.

  But she was not done yet. Barely begun. Her still lovely face twisted slightly in a small moue of mock surprise. ‘Me, great naresh?’ she said, using the Sanskrit word for lord this time— anything but his first name, he noted. ‘What is there about me that could possibly interest you any longer?’

  He smiled with an effort. ‘Come, come now. You know that you are my first queen, my first bride.’ He gestured at the large empty bed that dominated the chamber. ‘We have shared so many happy nights here on this playground of pleasure.’

  ‘And we do so no more.’ The rebuke was as sharp and brief as a whip-crack.

  His smile faded. ‘Let me come to the point. I came here this morning because—’

  She shook her head. ‘Not yet, my king. Not all your wives may be as diligent in their duties, but I was brought up better than that. There are traditions to be followed.’

  Before he could protest, she clapped her hands. A serving girl, perhaps the same one he had passed in the hallway outside, appeared instantly, bowing low enough to almost strike her forehead on the floor. She had clothes on now, but he didn’t notice.

  ‘Arghya,’ Kausalya said, and the girl scuttled away, returning at once with a large metal bowl and jug of water.

  He sighed as he took the seat Kausalya indicated. ‘My queen, this is ridiculous. Arghya is done to greet a guest honouring your house with a rare visit. Not your own husband!’

  She looked up from her crouched posture as she washed his feet. ‘I could name guests who have visited our house more often, raje.’

  That one cut deep. He reached down and grasped her arms, stopping her in the act of wiping his feet dry with the end of her own sari pallo. ‘I have to speak to you on a matter of great importance. Dispense with these foolish games.’

  She looked down at her hands. At his large hairy fists gripping her wrists, pressing her gold bracelets into her slender forearms. ‘You are truly a great king, Ayodhya-naresh. You visit your first wife’s chambers after such a long absence, and this is how you show your affection towards her.’

  He released her wrists at once, stung with shame. Even if she had goaded him, it was his own guilt that had provoked his temper. He turned away, unable to look her in the eyes for a moment. He had been away from her for too long; had forgotten that she was not Kaikeyi. And now, in re-entering her little circle of power, he had granted her the opportunity to taunt him, rebuke him, make him feel as guilty as a young bridegroom stealing a kiss from his sister-in-law.

  He willed himself to stay calm. After all, he had been prepared for this when he made the decision to visit her this morning. Whatever the provocation now, he would stay within the bounds of chivalry.

  But her next words were completely unexpected, as was her tone. Her voice was gentle and soft and sincere. And it came from right beside him. Her hand touched his bare arm and the very touch brought sense-memories flooding back.

  ‘Raje,’ she said, again using the affectionate ‘e’ suffix instead of the more formal ‘maharaja’. ‘I apologise if I spoke harshly. It has been a long time since you graced me with your presence. I have been so long in my own company, I seem to have forgotten how to behave in the presence of my king.’

  He was startled to find his eyes turning moist. The nape of his neck creeping with shame.

  She went on. ‘Please, do me the honour of sitting with me in my akasa-chamber. Together we shall watch the new day dawn and you may speak your mind f
reely. I shall not forget the rules of royal hospitality again.’

  He turned and gripped her shoulders so unexpectedly, so strongly, she gasped at first. Then she saw the look in his eyes. Not anger. Far from it.

  ‘Please,’ he said, making no attempt to sound regal any longer, ‘say no more. Not another word. I am ashamed enough as it is.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Raje?’

  ‘Please. Believe me. I have never stopped loving you. Not a day, not an hour, not a moment has passed when I did not think of you.’

  She stared. For once, Kausalya the silver-tongued was at a loss for words.

  ‘I know,’ he went on, ‘that I acted foolishly, even cruelly. I neglected you without cause or reason, explanation or excuse. It is shameful in a Kshatriya, unforgivable in a king. But even after I realised it, I did not know how to express my regret to you. How to make amends. Even the gurus are not so wise in matters of men and women, Kausalya.’