She smiled at her own thoughts running away from her. Even now, somewhere deep within, hope of marriage and sons flickered. That was why Bhishma’s offer, shocking as it was, had been faintly alluring. Women were made that way, to create and nurture life, whereas men seemed to wish to erect a structure merely to have the choice of razing it to the ground. She thought again of Shikha, who must be lying in her bed now, on her side, combing her hair with the fingers of one hand and murmuring a hymn or a ballad to herself. That was the image that shall endure till the very end of man, she thought, the image of a woman fulfilling life’s very purpose: that of creating life.
The feast of midsummer was five nights away, and through the open window she heard sounds of people laughing and plying their tools – the thump of spades against rocks, the snip of shears, the squeak of the water-carrier’s balance. Generally she would be in gay spirits at this time of the year, but today her soul refused to warm. The people of Gandhar did not know of the storm clouds gathering in the horizon. They were like her, not able to see beyond only a short distance, ignorant of even the possibility that bad times may be lurking ahead.
The attendant at the door knocked softly, and when she called out to him to enter, he came in holding a candle in front of him. Bowing, he said, ‘There is a man who wishes to see you, my lady.’
‘At this hour? Command him to return tomorrow, and I shall see him in open court.’
The boy hesitated. ‘He has said that if you knew of the purpose of his visit, you shall call him in even at the midnight hour.’
Gandhari sat up, piqued. ‘Did he tell you why he wishes to see me?’
‘He has not, my lady, but he has sent with me this gold coin that he wishes you to see.’
She waved him into the room and took the coin from him. She bent toward the lamp and held it up close to her eyes so that she could see the engraving on it. It had none. Both the surfaces of the coin were smooth and cool as polished granite, and the edges of the circle had been rounded. She turned it over in her hand to see if she could make out any marking whatsoever. She weighed it in her palm to reconfirm what she had known the moment she had held it – that it was gold.
‘Summon him in,’ she said, ‘and call two of my guards to stand by me while I receive him.’
‘As you wish, Your Highness.’
The first thing that Gandhari saw was the yellow gleam of light in which the man’s hair seemed to glow. But it was only there a minute, and it could have been a trick of the lamps, for as soon as he stepped in and bowed to her, his hair appeared the darkest shade of black. The skin on his face was as smooth as the discus he had sent her through her attendant, and on each of his bare shoulder blades, she saw two perfect solid white circles. The gold coin he wore around his neck, hanging against his hairless dark chest, was identical to the one in her hand. He wore silver bracelets around his wrists.
He was dressed in the manner of a trader, in loose silks and gem-studded shoes, but he had none of the furtive bearing of one. He looked at her without emotion, as though he had been carved in stone; only his eyes – reddish brown pupils, long black lashes – distinguished him from the idol of the Creator in the corner.
As the man walked closer to her, she realized that his towering height had added to the illusion that his build was slight. In reality his shoulders were broad, and his torso tapered sharply down to his waist and hips. His arms had the smooth, graceful fluidity of a river.
Gandhari felt glad for the two spearmen that flanked her on both sides, though the man appeared strong enough to take care of the guards if he so wished. Across his shoulders a white cloth bag slung carelessly, making a light jingling sound with each stride he took.
She entwined her hands in front of her and crossed her legs. The man bowed again and said, ‘Princess Gandhari, I bring you good tidings from the icy mountains in the East.’
‘I know of no king or kingdom there,’ she said, acknowledging him with a wave. ‘Which king do you serve?’
Her visitor smiled a little. She saw a flash of silvery teeth behind black lips. ‘Perhaps that is not as important as the issue that has sent me here.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘But you do not make a good impression, sir, refusing to tell me of your king. What if you belong to an enemy of mine?’
‘Do you think I come hither from the court of the Kurus?’
‘I know not, and truth be told I have not seen the likes of you in all of North Country, but I must be on my guard, sir.’
He pulled his lower garment to one side to free his legs, and sat down on the seat next to hers, the same chair which Bhishma occupied the day before. Looking at this man now she saw an image of the smug prince of Hastinapur, grinning at her from behind his fingers. She bit the inside of her lips.
He nodded. ‘I know your hatred for the one they call Bhishma, for he burns with the same fire against our people, the people of the holy mountain of Meru.’
So it did exist, then, the holy mountain. All her life she had seen sages come from the north and sing praises of life on the mountain, but she had always thought they were tales of fancy, of imagination spruced up by the strange herbs that people said grew in the forests there. If this man had been a sage, she would probably have laughed in his face and sent him away, but she saw in his face a calm she had seldom seen in any other. If this man said that he was from Meru, she felt inclined to believe him.
‘I have come to see you, my lady,’ he said, ‘because it has come to my notice that both of us have a common enemy.’ His voice was thin and reedy, yet so deep that it dripped with male energy. ‘If you become friends with the people of Meru, perhaps, together, we could gain victory over Hastinapur.’
‘You have not yet told me of your name, sir’, she said, ‘nor have you told me how you know of Gandhar’s duel with Hastinapur.’
‘My name is Kubera.’ He glanced about himself. ‘I am the mine-keeper on Meru, but Indra uses me also as a tradesman, and it is in that respect that I wish to speak with you.’ He paused to pull his bag more securely around his shoulders. ‘As for how we know your story, we have followed the tale of the two kingdoms from the day of the battle of Kamyaka, my lady.’
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘so you know much.’
‘We know everything there is to know.’
‘But how shall I trust you?’ asked Gandhari, keeping her face wooden. ‘I have only met you now, and I know not why you seek my friendship when you have a mine of your own.’
‘Trust,’ he said, looking away at the window. Gandhari saw the distant fires of the mines as little yellow spots on his eyes. ‘I do not believe that you have a choice of whether to trust me or not, Your Highness. I have been to all the other kingdoms that you wished to trade with, and I have seen all that I needed to see. You have no choice but to trust me.’
Gandhari thought for a second, then said, ‘Yes, that may be so. But why do you do this? If the Meru people have all they need, why do they come to me with an offer of friendship? How do you gain from this?’
‘Hastinapur’s fall is our gain, my lady,’ said Kubera. ‘Bhishma’s dream is to unite all of North Country and mount an invasion on the Meru, the likes of which we have never seen before.’
‘Surely Meru is strong enough to defend herself?’
‘Not if all the kingdoms of North Country unite against us. We may still win, but that war will take a lot of lives, ours and those of earthmen. We cannot allow that.’
‘Then why do you not invade Hastinapur right away and take it before it takes you?’
Kubera smiled, and she realized that she had spoken like her brother Shakuni would, eager for war and destruction without diligence or thought. ‘We do not approve of war unless it is necessary. It may come to pass that Gandhar and Meru shall join forces against Hastinapur in the near future, but for that you must give us your promise of friendship.’
‘And what do I get in return for this promise of friendship?’
‘Do I have it
, by your word?’
She hesitated, and for a fleeting second she wished she had accepted Bhishma’s offer of marriage and had gone away before this man of the mountains had come looking for her. But the feeling vanished just as quickly as it appeared, and her sight seemed to sharpen. As she gazed at him, she saw the lines on his arms, the spotless skin that looked like just fallen snow, only in grey, the deep red eyes and the black beady irises. He blinked once.
She looked away. Once again everything was smudges. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you have my word.’
Kubera took out his carver and slate from the bag and set it on his lap. ‘If you tell me all the items that you trade with Hastinapur, Your Majesty,’ he said, ‘I shall pass it on to our traders and they will begin delivering them to you beginning next month.’
She shook her head. ‘No, we cannot begin so soon. Bhishma’s army will destroy your route. We must hide your caravans somehow. We must…’
‘You do not need to hide anything, my lady,’ said Kubera. ‘The path from here to the mountain is laden with mist. Our traders are trained to conceal themselves well, and they have the means to thicken the mist when they need to.’
‘Indeed?’
He smiled. ‘On the Meru, we devote great portions of our lives to the study of Mysteries, my lady. This is one such, one that Bhishma himself has done much to probe.’
‘It is true, then? He did live among the Celestials.’
‘Indeed. He is the son of Ganga, our Lady of the River. His childhood was spent in Brihaspati’s hermitage, they say. Though I did not get a chance to see him when he lived up there, people still speak of him.’
‘Fondly or otherwise?’
His smile steeled. ‘Some fondly, some otherwise.’
‘I take it that you do not share your people’s enthusiasm for him.’
‘No, my lady, but I do not hate him, either. He has done more good than harm to the mountain so far, of that I am certain.’
‘And yet you wish to see him destroyed.’
‘That is because of the harm that he promises to bring us in the future.’ He stretched his shoulders once by turning them around in a circle. He prodded at this slate with his carver. ‘Now. If you please?’
From under her upper garment Gandhari retrieved the trade parchment that Chyavatana had brought her the day before. Giving it to Kubera, she said, ‘This is likely two or three months old, but you shall have a fair idea if you read it.’ As he took it and began to scan it from top to bottom, she said, ‘I will also need to know your prices, sir. I am prepared to compensate your traders for all the concealment and danger of this route, but I cannot stretch beyond the prices you see on that sheet. Hardly anything remains after the hefty tribute we give Hastinapur, sir; you must certainly know.’
Kubera did not respond to that. His eyes were immersed in the parchment, and his one hand worked the carver over his slate. She doubted if he had heard her at all. She detected a faint odour of musk in the air; it perhaps came from his open cloth sack.
At last he rolled the parchment and returned it to her. ‘We shall give you all of this,’ he said, nodding at his slate. ‘And our items shall be better than Hastinapur’s. Our trees are stronger, our fruits are juicier, our milk is creamier, and our lands more fertile.’
‘More Mysteries, I suppose?’ she asked.
He smiled and shook his head. ‘Just the bracing mountain air. Now, coming to your fears of price.’ He looked up at her. She stiffened. If he asked for a higher price than Hastinapur, she would have to find more men to work at the mines. That would mean raising the amount she would have to pay them all, and the nature of the ‘benefits’ they received. Already in her mind she began to calculate how many waiting-women she would have to train, and how many acres of land she would have to let go from the royal holdings.
Then he said, ‘We will not take any gold from you.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ she said, sitting up, suddenly alert. ‘Did I hear you right?’
‘You did, my lady,’ he said. ‘We shall give you all of this that you ask and more. We have a mine of our own, as I told you, so we need no gold from you.’
‘Then you must need something else? Cattle, perhaps? Land?’
He shook his head to both. ‘We just need you to build your treasury as quickly as you can. We will help you by giving you a portion of the gold that we produce, but we use it for trade ourselves, and not much gets left over. But Indra has told me that he shall do whatever it takes to increase our gold production so that we could replace some of your stolen gold.’ He raised a finger in caution. ‘But most of it must come from you. We will support your populace until then, but you must get more people into your mines.’
She nodded. If they were willing to take the burden of Gandhar on their shoulders without taking anything, she thought, they would come to her at the very end and demand something as payment. Perhaps they would ask her to lend her army, to which she would gladly agree. Even if it were not that, even if they just wanted to raise two strong kingdoms in place of one, in the hope that power would balance itself that way, it would mean that Gandhar would rediscover her path to glory. So no matter what their future price would be for this favour, it seemed to her that it was worth paying, for it meant that her kingdom would live for another day.
‘I am deeply grateful to you for this help that you offer, my lord,’ she said, bowing to him. ‘I only hope that Gandhar would prove herself worthy of it.’
‘I am certain that it will,’ he replied, setting his slate and carver back into his bag and tying the knot. The smell of musk became less intense. As he got up, he said, ‘Think not that we are doing this out of altruism, my lady. Our interests are deeply entwined with Hastinapur’s fall, and we think that Gandhar’s rise is vital to achieve that.’
‘I understand.’ She got up and walked behind him to the door.
He turned around and inclined his head. ‘We shall talk about the price when we are able to bring an end to everything, just as planned. But I shall come to you after the midsummer feast has passed, on the onset of the first monsoon.’
She bowed to him. ‘I shall await your visit.’ When she opened her eyes and raised her head, she saw that the man had already left. Only a whiff of musk lingered in the dark corridor.
NINE
The morning after the feast, even though hours had passed by after sunrise, the city did not stir. Gandhari stood at the window and watched the empty lanes and streets. Near the north-eastern wall, the statue of Idobhargava stood out for its stark loneliness. It was customary to have one guard on duty by the foot of the pedestal, but today even he was absent. She wondered if the tall and thin vault-keeper would be found behind his desk, poring over his ledger and muttering to himself. No matter, she thought, the time would arrive shortly enough for those robbers to leave the city.
A knock appeared on the door, and the three men she had summoned arrived, dressed in their royal finery. Only Shakuni came barefooted, his eyes red and swollen. She made a mental note to find out which woman he had lain with the night before and have a quiet word with her. All her maids had been trained in ways and means to prevent getting with child after laying with a man, but one needed to repeat the message every now and then. One never knew when a maiden would get it into her woolly head that she should become a mother. Most of them did not protest, and for those who did, there were other ways of dealing with them.
All in all, things would be much easier if Shakuni could control his impulses. Indeed, did she not have eyes for the handsome men of her court? They would come to her chamber too, if for no other reason but that she was the queen. But they were royals – palace gossip always found ways to get out on the street, so it was always better to kill that flame right when it took birth. But then Shakuni was a man; her father had been the same too, only rarely spending the night in his bed alone. Every time he would beckon a waiting-woman or two, Gandhari would look at him, and he would say that it was a hot night and t
hat he needed someone to fan him to sleep.
Men’s desires did not die as simply as a woman’s, she had heard her father say, and so when Shakuni began to take maidens to his chamber – around the time he turned thirteen or so – she pretended not to notice. She had once or twice told him to be careful, and he had nodded, but he never had to deal with the women afterward. They came to her, and she would assuage their bruises – not just the ones on their bodies – with some soft words and a gold necklace or two.
Chyavatana and Adbudha took their seats. Shakuni sat opposite them, to her right, draped in black and gold. He had a curious way of leaning to one side even when he sat; she had never understood why. She assumed that he was habituated to being lopsided. She turned to the other two men.
The Rise of Hastinapur Page 28