PRINCE IN EXILE (40 page)

Sita raised her head to watch, and almost got it knocked off by a low-hanging bough. She ducked just in time to avoid it, feeling a strand of her hair yanked out by the roots by the greedy branch. When she was able to look up at the river again, Lakshman had reached the far end of the log and, as she watched, put his weight against it. It swung all the way around, as Rama had desired, and Lakshman let go at once, striking out for the bank but looking back over his shoulder. Rama was carried around by the river’s force, and at the appropriate point he struck out for shore as well. Lakshman reached out and grasped his hand. Rama took it with a teeth-flashing grin, and both brothers hauled each other ashore. 

Sita jumped from her horse and half tumbled, half bounded down the crumbling wall of the east bank. She landed in the water beside her husband and brother-in-law, and all but leapt on to Rama, embracing him, kissing him, rubbing her hands across his face and head. Her tears fell on his wet cheeks. 

‘You fool,’ she said. ‘You fool, you fool, you fool.’ 

He kissed her back, on the forehead and eyes, gently first, then with a passion that matched the river’s rage. 

‘No more than you.’ 

They stayed that way for several minutes, clinging to the roots of a tree that had broken through the underside of the bank in their effort to reach the river, the water tugging furiously at their legs as if wishing it could have them again. A loud snorting came to them from upriver and they glanced that way wearily to see the horse that had fallen in clambering on to the bank again. Its fellows, the horses ridden by Sita and Lakshman, came to its aid, tugging with their teeth and pushing at its flanks. The three horses nuzzled each other affectionately, glad to be reunited. 

Sita looked at Lakshman and touched his cheek, thanking him wordlessly for going to Rama’s rescue. No words were needed. She knew he had done it for himself, not for her, but wanted him to know that by doing so he had saved her life as well. He nodded, wiping a tear from his own eye; or perhaps it was only river water. 

After a while, Lakshman said to Rama: ‘If we still had the shakti of the maha-mantras, this would never have happened. Even a hundred logs wouldn’t have been able to dislodge you from the raft.’ 

Rama didn’t speak, only kept looking out at the river surging past them. 

Sita glanced at one brother, then the other. 

It took her a moment to understand what Lakshman was saying. Rama and Lakshman had been stripped not only of their kingdom, inheritance and family, but also of their acquired gift of Brahman strength. 

She recalled Guru Vashishta’s words on the last leg of their journey from Mithila to Ayodhya: ‘
Rama lost all access to Brahman shakti the instant be unleashed the Brahm-astra. As did you, Lakshman, for you also shared in that unleashing. That was the price you both paid for uttering the celestial mahamantra of destruction. The moment the two of you used the Brahm-astra to destroy Ravana’s invading armies, you lost forever the chance to tap into and channel the shakti of the force that binds the universe. You were returned to your former state of normal mortality. Never again will you be able to achieve superhuman feats of strength, skill or speed.
’ 

At the time, she had not realised the full import and implications of the seer-mage’s words. But now, with their mortality brought home so brutally by the encounter with the raft, it seemed almost like another level of punishment. As if losing everything else hadn’t been enough. After another moment, the full implications hit her with a force equal to the log ramming the raft. 

They were entering fourteen years of exile in a jungle almost as notorious for its perils as the dreaded Southwoods. A place known to be rife with berserker rakshasas. And probably more infested now than ever, with the straggling survivors of the eastern forces of the asura army left here and there, as Yudhajit of Kaikeya had explained just last night. To the Rama and Lakshman who had been infused with the maha-mantras Bala and Atibala, even an army of rakshasas would have posed no mortal danger. But they were no more that Rama and Lakshman. The shakti of the maha-mantras no longer flowed through their veins. 

They’re only human now. And what chance do mere mortals have in a place like Dandaka-van? 

No chance at all,
whispered a little voice inside her head.
Not a chance in hell
. 

ELEVEN 

Kausalya turned and saw Bharat standing inside the threshold of her antechamber. She hadn’t heard him enter, which meant he must have done so very quietly indeed. That itself was such a change to the Bharat of just a few weeks ago: it seemed inconceivable that the old boisterous, loud Bharat could have been replaced by this silent, gentle young man with an air of almost regal dignity and quietude about him. The thought wasn’t very comforting. He’s holding himself too tightly, she thought as she looked up at his sweat-wreathed face.
Let some of your pain go, Bharat, release it before it cuts you up inside
. 

Seeing that he had her attention, he came forward at once and bent to touch her feet in genuflection. She laid her hand on his head in the customary gesture, and as he rose she was disturbed to see his handsome young face carrying lines of weariness that had been absent only the night before.
He has aged an era in just one day,
she thought sadly. It reminded her painfully of two occasions on which she had seen Rama after a long absence: the first was when her son had returned home after his seven years at Guru Vashishta’s gurukul. The second was after a mere two weeks’ separation - this past week when she had arrived at Mithila for Rama’s marriage - yet it was after this second time that the change was the most strikingly evident. The first time, she had seen that her little child had become a full-grown boy. The second time, she had seen the boy grown to manhood, matured and wisened by his experiences in the Bhayanak-van and in the battle against the asura invasion. 

She saw the same look on Bharat’s face now.
He has become a man today
. He had been forced to become one. In his own way, Bharat had endured a lot: seeing his mother exposed as the pivot of a devilish plot to unsettle the sunwood throne, bring his father to the brink of early death and send his brothers and sister-in-law into long exile, these were no less a challenge than battling asuras. In a way, this battle was a much harder one to fight. At least in a physical challenge you could use a sword and dhanush-baan to bring down your enemies, all of whom were horned or physically distinctive enough to set them apart from human allies. Here, your enemies were your own people, those you loved and trusted most, and your weapons were only endurance, fortitude and spiritual resilience. It was a war Kausalya had been fighting all her life, and she felt and empathised with Bharat’s burden. 

‘Maa,’ he said in a voice so weary it tugged painfully at her heart. ‘I have dealt with the situation as best as I was able. But there are still pockets of trouble throughout the city. Senapati Dheeraj Kumar has made sure that there will be patrols constantly monitoring every trouble-prone locality, but—’ He sighed, rubbing his eyes. ‘It is difficult even for our good soldiers to fight their fellow citizens. They have no stomach for this kind of fight. Besides, there is unrest in the ranks of our own army. Many feel that grievous wrong has been done here and that the Suryavansha line cannot brook such injustice.’ 

‘Even so,’ she said gently, trying to reassure rather than disagree, ‘as long as the Suryavansha line prevails, they must serve it without question or doubt.’ 

He inclined his head. ‘That they do, Maa. That they do. It is what makes the whole situation so painful.’ 

He looked at a diya burning nearby, in the pooja thali she had set down only a moment ago. She waited for him to continue. When he did so, his voice was steadier. ‘Our spasas have just brought us word that the news has spread to other parts of the kingdom, and there is unrest in the north of Kosala.’ 

Kausalya noddd. The foothills of the Himalayas, marking Kosala’s northern border, had always been a contentious region. The mountain clans, or pahadis as they were commonly known, tended not to accept any kind of leadership easily, even of their own tribe or clan, let alone that of a king in distant Ayodhya. 

‘They say that the pahadis may press home their advantage by attacking the plainsfolk over the river waters dispute. You already know the trouble we’ve had there in the past year. Anticipating trouble, I have ordered the senapati to send a full akshohini there to pre-empt and prevent any outbreak of violence. But we cannot patrol the entire kingdom as we do Ayodhya. Before the night is over, it seems inevitable that we shall see Kosalans shed Kosalan blood on our own lands.’ 

His voice cracked slightly at the end, betraying the emotional toll this admission cost him. 

Kausalya spoke gently. ‘Son, you have done your best. Whatever happens, I know you shall deal with it honourably and justly.’ 

‘Yes, Mother. But there is so much resentment. So much doubt. And anger. And suspicion everywhere. Even my own companions look at me strangely and ask me how I could not have known that my governess was a witch and my mother a pawn in the control of the Lord of Lanka.’ He looked at her, his face twisted with pain and confusion. ‘How do I even begin to tell them anything? As it is, nobody seems truly to want to hear my side of the story. It’s as if they have already judged me and deemed me guilty! And the citizenry … they are so pitifully confused and angry.’ He indicated a purpling bruise on his shoulder. ‘Someone in a crowd threw a stone at me. The lieutenant of the PFs riding with me wanted to charge them with lances drawn, to teach a lesson. I stopped them by putting my own horse and person in their way. It was a lesson I would not see taught, not today, not ever. But when I dismounted and tried to explain myself to the people huddled on that street corner, they began dispersing without listening to me.’ 

She put a hand on his shoulder, not knowing what to say. There was nothing to be said. 

He shook his head as if trying to clear it and not quite succeeding. ‘But I did not come here to burden you with all these matters. I came here to see my father. How is he now? 

She couldn’t have hidden the truth even if she had wanted to do so. Her face would have revealed what her words tried to soften or deny. ‘Not good. Still unconscious. Our best hope now is that he passes away peacefully in his sleep. He has suffered much.’ 

Bharat nodded, his face impassive now.
This pain is greater than all the others combined, and so he has no face to put upon it.
She was struck by how much he was like Dasaratha in such moments of crisis. Dasa too had reacted strongly, emotionally, to the smaller, more niggling problems of statecraft, but when confronted with the truly large issues, or a great crisis, he had always grown quiet, almost withdrawn and detached.
The heart can only bear so much and no more, so at this point it resigns itself to destiny.
Now that the thought had occurred to her, she could see that young Dasa in his son standing before her. 

At that instant, the thought came to her, clear as the sound of a temple bell in a silent forest glen. 

He will make a good king. A better king than his father. A wise and just king who feels passionately for the plight of his subjects and yet has enough iron in his blood to mete out justice when it needs must be done
. 

Bharat said, ‘May I see him now, briefly?’ 

She nodded. ‘Do not try to wake him or provoke him to speech. Those were Guru Vashishta’s orders.’ 

He passed into the innermost chamber, where the maharaja lay attended by vaids and Kausalya’s most trusted servants. Guards stood obtrusively at every turn, but they were only for protocol; nobody had any real fear that an attack would be mounted here and now.
Why kill a dying king when Yamaraj himself is already on his way here, riding his black buffalo, carrying the bag that will bear Dasa’s aatma? 

Kausalya sat immersed in her thoughts in the antechamber. She was not aware of Shatrugan’s entry into the room until he bowed before her and touched her feet. He too had grown more silent and withdrawn, mirroring his brother. ‘Maa,’ he said softly. 

She blessed him and told him that Bharat was within, with his father. He was about to go inside when Bharat emerged, wiping his cheeks with the end of his sweat-stained ang-vastra. 

‘Bhai,’ Shatrugan said, ‘there is news of Rama.’ 

At once Bharat’s face lit up. He caught hold of Shatrugan’s shoulders. ‘Where is he? Take me to him at once!’ 

Shatrugan nodded vigorously. ‘First at least listen.’ He included both Kausalya and Bharat as he went on, explaining about the spasas who had reported in only moments ago, speaking of a great crowd amassing on the banks of the Tamasa river. Apparently, Rama had broken his journey there to camp for the night, and word had spread like wildfire. That was perhaps an hour or two earlier, said the last spasa, who had nearly killed a horse getting to Ayodhya with the news, and it was nearing sunset now. Pradhanmantri Sumantra, Sita and Lakshman had been with Rama. 

When Shatrugan was finished, Bharat turned to Kausalya. ‘Maa,’ he said, ‘give me your ashirwaad once more. For I am about to do that which my dharma demands I must do.’