PRINCE IN EXILE (33 page)

Lakshman shook off the touch. He had tears rolling down his face now, Sita saw. Tears of rage and pain. ‘Our father did not wish for this to happen. Whatever vows he may have made to Kaikeyi, she has had a lifetime to claim them. Why now? Why these demands? Isn’t it obvious? It’s only because it serves the Lord of Lanka’s purpose!’ 

Lakshman turned to Rama, addressing his brother heatedly. Tears spilled hot and fast from his angry eyes. ‘Don’t you see this, brother? Whatever her faults, Kaikeyi-maa loves you like her own son! She may not be a perfect mother, but she
is
a clan-mother to you as well as me! Yes, she has wanted to be first-titled queen for as long as we can remember. Yes, she resents your mother’s power and popularity. Yes, she would want nothing more than to see her own son Bharat crowned heir today. But not like this! Not by sending you into exile.
And surely not at the cost of breaking our father’s heart and killing him.
Because that’s what this has done to him, Rama. Our father isn’t dying now of any canker or ailment. He’s dying of a broken heart. Aja-putra Dasaratha has a great heart and it is breaking now because he has been tricked into sending his own son into exile, punishing your great achievements with this brutal reward, tearing a family to pieces, a kingdom to shreds, and doing exactly what the king of rakshasas wishes him to do. Is this what you want, Rama? For Ravana to win and us to lose?’ 

‘No,’ Rama said very quietly. Everyone present heard him. The ostler standing by, watching with gaping mouth and wide round eyes, the growing crowd of palace guards and soldiers– more had come whilst Lakshman was speaking–all watching the scene with eyes and demeanours as fierce as Lakshman’s. ‘No, my brother, I want none of this.’ 

Lakshman fell to his knees, clutching Rama’s thighs. ‘Then come back with me. We will have Kaikeyi and Manthara arrested. You will be crowned heir. Bharat will never object. He will support us all the way, you know that! He knows you have the rightful claim, and once he hears the circumstances of these events, he will—’ 

‘I can’t do that,’ Rama said, just as quietly. 

Lakshman stared up at him. Rama bent and raised his brother up. ‘I cannot come back, brother. I have given my word. I must obey my father’s wishes. To refuse now would dishonour him.’ 

Lakshman looked as if he would hit Rama. Sita stepped forward. ‘Bhaiya,’ she said, using the colloquial word that could mean brother as well as brother-in-law. ‘Rama is right. I argued with him as well, and cried and fought, but in the end I accept his decision.’ She felt tears start from her eyes. ‘His father was present when Kaikeyi gave Rama the order to go into exile. Maharaja Dasaratha did not object or rescind the order, as he could well have done. Whatever the influences on Kaikeyi, whatever Manthara’s witchery, whatever the plot behind these doings, the fact is that your father agreed to Kaikeyi’s demands and gave her those two boons that she rightfully demanded he fulfil. He stood by and let her send Rama into exile without saying a word of objection. She spoke in his name, and once issued in his name, that command cannot be disputed. It would be against dharma to do so. Rama is right. Now that he has been ordered into exile, he must go. And as his wife, I go with him as well.’ 

Lakshman stared at her for a long moment, then turned back to Rama, his eyes brimming over with fresh tears. ‘Bhai,’ he said. ‘You cannot go. I won’t let you go! I will kill Manthara! The witch will not go unpunished.’ 

Rama placed a hand on Lakshman’s mouth, silencing him. There were tears in Rama’s eyes too, Sita saw. But he was holding them back somehow, using what strength of will she did not know. 

‘She will not go unpunished,’ Rama said. ‘You may be certain of that. For karma and dharma govern us all, my brother. But those are matters beyond our control. For your own part, you will do nothing to dispute our father’s wishes. If what you say is true, and I do not doubt it, then these may well be his very last wishes. Honour him then, honour Aja-putra Dasaratha. He once granted two boons to a woman who saved his life. Today he repaid those two boons by sending his own eldest son into exile. So be it. Let the name of Dasaratha be praised and remembered always, for he was an honourable man who kept his vows and fulfilled his promises, even at this terrible cost.’ 

‘But Rama,’ Lakshman said, weeping against his brother’s hand, clinging to it like the last reed in a sinking swamp, ‘it’s an evil conspiracy. A plan engineered by Ravana through his witch Manthara. Don’t you see?’ 

Rama nodded slowly. ‘I see it all. But it doesn’t change the fact that our father was honour-bound to fulfil those vows, and he did so.
Whatever the consequences, we must honour our father!’ 

Lakshman shook his head, unable to accept it still. 

‘Rajkumar.’ 

Rama looked over his shoulder at the man who had spoken, at the ageing general standing behind Lakshman. Senapati Dheeraj Kumar had handed over Lakshman’s arms to another man. His age-lined face was creased with unhappiness and anger. Sita could scarcely imagine what the man must feel at this moment, what every Ayodhyan would feel when the news spread. 

‘Senapati?’ 

‘I understand that you are fulfilling your father’s wishes. Upholding his honour. But bear with me a moment. Already the Kaikeyan guards have tried to take over the command chain and been thrown down. They are under arrest, and their colleagues across the city are being dug out and put under arrest as well. Just before I rode out here at Rajkumar Lakshman’s request, I received news that Rani Kaikeyi herself has just secured the required mandate from the council for her son Bharat’s ascension. It is official now. I do not blame the council. They could not but vote otherwise, since the maharaja himself willed it so. Even Pradhan-mantri Sumantra and Guru Vashishta have agreed that despite the sorcery used and the undue influence applied, Maharaja Dasaratha did indeed grant Rani Kaikeyi her two rightful boons. And in accordance with his wishes, those boons must be honoured.’ 

The general paused as a fresh flurry of activity broke out from the direction of the palace. It was Pradhan-mantri Sumantra, Sita saw, riding towards them at a breakneck gallop, followed by a throng of PFs. 

The senapati went on in his measured military way. ‘But as a Suryavansha prince, you are also obligated to the people of this great kingdom. Not just the army, but the citizenry as well. To every man, woman and child of this great nation. I do not doubt that a sizeable section of the army as well as the general populace will dispute the council’s decision. They will not accept the argument of vows being fulfilled and dharma being followed. Many may interpret this very act as being against dharma, for dharma demands that a king’s first duty is to his kingdom, not himself. Even as we stand here debating these issues, the news is spreading like wildfire through the cities. People who had expected to wake to the brightest dawn in Kosala’s history are being rudely accosted by this harsh, terrible sandesh.
Rama is exiled! Bharat is to be king!
The people will not accept these things as easily as you did, my prince. They will insist on seeing you personally and knowing that you are well and unharmed, that you choose to go into exile willingly, and are not being coerced at sword’s point as some will suspect. that you—’ 

‘Then tell them,’ Rama said as Sumantra reined in his horse and dismounted, breathless. ‘Tell everyone that I do this of my own free will. That I myself choose to go into exile to honour my father’s wishes. Tell them that Bharat, my brother, is a capable and honourable heir and he will make a great king. I take pride and pleasure in his ascension and will not return to contest it. And even at my exile’s end, after fourteen years, I will not contest it. Bharat will rule until the end of his days or as long as he wishes. Tell the army, tell the people, tell one and all that Rama Chandra says this. Tell them that there are to be no riots, no disputes, no more fighting amongst ourselves. Only yesterday we had an enemy at our gates; this is no time to be fighting one another.’ 

Rama stopped and looked over the faces of the sizeable crowd now assembled before him, soldiers and ostlers, palace guards and PFs, all watching Rama as if they were seeing their own hopes die with his departure. They had come up in ones and twos and groups, and had stood silently and listened raptly to the last wishes of a prince they might never see again. Several of them, soldiers as well, were weeping openly, tears glittering like steel as they fell on burnished armour. 

‘Spoken like a king,’ Senapati Dheeraj Kumar said into the silence that followed Rama’s speech. 

Rama acknowledged the praise with a bow of his head. ‘Then carry out these last orders,’ he said to the senapati, and to the pradhan-mantri standing beside him. ‘Do so in the interests of my people and my kingdom. Let no drop of blood be shed in my name.’ 

He looked again at the crowd that now faced him, and nodded briefly at them.
You shall say no farewells. 

‘Come, Janaki,’ he said to Sita. And began walking towards the rear gate. 

Sita walked with him. 

After a moment, the sound of bare feet pattering on the hardened mud-road grew, and Lakshman appeared alongside them, walking on the far side of Rama. Rama and he exchanged a glance, and Sita saw that something passed between them that words could never express. Rama put his hand out and squeezed his brother’s shoulder. Behind them, the crowd was murmuring and talking discontentedly. Someone began to wail, as in a funeral procession. 

Sita and her husband and brother-in-law walked until they reached the rear gate. The guards posted on duty saluted them. She saw that they had shock and disbelief written across their faces, and tears glistening in their eyes, reflecting brightly in the daylight that had crept stealthily across the land. The three of them passed through the gates of Suryavansha Palace and walked on without looking back. 

FIVE 

The doors to the sabha hall were open when Kausalya entered. She had already met the agitated council ministers outside, and Sumantra, who was leaving at a frantic run to catch up with Rama and Sita. Guru Vashishta had gone to speak to the shocked crowd assembling outside the city gates, to help prevent the riots that seemed certain to break out across the city. Sumitra was with Lakshman’s bride, Urmila, comforting her, for it was a foregone conclusion that if Lakshman could not persuade Rama to return, then he would follow him into exile.
Or unto death,
Kausalya thought grimly.
That is true fealty. A brother and a wife who will leave everything at a moment’s notice and go with Rama into fourteen years of exile as if it were but a visit to— 

‘A flower-vale,’ she said, realising that she was speaking her mind’s innermost thoughts aloud as she walked up the long red carpetway to the royal dais at the far end of the vast hall. The sabha hall was deserted despite the enormity of the crisis going on. This was by order of the new First Queen herself. Kaikeyi had seen fit to suspend the council of ministers and disband the sabha samiti until after Bharat’s ascension. Of course, she had done this only after the said council had formally approved the maharaja’s decision to crown Bharat, not Rama, as heir. Mantri Jabali, usually the most conservative, surly and reticent minister on the council, had flared up at Kaikeyi’s high-handed pronouncement.
Suspend, disband and command all you like now
, he had said to Kaikeyi in the foyer outside, in full view of the watching palace guard, the rest of the council, and several sabha samiti representatives from across the kingdom.
Those who raise the sword of law to suit their own needs end up on the receiving end of the same sword before long
. 

Virtually every last one of those present had applauded and cheered his words. Furious at this public rebuke, Kaikeyi had ordered the watching palace guards to arrest the mantri at once and throw him in the dungeons. When Captain Drishti Kumar had cleared his throat and informed the First Queen that this would violate law, since a minister of the council could only be arrested on certain grave charges, insulting a royal personage not being included in said list, Kaikeyi had ordered
him
arrested. Not surprisingly, this had evoked no response either. 

And that was when Kaikeyi had ordered that the guard be changed at once; ordering her own Kaikeya personal guard to replace the Ayodhyan palace guard. That move had since backfired, and after a brief but not entirely bloodless clash, the security of the palace and the royal family was once more in Captain Drishti Kumar’s able hands. But everyone knew that Kaikeyi was smarting from the series of rebukes and her first failure at power-play. Which was why the sabha hall was empty. Half the people who had business here now disdained to enter it, for fear of coming on the receiving end of Kaikeyi’s ill-placed wrath, and the other half were not permitted to enter, by the maharani’s own command. As Mantri Ashok had commented caustically, it was a fine way to run a kingdom. 

But Kausalya was determined to do what she felt she had to do. She might have been divested of her title, reduced to Second Queen in one flash of an instant, her husband in a comatose state, her son thrown into exile, her world upturned and shaken out with brutal injustice, but she still had her strength, her will and her tongue. And she would not rest until she had shown Kaikeyi what it meant to play this game of thrones. 

‘Ah, the wronged mother comes to plead on her son’s behalf.’