RAMAYANA Part 3_PRINCE AT WAR Read online

  As it bent over her, she saw the ten separate yet interlinked faces atop its immensely muscled form, delineated by the backlight of moonglow, those ten unmistakably masculine heads, some bearded, others moustached, a couple clean-jawed, the eyes of all ten heads glistening whitely, their bared teeth gleaming in the dappled moonlight as the lord of Lanka stood over her sprawled and prostrate form.

  TWO

  Sita fought to clear her mind of the mists that shrouded it, and stared up at her nemesis. After an eternity, one face—she couldn’t tell which one in the shadowy light—spoke in a rumbling baritone.

  ‘Awake at last, and about time too.’

  She lay utterly motionless, unable or unwilling to accept the extent of her predicament, the enormity of the crisis that had overwhelmed her life. This could not be happening, she could not really be a prisoner of Ravana, her husband’s worst enemy, leader of the demon legions sworn to decimate her kind. No. It was not possible. Some part of her, albeit a very small and weakening part, still prayed desperately that this was but a dream, a nightmare brought on by the poppy juice. But then she recalled that it was the poppy juice itself that proved that it was not a dream! In fact, it was her identification of the drug that had washed away the last vestige of foolish hope. For it meant that those who had her in their clutches had known she would balk at accepting this rough reality, and had administered it to her to help her weather the very shock she was now experiencing.

  Suddenly, she wished she had drunk deeply of that bowl of sourish effluent, deeply enough to sink back into the comforting caress of unconscious bliss in which she had been ensconced. It would have delayed this moment awhile longer.

  The ten heads examined her, separately and individually, yet with an uncanny coordination. It was like watching a family that was so close-knit, they knew one another’s every thought and response, yet retained their distinct individuality. A tribe of wedded skulls. A fragment from some Sanskrit drama she had seen or read, the phrase sprang to her mind unbidden, irreverent in its irrelevance. A secret terror bubbled up within her, threatening to burst its way out of her gullet. She choked it down fiercely. She would not show weakness to him. Not here, not now, not ever.

  ‘You will die for this,’ said a voice that she barely recognised as her own, so cold and steel-hard was its tone, so utterly devoid of any compassion. ‘By this rash act, you have condemned yourself. For committing this transgression, my husband and his brother will wreak upon your lands the most terrible war ever conceived. Not one number of your kind will be spared. You are a fool to have abducted me.’

  The ten heads bent over her, some turning this way and that, examining one another as well as her. She could not discern all their individual expressions, but from what she could make out in the dim light, it was evident that they did not all share the same visage, nor the same responses. She distinctly heard one head rattle off a string of words that she recognised as belonging to the distant lands of Hellenia, for she had heard ambassadors from those far-off barbaric kingdoms speaking the same tongue at her father’s court in Mithila. The other heads spoke highspeech, lowspeech, commonspeak, and a variety of dialects both local and foreign, at least two of which were utterly alien to her. She thought that now he was enraged, he would not tolerate this outburst from a hapless human lying at his feet, drugged and semi-senseless, unarmed and apparently alone.

  Instead, he issued a deep and sincere sigh—or one of his heads did, she could not tell which exactly—and spoke in a voice that was shockingly devoid of either anger or pique. ‘Your response is understandable, Princess. As is your anger and hostility. But I did not come here to have words with you, there will be time enough for us to talk later, when you are rested and nourished. I came only to ascertain your condition and to see to your needs. Apparently, there has been some lapse in your caretaking. I left my cousin in charge of your care but she seems to have been somewhat amiss in her attentions to you. I apologise for her lack of efficiency and will make up for it by seeing to your arrangements myself. I will ensure that you are provided nourishment and the opportunity to cleanse yourself and don fresh apparel. Then, when you have rested and recovered sufficiently from your ordeal, we shall meet once more. Perhaps at that time, I may persuade you to see the error of your assumptions.’

  Of all the approaches she might have expected, this was the one she had no defence against. Politeness, courtesy, concern, even compassion? It was a trick, of course. This was his gambit, to play the noble villain. She had seen enough Sanskrit drama, heard poems recited in her father’s court. She knew all the ways and wiles of warcraft. Did he think to deceive her so easily?

  ‘Play no games with me, rakshasa. I see your subterfuge. Did you really think to get away with it? To kidnap me and bring me to your wretched lair of demons without any consequences? And now, you think that by treating me like a houseguest, you will gain my forgiveness? You are wrong, then. This time you have gone too far. Even now, as we speak, my husband will surely be amassing an army. Soon, he will arrive here and wreak his vengeance upon you and your people. And this time he will spare none, nor show any mercy. This time, his goal will be the total annihilation of your species. He will not let you escape again through the use of your dark asura art. Your fate is sealed by your own rash actions.’

  The rack of heads tilted a little to one side, contemplating her as well as other things. She saw at least two of the heads on the extreme right look up, as if trying to peer at the shadowy recesses of the dense foliage above. From another direction, she caught the faintest rustle of dry leaves and held her breath, hardly daring to hope. He did not seem to know that Rama was here. Perhaps if she continued to distract him, Rama would have a chance to make his move.

  But even as these thoughts flowed through her mind, so did the questions: How could Rama possibly be here? How had he got into Lanka undetected? For surely that was where she was now—in Lanka? It did not seem logical. But she had to continue the charade to the end now. The drama was begun, and must be played out.

  ‘You alone will be responsible for the massacre of your own people,’ she added with a vehemence that was easy to project, seeing as she felt every bit as angry as she sounded.

  A head on his left shoulder swivelled upwards to examine some inscrutable aspect of the overhanging branches and vines, another turned right to peer sharply at a bush rustling softly in an eddy of nightbreeze. He seemed to be looking everywhere at once, seeing everything, and yet, she observed distastefully, at least half his heads seemed preoccupied, as if focussed on intense mental processes.

  The central head yawned briefly, displaying its contempt for her words, then replied laconically: ‘And you think I am so naive that this possibility did not occur to me?’ The second head to the left of the central one continued the dialogue seamlessly, while the central head frowned and began some kind of subvocal, mumbling monologue with the head to its immediate right. ‘Do you think that I, leader of the united asura hordes since the Satya Yuga, would not be aware of your husband’s likely response?’ The speaking head yawned and slowly shut its lids, apparently falling asleep. Another head on the opposite end of the rack took up the dialogue. ‘You do me little justice, Princess Janaki.’ She was somewhat taken aback at his use of her formal title—Janaki derived from Janak, her father and king of Vaideha. Then she reminded herself that this man—nay, this asura—had been in her father’s palace, had been received and treated as an honoured guest, a suitor for her affections no less; although, on that occasion, he had sported only one head, and the rest of his appearance had matched that very handsomely mortal appendage. ‘You are of course right about the consequences of my kidnapping you. I have no doubt that Rama will come here with an army at his back, to do war with me and repossess the object of his affection. I am, in fact, counting on him to do just that. It is an integral part of my plan. As for his invading my realm and decimating my people, we shall see what transpires as and when he eventually arrives upon these shores
. I will not even dignify your comment on my personal survival. You seem to forget that I have a somewhat obdurate resistance to dying, Princess. You should know better than that, Maithili.’

  Maithili. Literally, Daughter of Mithila. It was a term her father favoured, and the head that intoned the word spoke it with an emphasis that eerily echoed Maharaja Janak’s own manner of speaking.

  She stared up at Ravana, suddenly feeling foolish and naive. She had spoken the first, most obvious thoughts that had sprung to her mind, and had expected him to respond in like manner.

  As a typically villainous demon. The inappropriately named darklord of Lank—for his skin was far lighter than that of the most palace-bound belle of Gandahar. Clearly, her assumptions of his true nature were as shallow as that common misimpression of his skin colour. This is no ordinary more-muscle-than-brain rakshasa, like those brainless brutes you fought in the wilderness of your exile, she reminded herself sharply. This is Ravana himself. If the myths and legends about him were true, the precious few details collected over the millennia by Arya historians even partly accurate, then he was no less a mental giant than the most learned sages of mortalkind. She must not make the mistake of underestimating him. Rama and Lakshman had already done that once, when they believed him destroyed in the wave of Brahman unleashed by the brahm-astra at Mithila thirteen years ago. Yet here he stood before her, very much alive. And if he was alive, then …

  ‘You survived the brahm-astra,’ she said slowly, the implications of her own words chilling her to the bone. ‘It did not destroy your asura army.’

  One head snapped around, seeking out something that rustled in the shadowy branches behind Ravana. A small animal of some kind made a squalling noise, then grew quiet. ‘Your argument is tiresome in its fallaciousness, Princess. Just because I stand here before you, it does not necessarily follow that my army survived the assault at Mithila as well. No. Brahmarishi Vishwamitra’s desperate ploy was quite effective. The largest asura army ever assembled in the history of the world was turned to ashes and dust on the Gangetic fields of your capital city. The terror device he unleashed with such brutal disregard for the rules of war destroyed every last asura left upon the physical plane. Only a few ragged bands of rakshasas survived that day of destruction. And you and your husband and your band of outlaw companions did away with the last of those survivors during the years of your exile in the southern woods. So, to answer your question, no. The great asura army that came so close to decimating and subjugating the mortal world that fateful day is no more. Nor can such an army ever be assembled again.

  Virtually all the asura races perished forever in that final holocaust at Mithila. As the good brahmarishi no doubt was aware when he thrust the burden of that great and terrible responsibility upon your adolescent husband’s gullible conscience. Your Rama is responsible for the most widespread asura genocide ever accomplished. You must be quite proud of your genocidal, race-eliminator husband.’

  ‘Silence!’ she said, her eyes burning with sudden tears. ‘How dare you speak of my Rama in that tone! What he did that day at Mithila was a sacred duty. He saved all mortalkind with his actions. The asura races you speak of were bent upon the destruction of all mortals. You were the aggressors, not us. You invaded our world. You sought our destruction and our subjugation. Had we not stopped you by the grace of the devas, our kind would be the victims of genocide!’

  Several heads turned to examine her with varying degrees of interest. One had yellow eyes that smouldered with murderous rage. Had that head been in charge of the whole rack, it seemed to convey silently, she would be in a far worse predicament than she was right now.

  To her astonishment, instead of responding to her angry outburst with like sentiment, Ravana was silent a moment. His rack of heads twisted and turned, each moving as if of its own accord, almost frustrated by its enforced limitation in being an integral part of a larger group. She was reminded of a Nilgiri stag, those enormous blue bucks that grew to near-elephantine size in the lower Himalayan ranges, with their antlers as profuse and extensive as small trees. For a brief interval, the heads muttered and mumbled to one another—some in languages she had never heard, nor even heard of, before. When he spoke again, she could not tell which head was responding. He seemed to be having one of those brief moments when all ten heads concurred on something unanimously. She sensed that such moments did not occur often, and perhaps never on matters of any import.

  ‘There are things that you are not given to understand, Sita devi.’ His tone was quiet and reasonable, tinged with empathy and compassion. A thinking man’s response, not a berserk demonlord’s outburst. That disturbed her even more than the quiet, reasonable words themselves. He sounded so … sane. ‘What seems obvious is not always the truth. Often satya lies concealed in the shadows, just out of reach of our keenest gaze. Your outrage is entirely understandable. As is your anger and resentment. Yet there is much you have left to learn, knowledge that will alter your thinking irrevocably, dispel the foolishly naive notions you have grown accustomed to regarding as absolute truth.’

  He paused. ‘But this is neither the time nor the place to begin such a mind-cleansing. As I have said before, you insisted on issuing your tirade against me, you are in need of succour and rest. It would not be seemly for me to continue this debate with you in your current state. You are depleted and drained from your long and arduous journey. If I have not yet apologised for the rigours of your abduction and the difficulties of your journey to Lanka, then let me do so now. I only did what I did because it was necessary. Why and wherefore, you will come to understand in due course. Right now, you have need of nourishment and rest. Once you have partaken of these essentials, we shall resume our dialectic. Indeed, I look forward to it.’

  So startled was she by the unexpectedness of his response and manner, that when he began to walk away, she barely realised that he was leaving. He was almost at the edge of the thicket when she overcame her shock sufficiently enough to regain her power of speech. ‘Wait,’ she blurted out.

  He stopped, a tree unto himself beneath the panoply of dark-enshrouded branches. The heads at each end turned to look at her. She could not tell what their expressions might be in the dimness of that place.

  ‘I beseech you, return me to my husband and his brother forthwith. Return me at once to Rama and we may yet prevent the catastrophe that is to come. I entreat you. Send me home.’

  Into this silence fell the soft soughing of leaves buffeted by the wind. It riffled the bushes behind her, wafting the fragrances of night-blossoming flowers, the pervasive odours of a large garden.

  ‘You are home, Janaki,’ he said softly.

  Then melted into the darkness whence he had come.

  THREE

  She was still trying to make some sense of Ravana’s last words, that change in manner and tone that was far more unnerving than any display of brute force or animal rage, when the bushes beside her rustled softly and Rama emerged from their midst. Sita started and sat up, reaching towards him. ‘Rama, where were you? I expected you to appear at any minute, to—’

  She broke off when she saw his face. His handsome features were contorted into a mask of ugly rage. He stood with arms clenched into fists, staring in the direction Ravana had gone. ‘He dares,’ Rama said in a voice that quivered with anger. ‘He dares to use sugary sweet words and tender voices to deceive you? Does he think then to seduce you through such wily stratagems? Does he think he can cajole Sita into climbing into his bed just by treating her delicately?’

  Before she could think of anything to say to this extraordinary outburst, he turned to her, clutching her shoulders. ‘My love,’ he said, his breath hot and rank on her face. He must have been eating something overripe, she thought, resisting the urge to turn her face away, for never had she known Rama’s breath to smell so awful, so … rotten. The words spilled sourly from his mouth, all in a rush. ‘Do not be seduced by his stratagem. He knows that if he treats you roughly and
displays his true, bestial nature, then you will shrink away. He wishes to have you succumb to his caresses willingly, not take you by force. That is why he employs this tactic. Do not be fooled by him, my sweet. Do not listen to a word he says.’

  ‘Rama,’ she said, struggling to keep from grimacing at the foulness of his breath. ‘Let us just leave now. Take me from this place. Let’s escape while he is gone.’

  He stared at her dumbly. His hands slipped from her shoulders, falling back by his sides. He turned away, looking up at the moon through a gap in the branches. Moonlight fell upon his face like a beam from a lighthouse. She thought his eyes looked strange, wild, almost animalistic. She put it down to anger … but still a seed of doubt took root within her heart.

  ‘Rama,’ she said again, urgently. ‘Why do you hesitate? We must make our escape while he is away. It is our only chance.’ She caught his arm. It felt like Rama’s arm, the rock-hard muscle beneath the sleek skin. But was that hair she felt? Rama’s skin was almost hairless, smooth and bare. Surely it was only particles of dirt she was feeling?

  He shook his head in a snarling negation. ‘It is no use. He has the place surrounded with his tribesmen. And even if we were to escape from this level, we cannot escape the Tower itself. It is a sorcerous thing, it responds to his command. Every turn we take, it will change its shape and form to thwart us.’

  She didn’t understand what he meant. Level? Tower? What was he talking about? This was some kind of garden, was it not? There was the moonlight above, and soil below their feet … surely that meant they were on firm earth. ‘But you came in, Rama. You came here by some means, did you not? Let us go out the same way, then. Take me the way you came into this place and let us escape quickly. Quickly, my love! I will not abide here a moment longer!’