“If you knew what making love was like, you’d understand,” Dhara replied.
Sakhi had an idea from the kiss Bhallika had given her when they saw each other for the first time in the Sakyan capital. Despite his injuries, it was passionate and long, and had sent quivers through her. “I do understand. But I wonder, do all the palace noblewomen change beds every night, or do some sleep with their actual husbands?”
“He will be my husband in a month. On the very day Bhallika will become yours.”
“But I’m not slipping off to Bhallika’s bed.”
“Unthinkable. A good girl like you! Besides, you must let him recover from the beating he got doing the king’s business, and I need you.”
“No you don’t.” Sakhi dropped the comb into her lap.
“I thought you’d be glad to stay with me.” Dhara sniffed.
“You would think Queen Prajapati would want to get me out of the palace.” Sakhi herself wished for it. She fidgeted with the comb.
“Maybe the king has insisted you stay, and she has nothing to do with it.”
“They say she runs the kingdom.”
Dhara gave a hard laugh. “But she never goes to his bed. He’s either with his favorite Addhakashi in the courtesans’ quarter or with a concubine.”
Sakhi let out another sigh. “With all the beauties at court, why me? I’m no beauty.”
“You’re very pretty.” Dhara kissed her cheek. “It’s because you don’t want him. Just don’t worry. You’re safe here.” She slipped out the shuttered door to the royal gardens.
Alone, Sakhi cocked her head at her image in the mirror. She was pretty. Not like that golden-haired girl, but good enough for the green-eyed man from her dreams.
She wrapped herself in a creamy soft cotton antariya and threw her green shawl over her shoulders. Sakhi had clung to it like a talisman since the night of the battle. She blew out the lamps and slipped under the wide bed’s soft linens, stretching and yawning. She wished Dhara would come back. She wanted them to curl together, the way they had back home, and talk about everything. She drifted.
A thud outside. She sat up, alert. One of the clumsy peacocks that wandered everywhere in the royal park, probably. In the middle of the night? A night breeze wafted in. Dhara had neglected to close the shutter. The cool air carried the scent of some exotic flower.
Something crashed on the paving stones.
“Dhara?” Sakhi drew her shawl close.
A shadowy figure filled the doorway.
“Sakhi,” a slurred voice said.
In one motion she threw the covers back and jumped up as King Suddhodana staggered across the room and tumbled across the bed. A whiff of kadamba flower liquor followed him.
“Sakhi,” he said again.
She raced into the garden. With no idea where she was going, she dashed through a break in a hedge, scampered down a brick path past a rock wall from which water tumbled into a little pool, then ducked through an open doorway into an empty room. She leaned against the wall, panting, gulping air until her pulse slowed.
Dhara’s giggling maids would find the king in her bed, she thought in horror. No one would believe that Sakhi fled before anything happened. What would Bhallika think?
If only Dhara had stayed. Things were suddenly clear. This new life in Kapilavastu wasn’t changing Dhara. She’d always done what she wanted, not caring how it might hurt anyone else. Since they were children, she had always been running off like she had tonight, leaving Sakhi behind. To the cave to study with Mala, to Varanasi when the clan needed her most, to Siddhartha when she knew the danger to Sakhi.
“I hate you, Dhara,” she said aloud. She put her face in her hands and cried.
The queen
Dhara awakened to Siddhartha’s gentle touch on her bare thigh. He was curled against her back, and his breath tickled the nape of her neck. She opened her eyes and sighed. The room was still very dark, but faint grey light filtered through the latticed shutters.
“Again?” She rolled onto her back.
He smiled down on her. “Why not?”
“The birds have started to sing. I should be getting back to the room before anyone sees me here.”
“Everyone knows exactly where you are.” His hand slipped between her legs. “The servants are already awake and about. You’re hardly going to sneak back.”
Dhara felt her color rise. It was ridiculous to blush. In Vishramvan Palace, courtiers hopped from bed to bed as soon as the torches went out. The most important rule of this bed-hopping seemed to be that husbands and wives not sleep together, but with anyone else—a noble lover, a pretty maid, a smooth-skinned page.
“Astonishing that with all the night wanderings, there aren’t more mixups.” She ran her fingers through his soft, dark curls. “Did other girls seek your bed?” The question came out more sharply than she had intended.
He lay back and put his arms behind his head. “You’ve been listening to the gossips.”
Dhara shifted to her side and studied his profile. “They told me I wasn’t the first.”
“So someone told you about Ratna,” he said. Dhara nodded. “It was one night. It was guru and pupil, a lesson in the art of making love, not a lesson in loving.” He shifted to face her. “As for what the gossips say, I used to let Chandaka sleep here while I’d go to the treehouse. Girls came expecting to seduce the heir to the throne and found the prince’s charioteer. According to Chandaka, they left satisfied.”
“He’s quite the rogue, your charioteer.”
“He is. Got me into trouble more than once.” There was silence. Siddhartha missed his friend, but Dhara was glad the charioteer had gone to the Maghadan court, or so they’d heard. She had disliked him the minute she saw him.
Siddhartha’s lips traced a path from the corner of her mouth to her ear, nibbled at it, then nuzzled at her neck. She forgot Ratna; she forgot Kirsa. For a time, she and Siddhartha abandoned their separate selves and strove to become one self, one with the great Self, the universal, the eternal.
When Dhara woke again, bright morning light pierced the lattices.
“My lady!”
“You cannot go in there!” came the bodyguard’s voice from Siddhartha’s garden.
“My lady!” It was Emba. “You must come quickly!”
Siddhartha roused. They looked at each other.
The bamboo curtain clicked as Emba burst in. “They found the king asleep in your room, and the queen has sent Sakhi away!”
Dhara paced from one end of the long antechamber to the other, waiting for the queen’s attendants to announce her. When Prajapati’s aide signaled, it was a good hour later. She should have sent word for Siddhartha to be by her side when she confronted the queen. Too late. She would have to do it alone.
“My lady Yasodhara, the queen will see you now,” the aide said with a supercilious sniff.
Dhara brushed past him, head high. In the chamber, Prajapati was seated on a wide low chair covered with blue and yellow silk cushions. She was studying the palm leaves stacked on the short table beside her. The thick leaves were covered with strange symbols that somehow conveyed messages to those who could understand them. In the queen’s eyes, it was another of Dhara’s many deficiencies as a bride for Siddhartha that she could make no sense of those squiggles.
Protocol required that Dhara kneel and touch her forehead to Prajapati’s feet, but she remained standing. Prajapati didn’t look up.
“Why have you sent Sakhi away?” Dhara demanded. Her voice squeaked only a little. She stood waiting for some minutes before she dropped to her knees, put her palms together, and touched them to her forehead, lips, and heart, then bent her head over the queen’s bony toes. “Namaste, your majesty.”
“Ah, Yasodhara.” Prajapati pushed the leaves and scrolls aside. “Delighted you are here. Only a mo
nth until you will be a princess, my dear. How are your lessons in protocol going?”
“I don’t care about protocol.” She hated those lessons. Far better she sit at Nalaka’s feet and listen to the dharma, or that she practice archery or gallop through the park with Siddhartha. “Tell me why you’ve sent her away!”
“You mean your friend Sakhi, of course.”
“Yes, yes,” Dhara sputtered. “You cannot believe she had any interest in seducing the king.”
“I said nothing about seducing the king.”
Dhara’s stomach lurched. Maybe the queen hadn’t known anything about the king’s nocturnal ramble to find Sakhi. Maybe she’d just caused her friend more trouble.
Prajapati was watching her. “You spoke impulsively. I might not have known of this. Unlikely, because my spies are good, but still, you might have called my wrath down on your friend. But of course, I know his majesty’s propensities. Better than anyone.” Prajapati’s lips twitched as she waited. Dhara had no response. The queen cleared her throat.
“Sakhi has no interest in seducing his majesty. She told me so herself, this morning when she came to me and begged me to let her stay with her brother and the rishiki Saibya at the Nigrodha Grove until the wedding, or to let her marry Bhallika right now.”
Dhara was nonplussed. “She came here? Wasn’t she afraid that you wouldn’t believe her? What do the astrologers say?”
“You could learn from her, Yasodhara,” Prajapati said in the patronizing tone that grated on Dhara’s nerves. “She knew the best way to tell the truth was to come to me straightaway. Before dawn, no less! You forget I knew her father. Bhrigu’s daughter couldn’t lie. I agreed at once. She was unhappy in the palace. I have already consulted the astrologers and tomorrow would be an auspicious date for the two of them. They can marry in a simple ceremony and be man and wife by tomorrow night.”
Dhara slumped. How could Sakhi be unhappy? They were sisters of the heart; they belonged together. Sakhi would be gone, mistress of her own house. “But she’s my oldest, my dearest friend. I wanted her near.”
A tear threatened to roll down her cheek. Here was the rub: it was all so thrilling and enchanting, but it was daunting, too. Siddhartha, the heir to the throne, loved her and she loved him. She must behave like a princess, just as her mother always told her. The whole court talked about her; Siddhartha’s companions gazed at her with open adoration the way boys in Dhavalagiri had—though Kapilavastu’s young warriors were so much more handsome and clever. All of it thrilled her but it was also daunting to consider how far she’d come in mere weeks. She wanted Sakhi here so she could hold on to their girlhood, the time when Dhara knew nothing about the world but still dreamed she could conquer it. She wanted to share her fears with her heart’s sister, too.
“You wanted her here.” Prajapati’s tone was gentler than Dhara had ever heard. “But what did she want? You were rarely with her. In truth, Yasodhara, she was a distraction. You will be the heir’s wife. You have much to learn.”
“Your majesty.” Dhara stopped. She was about to confess her fears, but she didn’t trust Prajapati.
At that moment, the aide slipped through the curtains. “Majesty,” he said, bowing. “The head gardener.” He coughed into his hand. “Matters need your attention.”
“Excellent! Perfect timing. Yasodhara, come with me. I have something to show you.”
Prajapati’s sudden enthusiasm disarmed Dhara as much as her gentle tone had. Dhara bowed her head. “Your majesty.”
The gardener was waiting in the corridor. “Majesty,” he said with a deep bow. “If you will follow me.”
Dhara and the queen followed the gardener from the queen’s chambers in the royal wing to the intersection of the four arms of the sun god’s symbol, whose shape the palace took. At the center of the svastika was an atrium whose roof was made of ingeniously constructed shutters paneled with thick cotton oilcloth to keep out the elements. The shutters would be opened by workmen for the wedding feast. Dhara hadn’t dreamed such wonders existed when she lived in her father’s hall. She felt a familiar pang of loss, but it vanished as soon as they entered the soaring space.
The gardener waved his hand with a flourish and a bow. Dozens of small fruit trees in huge clay jars flanked the openings of the four corridors and lined the atrium’s perimeter. “An orchard of citrus, majesty. They will bloom right before the wedding.”
Prajapati narrowed her eyes. “Acceptable.” The gardener’s smile faded. “We will discuss it later. I want to show Lady Yasodhara her garden.”
“Very good, Majesty,” he said. He led them back the way they had come, past the queen’s chambers and the king’s, past the quarters of Prajapati’s children Prince Nanda and Princess Sundari, and past Siddhartha’s chambers to where a new suite had been added.
“Your royal rooms, Yasodhara,” the queen said.
Dhara fell in love at once. The room’s simplicity evoked the Koli clan’s cedar hall, but its pillars were made instead from fragrant exotic wood. The walls were plastered and smooth instead of rough timber boards, and they were decorated with a subtle pattern of the sun god’s sign in gold leaf. The court thought the queen’s taste was gaudy; so it was, in clothes and jewels. But it was elegant and serene in her gardens, and in each of the palace rooms she had designed.
“It’s beautiful, your majesty,” Dhara said in honest wonder.
This remark seemed to please the queen very much. “You think so?” They looked at each other for a minute with hesitant smiles. “But you haven’t seen the best part. Come, my dear.”
They entered the garden, where the gardener was giving instructions to a skinny old man wearing a dirty loincloth whose skin was as dark as the mahogany pillars.
“Not there,” the gardener said as the old man set another shrub into the ground near a rock wall. A waterfall tumbled over the rocks into a clear pool at its base. When the dark-skinned worker saw the queen, he fell to his knees and then sprawled in full prostration on the ground. “Namaste, Majesty.”
Prajapati took no notice. “You see, Dhara, how those rocks recall Dhavalagiri’s shape, and this evokes the fall of Rohini’s waters.”
Dhara gazed around in wonder at the waterfall, the little evergreen shrubs, the saplings, and the leveled, raked earth planted here and there with mosses that resembled those on Dhavalagiri’s higher slopes.
“I hope you will find this a place of refuge from the demands of royal life,” Prajapati said.
“Majesty, thank you.” It was more than a kind gift. It was thoughtful, wonderful. Siddhartha had told Dhara he loved his aunt, that she had been as loving as any mother to him, but Dhara had only seen a stern, demanding woman. Councilors and generals alike treated her with respect tinged with fear. “I wish I had such a marvelous gift to give you,” she added impulsively.
“One day, you will.”
The words sounded almost ominous. Dhara looked at the queen, but the royal mask was back in place. Dhara’s heart, which had been open to Prajapati for the first time, closed in her breast.
“Indeed, your majesty.”
Among the Nagas
Pain. Burning. On her back. So awful she couldn’t think. She didn’t where she was. She didn’t know who she was.
“She wounded.” A man’s voice. Whose?
“She will live.” A woman’s voice. Familiar.
“She no help to us now.”
“She will heal,” the woman said.
“Body, maybe. Not soul.”
“She is powerful, Heshu.”
The woman called the man Heshu. A Naga name.
“Was before,” Heshu said. “When she was outlaw queen. She gone for long time.”
“She was studying yoga. That increased her powers.”
“But she not fight for long time. So Yajna, he capture her. He break her.”
&n
bsp; “What Yajna did will only make her stronger.” It was Lila. The priestess.
Lila, she tried to speak. She drew a breath. It burned her lungs. She gasped.
“She’s waking up. Mala!”
She was Mala. It hurt to be Mala. Her body was wracked with pain. Her mind was in splinters. She was trying to put the pieces together. It would be easier if she were not Mala.
Her eyes flew open. Two faces looked down on her. One a man’s, flat and with skin so dark it was almost blue. One delicate, lovely. Lila’s face. “Angulimala,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
Lila leaned closer. “What did you say, Mala?”
Her throat was so dry it hurt to swallow. No moisture to wet her lips. “Not Mala,” she whispered. “Angulimala.”
Blue-skinned Heshu’s eyes widened.
“Angulimala,” Lila whispered. “You’ve returned.”
A slow smile spread over Heshu’s face.
The goddess smiled and her long tongue rolled out of her mouth. You forgot me! You hid from me at your sacred cave. That is why you suffer.
Angulimala couldn’t bear looking into that dark face, those fiery eyes. She should bow, touch her forehead to Kali’s feet, but she wasn’t in her body. There was too much pain. I did not forget you, she responded. I worshipped the Devi. She is you, too. I sought peace…
The wild goddess’s head spun on her neck. The skull necklace whirled with it. You vowed to serve me! What need did you have for peace?
Before Angulimala could reply, her pain became agony. She shrieked.
“Hush.” It was Lila. “We’re rolling you on your side, so we can put salve on your wounds.”
Kali disappeared. Angulimala groaned. Gentle hands moved her. She tried to help, shifting on the rough wood planks. The gentle hands were putting something moist on the wounds the spear tips had made. “Ahhh,” she said as coolness spread over her back.
“Spears poisoned,” Heshu said. “Poison twists inside. No heal.”
The Mountain Goddess Page 30