“You yourself had had at least one other lover before Sha’ant,” Vessa said. “You used your gift of scent to allure him while on that first boat ride . . . You have told me the story yourself.”
Jilana stared at him angrily, about to protest, but then looked at Vrath’s impassive face and deflated. “You are right, my son. Here I am, sitting in judgment of another woman, holding her to some meaningless patriarchal standard, when in fact, she is no more or less than I myself, or any woman. I have spent too much time in the company of old men; I am starting to think like them. What does it matter what her motives or wiles were? The point is that Adri went to her, he slept with her, he returned to her repeatedly, enthusiastically, and now he is clearly in love with the woman, taking her to his favorite picnic spot, spending days in her presence.”
Jilana rose from the seat and walked over to a stand where she poured herself a drink of cool water and sipped slowly. “It is he who is straying, who has fallen in love, who is continuing the affair. I am being unfair by focusing on this maid. She is irrelevant in this matter. It is Adri’s actions that we must speak of.”
“Your wisdom continues to be a source of admiration and worthy of emulation, Mother,” Vessa said with genuine pride. “This is true. But I disagree on one point. It is neither Adri nor the maid that is the cause of concern. I did not come here to discuss his affair or the repercussions on his marriage or the throne. My anxiety is over something else altogether.”
“What is it, my son?” Jilana asked.
Vessa’s dark eyes turned steely. “Geldry.”
“Geldry?” Vrath repeated. “What of her?”
“She is with child.”
“Yes,” Vrath said, “She conceived on the night of the eclipse after a tryst with Adri.”
“So she says,” Jilana said.
“I have heard the rumors too, and the reports of the guards,” said Vrath. “They found her in her bedchamber in a state of undress, still bearing the signs of recent passion . . . while Adri was in the maid’s chambers. But that does not rule out the possibility that Adri could have ravished her and then gone to the maid’s quarters. Under the influence of Jarsun’s evil eclipse, of course.”
Vessa inclined his head. “That would account for the state in which she was found, and for Adri’s remarkable prowess as a lover, but alas, I do not believe that is what transpired.”
“What do you believe happened then?”
Vessa sighed, stroking his beard. The unruly growth sprang back each time he released it. “I believe Jarsun somehow lured her into one of his other dimensions, another world somewhere far from here, while her senses were occluded, and . . .”
“And?” Vrath asked, glancing now at Jilana, who remained silent.
“And seduced her,” Vessa said, “and impregnated her.”
Vrath sucked in a long harsh breath. “Then you are saying that the child in her womb is not born of Adri’s seed?”
“He is saying much more than that,” Jilana said quietly, still looking down as if Vessa was only voicing what she had suspected and feared all this while.
“I am saying that the thing in her womb is not human,” Vessa said. “It is the spawn of evil, seeded by the urrkh Jarsun himself in the ultimate attempt to corrupt the very heart of the Burnt Empire. It is Jarsun’s bastard child, and it must be removed at once. That is why I have returned to Hastinaga today, to rid the city of the last of Jarsun’s evil sorcery, and that includes ridding Geldry of his spawn. We must abort the child at once.”
Jilana held her head for a moment, as if preparing herself. Finally, she raised her head, showing her proud aquiline features to her son.
“No. We will not lay a hand on Geldry or her unborn child.”
4
The sun was dawning over Hastinaga. The three elders of the House of Krushan were still in conference. All night they had debated the issue. Vessa had remained stubbornly insistent that Geldry’s child must be aborted. The future of the empire depended on it. The safety of the House of Krushan. The sanctity of the lineage. He had many strong, compelling arguments in favor of purging Jilana’s great-granddaughter, and, in a manner of speaking, his own granddaughter, since both Adri and Shvate were his biological offspring.
Jilana took the complete opposite view, and she held to it just as stubbornly and insistently. As the morning sunlight poured in through the windows of the chamber, she summed up the gist of her argument:
“Everything you say, my son, I have considered. But consider this in turn. Shvate has abdicated all claim to the throne. He did so with due protocol, informing all the necessary ministers, including the minister of Krushan law and the prime minister, as well as myself. As dowager empress, widow of the last reigning emperor, Samrat Sha’ant, and seniormost elder of the House of Krushan, I possess the power to accept or deny his abdication. I told him so. His response was that he had made up his mind, and whether or not I accepted would not sway him. He had failed the House of Krushan, he said. He had failed the people of Hastinaga.”
As Jilana spoke, quoting Shvate’s parting words aloud, in her mind it conjured the image of Shvate himself, standing in his forest-soiled, hunt-blooded garments, stripped of his sword and weapons, hair unkempt, beard outgrown, face and hands grimy with the dust of the road and the bloodstains of the man and woman he had killed and sought to save. His hands were clasped together, his handsome pale face distorted with emotion, tears spilling from his colorless eyes and running down well-worn tracks in his face.
“Grandmother, I am not taking this decision out of rash emotion or personal desire,” Shvate had said. “I do this for one reason and one reason only. For the sake of Krushan law. As a prince of the Krushan line and one of only two heirs to the throne, it is my Krushan law to produce more heirs to ensure the continuity of our lineage. You have told us how this House came to the brink of dissolution when your fine sons Gada and Virya, sadly, died before their natural time. Only with an effort was disaster averted, and the dynasty continued with the birth of my brother and myself. Yet even we were not the ideal heirs such a great House deserved. Still, we tried to rise above our disabilities and prove ourselves worthy.
“Vrath told us once when we were young boys and he was taking us in his chariot to the gurukul for the first time, ‘An enemy of Krushan may be the basest, most deplorable, adharmic being that ever walked Arthaloka, but a son of Krushan must be the truest, most immaculately behaved, shining example of Krushan law that ever lived. Remember this, Adri and Shvate. Your peers will be judged by a different standard; they will be forgiven even their worst transgressions, their errors will be overlooked, their faults ignored, their indiscretions brushed under the rug. But you must be perfect, beyond reproach, unimpeachable, the very symbol of goodness, honesty, courage, and Krushan law. You are not expected to merely be good; you must be great. It is not expected of you; it is taken for granted. You must be everything that everyone else cannot be. You cannot fail, you cannot falter, you cannot weaken, because you carry with you the weight, the burden, the responsibility of all Hastinaga. The hopes, dreams, aspirations, ambitions, and safety of millions rests on your shoulders. If you falter, a clan is exterminated. If you hesitate, a village is lost. If you lose courage, a tribe is wiped out. If you fail, an entire empire goes up in flames. There is no maybe, no try, no attempt, for you. There is only succeed, achieve, triumph, conquer.’ ”
And then Shvate raised his hand in the Krushan salute, pressing his palm to his heart, and cried out with feverish passion: “Yatham rajanam, tatham prajanam!”
Jilana’s own hand now rested on her chest as she emulated Shvate’s gesture. She looked into the eyes of her son Vessa, dark, stony, and intense as always. “Shvate said that by committing the murder of the sage and his wife under the influence of wine, he had not only proved himself incompetent to rule as emperor of Hastinaga, he had failed as a human being. A man. A husband.”
Jilana lowered her hand, keeping her eyes fixed on her son
. “And because of the sage’s curse, he would never be able to father progeny on his wives. This meant that if he were to ascend to the throne, he could not further the line of Krushan. The House of his ancestors would die with him. He would have failed as a son, a king, a Krushan.”
She sighed softly and spread her dark hands, almost as dark in hue as her black-skinned son. “Shvate cannot father heirs. Mayla and Karni are with him in the forest, living out their days in self-exile for his error that night. Adri has strayed from the path of fidelity, lying with a woman other than his own wife. Even if he were to be brought back in line, made to honor his marital vows, respect his wife, lie with her again, and seed another child in her womb, it is too late to do so. Geldry is already with child. If you do as you insist you must and rid her of this child, what guarantee is there that she will then be capable of bearing another? This seed that you say is Jarsun’s foul leaving—if this is so, then might it not render Geldry’s womb incapable of conceiving again?”
Vessa’s beard rustled, and Jilana raised her hand at once.
“I know what you are about to say. You will say that even if Geldry’s womb cannot produce another child, Adri can always take another wife. Father an heir upon her. And the Krushan line may yet go on.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Nay. Nay, Vessa, my son. As Vrath here recalls full well, I thought this way once myself. I saw my handsome, strong, young sons Gada and Virya with their beautiful young wives, Ember and Umber, and I thought, They are so amorous, so eager for each other’s company, so besotted with one another, they will surely produce heirs. It is only a matter of time. And yet, in the end, it transpired, time was the one thing they did not have.”
She rose to her feet, raising her voice as well. “You came here yesterday saying that time was what we lacked. I say it back to you now. Time is neither yours nor mine to control, nor Vrath’s nor anyone else’s. Even the most powerful of seers or sorcerers cannot extend time at will. It rolls inevitably on, the great Samay Chakra, the great Wheel of Time, grinding and grinding us all down into dust. It outlasts and outlives us all, the one power that cannot be defeated. Today, what you say makes sense. We root out the evil seed of Jarsun from Geldry’s womb. We rid ourselves of this last wretched stain of his sorcery. But what if she is unable to conceive again? What if Adri does not take another wife? He was married to Geldry long enough to have fathered a half dozen children upon her, yet her womb never quickened for him. He is himself afflicted, and with each passing year, I see him losing his courage, his will to live. What if he dies, leaving us without an heir? What then? People will say that the House of Krushan kills their own unborn heirs, that their sons murder sages and then are forced to go into exile, that we are unable to continue our line, unfit to rule, unworthy of this great empire. We will be on the brink of anarchy.”
Vessa opened his mouth to speak again, but Jilana gestured decisively.
“No, I say, Vessa, no! There will be no killing of unborn children in this house. I will not risk my only surviving granddaughter-in-law’s life with such an act. If it is as you say, and the seed that quickened in her womb was indeed Jarsun’s, then it will reveal itself after she gives birth. Time enough to end it there. We women are no strangers to stillbirth. We have seen many a mother and child both die in crimson-washed agony in the birthing room. If there is murder to be done, that will be the day to do it.” She gestured again. “Stay your tongue. Hear me out. I will summon you at the first sign of birth pains. You will be present here again when Geldry’s time comes. We will see the results of her pregnancy, and if need be, we will convene again, the three of us, and decide what our best course of action is at that time. But not now. Now we will let sleeping babes lie. Let the seed grow and come to term. Let us see this through to the end of the play. Time enough to call down the curtain then.
“There. I have said what I had to say. As your mother, and your elder, and as the conscience of the House of Krushan, that is my final word on this matter. I have heard all your points and considered them, and this is my decision. Let us speak of it no more. I will summon you again when the time comes. Now, go and continue your search for the culprit behind these crimes himself—the evil urrkh Jarsun!”
And with those words, Jilana ended the discussion.
Honoring her decision and her authority, despite his own opinion to the contrary, Vessa took his leave of her and likewise Vrath, and strode away, vanishing before he reached the doorway of the chamber.
Vrath had been silent through most of the discussion. Only once toward the end, during the course of Jilana’s long monologue, his eyes flickered, as he reacted to something she said, just before she began recalling what Shvate had said to her when he abdicated. He appeared to be about to speak at that moment, whether to contradict her or to question her on a point of law.
What he intended to say then remained unspoken that morning. He was a being who only spoke when it was absolutely unavoidable and essential. He held his silence that day, but the words he would have said and chose not to would someday have bearing on the entire course of the Krushan dynasty, though it would be decades before this would become apparent.
Part Five
* * *
Mayla
1
“Karni.”
Mayla called out softly. It was the morning meditation period, and the hermitage was tranquil. Except for the chirping and tweeting of small birds and the cawing of crows in the jungle, the clearing was quiet. All the acolytes and hermits were engaged in their rituals. The chores and tasks of the morning had all been completed, and not a soul was stirring in the hermitage.
Mayla came around to the rear of the hut and found Karni. She was sitting cross-legged on the back stoop in a meditative posture, her hands resting on her knees, her face composed, her eyes shut. She looked so serene, so calm. Mayla stood silently, watching her for several moments. She admired Karni’s ability to compose herself. It was as if she drew on deep inner reserves of strength that fortified her even in the worst crisis. Mayla lacked that ability. She only had three modes: fast, faster, fastest. Whether it came to thought, word, or action, that defined her range. During a crisis, she needed to act, to keep moving, to fight back, strike out, run, leap . . . kill. She was a warrior by nature; it was who she was.
Karni, though she could hold her own in a fight, needed to be backed against a wall or put into a corner in order to rouse her inner warrior. Her first choice was not to fight, but to reason or talk her way through a conflict. Talk made Mayla restless.
Even as a child, she hated going to gurukul, being schooled in subjects that she felt had no relevance to her own life or anything she was going through on a day-to-day basis. Why did she need to recite mantras? Why did she need to know about Aravidya? Surely a warrior need not know the names of all the possible trees, plants, flowers.
Shastravidya was the only type of knowledge that she enjoyed learning, because it covered the types of weapons used in warfare, the use of the weapons, the tactics and stratagem of war, the use of akshohinis . . . She also loved hearing tales of legendary battles and warriors, the great campaigns of ancient times. Stories in which people did something heroic, fought against evil, loved, lived, died.
“The Exiled Prince,” for instance: now, that was a great story. She had come to think of it more and more of late. She wished she could be more like the prince of the epic, able to obey his stepmother’s wishes even though it meant sacrificing everything he had, giving up his claim to the throne, the kingdom, his princely life and belongings, to go live in the forest for fourteen years. It was always the exiled prince that Mayla compared herself to when she thought of the epic, never the princess. Because the princess had merely followed her husband into exile, while she, Mayla, had chosen to accept exile as punishment for her part in the events of that fateful night.
Because Mayla had felt responsible for what had happened in the jungle. She too had been drinking heavily, more than was good for her. She
too had been hunting while drunk, encouraging Shvate and shooting off arrows in the jungle without any thought to where she was aiming and whom she might hit. She shared in the blame for his irresponsible behavior. She had even held his arm when he aimed the killing arrow, the one that had pierced the chest of the sage and his wife. They had been in the form of a pair of deer at the time, so she had only been encouraging Shvate to shoot a pair of deer. But they had been human, and when they changed back before Shvate’s and Mayla’s eyes, naked, bleeding from the fatal wound, still locked in each other’s arms, she had felt the shock of having committed murder.
The crime was as much her fault as Shvate’s. And the punishment was as much hers as well. The sage had cursed Shvate, saying that he would die copulating with his wife. The only wife the sage had seen at that time was Mayla, standing right beside Shvate. The curse was meant for her just as much as it was for Shvate. They were both responsible for the murders, and both cursed.
Now here they were, in the deep jungle, living among hermits and acolytes, dressed in the same vastras that they had been wearing when they left Hastinaga, washing the woven cotton garments each day in the river and wearing them again, shorn of all jewelry and armor, gold and accoutrements. She had not touched wine since that night. Nor had she used a weapon.
They subsisted on herbs and roots and vegetables grown by the hermits in their own little garden. They slept on straw pallets on floors washed with cow urine in mud huts with thatched roofs. She had not seen anyone other than the hermits and priests of the hermitage in over a year; she had not eaten a feast, or drunk anything other than water, or made love to Shvate. Her life was reduced to sleeping, praying, foraging, helping out with chores around the hermitage, and listening to the evening talks around the campfire about issues of philosophy, morality, or mythological tales. She often fell asleep while these talks were droning on, most of it going totally over her head, while later at night when she lay down on her pallet in the hut she shared with Karni, she found herself unable to sleep for hours, tossing and turning restlessly. She would listen to the sounds of predators and animals in the jungle and ache to be a lion, a bear, a doe, a monkey. Anything but human. Free to live wild, unchained by Krushan law, the expectations of society, the demands of human responsibility.
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