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tmp, page 17
“No, my queen,” he said.
“Yes, Great King,” she said.
“This is not your fight.”
“Your fight is my fight. Or else just say it. Say that I’m nothing but a woman to you. Helpless. Dependent. Weak.”
He lifted his eyebrows and studied her.
“Have I been relegated to the women’s quarters then,” she said, “with only gossip as my weapon?”
“You underestimate a woman’s power.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. You know that I’m not like other women. If I ever came face to face with Ravana, I would cut at least one of his heads off before he carried me away.”
“You speak with levity of Ravana, as if he is a fantasy you can rip apart as swiftly as the pages of a fairy tale.”
“If I’m so foolish and Kausalya is so wise,” Kaikeyi countered, “then why do you seek me out every night and not her?”
To that, he had no answer. Of course he spoke of love. But that did not count in Kaikeyi’s world. Manthara had always cautioned her that the king would profess to love her. It was nothing. Men’s talk. The necessary pleasantries to create a romantic mood. This time, Kaikeyi used it to her advantage.
“My nights will be empty without you,” she said, kneeling at his feet and looking up at him. “Let me spend my days and nights with you. I’m asking you as your lover. I’m asking you as a warrior. I long to fight at your side by day and be in your arms come night. Don’t deny my power to serve you in both capacities. Please. I beg you.”
Slowly, Dasharatha began to nod. He placed his hand on her cheek for a moment. “I see the fire in you, the one that burns in me. In truth, I don’t have to personally go and face this Shambara. But after sitting idle for these months, receiving so many ghastly reports, I need 118
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to feel my own power again. My weapons long to serve.” He looked at her carefully. “We need this, don’t we, you and I?”
Her heart ached when he said “you and I,” as though the world contained the two of them alone. He stood up and pulled her up into his arms. None of the other queens had the training or the courage to follow Dasharatha into war, but she did. She rested her hands on his heart, feeling its steady rhythm, and looked into his eyes. Was the feeling between them really love?
“My weapons long to serve,” she said, echoing his words.
“On one condition. And I’m firm on this. Serve as my charioteer.”
This meant that she would not engage in combat. Dasharatha was placing her in the saf-est position, as safe as one could be in the midst of violence and death. Only the cruelest warrior would attack the charioteer.
“Even as your charioteer, I might not be safe. The enemy may still target me, especially if they have abandoned etiquette, as I’ve heard whispered.”
“Valid points though you make, I know I can protect you. None of my charioteers have ever died. If you are fighting separate from me, my eyes will be drawn to you and not the enemy. Understand?”
She didn’t answer but stood up. “At your service, Great King.”
“We depart on the morrow.”
Kaikeyi bowed formally and left. She danced all the way back to her quarters. All the servants were caught up in her mirth. Manthara was aghast. She came rushing in with a speed that made the other servants shrink.
“Is he letting you accompany him?” she cried. “Doesn’t he value your life at all?”
Kaikeyi was insulted by Manthara’s reaction. “You forget that I’m a trained warrior!”
As always when Manthara was angry, the whole world centered around her. Kaikeyi felt the pleading note creep into her voice. “I’ve been playing queen here too long, Manthara.
You forget that I’m a princess of Kekaya. I am a fighter first. Woman second.”
Manthara showed the whites of her eyes. “This is beneath you, Keyi. It’s a petty little battle. Don’t risk your life for it. I forbid you.”
Kaikeyi put her hands on her hips and faced her old matron. “If the king is ready to risk his life, then I’m ready to risk mine.”
Manthara banged her cane against the marble floor. Kaikeyi, who was itching to leave Ayodhya, turned away from Manthara and did not listen to another word the woman said, though Manthara’s voice grew louder and louder.
“I’ve spent every minute of my life raising you! Now you run off to some pathetic little battle. No one will remember this battle. You might return crippled or injured. Don’t jeopar-dize our future. We have so much yet to accomplish.” And so on.
It took great effort to ignore Manthara, but a force within Kaikeyi came to her aid. She knew she had to do this. In fact, Kaikeyi was childishly thrilled. She touched Manthara’s curve for luck and then set out, throwing a dashing smile over her shoulder. Manthara’s shrill prohibition echoed behind her.
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Riding on her own horse with the king by her side, she felt free.
“Just this feeling is reward enough,” she told Dasharatha. “It is worth the risk of never returning.”
“Don’t speak in such a way,” Dasharatha warned her. Speaking of defeat or never returning was bad luck.
“We will both return alive,” he said.
It was an empty promise, but she supposed it was his way to revoke the bad luck she had conjured.
As they rode out of the city gates with the army in their wake, Dasharatha briefed Kaikeyi on the details. Shambara, an obvious Ravana worshipper, was riding along the villages of Kalinga and Videha with a growing army. The deceitful had found a new master to serve.
Dasharatha had no mercy for the blood-drinker or his followers. The king welcomed this opportunity to face the enemy.
On the third day, they arrived in the area where Shambara had last been seen. There were no signs of him or his army, and Dasharatha set up camp. Scouts were sent out in all directions to decide the next day’s route.
As morning came, Kaikeyi dressed herself by the flickering flames of torches. This camp was no palace. Kaikeyi loved the plainness of the campsite and the limited rules here. She did not have to decorate her body in any way or walk about elegantly. There was but the warrior’s gear to don: cotton undergarments, padding, and on top of it, the armor, fitted to protect all her vital organs. It was simple, functional, and smelled of sweat and horse.
The king seemed a more approachable man here.
“Dasharatha,” she said, savoring the familiarity of calling him by name, since she was one of three in all of Ayodhya with this privilege. Even Manthara, with her irreverent ways, called him simply “the king.”
Dasharatha looked up, pausing the sharpening of his blades. When she said nothing, he asked, “What is it, beloved?”
“Nothing. I just wanted you to look at me.”
“Do I not look at you often enough?”
She shrugged. He put his work down and fixed his eyes on her.
“What do you see?” she asked.
“The one I love.”
“The one?” She mocked. She knew that he did not love her alone. Dasharatha did not rise to the bait.
“Sometimes I forget how young you are,” he said. “Your appetite for life cannot be satiated. I was like that once. Now small moments of happiness are enough for me.”
She did not like being reminded of her youth, which was both her weapon and her weakness. He would always be twenty-nine years wiser than she. Kausalya used this fact to her advantage.
The horns across the camp blew urgently to signal that someone was approaching the site. The sun was about to rise, and the enemy’s army was on them. Kaikeyi suddenly felt 122
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the rumble in the ground. She secured her sword and her knives and left the tent to pull up the chariot. When Dasharatha came out of the tent, she would not have dared continue their jesting. His lips were in a tight line, his eyes steely. This battle would end today.
The horses listened to her wordless commands, and they rode through the campsite as Dasharatha called out orders to the soldiers behind him. It was a language that Kaikeyi had not mastered, concerning formations and the strategy of attack they would employ. The soldiers hastily took the formations as the king ordered. Dasharatha blew his conch shell, the signal to attack. The enemy lines were already surging toward them.
Attacking aggressively, Kaikeyi led the chariot into the enemy ranks. Dasharatha earned his name, “Ten Chariots,” a thousand times over. Dead soldiers fell in their path. Kaikeyi expertly maneuvered the steeds, guiding the four horses to slow down and speed up at the right moments.
“Left!” Dasharatha shouted, and she was already doing it.
As they worked like this, Kaikeyi felt that no king or queen had ever made such a team.
She heard his arrows fly by her. The horses snorted. Men cried as they died.
“There he is!” the king yelled, and Shambara appeared before them, in a chariot drawn by four crossbreed mules. Kaikeyi had never seen such creatures. They had demon faces, elongated and flattened to fit into a horse skull. Their fangs protruded from their mouths and their eyes were intelligent but menacing.
The blood-drinker showed his fangs, and Dasharatha shot an arrow into his mouth.
Shambara did not make a sound as he pulled the arrow out amid sprays of blood. Dasharatha’s next arrow destroyed his opponent’s bow. Screaming now in an unintelligible tongue, Shambara flung Dasharatha’s own arrow back at him. It grew in the air and flew toward them, with impossible speed.
Without a sound, Dasharatha fell back, collapsing onto the chariot floor. The next second, Kaikeyi was splattered in the king’s blood. The whole chariot shook, and Kaikeyi screamed.
Dasharatha moaned. A huge javelin now protruded from his chest. The arrow had transformed into a javelin and was pinning him to the chariot floor. She would not panic. The blood-drinker laughed wildly, blood gushing from his mouth. The horses started running wild. She had to gain control of the chariot.
Kaikeyi had to leave the battlefield now. She threw the reins into one hand and reached for a shield, crouching low and protecting herself from the onslaught of arrows. Faster!
The king’s army understood what was happening. They moved, opening an exit route for her, closing it behind her as she escaped. She lost sight of the blood-drinker. The sounds of battle and death cries continued. The horses galloped wildly, smashing into Ayodhya’s own foot soldiers. She shouted and screamed. She whipped the horses, a sign of her stress. There was no time to bend down and touch the king.
Dasharatha’s eyes closed as he lost consciousness. The wound in his chest bled profusely.
“Open your eyes!” she shouted. She couldn’t, even in this crisis, get herself to nudge him with her foot. Her tears rained behind her, flying away in the wind. She felt her braid whipping relentlessly at her back as she was thrashing the horses. “Go! Go! Go!”
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Kaikeyi fled as if haunted by demons. She scanned the horizon ahead, looking for shelter.
The battle raged on behind her, but she saw no one in pursuit of them. The army had expertly closed its formation, preventing the enemy from pursuit. Kaikeyi would take no chances with the king dying at her feet. Maybe she would continue until she could go no farther. She had no plan, for she had not planned for this. How could she have been so utterly foolish?
Even as she berated herself, a sense of calm settled on her. She had to stop the king’s blood flow. She was not a healer of any kind, but she had seen enough men die to know this.
There was blood everywhere in the chariot. She had seen blood before. Lots of it. But never the blood of the one she loved. She was afraid to stop and find him already dead. And that was the moment she knew: she loved Dasharatha. More than her own life.
When she could no longer hear or see the battle behind them, she sought the shade of a tree and pulled the chariot to a halt. She barely touched the reins, and the horses stopped with wild eyes and heaving sides. As the chariot lurched to a final stop, she lost her footing and slipped on the his blood. With shaky arms, she crouched at Dasharatha’s side. His body was limp, his face pale, and his head loose on his neck.
He is dead, her mind whispered.
Her hand instinctively reached toward his chest, where she usually placed her hand on his heart. At once, she felt its rhythmical beating. He was alive. The javelin had not pierced his heart, or he would already be dead. She saw the blood pumping out in rhythm with 124
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each heartbeat, but the javelin was to the right of his heart. She prayed she would have the strength to pull the javelin out, or else they would be doomed.
She stood up, holding on to the railing of the chariot for a moment. She began to rip her armor and clothes off. She would need every cloth to stop the bleeding. Once the weapon was out, he would bleed even more profusely. Next she climbed out of the chariot to see if the tip of the javelin had pierced through the chariot floor. It had not. This gave her hope.
She spoke soothingly to the horses, promising them water at the soonest. She needed them to stay still. Back on the chariot, she planted her feet on either side of Dasharatha’s chest and took hold of the javelin. She pushed into her feet, using all the strength she had to extract the javelin. She grunted like a man, ordering the javelin out. Unwillingly it followed her will. As she pulled it up and out, Dasharatha’s whole chest followed, stuck to the javelin. Having no choice, she put one foot on his breast, pushing him back down, as she continued carefully extracting the missile. As the tip finally emerged, his blood pumped out forcefully.
She threw the javelin aside and pressed a cloth against the wound. The cloth drank up the blood, and she reached for the next cloth, adding the padding from her armor. Finally, she lifted his limp upper body and tightly bandaged it. As she was doing this, the chariot began moving and the horses neighed.
“Stop!” she ordered.
She had forgotten she was on the chariot and now realized she had to get the king down.
Locking her arms around his chest and under his arms, she gingerly stepped off the chariot and dragged him after her, his legs thumping against the ground. The horses lurched away with the chariot. She had to release the poor animals, but she could not focus on anything but Dasharatha and his wound. She settled the king’s head on her lap and began to pray.
She prayed to every god she could think of and tried to scrutinize her life for any acts of kindness that might boost her prayers and their urgency. Too tired to think so deeply, she repeated, Please, please, please.
Still sitting, her head nodded and her mind went into a trancelike state. She was neither awake nor asleep.
“Wake up!” a stranger said. “The king is dead. Come with me.”
Panic welled up. The king had been alive seconds ago!
The stranger beckoned her to come with him. “Leave the king. He has left his mortal body,” he said.
Was he a messenger from Ayodhya? Was the battle won or lost?
“Leave me alone,” she cried. “He is going to live!” But when she looked down, there was nothing but a skeleton grinning up at her.
“There is no time for grief,” the stranger insisted, pulling her away. “Ayodhya needs you.
You will rule as the queen now.”
But when she entered Ayodhya’s court, it was Kausalya who sat on the throne, looking down at Kaikeyi with a benevolent smile that made Kaikeyi shrivel.
“That one deserves no mercy,” Kausalya said. “Cut off her nose and ears. Exile her from Ayodhya.”
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With a jolt, Kaikeyi’s trance broke. Darkness of night surrounded her, along with the sounds of crickets. Dasharatha breathed laboriously, his head a heavy stone in her lap. But he was breathing, thank the gods.
She touched his forehead. It was burning with fever and drenched in sweat.
Kaikeyi felt grim. Even here and now, when nothing mattered but the king’s life, she could not forget Kausalya, the sinister old queen. Kaikeyi knew that if ever a queen would sit upon the throne, which in itself had no precedent, it would be Kausalya. Everyone in Ayodhya loved the older queen. She was born and bred in Koshala, one of them. Kaikeyi would always be the outsider.
Kaikeyi shook her head and smacked herself several times. She was indulging in utter nonsense. At this rate, she would be a widow. She checked her own forehead. Had she gotten sunstroke or was she in shock? Her throat was parched. Dasharatha was hot with fever. They needed water. Now. Even though she did not want to leave him, she needed to find water, to clean the sweat and blood from his body and keep his fever down.
She gently moved his head and placed it on the ground. She looked around at the darkness of night. They were nowhere near civilization. The campsite was miles away and she did not know the outcome of the battle. Suddenly she worried about tigers and then about blood-drinkers. She had heard that blood-drinkers could smell blood from afar more keenly than any other predator. Blood was seeping steadily from Dasharatha’s wounds. But she had no choice.
Putting her lips to his ear, she whispered, “I must go find water, my love. Don’t go anywhere.”
The last bit made her smile a little. She got up, grabbing her flask, and emptied two quivers of arrows. She left and didn’t look back. He was completely vulnerable and defenseless.
But Kaikeyi told herself her fears were baseless. There were no blood-drinkers or tigers here.
She calculated that she had until next daylight before anyone, friend or foe, might seek them out.
As she walked deeper into the forest, sword in hand, she listened for a stream or river.
She tried to bring to mind all healing herbs and their uses, but she had not excelled in the healing arts, and her mind was blank.
“Keep looking,” she told herself out loud. Manthara would have said, “Don’t be a dod-dering fool.” Manthara’s reassuring face rose up before her, with its no-nonsense look: “Find water. Find useful herbs. Get back to him fast.”
