KRISHNA CORIOLIS#1: Slayer of Kamsa (16 page)

‘Gandaharis,’ Jarasandha said, even as Hansa and Dimvaka came up at a gallop, dismounting and joining their master. They stood with swords drawn, ready to fend off any further enemy, but it appeared that there were none left. After a three-day siege, the city had betrayed itself, Jarasandha’s Magadhans rising from within to slay their lords and neighbours before opening the gates to let in their emperor, to whom they had secretly sworn allegiance. ‘Do you know what this means?’

Kamsa shook his head, catching his breath. He was almost too tired to stand on his own. He had no recollection of when he had last slept, and only a hazy memory of eating some kind of roasted meat the previous night, or was it two nights ago? His body ached all over, bleeding from a dozen or more superficial wounds, and his hip felt as if it had been dislocated badly. He had lost count of how many he had slain, and he neither knew the name of the city they had just ransacked, nor the kingdom. There had been too many cities and kingdoms these past several days. Life had turned into one battle after another, siege followed by battle, battle followed by skirmish, rally followed by attack ... war was his only food and drink; rest, a forgotten friend; sleep, a lost lover.

‘It means my fame has spread to the farthest corners of Aryavarta,’ Jarasandha said proudly, taking the scarf of the girl assassin as a souvenir. He tucked it into his waistband, along with the curved dagger, after he had wiped it clean on the dead boy’s garments. Neither the boy nor the girl looked older than ten years, and their striking resemblance made it obvious that they were siblings. It was their apparent frailness and youth that had enabled them to reach this close to Jarasandha, clutching one another and stumbling along, pretending to be weeping survivors. But Kamsa had not been fooled. He trusted children least of all. After all, had he himself not been a butcher of a boy, remorseless in killing?

‘If Gandahar wants me dead badly enough to send assassins this far south,’ Jarasandha mused,‘it means our campaign is making them quake even across the Himalayas. They fear that once I am done subjugating the subcontinent, I will turn my eyes further north.’ He grinned, displaying blood-flecked teeth. ‘And indeed I shall. But I shall not stop at Gandahar. I shall go farther north, to the limits of the civilized world.

Beyond Gandahar lie Kasmira, Kamboja, Parada, Rishika, Bahlika, Saka, Yavana, Parasika, Parama Kamboja, Huna, Uttara Kuru, Uttar Madra, Hara Huna, Tushara, Pahlava ...’

Kamsa frowned at the unfamiliar foreign names, though he recognized many of them from his poring over his father’s maps as a boy. Geography had always been of great interest to him: he understood the concept of land and the fact that he who dominated the land owned all that stood upon it. That was true kingship, not this munshi’s business of taxation and levies and lagaans.
What good is calling a place your own if you cannot walk the land and command the obedience of those who live upon it!
his father had growled once at his advisors, back when Ugrasena had been a warrior king, not just an old man governing a dwindling domain.

Kamsa swayed slightly, light-headed and disoriented. Jarasandha looked up at him and said gently: ‘My friend, you deserve some rest. You have saved my hide for the third time in as many days.’

Kamsa shrugged self-deprecatingly.‘Someone has to keep an eye on our future emperor.’

Jarasandha smiled his quiet smile. ‘And you have done that very well. So well, in fact, that I think it is time for you to rest those tired eyes on something more comely.’

Kamsa frowned, unable to fathom Jarasandha’s meaning.

Jarasandha clapped his hand on Kamsa’s shoulder, making him wince: he had been slashed there by a passing spear. ‘Come, let us leave my Magadhans to enjoy the spoils of war. It is time I showed you what we are fighting for.’

They rode away from the ransacked city, the orchestra of cries and screams dying away in the distance. Kamsa was too tired to even ask where they were going. He let his horse follow Jarasandha’s, noting that except for the ever-present Hansa and Dimvaka, nobody else came with them. That was unusual in the extreme.

After three days of rough riding, they passed over a final rise and Jarasandha unfurled the vastra he had wrapped around his face, on his aides’ advice, to protect his face as well as conceal his identity.

‘Behold,’hesaid.

Kamsa stared at the city below. Incomplete though it was, little more than a skeleton partly fleshed and barely clothed, its epic ambition, architectural magnificence and sheer audacity was breathtaking. He had seen nothing like it, nor heard of such a city. Ayodhya, Mithila, all the mythical cities paled before the freshness and beauty of this wonder rising from the desolate wilderness. ‘It is Swargaloka,’ he said, dazed.

Jarasandha laughed and clapped him on his back.‘I call it Girivraja. It shall be the new capital city of the new Magadha. Centre of the world!’

They rode together through the wide avenues of the city, Kamsa marvelling at how precisely each broad road ran from north to south, east to west. He gazed
up in wonder at the magnificent towers, the great mansions, the superbly carved facades, the sculpted pillars and arched windows ... the sheer opulence and luxury of the place. Every street was a beehive of activity. They passed workers carrying materials, hammering, sawing, cutting, chiselling, polishing, raising pillars, carving ...

‘Vishwakarma himself must have designed it,’ Kamsa said, referring to the architect of the devas. He had never seen such house designs or patterns before. It was like something out of a story about gods and heaven.

Jarasandha pointed out the hills rising around the city, upon each of which watchtowers were being built, connected by a great wall that ran around in an enormous circle. A forest of Lodhra trees overran the hills and the surrounding countryside, rendering the city near invisible unless one approached within a hundred yards of the tree-protected wall, while the towers could spy anyone approaching from a yojana away. The hills were named Vaihara, Varaha, Vrishava, Rishigiri and Chaitya and they were almost high enough to be considered mountains. Jarasandha explained that although this meant that once enemies broke through the walled cordon, they would be able to look down upon the city, the cleverness with which the architects had used the natural wood cover and rock formations afforded numerous defensive points for the city’s guardians. And, of course, no enemy could ever come close enough in the first place.

Moreover, because the city was at the site of the ancient hermitage of Gautama, he of great fame, it was a highly auspicious location as well. ‘After all,’ Jarasandha grinned,‘even we half-castes do care about such things.’

Finally, they came to a hamlet nestled in the very centre of the city, with an artificial lake and the under- construction structure of a great palace overlooking the lake. Gardeners were already hard at work laying out sumptuous gardens around the complex. Here, the construction was busiest, and the richest materials in evidence.

They dismounted as Kamsa looked up at the richest palace he had ever seen. It made his father’s palace look like the oversized cowshed it had once been.

‘Home,’ said Jarasandha, gesturing in a manner that suggested that it was as much Kamsa’s as his own.

twenty-five

Kamsa was wonderstruck by the beauty of Jarasandha’s palace and his rising capital city. The Magadhan had been right. It was one thing to be fighting a vicious war campaign for supremacy of the subcontinent and quite another to actually see some of the fruits of that labour already being polished and prepared for one’s repast.After the brutality and relentless bloodshed of the battlefield, this was like coming home.

Kamsa wished he could pick up the entire palace and the city and carry it on his back all the way to distant Mathura. How the Yadavas would ogle and exclaim! Clansmen would come from hundreds of yojanas away to gape at the sight! The simple gowalas and govindas of the Yadava nations had no comprehension that such luxury and beauty could even exist, let alone be
possessed
by such men as they.

And here I am,
Kamsa thought,
allied with the emperor of the civilized world.

For he had no doubt that Jarasandha’s campaign would succeed. Already, their victories were becoming legendary, their onslaught relentless and unopposed. Or, rather, they were opposed but feebly, futilely. No army could dare oppose the Jagannath-like progress of Jarasandha’s great coalition. Even Kamsa had no idea how many akshohinis his friend and ally commanded; where the king of Magadha was concerned, truth and rumour mingled freely to produce that inseparable compound one could only call legend. All that was certain was that the juggernaut rolled on and, day by day, the greatest empire the world had ever seen was being stitched together like a patchwork quilt held tightly by Jarasandha’s brilliantly conceived network of affiliations and alliances.

Many Arya kings had held rajasuya and ashwamedha yajnas, going forth with Brahminical rituals to lay claim to larger tracts and kingdoms. In time, they had lost all the ground they acquired when other Arya kings did the same. None had ever before had the foresight and political mastery to put together such a superb coalition of vested interests, each supporting the other in a seemingly impossible yet unquestionably sturdy web of solid structures. Kamsa had begun to realize that Jarasandha’s brilliant plan might not just see him seated emperor but keep him on that hallowed throne for generations to come.

Political alliances are the bedrock, military victories the foundation, and the loyalty of the people the structure of a house,
Jarasandha had said to Kamsa one night over a meal.
An emperor must have all three to stay an emperor.
He did not need to add:
And I do.

In a sense, he mused as they reclined on welcoming, satin-cushioned seats and were served wine and fruit by comely servants, Jarasandha’s campaign of conquest was being waged much the same way his magnificent new capital city was being built: brilliant architecture executed with painstaking craftsmanship and artistry, by loyal and dedicated workmen.

Kamsa’s thoughts were diverted momentarily as two of the most beautiful women he had ever seen approached demurely, clad in luxuriant garments and jewellery that clearly set them apart from the palace staff. Assuming they were Jarasandha’s wives or concubines, he averted his eyes. Though never one to shy away from ogling another’s woman, he would never transgress upon the territory of this friend. For the first time in his life, Kamsa had a true friend, the first man he truly respected.

‘Kamsa,’ said Jarasandha, ‘meet Asti and Prapti. They are the jewels of my heart.’

Kamsa murmured a rough greeting, sketching a polite namaskar. He was startled when the two women knelt beside him and began bathing his dusty, chapped and cut feet with warm, scented rosewater. ‘What ... what are you doing?’ he asked.

They looked up at him with doe eyes, openly flirtatious, yet politely demure. ‘Arghya, Mathura- naresh,’ they said together in a single singsong chant. Then giggled.

Kamsa looked at Jarasandha for an explanation. Jarasandha grinned.‘My daughters speak as eloquently with their eyes as most women do with their tongues. Their eyes are saying that they like you very much. They would be pleased to have you as their husband.’

‘H ... husband?’ Kamsa had not stammered since he was a little boy. He sat upright, staring first at the two beautiful girls, then at his host.

‘Yes, a legally wedded husband. I would be honoured if you would consent to accepting the hand of one of my daughters in marriage and becoming my son-in-law. Tell me, which one do you prefer?’ Jarasandha frowned as he tried to evaluate his daughters’ assets objectively. ‘Prapti has the best child-bearing hips and lushest body. But Asti has the sweeter nature.’ He shook his head.‘I dote equally on them both. It is impossible for me to choose.You must decide for yourself. Which one do you prefer?’

Kamsa swallowed nervously. Both women had finished the ceremonial washing of his feet and were awaiting his answer. He saw from their pointed glances that while immaculately mannered, they were not shy in the ways that counted. There was mischief in the warm brown eyes of the one with the riper body. And a promise of sweet nights in the other, more slender girl, who had cool grey eyes, reminiscent of her father’s steely pupils. He bit his lip, trying to find the right thing to say without causing offence.‘Both are so beautiful...’hesaidhesitantly,‘Icannotdecide...’

Jarasandha spread his hands.‘Then you shall marry both. So be it. It is decided. You are a man of large appetite; my daughters will be more content with one Kamsa than two of any other man. The wedding
shall be organized tonight.’ He clapped his hands, summoning Hansa who was only a few yards away. ‘Make the arrangements.’

‘Tonight?’ asked Kamsa, astonished. This was all happening much too quickly for him to keep pace.

‘We do have a war to wage,’ Jarasandha said apologetically, peeling a grape with expert fingers. ‘After we finish the first phase of our campaign, you shall have leave to enjoy the company of your new wives. I shall see to that myself. But for now, one night will have to suffice. We shall return to the front lines tomorrow morning. A good commander cannot leave his forces unsupervised for too long.’

The wedding was a blur of colour and pomp and pageantry. Despite the incompleteness of the city, Jarasandha was able to put on a display of royal extravagance more fantastic than Kamsa could ever have imagined. The night that followed was short, rituals and ceremonies taking up most of the moonlight hours. He barely had an hour alone with his new brides, although they wasted no time in making good use of it. He was yawning when he stepped out of his bedchamber to follow Dimvaka through the winding corridors the next morning at dawn.

At the wedding, Jarasandha had introduced Kamsa to his son Sahadeva. Kamsa had barely begun to wonder why, if Jarasandha had a son, he was not on the battlefield with them, when Jarasandha explained that the entire city they had seen, with all its beauty and splendour, was Sahadeva’s doing. ‘Some are warriors on the field,’the father said,‘others build empires out of wood and stone.’ The implication was self-evident, but there was not a trace of irony or disappointment in Jarasandha’s tone. He had clearly accepted his son’s choice of vocation and was at peace with it.