The Rise of Hastinapur Read online

  His fingers resumed caressing her hand. ‘Dear girl,’ he said. ‘You do not understand the ways of the world.’

  ‘Fight him,’ she said suddenly, and felt his hands retreat in shock. ‘Fight him for me, my lord.’

  ‘My lady,’ said Salva, with a nervous laugh. ‘You must be jesting. Did you not see how convincingly he fought us all? He is the foremost warrior in all of North Country, and you want me to fight him?’

  ‘For me,’ said Amba.

  ‘It shall not be a fight, my dear. I shall be walking to certain death.’

  ‘Then let us die,’ Amba said, her breath heavy and fast, eyes glistening. ‘Let us die so that in our next life we are united.’

  ‘My lady! Think of my people, of my wives–’

  ‘But it is me that you love! You told me you would happily die for my love. Or were they just lies, then?’

  He hesitated; only for a moment, but he did. He let out a smile that was meant to disarm her, but it only made her skin crawl. ‘What you ask is impossible,’ he said. ‘I cannot forsake my kingdom for you.’

  ‘Why? Do you not love me?’

  ‘Not as much as that, no.’

  She was reminded of Mother Satyavati’s quiet voice and dark lips mouthing the words: Will he take you back? Then she had jumped to Salva’s defence, but now, she found herself wavering. If he was neither ready to pay the bride price nor to fight for her against Hastinapur, he could be saying only one thing.

  ‘Are you going to send me back?’ she asked.

  ‘My lady, I am afraid I am left with no other choice.’

  She pulled her hand back and looked at it as if termites had been chewing on it. A wave of disgust washed over her. The king withdrew out of her reach, watching, and his left hand rose to signal the attendants to become alert.

  ‘Stop,’ she said, raising her own hand. ‘You have nothing to fear from me. I carry no weapons. Even if I did, I would not have sullied my knife by stabbing you, O King.’

  ‘I understand your anger–’

  ‘You understand nothing! All you understand is to treat a maiden like she were property, to be fought over, to be won, to be given away in return for a price. I now know that when you pursued me in Kasi, you did so because in your eyes, I was a prize to be won. But now that someone else has won me and is offering me to you, you want nothing of me.’

  ‘Amba, you do not understand. All of North Country will laugh at me–’

  ‘If you accept my love?’

  ‘To accept you as a gift, as alms, without giving them anything in return!’ Salva sprang to his feet and clasped his arms behind him. He puffed out his chest and looked down at her. ‘You do not understand a man’s world, Princess. There are bigger things than love that the world cares for.’

  Amba looked up to face him, her lips pursed tight. ‘Like duty, you would say, would you not?’ She got up slowly. ‘Like honour.’ She stood to her full height. ‘Accepting me would drag you down, would it not? You would not be able to stare Devavrata in the eye if you take me into your court and accept me as your queen. People will say that the king of Saubala had to be bestowed a wife by Devavrata, who defeated him and stole her from him first! That is your concern, is it not, Salva?’ She had never taken his name before. But now this man appeared to her stripped of title. He was no king.

  Salva squared his shoulders. False bravado, she thought. She could spit in his face now and he would take it. He knew that she was right; she could see the admission in his furtive, ferrety eyes. A long-gone whisper sounded in her ear, that of an old maid who had reared her since she was a babe. She had said that the king from Saubala was fine and mighty, but he had eyes that could not be trusted. Amba had then laughed her away as a whiny old woman, as she had done with Mother Satyavati. How right they both had been! How stupid was she to have thwarted the opportunity to become High Queen of Hastinapur for this lout.

  ‘Hastinapur will look after you well, Princess of Kasi,’ said Salva. ‘You can stay here for the night as our honoured guest. We may be a small kingdom, but we treat our guests as gods. Early tomorrow, you can ride.’

  Amba broke into a laugh. She turned away from the king and signalled for her coronet and clips to be brought. ‘We will ride tonight, Your Majesty,’ she said. ‘Please make arrangements for us to leave in an hour from now.’

  ‘Tonight? It may be dangerous crossing the Khandava at night.’

  ‘My riding companions will protect me. If you have any gifts for the court of Hastinapur, I shall be glad to carry them.’

  She was aware of the stillness behind her for a moment, but she did not look back. Then she heard his step recede from her toward the door that opened into the corridor. When the attendant came bearing the silver bowl with the coronet on it, she lifted it carefully with her fingertips and looked at the big green emerald that stood atop the snaky arrangement of diamonds and rubies. It looked very much, she thought, like a peacock’s feather.

  She set it on top of her head. Then she walked to the mirror.

  TWO

  Amba kept her lips woven together with an iron will for as long as she could, but eventually emotion won over pride, and soon after the palanquin had reached the edge of Khandava, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed like a child.

  The song of the palanquin bearers carried an easy, joyful rhythm. As Amba wiped her tears she tried to follow the words but realized that she could not. The fishermen of Hastinapur spoke Sanskrit mixed with strange guttural sounds and wheezes. Even today, Mother Satyavati’s speech carried those marks.

  Thoughts of Satyavati brought back thoughts of the royal court. Before stepping out, she had checked herself in Salva’s mirror. She had never, until this evening, thought of herself as a possible queen of a kingdom. She was taller than most women her age, and she still had at least a year or two of growing up. Her cheekbones were the right height, and though her forehead was a bit too broad for her liking – which meant that she liked to place the spot of vermillion further up above her eyebrows instead of between them – her hair was richer and darker than that of either of her sisters.

  She was big-breasted, bigger than most women she knew. That was the one thing that Salva had liked about her body. That night on the terrace of the north fort, after they had got past the guards and were lying on their backs together, looking at the crescent moon, he had slid his hands over her breasts and caressed them.

  She had big hips too; someone had told her that big hips were good for child-bearing. Her legs had once been strong and shapely, when she had been thirteen and had been used to riding her ponies on Kasi’s fields, but in the last one year she had neither ridden nor run very much. Once she got to Hastinapur she decided she would get back to exercising her body – an hour of weaving for the arms, perhaps an hour of spinning to keep her back from tightening up, and an hour of riding, even if it was within the palace walls. During her short stay there she had once inspected the stables, and had been impressed by the dark horses that had come from Kamboja, the rocky kingdom up north.

  She had never been called beautiful by many. It was her mouth – too wide to ever curl into a pout no matter how much she tried – that gave her whole face a grotesque, mannish appearance. As a child she had hated standing in front of the mirror, especially when accompanied by Ambalika, easily the prettiest of the three. But as Amba had grown into a young woman, she had taught herself the art of making her eyes and nose assert themselves more – by wearing kohl and nose rings – and of downplaying the mouth – by not applying any beautifier to it at all.

  The palanquin stopped, and Amba heard the gruff voice of the head rider. ‘Enough with your singing!’ he barked at the bearers. ‘We shall pass in silence. And pray to your gods that we do not run into a pack of wolves.’ The palanquin bearers whispered to one another in hushed tones for a few moments, then fell quiet. Amba noticed that the sounds of the forest had died too.

  She hoped that the bearers would begin their merry singing ag
ain, because the quietness made the voice inside her head that much louder. One thought had been nagging her at the corner of her mind, a thought that she had deliberately pushed aside every time it piped up. But now she had to let it come out, for her very future may depend upon it.

  It was to do with what people had been telling her for quite some time now. Mother Satyavati said it, Bhishma said it, her old maid in Kasi said it, so did her father – and even Salva today said it: she did not understand the ways of men. Now she was going back to Hastinapur with an emerald coronet perched on her head, assuming that she would become queen, but would she? Vichitraveerya was a man, and so was Bhishma. After she had kicked at the honour that had been placed at her feet, would either of them allow her to just walk in and take her place by Vichitraveerya’s side?

  If Salva was right, if Bhishma thought that Amba belonged to Hastinapur, then he would have no qualms in taking her back. But if Salva was wrong, and if Vichitraveerya thought the same way as Salva and rejected her because she was ‘another man’s property’, then she would have to face the same predicament again. Only then she would not have a palanquin to sit in and cry. Perhaps the regent of Hastinapur would be kind enough to send her off to her father’s palace, but alas, her father too, was a man.

  Where would she then go?

  Her hand went up to the coronet on her head and fingered the fine diamonds. A nameless fear took root in her heart. It slowly swelled in size and grew so heavy that she had to lie down on her bed, bobbing up and down to the beat at which the bearers walked. Suddenly she was thankful for the silence. It may not come to it, but she had to be prepared for the worst. Now she had a night ahead of her to plot her way to Hastinapur’s throne.

  Ambika and Ambalika would be her rivals, but she had no fears about them. She would trounce them because she knew how they thought. No, more than her sisters, she would need to know how Mother Satyavati would think and move, what Bhishma and Vichitraveerya would say. She would need to enter, and fully understand, the minds and worlds of men.

  It could not be impossible. Mother Satyavati seemed to have done it. Her old maid in Kasi had once told her that men were simple beings with straight, narrow desires. It would be nice if she could be taken back lovingly at Hastinapur, but if she was not, she would have to be prudent and bargain for a place to stay instead. If she were to get for herself a section of the palace – no, even just a room in the palace – if she could just place herself so that she would be part of Hastinapur’s first family without being in it, perhaps with time, she could manoeuvre some pieces here and there and see what would happen.

  For instance, one immediate advantage that she enjoyed over her sisters was that she was more sexually mature. Ambika’s breasts were only just forming. Ambalika still had puberty marks on her cheeks and forehead. They could flame passion in the loins of no red-blooded king. But she, Amba, was another matter. Being a waiting-woman in the court of a kingdom she was supposed to rule would be a hitch, but it would be a temporary one if she did the right things. It was not unforeseen for a king to have children by waiting-women; such born babies were sent away to fostering in distant kingdoms. But what if the king had a son by a waiting-woman who was not just of high birth, but was the eldest princess of a Great Kingdom? What would happen then?

  Her spine tingled in spite of the warm night breeze that flapped the yellow side curtains of the palanquin. Her eyes grew heavy– a sign, she thought, that her mind had ceased to worry. She had drawn her battle lines. She drifted away on the sounds of wheezes and grunts from the palanquin bearers, and as she teetered between sleep and waking, she saw herself walking through a dark and tortuous tunnel, at the end of which, in the distance, she saw the stone-studded, glittering throne of Hastinapur. Vichitraveerya sat on it to the left, resting his arm, and when he saw her he smiled and beckoned to her to sit by his side.

  Amba rubbed her stomach with her palms three times – the way her old maid had once said women should while praying for sons – and went to sleep.

  ‘You have come back, my lady,’ said Vichitraveerya. He had the slender build of the Kuru kings. His wrists bore the marks of a bow-string, and his fingertips were rough and brown. The vast plains of Hastinapur encouraged open warfare, and her kings learnt to ride a chariot and to string a bow before they knew their way around their mothers’ breasts.

  ‘My lord,’ said Amba, bowing low. ‘I have realized the folly of my ways.’

  ‘Did you? Or was the king of Saubala not able to afford the bride price that we demanded for you?’

  His small eyes were peering at her. He wore his hair long so that it grew all over his ears and covered them. He had a firm nose, an inquisitive and charming mouth, and eyebrows that looked like they were carefully drawn with a kohl pencil. None of his features by themselves appeared like Mother Satyavati’s, but the manner in which he carried himself reminded Amba of her. He would have made a fine maiden, she thought, if he had been born one.

  ‘I cannot lie to you, my lord king,’ she said. ‘I had given my heart to Salva, and he said he had given his to me. But today I have known what a poor illusion love is.’

  ‘Oh, you have, have you?’ said Vichitraveerya, motioning her to sit down. He adjusted his white morning robes so that they would not get entangled between his legs. ‘I do not bear you any ill will, my lady.’

  Amba tensed. She placed both her hands on top of each other on her laps, and waited.

  ‘I did not bear you any ill will when brother Bhishma told me of your wish to leave. I had not even met you. Perhaps I should have; I would perhaps then not have let you go.’ As he entwined his hands, Amba saw that his fingers were bereft of rings; strange for a High King. ‘But what is the need to mull over the past? The truth is that I did let you go, and you did go.’

  ‘But I have come back, my lord.’

  ‘You have, but only because the man you wanted rejected you, my lady. Is that not so? If the king of Saubala had pride enough to reject you because you were won by another, how much pride must I, the High King of Hastinapur, possess?’

  ‘Since you are the High King, Your Majesty, and since you are a much bigger man than Salva, I thought you would see it prudent to rise above your pride.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Vichitraveerya, laughing shortly. ‘You speak well, better than your sisters. How much older are you than they?’

  ‘Ambika is two years younger, my lord, and Ambalika one year younger still.’

  ‘It shows. I would have liked nothing better than to take you as my queen, but for your journey across the Yamuna to Salva’s court.’

  ‘He has not touched me, my lord king, of that I swear,’ said Amba.

  ‘That is not my concern!’ said Vichitraveerya, anger rising in his voice. ‘The men you lay with are entirely your choices, Princess. In the Kuru line we believe a maiden is free to choose her men.’

  ‘Then can I not choose you as my husband, my lord?’

  ‘We also believe in a man’s free choice,’ said Vichitraveerya. ‘If I take you as my queen now, my name across North Country will be sullied.’

  What name was he referring to, Amba wondered. North Country did not so much as mention Vichitraveerya’s name. Whenever Hastinapur’s throne and her great plains were spoken about, people sang praises of Devavrata the valiant, of Bhishma the heroic. Men from smaller kingdoms, especially further down toward the Eastern Sea, even thought that Devavrata was the High King of Hastinapur. When the champion had ridden at the head of his army a few years back along the length of the country, demanding salt and fish from the kingdoms of the shore, he had been received in a manner befitting a High King.

  Vichitraveerya, however, did not have a name outside of Hastinapur. Did he not know that? Or perhaps this was just another of those games that men played. She restrained herself from speaking of this matter; she would do well now not to anger Vichitraveerya.

  She said, ‘I shall give you a son, my lord; a son that would match Devavrata in battle.’
r />   His eyes lit up at her words, and she knew at once that she had hit a spot. How humiliating it must be for a king to be overshadowed by his brother in all aspects? Chitrangada and Vichitraveerya were, after all, sons of a fisherwoman; how could they ever become kings, even though circumstances may have placed them on the throne? She saw from his eyes and his suddenly rigid posture: she now had his attention.

  ‘I do not ask for favours, my king,’ said Amba, looking up at him beseechingly, her hands still placed on her lap. ‘If you take me for your wife, I will give you a son for whom even Devavrata shall have to step aside. In my veins runs the blood of the great Rama, the mythical king of Kasi who once united and ruled over all of North Country. I shall bear you a son who will be the Rama of this age.’

  ‘But you cannot know that. You don’t know that you will bear a son.’

  ‘Ambika and Ambalika are but children, Your Majesty. You must have already lain with both of them. Did they please you as a king ought to be pleased? Or did you have to guide them by their hands and tell them what to do?’

  Alarmed, Vichitraveerya looked away at the door and motioned to the attendants to leave. After they did, he turned to Amba and said, ‘Ambika and Ambalika have the same blood in them as you do, my lady. If you can give me a son, so can they.’

  ‘Only women in the peak of their womanhood can give birth to valiant sons, my lord. Do you see signs of womanhood in either of my two sisters? Look at me.’ She opened her arms on her sides, palms facing out. ‘Look at me, and think of them. Ask yourself with a calm mind, then, about who can give you a better son.’

  ‘Will Ambika not be your age in two years?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Amba, and though it pained her to speak so of her sister, she said, ‘but can you be certain that she will come to be as I am today? Even if she does, my lord, I can give you a son right now, not in two years. Why do you still hesitate so?’