The Rise of Hastinapur (27 page)

Once Kurusti had disappeared behind the door, Pritha turned to Durvasa and said, ‘I hope this High Priest knows the whereabouts of the prison.’

Durvasa took a handful of saffron powder from inside his bag, and began to wet it with his sweat. After he had made a paste, he began to apply it to his shoulders and wrists. ‘I do not think he knows where the prison is, my lady, but I think not we shall need that knowledge.’

‘Why not?’ she said, sourness creeping into her voice. They had come here in search of her brother and sister-in-law, and all this time they had been speaking with priests, not with soldiers and guards. ‘I think you are forgetting the reason we are in Mathura, my lord.’

Durvasa looked up from his shoulder and smiled. ‘My dear, you are angry with me.’

‘I am, yes.’

‘Pray, give me your hand.’ He took her hand in his and pulled at her fingers. ‘I have not lost sight of why we are here, Pritha, but you must see how precious a stone this is.’

‘Precious perhaps for you. How will it help rescue my brother and his wife?’

‘Well, Princess, did you not hear what Kurusti said? It is almost impossible for you and I to rescue your brother and his wife.’

‘One moment. What are you saying? Are we … are we … to give up, then?’

He shook his head. ‘By no means. You heard the priest speak about the Book of Mysteries which tells the tale of this remarkable black stone. If you and I could get our hands on that, imagine how powerful Shurasena would become.’

‘But Sage, Mathura already has it, and yet it has not become a Great Kingdom.’

‘That is so because they have not yet plumbed the mystery fully, my lady. But if Shurasena acquires this book that they speak of, even if it is incomplete, it shall make your kingdom at least as strong as Mathura and Magadha. Then they shall have no need to fear these two kingdoms, for Shurasena’s war barges will be just as strong and fast as Mathura’s.’

Pritha snatched her hand away from the sage. ‘And do you say that these men will just hand over the book to you? This is the big secret of the kingdom, and I am amazed to see that there are no guards of the High King at this place.’

Durvasa laughed. ‘I am certain Kamsa would have wanted guards here, but the priests rule supreme, my lady. They know the Mysteries, and they have not shared them with anyone, not even their own subordinates. So the power lies with them, and if Kamsa does something that angers them, it would not bode well for him.’

‘Is that why he wants the priests to write down the Mysteries into a book?’

‘That is so, yes. Once the Mysteries are written down, Kamsa could do as he pleases with the priests, because he can replace them with other priests. I am certain the head priests here know that, and that is why they resist writing down the things that live in their minds.’

‘Be that so,’ said Pritha, ‘why will they give you the book?’

Durvasa’s eyes twinkled at her. ‘Why did Kurusti bring us here?’

‘You will show them another of your fire tricks?’

‘That is not the only trick in my sack,’ said Durvasa. ‘I shall talk to these priests, and I am certain that they will help me in my quest – for you see, my dear, they know by now that I am one of them.’

Pritha looked at the sage’s face in the light of the lamps, and his eyes acquired the same shade of inscrutable yellow they had become at Kurusti’s place, just before he had brought out the ball of black twine from his bag. She wanted to ask him how he was one of them; it was clear that he had studied the Mysteries too. But he was no priest. He was a sage. What was the difference?

But before she could open her mouth, Kurusti came back and said, ‘The High Priest will see you now.’

High Priest Adhrigu was in the last year of his life, thought Pritha on seeing him. Rich, dark veins riddled the man’s face, and deep ridges appeared on his forehead, constantly changing shape as he peered first at her and then, with more interest, at Durvasa. He held his left hand much the same way as Kurusti had, clutching the white shawl over his chest, and with his right he pointed them toward their seats. As the light afforded him a better view of Pritha, he smiled, and his bottom lip fell away, revealing a single brown tooth on the lower gum.

‘I do not see visitors anymore,’ he said, his voice hoarse with cough. ‘I have much to do, but my body does not have the will that my mind does.’ He sat on the edge of his cot, looking down at his flat, battered toenails. ‘Kurusti tells me you are a student of the Mysteries yourself, sir.’ He raised his head and brought his eyes to rest on Durvasa.

‘I am, sir, but my forefathers have seen it fit only to study the Fire Mysteries.’

‘Ah, your forefathers, you say, and yet you have practised them enough to handle fire with ease?’

‘They have taught me well. Where I grew up, men transfer their knowledge to their successors not through parchments or by teaching, but by fusion of the minds.’

The lines of Adhrigu’s face became darker. ‘And where might this be, this place you speak of?’

‘I come from the north, sir,’ said Durvasa, and when Adhrigu continued to stare, he added, ‘I learnt my craft at the foot of the Ice Mountains.’

‘Ah, will you teach us, perhaps, this Mystery of fusing one’s mind with another?’

‘It is forbidden among the Northmen to even speak of it, High Priest.’

Adhrigu smiled and nodded. ‘Just like our Mysteries, eh, Kurusti? Aye, if everyone spoke of them, they would not stay Mysteries for very long, would they? That is why we have guards at every entrance to our city, sir, because we do not want people watching our farmers and whispering that they may be
shamans
.’ He bared his gums at them and fiddled with the hair growing out of his ear. ‘The only people we do allow are the men from Magadha; with them we trade for our lives, so we let them in on our secret. Only a little bit, though.’

‘I understand, sir,’ said Durvasa. ‘I have come to ask you about the black stones that you create.’

‘I am not allowed to speak of them, sir,’ said Adhrigu, smiling.

‘By whom?’

‘By myself! I am the creator of the Mystery! I decree that no one shall speak of it, and if they do, they shall not understand it.’ He waved unsteadily in the direction of Kurusti. ‘These men know only the outside working of the stone, sir. Only three of us – just three men in the whole kingdom – know how to build one, and indeed, how to take one apart.’

‘Perhaps you could show me how one works, then?’

Adhrigu raised his grey eyebrows at Durvasa and grinned. ‘Perhaps I could. But what shall I get in return?’

Durvasa looked straight at the old man. His eyes were hard, yet kind. He sat erect in his seat, much like a man of god giving a sermon, and under his loose upper garment, Pritha could see his hairless torso, tight and tender. For some reason a nameless fear struck her as she saw him at this moment, and she shifted away from him a little, though she found herself unable to wrench her eyes off him.

‘I shall give you means by which you can get to the bottom of the Mystery you study,’ he said.

A long bout of dry, retching coughs took over Adhrigu’s body. When he recovered, he said, ‘I am an old man, sir. It does not do you justice to give me hopes that you must later crush. I do not have time to study my Mystery fully; why, I shall be surprised if I even last the year and see next midwinter’s feast.’

‘I shall give you all the time that you need,’ Durvasa assured him.

‘Indeed? Do you know what is wrong with me?’ Adhrigu’s voice grew louder. ‘Do you have a cure for my disease?’

‘I can examine you. And I can tell you I have not yet seen a disease I could not cure.’

Adhrigu looked up at Kurusti, and Pritha saw the man’s feeble eyes perk up in hope. But something held him back, and he shook his head. ‘I need to finish my book. I need to be certain that men after me will take my work forward; but I need time. I need time!’

Durvasa went and sat next to him. He took the twig-like wrist in his hands and ran his long fingers over the black spots. ‘Do you cough more at night than during the day, sir?’ he asked.

Adhrigu nodded weakly.

‘And your body becomes warm, does it not, as though someone had set your bed on fire?’

‘Yes.’

‘You do not feel like eating a morsel of food, and you feel forever weak. So weak that writing even a single word would break your arm in two.’

‘Yes … that is how I feel.’ Adhrigu leaned his head on Durvasa’s shoulder, and his body shivered against the sage’s. Durvasa held the priest with one arm and extended the other arm to his sack, pulling it closer to him. ‘I may have something for you, High Priest. Lie down and rest your head against the pillow.’ As Adhrigu leaned back with a sigh and supported his neck against the spine of the cot, Durvasa dug into his sack and brought out a bag tied together by animal hide. He untied the cap and asked for a vessel. The boy who had received them scurried away and returned in a moment with one.

Touching the vessel to Adhrigu’s lips and holding the base of his neck with one hand, Durvasa said, ‘Only take two gulps, sir, and no more.’ Adhrigu spluttered and swallowed, and his eyes grew heavy. ‘Yes, it will make you sleepy, but tomorrow you shall be well. Let us not speak of the stone today.’ Adhrigu nodded with his eyes closed, and before Durvasa could finish his sentence, his breathing had become steady and easy.

Durvasa let the man’s head down on the cot, and he placed his arms on top of his chest. Looking up at Kurusti he said, ‘He shall sleep well tonight. One of you should keep watch, in case he wakes.’

The boy came forward and bowed. ‘I will, sir.’

‘Good,’ said Durvasa, getting up on his feet. To Kurusti he said, ‘If you could arrange for a suitable bed for the lady, I am certain that you and I can then find a little corner for ourselves.’

Pritha lowered herself onto the bed and placed one wrist over her forehead. On the level below, she heard voices of the sage and the priest, speaking in soft tones so as not to wake up Adhrigu.

Something about that day had made her uneasy about Durvasa, but she could not fathom what. Sages were men, she had always been told – great men who had seen a lot of the world, but men nonetheless. She had not ever heard one story of sages performing tricks of the light, as Durvasa had called them. Nor had she met anyone who had seen a sage juggle balls of fire with his bare hands. Agnayi’s first words when she had asked him about Durvasa had been that he would be old enough to be his grandfather.

There was all this talk of Mysteries, but how much did the sages of the north really know of them? She had heard tales of Vasishtha, the great seer of them all, and even he had to give in to ravages of age. Parashurama, Vishwamitra, Angirasa – all these men were old; perhaps they lived to be a hundred or even longer because of their constitution, but no one had ever heard any of these men to be young. If what Durvasa had said was true, if all of them could shed their old skins and creep into young ones, why did more sages not do it?

She had heard that in the forest of Madhu by Shurasena, a priestess had set up her hermitage next to Parashurama’s. Pritha had wanted to visit her, learn from her what went into the making of a priestess, and how priesthood was different from being a sage. From her knowledge, what one did, the other did not; was Durvasa, therefore, a sage or a priest? He claimed to be both – but was that even possible?

His laughter came ringing up the steps of the ladder to her ears, and she smiled. Whatever he was, he had come with her to save her brother and sister. He had accompanied her on the Yamuna, disguised himself by smearing himself with ash, and had now come to the High Priest of Mathura, not for himself but for her. And the way he had touched her the night before in Nabha’s barn – no man would ever touch a woman thus if he did not love her. Tonight too, he would come to her bed and awaken her, after the lights had gone out. She felt her eyelids grow heavy, but she shook herself away from sleep. Tonight, she would be awake for him.

She rolled to her side, to the edge of the cot, and rolled back to the opposite edge. The bed was not big enough for both of them, but she blushed at the thought. Perhaps it was better that way; the previous night in Nabha’s barn, they had drifted away from one another in sleep, and when she had woken up, only his arm had covered her. Tonight would perhaps be a little different.