PRINCE IN EXILE (102 page)

He must do what must be done. For there was nobody else to do it. With even Mandodhari enraptured by the glamour of the newly-resurrected Ravana, only he remained to question and care for the future of Lanka. 

He hesitated one last time, glancing up at the gleaming, golden height of the tower rising straight up into the cerulean sky. His eyes met the blank eyes of the samundar-asura, malevolent and mindless, chilling. He gathered his courage, silently beginning a cycle of recitation as he fingered his blackbead japmala, counting off beads with each recitation of the invocatory slokas. Still reciting, he passed beneath the lunging maw of the samundarasura, and entered the Tower of Ravana. 

TWELVE 

Rama caught up with the deer within a mile. He came over a rise overlooking a barren patch where lightning had struck some years past, leaving a shattered banyan trunk, and a patch of scorched forest. New growth had pushed up through the burnt ashes, but the foliage was thin enough for him to see clear to the far side. A wink of golden flank caught his searching eyes, and he stopped, judging its direction. As if sensing his presence, the deer slowed to a halt as well, turned three quarters away, and for a brief moment, Rama had a perfect view. 

It was beautiful, just as Sita had said. A magnificent specimen. Its colouring was like nothing he had seen before: gold damask that looked as touchable as downy, peach velvet, it glowed even in the dappled shadows of the thicket across the burnt patch, and he understood at once why Sita craved to possess it. Back in Ayodhya, hunters would have vied for the right to shoot such a magnificent specimen, exercising right of rank, nobility, birth and lineage—whatever it took. A golden deer was more than just a good catch or a great head to mount; it was fabled to bring great fortune to the hunter. Rama had heard it said that he who brought down a golden deer became a king. Or a queen. For Arya Kshatriya women could hunt as well as their male counterparts. 

He smiled at that thought. Not given to superstition, he couldn’t help but marvel at the irony at being presented with an opportunity to bring down a golden deer at such a time. His brother Bharat, more respectful of portents, would have said he ought to shoot it and secure his return to the sunwood throne. But Rama was not Bharat, though he loved his brother dearly. And he did not intend to shoot the deer to gain good fortune. Not only because he did not believe the superstition, but because he believed it was possible that the superstition might be true. If there was even a shred of possibility that killing this beautiful animal, pride of nature, could secure his kingship, then he would not do it. No artifice, no external device would he use to gain the throne of Ayodhya. Either it would be his because the law, his family, and the people all unanimously agreed that it was his, or it would not be his. To believe anything else would be a violation of artha, karma and dharma. 

He lowered his bow. He must catch it and bring it back alive. Even if Sita had not specified that condition, even if he was not so disdainful of resorting to the wiles of petty gimmicks and the spoils of superstitious artifices, he would not have been able to kill anything so beautiful without reason. What harm had that lovely creature caused him? It was only going about its life, wandering the woods, foraging, feeding, growing … in a few seasons it would mature and seek a mate, either dash its brains out in a stag-fight or win the day and retire to some shady grove to further its lineage, giving birth to tiny, golden offspring. Was it so very different from his own life? How would he feel were a superior hunter with superior weaponry to track him and execute him thus, depriving him of his life and future? Nay, there was no question of killing the deer. It would be hard enough to capture it. Things as beautiful as that one tended to be difficult to obtain, Rama knew instinctively. And he had no doubt the golden deer would give him a merry chase before he ran it down. 

But it was not the fact that it would be difficult that made him pause. It was that his heart was not inclined to pursue this beast and capture it. 

He paused then, hand resting on a mound of earth, and considered his options. Should he simply turn back and let it go? He could tell Sita that the deer had proved too difficult to catch and end the matter there and then. She would be disappointed, judging by how eager she had seemed, but would accept his word. She was not the type given to sulky pouting and petty irascibility. And yet, it was that fact that made him loathe to disappoint her. She asked so rarely for something that it seemed unfair not to grant her this one solitary wish. He had seen the look in her eyes. She had wanted this very much. Like any person who asked for too little, the few things she asked for meant too much. She would be despondent and that was the last thing he wanted. 

A prickling troubled his palm. He jerked his hand back and saw that the mound on which he had rested was in fact an anthill. Tiny red ants swarmed angrily over his hand, furious at this invasion of their city. He started to brush them off, then stopped himself, fearful of crushing any, and blew on the hand instead till it was clear. His palm tingled where several had bitten him at a nerve point and he rubbed it gingerly against the back of his head where the hair was still damp from his acamana. 

The deer moved slowly through the trees across the burnt patch. He seemed to be at ease now, in no hurry to go anywhere. Rama moved through the thicket, going around the patch to avoid coming into view. He passed a tangle of young pythons swarming over the giblets of some unidentifiable flesh. Their mother lay nearby, sated, her belly swollen with the unmistakable shape of a rabbit. Her diamantine eyes gleamed darkly, reflecting Rama’s moving figure as he passed by. Some other creature rustled through the undergrowth, alarmed by his approach, leaving behind the pungent stench of its freshly dropped offal. From the odour he could tell it was a pregnant sow, heavy with her burden of new life. A shadow darker than the close growing boughs passed overhead, sweeping by twice more as he continued, and even though it emitted no sound he knew it was a hawk, seeking a suitable meal for its young. He had found a hawk’s nest some days past while climbing a tree in search of moongloss, a herb that took root on high tree trunks. There had been two younguns in the nest. One, the smaller one, was recently dead. The older one had chirped fiercely and opened its beak to display a scarlet throat, issuing the peculiar, plaintive cry that was its demand for food. He guessed that this hawk flying overhead was the father of those younguns. The little dead nestling had borne the marks of long abuse. Among predators, it was common for the older sibling to vie with the younger or weaker ones for supremacy. Often, as in the hawk nestling’s case, the weaker or younger one lost the fight and succumbed. Rama had looked at the surviving nestling sorrowfully and wished it well: after all, it had killed its own brother to survive, the least it could do was live well and justify its claim on life. 

The deer was only a few dozen yards away from where he had first seen it. It had its back to him and remained placidly immobile as he crept up closer. He crouched and watched it for several moments. It was even more beautiful from up close. The morning sunlight had grown stronger and brighter and in its renewed light, the deer’s colouring was impressive to behold. He admired the tiny stippling on its flank, a very minor blemish that only enhanced the perfection of the rest of its pelt. Positioned downwind of the creature, he studied its scent. Oddly, it did not smell like a young male ought to have smelled; there was a predatorial odour about it. He frowned. Perhaps he was scenting another creature, upwind of the deer? Quite likely. In that case, the predator’s unpalatable odour, the result of a diet consisting almost solely of flesh, was overpowering to the extent that it drowned out the deer’s undoubtedly more delicate scent. Even so, he ought to have been able to catch some hint of the deer’s … 

There was something else that was odd about the deer. 

It was not eating. 

Rama moved around the trunk of a kambun tree, stealthy as an apparition. Now he could clearly see the deer’s snout. Yes. No question of it. Those jaws were not moving in the least. It was not for want of fodder: the jungle floor was rife with a wide variety of choice leaves. Yet, he noted now, his eyes narrowing in concentration, he had not seen the deer feed since he had spied it, from the far side of the burnt patch. He watched it for several moments. It kept moving slowly, weaving between the densely growing trunks, often stopping briefly. But not once did it dip its head to pluck a leaf or two, or so much as a blade of grass. 

He kept on its trail for another mile or so, always staying downwind, always close enough to watch its muzzle closely. Slowly, the suspicion that had dawned on him when he had caught that first overwhelming whiff of deadmeat odour—the typical signature of a predator—that suspicion began to grow into a certainty. 

When a gust of wind blew down at him, carrying a strong whiff of the carrion scent that he might have expected from a lion or a wolf’s mouth, the certainty hardened into conviction. 

He was not chasing a deer. 

That beautiful, golden creature ahead was a shape-changer. And it was deliberately leading him somewhere. 

*** 

Lakshman’s head jerked up. 

He had been sitting on the threshold of the hut, sharpening arrowtips to a fine point with his blade. Suddenly, he rose to his feet and stood facing outwards, his head raised as if listening for something, silhouetted against the bright morning sunshine. 

Sita frowned up at him, looking up from the turmeric powder she had just finished grinding. ‘What is it, bhaiyya?’ 

‘Did you hear that?’ 

She put the grinding stone on the stone slab and listened. She could hear nothing apart from the incessant chatter of birds and the other daily jungle sounds. She was as adept at reading the jungle’s voices as her husband and brother-in-law. Living in the wilderness, it was no skill to be admired, merely a necessity for survival. There was nothing amiss that she could hear. 

‘I hear nothing,’ she said. 

Lakshman remained standing on the stoop of the hut, head raised in that rapt listening posture. Sita watched him, listening carefully now, the grindstone forgotten. Her pulse quickened as she watched him. Clearly, he had heard
something
. 

He started, pointing northwards. ‘There! Did you hear it now? You must have heard it surely!’ 

She rose to her feet, wiping her hands on her roughcloth garment. It was soiled from the scuffle with the deer anyway and would need to be washed. She blinked as she emerged from the relative darkness of the hut into the bright daylight outside. ‘I still hear nothing.’ 

He bent down, and she stepped aside, letting him pick up his bow and the freshly-carved arrows with which he had passed the hour since Rama’s departure. He stuffed the arrows into his rig, then strapped the rig onto his back, fixing the buckle. 

‘But what was it you heard? An animal cry?’ 

‘No. Human. I thought it sounded like—’ 

He stopped and whirled around, facing northwards again. ‘Listen!’ He stood rapt for a moment, then exploded into action, seeking out his sword, checking it, sheathing it and fixing it to his waist-buckle. ‘Rama calls me! I must go.’ 

Suddenly, a cloud seemed to pass over the sun. Sita blinked but saw that there was no cloud. Only a hawk coasting overhead. She heard its screel and knew it was a male seeking food, no doubt to feed its younguns in a nest somewhere. She recalled Rama speaking of a hawk’s nest he had come across while climbing a tree not five days past; he had seen two younguns in the nest. She had jokingly asked him why he had not brought one nestling back for them to raise as a pet. ‘And a hunting partner for you someday,’ she had added with a teasing smile. Rama had only smiled oddly and said nothing. 

But she heard nothing else. No human voice. Not even a screel from that hovering hawk overhead. Was something wrong with her hearing? She turned to him in growing frustration. ‘What did you hear, Lakshman-bhaiyya? What did you hear him call?’ 

Lakshman shook his head. ‘I don’t know exactly. I couldn’t catch the words.’ 

‘Then how can you be so sure it was Rama?’ 

He looked at her with an odd expression. She saw that he was frustrated too, by her inability to hear the cry. ‘It was Rama. I know his voice well enough. He needs me. I must go to him, but—’ 

‘But what?’ 

He glanced around unhappily. ‘He told me earlier to stay with you.’ 

‘And now he is telling you to go to him?’ Although she had heard nothing, it was the third time that Lakshman had heard the call. That had never happened before in their time in the wilderness: both men were always proud of her ability to match and even exceed them in survival skills. Only Rama might claim a marginal superiority in certain things … or, well, a sizeable superiority, she admitted reluctantly. But to have missed hearing something thrice—Rama’s voice, no less? It was unsettling. 

Lakshman was staring at her, torn between going and staying. ‘He said to stay. But mayhap he is in trouble. Why else would he call?’ 

If
he called. She asked gently: ‘You are certain you heard him, bhaiyya? I heard nothing.’ 

He hesitated, clearly unwilling to disdain her opinion. She saw the shadow of the hawk pass over his face once more. It was an unusually large one, she noted, or perhaps the angle of the sun and the thick foliage distorted its size more than usual. For an instant, it seemed far larger than an ordinary hawk and she was tempted to look up. But at that very instant, she
heard
the distant cry, very faint yet unmistakable.