A Mauryan Adventure

by Subhadra Sen Gupta

  ‘My mother Ganga and my sister Madhura. They both work in the palace in the chambers of Queen Mahadevi and Princess Sanghamitra. As they were travelling to Ujjaini with me, the prince’s mother, Her Majesty Padmavati, sent some gifts for her son.’ And with a wave of his hand he pointed to the baskets they were carrying. ‘These have to be presented to His Highness Prince Kunala.’

  Madhura had noticed that Kartik was speaking in this highly formal way, sounding a bit haughty and sort of impatient, as if he was a very important person and the soldier was getting in his way. It worked. Looking impressed the soldier stepped back and let them through, waving at the other soldier who pushed open the wooden gate. They were soon inside the governor’s palace.

  They walked down a broad driveway with office buildings on one side and on the other there were the barracks, a row of rooms where the soldiers stayed. The driveway curved around a park with bushes of jasmines and marigolds, and then they were standing at the pillared porch of the palace.

  As they came to the door, another soldier blocked their way and once again Kartik showed his medallion and told his story. This time the soldier said shortly, ‘Wait here, I will get the chamberlain.’ And he went inside. He came back a few minutes later and said, ‘The chamberlain is coming.’

  ‘And now we wait,’ Kartik gave a patient sigh. ‘Chamberlains think they are very important people and so they like to keep people waiting. The one at His Majesty’s palace only comes out after you send a reminder that you are waiting at the door. And even then he walks very, very slowly.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They enjoy their power to keep people waiting; even officers and noblemen have to be polite to a chamberlain.’ And then he grinned, ‘Of course if you give them money they move faster.’

  After a long while they heard the clatter of wooden slippers and an enormously fat, old man came slowly walking towards them down a corridor. His head was shaven, except for a pigtail at the back. He wore a white antariya in the finest cotton and had wrapped a thick shawl around his upper body. The only jewellery he wore was large gold earrings and there were six rings on his fingers. His face was round, with heavy, jowly cheeks, and he had at least three chins that quivered as he spoke. The large eyes were sharp and shrewd and he looked at them with suspicion. Madhura noticed the old man did not smile.

  ‘You have come from Pataliputra, have you?’ the chamberlain spoke in a high, superior voice.

  ‘Yes, your honour.’ Madhura noticed that Kartik’s medallion hung prominently on his chest so that the chamberlain could see it.

  ‘Do you have a letter from His Majesty the king, giving you the order to meet Prince Kunala?’

  ‘No sir. The instructions were sent to me after I had left Pataliputra. They were carried by my superior Tilaka.’

  ‘And where is this Tilaka?’ the chamberlain still did not look convinced.

  ‘He had to go back to Pataliputra.’

  ‘Then how do I know the king has given such an order?’ the old man spoke impatiently. He shook his head, ‘No, no you can’t meet His Highness; Prince Kunala is a very busy man.’

  Kartik’s face hardened, ‘Sir, this medallion proves that I am a Cara, first class, and I do not tell lies about the king. I would lose my head if I do so. In Pataliputra just this medallion is all that is required for me to see the king.’ Then he leaned forward, his eyes like angry slits, and glared at the chamberlain. ‘If you want, I can go back to Pataliputra to get a written order and inform His Majesty that I was prevented from meeting the Prince by his chamberlain. And I can promise you this,’ he hissed threateningly, ‘His Majesty will not be pleased to hear my report.’

  The chamberlain stepped back, suddenly looking a bit nervous, ‘Fine . . . fine . . . I will go and ask the prince if he is free to see you.’ Then he waved a hand in the air, ‘Of course he may refuse and I cannot allow your mother and sister to go with you.’ He pointed to the medallion, ‘That does not include them.’

  ‘Chamberlain,’ Kartik was beginning to get angry, ‘you are making a mistake, trying to stop me!’

  Then Madhura’s mother spoke, ‘Queen Padmavati has instructed me to personally give these gifts to her son.’ And she took that cloth woven by the queen and held it out. ‘You can show this to Prince Kunala. He will recognize it as one that is woven by his mother.’

  Very reluctantly, the chamberlain took the piece of cloth and went inside. To their surprise he came back quite soon. ‘Come in, all of you,’ suddenly his voice was polite and he led them inside. Kartik grinned behind his back as they followed him down a corridor to a door guarded by two women soldiers.

  Madhura had never seen these women guards up close before. The first thing she noticed was that they wore trousers, with a tunic and a sleeveless leather jacket on top. Swords hung from their belts and they carried a spear. They wore strange pointed caps and high leather boots. Madhura had heard that these women came from the hills; they were tall, fair and had brownish hair and pale blue eyes. At a sign from the chamberlain, one of them opened the door and they entered the audience chambers of Prince Kunala.

  The solemn young man Madhura had seen ride by on a chariot was sitting on a cushioned divan, as an official stood before him holding a bundle of palm leaves. As Kartik, Madhura and their mother bowed, the prince signalled them to wait and went on reading the reports. Standing there Madhura looked around at the audience chamber; it was much more luxurious than the chambers of the queens. There were thick rugs in bright colours laid out on the floor with bolsters and cushions on them, and these were covered in silk as were the curtains. Around the walls there were low divans, and tall metal lamps stood at the corner. An incense holder had smoke drifting up, perfuming the air, and garlands of fresh flowers swayed at the windows.

  Prince Kunala looked up from his reading and asked Kartik, ‘You have a message from my father?’

  ‘Sire,’ Kartik said, ‘the message is personal and I have been asked to speak to you alone.’

  Kunala’s face froze and then he waved to the chamberlain and the official and they left the room. The chamberlain was clearly unhappy at having to do so. Kartik went and made sure the door was closed properly. Then he pulled out a roll of cloth with writing on it and gave it to Prince Kunala. ‘Sire, I do have written orders from His Majesty but I did not want to show it to the chamberlain. I have been sent here to check the accounts at the building site of the stupa at Vidishagiri. There have been complaints about money being wasted and the news has reached His Majesty. So I come after meeting the Prior at Vidisha’s monastery.’

  Kunala unrolled the order, read it and nodded. His face had now become even paler. ‘I was expecting this.’

  ‘And forgive me for the story about the gifts from your mother,’ Kartik continued. ‘It is not true.’ Kunala raised his head but did not say anything. ‘I did not want anyone in the palace, not even your chamberlain, to know I was meeting you about the theft in the treasury.’

  Kunala’s eyes widened, ‘So you know about the theft?’

  ‘The Prior of the vihara at Vidisha met us, and then my superior Tilaka and I also met the injured monk Sudhira.’ Kartik then told him of how Sudhira was attacked and his report stolen, and of the broken pieces of palm leaves that Tilaka had taken to Pataliputra to be repaired.

  ‘Then Tilaka will inform my father of the theft?’ Kunala sighed. ‘Oh! He will get so angry!’

  Kartik nodded. ‘That could not be avoided, sire. Meanwhile, I am to help you here till Tilaka comes back with the orders of the king.’

  ‘Very well. My commander and I have been searching for the thieves. We even went to check out the place where Sudhira was attacked, but we have made little progress. I have no idea who stole the money. I hold the keys to the treasury and I do not give it to anyone. I always open it myself.’

  ‘Keys can be copied, Your Highness. It is clear there is a traitor in your palace. What puzzles me is, who is taking such a risk to anger the king? We know that
the search will go on till the thieves are caught. We will not rest till we do so. Stealing from the royal treasury, that is a very stupid thing to do. I fear there is more to this than just a theft. Tell me sire, has there been any problem in the province, any disturbance of peace or any rebellion?’

  Kunala shook his head. ‘It is peaceful. My spies have brought me no report of unrest and most of the rebels are in prison. So what do you plan to do next?’

  ‘I will check with all the informers I have here and see if anyone has heard anything. Also, a spy who is stationed in the Shaka kingdom is coming to meet me. He had sent a message that he has some important news. Meanwhile, we will wait for Tilaka; he should be back in a few days. But sire, do not tell anyone about me. I will find out more if I can work in secret.’

  ‘Of course!’ Kunala smiled for the first time. ‘You came with gifts from my mother; that is all anyone needs to know.’

  ‘Not even your army commander, senior ministers or the chamberlain.’

  Kunala looked a bit startled but then nodded. ‘Fine.’ Then he looked into the baskets that Madhura and her mother had laid before him and smiled slightly. ‘Now what do we do with these things?’

  ‘You have to keep them, Your Highness,’ Madhura’s mother smiled back. ‘Even though your mother knows nothing about it.’

  Kunala reached into a large metal box that was kept beside him on a table and took out a small cloth bag that clinked with coins and gave it to Kartik. Then he wrote out an order on a strip of cloth that would let Kartik visit him any time he liked. He signed it and then stamped it with his seal.

  ‘You have to solve this mystery, Kartik,’ he said as they turned to leave. ‘This stupa is very important to my father and I do not want him to get angry with me. He gave me this important post as governor even when many in the royal family felt I was too young. I don’t want to fail him.’

  ‘We will catch the thieves, sire,’ Kartik said very confidently, and Madhura saw how the young prince’s face lightened with relief.

  As they walked back to the caravanserai, Kartik was very quiet and then he said, ‘Amma, for the next few days I will be going out a lot and some nights I may not come back. You need not get worried. I want to collect as much news as I can before Tilaka arrives, and sometimes I may have to meet my spies at odd hours of the day.’

  Just as he had warned them, they saw very little of Kartik for the next few days. On some days he would leave at dawn and come back hours later, on others he would leave after dark and Madhura would wake up in the morning and find that he had come back sometime during the night. There were also people who came to meet him and there were both men and women among them. They would sit inside the room, whispering, and then leave quickly. Madhura even saw Kartik giving them money.

  Madhura noticed that when he went out, Kartik often wore different kinds of clothes. Sometimes he left in the old clothes of a poor man, at others he would be in the finest cottons and once he came back with one end of his turban masking his face, as if he was hiding himself from being spotted.

  ‘Who are these women who come to see you?’ their mother asked Kartik.

  ‘They are also informants, Amma. Some work in the palace, others in the homes of noblemen, others are singers and dancers . . .’

  ‘Ah ha!’ Madhura had remembered something. ‘You mean like the singer Kamalika that Tilaka was talking about? Has she come too?’

  Kartik pinched her cheeks, ‘Someone is getting a bit too smart. Well, Kamalika will not come here. I’ll be going to meet her soon. She is one of my best spies because all the richest men in this town go to her house to listen to her sing.’

  Madhura frowned, ‘But what exactly is an informant, Bhai? What do they do for you?’

  ‘They collect news. The king rules over a huge kingdom and it is not easy to find out what is happening everywhere. So we have spies and informants in every province. If they hear of some crime, or someone who is not paying his taxes, anyone breaking the law, planning anything against the royal family, they report to me and I tell the governor or report it further to the king. Right now I’ve asked them to find out what is happening in the governor’s palace.’

  ‘You collect gossip,’ Madhura teased.

  ‘Exactly. Which nobleman had a fight with another one, which trader has been cheating the government, who is spending a lot of money at the home of a dancing girl . . . I am a spy and they are my eyes and ears in Ujjaini.’ Kartik got up and slipped his feet into his slippers. ‘Amma, I’m going out now and will be back very late. You and Madhura have dinner.’ And wrapping a shawl around himself he went out of the caravanserai and vanished into the night.

  That night Madhura and her mother ate at the dining hall and then went to sleep in their room. This was not the first time that Kartik was away at night and she saw her mother lock the door carefully. Kartik had sent Dhanu and Lakshmi back to Pataliputra with one of the carts as it looked like his family would have to stay in Ujjaini for some time. So Madhura and her mother were alone in the caravanserai.

  As she lay in the dark, wrapped in a quilt, Madhura suddenly felt afraid. They were in a strange city where they knew no one and now Kartik had again vanished somewhere. She thought of her home and desperately wanted to go back to Pataliputra, to be back in their familiar lane where she knew all the families; moreover, Ranju was there. She even missed the palace and the company of the princess. Madhura, who had yearned for adventure, had now had enough of travelling.

  ‘Amma, I want to go home soon,’ she whispered forlornly.

  ‘So do I. But Kartik’s work is not over yet. We’ll just have to be patient.’

  ‘I hate it when Bhai goes away at night. Amma, isn’t what he is doing dangerous?’

  ‘It could be, but he is careful and so far there have been no problems.’ She heard her mother give a small sigh, ‘It used to feel like this when your father went off to war. It is the waiting that is so hard. I wish Kartik would come back soon.’

  7

  Looking for Kamalika

  Next morning Madhura woke early, sat up and looked at the other two mattresses on the floor in their room. Both were empty. She scrambled up and ran out into the veranda to find her mother standing outside.

  ‘Amma, where’s Bhai?’ she asked breathlessly, her heart beginning to thud.

  Her mother’s face was pinched with worry, ‘He did not come back last night and he hasn’t sent any message either. That has never happened before. I’m getting so worried and I don’t know what to do!’

  The two of them sat silently in the veranda, staring at the gate of the caravanserai as the sun slowly rose in the sky. Every time any man turned in through the gate they would sit up, hoping it was Kartik. Her mother made Madhura take a bath and eat some bananas, but she wasn’t hungry. They sat there watching the guests go in and out of their rooms; a man with a broom raised a cloud of dust as he cleaned the courtyard and the driveway, and a cook went past carrying a basket of vegetables. Here we are sitting full of worry, Madhura thought, and for everyone else it is just another day.

  Hours went by. Madhura sat looking up at the sky. The sun was now right over their heads; it was past noon and there was still no sign of Kartik. ‘What do we do, Amma? Where do we look for him?’ asked Madhura, dejected and much alarmed.

  ‘This is so unlike Kartik. So far whenever he has been late, he has told me before leaving or sent a message. Yesterday he said he would be back by the night.’ Her mother gave a sigh, ‘I wish we were in Pataliputra! There are so many people there who could have helped us . . . here I know no one . . .’

  ‘Maybe Rajen can help?’ Madhura wondered.

  Her mother turned to stare at her, ‘Who?’

  ‘Remember the man who came to buy the cloth and the pottery from Kartik? He was chewing paan and kept calling you My Lady?’

  ‘Yes . . . yes . . . I remember him now. He did seem to be a kind man, but we don’t know where he lives.’

  ‘I think he h
as a shop in the market near the palace. He told Bhai he has bought this new shop in the biggest market where he will sell the goods we had brought with us. Then Bhai asked him which market and he said the one near the governor’s palace.’

  Her mother stood up, ‘And we know the way to the palace. Let’s go!’ They locked their room and left a message with the keeper of the caravanserai that if Kartik came back he was to be told they had gone to the market near the palace.

  ‘It is called the Silver Market,’ the man told them, ‘because it has many jewellery shops.’ And then he gave them directions on how to get there.

  As they walked to the Silver Market, her mother said to Madhura, ‘Let me do all the talking and remember, this Rajen only knows that Kartik is a trader. Do not mention his work as a spy.’ Madhura nodded. ‘People don’t like spies and Rajen may not help us if he found out.’

  They had been to the palace only a few days before, so it was easy to find the way. Then they saw the road leading off from its main gate that had rows of bright and busy shops on both sides. In Pataliputra the shops were made of brick with two stories and with an awning in front. Often the shopkeepers lived above their shops. Here the shops were simpler, often with thatched roofs, but as Ujjaini was the capital of the province, the wooden shelves inside were filled with many kinds of goods. One passerby told them it was the Silver Market. They walked past the shops, peering inside to see if they could spot Rajen.

  Then Madhura pointed excitedly, ‘Amma, that shop!’

  The shiny, black pottery of Pataliputra had been displayed prominently in front of the shop and bales of cloth sat on a table beside them. Madhura recognized the goods they had brought from Pataliputra. And there was Rajen, diligently dusting his shelves, looking happily busy.

  ‘Rajen Bhai!’ Madura called.

  As he turned around, his face broke into a grin. He came hurrying up, looking delighted, ‘My Lady! Madhura! What a pleasant surprise. Have you come to see my shop?’