KRISHNA CORIOLIS#6: Fortress of Dwarka (26 page)

As the wedding day dawned, the camp housing the visiting royalty was bustling and filled with gravelly voices and male laughter. Wine flowed like water. The sound of silver anklets, the kind tied to dancing women’s anklets, were to be heard from every second tent, tinkling in rhythm to the beat of drums and other musical instruments. Lights burned night and day within the large canopies, most of them interconnected through a passageway of cloth overhanging until the entire space resembled a city of tenting. People disappeared within the folds of colored cloth and did not emerge from days. When they did emerge, they appeared bleary eyed and sodden with soma. The debauchery was a celebration in its own right, only glancingly related to the actual occasion of the princess’s wedding! And with over two hundred small and minor kings and chieftains present, the celebration was an event in its own right as well. People would be talking about the goings on for decades afterward.

But one difference marked the occasion. In Arya tradition, kings and princes attending a wedding or swayamvara usually came accompanied by only a small elite force of champions, the yodhas of their army who had earned a right to seat themselves among the higher nobility and royalty and eat and drink with them as equals. And so every one of the two hundred kings and chiefs had indeed brought a small contingent with him, ranging from as few as one score to as many as ten score. This being customary, nobody saw anything amiss.

But what they did not see, and most did not even know about, was that every single one of those kings and chiefs had brought their entire army with them, ranging from a few thousand to whole akshohini. And all those two hundred armies were camped in clearings and hollows and valleys well away from the capital city yet within a few hours ride from it. It was the largest collective of fighting forces ever assembled in Vidarbha and the first time every single one of those individual leaders had agreed to bring his troops for a collective purpose.
 

But what was that collective purpose remained to be seen.

***

In the palace, Rukmini awaited the return of the brahmin Sunanda with growing impatience. When the time of the first rituals arrived and there was still no sign nor word of him, she began to fret. For whatever her inner essence, in this life and form, she was a mortal woman, and subject to all that a mortal woman felt and endured. Chief among those endurances was the will of men, often forced or harshly applied.
 

She had attempted to have words with her father, to make him see reason, still hoping for some reconciliation. For the plan notwithstanding, Rukmini, daughter of Bhishmaka, had no desire to see her family and near and dear harmed or to see bloodshed caused on her account. But her words had no effect.
 

Her father, normally more than accomodating to her entreaties, seemed oddly distant and detached. She noticed that he often mistood the day, the date, the season of year, and at least once that she observed, he even seemed to forget the year. It was as if he were passing over entire swatches of time, missing out on months or weeks, and was puzzled at their passing without his noticing. Yet he had been right here, in the palace, every one of those days and weeks and months. How could he simply forget?
 

She worried that his health was deteriorating and that it could be the sign of some greater ailment. She tried addressing her concerns to the royal vaid, but was surprised to find that he had been replaced by a new man, a somewhat sinister and and very un-vaid-like person who appeared to be administering a course of medication of some sort to her father and brother.
 

But when she tried to enquire what herbs that medication might consist of or at least what it was meant to cure, she was told off with rude brusqueness bordering on outright uncivility.
 

Unaccustomed to being insulted in her own house, she stormed off, angry and frustrated. But there was nobody else she could appeal to for help. She consoled herself in the end with the rationalization that rude though he might be, he was only trying to help her father and brother, nothing more.
 

But as time passed, she grew less certain of this intention.
 

On the day of her wedding, for instance, both King Bhishmaka and Prince Rukmi appeared to be either drunk or not in their senses. The signs were fairly subtle, errors in day and date, confusion about the season, her age--all things related to time, she noted--but in and of themselves, they were not indications of anything sinister. So she was forced to bite her tongue and keep her counsel.
 

She was bathed and made to undergo the full ceremony of preparation, from the application of unguents to the washing off with cow’s milk and then scented water. She was dressed in the traditional garb and ornaments as well as two new items of clothing that were also customary for a Vidarbha bride. The highest priests in the kingdom performed the rites, reciting mantras of protection and blessing from the Vedas: Sama, Rig and Yajur. The purohita who specialized in Atharva Veda rituals, offered propitiation to the nav-graha, the nine celestial bodies that governed all mortal existence.
 

Then came the customary gifting of kine, gold, silver, ornaments, sesame seeds mixed with molasses and other ritual items by the king to the brahmins of the land. She had never seen so many brahmins present in one place before though a bridesmaid whispered in her ear that this was nothing, she should see the army of brahmins that gathered on leap years in Mithila, where the Chandravanshi kings famously hosted their great spiritual convocations, upholding a tradition from the times of legendary Raja Janak, father of the even more legendary Sita Janaki, wife of the great prince Rama Chandra of Ayodhya.
 

“But even Sita was nowhere near as beautiful as you, Ruk-Ruk,” said the bridesmaid, giggling. Ruk-Ruk, meaning Stop-stop in colloquial idiom, was the nickname given to her because of her constant refusals to marry over the years. She didn’t mind it. It was an apt one after all.
 

Then the parade of kings began, ostensibly to present gifts to Raja Bhismaka on this happy occasion and offer their blessings on the occasion, but really an excuse for all participants in the swayamvara to take their first close look at the woman whose hand they would compete to win that day.
 

As the day wore on, she grew bored and tired of the constant litany of names and the leering, moustached and bearded faces of men, some even older than her father by a decade or two, who grinned and smiled and stared unabashedly at her, emboldened by the ritual occasion, as if a woman agreeing to choose a husband was fair game for any man to lech to his heart’s content.
 

She felt like standing up and yelling: “All right, so it’s a swayamvara, and I’m the one who gets to choose, not you to choose me!”
 

But of course, one logically followed the other. If they did not come to lech at her, how would she be able to examine them in turn and decide which one might perhaps be close to her ideal desired mate? The problem was that she had already chosen her ideal mate and all she wanted was for him to come and take her away. But for the sake of appearances, she sat formally and tried to present herself while going through the motions of glancing at the parade of men who pranced and preened before her.
 

Her indifference and her clear lack of interest in the suitors, further stoked the controversy over her brother and father pre-arranging her union with the prince of Cheddi. But Sisupala denied it nervously and Rukmi himself appeared more befuddled--or drunk, more likely--than conniving, and so the other suitors let the matter drop. They contented themselves with the thought that perhaps she was content to simply choose the winner of the contest, regardless of his appearance. After all, they reasoned, a sensible woman appreciates a winner more than winning looks.
 

It was late in the afternoon and surely amongst the last of the suitors to arrive, when she heard a name spoken that shocked her out of her indifferent reverie. She sat up, staring despite herself, and found herself looking into the face of an impossibly thin, tall man with a face that looked like it could cleave a wooden table in two pieces. He smiled knowingly at her, lowering his face until only his eyes and the tip of his nose and jaw were visible to her.
 

“God Emperor Jarasandha of Magadha,” the court announcer proclaimed, presenting the suitor to the prospective bride.

7

Jarasandha
was greeted with huge smiles and grins from his coterie of supporters. “The look on her face was worth a fortune, your lordship,” said Shalva. “She looked as if she had seen her own death come striding up to her.”
 

“Aye,” said Dantavakra, swigging from a wineskin carried by his aide--he drank far too much to bother with goblets and cups. “You shocked the virginity out of that one, you did, Jara!”
 

Viduratha and Puandraka made a few lewd comments, one bordering on the obscene and Jarasandha listened impassively.
 

“It may be so, but our goal is Krishna, remember that, all of you. That is the whole point of this plan. And he has not shown himself yet.”
 

“Oh he will,” said Dantavakra cheerfully. He was always cheerful; his patent greeting was
Cheers!
because he was always drinking and expected others to be doing the same as well. “The hook has been lowered, the fool will take the bait.” He tilted the wineskin carried by his burly aide and drank freely from it, spilling wine over his fine clothing and self and upon the palace tiles. He did not even bother to wipe his dripping chin after he finished, because he would only wet it again in a moment.
 

Jarasandha looked at him with a lack of expression that was more scathing than open disgust. “Only a fool would mistake Krishna for a fool. But to use your crude fisherman’s analogy, even if he were foolish enough to take the bait, he is capable of tearing off the arm holding the rod. Remember that.”
 

Paundraka shrugged. “That may well be so, great one, but if he comes into Kundina, he will not leave alive. That much we have made sure of.”
 

Viduratha grinned. “It is as Paundraka said. We have more forces hidden in the nearby forests and within hours march that Krishna can neither enter Vidarbha without us knowing about it, nor can he hope to leave Kundina alive once he comes in. This time, he will not elude you or delude you as he did before.”
 

Jarasandha shook his head. “There is no point arguing this. Krishna and Balarama have Pushpaks, they can fly and fly out in an eye-wink. Even the greatest armies in the world can’t prevent that. No, you fools. Remember the plan. It is not to reel in Krishna, but to keep the bait on the hook and make him reel himself in willingly. That is why I changed my ploy and devised this new strategem. Just remember that the plan is not Krishna, it is Rukmini.”
 

It was true. After the fire on the mountain, Jarasandha had been prepared to believe, however unlikely it might be, that Krishna and Balarama were indeed dead. But unlike Kamsa or so many other young brash conquerors, he was a man of vision. He believed in the axiom: Seed one new field for every one you harvest.
 

He had known a long time ago that he would need leverage over Krishna, his greatest nemesis. And so he had seeded fields that would not yield harvests for years, or decades, in the eventuality that one day, he would reap the reward.
 

Rukmini was one such field. Jarasandha had spasas in her father’s court, as he did everywhere. And he knew how to sift the information that was brought from these spasas and how to interpret them.
 

The day she had made her move, sending the brahmin Sunanda with the message to Krishna, word of the message had come to Jarasandha’s ears. At once, he knew that Krishna was alive. And he had immediately set to work, preparing to spring a trap. The most tender trap of all. And now, the trap was about to be sprung. But unlike his allies, who were over-eager to prove themselves in battle against the most formidable champion of their age, the legendary Slayer of Kamsa, Lord of Mathura, and leader of the Yadava people in their exile to the fabled city of Dwarka whose location nobody had ever ascertained, he was wise enough to know that merely confronting or trapping Krishna would not succeed.
 

So he planned to watch Rukmini. All he had to do was stay close to her and prevent her from leaving and Krishna would be forced to stay as well. There were forces even a flying chariot could not battle against, odds even a Sudarshana Chakra could not best. Jarasandha controlled Rukmini’s father and brothers and near and dear in this kingdom. If she attempted to leave with Krishna, he would dispense such horrendous torture to them that she would never be able to live the rest of her life happily. She did not know this yet of course. She did not need to be told.
 

It didn’t matter whether or not Rukmini knew. It did not even matter whether his dunderhead allies knew--he had allied with them not for their intelligence or their military knowledge, only for their strength in arms and common hatred of Krishna, Slayer of their friend Kamsa. It did not matter whether anyone else knew or not.
 

Only that Krishna knew.
 

That, Jarasandha knew, was a tighter chain than any made of iron or steel. One that even Krishna would not dare to snap and walk away from.
 

And that was
his
plan.
 

Now all he had to do was wait for Krishna to attempt to execute his plan and the rest would play out as it played out.
 

8

Rukmini
hardly knew what to say or do after Jarasandha’s introduction. Even now, glancing across the great hall to where the God Emperor of Magadha stood with his coterie of sycophants, drinking and behaving like boorish buffoons--except for Jarasandha himself, who seemed not to care about either women or wine--she could barely resist the urge to rise from her seat and rush back to her chambers. Damn this charade. All she wanted now was for Krishna to come and take her away.