PRINCE IN EXILE (36 page)

Kausalya turned her face. 

And only then did she become aware of the figure standing beside her, a figure that had at least a head of height on her, and was powerfully muscled and well built, wielding a mace in one hand and a shield in the other. A shield that was now cracked and splintered, its shattered front smouldering with the last vestiges of the witch-fire. Then the whole situation became crystal clear. While Manthara and she had waged their ill-balanced battle of wits and words, someone had entered the sabha hall, unseen by both women in their emotional distress. This person had seen Manthara wield the witchfire, and had covered the distance just in time to put his shield between Kausalya and the flying ball of destruction. As Kausalya tried to make out the features of the face of her protector, standing with only part of his left profile visible, the man let the broken shield’s leather grips slip loose of his forearm and the shield dropped to the floor, breaking into three separate pieces on impact, each one smoking like lightning-scorched wood. Then the man raised his mace and stepped forward, towards the dais. 

‘Bharat, my ward,’ Manthara called plaintively, raising her hands in feigned supplication. ‘You return not a moment too soon. There is much need of you here, my boy. So much has happened this past night.’ 

‘So it would seem,’ Bharat said in his rough baritone, so much like his father’s voice, so unlike Rama’s ear-pleasing tenor. ‘And all wrought by your asura sorcery, I warrant.’ 

Manthara’s face twisted in a parody of dismay. ‘
My
asura sorcery? No, my lad. You have been deceived. Did the old preceptor tell you that lie? Do not believe it. It is she who wields the sorcery. She is the Dark Lord’s spasa!
She!
’ 

Her finger pointed, not surprisingly, at Kausalya. 

Bharat turned to look at his stepmother. His face and voice were gentle as he addressed her with genuine concern and affection. ‘Maa, are you all right? Did she hurt you with her witchblast?’ 

Kausalya reached out and touched him on the forehead with her fingertips. ‘I am well, now that you are here.’ 

‘I would have entered sooner, but there was a commotion outside. Thank the devas I arrived when I did. She meant to kill you with that last blow.’ 

‘No matter,’ she said. ‘It served its purpose. Now, do you believe what I tried to tell you when you arrived?’ She had tried to explain the complexities of the situation on his return from Kaikeya - without much success. 

‘I did not doubt it then, but now I am armed with the undeniable evidence of my own eyes.’ He gestured towards Manthara. ‘How could we have allowed this evil to flourish within our midst?’ 

‘We did not, son. Evil insinuated itself into the cracks of our home’s foundation. Even Guru Vashishta’s visionary powers could not identify it before now. But now that it is exposed, it must be destroyed. You know what to do. Go with Devi’s grace and my blessings.’ 

‘Mother.’ He straightened and turned back to face the dais. 

‘What are you two whispering over there in the shadows?’ Manthara cried out. ‘Bharat, my boy, do not listen to her lies and half-truths. She seeks only to deceive you and regain the kingdom for Rama!’ 

Bharat’s voice resounded through the hall. ‘The kingdom
is
Rama’s. As the eldest, he is the only one entitled to sit on the sunwood throne. Dharma demands it.’ 

She cackled. ‘Not any more. Dharma has seen fit to send him to the Dandaka woods, into exile. You are now the prince-heir, to be sworn in today. And if your father’s sad decline continues, then you may well find yourself sitting on this very throne today as well!’ 

Bharat took two steps forward, hefting his mace. ‘Do not speak of my father thus! May he live a thousand years more than you. You cannot deceive me any more. Everyone knows what you really are now,
green witch!
’ 

At the use of that name, Manthara’s face hardened into a mask of fury again. For an instant, Kausalya was certain the woman was going to unleash another blast of witchfire, this time directed at Bharat. But with visible effort the daiimaa regained control of herself and smoothed her face as best as she could into an approximation of hurt. ‘You would call your old daiimaa a witch? Manthara-daiimaa? I who bathed and fed and clothed and cleansed you through your childhood? Sang you lullabies and played with you in the gardens of Suryavansha Palace? Bounced you on my knee until you grew too big for me to carry?’ 

Bharat took another step toward the dais, gradually closing the distance between himself and the daiimaa -and his unconscious mother - without making it too apparent. ‘You played the part well, old crone. But I’m no longer fooled. An old daiimaa doesn’t cavort upon the sunwood throne, and use asura sorcery to strike down her own mistresses!’ 

Manthara glanced down at the prone form of Kaikeyi lying at her feet. ‘What? No, my son. You have it all wrong. Kausalyarani and Kaikeyi-maa were having a squabble here. Kausalya was loath to let Kaikeyi become queen-mother and wrest her power away, so she approached your mother and attacked her on false pretexts. I was only using the limited Brahman powers I have acquired over the years to fend her off before she finished the job and did your mother further harm!’ 

‘Enough, hag!’ Bharat moved closer yet, now only a few yards from the stairwell of the dais. ‘Unbeknownst to you, while you were wielding your sorcerous blasphemy, Shatrugan and I were watching from without the hall, aided by the true Brahman shakti of Guru Vashishta. Give up your feeble excuses and tales, I have already heard you incriminate yourself with your own vile tongue.’ 

Manthara stood silent. Bharat took her silence to mean surrender of a sort and moved openly now towards the stairs leading up to the dais. When Manthara spoke again, it was without the affected whingeing tone she had assumed earlier, but in a level voice that crackled with menace. 

‘So what of it?’ Manthara said. ‘What if I am the green witch? Is not your guru a sorcerer too? Is not your beloved Brahman shakti a form of magic as well? Why should it be that when an ordained Brahmin sage, a
man
, mind you, wields the power, it is a thing to be lauded and admired. But when a mere Kshatriya, a
woman
, does so, I am a witch?’ 

Bharat shook his head, holding his mace in both hands as he placed his foot on the first step. ‘This has nothing to do with being a man or a woman, as you well know. It has everything to do with fealty and treachery. Instead of obeying the tenets of dharma and being loyal to my mother and our family, you chose to go over to the side of our greatest enemy. Not just the enemy of this house, but the enemy of all mankind. It is that which condemns you, Manthara!’ 

‘Who are you to judge me, whelp?’ she said, and a cold chill seized Kausalya at the changed tone of voice. Until now Manthara had shown Bharat a certain grudging respect, but with these words the bile and venom in the daiimaa’s heart finally rose to the surface. ‘You, who have everything to gain from my work. See what I have done for you. I ousted Rama and put you in his stead. I have made you crown-prince of Ayodhya, heir to the greatest Arya kingdom!’ 

‘Hear me well, green witch,’ Bharat said, matching Manthara’s bilious outburst with an iron grimness. ‘I will not wear a crown wrested from my brother’s brow. I love Rama more than you can ever know, or understand. By unseating him from his legacy, you have roused my wrath. I will never sit on that throne as long as Rama lives.’ 

Manthara stared at him, her eyes goggling with disbelief. ‘You would deny all this?’ She flung her hands out, encompassing the hall and the palace around them. ‘All the wealth and power and honour in the world? For what? What will you get by defending your brother’s birthright? He is gone into exile, without even a word of farewell to his own mother! He is a slave to dharma! Do you think he will return to accept the throne and the crown now? Never! If you believe this, then you understand Rama even less than I do! Rama is gone, you fool. But Ayodhya remains. Take it. Grasp the goddess of opportunity with both hands and put her on your lap. She is yours now! Yours!’ 

Bharat stepped up on the dais proper, looming over Manthara even from yards away. ‘The goddess belongs to no one, witch. She comes in one door and goes out the other. But fealty, brotherhood, filial love, kinship, these last for ever. These are the true rewards of dharma, not gilded thrones and elephant-loads of gold.’ 

‘What would you have then?’ Manthara demanded, her voice rising in accompaniment with her temper. ‘Brahmins chanting your praises in the temples? Bards singing odes to your great deeds and victories in the taverns? Phaw! A thousand years from now, your deeds and your victories will be forgotten, boy! Your filial love and devotion to your brothers will be a mere footnote in the annals of history.’ 

‘At least it will be a footnote. You will not even merit that much, traitoress.’ 

Manthara screamed then, screamed at the top of her lungs, as loudly as she could manage without the use of actual sorcery,
’I am doing all this for you! Only for you, you ingrate of a whelp!
’ 

Bharat’s answer was deathly quiet. ‘No. You are doing it all for your master, the lord of asuras.’ 

He had reached within striking distance of her. He stood only a yard away from Manthara, less than that much from his unconscious mother. He hefted the mace, raising it in his right hand. He towered above the hunchbacked old daiimaa like a giant before a misshapen dwarf. The contrast was so stark that if Kausalya had not known what treacherous evil that deceptively feeble-seeming old woman was capable of doing, she would herself have cried out to Bharat, begging him to stop. As it was, her heart was in her mouth when Bharat raised the heavy mace, its plating of beaten gold gleaming in the torchlight. It was one thing to defend oneself against asura sorcery, wholly another matter to strike down a defenceless woman. 

But she’s not defenceless
, she told herself severely.
She could strike him down in a trice if she chose. The power she wields is no less destructive than that great mace he holds
. 

As if sensing this, Manthara made no move to defend herself. No green flame flickered in her eyes, no witch-fire blazed between her palms. Her hands lay by her sides, twisted into fists but doing nothing except kneading themselves. 

Bharat hesitated. Kausalya could almost feel the doubt prickle in his mind at that instant.
He feels the shame of it too, the shame of striking down an unarmed, deformed old woman in cold blood
. 

Manthara sneered up at him. ‘Go on then. Smash me down. Lift your mace and destroy me with a blow. Let us see how dharma justifies the murder of an unarmed woman, that too one who cared for you as her own child through your growing years. Go on, Dasaratha-putra! Kill me now and earn your place in history for ever!’ 

Bharat glanced down at his unconscious mother, his eyes lingering on the welts that criss-crossed her belly, the blood pooled beneath her body on the tiger-skin rug.
He’s trying to find a valid justification for what he’s about to do,
Kausalya thought. Then, as if coming to a decision, he raised the mace again, his handsome face set in a grim mask of determination. He lifted the great metal weight high above his head, his back and chest and shoulder muscles standing out in clear relief, bunching powerfully. For one endless moment he stood poised that way. Despite her bravado and venomous diatribes, Manthara cringed at the sight, at the certain death that hung above her head, preparing to come crashing down like the hammer of Indra, meting out bloody justice. A sickly look came over the old crone’s face, and in that instant Kausalya saw what might have been genuine fear and remorse in the daiimaa’s expression. 

Then, with a great sigh, like an elephant setting down the heaviest load, Bharat lowered the mace and stood aside, hanging his head with regret. Manthara, staring blankly up at the spot where the mace had been a moment ago, lowered her eyes. Understanding flooded her face, filling it with colour and life once more. ‘Bharat, my son, you see the light at last. I did it all for you, my boy. Only for you. If you will but accept these gifts I have wrested for you—’ 

Bharat raised an arm, warding off her words, blocking his view of her, as if he could not bear to look at Manthara’s face. ‘I do not hear you any more. I do not see you any more. You are no longer human. No more one of us than a mist-wraith or a graveyard ghoul. I banish you from this house for ever. If you ever cross the threshold of Suryavansha Palace again, may Devi herself strike you down in her fury, for I will not spare you again as I do now. I bid you go from this place at once. Take nothing, for you have taken enough from us already. Go from here and never return.’ 

Silence hung from the eaves of the cavernous hall when his words had faded. Manthara stood gaping at him with her mouth open and her hands hanging limply by her sides, stunned. 

‘Go before I kill you,’ Bharat said, not shouting, but speaking in a voice so potent with threat that even Kausalya’s hackles rose. Manthara staggered back, falling over her own feet in terror. She stumbled and struck her head against the pedestal of the sunwood throne. Recovering, she stared one last time at Bharat’s face, as if convincing herself of what she was seeing and hearing.