PRINCE IN EXILE (121 page)

At a suitable pause in Angad’s recitation, Lakshman rescued the young prince by requesting permission to speak. It was granted willingly, and he could see that Angad was glad for the interruption. However much the young vanar wanted them to know the full extent of their opponent’s atrocities, he did not relish repeating that butcher’s list of horrible crimes. Especially when several of the crimes in question had been perpetrated against his own brothers, sisters, and cousins. For in his newfound paranoia, Vali had trusted nobody and eventually sent even his own children to the torture tree, including the smallest, who were mere infants, conceived mere weeks before Vali’s disappearance and born in his absence. The only one he spared was Tara, and it was rumoured that for what he did to her and with her in the nights in the privacy of their boudoir, she might have been better off dead. 

At this, Lakshman’s eyes flew involuntarily to Rama, and he saw Rama’s stoic mask slip for a moment, giving a fleeting but stark glimpse of the nightmares that plagued his brother’s mind. Was this Sita’s fate as well? Was she suffering as terribly as poor Tara? If a vanar could be so cruel and brutal, what could they expect of Ravana, lord of asuras, the most dreaded rakshasa of all time? 

*** 

King Sugreeva paused to offer his human guests some refreshment. Both declined. The vanars did not eat or drink anything after sundown, and they had decided to respect that practice as well. After the vanar king had taken a moment to compose himself, for Angad’s narration seemed to have caused him more distress than his own earlier narration, he continued in a softer voice befitting the silence that had fallen over the mountain. Even the natural curiosity of the vanars wasn’t sufficient to make them stay abroad after dark, Lakshman noted. He wondered how they felt about fighting at night. Rakshasas were not very chivalrous about rules of warfare: they were as likely to use the cover of night to make their reaving raids as broad daylight. 

Sugreeva’s sorrowful gaze fell upon Lakshman’s face just then and perhaps something of Lakshman’s anxiety showed because the vanar king said to him directly, ‘Prince Lakshman, I know that as a warrior your chief anxiety must be about your opponent’s strength. I wish I could reassure you on that account, but to do so would be irresponsible of me. Nay, my friends, for all his dastardly excesses and cowardly behaviour, Vali is nonetheless a formidable warrior. It is best that you confront him knowing what you go up against. I would not have you pitted against him unprepared, or assuming that he is no more than a strong and foolhardy vanar. For he is far more than that. In some ways, I wonder if he is even truly a vanar anymore. Perhaps he has become something else.’ 

SEVEN 

They left at first light, a small band of vanars and the two humans. Out of deference to their mortal companions, the vanars also stayed on the bushpath, loping along on their rear limbs, the fingers of their long arms trailing on the ground. Despite their agility, they were not fast groundrunners. Rama was the one who suggested to Hanuman that perhaps the vanars might prefer to travel by tree as was their usual way, and Lakshman and he could easily sprint as well as follow them. Hanuman conferred with Angad who nodded approvingly and the vanars took to the trees. While the others kept to the high branches, swinging with great ease and felicity, Hanuman stayed low. From time to time, he dropped onto the bushpath and loped along beside Rama for a mile or two. He could not keep pace with their punishing sprinting speed for long, but Rama could see that he was more determined to try than the others. Hanuman even imitated Rama’s manner of running, and by the second day, he was doing a good job of it. Rama and Lakshman exchanged a brief glance, and Rama was gratified to see Lakshman smile. Lakshman’s estimation of the vanars had gone up a little after learning about Sugreeva and Vali’s sad history, but Rama knew he still harboured serious doubts about the capability of these affectionate, demonstrative creatures in a real battle. Still, he would be glad if Lakshman could at least make friends, and thanks to Hanuman’s effervescence that seemed to be happening. 

They made excellent speed, and with only a few short breaks for rest and nourishment, they reached the outskirts of Kiskindha in three days. Hanuman pointed out landmarks as they slowed down. Running beside Rama, he seemed more man than vanar, and if Rama did not look directly at him, he felt that this was any mortal Kshatriya running alongside him. He glanced then at Hanuman’s protruding snout and wondered if all vanars possessed such rapid learning capacity. 

Angad and the others joined them on the ground and they proceeded at a careful trot for the last yojana or two. It was late afternoon when they came within sight of the gates of Kiskindha. From a thicket, they peered out at the capital city of the vanars and studied their adversary’s fortification. 

It was a simple wooden gate, built of vertical logs lashed together, and an identical wall running off to either side. No vanars were visible on the outside of the gate, nor on the walls, as would have been the case in a mortal city. Instead, two vanars sat on trees above the gate, throwing spears in hand. Unlike mortal cities, Hanuman told them, vanar cities were built on trees, not on the ground. Kiskindha was a vast network of linked tree houses, ropeways running from one end of the city to the other like roads, and Kiskindha Palace was a massive edifice constructed by uniting several dozen massive oaks together. The floor of the city was the forest floor itself, with only a few public areas where rocks had been specially carried in and arranged to allow for communal meals and gatherings. Otherwise, it was basically a walled-in section of the jungle. 

‘The Great Tree,’ said Hanuman. ‘That is the literal meaning of the vanar word for city.’ 

Angad came to confer with Rama. They had discussed the details of the plan before, after King Sugreeva’s narration, but Angad wished to be certain of the details. Rama hadn’t failed to notice that the vanar prince’s initial hostility had given way to a reluctant semi-cooperativeness that stopped just short of friendliness. Hanuman had told him that vanars either completely avoided those they did not wish to interact with, or, if they chose to interact, then they quickly became affectionately and emotionally bonded. He could see the process taking place in Angad as well as the other vanar lieutenants who followed him; already, they were baring their teeth far less at Rama and Lakshman. 

Angad had the three assassins brought forward. They came and grovelled at Rama’s feet, aware that they had been spared because of his intervention back at Rishimukha. He bade them rise and instructed them once more, speaking slowly and clearly. 

Hanuman added a word or phrase from time to time, clarifying Rama’s instructions in vanar idiom. 

Finally, the three of them turned and broke cover, emerging into the open land before the gates of Kiskindha. At the sight of them loping towards the city gate, the guards on duty came alive, chattering and calling to their fellows. By the time the three assassins approached, several dozen guards armed with spears and the sharpened rocks that vanars favoured, were clustered on the branches overhanging the gate. From their vantage point behind the trees, they could hear the shouted debate at the gate reasonably well, but Hanuman nonetheless provided a commentary of every word and gesture exchanged. 

After several moments, during which the gate guards appeared to consult a higher ranking officer, the gate was opened and the three assassins entered Kiskindha. Angad bared his teeth, hissing softly as they began to draw the gates shut. 

‘We could enter the city now. With your flying knives, we could make short work of those fools and climb to the top of the palace to Vali’s private chamber before he even knows we are there.’ 

Flying knives
? Lakshman shot Rama an uncomprehending look. Rama touched his bow and quiver in response. The very difference in their limbs which enabled them to leap through the trees as fast as mortals could run on the ground made it impossible for vanars to use a bow and arrow or wield a sword, with any precision. ‘Killing a few sentries will accomplish nothing, Angad. It takes only one quick fool to raise a citywide alert. Vali would know we were coming and we might walk into an ambush.’ 

Angad nodded but said, ‘That we might still do. I think that those three miserables will not betray us now, for they owe us their life-oaths, but there is no surety that Vali will not kill them anyway. Which renders the rest of the plan useless.’ 

‘Not necessarily,’ Rama said. ‘Vali may kill them, it is true. But as long as they stick to the lines we have scripted, he will gain nothing by murdering them. I suggest we eat and rest now, and wait for nightfall.’ 

Rama saw him flash one final resentful glance at the city gate, his golden-red eyes blazing with suppressed fury. But the vanar prince did as Rama suggested. 

The three-quarters-full summer moon was high in the sky above the clearing when Rama told Angad to proceed with the next part of the plan. Angad knelt, bowed to each of the cardinal directions in turn, asking the blessings of the devas that governed the elements and the forest and the earth. Then, surprising Rama, he touched Rama’s feet and asked for his ashirwaad. Rama gave it gladly, touched that Angad’s manner had changed so much towards him so soon. Truly, vanars bonded very quickly. Lakshman and he voiced prayers and invocations of their own, calling down every possible aid in the mission at hand. 

Angad emerged from the tree thicket and strode towards the gate. The guards were not as alert this time as they had been earlier. Some time after the assassins had entered the city that afternoon, a commotion had rippled through the gate guards. Hanuman, who was extraordinarily gifted at being able to read changes in the forest for miles around, said that the entire city was chattering nervously, and that the overwhelming emotions were fear and grief. Rama had nodded to Lakshman and Angad. The first part of the plan had gone off well enough. There had been much debate that night before they left, about whether Vali would believe the three assassins when they returned and announced that they had succceeded in their mission. But he had reckoned on Vali’s eagerness to want to believe that very news. The ruse had worked: the city was shuddering with the news that Sugreeva was dead, murdered by Vali’s assassins. Now came the more difficult ruse. Luring Vali out of the city. 

Angad stopped several yards from the gate, rising to his full height. He made an impressive sight, his light-coloured pelt very visible in the moonlight. 

Angad let out a roar that Rama felt in his very bones. 

The guards on the tree branches above the gate almost fell off with fright. Two of them dropped their throwing spears. One clattered noisily on the sharpened tips of the logs that made up the gate and fell outside, rolling away. Angad roared again, and several heads began to poke up over the gate—vanar eyes gleaming beadily in the moonlight—several of the guards looking stunned, as if awakened from a deep sleep. 

‘Prince Angad! At the gate!’ The obvious confirmation was shouted out by nervous gate guards to their superiors over and over again. ‘They believe he is alone,’ Hanuman added, translating a string of incomprehensible vanar chatter. 

Angad continued to roar and rage, putting up an impressive display of a vanar who had just lost his father to a treacherous assassination. After a while, he began to shout out insults and abuses at Vali the Usurper. These reached elaborate and inventive new heights, providing Angad with an outlet to vent his pent-up frustration at his uncle. Finally, after the moon had moved a full hand’s width, Angad began to shout the challenge that Rama had advised. ‘I challenge Vali the cowardly to single combat. He killed my father by stealth and trickery, proving he has no courage or honour. If he still calls himself a vanar, let him come out and face me here and now. Let him fight me with bare paws and we will see who is stronger.’ He went on in this vein for a long time, pausing to roar and heap fresh abuses on his uncle. 

The gate guards and their officers all chattered noisily. Hanuman informed them that the consensus was that Angad was righteous and aggrieved. Even they, Vali’s handpicked guards, were unhappy at the manner in which their beloved Sugreeva had been killed. They agreed unanimously that Vali owed it to Angad to come out and face him in single combat, as vanar custom demanded. Their only problem was, who would be the one to carry this dangerous challenge to Vali? 

After much debating, a decision was reached and a trio of messengers dispatched to the royal treetop. This news was imparted to Angad by an ageing vanar officer with husky facial fur, and silver patches on his back and shoulders. Angad subsided briefly, but after a while, he resumed his roaring and teeth-baring and chest-beating. Rama did not need Hanuman to tell him what he could clearly see: Angad was not merely enacting a role, he was living the part. If Vali did agree to come out now, Angad would genuinely fight him to the death. 

Rama shot a grim look at Lakshman and saw that Lakshman had understood this as well. Both of them had their bows strung already, and their quivers bristled with a fresh clutch of wellsharpened arrows, but Rama could not calm the misgivings that fluttered in his belly. He did not doubt Angad’s strength and stoutness of heart, but if Vali was truly as formidable a fighter as legend suggested, then he would not wager odds in Angad’s favour. He would have to be ready to end the duel quickly, with a single well-aimed arrow to Vali’s heart. He whispered briefly to Lakshman, telling him to aim for Vali’s throat and to loose the instant that he loosed. If both arrows found their mark, as Rama believed they would, Vali would be dead on his feet the moment they struck.