PRINCE IN EXILE (44 page)

And he turned his face away from her, towards Kausalya. 

Kaikeyi screamed. Her long wail of grief rang through the corridors of Suryavansha Palace and passed out into the late-evening air. The scream lingered in Kausalya’s memory a long time after the Second Queen was dragged away by the guards, long after the scribe had picked up his implements and returned to the antechamber, long after Dasaratha reached out to her and gripped her arm with shaking hands. Dragging himself across the bed, he laid his head upon her lap. A sigh rose from him, as a traveller might make when laying down his head at the end of a long, arduous journey. 

‘How could I grant her forgiveness?’ he said in a voice that shook as much as his hands. ‘I who am so urgently in need of being forgiven myself.’ 

She laid a hand upon his brow, feeling the intense heat of his fever, her heart aching to imagine the blazing agony of his condition. From time to time he writhed and twisted, racked by pains within his vitals. ‘You have no need of forgiveness,’ she said, breathing warm and soft upon his unshaven cheek. ‘You have redeemed yourself already a thousandfold.’ 

She felt him struggle to turn, even this simple action suddenly become too great an effort.
His heart broke at last just now
, she 

thought.
It broke when he sent Kaikeyi away and accepted his 

own responsibility for all that has happened
. 

‘Redeemed myself?’ he stuttered. ‘H-h-how?’ 

She wiped the sweat from his brow, pushing his straggly grey hair back off his face. ‘The day you fathered Rama.’ 

He grew suddenly still, and remained that way for a long time. When he spoke again, it was in the whispering tone of a much older man. ‘He will return, will he not? To succeed me? To accept his place as king of Ayodhya?’ 

‘I vow to you that he will,’ she said. She, who never made a vow idly. ‘Rama will return and be crowned king of Ayodhya.’ 

His breathing seemed to grow easier then, less ragged. His shaking gradually ceased. His writhing stopped. He lay peacefully with his head upon her lap a long time, perhaps hours or minutes, she could not tell. Outside, the sky grew dark and night fell upon Ayodhya, upon them all. 

Sometime towards morning, he took one final gasping breath, said a single word, and died. The last word he spoke was the name of his eldest son. 

*** 

It came first to Rama as a sense of breathlessness, a choking sensation that threatened to drop him there and then, at the helm of the chariot. His hand shook, and he almost jerked it to the right, almost twisted the tightly held reins the wrong way. Had he done so, he would have turned the heads of the team, driving them off the edge of the ghat they were travelling over now. Chariot and all, they would have plunged into the valley below.
And would that be so bad? Better a sudden quick death than fourteen years of slow dying
. 

Then a wave of black despair passed over him like a monsoon cloud over a mountain, engulfing him, smothering him with darkness. He cried out despite himself, and the reins jerked again. This time, the horses did turn, and the chariot veered towards the edge, closer to the crumbling rim of the dirt-path cut into the side of the ghat, shifting towards the yawning gulf. Lakshman came to his rescue. He snatched the reins from Rama’s hands, shouting to Sumantra and Sita to grab hold of Rama. It was well they did so, for the next moment Rama all but collapsed in the well of the chariot. His legs lost all strength and he slumped down. Sita gripped his arms with fierce strength, squatting down to put herself between him and the open rear of the swaying, bumping chariot. Looking at the road fleeing behind them, Rama saw the course of the chariot change slowly, steadily, as Lakshman drove the team with the practised expertise of one who had loved and communicated well with animals all his life. The chariot regained its position in the centre of the mountainous path, out of harm’s way. 

Sita peered into Rama’s eyes as if she would see right through into his mind. ‘What is it?’ she asked urgently. ‘What’s happening, my love?’ 

He shook his head, opening his mouth, but found himself unable to speak. He tried to gesture with his hands, but it came out only as a fish-like flopping. She frowned, struggling to understand him. 

‘What is it? Say something, Rama.’ 

He tried to open his mouth again, but no words emerged. It was as if the cloud had enfolded him in its cold wet embrace, and darkness filled his brain and vision, a roaring emptiness that threatened to wash him away, dash him on the rocks of oblivion and shatter him to fragments. He moaned, clutching his head with both hands, and Sita cried out with alarm. She shouted something to Lakshman that Rama did not catch above the noise of the chariot and the roaring in his own head. But several moments later the chariot began to slow, until finally it rolled to a gentle halt. 

Rama tried to stand. Sita and Sumantra helped him, clutching his arms. His vision swam as he rose to his feet, his knees buckling. He managed to get to the edge of the chariot with their aid, then off it and on to the ground. 

They had stopped almost at the top of the ghat, near the peak of the dusty mountain marg. Looking back, he could see the dust-cloud of their trail still hanging in the air. Far beyond and below was the vast undulating northern forest they had ridden through the night before. Somewhere beyond that were the rivulets Vedasruti, Gomati and Syandika which they had crossed without any difficulty in the early hours. They were well beyond the borders of Kosala now. They had mounted these ghats an hour ago. Beyond them lay the Ganga valley, and the glade of Sringaverapura, also known as Hunter’s Glade. In less than an hour, at the rigorous pace they had maintained all night, they would breast that peak and ride down the far side, into the sacred arms of the Ganga. 

He realised that it was almost daybreak; that was how he was able to see so far. 

He also realised that his limbs had stopped trembling and had lost their gelid weakness. The cloud still loomed over his mind and soul, but the physical debilitation was gone. He could stand and speak again. 

They were all staring at him, concerned, frightened. Sumantra had his hands clasped, like a man standing before a deity with only one desperate prayer. 

Rama braced himself, taking a deep, long breath before saying what he knew to be truth with every fibre of his being. Only Lakshman’s face suggested that he had some inkling of what his brother would say next, as if he too had been brushed by the belly of the same cloud. 

‘Our father is dead,’ Rama said. ‘Maharaja Suryavansha Manu Ikshwaku Raghuvamsha Aja-putra Dasaratha is no more. I felt his aatma pass me only moments ago, on its way to Swarga-lok.’ 

FIFTEEN 

It began to rain as they entered the Ganga valley. A rain-cloud appeared out of the clear dawn sky, showering them with a gentle drizzle. Lakshman was driving the chariot still, to give Rama a respite. Sumantra, standing beside Rama and Sita, raised his arms to the sky, sending up a prayer, and voiced his thanks to the gods, his tears mingling freely with the first droplets. It was considered very auspicious for rain to fall on a death day; the Brahmins took it as an omen that the person’s aatma would certainly ascend to the heavenly realms for the duration of its stay between worlds, until the time of its next rebirth. The devas crying, it was called in Mithila. Sita licked a droplet that fell on her upper lip and felt that no water ever drunk had tasted so pure and sweet. 

The devas cried all the way to the Ganga. When they came within sight of that great concourse of water, even Rama’s heart seemed to lift. Sita sensed it immediately, as if he felt not happier but less burdened. Another auspicious omen, for to visit the Ganga after a loved one’s death was to wash oneself clean of the detritus of past lives and gain forgiveness for any wrongs or hurts one might have committed against the departed one. 

The lush green valley glowed with fertility in the dawn light. Everything was wet and fragrant with the natural aromas of earth and fresh rain, flowers and growth. The air above the river was filled with life: swans, cranes, cakravaka birds and a wide assortment of songbirds flew in great wheeling circles, celebrating the new day’s dawning. As they rode the path alongside the river itself, Sita saw the shapes and colours of a multitude of life forms in the waters: porpoises performed their sinuous gleaming dance, crocodiles crawled lazily on their long bellies on the mudbanks, kachuas floated upstream sleepily. And fish of course, a teeming myriad of species and sizes, turning the river into a glittering silver necklace. 

They halted the chariot at a small Gangetic settlement that was more resting area than village. It was an outpost of the Nisada clans, Sumantra informed Sita, who hadn’t visited these parts before. There were rishis and sadhus and Brahmins of all orders sitting and walking about the few timber-plank structures beside a wide, slow section of the holy river. Most of them were engaged in their morning acamana, either about to enter the water or emerging dripping from it. A stone stairway, ten yards wide, descended gradually into a small pool that drained off the main river, lagooned by a border of time-eroded stone blocks. Even so, the fauna of the river could easily have slipped over the stone border, like the water that constantly slopped over its top, to find easy pickings in this pool. But it was a well-known fact that even predators did not prey on those who came to the Ganga with genuinely repentant hearts. Gazing across the river at the line of crocodiles lying on its banks, Sita wondered at the truth of that belief. In any case, she would have a chance to verify it herself in a few moments. 

They took their acamana together, the Brahmins around them unperturbed by the presence of a woman in their midst: all were as one here in the arms of the blessed Ganga. Brother and sister suckled together at the breasts of the divine mother. Sita was astonished at the purity and clarity of the water. How could there be no mud or silt? And with so many bodies wading in and out at all times, what kept the water so clean? She had a feeling that if she were to ask those questions, she would not receive a satisfactory rational answer from even the wisest Brahmin present. 

As she immersed herself in the waters, a great calm came over her. Beneath the surface of the river, sitting cross-legged on the stone steps, Rama to her left, Lakshman beyond him, she felt a sense of elevation that transcended the mere physical sensation of the water pushing her upwards. Speaking the sacred Gayatri maha-mantra in her mind, she felt tranquillity pervade her pores, releasing the unbearable stresses that had ravaged her mind this past night and day. At the very end of the last recitation, when her held breath ought to have been exhausted, she felt as though she could go on thus indefinitely, breathing the very molecules of the river to gain the nourishment she needed. It was only when both Rama and Lakshman got to their feet, breaking the surface, that she thought she ought to rise as well. But just before she did so, something caught her eye, at the extreme periphery of her vision. She turned, seeking out the distraction, but saw nothing. She continued turning, executing a full circle. All she saw was the rough-cut stone of the steps, worn smooth in the centre by the treading of countless feet over the centuries. She saw the dhoti-clad legs of Rama, standing on an upper step, saying the end of his prayer as he offered water to Surya-deva. She completed the turn and finished the circle. That was when she saw it, or thought she did, just for a flash of a second. 

A woman, walking towards her, at the very bottom of the steps, five yards below the surface. She was dressed in a red sari, so vividly coloured that it actually made Sita squint. On her feet were silver anklets, not payals but bracelet-like ornaments. She walked with easy grace beneath the water, coming towards Sita. She had something to give her, Sita knew. Something to hand over for safekeeping. Sita raised her eyes to the woman’s face, to see who this exotic creature might be who walked the floor of the mighty river as if strolling through a princess garden. 

Abruptly, she found herself above the surface, gasping in air, choking on swallowed water, the crisp early-morning air blessedly warm after the chill of the river. She smelt lotus and other assorted flowers, from the garlands the Brahmins floated upon the water. Rama was holding her tightly, in both arms. She wiped her face, clearing her eyes. ‘What … what happened?’ she asked, sputtering water. 

‘You were drowning,’ he said, sounding puzzled. 

She looked around. Nobody was paying attention to them; all were busy with their own ablutions. Only Lakshman was watching from a few steps up, concerned but not overly anxious. ‘That’s impossible,’ she said. ‘I was holding my breath.’ 

‘It was too long to hold your breath, Sitey,’ he said, using the affectionate ‘ey’ suffix for the first time since she had known him. 

She looked at him, then glanced around again. A line of cranes left the surface of the river, rising slowly into the sky, their white spans catching the first rays of the rising sun. They glowed golden for a moment, then moved out of her line of vision. ‘But … ‘ she said. ‘But I saw … ‘ 

He waited patiently. 

How could she describe the woman she had seen? She hadn’t even seen her face. Only her bright red sari and her anklets, like thick bracelets a man might wear rather than the delicate payals Arya women favoured. 

She shook her head, saying nothing. He didn’t press her further. They went up the steps, treading carefully, and made their way back to the place where Sumantra had left their chariot. A pair of strangers were with the pradhan-mantri, listening as he talked softly. From the manner in which the prime minister spoke, Sita could tell he was discussing Rama and the events in Ayodhya. But then, what else would he speak about? Every Kosalan in the kingdom, nay, every Arya in the seven kingdoms, would be talking about nothing else.