In silent exasperation, Sumantra took the jug from the attendant and bent down himself, indicating to Dasaratha that he was ready to pour.
But before Dasaratha’s fingers could make contact with the visitor’s dust-caked feet, an oddly familiar voice rang out across the silent avenue.
‘Stop, Ayodhya-naresh! Do not debase yourself by touching the feet of this vile creature. Rise to your feet at once!’
***
Kausalya was in her pooja room when Kaikeyi burst in. She was absorbed in praying to the Mother Goddess Sri in her avatar as Devi the Provider, patron deity of married women and mothers. The room was dense with the fragrant smoke of agarbattis. The thick agarsticks were delicately scented with jasmine, musk, pinewood, ashwood and lotus, and they mingled to form a heady cocktail of aromas that helped Kausalya empty her mind of everything except the countenance of the devi.
The room was silent except for the occasional ringing of the bell placed before her on the wooden altar. As she reached the end of a cycle of mantras, she picked up the bell and shook it rhythmically, filling the chamber with its sweet pealing.
She was ringing it when the door—shut but not bolted; there had never been any need to bolt the door—was struck a blow by a hand heavy with bangles. She knew this without turning around. The exact instant that she finished ringing the bell, the intruder entered. Kausalya heard the harsh clattering of heavy gold bangles and knew at once that a woman had entered, and the woman could only be Second Queen Kaikeyi. The bangles were solid gold and Third Queen Sumitra always favoured silver. In any case, Kausalya couldn’t imagine timid Sumitra entering her chambers without announcing herself well in advance, let alone barging in like a roughneck at a cheap tavern. There was no doubt in her mind that this rude invader was Kaikeyi, even before the intruder spoke loudly and harshly.
‘You hussy! I know what you’re up to. You won’t succeed.’
Kausalya put the bell down carefully and bent forward to touch her forehead to the feet of the statue of the devi. She smelled the familiar reassuring aroma of the red clay used to mould the effigy and the scent of the vegetable pigments with which She had been painted in the traditional bright parrot green, peacock blue, red ochre, yellow ochre, seed saffron and lavender.
She sent up a silent prayer to the devi, asking for succour and calm.
It occurred to her at that instant that she was in the perfect posture for a decapitation. But she wasn’t afraid. Kaikeyi’s tongue was sharper than her dagger. Kausalya joined her hands together one final time as she rose to her feet, then turned to face her rude intruder.
Kaikeyi was a portrait of feminine rage that would have inspired any Kali worshipper. Except that Kali was never this self-indulgent or luxuriously bedecked.
The second queen was overdressed as usual, burdened by heavy gold ornaments and ritual symbols of her regal position as well as her marital status. The large red bindi on her forehead blazed angrily against her flushed pale skin, like the third eye of Shiva rather than a symbol of bridehood. Kausalya almost expected her to have four arms and a divine weapon poised to strike in each hand.
Instead Kaikeyi struck with her tongue.
‘You temptress. Seductress. Like a cheap devdasi you lured my husband away from my chamber and into your clutches. Did you think I wouldn’t know, witch? Did you think I’d give him up without a fight?’
Kausalya stared coldly at her husband’s second wife. She walked towards Kaikeyi, the gold pooja thali in her hands. Kaikeyi started, as if fearing that Kausalya was about to attack her with the thali, and raised a hand protectively. Her heavy gold bangles jangled. Kausalya marvelled that the woman was able to lift her hand at all with that weight. Where did she think she was going decked up like that? To her own marriage?
Kausalya walked past Kaikeyi and emerged from the pooja room. She set the thali down on the raised wooden lectern, gently extinguishing the diyas. A coiled satin rope hung by her bedside. She tugged at it thrice in quick succession. Bells rang out faintly somewhere in the bowels of the palace. Then she stood with her back to the doorway from which she had just emerged and waited for the other woman to follow her out. When she heard the jangling of the jewellery, she turned with the speed and intensity of a fevered nagin, a queen cobra, striking without giving Kaikeyi the chance to speak first.
‘How dare you violate the sanctity of my prayer room? You have no right to even step into my chambers uninvited. And as for calling me those names, well, you probably picked them up from palace gossip over the years, all addressed to your own slinky back. They fit you quite well. You’re the one who tempted my husband from my bed fifteen years ago, binding him with a warrior’s obligation to repay a life-debt. You used your seductive wiles as boldly as any woman from the back streets, luring him to your arms. As if that wasn’t enough, you decided you couldn’t share his affections. You plotted and conspired against me and poor Sumitra, poisoning Dasa’s ears with God alone knows what rot, until he began spending his time only with you. How dare you come in here and accuse me of your own sins? May the devas strike you down as you stand! Now get out of my chambers before I have the guards pick you up and throw you out bodily!’
Kaikeyi stood astonished and speechless, stunned by this unexpected outburst. Even before Kausalya’s words had ended, the clattering of wooden sandals echoed down the corridor leading to the first queen’s bedchamber.
An instant later the drapes parted and an entire platoon of female guards, part of the special division of the palace guard that was assigned to the three titled queens and the three hundred and fifty untitled wives of Dasaratha, filed in quickly, taking in the situation at a glance and bearing down on Kaikeyi. At a flick of Kausalya’s finger they surrounded Kaikeyi, their short spears held at a diagonal upward angle, not lowered to attack but in a warning posture. They were Kausalya’s personal guard, hand-picked from her own clan back east to ensure unquestioning loyalty. Every one of them was an Amazon among women, tall and muscular as any Arya man, and as capable of holding her own in battle, sport or mortal combat as any male warrior.
Kausalya watched grimly as Kaikeyi looked around with startled eyes at her unexpected response and weighed her next move. She guessed that never before in her pampered life as a crown princess of Kaikeya and then a queen of Kosala had Kaikeyi ever been faced with a hostile guard under her own roof.
Except that it wasn’t her roof. These were Kausalya’s private chambers. And Kaikeyi had violated her title, her dignity and her religious feelings with her abusive intrusion.
‘Take her away,’ Kausalya ordered sharply. ‘If she resists, drag her by the hair, and throw her out into the courtyard.’
As Kaikeyi blanched and swallowed silently, still debating her next course of action, Kausalya smiled grimly and asked: ‘Well, Kaikeyi? Are there any other names you’d like to call me? I’m sure my personal guards and kinswomen would love to hear you abuse me in their presence.’
Kaikeyi shot a look of pure hatred at Kausalya. Her red-rimmed eyes blazed in her feverish face.
Kausalya checked the temptation to rub the insult in with salt: That’s enough. You’ve already hurt her enough to make her a blood-enemy. End this now. Aloud she said to her guards: ‘The second queen wishes to leave now. Escort her to her own palace.’
As the Amazonian guards reached for Kaikeyi’s arms, she came alive once more, slapping their wrists furiously, punishing them for her humiliation.
‘Don’t touch me!’ Her voice rode up an octave, shrill and on the verge of hysteria. ‘The first one to lay a finger on me will be executed within the hour!’
She turned to look at Kausalya. Her eyes flashed like twin flames in her fleshy face, her chin quivering with rage.
‘This isn’t over yet, you snake mother. I’ll not give up my husband without a fight. Before nightfall, he’ll be back with me and you’ll be just another unnumbered concubine in the palace of untitled wives!’
And with that threat still echoing off the
walls, Kaikeyi turned and walked out of the chamber. The guards followed close behind, but Kausalya knew they were redundant now. The second queen wouldn’t be back. She had achieved what she had come for, to threaten and intimidate Kausalya. The sequel to this scene would be played out in circumstances of Kaikeyi’s choosing, and Kausalya had a feeling she would be the one facing sharpened steel at that encounter.
TEN
Kausalya sank to the bed, releasing an involuntary sigh. She was a strong woman and in her youth she had been trained in warfare and the use of arms, just as Kaikeyi had. But Kaikeyi was a born warrior, a female Kshatriya who had ridden at the head of her father’s army at the age of fourteen and had conquered barbarian hordes. She was already a feared and formidable warrior queen when Dasaratha’s path and hers had crossed those many years ago. It had never been a secret that her very ferocity and Kshatriya prowess had been the source of her attractiveness to Dasaratha’s roving eye. And even now, fifteen years later, it was that same ruthless ability to take life and to slaughter without hesitation that gave her the edge over Kausalya.
Despite her own Kshatriya origins, Kausalya’s inclination had always turned more towards artistic pursuits. Whatever her strengths, the willingness to kill to achieve her goals was not one of them. It made the brief, potent encounter with Kaikeyi that much more exhausting.
She fought the temptation to lie back on the bed and rest for a while. So much had happened already, but the day itself had barely begun. There was much to be done yet. The Holi parade. The coronation announcement. And that visitor that had compelled Guru Vashishta to send for the maharaja so urgently—surely it must be an important personage for Guruji to have Dasa interrupted during a private audience with his queen. And then there was Rama. She needed to see Rama before the parade.
When she heard the tinkling of delicate silver payals, she smiled. She could identify the approaching visitor by that dainty sound as surely as she had recognised Kaikeyi by the harsh jangling of her heavy gold bracelets.
The drapes at the doorway parted for the third time that morning and Sumitra’s small doe-shaped face looked into the chamber cautiously. She saw Kausalya alone and looked relieved.
‘Come in, my sister,’ Kausalya called softly. ‘Don’t be afraid, the myini’s gone.’ She smiled self-consciously at her use of the word for ‘witch’. Speaking roughly didn’t come naturally to Kausalya, even when provoked.
Sumitra emitted a small gasp as she scuttled in, her diaphanous choli rustling musically as she sat on the bed beside Kausalya. She was so light, the bed hardly shifted.
‘I heard the commotion and the shouting. My guards told me Kaikeyi was attacking you in your chambers! I came at once. Is it over? Are you hurt? What did she want, the hussy?’
Kausalya smiled. Even after fifteen years of marriage and two grown sons, Sumitra had hardly changed. She was still just an older version of the breathless, girlish young woman who had come nervously to ask Kausalya’s permission to marry her husband and become her sister in bridehood. Kausalya had felt a maternal protectiveness for the young girl that had never completely faded: could this waif be the answer to Dasa’s prayers for an heir? Kausalya had accepted the ancient Arya custom permitting a reigning monarch to take more than one wife into his home in order to ensure progeny. Accepting Sumitra as her husband’s new wife had been like welcoming a sister home, not a rival. How different it had been when Dasaratha announced that same day that he had brought another bride home as well, and how differently had Kaikeyi glared at her as she descended from her wheelhouse and strode arrogantly up the steps of the palace on that fateful day, seventeen long years ago. Had Kausalya known then that Kaikeyi’s shadow that morning would cast the next decade and a half into virtual darkness, she might have asserted her spousal right under Arya law to disallow her husband’s choice and compel Dasaratha to send Kaikeyi back to her father’s house. But seeing the gentle, childlike Sumitra had disarmed her and she had failed to realise the threat that Kaikeyi posed until it was far too late for lawful redress.
She brought her attention back to Sumitra’s question. ‘She’s upset because Dasa came to me this morning. She thinks I manipulated him somehow to do so.’
Sumitra’s large eyes, as dominant in her face as the eyes of a rabbit, widened even more than usual. They seemed to take up half her little heart-shaped face. ‘And did you do that? Manipulate him, I mean?’ She realised what she had said and coloured instantly. ‘I mean, of course you wouldn’t do such a thing! But I mean, did he really? Come to you this morning?’
Kausalya took Sumitra’s hand in her own. Her hand was a half-size larger than Sumitra’s little mitt. How on earth had this waif given birth to two strong and muscular saplings like Shatrugan and Lakshman?
‘Yes,’ she admitted.
Sumitra stared at her uncomprehending for an instant, and then her little mouth opened wide. ‘No! You’re pulling my leg!’
‘If I was, then you would be flat on your back, my little sister!’ Kausalya laughed, starting to relax after the unexpected anxiety and emotional upheaval of Dasaratha’s visit and the sudden shock of Kaikeyi’s verbal attack. ‘It’s true, my sister. You can see for yourself.’ She gestured at the crumpled bedsheets and mashed petals.
Sumitra picked up a handful of petals and stared at them. ‘By the Goddess alive!’ She bounced up and down on the soft downy bed, absorbing the news like the overgrown child she still was. ‘In the name of blessed Lakshmi, wife of divine Vishnu!’
She laughed and hugged Kausalya. To her surprise, Kausalya found herself responding easily, laughing and hugging Sumitra back. How different we three are, she thought. One wants Dasa all to herself, the second is willing to share him with whomever he pleases to be with, and I … what do I really want after all?
Suddenly, Sumitra detached herself from Kausalya and knelt down by the bedside. Before Kausalya knew what she was doing, she had bent and touched Kausalya’s feet, then touched the tips of her fingers to her own forehead.
‘Bhagyavan Kausalya,’ she said earnestly. Blessed of the devas, Kausalya.
‘Sumitra,’ Kausalya started to protest. Then stopped. She felt a lump in her throat as she embraced her friend—yes, my dearest friend—affectionately, feeling her emotional warmth, as heartfelt and benevolent as Kaikeyi’s attitude had been malevolent. Sumitra was right. On this auspicious feast day of Holi, Kausalya was bhagyavan, blessed by the devas. Through some inexplicable turn of the wheel of samay, her husband had returned to her after a long and bitter estrangement and her son was about to be crowned prince-heir. Nothing could darken such a day.
Let Kaikeyi do her worst now, she resolved fiercely. This time, she’ll have to kill me to get him back.
***
There were eleven of them, Rama saw, not quite a dozen. A tall, massively muscled man with a face disfigured by hideous scars appeared to be the leader. They were all looking to him, then back at Rama and the doe, shouting in their pahadi language. The young man they had been egging on still had an arrow in his bow, trained directly at Rama now, and he was grinning as if this was all a big adventure. Three others also had their bows in hand, two of them with arrows ready to be strung.
‘Ayodhya ke aas-paas shikhar karna mana hain,’ Rama said in high Sanskrit first, then repeated the same message twice more, in commonspeak as well as in the pahadi dialect. ‘Hunting is forbidden within sight of Ayodhya city.’
The men looked at each other for one startled moment, then burst out laughing. Only the leader stared impassively, his milky-grey eyes meeting Rama’s across the twenty or more yards that separated them.
Rama pointed at the doe. ‘You men have committed a crime under Kosala law. You must surrender yourselves to the city magistrates. If you are unaware of the laws of our state, some leniency might be shown. But you must put away your weapons at once and hand them over to the guards at the first gate. No weapons are permitted beyond that point.’
Another wave of laughter rose from
the group. The youngster with the arrow aimed at Rama laughed too, evidently imitating his older companions rather than because he found Rama’s words funny. His hands were unsteady on the bow, and he almost released the arrow without realising it.
Rama called to him.
‘You, young one. Put down that bow and arrow. Right now. All of you do the same with your weapons at once. If you do not obey, this will go badly for you.’
The youngster looked uncertain. The hand holding the fletch of the arrow quivered, then eased. The bow dipped, pointing at the river. He looked around to see the response of his older companions.
They looked unimpressed by Rama’s warning. A pair standing off to one side spoke to each other and spat together into the river. They drew knives, large curved hunting knives that had been sharpened so often their blades were honed to fine needle points at the tips. They held the knives in the pahadi fashion, blade under the fist, pointed sideways.
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