RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA (51 page)

TWENTY

As the soft gloam of first light gradually illuminated the promontory of the Seer’s Eye, Shatrugan sought out Bharat and saw his own worst fears reflected in his brother’s face. Bharat was clearly as shaken as he himself felt after viewing the extraordinary display. 

Ayodhya Anshya indeed. This isn’t what our forebears intended when they first roared that slogan in battle. Ayodhya stands for defensibility, for making a stand against injustice and the madness of conquest and invasion, not for them!

The mood of exhileration remained even after the spectacular formal viewing of the armies was over and the elite gathering had begun to disperse. Shatrugan had never felt so out of place in his own homeland before in his life, so severely pitted against the tide of public opinion. Even though the Seer’s Eye was so high above the city, their father the late king Dasaratha had always believed that immense spiritual power with which the tower was infused enabled a king of Ayodhya to read the mood of the city from up here. He often came during times of trouble, or when a difficult decision had to be made, and now as Shatrugan stood there with head reeling and senses shaken, he understood why. It was as if the tower acted as a kind of emotional listening post. He thought he could actually hear and feel what people were feeling across the great expanse of the capital city. After all, this tower and its sister structure the Sage’s Brow in neighbouring Mithila were said to have been erected not by mortal architects but by the saptarishis – the seven legendary brahmarishis of yore – using only brahman shakti. Even as a young boy, Shatrugan had always been awed by the sense of power and intimate connection to the people that standing here evoked in him. He felt it again now, as a thrumming living vibration that was drawn in from the city by the tower like a beacon, passed up through the very spine of the structure, and through those stones on which he now stood, transmuted into energy and emotion that rippled through his body and mind, giving him a vivid image of what Ayodhya felt and thought at this moment in time.

There were no surprises there.

All across Ayodhya, the mood was overwhelmingly one of excitement and anticipation. A sense of power. Of eagerness to go forth and conquer. It was the mood of a people embarking on a great venture, naively unaware of the long-term consequences and repurcussions. 

He felt frustrated and more than a little angered. What was Rama thinking? This was no time to put on such a display of military might? And to embark on the Ashwamedha yagna now? This could well be the act that tipped the delicate balance of inter-nation politics and precipitated a war between the Arya kingdoms. Unless of course…he realized with a sinking sensation…unless that was what Rama and his advisors wanted to achieve. 

Up here, he needed no spiritual infusion to read the mood. The sombre wizened old Mantris and Councillors were infected with war fever. Even now they murmured excitedly amongst themselves as they shuffled towards the narrow egress, starting the descent down the narrow spiral stairwell which was designed, like most Arya stairwells, to stifle the progress of men clad in armour bearing arms and make the use of those weapons all but impossible. Shatrugan estimated that it would take several more moments for them all to descend and deliberately hung back, indicating with a brief nod of his head to Bharat to do the same. He wished to have words with Bharat in as much privacy as was possible under the circumstances.

Rama, Jabali, Bhadra and a pair of other senior ministers seemed in no hurry to descend either; they remained standing at the far edge of the promontory, talking. Shatrugan noted with a discreet glance that Bharat and he were virtually unguarded; the handful of PFs present were more intent on maintaining the suraksha chakra – the perpetual ‘circle of safety’ they were required to maintain at all times around the person of the king – than in watching the erstwhile offenders. They were aware of Shatrugan as he moved closer to Bharat but did not object by word or gesture. After all, despite their ‘offenses’, they were still royal sons of Ayodhya and that counted for something with most. Though not with Rama, apparently, he noted with a tinge of bitter regret. 

Finally, he found his moment when the Councillors standing nearby moved towards the egress to take their turn to begin the long descent. He shuffled close enough to Bharat to speak without being heard by anyone else. 

“Bhraatr, the situation is beyond control. Something must be done.”

“Aye. We must speak with Rama.”

Shatrugan glanced at the group across the promontory and was not surprised to see Bhadra’s light grey eyes glinting sharply as they flicked in this direction. He avoided meeting the Councillor’s eyes, pretending to look down morosely as if lost in contemplation. After a moment or two, when he saw Bhadra engaged in conversation once more, he spoke again, keeping his face averted so his moving lips could not be seen. 

“We must speak with him alone. Away from the long ears of those two bheriya.”

He didn’t have to spell out who the jackals were. Bharat made a soft sound of assent. They were quite again for a long moment as the remaining two ministers also came closer, awaiting their turn to ascend down the narrow mouth of the stairwell. Finally, they had passed out of easy hearing. Shatrugan shot another discreet glance and saw that only Bhadra, Jabali and Rama now remained. Both War Minister and Prime Minister seemed to be talking at once, eyes glinting in the gaining light as they spewed more madness and poison into Rama’s ears. 

Finally, Bhadra finished speaking and gestured to one of the PFs. When the soldier approached him, the War Minister spoke quickly and brusquely, and gestured with his raised chin at Bharat and Shatrugan. The PF came over with quick efficient steps towards them. 

“Move along, now, my Lords. Samrat Rama has instructed that you be taken to your stations.”

Bharat stood his ground silently. Shatrugan followed his example. 

The PF frowned. In a somewhat gentler tone with a modicum of respect, he said, “Come now, Yuvarajas. My orders are to escort you down. Kindly do me the courtesy of moving.”

Bharat raised his head a fraction, just enough to meet the PF’s eyes, but not enough that Bhadra could see his face or know if he spoke. “If you value our position as princes of Ayodhya, you’ll leave us be. We wish to have words with our bhraatr.”

The PF looked unhappy. “My Lord, I served under you briefly in the battle of Ahichatra, during the Panchala campaign… I have no wish to use harsh words or actions against you.”

“Indeed you did serve under me, Surasena, and you served well, particularly in the action on the hill where the Mlecchas were rooted in. That was where you took the wound in your side, did you not?”

The soldier’s eyes flashed with bright pride. “You remember, sire? It was a long time ago and a small affair in a foreign land.”

“Yet no effort is too small nor any man insignificant if he risks life and limb in the struggle for freedom,” Bharat replied, still using the PF’s body to conceal his face. Shatrugan saw Bhadra watching them openly now, contempt distorting his otherwise handsome features. “You fought bravely and when your wound prevented you from returning to active service, I recommended you for an officer’s posting in the Purana Wafadars. I see you have done well for yourself. Kingsguard, no less.”

“Thank you, sire,” the man said, clearly delighted now and seemed about to snap off a salute. Then he remembered where he was and what duty he had been assigned and his face slackened. “I apologize again, sire, but my orders—”

Bharat nodded. “You have fulfilled your orders. You have informed us quite clearly and unequivocally that we are to move out. But as your superior and senior, I countermand that order and ask you to step aside now. We intend to stay. Not to do anyone harm. Simply to speak peacably. Stand down, soldier.”

The man named Surasena hesitated, swallowed, then came to a decision. He stepped back three paces, resuming his former position on the rim of the suraksha chakra. Then he fixed his gaze in that distant ten-yojana stare that the PFs were famous for on parade grounds. They were trained to stand that way for hours if need be. Shatrugan resisted the urge to grin. 

“Well handled, bhraatr,” he said, touching his brother’s shoulder. 

Bharat said grimly, “Don’t be too quick to praise me, bhraatr. I have a feeling those two won’t be as easy to convince. But we still have to try. For Ayodhya’s sake.”

And he moved towards Rama, even as the ring of PFs came to full alert and raised their weapons at once, protecting their king from the offender. 

Shatrugan prayed that Bharat would be able to talk Rama out of this madness before it was too late, and without provoking further bad blood between them. 

But in his heart, he had a feeling that it might already be too late. 

TWENTY-ONE

Nakhudi had travelled all of one full night and day, reaching within sight of Ayodhya by the previous night. New gate-watch rules required that all those unable to pass through before nightfall had to wait until dawn to be admitted. She had spent the night outside the first gate, not sleeping, but walking among the many other travellers who had failed to make it through before nightfall, talking and exchanging gossip, news, tidbits of information, with people from as far away as Kalinga. It had been a very useful night and she had gleaned more insight into the state of the kingdom than even the king possessed by the time she finally returned to the wagon to bed down. She had no fear of thieves here: under the new laws, the danda for even an attempt at theft was the severance of a limb at best, and execution at worst. After all, the contents of the wagon were not really her’s, they belonged to Ayodhya. Had she impressed that fact upon the gatewatch, she had no doubt they would have relented and permitted her passage. But she had her reasons for wanting to wait another night. She wished to be here in the morning. If all that she had learned was accurate in fact, then the morning would be a momentous one for Ayodhya. 

Not just Ayodhya, for the whole wide world, she thought now as she looked down from the wagon’s seat at the old PF. For this is the day Ayodhya lays claim to all Prithvi-loka. 

The old vet stared up at her in bemused confusion, and she smiled beneath the shawl covering the lower half of her face as she imagined how much more befuddled he would look when he recognized her. 

“Who—” he began then stopped as she reached up and undid the shawl to show him her face. Dawning recognition spread across his lined and weathered features. His eyes and mouth crinkled in a smile. He never used to have those lines, she thought. Looks like Captain Bejoo of the King’s Vajra finally learned how to smile – a lot! Though he hadn’t looked like he had much to smile about as she had approached. In fact, he looked like a man awaiting a death sentence. 

“Nakhudi?” he said tentatively, then more confidently, “it is you, isn’t it?”

She grinned as she bent over to secure the reins, then leaped down from the wagon. The ground, churned by the wheels of hundreds of gramas, was as loose as an over-ploughed field and a sod gave way beneath her not inconsiderable weight, causing her to stumble. Bejoo caught her instinctively and she felt his hands on her waist and her left breast, gripping tightly, and felt a flash of heat. She saw his eyes widen and his throat working. Well, at least he’s still got his virility, the old dog. Then he retracted his hands like a man who had just touched scalding steel and she laughed openly, throwing back her head to the dusty sky. 

“Well, maybe it’s women I should have asked about instead,” she said, when she was able to stop guffawing. “Looks like you haven’t…danced…with one in a fair while!”

Bejoo glanced around. “Keep your voice down, you brainless hussy! Do you want everyone to hear?” He indicated her shawl. “And cover your face up again. It’s a bad day to be on the wrong side of the law in Ayodhya.”

She chuckled as she hitched the end of the shawl over her ear again, concealing her mouth. “What makes you think I’m on the wrong side? I could be a grama-rakshak same as you, couldn’t I?”

He issued a short unamused barking laugh at that. “Yes, of course. Because Ayodhya is so short of old fogeys that it has to resort to calling up the women reserves. Besides, you aren’t an Ayodhyan. Quite the opposite, remember?”

She shrugged good-naturedly, unperturbed by his hostility – pleased by it, in fact, because it was obviously a feeble attempt to cover up that moment of shocked lust she had glimpsed in his eyes – and patted down her team to preserve the illusion of their being just two grama-rakshaks having a conversation. “You mean the fact that my nation happens to be one of the many that are opposed to Ayodhya’s military arrogance? Well, truth be told, Captain Bejoo, I don’t know how loyal I am to my nation anymore, seeing as I’ve been away for almost two decades and the last time I took up my sword in her service was even farther back than that!” 

He snorted. “We king’s warriors had an old saying…‘His backside may be in Lanka, but his heart will always be in Ayodhya.’”

She snorted a horse-like laugh. “How quaint. What does it mean?”

“That it doesn’t matter where you stay now or how far you’ve wandered from home, Nakhudi, when it comes to the pinch, you will gladly lay down your life for your homeland.”

Her dark eyes glittered playfully. “It is nice to see you again, Vajra Captain Bejoo. You know, the last time we met, I had a great urge to get to know you better. But there was so little time and so much to do.”

He grunted, not sure if she was pulling his leg or being serious. It was hard to say. He wasn’t that young anymore, although back then…he sighed. She could almost read his thoughts with that sigh: Those days are gone, old fool. Put the past behind you. There is only today and today’s tomorrows. “I’m no longer Captain. The Vajra was disbanded a long time ago. Now they have something else called a Trishul.”

“Makes sense. A vajra is Lord Indra’s weapon, the thunderbolt from heaven. A trishul is Lord Shiva’s weapon, the celestial trident.” She glanced around at the wagon train he was manning. “So surely a vajra veteran like yourself would be the logical choice to captain this Trishul, whatever it may be?”

He looked at her sharply and she instantly realized she had touched a sore spot. “The Trishul was Lord Bhadra’s brainchild. He personally captains it in battle. He and his brothers. He reports directly to Pradhan Mantri Jabali” He seemed to be about to speak further then stopped himself and looked down, staring murderously at a chariot wheel. For good measure he kicked the wheel hard enough to make the lead horse of that particular wagon’s team snort in surprise. The canvas rigging shook. Old mule still packs a mean kick, she thought. 

The very mention of Bhadra and Jabali worked a change on him, and she could tell that the men, whomever he might be, had played some part in the disbanding of Bejoo’s Vajra and his subsequent demotion to grama-rakshak. Politicians, no doubt. 

She sensed the change in him and was quiet for a moment. Across the field, a grama-rakshak grew impatient with a horse and flicked the end of a switch. The horse whinnied in pain. 

Bejoo grimaced. He started to say something, stopped, then spoke after all. “Back when I ran the vajra, we took as good care of our animals as of themselves. ‘We are all soldiers,’ I used to tell my men, ‘some of us happen to be four-footed, others two-footed’.”

Nakhudi nodded in approval. “They ride with us, carry us into battle, bleed with us, die with us. They are warriors too. They deserve to be treated as such.”

He looked at her with a strange look and she found his scrutiny curiously intense. After a moment, she turned her head away. 

He went on quietly. 

“The way I see animals treated in Ayodhya now makes me want to take a whip to some of the fools meting out the abuse, if only to ask them how they liked to be treated that way themselves.”

“Ayodhya has changed,” she said and her foreign accent made even that simple statement seem like an accusation. 

He nodded, turned his head, and spat in disgust. Part of a grama-rakshak’s qualification was being able to imbibe and withstand copious quantities of dust, she guessed. She had eaten more than her stomach’s fill on the ride here. 

“More than we Ayodhyans would like,” he said. 

“We thought you might have issues with the changes. That was why I came straight to you. It wasn’t too hard to find you, once I heard your name from the boys and realized you were a grama-rakshak now.” She gestured at the field. 

“We?” he asked. There was a glint of interest in his eyes. 

She glanced around to make sure nobody was within hearing range. Then she leaned closer, close enough to smell the sweat and man-odour of his body. It was not an altogether unpleasant odour. “My Lady Vedavati and I.”

He looked at her. The glint of interest had hardened to something else: hope? Perhaps. “Lady Vedavati,” he repeated slowly. 

She nodded. “Lady Vedavati. You met her sons a few days ago.”

A new light gleamed in his eyes. “The boys who held up the grama…?” he asked softly. 

She nodded a third time. 

He stared up at the sky. No, not at the sky, but at the tall stone tower that loomed above the city. She glanced at it as well and saw figures standing there at the top, too shadowed by the still not-quite-daylight flush of dawn. “Then that makes them…princes.”

“Aye,” she said. “Princes of Ayodhya.”

He stared intently at the top of the stone tower for a long time. She wondered who was up there. Then the rose-tinted dawn luminescence caught something bright and shining held by one of the figures up on the tower, something golden, and she caught her breath. Of course.
He
was up there. 

“His sons and heirs,” Bejoo said at last. 

“Yes,” she said in barely a whisper. “Although there are many who might disagree with that description.”

“Not I,” said Bejoo. He had a faraway thoughtful look. “I knew there was something familiar about those boys. And their audacity in holding up my grama!” He shook his head, chortling gruffly. “Outrageous!”

Nakhudi laughed with him. “Yes. Well. They’re boys. And boys will get up to such antics at times.”

He glanced at her. “Antics? Do you know the danda for highway robbery? Let alone stealing away royal Ayodhyan property? Attacking the king’s men?”

She sighed, rubbing the back of her head through the scarf. Even looking away, she saw the way his eyes cut to her raised elbows and what lay beneath them. Well, well, she thought, glad that the shawl concealed her smile. Vajra Captain Bejoo isn’t that old after all, it seems. 

“I have some notion,” she said. “I can’t undo what’s done. But I thought perhaps some form of reparation might prevent the wrath of Ayodhya from coming down on them too harshly.”

Bejoo frowned. “What did you have in mind? And what makes you think you can bargain with these people? You have no idea how ruthless Ayodhyan jurisprudence has now become, Nakhudi. It isn’t Panchayat or Grama justice anymore. This is—”

He broke off. She had walked over to the back of the wagon she had brought and now she flung open the rear flap, revealing its contents. 

“Would this go some small way in appeasing them?” she asked.