RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA Read online

  But the visitor had taken it in exactly the ill spirit that Hanuman had anticipated. His terse but still polite demand that he be permitted to see Rama at once lest the delay prove costly to Ayodhya sounded hollow to the vanar’s ears. Like the very thing a guilty intruder might say to avoid being searched. He watched approvingly as the Saprem Senapati allowed his quads to approach with extreme caution, and when the errant sage dropped his staff, he assumed that the man was finally surrendering to good sense.

  He was wrong.

  THREE

  Bharat and Shatrugan came up Raghuvansha Avenue at a sweaty gallop. Bharat’s re-socketed shoulder joint ached with the dull throbbing pain that he remembered well from the previous two occasions on which he had dislocated the same arm. The effort with which he ignored the pain was just as familiar and easily applied. He slowed his horse as he took in the sight ahead. The avenue was curiously deserted, as was the one they had come by, Harshavardhana. The junction of both arterial raj-margs was bereft even of the vaisya merchants, munshis-for-hire and various court recorders who normally plied a brisk business in official releases, deeds of property ownership and other legal items that Bharat had never felt in the least interested to know more about; that was beyond odd, it was alarming. It usually took nothing short of a major riot to clear the avenue of those particular nuisances, slick oily-haired characters with their disarmingly polite manner and talent for counting – particularly for counting the usurer commissions and exploitative profits they all but stole from the poor, illiterate citizenry who could not negotiate the murky byways of official matters independently. Shatrugan and he reined in their horses as they rounded the final corner and came in sight of the palace gates themselves.

  They sized up the situation at first glance. It was fairly obvious.

  A man – apparently a rishi from some forest hermitage – stood weaponless and bare-handed a short distance from the palace gates. At least four quads of PFs were converging on him with martial stances that left their intentions in no doubt. Several more fully armed and alert PFs stood ready in the human wall formation devised by Saprem Senapati Dheeraj Kumar, who himself stood before the towering gates, beard bristling in that upturned-face expression that his men secretly referred to as the general’s ‘this-means-war’ look. Bharat had just enough time to note the furry outline of Hanuman beside the general, and then time and the universe stuttered and came to a grinding halt and all known natural laws of the world as he knew it ceased to exist.

  “Looks like—” Shatrugan began, and suddenly broke off to exclaim, “Sacred Aditi, Mother of gods!”

  The sixteen prime examples of Ayodhya’s final line of defence moved as one man, polished speartips glinting in the morning sunshine as the weapons moved together to fence in the intruder like the jagged rows of teeth of some wild beast closing its mandibles upon a choice item of nourishment. The converging circle of speartips left mere inches of room around the bare torso of the half-naked hermit. If he were to move suddenly, he would find his flesh ripped open in a half-dozen places; move with force and speed, he would be impaled to death. The precision of the four quads and the firm line of the inward pointing spears were impeccable. Only a rank idiot would attempt to resist that deadly circle of spearpoints.

  Yet the sadhu moved – nay, he didn’t just move. He whirled!

  And whirling, he spun like a human top, perfectly in place.

  At the same instant, his bare feet struck the dirt floor of the avenue with powerful, precise force, pushing his body upwards. Later, Bharat thought he might have actually heard the thud of the sadhu’s feet striking the ground, so intense was the force of that double-kick.

  And like a dust-dervish, he rose, still spinning madly – above the circle of lethal spearpoints!

  It was a move so audacious, so impossible, Bharat’s breath caught in his chest. Shatrugan’s involuntary exclamation mirrored his own silent hitch of awe. What immense bodily control, muscular strength, mindand-body coordination it must take to achieve such a move! It was swift yet graceful, as powerful and sudden as a dancer’s step, and no less beautiful to watch.

  Shatrugan and he tightened their grip on their reins without being aware of their doing so. Both horses turned their heads to snort in protest.

  The brothers felt their hearts leap in their chests. For all their battle experience – and there had not been a year in the past fourteen when relentless blood-battles had not dominated their waking lives – they had never seen this particular move executed. That it was executed by a man who appeared to be nothing more than a half-starved sadhu or rishi only added to their shock and awe.

  The rishi rose, spinning, as perfectly straight as a pillar – a few scant inches to any side would mean terrible wounds, dismemberment or death

  – and reached the apogee of his launch some five feet above the ground. He seemed to hover in mid-air for a brief fraction like a hummingbird working at its nest, then his thin yet tautly muscled legs, gleaming with a dusty film of sweat clearly earned from days of hard walking, shot out like the yawning pincers of a stone crab Bharat had once seen at the moment it closed upon its prey.

  At that instant, had the sixteen soldiers simply jerked their weapons upwards or even slashed randomly, they would surely have ended the impossible dance of the rishi. But so swiftly had the man moved, so daring had been his gambit and so unpredictable his action, that all sixteen of them were still staring dully at the space the intruder had occupied only moments earlier. A space that was now devoid of his presence, which meant that they were all staring at one another’s startled faces like a circle of maidens come together on a festival only to discover that they were all clad in exactly the same festive garbs. The expression on their weathered young faces was a sight to behold!

  Shooting out, the two thin long legs spread like a mallakhamb artist’s to stretch beyond the deadly speartips above the wooden shafts of the spears. For a moment seeming to hang suspended at that outstretched angle, the rishi resembled a bird of prey at the instant in which it pounced upon its landlocked prey.

  Then, in a follow-through move even more audacious than the earlier actions, Valmiki landed upon the shafts of the spears.

  The tight-armed firmness with which the PFs had held out the spears to enclose him in the circle of lethal points now served to support the rishi’s not-very-considerable weight. As Bharat watched with growing incredulity, the hafts of the spears dipped downwards even as the soldiers holding them reacted with their own shocked expressions, but in another fraction, the rishi had used the brief contact to propel himself upwards again.

  Upwards and outwards.

  In a somersault that flowed into a vaulting movement, the sage’s athletic form flew over the heads of the men who only moments earlier had seemed certain of entrapping him or ending his life, to land in a half-crouch on Raghuvansha Avenue with a dust-raising thud.

  Startled though he too must have been by the suddenness and dexterity of the rishi’s actions, Saprem Senapati Dheeraj Kumar had already recovered sufficiently to bark fresh orders at his men. The four quads reacted with a swiftness born of endless drilling and training. They swung their spears overhead as their bodies turned to face outwards – swinging sideways at such close quarters would have caused casualties to each other – and the circle of spears rippled outwards in an impressive display of martial coordination. The deadly points that had hemmed in the intruder only moments ago now pointed outwards and were carried forward to create a rapidly expanding ring as the soldiers ran forward and away from the centre of an imaginary circle. It was a brilliantly devised counter-manoeuvre superbly executed. At the same time the other quads standing by moved in with equally ferocious speed. The outward-expanding and inward-enclosing rows of spearpoints moved towards one another. Valmiki ought to have been caught and impaled between the two lines in that moment.

  But Valmiki was no longer in the space between the rows.

  The instant he had landed in a half-crouch, he h
ad taken one, two, then a third long step, like a stork preparing for flight, and launched himself once more with the same powerful springing leap like a snake uncoiling to strike, this time to fly upwards and forward above the helmeted heads of the inward-approaching quads. Again, being mortal and subject to the call of gravity, he was forced to touch down – this time doing so upon the helmets of the approaching soldiers! Touching down delicately as a cat in flight, he launched himself yet again, landed on the next row of helmets, then fell forward and somersaulted. Clutching his own ankles, head bowed to touch his own knees, he whirled twice — no, thrice, Bharat noted, for the movement was so quick as to blend seamlessly — in mid-air for another moment, before landing once more with a solid thud on the avenue. Two puffs of dust rose from beneath his feet. Bharat saw the rishi’s piercing eyes seek him out and pin him and Shatrugan down momentarily. Before the dust could settle around his feet, he had spun around to face the gates once more and only the rippling muscles of his powerful lean back and sinewy thighs were visible.

  This is the man I want teaching my children the arts of war, Bharat thought silently, elated.

  “Stop now!” the sage cried out, even as the PFs milled about in confusion, most still unable to see where the enemy had vanished – one of the hazards of closely bunched formations. “I do not wish to spill Ayodhyan blood!”

  The only answer from the gates was a bellowed curse. Dheeraj Kumar was not a man to relent to warnings and threats. Nor was he a man to underestimate an enemy once outmanoeuvred. This time, he took no chances. He raised one powerful hirsute arm high above his own head, then dropped it in a practised gesture.

  Bharat knew what the gesture meant. Shatrughan and he had stopped far enough away from the gates for that very reason, maintaining a safe distance as protocol demanded. Princes were not excepted from the rigorous routine of tri-weekly defensive drills.

  The distance was essential for their own safety. The archers of Ayodhya were deadly accurate but once loosed, arrows could not differentiate between friendly and unfriendly flesh.

  From the rooftops on which they had taken up positions even as the first verbal exchanges had begun, the royal archers took aim as a single unit and loosed their first volley.

  Bharat winced in anticipation. However acrobatic, swift and lithe the rishi may be, even the most athletic body could hardly dodge a carefully placed rain-pattern of metal tipped Ayodhyan arrows loosed from the finest honed Mithila shortbows. The rishi was a dead man.

  Hanuman watched with detached interest as the volley of lethal missiles flew towards the semi-clad, bearded ascetic standing on the avenue. The PFs, alerted by their Senapati’s bellowed command, had retreated posthaste several yards, far enough to remove them safely from the arc of fire of the rain-pattern. As the arrows rained down on the avenue, Hanuman’s view was partially obstructed by the close-ranked PFs standing before the gates; he couldn’t be bothered to shift enough to see more clearly. The intruder had proved himself both foolish and intrepid. The leaping and lunging he had indulged in might have impressed the humans watching, but it was nothing to a vanar. In fact, he resented the vanar-like agility of the man. Clearly, the fourteen years since he had last seen Valmiki fight rakshasa berserkers alongside Rama in the jungles of Janasthana had not been spent in meditation and spiritual contemplation alone – the man was clearly a master of the arts of war. But why not simply stick to the more common mortal methods of warfare? Why indulge in these inhuman acrobatics? It bordered on the obscene to see a hairless straightback (two of many names Hanuman’s people used for humans) contort his body, twirl and somersault like a vanar in the redmist mountains of Kiskindha

  – even if, Hanuman acknowledged grudgingly, the rishi did execute the manoeuvres with a modicum of talent. Well, now the man could cease resisting and dodging like the furry yoddhas he sought to imitate: faced with a volley such as this one, even a vanar could do little more than chitter in fright…and die.

  “SHANESHWARA!” cried a soldier standing beside Hanuman, in a ear-bursting volume that made him turn his head away. Why were humans always so loud? Probably because they rarely passed on one another’s distress calls as vanars and other creatures and birds of the forests did, so felt the need to yell cautions themselves. The man who had shouted probably thought to alert all Ayodhya. Hanuman peered over the head of the PFs before him, trying to see past their armoured shapes.

  What he saw almost drew a chitter from his own throat!

  Rishi Valmiki stood as before, standing upright and straight-backed on the avenue. Around him lay a scattering of blackstick arrows, the kind favoured by Ayodhyan as well as Mithilan archers due to the profusion of lohitwood in the nearby region. In the rishi’s left hand, held at an angle above his body, was a whirling blur. Hanuman frowned, momentarily unable to discern what the object was that could cause such an effect.

  Then the rishi’s wrist twitched once, then again, and his right hand shot out and grasped hold of something in mid-air, and the whirling blur resolved itself into the thick wooden staff he had been carrying when he first came up the avenue. The length of the staff was pincushioned with black arrows, some two dozen of them at least. They sprouted between the fingers of Valmiki’s hands like obscene outgrowths. Hanuman blinked, realizing what had happened in the last moment or three when he had looked away, disinterested.

  The rishi had snatched up the staff and twirled it like a protective shield, using it to catch each and every arrow aimed at his torso by the archers on the rooftops. At such a short distance, the archers had found it easy to aim at the intruder’s chest and vitals, ignoring the groin and long sinewy legs. The smaller target area and precisely simultaneous loosing by the well-drilled archers meant that Valmiki could accurately judge the trajectory of the volley. Even so, the skill required to block every single arrow was impressive. As Hanuman watched, a tiny bead of blood rose from the webbing between the forefinger and middle finger of the rishi’s left hand and dripped down to land in the dust of the avenue. The metal head of an arrow was buried in the body of the staff, its lethally sharpened double edges touching both fingers. Apparently, that was the only injury he had sustained.

  Saprem Senapati Dheeraj Kumar cursed and turned back to glance at Hanuman.

  “Who is this fool?” demanded the general gruffly.

  “An old friend and fighting comrade of our Lord Rama,” Hanuman replied calmly. “He led the outlaws in the jungle where our Lord spent his exile and they fought the rakshasas together for fourteen years.” He felt proud of his ability to speak the mortal tongue as fluently as any Arya human; even the most sociable vanars envied him this fluency.

  His eloquence was rewarded with an expression that didn’t often appear on the Senapati’s face.

  “And you tell me this now? After I have almost butchered the man outside our palace gates?” Dheeraj Kumar sputtered.

  Hanuman shrugged. “He was disobedient. You were following your protocol. In any case, he is still alive despite your best efforts.”

  Dheeraj Kumar started to make a choice remark, then quite obviously bit it back. He shook his head, his mane and beard ruffling, then turned back to bark an order. At once, the gate was opened and a passage cleared to let him pass. He stepped outside the gate onto the avenue, Hanuman following in his wake.

  Rishi Valmiki watched them approach, the arrow-riddled staff still clutched in both fists. He kept the staff raised at its diagonal angle as they came within easy speaking distance. Hanuman wondered what would happen if the general ordered two simultaneous volleys from different directions; would the rishi be able to catch them with his whirling staff as effectively as before? Or would he resort to some other athletic demonstration of his martial skill? He wished the general had not elicited from him the information about Valmiki being Rama’s friend just yet – it might have been interesting to see how long the rishi survived the efforts of Ayodhya’s best tactician, and how.

  Even though Dheeraj Kumar strode ahead and was
quite evidently in charge of the situation, Hanuman sensed the visitor’s eyes on him, questing, probing, studying. He had a moment when he almost felt the cool touch of the rishi’s mind making contact with his own, then the Senapati was speaking in his typically authoritarian tone and he was never sure if he had simply imagined the sensation or if it had been real.

  “Maharishi,” said the Saprem Senapati, “Hanuman here has just informed me that you are an old fighting friend of our Maharaja Rama Chandra from his years in exile.”

  Valmiki inclined his head very slightly. “This is true.”

  The Senapati used his beefy hands to indicate the dhoti-clad body of the visitor. “And after your not unimpressive demonstration of martial ability, it is quite evident that you are unarmed.” Dheeraj Kumar cleared his throat, “Except, of course, for that stout staff which you put to such excellent use just moments ago. And a body that itself is a lethal weapon of war!”

  Valmiki’s nod of acknowledgement was more noticeable this time, as was the flicker of amusement on his beard-shrouded face. “I thank you for the compliments and yes, this observation is also true. I am unarmed.” He added with a distinct note, “As I announced at the very outset.”

  The Senapati spread his hirsute arms wide in a welcoming gesture then brought them together in a formal namaskara. “Then it is settled. Maharishi, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to Ayodhya in the name of our king Rama!”

  Valmiki glanced briefly at Hanuman with another twitch of amusement, then returned his gaze to the Senapati. “Am I to understand that after attempting – unsuccessfully – to have me skewered by over a dozen spears, then run through by more spearpoints, then fired upon by a volley of arrows aimed to kill rather than merely maim or injure, you now declare a cessation of hostilities and are offering me the hospitality of the palace?” He looked around, as if looking for someone else to confirm these observations – there was nobody near enough, “Just like that?”