He saw the silhouette shake his head sharply. ‘In five days she will be lost to you forever. Not killed, but something far worse. You must go to her now. This very day even as we speak, she faces the greatest crisis of her life, and without your urgent assistance, she will not survive it. There is little point in waging a war to win her back if you lose her even before the war is begun. This is the missive I was sent to convey to you.’
The figure looked up. Already, Rama saw, he was growing insubstantial, starting to fade. Wisps of his silhouette were being pulled away from his form, like a cloud of smoke being pulled apart by wind.
‘It is time now. I must go. But in going, I will say one more thing. Ravana. Ask yourself why he has ten heads. And what that has to do with you. That is the key. Answer that question, Rama, and you will know the secret of defeating the lord of Lanka … ’
The last words were lost to the wind, the form itself whipped away like a feather taken by a gust. Where the shape and form of his father had stood a moment ago, now there was nothing but empty air and a hard surface of stone.
Rama rushed forward. But his hands closed on empty air. The end of the bridge lay below his feet, sloping sharply down into the ocean. A wave crashed softly against the bottom, spray splashing his feet. The tide was rising, and so was the wind.
‘Father!’ he cried out, incoherently. ‘Father!’
But there was nothing there. Only the wind, wailing around him, echoing his anguish.
NINE
‘Rama.’
He heard Lakshman’s voice calling him for the fourth or fifth time, but did not turn. He was sitting in the same position he had been in since the early hours of the morning, sitting on the edge of the end of the bridge and staring out to sea. The tide had come in since then and the waves breaking around him had drenched him completely, several times over. The eastern sky was vermilion-tinted with a hint of a blush of peach, and the silhouettes of great flocks of birds, as substantial as large clouds, wheeled and circled slowly high above the distant mountain ranges. The air was less cold now but a nip still remained.
‘Rama.’ Lakshman’s feet appeared in his peripheral vision, to his right. His brother dropped to the ground, seating himself on the rocks beside Rama. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
Rama could not bring himself to even look at Lakshman. Far behind in the distance, he could hear the usual sounds on the seafront, the various noises of a million-odd bears and vanars milling about in semi-organised chaos, taking their places, shouting the usual inane things to one another that fellow soldiers usually did when performing mindless tasks, but also excited, enthusiastic, eager, something most ordinary soldiers rarely were when engaged in such brainless labour. He felt a pang of conscience again. Was he truly leading this force? To what purpose? What end would this war serve? Was it necessary at all?
His brother was silent, waiting with a patience he had not shown of late. Lakshman sensed the turmoil within Rama: he
knew him well. Perhaps even better than Sita knew him. What was it she always said? My husband, my love, you’re like Brahma-dev. Four faces, and no matter which one I happen to see, they are all the same!
‘If it’s Hanuman’s state that troubles you,’ Lakshman said quietly. ‘Then I will gladly go and seek him out. Kambunara knows the caves they have gone into. It is a labyrinth that tunnels beneath the ranges in the east, the mouth is but a few miles away.’
When Rama did not say anything in response to that for several more minutes, he said, ‘King Sugreeva has come to join us, Rama. He arrived a few minutes ago. He has brought fresh troops with him from Kiskindha, as the city is now secure and he wishes to take part personally in the war against Lanka. Will you not come and greet him at least?’
Still, Rama made no reply. Lakshman made yet another attempt to draw him out. ‘Rama, everyone is waiting for us. Nala saw you sitting here and tried to call out to you, but when you did not answer his calls, he came back and was very anxious. He is concerned that you are upset with him because of the change in method. But look, Rama, his impossible idea works! Look at the progress we made in a few hours yesterday. And with everybody confused and unable to understand the new system. Today, we are all prepared and well-briefed, and we will do exceedingly well. You know,’ he laughed self-deprecatingly, ‘I thought that you were mad to put your trust in these vanars. And when the bears showed up … ’ He shook his head. ‘But now, I don’t think I would want any other army behind us. What they lack in discipline and training they more than make up for in vigour and enthusiasm. And their loyalty … their loyalty is amazing. So many gave their lives carrying rocks and stones! They died without even seeing a day of combat. Think how bravely they will fight once the war itself begins. We are within reach of our goal, Rama. There is no need to despair. Nala says we will finish the bridge in five days. I believe him. Five days more, maybe less, and we will be there, on the shores of Lanka.’ He clenched his fist and shook it at the open sea, shouting at the top of his voice. ‘And then we shall show that ten-headed pig how we Ayodhyans wage war!’
Lakshman looked at Rama closely for the first time, lowering his hand and his tone of voice as well. ‘Rama, whatever it is that ails you today, talk to me, and I will help you rid yourself of it. I know full well the kind of black despair that steals across the heart in the dark watches of the night. I have battled my own inner demons too, as fierce as any horde of kumbha-rakshasas. It is a war that I fear we Kshatriyas wage all our lives, and one that is never truly won, nor ever finished. But we will fight together in this struggle, as in all else. We have set our feet upon this path, and we will follow it to the ends of the earth. Take my hand, my brother. Take my hand and rise again, and face a new day.’
Rama let Lakshman grip his hand tightly and raise him up, half-lifting his weight until he was forced to come to his feet. Lakshman’s face was anxious and set in a stubborn, determined, no-surrender-no-retreat expression that was so like the face of the little boy he recalled from their gurukul days, the little boy who would stand with him against any number of opponents on the battle-training field, even though he was on the verge of tears and knew they could no longer win the practise bout, the little boy who was closer to his elder brother than his own twin Shatrugan.
He leaned forward and kissed his brother on the side of his face, and said, ‘Father came to see me last night.’
Lakshman froze. His eyes met Rama’s. There was a wild light in them, reflections of the first rays of the about-to-rise sun in the east. ‘Truly?’
‘It was some kind of shadow image of him, a soul-reflection. He did not stay long. He had been told to send me a message and once he had delivered it, he vanished like smoke.’
Lakshman stared at Rama silently, absorbing this extraordinary turn of events. Finally, he asked, ‘What was the message?’
Rama sucked in a deep breath, inhaling the sharp tangy salt of the spray mist that enveloped them like a cloud, produced by the constant pounding of the waves against the bridge. ‘Sita is in grave distress. Extreme peril of some sort. If we do not reach her in time, she will be lost forever.’
Lakshman’s eyes flickered. His jaw shook a little. Then he said, ‘Five days. Maybe even four. Nala says—’
‘It will be too late. Father’s ghost said today was her day of reckoning.’
‘Day of reckoning?’
‘Or words to that effect. He did not explain. It was all very brief, very dreamlike. He called me here to the end of the bridge in the dead of night. He said if we do not reach Sita today and aid her, she will be worse than dead.’
‘Worse than dead.’
‘What are we to do, Lakshman? Can we build a boat? I wanted to wake you and start chopping down a tree that very minute. But I realised that even if we lash a raft or a skiff together quickly, Sampati the vulture told Jambavan—and even Jatayu had told us often before—that the strait to Lanka cannot be crossed in a small craft.’
‘Yes,’ Lakshman stared unse
eingly at the ocean. ‘Yes, that is so. The currents from the southern seas are immense, you can see that even now from the force of the tides. A small craft will not survive the crossing, and even if it holds together, you are more likely to be carried off course, out to the open seas, hundreds of miles away from any landmass. It requires a well-weighted ship and knowledge of the tides and currents. Jatayu often told us that this was the reason why it took Ravana so long to launch his invasion. He had first to construct sufficient ships to carry his huge army across the strait. And that construction took over two decades. We would need a large ship, at least twenty tons weight, to cross.’
‘And no matter how fast we work, we cannot complete the bridge today, can we?’ Rama heard the hope as well as the hopelessness in his own voice. Yet, he was unable to stop himself from asking the question.
Lakshman shook his head sadly. ‘Impossible. Even four or five days seems a miracle. Not even Nala can find a way to breach this expanse in one day.’
‘Then we are lost.’ Rama let his hands hang limply by his side, lowering his head. ‘We are truly lost. What good is this war if we cannot save Sita?’
Lakshman looked at him, his eyes mirroring Rama’s pain. He embraced his brother, clasping him tightly, held him a long moment, then released him without saying a word. His eyes were glistening when they parted.
‘Rama! Lakshman!’
The voice was that of a vanar. They turned together.
Sakra stood a few yards away, looking more cheerful than usual. His tail was upright behind him, swaying slowly from side to side, like a cat’s.
‘He’s back, my lords. My brother, Hanuman, is back!’
***
She was bound and gagged by the rakshasis before they took her away. Gagged! As if she would scream their city down if her mouth was left open! She supposed it was to keep up the pretense that mortals were foul-mouthed creatures who could not stop shrieking obscenities, part of the whole elaborate picture they had built of her. It was supremely ironic: they had simply taken all their faults and given them to her. They did not even have to fabricate qualities, only wrongly attribute them.
A way opened in mid-air, some kind of sorcerous portal. Through it she could see a long, winding passageway, with white walls and golden pillars, but around the rim of the open portal, the forest remained unchanged. She recalled seeing something similar before and racked her brains to remember it. She was weak from hunger and thirst, and brain-weary from the days of mental torture and anguish. But it came to her as the first of the rakshasis went through. In Mithila. After the swayamvara. Her swayamvara. Ravana had gone through a portal in the air much like this one. She almost smiled bitterly. And yet Mandodhari had claimed that Rama was a sorcerer who used illusion and magic to propagate the false impression of his superiority as a warrior. It was obvious how the queen of rakshasis had formed her misimpression of Rama; she had been fed a carefully reconstructed self-image of her own husband!
Unhappy with her slowness, Vikata shoved her through the portal with a vicious kick. Sita fell through and landed on her shoulder hard enough to knock the breath out of her. She had twisted her body to avoid landing on her front, protecting her belly. She grimaced at the pain. But they were prodding her and kicking her and she struggled to her feet as quickly as possible before one of them kicked her in the middle.
They snarled as they pushed her along, their foul breath nauseating her. She struggled to keep her balance as she was half-shoved and half-pulled through winding, white corridors lined with elaborately carved gold-plated pillars. At strategic points, enormous portraits had been hung, depicting what seemed to be famous rakshasa kings. She guessed they were Ravana’s ancestors, the famed Pulastya line that she had heard the rakshasas mention in the course of their tormenting. Every few dozen yards there was an elaborately carved doorway guarded by rakshasa sentries in matching garb, heavily armed. Everything seemed vaguely familiar and at first she put it down to her own disorientation and weakness. It took her a few moments more to realise why.
A gasping chuckle escaped her.
The short, rotund rakshasi was sniffing at her mouth in a trice. ‘What’s that? What do you find funny about all this?’
Sita knew better than to answer. She just kept her head down and kept moving. But in her mind, she was laughing incredulously. It’s all modelled on Suryavansha Palace. Ravana’s wonderful new palace or tower or whatever he calls it is modelled on the royal palace of Ayodhya!
And now that she had made the connection, she began to see more similarities at every turn. The garb of the rakshasa sentries, the emblems on their shoulder-clasps, the symbols carved above doorways, the style of art used in the portraits and their framing, the pattern of the pillars, everything was so acutely reminiscent of Ayodhya that she might well have thought she was in some phantasmagoric nightmare if not for the throbbing in her bones and head and the painful prodding and elbow-nudging that never let her forget where and with whom she was.
Finally, the corridor broadened and rose to vaulting heights, and rich deep-pile carpeting that was lined on both sides by armed sentries; these were garbed somewhat differently from the others she had seen, their dhotis the same but their oddly patterned anga-vastras streaked with purple patches. The rakshasas wearing them even looked different from the others, their features less grotesque and deformed, more like Ravana himself, in short. She guessed they were Pulastyas, but what did all that purple remind her of? Of course. PFs. The Purana Wafadars of Ayodhya, the king’s personal guard, made up of the oldest, most loyal veterans. That fit as well with the overall me-too scheme of design, she thought bitterly, the flash of humour fled from her as quickly as it had arisen. If you were going to imitate Ayodhya so slavishly in the superficials, then might as well go all the way. What next? A sabha hall like the great court of Suryavansha Palace? A Sunwood throne? A queen … She sucked in a sharp breath. A queen like Maharani Kausalya … or her daughter-in-law, Princess Sita Janaki? Of course. Was this Ravana’s plan, then? To turn Lanka into a faux Ayodhya, complete with an Ayodhyan queen transplanted to his bedside? If so, surely he was going about it the wrong way.
The rakshasis halted before the great doors. Sita took a moment to glance around, rolling her eyes without turning her head—that would have fetched her another good blow or two— and noted that the architecture of the hallway was quite impossible. The ceiling could not have suddenly grown ten times higher, nor the light so much brighter, despite there being fewer mashaals here than in the corridors. Then she remembered sheepishly: the Pushpak. It was all asura sorcery. That was how Ravana could design his entire palace to look so similar to Ayodhya’s house of power. Nothing was what it seemed here, not even the light streaming past her face, or the air she was breathing, redolent of jasmine and lotus bloom and the unmistakably, unconcealable reek of rakshasa sweat and ichor.
The great doors opened and she was ushered into the hall, the sound of her name, along with some arcane rakshasa pronouncements, echoing from the vaulting ceiling and walls of the enormous chamber, proclaimed loudly by a crier who even sounded exactly like the crier in Suryavansha Hall.
And then the great doors shuddered shut behind her with a terrible finality and she was in the court of Ravana.
TEN
‘The charge is murder,’ Ravana said imperiously, leaning with one elbow on the armrest of the massive throne—which was, as she had presumed earlier, almost identical to the Sunwood throne of Ayodhya. ‘You will be permitted to present your defence here and then will be judged guilty or innocent, as the court deems fit.’
She was standing at the foot of the great dais, bound in chains, like some dangerous beast rather than the piteously weak and battered woman she was. She had to raise her head to look up at Ravana’s face, or rather, faces. Mandodhari sat to his right, dressed more extravagantly than Sita had seen her till now. Around them sat a semicircle of important-looking rakshasas, including one young specimen who was striking in his sheer ugliness
. He oozed masculine virility, and his alien eyes roved freely over the length and breadth and width of her body, gleaming with undisguised lust. He bore a striking resemblance to the queen of rakshasas, and he and another rakshasa beside him were positioned strategically to Ravana’s left, which made her think they might be sons or brothers of the ruling pair.
She longed for a sword to put out his eyes.
On the other hand, if lustful gazes offended her so, then she would have to put out a thousand pairs of rakshasa eyes. For as she had walked the long central carpetway to the foot of the dais, half a thousand rakshasas lined up on both sides, seated as well as standing, had eyed her, grunting and snorting and sniffing in a manner that left no doubt as to their interest in her unusual mortal anatomy. She had kept her head up high, and walked slowly, but with as much dignity as she could muster. It had been painful, but she was determined to hold up her end to the very last. Like the grove of Ashoka trees in which she had spent the last several days, she would break but would not bend.
‘I will speak for the victim,’ Queen Mandodhari said, rising from her throne with a rustling of delicate fabrics and tinkling of jewels. She stepped down the broad steps of the polished granite dais, taking a spot some yards from Sita. ‘I am ready to present my case. Will the court hear me now?’
‘A moment,’ Ravana said, raising his hand. His heads scanned the hall, seeking out someone. ‘We must have someone to represent the assailant as well. Who will present her case?’
From the stony silence behind her, Sita could tell that nobody was in a hurry to champion her. She was not surprised. Which rakshasa would wish to go up against the king and queen of Lanka? Especially when they had already made their personal bias clear by referring to her as ‘the assailant’.
To her surprise, a voice spoke from close beside her.
‘I will.’
RAMAYANA Part 3_PRINCE AT WAR Page 24