He had lived and relived that night over again a thousand times, and no matter how he reviewed it, he was the one at fault. Not Mayla, not the sage and his wife, not even the wine, it was just he, Shvate, who had made the one mistake any entitled young person should beware of: he had taken the world for granted. He had become arrogant in his privilege and his position, overconfident in his strength and hunting ability, cocky of his masculinity, and had thought he could do anything, anytime, anywhere. It was that which had been his downfall. The wine had clouded his judgment and impaired his senses, not his inherent character and wisdom. He had been raised to be better than that. He had been raised to be the best among the best. And yet he had failed.
Now, a year into his exile, he had come to a new realization. Punishment was not enough. Punishment only served himself. It served as a rebuke to himself for his mortal error, not a true, fitting judgment. Had he been passing sentence upon himself as a king, he would have been far harsher. He would have condemned himself to death. For any person who had been as well educated as Shvate, as well groomed for kingship as an heir to the Krushan throne, as well advised and mentored by the likes of Vrath, should have known better, should have done better, should have not acted the way he had.
He had woken this morning with the cold realization that exile was only an escape, not justice. It was his selfish way of evading his own just fate. By sending himself into exile, by abdicating the throne, by declaring his brother to be the unopposed claimant to the Krushan throne, he had performed the most selfish, privileged error of all: he had removed himself from the judgment of his elders and his peers. By punishing himself, he had avoided their punishment. By exiling himself, he had sought to avoid the all-seeing eye of Krushan law.
Krushan law demanded a much harsher penalty.
Krushan law did not compromise or bargain.
Krushan law demanded that like be paid for with like.
Krushan law required that Shvate’s crime be given the penalty that Shvate deserved.
The punishment in proportion to the crime.
This was not merely some drunken youth who had been sojourning in the woods that night; this was the prince and heir of Hastinaga himself, a sophisticated, educated, mentored young man of prodigious skills, knowledge, and talent. The emblem of Krushan morality. His mistake could not be punished as any wayward youth might be punished. He deserved the harshest judgment of all.
Death.
That was the conclusion he had come to, on awakening this morning.
He must die.
And because he had removed himself from the judgment of all others, so he himself must see to it that this final judgment was delivered.
And so he sentenced himself to death—declaring that the penalty be carried out at once, without recourse to appeal or reconsideration.
He would die today, right now, right here.
He stood at the edge of the cliff, a narrow outjutting lip of uneven black stone hanging out over the valley like a wooden board over a swimming hole. All he need do was take a single step further, and he would fall two or three hundred yards. That would mark the end of Shvate the White. And with him would end his ignominy, his shame, his dereliction, his felonious act and its consequences.
Time, he told himself.
He looked up at the deep blue sky one last time.
He saw a ragged V of cranes flocking southward. He heard their distant, mournful calls.
He smelled the familiar enveloping odors of the jungle he loved so dearly, and beneath whose green canopy he had committed the act that had ruined his life. He inhaled it all one final time.
And then he took the last step into darkness.
Karni
1
Karni threw herself after Shvate.
He was already at the edge of the cliff when she had emerged from the trees. She had taken in the scene in a single glance and sprinted forward without thought or hesitation. He was already stepping off the edge when she ran out onto the ledge, the rough stone pricking and hurting her bare feet. She saw him step off and saw his body falling as she threw herself at the lip. She might well have slid right off the edge and gone falling after him, and she would not have regretted that. Better that she die than let him die without even attempting to save him.
She felt the stony ledge rise and strike her in the chest, the ribs, the hip with stunning force. She gasped and cried out involuntarily. Her chin struck a slightly raised spot, and her teeth snapped together, her jaw cracking audibly. She saw stars in the afternoon sky, the world swirled, and the forest darkened. She knew she was about to pass out from the blow and bit her lip hard, hard enough to draw a spurt of blood. The pain revived her and kept her from unconsciousness.
She lay there on the stony, uneven ledge, her entire body still vibrating from the shock of the fall, and looked over the edge.
Her arms were outstretched, reaching over the lip into empty air, as if trying to grab hold of the sky itself, of emptiness, of hope, of life.
She had something in her fists. It was not sky, or emptiness, or hope.
It was life.
She felt the strain on her wrists, her fingers, her elbows, her shoulder joints, her back.
And she felt her body starting to slide, pulled toward the edge, toward the emptiness.
“Mayla,” she groaned, her voice choked out of her.
She turned her head, rubbing her cheek harshly against the ledge, and tried again.
“MAYLA!”
She heard footsteps come running behind her. Mayla could not have been far behind. She was a better, faster runner than Karni. But on this occasion, Karni had taken a lead on her. The instant Mayla had told Karni about Shvate’s state of mind that morning, about some of the things he had said to her, the thoughts he had voiced, she had risen from the stoop of their hut and begun running. She had run all the way to the cliff, because it was their favorite spot at this time of day, and because it was the place she herself had often stood and contemplated dying: how easy it would be here to simply step off the ledge and let Goddess Artha, the Great Mother, claim her in her heavy embrace. If Shvate had not been here, she would have gone to the glade, or down to the waterfall, but she had felt instinctively that this was the place he would if he were to think of killing himself.
“MAYLA!” she screamed now, feeling her body slide toward the ledge. She was already at the thinnest part, the very tip, and she could see the valley on either side of the tapering lip of rock, yawning darkly below. In another moment, she would slide all the way over, and then she would know at last what it felt like to simply let go, to abdicate her claim to life, to love, to everything. She could feel Great Mother Artha calling to her, whispering like the sound of the insects at dusk. Come, she was saying, come to me, child. I will take you into my heart and keep you safe. No more worry, no more cares, no more responsibilities. Only cool, blessed darkness. Eternal sleep.
She felt her eyes starting to tear, from the pain of the impact, the jarring blow to her ribs and hip, but also from the realization that she was close to the end now, the end of everything. This must be how Siya had felt when Artha had opened her arms and invited her in. When she had preferred to return to her mother’s womb rather than accept the dominance of a broken god.
Mayla’s hands grasped her ankles. “I have you!” Mayla cried hoarsely. “I have you, sister! I will not let you fall!”
Karni squeezed the tears out of her eyes and forced them open again, blinking rapidly to clear them. She was at the very edge now, her arms stretched over the emptiness up to the elbows.
“Pull me back, Mayla,” she said, speaking slowly and clearly. “Whatever you do, do not let go. Pull me back inch by inch, and make sure you are well anchored and do not slip. There is gravel on the ledge, take care.”
She felt Mayla look around her, getting her bearings, then felt the younger woman’s hands grasp her ankles even more tightly and start to pull. Karni’s bruised ribs bounced against the uneven le
dge, and she wanted to cry out with the pain, but she bit her lip again and suppressed the cry. She did not want to distract Mayla. Right now, Mayla was all that stood between Karni and certain death. And widowhood.
As she slid backward, she saw her forearms retreat onto the ledge, then saw her hands come into view, bent with the weight of their burden. Her knuckles were white with strain, fists bunched tightly as manacles around two pale white wrists.
Shvate’s wrists.
She had him.
She had her husband in her hands.
He was her life, and she held her life in her hands. She was not going to let go, for anything in the world.
She felt with her feet and found a protruding lip of rock, sufficient for her to hook one foot over, giving her some leverage.
“Mayla, stop pulling me,” she said, “I am far enough back now. Now come here and lie next to me, face-down. We must both help Shvate climb back over the top.”
As Mayla moved to comply, Karni saw Shvate’s head lift up. The top of Shvate’s face came into view, contorted with the effort of being held and with something else, some emotion she had never seen before on his face. His eyes found her eyes, and she saw the desolation in them. He could not speak, but his eyes spoke to her eyes, and she knew exactly what he was saying.
2
“Why?” Shvate asked.
They were sitting in the shadow of a tree near the cliffside where Karni and Mayla had just pulled him back up over the edge. Karni could see the cliff from where she sat and shuddered at the thought of how close she had come to losing her husband. Her ribs, her hip—her whole body—throbbed and ached. Her lip, too, felt swollen, and a patch of skin on her cheek was abraded. She had contusions and bruises all over the front of her body. Her ankles ached from the force with which Mayla had gripped them. Half a toenail had been torn off, and the toe was now encrusted with dried blood.
Mayla had fetched them some water, and Karni had taken a small sip but left the rest for Shvate to drink, knowing he needed it more than she. They were all three sitting on the cool grass beneath the tree, facing each other. Both she and Mayla were alert and watchful, unable to take their eyes off Shvate for more than an instant, as if fearful that he might get up and run for the cliff and jump again. She knew he would not do that; Shvate could be driven by emotion to do foolish things at times, but he was not cruel.
He had been looking at her since he had asked the question, still awaiting an answer.
“What do you mean, ‘Why?’ ” she asked fiercely. “You are my husband. I didn’t want you to die. What other answer could there possibly be?”
He looked at her then, in a way that broke her heart. Hopeless, lost, desolate. It was the same look she had seen in his eyes when she had held on to him, as he had hung over the ledge, on the cusp of death. She had never seen such a look in his eyes before. It was the look of a man who was at his life’s end, as if nothing anyone did or said would ever matter again to him, as if something within him was already dead.
“You don’t understand,” he said softly, his voice barely audible over the omnipresent sounds of the jungle. “After I was gone, you could both have returned to Hastinaga, rejoined the family.”
Karni looked at Mayla, then back at Shvate. “With you gone, Shvate? What life would we have had?”
“I would have jumped after you,” Mayla said matter-of-factly. Tears spilled from her eyes, but she brushed them away roughly, almost surprised by them. “I wouldn’t have been able to live a single day without you.”
Shvate shook his head. He was sitting with his knees raised and his arms clasped over them. “You could have gone back. Everyone would have accepted you with open arms. The curse would have been lifted. Once I was gone, there would have been no stricture on either of you marrying again, bearing children.”
They exchanged another glance, then looked at him as if he was insane. “What?” Karni asked, shocked that he could even contemplate such a thing.
“Don’t you see, Karni, Mayla? The sage’s curse was for me. It predicted that if I lay with my wife, then we would both die. At the time I knew he only meant Mayla, since only she was with me. But if it did extend to you as well, as my wife, it would still have to terminate with my demise. He did not forbid my wife to mate again. Only us together. So you both could have gone on to marry again and bear heirs to the dynasty.”
“And this is why you tried to kill yourself?” Karni asked. “So that we would return to Hastinaga and marry again and bear heirs to the Krushan dynasty?”
Shvate looked at her sadly.
“I . . . I want to come over there and slap you,” she said, gritting her teeth to control herself from actually doing it. “I want to punch you and pummel you for daring to suggest such a thing. Let me tell you clearly, Shvate of Hastinaga. If you die, I am not going back to Hastinaga! Not even if they tie me to a rope and drag me behind a chariot! I would rather die here in the jungle than go back and become a baby bearer for your dynasty. That is not why I married you. I chose you as my husband because I loved you, and I love you still. Not to rent out my womb as a surrogate for any Krushan man to seed for the continuation of the lineage!”
“I would kill myself rather than let another man touch me,” Mayla said, staring at Shvate with such hostility that Karni thought she might actually attack him next. “I would die within a minute of you dying. I would kill myself by any means possible. Do you hear me, Shvate?”
Shvate raised both his hands, trying to calm the two women shouting at him. “Very well, very well. I hear you both. I understand your pain, and your loyalty. But don’t you see? I am in pain too. I have a loyalty as well. Not only to you both, but to my family, to my House, to my people.”
“To hell with your House and your people,” Mayla said. She picked up a stone and threw it at a fallen tree trunk, striking it hard enough that some bark was chipped off. “If you care so much about them, then fight like a man. Don’t jump off a cliff and kill yourself. That’s just another kind of running away!”
Shvate nodded his head. “Perhaps. But it is the only way left. I have thought it through, and there are no other options. This is the only way to circumvent the curse and compensate for the dishonor I have brought upon my family.”
“Then I will jump from that cliff right now!” Mayla said, getting to her feet. “You only care about the honor of your family? What about the honor of your wives? If that is your final word, then I will go and leap off that cliff to my death this very instant!”
Karni saw that Mayla was out of control. She was much more closely attached to Shvate because of their greater physical intimacy; they were soul partners. She was afraid that Mayla might actually do what she threatened, and then Shvate would be irrevocably lost.
“Mayla,” she said strongly, grabbing her sister wife’s arm. “Sit down.”
Eyes flashing, for a moment Mayla looked like she would say something back, but then she saw the determined look on Karni’s face and subsided. Without another word, she slumped down again in a heap.
“There will be no more talk of jumping from cliffs,” Karni said firmly but gently to Mayla.
Mayla’s eyes glared up at Karni, but she said nothing.
Karni turned and looked at Shvate. “That goes for you as well, Shvate.”
Shvate sighed. “What good am I to you two? What use am I to anyone? I am a burden on this world. Better I rid you both of my presence.”
Karni raised her hand, wanting so badly to slap her husband. To hit him hard enough to rock his head back, the way Siya had slapped Amara—thrice, if she recalled correctly—when he had been in a similar state, saying that he would go into exile alone because it was not fair to deprive Siya of her comfortable life as a princess in Aranya. But she restrained herself. Shvate was not Amara, and she was not Siya. They were already in exile together. Shvate’s ego needed to be boosted, not corrected.
“Enough,” she said, pointing a finger in warning. “There will be no more
talk of that kind. Do you hear me? No more talk of suicide and futility from either of you.”
Shvate glanced up at her, saw her withering look, and shrugged. He said nothing. She took that as acceptance. Men could be so weak at times. Correction: all the time. That was why they built their muscles, wore their armor, engaged in all that bluster and man talk. Because inside they were just little boys quivering and scared of everything.
“We don’t threaten to kill ourselves. We don’t act as if we have no other choice but suicide. Since when is taking one’s own life a solution to any problem? Is not our battle cry ‘We are Krushan! We fight!’?” Have you forgotten that, and all your training, and the teachings of your gurus, and the wisdom of your mentors? Is this what Mother Jilana and Vrath raised you for, to throw yourself off a cliff and end your life? Surely there enough enemies out there who want all of the sons and daughters of Krushan dead. Are you now aiding and abetting your enemies by giving them what they want? Wake up, Shvate. Wake up and accept the reality of our lives. This is all we have, we are all we have. Each other. This jungle, you, Mayla, myself—that’s our entire world. We need one another more than ever now. How dare you presume to absolve yourself of your responsibility as a husband, as a man?”
Shvate held his head in his hands, listening to Karni. He said in a mournful, pleading tone, “What would you have me do, wife? Do you not understand how impotent, how useless I feel? Can you not see my pain?”
She sank to her knees, lowering her voice, gentling her tone. “Of course I do, my love. You are a strong, proud man. A prince of Krushan. For you to want to take your own life must mean are at your wits’ end. But you can’t give up hope. You can’t just end your life. It will not solve anything.”
“It will solve one problem at least. The problem of progeny.”
Upon a Burning Throne Page 52