Chankya's Chant (51 page)

It was getting to be that time of night when the patron in question would lift himself up and walk over to the alehouse where his reserved room, usual drinks and preferred waitress awaited him. He was no ordinary citizen. That much was obvious from his clothes, his jewellery and his demeanour. What was not obvious to the casual visitor was that he was the most powerful man in Magadha after the departure of Rakshas. He was the commander-in-chief of the Magadha army and his name was Bhadrashala.

‘Put it on my tab,’ said Bhadrashala casually to the gambling master as he headed over through the open courtyard to his watering hole. The gambling master quickly tallied the slips and jotted down the commander’s losses in his red-cotton covered
bahikhatha
—his accounts journal. The account was already awash in red ink.

Bhadrashala was very angry to find someone else occupying his usually allotted room. ‘Ganika, why is there a stranger sitting in my room?’ asked a visibly irritated Bhadrashala of the nervous waitress. ‘I tried to stop him, my lord, but he said that he knew you and that he was your guest,’ she replied, sending Bhadrashala into an even greater temper as he stormed into the room.

‘Better that you share your room with me rather than a prison cell for the officially bankrupt,’ said Jeevasiddhi —Chanakya’s operative in Magadha—calmly as Bhadrashala marched in.

‘Get out before I have you thrown out,’ snarled Bhadrashala, his face red with anger, ‘I neither know you nor do I want to.’

‘Calm down, Bhadrashalaji,’ said Jeevasiddhi, ‘your old friend, Rakshas, has asked me to solve your problems. He’s worried about you and has asked me to help.’

‘But Rakshas is in Takshila. How could he have possibly told you anything?’ spluttered Bhadrashala.

‘Let’s just say that we have an airborne telepathy,’ said Jeevasiddhi, referring to the recent pigeon post that had arrived in the morning from Chanakya and Rakshas.

‘And why does Rakshas want to help me? I know the rogue too well. He never does anything unless it’s in his own interest,’ said Bhadrashala cannily.

‘He wants you to remain his friend and ally. He may need friends to get him back in favour at Dhanananda’s court,’ explained Jeevasiddhi as Bhadrashala digested the information.

‘And who exactly are you?’ inquired Bhadrashala suspiciously. Jeevasiddhi put his goblet of wine down on the table, purposefully stretched his legs out on the mattress and said, very casually, ‘I’m the solution to your financial problems.’

‘How? If you know everything, as you claim that you do, then the extent of my gambling debts would not be hidden from you.’

‘Hmm. Yes. Your fiscal situation is a mess. No one in their right mind would extend credit to you on the strength of your personal balance sheet,’ said Jeevasiddhi mockingly.

‘But obviously you have a solution that will make all my financial worries fade away,’ came Bhadrashala’s wry response.

‘How could you tell?’ said Jeevasiddhi, tongue-incheek. ‘Seriously now, here’s the plan. I’m a horse-trader from Kamboja and have a few hundred horses outside the gates of Pataliputra. As you know, having been a cavalryman yourself, the finest horses come from the Ashvakan regions beyond the Indus.’

‘Thank you for the corporate pitch,’ said Bhadrashala with a sneer but it was evident that Jeevasiddhi now had his attention.

‘You’re welcome,’ said Jeevasiddhi, ignoring the sarcasm. ‘The point is that the horses I currently have in my inventory are lower breeds, not the thoroughbreds that my customers in Magadha want.’

‘Why the fuck are you wasting my time with this useless trader talk? I am not a fucking horse-breeder!’ snapped Bhadrashala.

‘I know. If you were, you’d be rich, not bankrupt!’ said Jeevasiddhi smoothly. ‘The plan that I wish to put before you will make both of us extremely wealthy. Your debts will be wiped clean and you’ll still have enough for seven generations!’

‘Go on. I’m listening,’ said Bhadrashala.

Jeevasiddhi knew that he now had the upper hand. ‘You have thousands of thoroughbreds in the cavalry. I propose that we sell them,’ said Jeevasiddhi.

‘Are you fucking crazy?’ shouted Bhadrashala, once again angry at the stupidity of the suggestion. ‘I can’t simply sell off assets that belong to the state, you crazy sonofabitch. I’m audited by the comptroller every month. The tightasses physically count every horse in the military stables. This is your fucking plan to get fucking rich? Get the fuck out of here, you fucking moron!’

‘Take it easy, my good man. Tell me, when they audit the quantity of horses, do they also check the quality of the horses present?’ asked Jeevasiddhi innocently.

Bhadrashala smiled for the very first time in the night. ‘You want me to switch them?’ he asked as the light bulb switched on inside his head.

‘I can get you hundreds of ordinary breeds. You can switch them for the cavalry’s thoroughbreds. I can sell the thoroughbreds through my network of contacts and you and I can pocket the difference,’ explained Jeevasiddhi, driving home his advantage.

‘How will the profits be shared between us?’ asked Bhadrashala.

‘Seventy-thirty. I’m doing most of the work,’ said Jeevasiddhi. He had been instructed by Chanakya to negotiate hard, otherwise Bhadrashala would smell a rat.

‘Fuck off! Without my thoroughbreds you have no fucking business model. I want fifty per cent, nothing less!’ argued Bhadrashala, mentally counting the profits he could earn from the illicit trade.

‘Sixty-forty,’ bargained Jeevasiddhi. ‘Anything more than that would make the transaction unviable for me. Take it or leave it.’

‘Taken,’ said Bhadrashala meekly.

‘How many horses shall I send you to switch?’ asked Jeevasiddhi.

‘How many do you have available for swapping?’ asked Bhadrashala, smiling at his new business partner.

‘Paurus shall be the force that will help us acquire Magadha. The problem is that he’ll be a liability thereafter,’ revealed Chanakya to Sinharan, as they sat in their private chamber in the palace of Kaikey. ‘He’s the medicine that helps stave off an illness but becomes the cause of a new ailment!’

Sinharan spoke. ‘Acharya, the messengers have brought good news. The death of Alexander and the assassination of Phillipos have given impetus to Chandragupta and Sasigupta. After having taken over Ashvakans, they stormed the Sindh and were joined by horsemen from Kshudraka and Saindhava. They’ve overrun Sindh almost completely. In parallel, the armies of Alor, Saindhavavana, Maha Urdha, Brahmasthala and Patala have revolted against the Macedonians and are ready to accept the suzerainty of Chandragupta. As per your instructions, Chandragupta has now been crowned monarch of Simphapura, and has an army of ten thousand Jats—the strongest and fiercest fighters—under his command. That’s in addition to Sasigupta’s army, my army of Mallayrajya, and our trained mercenaries. Do we really need Paurus?’

‘We do, Sinharan. Paurus has cobbled together three hundred elephants, five hundred chariots, ten thousand horses and fifty thousand infantry, besides another seventy-thousand Macedonian, Saka, Kirata, Kamboja, Parasika, Balhika and Ashvakan mercenaries. He can’t be ignored. Magadha has the most powerful army in the world, an army that even the mighty Alexander was reluctant to fight. Without Paurus success will be impossible,’ said Chanakya contemplatively.

‘But what’s to prevent Paurus from taking over Magadha after it’s been conquered?’ asked Sinharan, reflecting Chanakya’s own concerns. ‘Why would he fight the battle and not take the spoils?’

‘There’s only one way to handle Paurus. We create another equally strong contender for the post of emperor of Magadha. Chandragupta then emerges as the compromise candidate,’ said Chanakya craftily.

‘But who would that contender be?’ wondered Sinharan.

‘Since the past sixty years, the kingdom of Kalinga has been a vassal state of Magadha. They were conquered and subdued by Mahanandin and have since been paying hundreds of thousands of gold panas each year as war repatriation. The king and his people would love an opportunity to teach Magadha a lesson,’ suggested Chanakya softly.

‘So you’ll offer the king of Kalinga the bait that you’d make him emperor of Magadha?’ asked Sinharan.

‘No. Why tell big lies when small ones can be just as effective? I shall tell him that if Dhanananda is overthrown, Kalinga shall be freed from the unfair war treaty for sixty years. Nothing more, nothing less. I shall then leave greed and ambition to take their majestic course!’

‘We have a problem,’ said Jeevasiddhi.

‘Now what is it?’ asked Bhadrashala irritably, draining the tumbler of prasanna and wiping his mouth.

More than two thousand horses had been clandestinely swapped. Jeevasiddhi would send him half-breeds and non-pedigree horses; these would be substituted for the Magadha cavalry’s purebreds in the middle of the night. The next day, Jeevasiddhi would arrange to sell the thoroughbreds quietly. The arrangement had made Bhadrashala entirely solvent and he was once again a preferred customer at the gambling dens and watering holes of Magadha.

‘It seems that around half the horses that I gave you to switch had small tattoos on their backs. It skipped my attention because the horses would always be draped in saddle-cloth,’ revealed Jeevasiddhi.

‘What sort of tattoo?’ asked Bhadrashala nervously.

‘The royal insignia—a very small one, though—of Chandragupta Maurya,’ said Jeevasiddhi.

‘Cuntfucker! I’ll have your balls for this,’ hissed Bhadrashala. ‘Do you know what would happen to me if they found that horses belonging to Chandragupta Maurya were in the Magadha cavalry?’

‘You’d be executed?’ asked Jeevasiddhi rhetorically.

‘If I go down, I take you down with me!’ snapped Bhadrashala.

‘I understand your predicament, Bhadrashalaji. I sincerely do. You have my word that this information shall remain secret between us. Nothing shall ever be done to put your position in jeopardy,’ assured the smooth Jeevasiddhi, ‘provided that a few small requirements of mine can be met from time to time’.

It made him sick to the stomach! Rakshas had been allowed to escape and those sons of whores, Chanakya and Chandragupta, had been left free to roam all over Bharat brewing a revolution to uproot him—the indomitable Dhanananda.

The indomitable Dhanananda sat on his throne, shifting uncomfortably. The palace cook had been turning out terrible food, which gave him indigestion and flatulence. He would have to execute the miserable chef for serving crap to him—the mighty Dhanananda. Sitting inside the opulent hall were his council of ministers—a bunch of yesmen.
Let me have men about me that are scared
, thought Dhanananda. It kept revolutions and revolts to a bare minimum. He laughed when he thought back to the days of Shaktar, a prime minister who considered it his duty to correct his king every now and then. And then there was Rakshas—the lovable pimp. Ah! Even though he had run away to Takshila, one couldn’t help missing the rogue. He had always ensured that Dhanananda’s nights were filled with forbidden pleasures, a more exquisite one each night. Obtaining Suvasini had turned out to be worthless. She was one of those women who appeared desirable as long as they belonged to someone else.
Strange how women instantly depreciate in value the moment one acquires them
, thought Dhanananda. An impudent fly buzzed around his head and was swished away by one of the maidens waving the whisks behind him.