‘I will touch your feet, Brother,’ Devaki cried.‘I will send her away to the farthest of kingdoms. I shall foster her at the humblest of homes. She shall not even know of you her whole life, my lord. I only beg you that you let her live.’
He clapped his hands once again, at which two more soldiers came in, bearing spears pointed straight upwards. Kamsa waved toward Devaki. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No!’ One of the soldiers held her in a firm but gentle grip, and the other picked up the baby along with her sheets and returned to Kamsa. With his forefingers her brother lifted the edge of the white hood that covered the baby’s head, and he gazed at her for a moment.
‘It is not I, Devaki,’ he said, ‘but you who killed this baby. You killed this baby by having her against my wishes.’
Devaki stopped resisting against the soldier and slumped back against the cushion of the bed. She heard the laboured breathing of her husband on the other edge, hanging by his arms between the two other soldiers, his head bent, his eyes staring at the ground. That sight of him jolted her. ‘My lord,’ she said, ‘if you do not stand up to my brother, you have forsaken your right to share my bed for the rest of your life.’
Vasudev raised his head to look at her, then back again at the ground.
Devaki turned to the soldier and spat in his face. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and held her tighter. ‘Brother!’ she said, grimacing as his brown fingers closed around her wrist. ‘Do not commit crimes against your own kin. The gods will not forgive you.’
‘This is not my crime, Devaki,’ he said, his face wooden.
‘You may tell yourself that is so, and you may believe it, if that helps you sleep well. But the blood on your hands will be washed one day, Brother, whether you like it or not.’
‘If you truly care so much for me, you shall have no more children!’ he said, and with a wave at the soldiers to release Devaki and her husband, he turned and went out of the room, taking her daughter with him. The door guard stood in the corner, his left hand still clutching his sword, his right arm rigid by his side. After the sounds of footsteps and spears had died down, with the only sound they could hear coming from the thundering clouds, the guard came to the foot of the bed and bowed.
Devaki looked at him. Only now she noticed that she did not recall having seen his face before. The previous guard had been older, with tufts of grey hair peering out at the ears from underneath his crown. This one was younger, bigger, and had a face as lifeless as a mud idol. She tried to look into his eyes to hold his gaze, but found that the man never seemed to look at anything.
‘I come here from across the river, from Kunti,’ said the man, and at his words Vasudev looked up, his eyes buried deep within the mass of hair on his head and his face. ‘I was bade here by Princess Pritha nine moons ago, and I have come to save your child.’
Vasudev laughed and hung his head again. Devaki said, ‘You have come a few weeks too late, my good man.’
‘No, my lady,’ said the guard. ‘I did not wish to save your first child; indeed, I did arrive too late for that. But I can – and shall, by the gods – save your next child, should you wish to have one.’
‘I do not,’ said Devaki. ‘I do not wish to see another of my children being devoured by that madman.’
‘And you will not. I have persuaded the head guard of this castle to appoint me as your personal guard. I shall be with you always.’
Devaki asked, ‘But … why does my child need to be saved?’
‘I know not for certain, my lady, but the High Priests have fled the kingdom, and Mathura does not have people who know the Mysteries of the black stone. Word is not out of Mathura’s walls yet, but it will get out, slowly, and when it reaches Magadha, Mathura will be under threat.’
‘Let it!’ said Devaki venomously. ‘I do not care if Mathura falls.’
‘But if you could do something to save her, my lady,’ said the guard, ‘would you not?’
Devaki began to say no, but something stopped her. Whether Mathura would be saved or not, the thought of foiling Kamsa’s designs tempted her. She did not know whether the priest who had foreseen the king’s death was right or wrong, but now, she thought of her child returning to avenge all the wrongs that had been done to her, and she smiled. From across the bed, Vasudev returned her smile, and she knew that he was thinking the same thing.
The guard retreated, and the door shut with a soft click. Devaki looked out of the window at the low purple clouds, and thought of Pritha.
Pritha looked at herself in the mirror. In the last nine moons of carrying her son, her breasts had grown bigger and softer, and now if she stood erect and raised her chin just a little, she could pass for being a queen. A year ago she had hated mirrors and other shiny surfaces, and even now the shape of her nose made her cringe, but she had grown enough at the right places to feel that she was now a woman.
With one hand she flattened the palm-sized roll of paper that had arrived today from Mathura, concealed in the red turban of a travelling fortune-teller. It only had one line, but it told Pritha all that she had wanted to know. ‘The bird is inside the cage,’ it said.
She looked out at the sky and wondered if she should eat. Carrying a child had killed her appetite; indeed, if Aganyi had not forcefully emptied vessel after vessel into her, only the gods knew what would have happened to the child. Surya had been right; after her moment of anger had passed, she never once considered getting rid of her belly. She had received suggestions – subtle ones from Agnayi, more direct ones from her father – but she had stood firm and insisted on having her son.
She had never stopped to question her choice. But now, as Agnayi was preparing to take him away to the Yamuna and hand him over to the fisherpeople, she marvelled at herself. Did I bear this child all these months only to let him go now? And why do I wish to give him away? Just because Surya told me that I should? Her sons would play great roles in the coming story of Hastinapur, he had said, and she must fulfil her part in the tale; she must ensure that the sons she would bear through the Celestials would all be reared in Hastinapur – it did not matter whether they grew up in the royal palace or in a fisherman’s hut.
But all this to what end? Surya said that a strong Hastinapur would lead to a strong North Country, but why did Meru need a strong North Country? She had heard many tales about the Celestials, but from her experience with Surya, they were not very different from men – men who perhaps held deeper knowledge of the Mysteries, but men nonetheless. And men did not embark upon journeys and make plans without selfish reasons. What was Meru’s in this case?
Bhishma was a half-Celestial, of that much Pritha was certain. Did the people of Meru wish that their own kin should rule over North Country? Even if they did, her sons would be as much human as Celestial, just like Bhishma. Their loyalties would lie with Hastinapur, for they would be reared there. If Meru was hoping to lend her sons to Earth so that she could gain a stranglehold on the land of North Country, certainly there was a better way than this?
She did not pretend to herself that she understood Meru’s part in all this, but the immediate future for her and for her sons looked good, and she could see no storm clouds for as far ahead as she could see. She would do as Surya bade her, then, but she would rear her children to be faithful and loyal to Hastinapur over all else, even their own blood and kin. So when the Celestials of Meru tried – if they ever did – to rule North Country through their sons, they would realize that the High Kings of Hastinapur serve their own men first before anyone else.
Pritha heard the door behind her creak as it slid open, and she turned back to see Agnayi hold a pink silk bundle in her arms. ‘Do not enter, Agnayi,’ she said firmly.
Agnayi stopped at the door and bowed. In these last few months their relationship had changed; gone was the hand-holding and giggling and open declarations of love. Now, with the birth of a child, she seemed to have grown in Agnayi’s eyes to the status of a queen, and Pritha herself felt that Agnayi h
ad grown smaller. There had been a time – which now felt like it was another life – when she had been in awe of her. She no longer remembered why.
‘I have told you already where you are to take him,’ said Pritha, ignoring the shard of pain that had risen in her chest.
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘You have dressed him as I told you to.’
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘You shall take him to the fishermen on the banks of Shurasena that come from Hastinapur. You shall bid them to take him to a nobleman, so that he shall be raised as one.’
‘Yes, my lady.’
She waved him away, and forced herself to turn back to the mirror. She had only looked at him once or twice, and he was but an infant, so his memory would pass in no time at all. If she should ever come across him again, she would not recognize him by his face. But if Surya’s words came true, she would know him by other ways – by the valour of his deeds, perhaps?
Now was not the time to look back, she thought, patting her chest and swallowing the cough that burnt her throat. Her son would look after himself. Now that she had seen to him, she could set her sights northward, to Hastinapur. On the day of the birth of her son, her father had come to ask her if he should begin arrangements for a groom-choosing ceremony, and she had said yes.
In the silence of the room she felt she heard the gurgle of her son, but she closed her eyes and refused to turn back, for that would mean she would have to look at the bed on which she had given birth to him. She plugged her ears with her fingers and counted to ten.
The sounds died away.
Again the door opened behind her, and she looked over her shoulder at the attendant. ‘His Majesty the king has news for you, my lady,’ she said.
Pritha nodded at her to go on.
‘My lady, the prince of Hastinapur has accepted His Majesty’s invitation to attend your groom-choosing ceremony.’
BOOK THREE
THE CITY OF GOLD
PROLOGUE
GANGA SPEAKS
The tale of the Great War is much like the river herself. It breaks off in places, and each tributary flows at its own speed to lands unheard of, until it returns and joins the main river hundreds of leagues downstream. The tale of Amba is, perhaps, the longest such branch, and it would not return to the trunk until long after the weddings of Pandu and Dhritarashtra are but distant memories, until their wives begin to give birth to their children.
In Pritha’s tale, by the time of Durvasa’s visit to Shurasena and Mathura, Dhritarashtra was already married. Hastinapur had already taken her spot atop the pyramid of Great Kingdoms in North Country. But it was not always so. There exists a rocky land to the far north-west, beyond the lands of Madra and Kamboja, which first settled on the bank of River Sindhu but later migrated inward. They call this kingdom Gandhar, the city of gold.
This was the time when Devavrata was set upon uniting the kingdoms of North Country, so that he could one day lead an army of men against the might of Meru. One of the biggest mistakes that Devavrata made in plotting his battle with the dwellers of the mountain was that he thought that we would not watch him, that we would let him assemble the forces of Earth without raising so much as a murmur.
It was only at the very end, when I came to the battlefield of Kurukshetra to take his mortal body away, that I saw the realization in his eyes, that I, his mother, has been his bitterest enemy all his life, that every moment he has lived on Earth, he has pit his wits and strength against me. I longed to tell him that when I schemed against him, I did not do so as his mother but as the lady of the river whose duty it is to protect and serve the mountain. I longed to tell him that besides being a spiteful foe, I was also his dearest friend, the one person who loved him most, the one person who would shed the most tears at his death.
But before I could find the words, he breathed his last, with the same hurt look of knowing in his eyes. I have often thought of that day in the years past, if I should have hastened to remove from his mind the thought of his mother as a wicked crone, but I doubt if he would have understood, much less forgiven me. So, perhaps, it is all for the good.
For one to win, another has to lose. We play this game of winning and losing with such desperate will that we often forget there is only one victor at the very end. If one were to travel down this line of time far enough into the future, or into the past, one would see only the form of the Goddess, standing alone, watching in silence. And yet we go through most of life fighting our little battles, rejoicing in our petty victories, only stopping when the shadow of death darkens our door.
At that moment we come to know that it was all but futile, and we forgive. We forgive all. On her deathbed I found Gandhari smiling and tearful, and her eyes told me that she had made her peace with the world, that she had come to see both those she vanquished and those who vanquished her with the same eye. But she was not always like this. I remember the time when she sat on the throne of Gandhar and ruled with great hope and wisdom. I remember her and her brother, who were just children but fought with more valour than the bravest of warriors for the good of their land.
I must beckon the listener westward now, and a few moons back in time, so that he can peer through my eyes into the royal castle of Gandhar.
ONE
Even after night had fallen, the rocks of Gandhar seemed to glimmer red. Gandhari felt that if one were to pour water upon the flat surfaces, it would hiss and rise up in smoke in a moment. Travellers to Gandhar’s court complained to the queen – only jokingly, but there was truth to even the mildest of quips – that the crumpled land was so hot that they had no need for fireplaces, that whenever they stopped to eat, they could spread their cotton sacks on the ground and break eggs on them. She had heard many such tales in her life, and at first she would jump to her kingdom’s defence, but now that she had been on the throne for a good four years, she had learnt to let them pass with a smile. Gandhar was the wealthiest kingdom in all of North Country and they all knew it. If they wanted to poke fun at its weather, so be it.
She ran her fingertips down the length of the copper net that draped the window. The holes shone with hanging water drops – the only leftover signs of that evening’s rain. She leaned closer to the net and blew at it, sending silver freckles flying out into the night air. When she had been a child, she would sit on this very sill for long hours waiting for the rain, and when it came, she would watch the net fill up with films of water which had swirling purple spots in them. She would lean her temple against the cold, rusted net and watch.
In the distance she saw the flickering yellow fires standing in a row, along the path that led to the mines. Gandhari tried to squint so that she could see better, but her sight had deteriorated these last few years. When she had been young she remembered she could see well enough to spot the swallow nests atop the branches of the oak trees that towered over the rocks. But now the whole tree was but a smudge. The mendicant that attended to her had said that her eyes would get worse and worse until she reached the age of twenty. Three more years, then, she thought.
She had given up thinking about her illness. The first few days after the mendicant had visited them for the first time – when she was about four or so – she had burrowed her head inside her pillow every night and cried. But thirteen years was long enough to accept things that one did not like and could do nothing about.Now, she could even view it with a sense of indifference. Yes, it would have been a larger issue had she been a man, for it would have impeded her from hunting and fighting. But since she was a woman, even if she had been entirely normal, her soldiers would not have allowed her to enter the battlefield or the woods.
For her duties she needed no more than to look a few feet ahead of her and recognize her courtiers. She had already trimmed the size of her assembly to eighteen from her father’s forty-four, and often she asked them to come to the chambers after night had fallen. Shakuni, her brother, came with them and tried to light up a fight, as usual.
She sighed; snubbing him and hoping that he would stay quiet would no longer do. He had to be tutored. She would have to be patient with him.
She remembered that autumn afternoon years ago, when he had been seven and she nine, when he had raced past the rocks and climbed the oak tree, calling out to her to come. She had only trudged behind him, blinking and squinting. By the time she reached the tree, Shakuni had already climbed up to the top, and he was pelting her with dried twigs. She yelled at him to stop, but when he did not, she bent down, picked up a stick, broke it in two, and hurled it into the air.
It missed him by quite a large distance, and he laughed. ‘Come on, sister, is that the best you can do?’ Through her narrowed eyes she could see him crawl along the branch, legs wrapped tight around it. He reached out for some smaller branches and broke them in his tiny hands. But when he threw them at her they hit her on the back of her neck, her arms, and left red scratches on her skin.
‘Do not do that, Shakuni!’ she said. ‘Or I shall tell father to lock you up in the stables!’
‘That is all you can do. You have no fight in you, sister, do you?’
‘I do!’
‘You do not.’ He sent another twig – a big one this time – flying at her shoulder. It drew a wail from her.
‘You rascal!’ she said, and bent down to pick up it up. When she looked up to face him, although she only saw him as a black fuzzy spot against the blue sky, she leaned back and hurled it at him with as much power as she could muster.
The Rise of Hastinapur Page 22