RAMAYANA Part 3_PRINCE AT WAR

by AKB eBOOKS Ashok K. Banker

  She launched without preamble. ‘My lord, I hear you have brought a hostage to Lanka. A very important and dangerous hostage.’

  A head or two smiled balefully at her. The rest continued gazing at his different ministers, as if emphasising that he was not perturbed by her unannounced entrance, nor by her challenging manner. ‘What of it?’ he asked indifferently.

  ‘Do your people know what you have done? Have you informed them of this newest indiscretion on your part?’

  A head yawned. Another squinted sharply at her and babbled a string of incomprehensibles in an alien tongue. ‘My people do not expect me to inform them of every thing I do, or they would grow weary of hearing of my every fart and belch.’

  Titters of laughter drifted down the long rows of seats and were slowly suppressed. Too slowly.

  ‘I think they would want to know of this particular error of judgement.’

  One head smiled pleasantly down. ‘And what gives you the right to judge my judgement?’

  ‘The same right that every citizen of this kingdom possesses. The right to demand that the lord of Lanka takes no action that endangers the safety of the entire land.’

  The muttered comments and whispers died away suddenly. A silence grew in the chamber, buzzing in her ears like a swarm of sleepy flies newly roused from a carcass.

  ‘And what action have I taken that endangers Lanka?’ asked the central head, watching her impassively. ‘Pray, tell me, my lady.’ His tone had a mocking indulgence to it, as if he were challenging one of his concubines to demand her choice of amulet at a jewellery merchant’s display.

  She ignored his tone and addressed his query. ‘Why have you abducted the wife of the mortal prince Rama and brought her here to our land?’

  Instead of the outburst and commotion she had expected, nay, desired, a silence fell across the crowded sabha hall. As moments rolled by and Ravana took his time responding, the silence thickened, like treacly molasses flowing langurously into a jar.

  ‘Where have you heard this treasonous rumour?’ Ravana asked quietly. ‘Tell me plainly, that I may have the person originating it tried with due process and punished for the offence. It is against our code to accuse a king falsely, and punishable to spread a rumour accusing him as such. The penalty for this offence will be death.’

  Mandodhari was taken aback by his calm demeanour. She had expected fireworks at her bold interruption of the sabha, at the very least a reprimand of her negligence of protocol; some anger at her accusation would have been nice too. But instead he seemed so cool and collected. So … human? She suppressed her self-doubt and pushed on.

  ‘In that case, my lord, you will have to slaughter half your populace. What you call a rumour is news, repeated by every person on the streets in the marketplace of Lanka.’

  ‘A marketplace is a breeding ground for rumours and gossip. It little behoves you, my lady, to waste your time on such trifles.’

  ‘Then you deny this rumour has any basis in fact? There is no truth in it at all? You did not abduct Rama’s wife and bring her here to our land?’

  Ravana turned one of his heads to face his brother. Vibhisena, clad in his usual Brahmin’s garb, anointed with the usual caste-marks and tikka from his morning ceremonies, looked even more subdued and morose than usual. He did not look up or meet Ravana’s glance. ‘Perhaps my brother should answer that question. He raised the issue in this sabha not many moments ago. He seemed to be labouring under the same delusions that you are afflicted by, Lady Mandodhari.’

  Mandodhari resisted the temptation to frown. This was not going as she had anticipated. ‘I would prefer to hear it from you, my lord. Once more I ask you, is there or is there not a mortal woman held captive in the topmost level of this tower?’

  Ravana’s heads watched her with calm amusement. ‘There is a mortal woman on the topmost level, most certainly. But she is not a captive. Nor was she abducted by myself or by anybody. She is here of her own free will.’

  Mandodhari balked, her hand flying involuntarily to her chest. She lowered it with difficulty, struggling to maintain her composure in the face of this astonishing response.

  ‘I find that difficult to believe, my lord,’ she said.

  He waited a moment before asking, ‘Are you presuming to call my words a lie?’

  She chose her next words carefully, aware that her every syllable was being noted by Lanka’s most powerful leaders. Her dignity was at stake here. She turned her upper body slightly, allowing the rest of the sabha to see her face at least partially, and herself to view their reactions. This was getting dangerous very quickly.

  ‘My lord, I have travelled to the topmost level of this tower. I was denied entrance, but from the guards posted on duty outside that level, I learned that there is indeed a person caparisoned there. And she is none other than Sita, the wife of Rama Chandra of Ayodhya, whom you kidnapped and tore away by force from her husband to bring here, for reasons unknown. I have come here to ask you for your reasons for undertaking such an act, and that is what I am presently doing.’

  The entire court watched her now, their pale, luminous, white-ringed rakshasa eyes glinting in the torchlight. Why did he require torchlight? The Pushpak could provide illumination without revealing a specific source. Then she understood: to complete the illusion. It was an Arya court in all but reality. A perfect masquerade.

  ‘And have you received a satisfactory response?’ Ravana asked.

  She hesitated. ‘My lord … ’

  ‘Go on, speak your mind, Mandodhari. Now that you have the full sabha’s attention, you may as well satisfy yourself entirely.’

  She tried not to yield to the feeling that the ground was yawning beneath her feet, preparing to swallow her up. Literally. ‘My lord, a rakshasi suffered a vision last night. Terrible omens, portents, ill symbols, signifying awful things.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘The destruction of Lanka, the disgrace of the royal family, the defeat of our armies,’ she dared a glance at the generals— they seemed interested but unalarmed, ‘the end of the rakshasa races.’

  ‘Your basic everyday doomsday prophecy, then,’ Ravana said laconically. ‘Available from any cornerstore clairvoyant for a dram or two of som-daru.’

  There were sniggers throughout the hall in response to that one. She waited for them to die down. ‘The source of the catastrophe was the abduction of this mortal woman. The vision showed her husband and brother bringing to Lanka a great army with the intent of rescuing her, and bringing about the downfall of our kind. Naturally, I was concerned and alarmed. If, as the vision portrayed, you had indeed kidnapped the wife of this mortal, then it was reason to be worried indeed. This same mortal once wiped out the greatest asura army ever assembled, by uttering a single mantra, and condemned you to thirteen years of immobility. He made extinct virtually every other asura race except for our own rakshasas. Imagine then, what havoc he could wreak were he to bring his army here and launch an assault upon our kingdom?’

  She glanced at Ravana’s face, then at the sabha hall. She saw the most unexpected reaction.

  Ravana was smiling. He was actually beaming at her, the entire rack of heads amused and apparently delighted by her little speech.

  He laughed. The laughter was picked up by one, then another, then the rest of his heads.

  His generals laughed. It spread to the clan-chiefs and soon the entire hall was echoing and reverberating with the laughter of two hundred large rakshasas, kumbha-rakshasas included. She glanced around, face burning, and saw that even the sentries and servants, all lower-caste rakshasas, were sniggering. Even Indrajit joined in, if a little less enthusiastically, and meeting her eyes once to show that he was only participating in the general mood, not specifically trying to insult her.

  Only Vibhisena did not laugh. He stared glumly at the polished marble floor, his anga-vastra trailing down from his right arm, unravelled. After a moment, she saw him sigh softly, then raise his eyes to look at her sympath
etically. He shook his head once, as if commiserating with her in her embarrassment.

  The laughter continued filling the sabha hall, turning her queenly dignity into a farce for all of Lanka to enjoy.

  ELEVEN

  Mandodhari stormed out of the sabha hall in a fit of cold rage. The laughter of the chieftains echoed in her head, even though once the portal squeezed shut behind her, not a whisper could be heard. The continuing assault was upon her ego, not her ears. She exited into one of the endlessly winding corridors that the Pushpak opened up for those who were undecided about their next destination. She strode along the corridor, going nowhere, for what seemed like hours, without successfully venting her pent-up rage or calming it. Finally, she slowed to a halt, and began to think of what she might do next. The options that flashed before her did not please her either.

  ‘Sister.’

  She turned and saw Vibhisena had emerged from a portal in the wall. She had probably walked a mile or two since leaving the sabha hall, yet Vibhisena emerged mere yards from her. She almost hated the power the Pushpak wielded over them all now, its magic both a boon as well as a prison. One could never have privacy if the Pushpak decided not to grant it. And the Pushpak did only what its master willed it to do.

  Still, she was not entirely displeased to see her brother- in-law. ‘Vibhishan,’ she said, pronouncing his name the old way.

  His face was as long and drawn as always, his manner hangdog and abject. ‘It was most unseemly, the manner in which they treated you in the sabha, my lady.’

  She shrugged, refusing to reveal the depth of her outrage and humiliation. ‘They are rakshasas after all. Even if they do play dress-up and sit about like mortals.’

  ‘No doubt, but I was still shocked at the way my brother dismissed you out of hand. He ought not to treat his queen in such a manner before such a congregation. It will diminish their respect for their queen.’

  She exhaled. ‘There is now a new queen in Lanka. Or have you not noticed? In any case, Vibhishan, I am inured to it. This has happened before.’ And it had: Ravana had had his share of dalliances and she had seen a long line of queens-of-the-moment come and go, had survived them all with equanimity and dignity. Although, she noted mentally, none of those had been mortal women. She had no idea how things might be different this time around.

  He looked at her with those sad, tired, blue eyes, the caste-marks on his forehead luminous in the Pushpak’s unnatural fluorescence. ‘This is not one of those occasions. I fear that this time he has gone too far.’

  She almost smiled at Vibhisena’s naivety, accustomed though she was to it. ‘When has Ravana not gone too far? Excess is his trademark. It is the only way he acts, Vibhishan. You above all others ought to know that well by now. It is why he bears his given name. Ravana: He Who Makes The Universe Scream.’ And makes the kingdom roll with laughter when he outwits his wife, she added laconically to herself.

  But for once the normally docile and acquiescent Vibhisena was adamant. ‘No, my lady, do not be fooled. This was not his old foible. His deception in the sabha hall was but a glimpse of the new wiles he has acquired. Since his resurrection, my brother is not the same. No longer does he charge like a bull through a pottery store. He has learned subtlety, charm, and the art of using rhetoric and diplomacy to achieve his ends. Thirteen years ago, Ravana would have done as he pleased and cared not an ounce what you or I or anyone else thought of his actions. Today’s Ravana plots his actions carefully, maps out his every course, then strikes like a lunging cobra. See how cleverly he has defanged us, his only two potential opponents in the sabha hall. Moments before you came, I raised much the same questions as you had, albeit couched in a more diplomatic manner. I received more or less the same treatment.’ His eyes flickered away awkwardly.

  She read between the lines and understood that he was embarrassed about the difference in approaches. She could guess how his own ‘confrontation’ had gone: he would have questioned Ravana with the mildest of phrases, politely inquiring and all but pleading to know. While she had stormed in like a queen— which she was—and loudly demanded answers. Ravana had dealt with each of them with differing levels of severity, as their respective approaches merited. But she was more interested in what Vibhisena had just said. If he had been questioning Ravana about the same things … ‘Then you knew about the mortal woman too?’

  He stared at her momentarily before blinking. ‘Of course, sister Mandodhari, every soul in Lanka knows.’

  Every soul in Lanka … Again, she cursed this wretched Pushpak. Her suspicions had been right after all. Ravana had cajoled her into coming here to live with him not because it would be easier for them to share their conjugal bed—as if they did that anymore—but so he could keep her virtually imprisoned by this infernal magical structure. She had been played for a fool. From the moment she stormed into that sabha hall, he had been prepared for her, had expected her even, and had certainly desired her to make that faux pas, the better to bring her down a notch or two. She had long suspected that he would never forgive her for lording it over Lanka while he was incapacitated, ruling the island-kingdom as she pleased, erasing virtually every trace of the old Lanka, his Lanka. So this was his way of putting her in her place, then.

  But now that Vibhisena had put it to her so analytically, she saw he was right. She had been taken unawares because she had never expected Ravana to act so subtly, so cleverly. The old Ravana would simply have ranted and railed and slashed a neck or two at random to vent his frustration. Instead, he had not only anticipated her confrontation, he had prepared for it, had planned and manoeuvred her into that state of humiliation. This kind of subtle manoeuvring was wholly unlike the Ravana she had known all her life, something new. ‘You are right. He has changed his methods. And we have both been played for fools.’

  Vibhisena nodded glumly. ‘Perhaps more than we know.’

  She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  He glanced around nervously. ‘We are still in his Tower, my queen. As you know … ’ He left unsaid that the Pushpak watched over everyone for him, and no doubt reported to him if anyone said or did anything amiss. One of the many advantages of having ten heads and the ability to switch from one line of thought to another instantly was that Ravana could keep track of dozens of different threads all at once.

  She nodded, approving his caution. ‘Come. My head is dizzy from all this debating and discussion. I need to clear it. Let us take in some fresh air.’

  Vibhisena cleared his throat. ‘Perhaps we could perambulate the Apsara Gardens, my queen? It would be an invigorating change.’

  ‘Excellent.’ She smiled. And willed a portal to open, permitting her exit from the tower.

  She had expected resistance from the Pushpak, perhaps even an outright refusal. Instead, she was shocked to find a portal opening almost at once, and through the portal, open sky and distant mountain ranges were visible. Was it this easy, then? She cursed herself for a fool again. Ravana had never said she was a prisoner here. It was she who had been seduced by the comforts and luxuries of this self-contained world. Perhaps the air itself had contained some kind of drug, softening her resolve and numbing her normally suspicious nature.

  They stepped out into a path that led directly to the Apsara Gardens, even though the gardens were a good ten miles outside the main city limits. Looking back, she saw the portal wink shut, and beyond it, amidst the cityscape of whitewashed rooftops and gleaming gold-encircled spires, the white-and-gold spear that was the Tower of Ravana rise above the city. She looked around. They were standing on the avenue that led to the arching gateway of the Apsara Gardens. Ahead was a plaque she had commissioned herself, commemorating her parents to whose memory she had dedicated this botanical preserve. Within this protected space were the rarest plants, most of which had been all but extinguished in the destruction of Lanka thirteen years ago. She had painstakingly restored their lines and overseen their sustenance here. Few rakshasas ever came here. Unlike the rar
e exceptions such as Vibhisena and herself, most of her kind preferred the sweaty noise and bustle of big cities. In their own way, they were as rare as the plants she had preserved here. Even now, there was only a crippled broken-sur munching desultorily at some shrubbery, probably one of the many semi-tame creatures that wandered in from the surrounding wilds. The creature raised its head briefly to eye Vibhisena and her warily, seemed to find them unalarming, then continued its listless munching.

  The Pushpak had gone so far as to deposit them directly at their destination. She wondered if the celestial device would pick them up again when they wished to go back … if they wished to go back? She thought it might. A suspicion entered her mind and she looked around sharply, trying to discern whether the sunlight she felt on her pale skin, the flower-redolent wind that blew her tresses, the insects buzzing in the air, were all real and not more of the Pushpak’s chicanery. Finally, satisfied that they were indeed out of the tower’s realm of control—or at least out of its physical boundaries—she told Vibhisena to walk. Once they were through the arched entranceway and walking one of the labyrinthine paths, she turned to him.

  ‘What did you mean? What else has my husband been plotting?’

  He hesitated as if deciding where to start. ‘Sister, I cannot know everything that occupies Ravana’s myriad minds. I can only tell you what I have observed for myself and deduced rationally.’

  She nodded, eager for him to go on. ‘Very well, tell me everything you know.’

  He began by describing his visit to the tower some weeks ago. About the many levels he had seen, the mass-scale orgies in progress, the unspeakable sights. She did not question him on any of those matters, fornication was the opiate of the rakshasa race; despite Vibhisena’s Brahmanical disapproval of such behaviour, she was not overly troubled by it. She would not narrow her thinking and focus on things that caused no real harm, to her or to her people.