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  Devika Rangachari

  Contents

  Sixteen Summers

  Hopes and Fears

  Of Battles and Bonds

  Among Enemies and Friends

  Settling in

  Death and a Warning

  The Throne and its Shadow

  Of Love and Duty

  The Spreading of Wings

  Nightmares and Dreams

  The Strength of a Choice

  Historical Note

  Follow Penguin

  Copyright

  To my family—my treasure, my anchor, my everything.

  And to Sayoni and Anushka—cherished friends and mentors.

  SIXTEEN SUMMERS

  My tale begins the way of all others—with my birth—but it is a rather unusual story. For most, it is an easy entrance into this world; for others, such as I, it is a tortured one. And birth makes no distinction between royal and non-royal, in this regard.

  In giving me life, my mother abandoned hers. So there I was, a mewling, newborn Somavamshi princess, bereft of her love and viewed with distaste by the midwife and the others in the chamber. I am told that my mother was the focus of everyone’s concern then. No one had time for me—a girl, unwanted and entirely dispensable.

  It seems that my mother’s death plunged my father, Janamejaya, into a sorrow so deep that no entreaties could touch him. Theirs was a union unusual for their times. Royal marriages are only supposed to result in allies and progeny, not give rise to a steady love that withstands many setbacks in fortune and power, and does not diminish even with death. Such was the bond between my parents.

  My father was the Somavamshi king, and he was relatively young and powerful at the time of my mother’s demise. There was no dearth of eager marriage proposals for him from across the length and breadth of Kalinga. Yet he chose to remain loyal to her memory and stayed a widower.

  In my idle moments, I often wonder what was in my father’s mind when he beheld me for the first time. Perhaps he hated me at first, this second child of his, a girl and, moreover, one who had dragged his wife to her death.

  ‘You helped heal his sorrow,’ my aunt insists. ‘He was lost for days until we placed you in his arms. I remember holding my breath. I was so worried he would harm you that I was prepared to snatch you back in an instant. But he kept looking at you as if he couldn’t bear to tear his eyes away. And then . . . and then he held you fiercely to his heart!’ Her eyes fill with tears and so do mine.

  The scene is so vivid in my mind. What was it that made him look at me so? Could there have been the shadow of my mother on my face? All I know is that there is a special warmth in his heart for me. His gaze softens when it rests on me, his voice becomes gentler. My early memories are of him crooning to me, laughing at my childish prattle, holding my hand and helping me to walk—his gruff voice a constant, soothing presence in my world.

  Of all my childhood memories, one comes to me time and again. I am no more than eight or nine years of age, and in the palace garden at nightfall, skipping down one of the stone-lined paths. My father follows me, deep in conversation with his minister.

  I am annoyed that he is paying me no attention, so I look away from the path and call out to him. And this is how I come to stumble on a loose stone and crash heavily to the ground. My wails of pain and outrage bring him running to my side. He hauls me to my feet and wipes the dirt off my face. I am sobbing so much that my breath comes in gasps, but my pride is injured more than my body.

  The minister is deeply distressed. He takes one look at my torn dress and the trickle of blood running down my face from a cut and turns to my father. ‘Should I send for the physician? The princess is hurt.’

  My father shakes his head, a frown creasing his brow. I know he is annoyed with me and the thought makes me sob even harder.

  ‘Stop that crying at once!’ he orders.

  I do not obey right away because his attitude shocks me. I am expecting sympathy and concern but receive neither.

  He glares at me till my sobs eventually die down and then he lays a gentle hand across my still-heaving shoulders.

  ‘Have you forgotten your name?’ he asks. ‘Think about its meaning. You must never lose sight of it.’

  I do as I am bid and am instantly ashamed of myself. Tears do not become me. I am named for something else.

  This memory has come to my rescue more times than I can remember. When tears threaten and my spirit quails, my name reminds me of who I really am.

  I am Prithvimahadevi, the goddess of the earth. What could be stronger than this element that surrounds us, signifying power, solidity and endurance? My name has come to mark my nature over the years. I possess courage and forbearance in abundance. Someday, they will stand me in good stead.

  My brother, Yayati, takes his name from an ancient king who exchanged his old age for the youth of his son. He has always been older than his years, poised and grave. No more than three years separate me from him.

  Yayati has always been silent and biddable, often so lost in his thoughts that people fail to notice him in their midst. It seems to me that my mother’s death affected him deeply but in ways that he was unable to articulate. And so, he would follow my father around, lost and bewildered. Yet even then, he knew—as did everyone else—that I held a special place in my father’s affections from where I could not be dislodged.

  Yayati and I have always shared a deep connection. He knows, instinctively, when I am unhappy and I have always known, without ever being specifically told, the things that he likes or fears. When our mother’s death left him without moorings, my aunt tells me, after days of dwelling in a heavy, bewildered silence, Yayati began to spend time with me. He would sit by my side, holding my tiny hand and crooning to me, and I would smile and grip his fingers tighter.

  As we both grew up, we had games in common, and we sought each other’s company in between lessons and meals and other activities. He did not speak much whereas I loved the sound of my voice. And yet, I knew what was in his mind without the intervention of words. That was how it always was.

  My aunt was widowed at around the time I was born, and she moved back into her childhood home, saved from the fate of burning herself on her husband’s pyre by her unborn child. Yet sorrow struck again when she lost the baby during childbirth. She then decided to take charge of her bereaved brother’s household to keep her own grief at bay. And this is precisely what she has done with admirable efficiency. There is nothing that takes place in our chambers that she does not control or direct, from the supply of furnishings to our meals to the schedule of our days. And my father is deeply grateful for her help and constant presence.

  I am closer to my aunt than is Yayati because often there are matters that can be discussed only between women. I
feel safe asking her questions related to my growing that I would have felt uncomfortable posing to anyone else. In her usual brusque manner, she attempts to allay my childish fears and prepare me for my life ahead, masking, all the while, the fact that I am the child she has craved all along and that her maternal urges are satisfied by tending to me. Her relationship with Yayati borders on the formal—never more than an exchange of questions related to the day, nothing deeper. Yet he, too, understands and appreciates her attempts to anticipate our needs and cloak us in comfort.

  She is the mother I never had. And my father often relies on her counsel. She has filled in the gaping crack in our lives.

  Sixteen summers have passed for me, but when I look back, the years seem to blur into one other. Nothing remarkable or extraordinary has happened to me. I have grown up with comfort and luxury at my beck and call, as befits a princess; I have had a life of peace and quiet with the knowledge that I am deeply loved by my family, fractured though it is by my mother’s absence. Yet I yearn for more, much more. I am alive with curiosity about the world around me and my life that stretches ahead. My mind is always brimming with questions, with hopes, with dreams.

  I have grown to enjoy my own company, and often wander around the extensive and beautiful palace grounds. There is no one to stop me; my father has given me a limited measure of freedom that I cherish and despite my aunt’s occasional remonstrations, I utilize it to the utmost. My playmates, when I was younger, were the maids who waited on me and who participated, dutifully but dully, in my elaborately designed games. Yet I have no real friends that I care about, perhaps because I have always had Yayati to fill my hours as a constant companion. Anyone else is just an intrusion into my small and well-ordered world.

  It seems that I have begun to resemble my mother more and more, so much so that my aunt often exclaims that I am her image. This makes me happy—my mother was a beauty, by all accounts, and to resemble her is an honour. I revel in the fact that the eyes of everyone who had loved her—and there are many who did—soften when they settle on me, particularly those of my father.

  When I examine my reflection in the mirror that hangs in my chamber, a slender girl with big, black eyes, a straight nose and full lips stares back at me. Her hair coils around her face and down her back, all the way to her hips. Her expression is often gentle and dreamy, but it can speedily transform into one of alertness and curiosity.

  Yayati, on the other hand, has my father’s square jaw and prominent nose, along with his thickset body. We are different in other ways too. He follows precedents; I question them. He looks to my father for answers; I find my own.

  Yayati is our father’s shadow, always copying his movements, gestures and words. As a child, he would follow him to court, his eyes riveted on him, drinking in the proceedings with fierce concentration. In this, he was encouraged. Yayati will succeed our father to the Somavamshi throne and so, it makes sense for him to know what to expect when he is king.

  I am often privy to discussions between them on matters of policy, strategy and justice, in all of which Yayati is required to hold his own and provide sound reasons for his stance. In the process, I learn a lot, too. So this is what it means to rule, to hold the destiny of a kingdom and its people in one’s hands. The thought thrills me and sometimes I wonder what I would do if such power were ever to fall into my grasp.

  Power drives my father—that and the desire to be the greatest of the Somavamshis, a role that he is rapidly achieving. Ours is a highly illustrious lineage and we are the undisputed masters in south Kosala, in the western part of this great region of Kalinga that is cradled by the seas. This is a land of endless potential, rich in produce and mineral wealth. It is a land that has long been eyed by hungry powers that seek to harness these elements to buttress their strengths. They have been repulsed time and again but the need for vigilance is ever-present.

  Kalinga is not united; it is ruled by disparate kingdoms who seek to oust each other in the battle for supremacy. We, the Somavamshis, are one of them but we have been growing from strength to strength, adding territories and fame to our name. The upper valley of the Mahanadi is entirely ours but the Somavamshis are always eager for more.

  My father has always been conscious of his legacy and anxious to prove himself worthy of it. This was something that I realized very early on in life. At first, I was dismayed by the awareness that Yayati and I were not always his main interests; his kingdom and the dynamics of power were. His role of a father was secondary to that of a ruler. Yet, as my aunt explained to me, a ruler never really belongs to anyone other than to his land and his people. Family considerations are peripheral; to expect anything other than this is idiocy.

  Therefore, I have grown to be content with the few moments that he manages to spend with us, usually at the end of the day when sleep beckons. I comfort myself with the thought that he carries us around in his head, in any case. Perhaps there are times when he smiles to himself, even though he is busy, because he remembers something we said or did.

  I have always loved my brother’s world, the one of court and power and policy, preferring it to the more sedate pursuits that have been assigned to me. It intrigues my mind and I am ever-hungry for tales of rulers of the past. To me, none of them match up to my father, even King Kharavela of yore who had achieved wondrous things for this land and whose deeds are recorded in the rock-cut Hathigumpha inscription for posterity. I beg my tutor—an elderly, reticent scholar—for information of other rulers of Kalinga and their contributions, and my requests often discomfit him as his instructions are to teach me a little of everything and nothing of any depth. My real lessons are supposed to lie in embroidery, dance and music, but I have always been impatient for the knowledge that Yayati is acquiring.

  My aunt sits with me during my lessons to ensure that all is as it should be. She becomes annoyed when I besiege the tutor with questions that should not be within my purview. I have no other option than to beg Yayati to share what he has learnt. In this manner, I have slowly accumulated a great deal of assorted facts to add to what I have learnt from overheard conversations.

  I labour over my writing skills, as also those of reading, and it is not an uncommon sight for my aunt to enter my chambers and find me hunched over a manuscript, my quill at hand.

  ‘This never got me anywhere,’ she says curtly. ‘You won’t need any of it when you are married.’

  ‘And what if my husband can’t read?’ I ask. ‘Wouldn’t he be grateful to me if I helped him with his records?’

  She clicks her tongue. ‘Your head is full of grandiose notions. Your husband will have officers around him to follow his orders. Your role will be different. There is nothing much that a wife needs to do other than bear children.’ Her tone is bitter.

  Once she was young and full of dreams. She married the best among her suitors, an allied ruler of the Somavamshis who showed great promise and was clearly destined to rise high. And then, a few years after the wedding, he died suddenly and inconveniently in his sleep, leaving my aunt without a home or a future.

  ‘Your father and I squabbled so much when we were children,’ she tells me. ‘Over sweets, over toys, over our parents’ attention. I could never have imagined that he would become my sole protector someday.’

  I look at her. Her brow is still unlined, her beauty still echoes in her face. ‘Do you remember what it was like to be a queen?’ I ask.

  Her eyes fill with memories. ‘For a time, I thought I was the most fortunate girl in the world. I felt fulfilled, grand—like a goddess even.’ I huddle closer, eager for stories, but her mouth twists as if she has tasted a sour lemon. ‘We can plan and look forward to so many things,’ she adds, ‘but life can sometimes take you on an unwanted journey—and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Learn this much from my story.’

  It is a poor lesson, I reflect. Why should I let life do with me what it will? No, I will fashion it to my desires.

  ‘My life won’t be like
yours,’ I blurt out before I can stop myself.

  ‘You have the arrogance of youth,’ she says, a note of tenderness creeping into her voice. ‘Age will teach you to sing a different tune.’

  I refuse to share her views. From what I can see, you need courage to withstand life’s designs, to follow your dreams—and that is what I will use. I have been happy thus far in the confines of my loving home, but I yearn for other things, new experiences, a life beyond the one dictated for me.

  When I think of the future, it is with anticipation. And I will not allow the anxieties of my elders to taint my vision.

  HOPES AND FEARS

  The seventeenth year of my birth commences and the day is marked in the usual manner. Sweets are distributed in court and we pay the customary visit to the family temple.

  It is an old structure with cracks running along its outer stone walls but it is the one that my father most likes to frequent. The Somavamshis are builders of temples; most rulers find religion an effective way of binding their subjects to them and to their cause. So it is important that they are seen to patronize various shrines. There are records left behind by some earlier king, incised into two of its pillars. The pillars themselves are crumbling and I wonder whether this entire structure will vanish under a pile of dust someday.

  The priest, an elderly man whose family has served this temple for generations, invokes divine blessings on my behalf and can barely control his glee at the coins and gifts that my aunt places in his hands. He chants with renewed fervour, and the shrine echoes with his words and the bells that he rings incessantly.

  Everyone’s head is lowered in obeisance but I raise mine to lock eyes with the idol of Vishnu that gleams with a dark, polished beauty from within. There are many things that I crave but I pray for the fulfilment of the wish that is best for me, whatever that may be. Let the god make his selection; I am too confused now to make mine.

  It is a day of mourning as well, spent in remembrance of my mother. My father is withdrawn, his eyes dark with memories, and we know better than to approach him and disrupt his thoughts.