The Rise of Hastinapur (32 page)

Her desperate fingers touched the cold flab of the babe’s thighs, and she relaxed. On the other side of the bed Vasudev slept. She had often tried to speak with him these past few weeks, but he would turn his head away every time she opened her mouth. In times of trouble men wished to act while women wished to speak; they sought to fight and vanquish while women sought to understand, to feel, to change. He must have felt some of her sorrow, she thought, resisting the urge to reach over and smoothen his brow. So what if he did not wear it on his face?

She began to run her palm over the infant’s body, warming it against the gathering cold of the night. Through the window she saw a dying streak of lightning. The rains had persisted well into the winter this year, and she had heard the guards say to one another that Mathura had lost the love of the gods, that their favour left the city with the High Priests. It was now the eighth full moon since the temples had been abandoned, and even from the prison Devaki could feel the air of despair thicken all over the city.

A click on the lock made her sit up. It was well past meal time, and their pitcher of water by the bedside was full. The incense sticks were only half-burnt, and the candles still had not weathered down to their stumps. What did the guard want, then? She drew the baby closer to her and her hand gripped the sheet of the bed.

The guard entered and bowed. ‘The High King is on his way, my lady,’ he said, clutching his sword tight in his left hand.

Before she could ask why, the door was covered by a hefty shadow, and the next moment her brother stood at the foot of the bed, one leg hoisted upon it, staring at the bundle of linen hidden behind her hand. She had not seen his face for a while now, but it seemed to have aged. His cheeks and chin sagged, and a web of lines had begun to invade his features, starting at the forehead. She guessed that the departure of the High Priests had hit him hard, and even now she found it in his heart to feel pity for him.

‘How could you be so foolish, Devaki?’ he asked. Vasudev stirred on his bed, and as he sat up, Kamsa bowed to him. Then he clapped his hands, at which two soldiers marched in and held Vasudev by his arms. ‘Do not think otherwise, my lord,’ said Kamsa, ‘but I do not wish you to hurt yourself.’

‘Brother,’ said Devaki, ‘do not take her. Whatever you do, do not kill your niece.’

His eyes came back to fasten themselves on the baby, and it sent a bolt through Devaki’s spine. He sighed morosely. ‘My sister, do you not see that you have left me with no choice? When I ordered that you should be put in prison, I told you that you must not have children if you wish to keep our love alive.’

‘I will touch your feet, Brother,’ Devaki cried.‘I will send her away to the farthest of kingdoms. I shall foster her at the humblest of homes. She shall not even know of you her whole life, my lord. I only beg you that you let her live.’

He clapped his hands once again, at which two more soldiers came in, bearing spears pointed straight upwards. Kamsa waved toward Devaki. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No!’ One of the soldiers held her in a firm but gentle grip, and the other picked up the baby along with her sheets and returned to Kamsa. With his forefingers her brother lifted the edge of the white hood that covered the baby’s head, and he gazed at her for a moment.

‘It is not I, Devaki,’ he said, ‘but you who killed this baby. You killed this baby by having her against my wishes.’

Devaki stopped resisting against the soldier and slumped back against the cushion of the bed. She heard the laboured breathing of her husband on the other edge, hanging by his arms between the two other soldiers, his head bent, his eyes staring at the ground. That sight of him jolted her. ‘My lord,’ she said, ‘if you do not stand up to my brother, you have forsaken your right to share my bed for the rest of your life.’

Vasudev raised his head to look at her, then back again at the ground.

Devaki turned to the soldier and spat in his face. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and held her tighter. ‘Brother!’ she said, grimacing as his brown fingers closed around her wrist. ‘Do not commit crimes against your own kin. The gods will not forgive you.’

‘This is not my crime, Devaki,’ he said, his face wooden.

‘You may tell yourself that is so, and you may believe it, if that helps you sleep well. But the blood on your hands will be washed one day, Brother, whether you like it or not.’

‘If you truly care so much for me, you shall have no more children!’ he said, and with a wave at the soldiers to release Devaki and her husband, he turned and went out of the room, taking her daughter with him. The door guard stood in the corner, his left hand still clutching his sword, his right arm rigid by his side. After the sounds of footsteps and spears had died down, with the only sound they could hear coming from the thundering clouds, the guard came to the foot of the bed and bowed.

Devaki looked at him. Only now she noticed that she did not recall having seen his face before. The previous guard had been older, with tufts of grey hair peering out at the ears from underneath his crown. This one was younger, bigger, and had a face as lifeless as a mud idol. She tried to look into his eyes to hold his gaze, but found that the man never seemed to look at anything.

‘I come here from across the river, from Kunti,’ said the man, and at his words Vasudev looked up, his eyes buried deep within the mass of hair on his head and his face. ‘I was bade here by Princess Pritha nine moons ago, and I have come to save your child.’

Vasudev laughed and hung his head again. Devaki said, ‘You have come a few weeks too late, my good man.’

‘No, my lady,’ said the guard. ‘I did not wish to save your first child; indeed, I did arrive too late for that. But I can – and shall, by the gods – save your next child, should you wish to have one.’

‘I do not,’ said Devaki. ‘I do not wish to see another of my children being devoured by that madman.’

‘And you will not. I have persuaded the head guard of this castle to appoint me as your personal guard. I shall be with you always.’

Devaki asked, ‘But … why does my child need to be saved?’

‘I know not for certain, my lady, but the High Priests have fled the kingdom, and Mathura does not have people who know the Mysteries of the black stone. Word is not out of Mathura’s walls yet, but it will get out, slowly, and when it reaches Magadha, Mathura will be under threat.’

‘Let it!’ said Devaki venomously. ‘I do not care if Mathura falls.’

‘But if you could do something to save her, my lady,’ said the guard, ‘would you not?’

Devaki began to say no, but something stopped her. Whether Mathura would be saved or not, the thought of foiling Kamsa’s designs tempted her. She did not know whether the priest who had foreseen the king’s death was right or wrong, but now, she thought of her child returning to avenge all the wrongs that had been done to her, and she smiled. From across the bed, Vasudev returned her smile, and she knew that he was thinking the same thing.

The guard retreated, and the door shut with a soft click. Devaki looked out of the window at the low purple clouds, and thought of Pritha.

Pritha looked at herself in the mirror. In the last nine moons of carrying her son, her breasts had grown bigger and softer, and now if she stood erect and raised her chin just a little, she could pass for being a queen. A year ago she had hated mirrors and other shiny surfaces, and even now the shape of her nose made her cringe, but she had grown enough at the right places to feel that she was now a woman.

With one hand she flattened the palm-sized roll of paper that had arrived today from Mathura, concealed in the red turban of a travelling fortune-teller. It only had one line, but it told Pritha all that she had wanted to know. ‘The bird is inside the cage,’ it said.

She looked out at the sky and wondered if she should eat. Carrying a child had killed her appetite; indeed, if Aganyi had not forcefully emptied vessel after vessel into her, only the gods knew what would have happened to the child. Surya had been right; after her moment of anger had passed, she never once considered getting rid of her belly. She had received suggestions – subtle ones from Agnayi, more direct ones from her father – but she had stood firm and insisted on having her son.

She had never stopped to question her choice. But now, as Agnayi was preparing to take him away to the Yamuna and hand him over to the fisherpeople, she marvelled at herself. Did I bear this child all these months only to let him go now? And why do I wish to give him away? Just because Surya told me that I should? Her sons would play great roles in the coming story of Hastinapur, he had said, and she must fulfil her part in the tale; she must ensure that the sons she would bear through the Celestials would all be reared in Hastinapur – it did not matter whether they grew up in the royal palace or in a fisherman’s hut.

But all this to what end? Surya said that a strong Hastinapur would lead to a strong North Country, but why did Meru need a strong North Country? She had heard many tales about the Celestials, but from her experience with Surya, they were not very different from men – men who perhaps held deeper knowledge of the Mysteries, but men nonetheless. And men did not embark upon journeys and make plans without selfish reasons. What was Meru’s in this case?

Bhishma was a half-Celestial, of that much Pritha was certain. Did the people of Meru wish that their own kin should rule over North Country? Even if they did, her sons would be as much human as Celestial, just like Bhishma. Their loyalties would lie with Hastinapur, for they would be reared there. If Meru was hoping to lend her sons to Earth so that she could gain a stranglehold on the land of North Country, certainly there was a better way than this?

She did not pretend to herself that she understood Meru’s part in all this, but the immediate future for her and for her sons looked good, and she could see no storm clouds for as far ahead as she could see. She would do as Surya bade her, then, but she would rear her children to be faithful and loyal to Hastinapur over all else, even their own blood and kin. So when the Celestials of Meru tried – if they ever did – to rule North Country through their sons, they would realize that the High Kings of Hastinapur serve their own men first before anyone else.

Pritha heard the door behind her creak as it slid open, and she turned back to see Agnayi hold a pink silk bundle in her arms. ‘Do not enter, Agnayi,’ she said firmly.

Agnayi stopped at the door and bowed. In these last few months their relationship had changed; gone was the hand-holding and giggling and open declarations of love. Now, with the birth of a child, she seemed to have grown in Agnayi’s eyes to the status of a queen, and Pritha herself felt that Agnayi had grown smaller. There had been a time – which now felt like it was another life – when she had been in awe of her. She no longer remembered why.

‘I have told you already where you are to take him,’ said Pritha, ignoring the shard of pain that had risen in her chest.

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘You have dressed him as I told you to.’

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘You shall take him to the fishermen on the banks of Shurasena that come from Hastinapur. You shall bid them to take him to a nobleman, so that he shall be raised as one.’

‘Yes, my lady.’

She waved him away, and forced herself to turn back to the mirror. She had only looked at him once or twice, and he was but an infant, so his memory would pass in no time at all. If she should ever come across him again, she would not recognize him by his face. But if Surya’s words came true, she would know him by other ways – by the valour of his deeds, perhaps?

Now was not the time to look back, she thought, patting her chest and swallowing the cough that burnt her throat. Her son would look after himself. Now that she had seen to him, she could set her sights northward, to Hastinapur. On the day of the birth of her son, her father had come to ask her if he should begin arrangements for a groom-choosing ceremony, and she had said yes.

In the silence of the room she felt she heard the gurgle of her son, but she closed her eyes and refused to turn back, for that would mean she would have to look at the bed on which she had given birth to him. She plugged her ears with her fingers and counted to ten.

The sounds died away.

Again the door opened behind her, and she looked over her shoulder at the attendant. ‘His Majesty the king has news for you, my lady,’ she said.

Pritha nodded at her to go on.

‘My lady, the prince of Hastinapur has accepted His Majesty’s invitation to attend your groom-choosing ceremony.’

BOOK THREE