PRINCE IN EXILE (108 page)

Lakshman hesitated before speaking. ‘If it is still in the same spot. Anyone who could alter the layout of the woods themselves, could just as easily—’ 

But Rama wasn’t listening. He was racing back to the treeline, studying the way the shadows fell and comparing his observations to the position of the sun. Lakshman clenched his fist in frustration and hurt, and followed him. 

*** 

‘Ravana.’ Her voice sounded tremulous to her own ears. She fought to keep it level and calm. She did not intend to give him any satisfaction. ‘I thought you were dead.’ 

Several of his heads smiled wryly. Two scowled. One hissed and muttered a curse in a foreign tongue. ‘So did we, my devi. We were as good as dead, no better than a corpse. But your husband was good enough to revive us.’ 

Her heart leaped in her breast, like a dying bird struggling to fly. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck and down her spine, tantalising. ‘My husband?’ 

‘Good-looking chap. Kshatriya. Rakshasa slayer. Dark-skinned, black-eyed, black-haired. About so tall. Goes by the name of Rama Chandra.’ He used one of his hands to indicate Rama’s height precisely. ‘He upset a cousin of mine, fought a war, wiped out the last horde-company of rakshasas in this part of the world … but he was wounded towards the end, in a place called Janasthana, and my cousin, who survived that last battle, was able to collect some of his spilt blood and bring it to me. It was the very thing needed to release me from a powerful spell that had held me enthralled for thirteen years.’ Half a dozen heads smiled at her. ‘Your spell upon me will hold me enthralled far longer, I don’t doubt. Only fitting, don’t you think? That I should repay your husband for stealing thirteen years of my life by stealing his wife away!’ 

She fought not to let her fear and repulsion show, to keep her voice level, her hands steady.
Keep him talking
. Even now, she knew, Rama and Lakshman might be racing back to the hut. She had to stall him as long as possible. 

‘Is that all I am worth? Thirteen years?’ 

His central head tilted, somehow moving of its own accord, without the rest of the line tilting with it. It examined her with interest. ‘Worth? Of course not, my queen. You are worth far more.’ 

She narrowed her eyes, making her tone sharp enough to sting. ‘You’re a bad flatterer and a poor courter. You just said you came here to steal me away to avenge yourself on my husband. Why? Because he robbed thirteen years of your life? That’s something even a common highway brigand would do. It’s nothing but a petty revenge plot. I would have expected a much bolder gesture from the allegedly great king of asuras.’ 

His central face darkened. ‘A petty revenge plot?’ 

Without stopping to let herself worry that she might have gone too far, she pressed on. ‘What did you do, after all? You tricked my husband and brother-in-law into leaving me alone. You disguised yourself to gain access to my house. You lied and smooth-talked your way into my confidence. And now you’re using brute strength and magic to try and carry me away. Skulking, deceiving, lying, and cheating … is that the only way the lord of Lanka can get himself a woman these days?’ 

All his ten pairs of eyes were open and staring at her. For once in his life, she realised with a pounding heart, Ravana had confronted something unexpected. Slowly, one of his heads on the right-hand side began to smile coldly. ‘What would you have me do then? Challenge your husband to a duel? Best man wins your favours?’ He flicked a tongue across his lips. ‘And they are favours worth winning.’ 

‘That would be a more honourable way,’ she agreed. ‘Or …’ 

‘Yes?’ 

She smiled slowly, a cold, angry smile of her own. ‘Or you could let me have my sword and see if you can best me in single combat.’ 

*** 

Rama crouched down and peered at a bed of wild flowers and weeds. ‘I have been this way before. I plucked a root of gaushan from this very spot.’ He sprang up, turning around and pointing at a gap between two boulders. An enormous banyan tree straddled both boulders, its roots covering both like a ragged shroud. Yet there was space enough for a man to crouch and pass beneath the tree, between the stones. Rama went through the gap without saying anything further or even turning to see if Lakshman followed. This in itself was not unusual: their relationship had never been one of protecter and follower. With only weeks between their birthing days, their ranking of seniority was based more on Arya custom than on any real difference in maturity levels. Still, Lakshman felt the ache in his chest grow more intense as he ducked beneath the banyan to follow Rama. Right now, he wanted nothing more than to reach their hut and ensure Sita’s safety, but a part of him secretly agonised over the possibility, however remote, that she might be in harm’s way. If anything happened to her, he didn’t know if Rama would ever forgive him. Already, he feared that Rama would never forget his lapse in leaving Sita alone. Rama not forgetting his mistake, he could live with; but Rama not forgiving him would be a living death. 

He tried to keep these thoughts at bay as he ran through a particularly dense part of the jungle, the overgrowth so close and thick that the sun barely pierced it. Lizards and snakes scurried and slipped out of their way as they ran, irate at their shady lair being disrupted by these unruly intruders. Sweat trickled down his back and shoulders and dripped into his eyes. The sun seemed to have risen higher, the last he had seen of it, but now it was impossible to spot through this thick foliage. How long since he had left the hut? Half a hand’s span? A full hand? He had lost track. The emotional shock of Rama’s berating had not yet worn off and the possibility, however remote, that Sita might actually be in distress was causing him fresh waves of agony. How could he make amends for what he had done? Had he really done anything wrong? Rama thought he had, that was all that mattered. He must make Rama forgive him. After they had found the hut and ensured that Sita was safe and well, he would beg Rama until he relented. He would prostrate himself if he had to, but he would not spend a single night roasting in the fire of Rama’s unforgiveness. And if Rama remained unrelenting as he sometimes did, why, then he would appeal to Sita. He would plead his case to her and she would intervene on his behalf. She had done so before and each time Rama had come around eventually. Yes, that was the answer. Sita would speak on his behalf. 

They emerged from the dense patch into a less inhospitable part of the jungle. A large, colourful parakeet, sitting on a fork in a tree trunk, squawked loudly as they burst out of the undergrowth. Its feathers fluttered down as it rose up into the air, its shrieks echoing in Lakshman’s ears as he ran. Ahead, Rama turned sharply and dodged left then right, then left again, avoiding a trio of large boulders streaked with veins of iron rust in whose shade grew mushrooms and dwelt a large nest of cobras. The gleaming, black bodies writhed and hissed in alarm as the princes dodged around them nimbly, leaping over the raised hood of the mother of the brood. She could stand to a height of ten feet when roused—they had come across here in late spring, fiercely guarding her newly- hatched brood—and Lakshman felt as much as sensed her rear back in fright as the two mortal men leaped overhead. He was grateful that they were sprinting this fast, or surely, if they had been a fraction slower, the queen cobra would have flashed at their backs, sinking her fangs as deep as they would go, and her whole brood would have followed suit. But then he was touching ground two yards beyond the nest and was out of her reach, running on. 

His heart leaped with elation as they ducked under the eaves of a fading cypress. He knew this part of the woods. It was no more than half a mile from the hut. And all the landmarks were right. Somehow, they had been sorcerously diverted around the hut, to the east side, without having passed it, but now they were moving towards it again and in a few minutes they would be there. 

*** 

One of Ravana’s heads smiled a thin smile that held no humour, the other heads glared darkly. ‘I think not, my queen. I don’t fight prospective mates.’ 

Sita’s blood was up. She faced him defiantly. ‘What you mean is, you don’t have the courage to fight
anyone
. I don’t blame you, Lanka-naresh. Why risk your precious hide when you can send hordes of rakshasas out to fight on your behalf, or steal what you desire by treachery? Finally, the truth stands unveiled: for all his reputation as a warrior, the lord of Lanka is nothing more than a coward who steals women in their husbands’ absence.’ 

One head curled its lip in an expression that might have been a grin had its eyes not been so malevolent. ‘If you fight even half as well as you speak, Sita devi, then perhaps some day, I
will
fight you. But now is neither the time nor this the place. Come, board your chariot, I wish to be gone from this place.’ 

‘Of course you do. You’re afraid that Rama and Lakshman will return and then you might have to use that over-developed body for something far riskier than mere posturing and posing.’ 

She folded her arms across her chest, keeping the torn patch in place as well as displaying her defiance. In an indifferent tone devoid of the frustration and rage she felt, she said calmly, ‘But you overestimate your powers of persuasion. I’ll die before I set foot upon any chariot you command.’ 

A head or two chuckled, but there was little humour in the sound. Several were conversing busily in alien tongues she had never heard nor heard of before, and she wondered silently what that might mean. What did having ten heads mean anyway? Having ten separate minds linked together? Or having a single mind that was ten times greater than any one mind? 

‘Resistance,’ he said softly, in a tone that sent a hot blade of fear through her heart. ‘Defiance. The ability to keep her wits and eloquence even in the face of certain destruction. These are good qualities for a prospective mate, and mother of the future kings of the world.’ 

She blanched inwardly at the implications of those last words, but allowed her face to show nothing. 

‘Foolish facade of a terrified victim,’ said another head, in a less bass, more tenorish voice. ‘Rip off her garments, and have her here and now. The humiliation of rape will strip her of her defiance as easily as you strip her rags from her body.’ 

A third voice, speaking with a thick foreign brogue that was sharply familiar to her ears, so accustomed to hearing the accents of couriers and ambassadors come to her father’s court in Mithila from the nations far north of the Himavat ranges. ‘Yet, if you take her by force, you lose the possibility of a willing conciliation. Give her time and the right treatment and she may yet learn to accept her situation formally. Your victory would be indisputable then, even by the dubious standards of mortal morality.’ 

‘Yes,’ said a somnolent head, its eyes heavy lidded and drooping with a contemplative look that reminded her so much of a Mithilan intellectual and scribe in her father’s employ. ‘Rape deprives you of the legitimate options. Spilling your seed into her will hardly redress the wrongs perpetrated by Rama upon you and yours. Such a paltry revenge, while psychologically and emotionally damaging to them both, will hardly be a good redressal.’ 

‘Kill her,’ rasped a fifth head, spittle spraying from its yellowed teeth. Bloodshot eyes burned feverishly in deep sockets. ‘Kill her and have your revenge and satisfaction. Rape her before if you please, or after. That will rub salt into the wound! By killing her you avenge the blood Rama and she have spilled, and deny him his own chance at progeny. Kill her by a method so awful, by—’ 

‘Enough,’ several heads said with the same voice. ‘The first decision was the right one. She will come to Lanka and be my hostage until she agrees to wed me and bear my children. Forging an alliance of peace between the world of rakshasas and the world of mortals. So have I decided, and so will it be.’ 

And before Sita could resist or move a finger, talons of gold, unyielding and irresistible, had pinned her limbs as tightly as if she were nailed to a stone wall, and she felt herself lifted up bodily by the golden sky-chariot hovering overhead. 

The sky above the jungle exploded with the cries of birds. 

EIGHTEEN 

Something was amiss in the jungle. Jatayu knew this. It had heard the portentous chatter of his smaller winged brethren all morning long, and had once sensed the passage of a flying object that moved too unnaturally to be a living creature, passing by its eyrie heading north by north-east. Later it had heard the terrified yet almost gleeful sky-filling cries of entire flocks rising up and wheeling in miles-wide circles as they reacted to something in the jungle below—the kind of confused excitement that only a large predator on the hunt elicited. Something was about in the jungle and even Jatayu’s jaded, war-weary senses knew that this new arrival was no tiger or panther, or even a rakshasa horde. In its wide-ranging experience, it had not come across many predators large enough to elicit that level of response. 

Yet it could not find the will to rouse itself and investigate the matter further. It could hardly make itself open its eyes. Jatayu had reached a point in its suffering where the sun itself seemed an instrument of torture, hung in the heavens to torment it all day. Since the passing of spring, its deterioration had hastened rapidly. Its wing-feathers had begun to moult at an alarming rate, its oldest wounds were suppurating freshly, its throat constantly felt like it had swallowed thistle and thorn, its beak had sprouted fissures, even its talons were turning brittle and black.