PRINCE IN EXILE (113 page)

After a moment, he too lowered his head and cried. 

KAAND 3

ONE 

War was the verdict. 

The ministers of the council looked around at each other’s faces, their fur grey with sadness and silent rage. The early morning air was dewy and a soft patina of moisture had settled on their pelts during the long debate, lending them an aspect of damp melancholy. Sugreeva sat on the highest branch, looking down on them all, and his solemn grey eyes scanned each face anxiously. With his drooping eyes and creased forehead, he looked like a vanar sick from a night of drinking too much honey-wine, his belly filled with sour bile and regret at his past excesses. Yet, Hanuman knew, Sugreeva had not touched so much as a drop of any intoxicant since coming into exile, nor had he coupled with a mate. He knew this from Dadhimukha himself, guardian of the Madhuvan groves. King Sugreeva had not entered the groves of pleasure once these past three seasons, although the groves were not barred to him or his followers in exile. Sugreeva’s pallor was caused not by honey-wine or mate-trouble but by soul-sickness. A pacificist to the core, his great heart was breaking at this moment and, watching him, Hanuman’s own heart ached as well. 

Hanuman was seated on a branch only slightly lower than the one on which his king was perched, several trees away. He could only just glimpse Sugreeva’s face by dangling upside down by his tail and holding a thin leafstalk aside. The other elders he could see only by swinging this way, then that, rifling leaves as he swung, catching brief but telling glimpses of their troubled, angry visages. He was too far to hear the exact words being spoken by Sugreeva and the other vanar leaders, but he could make out enough by Sugreeva’s expressions, and the general air of disconsolation. 

The entire Rishimukha mountainside was silent this hot and heavy summer morning, all Sugreeva’s followers-in-exile awaiting the decision of their elders. Many had favoured war from the very outset, and Hanuman knew that they would rejoice when the council declared its decision publicly, but his heart ached with Sugreeva: the day that vanar fought vanar was not a day for rejoicing. However great their differences, the tree tribes had always resolved their differences by debate, or at worst, by duels. Open war was the last resort of the foolish and desperate, some great vanar had once said. It was Sugreeva’s favourite quote. Sadly, old wisdom had now been replaced by brash impatience. 

‘Cheeka!’ exclaimed Sakra, who was a branch below and could not see the goings on in the sala tree, though he had tried everything—including attempting to wrestle Hanuman himself off the higher branch. ‘Don’t just hang there in silence! What have they decided? Is it to be war? Come on, Maruti, tell us!’ 

Hanuman ignored him. Sakra needed to learn patience. Besides, the last time, Sakra had been the one with the better view and he had made Hanuman wait inordinately long before telling him what he had seen. Yes, he needed to be taught patience. 

Hanuman saw Sugreeva’s wan face covered for a moment by the vanar king’s own paws, washing and rubbing his careworn features, as if seeking to wipe away the creases of sadness and regret that had marred that regal visage. Sugreeva had never been a handsome vanar, in a tribe otherwise blessed with glossy pelts and finely shaped snouts, but he was possessed of a gravitas that was much rarer. As he uncovered his face and released a long tremulous sigh, Hanuman felt his own body shudder, as if racked with the same sigh that was exiting his beloved king’s body. It was beyond comprehension that this fine king, this lord among vanars, should be subjected thus to such hardship and trauma. Hanuman felt his entire being shudder as if in sympathy with Sugreeva’s sigh. 

He frowned and looked up—which was the same as looking downwards, since he was hanging upside down—and saw that the shuddering wasn’t sympathetic; he
was
shaking. Sakra was dancing up and down, making the tree tremble. 

‘Monkey-brain,’ Hanuman hissed, keeping his voice low. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ 

Sakra continued dancing, leaping up and down with rhythmic determination. ‘Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell …’ 

Swinging by, Hanuman shot out his right paw and grasped Sakra by the throat, choking off his petulant voice. ‘If you disturb the council with your shenanigans and get us noticed, I’ll see to it that you have no ears left to listen with, you hear?’ 

Sakra’s mottled face issued a barking choke that was shockingly loud in the sombre, silent morning. Hanuman released him at once. 

Sakra leaped a step backwards and bared his teeth indignantly. ‘If you’re not telling, then I’ll just hop to the next tree and listen for myself, so there!’ 

Hanuman crossed his arms across his chest, swinging gently. ‘Go on, then.’ He used his tail to point the way. ‘Hop along.’ 

Sakra peered in the direction of the council tree for a moment. He hesitated a moment, winding himself up for the leap. At the last minute, he lost his nerve and crouched down, scratching the back of his head with a hind leg. ‘Cheeka,’ he grumbled. ‘Who wants to hear their boring debate anyway. Everyone already knows it’s going to be war.’ 

He stuck his tongue out at Hanuman suddenly. ‘But don’t think I’m not going to tell everyone that you tried to strangle me to death, ‘ ’cause I will, I will.’ 

Hanuman grinned. Sakra was almost twice his size, his limbs a full handwidth longer than Hanuman’s. If he wanted to, Sakra could probably roll him up like a pangolin and throw him down the mountainside. But while the most childish of pranks came naturally to Sakra, he had no real malice in his oversized body. Hanuman swung by again, patting Sakra affectionately on the shoulder. ‘Go ahead then, Sakra. Tell the world how I torture and torment you. Every one will believe you. Every
monkey
, that is!’ 

Sakra scowled. When he did that, he looked so much like his mother, it tugged at Hanuman’s heart. ‘Stop calling me a monkey, Anjaneya. I’m younger than you, but I’m not stupid.’ 

Hanuman suddenly felt very mean. ‘Don’t call me Anjaneya,’ he said automatically. ‘I told you a thousand times, I’m Hanuman now. I don’t use those baby names anymore.’ But even as he corrected him, he reached out his paws to his younger half-sibling. ‘Come on, then, I’ll haul you up.’ 

Sakra’s eyes flashed happily. Without needing to be told twice, he gripped hold of his half-brother’s paws and allowed himself to be swung up to the upper branch. For all his bulk, he was an agile and lithe vanar. Hanuman noted proudly that he gripped the branch easily, all but balancing on one lower limb as he twisted and turned to get a view. After a moment of peering impatiently but happily through the foliage, he quipped: ‘Maybe now I won’t tell Ma about how you pushed me into the ocean that time.’ 

Hanuman sighed and reached up, gripping the branch and pulling himself up beside Sakra. ‘I pushed you in because your fur was matted and stinking of elephant-dung. You needed a bath. And that wasn’t the ocean, Sakra, it was just a pond. If you really saw the ocean, you would drown on dry land out of sheer fright!’ 

Sakra showed him his teeth. Hanuman ignored him and looked towards the tree of elders. Sugreeva was still seated where he had seen him last, but he was looking at someone now. Hanuman tried to push a leafstalk aside to see who the other vanar was. 

‘Cheeka!’ Sakra protested. He had gotten over his petulance and was excited by the glimpse into the inner workings of vanar governance. ‘What’s Angad saying to Sugreeva now? I wish he’d speak up so we could hear.’ 

‘He doesn’t want to be heard by the whole mountainside, Sakra, unlike some vanars I know.’ Hanuman watched his king’s face, and from Sugreeva’s grave acquiescence—the vanar king nodded once, briefly—he could guess what Angad must be saying to Sugreeva. ‘Angad is probably saying we must go to war. Vali has left us no other choice. If we do not go to war this summer, then by the time winter comes and goes, the females in Kiskindha will all bear new litters. After that, they will not be willing to protest his rule, unlawful and corrupt though it may be. The new generation of vanars born under Vali will further strengthen his claim to the throne and make him even stronger than he already is. He will be invincible. The time to act is now or never. Declare war against Vali or live in exile forever. That is what Angad Greenleaf says to his father.’ 

Sakra glanced at him with a sceptical frown. ‘How can you tell all that from over here? I couldn’t hear a word Angad said!’ 

‘I don’t need to hear. I can tell everything by looking at Sugreeva’s face.’ 

Sakra looked unconvinced. ‘That doesn’t smell right. How can you read so much just by—’ 

Hanuman held out a paw. ‘Quiet. Listen.’ He had heard something on the still air, the cawing of a crow that had seen something unusual. 

Sakra was silent. ‘I still can’t hear Angad,’ he protested after a moment. 

Hanuman shook his head impatiently and climbed the tree trunk. He emerged above the leaf cover, clinging onto the nub of the trunk, and clung there precariously, scanning the top of the mountain with all his senses. He caught the change in scents carried by the north-easterly wind, the rise in alarm levels. He heard the distant squawking of the macaws, the chattering of the langurs, felt the wave of unease rippling across the forested mountainside, and read the signs. It could mean only one thing. 

‘Sakra,’ he said, looking down at his half-brother, now clinging to the trunk some yards below Hanuman. ‘Go to Angad quickly, tell him there are intruders approaching from the southwest. Tell him to bring vanars and be ready to fight.’ 

‘Intruders?’ Sakra’s eyes grew big and round. ‘Do you think … Could Vali be attacking us?’ 

‘Don’t think. Just go to Angad and tell him my message.’ 

‘But the council session—’ 

‘This is more important than the council session.
Go
!’ 

‘But where are you going?’ Sakra asked as Hanuman tensed for the leap to the next treetop. 

‘To intercept the intruders.’ 

Then he was off, leaping lithely from treetop to treetop, working up a rhythm that was as easy and natural as bouncing a flat stone off a still pond. He raced down the side of the mountain, thinking that perhaps Sugreeva’s wish would be granted in part, that they would not have to declare war after all, that war had come to them. 

*** 

Lakshman trained his bow on the langur seated atop a tree branch a little way up the mountainside. It leered provocatively at him, then turned, flashed its bright scarlet backside, and scampered away to join its fleeing comrades. He lowered the bow grimly, wishing he had shot at least one of the gibbering creatures. ‘I do not know how these monkey-men can help us, Rama,’ he said. ‘I still think we would have been better off asking help from our own.’ 

Rama seated himself on a mossy rock. He had not even strung his bow these past several days, Lakshman noted. As if he did not care whether danger accosted them, or what the outcome of that encounter might be. It saddened Lakshman to see Rama thus, but tinged with that sadness was frustration as well. He had tried unsuccessfully to dissuade Rama from this trip across the redmist ranges, and now that they were here at last, he felt no greater enthusiasm. 

‘We have spoken of these things before, Lakshman,’ Rama said quietly. ‘It serves no purpose to debate them yet again.’ 

Lakshman shot the arrow into the ground at his feet, then flipped the bow to his shoulder. ‘Pray, explain it to me once more. Perhaps this time I may understand at last. Why should we not turn to our own people for aid in this time of need?’ 

‘Because we are in exile. And until our exile ends, we are sworn not to turn our feet northwards for any reason.’ 

Lakshman shook his head in exasperation. ‘Yes, bhai, I know that, but—’ 

‘There are no buts. And no exceptions to the laws of exile.’ Rama looked at him with steely eyes. ‘Let us not speak of these matters again, my brother.’ 

Lakshman sighed. ‘Very well, Rama. I will not argue the point any more. But I do not understand how these monkey-people can help us either.’ 

‘They are vanars. Descended from the monkey races many hundreds of millennia past. They share an affinity with the simian races but they are most certainly not monkey-people. I would appreciate it if you do not refer to them pejoratively. I hope to gain their friendship and form an alliance with these people. Please try to treat them with the same due courtesy and respect you would show to any Arya people. When we are brought before their king Sugreeva …’ 

‘Yes, yes,’ Lakshman said, exhaling. ‘I will be courteous and respectful. You will not have to remind me again.’ 

They remained in silence after that, Rama seated on the rock, gazing at the view of the valley, which was quite breathtaking. Lakshman remained standing, looking up at the mountainside. He tried to discern why the mountain had been given the name of Rishimukha, literally, Hermit-Faced. But the peak of the mountain was wreathed in a faint misty haze even at this hour of the morning, and it was impossible to gain a clear view of the rocky spur. He scanned the rest of the mountainside: an enormous carpet of green forest, gleaming and glittering beneath the fully risen sun. Lakshman noted that the commotion and chaos that had first met them when they gained this level of the mountainside had died out completely. In its absence, a gloomy silence had descended. He had lived in the forest long enough to know what that indicated: they were being observed. 

‘What do we wait for, Rama?’ he asked.