Queen of the Earth Read online

  I have been performing my duty as a wife despite my repugnance towards the act, yet it has borne no fruit. Shubhakara, for all his sourness towards me, offers no reproach, but I can sense his impatience. He needs an heir to take over the mantle of kingship from him, and he will not wait endlessly for one.

  It takes time, Shashilekha tells me with a wisdom beyond her years, and I must be patient.

  ‘Is your god punishing me?’ I ask. ‘I have not shown true devotion to him.’

  ‘He is known to be compassionate,’ she says. ‘As are your gods. Perhaps it does not matter whom one prays to in the end.’

  Shubhakara has spoken to me several times about his faith. ‘It is superior to yours,’ he says loftily. ‘The gods you worship are showy and capricious. They demand offerings and grand rituals. The Saugata preaches renunciation. You do not need to shower him with gifts to please him.’

  He will not convert me; I remain unconvinced.

  I arrange for extravagant offerings to bring to the Hamseshvara temple; his lips tighten when I walk past him with my baskets. He knows where I am going but does not stop me.

  Later, the priest assures me that Lord Shiva is listening to me and will fulfil my prayers very soon. He plucks a flower from the foot of the idol and hands it over to me reverently.

  I do not take any chances, though. Some days later, I ask Shashilekha to take me to the Buddhist shrine that she frequents with her husband. I offer coins, flowers and sweets to the idol and light a stick of incense. I am told that the Buddha does not require any but the simplest offering. Yet a queen can’t be refused and so, the priest in charge of the shrine wordlessly accepts my many gifts.

  I also pray to the Mothers, the relics of an ancient cult that has always had strong roots in this land. There are shrines to them even in Kosala, but they are even more numerous here. It is said that if one prays to these female deities with sincere devotion, miracles can occur. Shashilekha accompanies me to these temples, too.

  I am determined to visit them all; they range from roadside shrines to vast buildings, such as the beautiful Vaital Deul temple, and practically span the city. I pay obeisance at the temple of Chamunda that was built in the early days of the Bhaumakaras by a queen, Vatsadevi, and to the goddess Viraja, the guardian deity of this capital city after whom it is named. I pray with all the devotion I can muster, with humility, with ferocity.

  Yet these divine beings remain obdurate. I remain childless.

  In a vain bid to comfort myself, I spend all my waking hours with Dhruva and Kusuma. Dhruva senses my sadness; he sits quietly by my feet, his big eyes fixed on my face, silently begging me to smile. When I do, his happiness is obvious but he is very conscious of his royal stature and tries to restrain himself. Kusuma, on the other hand, is querulous and demanding and enchanting. He jumps into my lap, ordering me to narrate a story, or tugs at my hand till I follow him out to the garden to play. His energy is boundless; he is either laughing loudly or crying noisily and he makes my heart lift instantly.

  Jayadevi is watchful; her eyes follow me around as I play with her boys as if she is worried that I will spirit them away somehow. I am grateful to her for allowing me to be with them, but her silence annoys me. We are sisters-in-law; why is it that she shows no desire to talk to me? I wonder how she spends her time. Whenever I enter her chamber, she is always sitting on her couch without anything visible to occupy her. Perhaps she is consumed by her thoughts. Or perhaps she is content to sit and watch those around her. I give up trying to understand this woman; she is beyond my comprehension.

  It is that time of the year again when the rains come down with a vengeance. Sheets of water fill the air and it is difficult to see beyond this impenetrable veil. Kusuma is restless; the garden is a sodden mess and he is forbidden from venturing out of the palace.

  I am restless, too. I long to wander away from the palace at will, alone with my thoughts or with the boys. Here, there are always people at every turn and I feel hemmed in by their presence.

  Shashilekha is equally restless. There are bruises on her face that she offers no explanation for, but I can guess how she came by them. I seethe at the brutal coward she is married to. I have seen him at a distance in court. My heart hardens towards Shubhakara for making an innocent girl suffer thus when it is well within his power to grant her mercy.

  I feel no compassion when I am told, some mornings later, that he has contracted a fever and is too unwell to attend court. Rains are a time for disease, after all; there is no cause for alarm.

  DEATH AND A WARNING

  He dies in the night.

  I am roused by Shashilekha a few hours before dawn. My eyes are heavy with sleep as I hasten to his chamber that is just a few paces from mine.

  They are all there—Shivakara, Lalitadeva, Dharmaratha and most of the other officers. I have been informed last of all, and the realization pricks me like a thorn.

  The royal physician, his grey hair wildly dishevelled and his clothes rumpled, wrings his hands when I enter and drops to his knees. ‘Forgive me, O queen,’ he mumbles. ‘There was nothing that could be done. It was the will of the Shakyamuni.’

  The king’s attendants stand beside the bed, wide-eyed with fear.

  ‘How is this possible?’ I say, my voice rough with shock. ‘When I took leave of the king last night, he was weak with fever but stable.’

  ‘The fever took a virulent form,’ the physician says quickly. ‘It is rare but when this happens, the brain succumbs.’ He licks his lips and goes on. ‘When he was a child, he fell ill with the same malady. We thought we had lost him then, but he survived. Ever since that day, we have feared a recurrence.’

  Why was I not told any of this? I approach the bed, my mind foaming with half-formed accusations. Once I had hoped, in desperation, that he would die before our marriage. Did I harm him somehow with that wish?

  His face is still but at peace, marked by a serenity that I had never seen while he lived. He looks vulnerable, too, as if he can finally push aside his protective armour of dourness and taciturnity, and show his frailties to the world. He does not look as if he has battled death through the night. But perhaps death is like that—it destroys but often leaves no mark behind.

  Shivakara comes up to me. ‘You must be devastated,’ he murmurs. ‘Let Shashilekha take you back to your chamber now and we will inform you about the further rites.’

  I meet his gaze levelly. He is a fool if he doesn’t see the truth. There is no sadness or devastation in my mind. How can you mourn the loss of someone you never loved? What I mourn, instead, is the waste and the futility of my short-lived marriage. I have nothing to show for this union—no child, no memory of love and togetherness, no enduring glory as a queen.

  I hold my head up high until I am back in my chamber and safe from prying eyes. I realize I am shaking, not with sadness but with anger at the suddenness of it all.

  Shashilekha brings me water and some fruit, and wraps me in a warm cover while I wrestle with my furious thoughts. What is to become of me now? Will my life mimic that of my aunt? Will I have to throw myself on my brother’s mercy to provide for me hereafter? Will I be sent back to Kosala today?

  I hate this feeling of being helpless, of not being able to chart my own future.

  A new thought emerges: I will miss this second home of mine, my companion who observes me now with so much concern, the sparse simplicity of the palace and the city, the two little boys who hold a large piece of my heart, the freedom that I have grown to enjoy and cherish—more than I ever had in Kosala. I had never meant to like this place, but here is where I became a queen. I am at a court that respects women. My life is no longer circumscribed by stifling rules and conventions. The fresh sea air braces me and suffuses me with energy. Here is where I can test my wings.

  Jayadevi pays me a visit. After her murmured condolences, she sits by my side, staring at the floor and lost in her own thoughts. The rains have turned the weather and it feels very much lik
e the beginning of the brief cold season.

  I am irritated by her presence.

  ‘Where are the boys?’ I ask after a while.

  She fastens her lacklustre eyes on mine. ‘It is not appropriate for them to meet you in your hour of sorrow.’

  ‘You are wrong.’ I can barely conceal my frustration. ‘Children provide the best healing to grief. I am sure you know that.’

  ‘I will have them brought here if that is what you desire.’ There is hardly any emotion in her voice. My dislike for her sticks in my throat like a raw substance.

  The boys come with Shashilekha; she holds each by a hand. They are unnaturally quiet at first, awed, as they are, by the shroud of sadness that has enveloped the palace. By degrees, however, their natural boisterousness breaks through.

  Kusuma dances around the chamber, fiddling with my belongings and clamouring for a story. Dhruva is more sedate. He doesn’t take his eyes off me, and I finally draw him near and wrap him in my arms. His mother’s presence is insubstantial, much like the smoke drifting from the fire in the corner. She leaves us soon after and I hold Dhruva close.

  Kusuma joins his brother and claims a lion’s share of my lap, almost pushing Dhruva off. ‘Are you sad?’ he demands peremptorily.

  My eyes fill with sudden tears. If I am made to go home, I will miss these boys dearly.

  A sudden thought strikes me, chilling me completely. Will I be made to join Shubhakara in death? Will they force me on to his pyre?

  I reach my hands out blindly to Shashilekha, pushing the boys out of the way. ‘What is the way of this court?’ I ask, my voice rising in panic. ‘Am I to die like him?’

  She grips my hands and her voice is steady. ‘You will live on.’ Then she brushes the hair back from my forehead—something she has never dared to do before. ‘They do not follow your practice here.’

  Who are the real barbarians, then: the Somavamshis and the rest of Kalinga that dictate death for a woman on her husband’s funeral or the Bhaumakaras who follow a creed that opposes this?

  I do not linger overlong by Shubhakara’s body and my sense of relief when they take it away is overwhelming. The tenuous tie between us has been cut; I am free.

  A long line of mourners come to wail and beat their breasts before me, but I keep my eyes lowered. No one has asked me yet to leave; no emissaries have come from my father’s court to escort me away.

  I set aside my usual clothes and don the garb of a mourner. They are so drab as to render me indistinguishable from a beggar on the street, but I do not care about my appearance in the way I once did.

  Shashilekha is solicitous and concerned; she brings me food and drink, and insists that I rest. I hope she does not think less of me for not showing any visible signs of sadness. She stands like a guard at my door and refuses all pleas to see me. She turns away Lalitadeva and Dharmaratha, in turn, who have arrived with their families to offer their regrets. I am glad to be spared their meaningless words, coated with ill-disguised hostility. I am still the daughter of their most inveterate enemy.

  At the same time, I marvel at the level of respect I am accorded. My aunt once told me that she was considered of no consequence as a new widow; high-ranking Somavamshi officials were not eager to register their presence with her and she was generally shunned until she took over our household. Here, everything is different.

  The palace is in deep mourning, yet there is cause for celebration as well. Preparations are afoot for a hasty coronation—that of Shivakara.

  Shivakara is the only one who gets past Shashilekha’s scrutiny. He is her future sovereign, after all, and she can’t afford to refuse him. He is conflicted, torn between sorrow at his brother’s passing and excitement at the prospect of ascending the throne.

  ‘I wonder what sort of monarch I will make,’ he muses. ‘Will the feudatories adhere to me? Can I keep the kingdom united as my brother did?’

  ‘It was just before your brother’s reign that a feudatory was lost,’ I remark caustically. ‘Did you forget Ranabhanja of Khinjali-mandala?’

  Shivakara inclines his head. ‘He had lost his right to our support. We were not sorry to see him go.’

  I am curious. ‘Why didn’t you support him?’ I ask. ‘He had to face the Somavamshi might alone in the end. And he lost his life in doing so.’

  ‘Ranabhanja started calling himself the king. He wanted to be independent of us. So we decided to let him fend for himself.’

  The injustice of the matter stings me anew. ‘Then why did your brother make such an issue of it and insist on reparations? Why was I made a part of a treaty?’

  Shivakara looks ashamed and lowers his eyes. ‘It was a matter of honour. You must understand—your father broke into our territory and claimed a part of it. How could we let him get away with such a brazen act? If we had, then the rest of Kalinga would have swooped in on us and our kingdom would have been scattered to the winds.’

  I do not respond. There is truth in his words as well.

  ‘My brother has left you bereft,’ Shivakara goes on, ‘but I promise, on behalf of this great family, to take care of you till the end of your days. This is your home as much as it is mine. Perhaps you will honour me with your advice as I execute the task of ruling. It is an onerous one, as you know.’

  I am grateful for his kindness. He is trying, in his own way, to erase the resentment I still harbour against his family. But he is naïve to trust me so completely. I am still the daughter of his enemy. Nothing can change that.

  It rained during the day and the grass is wet beneath my feet in the darkening shadows of the garden. Mud sticks to the hem of my garment, but I have enjoyed my solitary walk in the clean, fresh air. It has done much to clear my mind.

  I had slipped away before the boys could join me; I love their company but I feel the need to be alone with my thoughts. This society does not look askance on a widow wandering alone and outside the palace so soon after her bereavement. I know that my aunt was confined to her chamber for a very long time before it was deemed respectable for her to show her face in my father’s court.

  Sonorous chants drift across from the Buddha shrine by the river. Somewhere a temple bell clangs. It is peaceful and my hand trails over the wet leaves of a nearby bush.

  My breath catches in my throat when Shivagupta accosts me. ‘Why must you sneak around like a thief?’ I snap, fear making my voice shrill.

  His face is bland, his tone even more so. ‘Forgive me, O queen. I have a message from your father that must be delivered in private.’

  I frown. Shivagupta had conveyed the official Somavamshi condolences in court two days ago, but my father has not deigned to contact me directly and express his sorrow. It is of his making that I am a widow, still in my youth and with my whole life stretching ahead of me like a barren wasteland. I will never know what it is to feel love or to hold my own child in my arms. Now what does he seek to tell me?

  ‘Your father asks you to be vigilant. He says the time has come.’

  ‘For what?’ Why must my father talk in riddles?

  Shivagupta remains silent.

  I turn abruptly, my robes rustling and stalk towards the gate of the garden. As I let myself out, I look back briefly but he has disappeared.

  I am agitated all over again. His cryptic message has completely dispelled my calmness. Does my father mean that it is time for me to come home? I will try my best to resist his orders, if that is the case.

  Lalitadeva and Dharmaratha are at the entrance of the palace, their heads bowed in conversation, and there is no way I can escape their seeing me. I square my shoulders and walk resolutely towards them.

  Is Shivagupta behind me? Do they know that we have been conferring? I do not hear any footsteps, so I feel faintly reassured.

  They bow low as I near them, disapproval writ large on their faces.

  ‘It is a late hour to be out alone, Your Majesty,’ observes Lalitadeva. ‘I trust your guards follow you?’

  I feel,
inexplicably, like a child who has been caught in the middle of some mischief. I am the dowager queen. Why should I be afraid of him or anyone else?

  ‘I desired to be alone,’ I say haughtily. ‘And as you can see, I am perfectly well.’

  Dharmaratha’s gaze is disconcerting. It is as if he knows something about me that he does not wish to reveal. I walk rapidly past them and down the bare corridors to my chamber.

  Shashilekha is waiting for me. ‘The king-elect asked for you,’ she tells me. ‘It is a matter of some urgency, he said. He will see you first thing in the morning.’

  My thoughts and worries have made me weary and I seek nothing else but the blankness of sleep. I eat a little food so as not to upset Shashilekha and then tell her that I would like to retire early. No one questions my routine these days. A woman in mourning is bound to be whimsical and seek the oblivion of rest at odd times.

  When I am left alone, I sink into the cushions and curl up like a child. Does Shivakara know about my father’s messages? Is he displeased with me? Will I be sent away, after all? My sleep is uneasy, full of dreams that foment new fears.

  I wake earlier than usual and am ready before Shashilekha appears. There is a fresh bruise on her cheek, and she is extremely subdued.

  ‘I want to see your husband,’ I say firmly. ‘He has no right to treat you in this manner. Are you his pet animal to beat and discipline?’

  Her nostrils flare in alarm. ‘Please don’t interfere,’ she pleads, twisting her long braid with nervous fingers. ‘It will only make things worse. He will take it out on my father—and I cannot bear that.’

  My anger slowly ebbs away. ‘Tell me,’ I say gently. ‘What would you do for your father if you could?’

  She straightens and looks at me, her voice steady. ‘I would remove all the slurs to his name. I would have his titles and property restored. And I would build a temple in his name to Lord Shiva whose ardent devotee he is. Yes, I would do all this and more for him. Anything I can.’