PRINCE IN EXILE (9 page)

The return to normal time and awareness was as wrenching as a collision with a stone floor after a long fall. Sita put a hand up to her head to steady herself, disoriented and shaken. Every soldier around was similarly disoriented.
Mortals are not meant to witness such sights. Yet we were given sight of this in order that we might provide witness. 

Parsurama staggered forward, head lowered. Liquid dripped steadily from his forehead, and at first Sita thought it must be blood, that the arrow had caused some bodily harm after all. It seemed as though his very face was melting. Then, as the Brahmin used his axe to stop his forward fall and rested his weight upon the weapon, raising his head fractionally with the force of the effort, she saw that the wetness was caused by his caste-marks melting and sloughing off his face. The shame and humiliation he felt were clearly visible in that moment of utter defeat, and despite his earlier arrogance and avowed intention to kill her companions and destroy her blameless husband’s life, Sita could not help but feel a softening of her resolve. A great urge overcame her fear and caution. 

The soldiers around her were still reeling from the disorientation caused by the loosing of the arrow, and she took advantage of their lapsed attention to dart forward, passing between a momentary gap in the closely packed ranks to break through the front line, beyond the ranks of lowered lances, to where Rama stood with the bow in his right hand. He turned his head at her approach, sensing rather than hearing her, and she was relieved to see that his eyes did not shine any longer with that peculiar inhuman blue glow. She gestured towards the Brahmin, hoping Rama would comprehend her intention, and he understood at once, nodding his approval. 

She ran past Rama, to where Parsurama bent over almost double, his arm holding the axe trembling with the effort of keeping himself upright. She took hold of a corner of her sari and, pulling hard, tore it off raggedly. Parsurama stirred at the sound of cloth ripping. Sita bunched the soft fabric in her hand and leaned over, showing it to the Brahmin. He glanced up at her, and she was shocked to see his grey eyes filled with tears. She daubed gently at the melted caste-marks on his forehead, wiping away the stains from his cheeks and beard. Cleansed of the marks of his Brahmin stature, his face seemed old and weary, long past its point of endurance. He could have been any elderly Brahmin in some neglected temple of a forgotten deity, eking out his days on charity and forage. He could have been her father. In that moment, she knew that for all their bluster and arrogance, all men were but motherless boys in their moment of defeat. Perhaps that was the reason for their arrogance and bluster in the first place. She wiped a last stain from his shoulder and then backed away, joining her hands in respect of his status. A Brahmin was more than his caste-marks. 

He bent his head once, thanking her, then tried to straighten. She knew better than to offer to help him in that action. He managed to stand upright with a great effort, looking now like the old Brahmin he truly was rather than the legendary avenger and slaughterer of countless warriors. Sita backed away, then turned and went to stand beside Rama. 

Rama’s face remained the same, yet she felt that he acknowledged her gesture towards Parsurama and approved of it. She stood close to him, feeling the warmth of his body and the warmth of the sunlight, both intermingled inextricably. 

Parsurama inverted his axe with visible difficulty. He held it now with the blade down and the handle aloft, the traditional gesture of surrender. 

‘Rama Chandra of Ayodhya, aeons ago, after I had cleansed this earth the last time of Kshatriyas, mighty Kasyapa requested me to cease my slaughter. He asked me to give this Prithvi-lok, Mother Earth, a season of rest, to give mortalkind a chance to prove their worthiness once more by giving birth to a new generation of honourable, respectful Kshatriyas. I see now that this has come to pass. I had promised Kasyapa then that I would not spend a single night here on earth again. I returned on this day because I heard the sound of Shiva’s bow breaking and mistakenly believed that my axe was needed again to teach Kshatriyas a lesson. Instead, it is I who have learned a lesson. Young master, had you even a shred of impurity in your thoughts or feelings, any lapse in your fulfilment of your dharma, you could not have escaped the bite of my axe. Even now, your severed head would lie in the dirt and dust at my feet. Your very survival proves your purity of thought and intention, your perfection of your duties, your adherence to your dharma. Never before have I encountered a Kshatriya as dedicated and selfless as yourself, one who is so true to his vows and to the code of the Kshatriya. Truly, I say upon this very axe with which I have dispatched so many of your caste-comrades to the netherworlds of Yamaraj, Lord of Death, you are worthy of all honour and admiration. You have redeemed my trust in the warrior race, and in mortalkind as a whole. I bow before you and acknowledge that my vengeance is finally done. No more shall I return to Prithvi-lok and lay waste to Kshatriyas. By your leave now, wielder of Vishnu’s bow, I shall return to the heart of Mount Mahendra whence I came, there to dwell eternally, for I am still blessed with immortality, and there will I stay in perpetual meditation, offering penance for all the blood-letting I have committed, until the end of time, or until such time as my lord and master Shiva Himself sees fit to send Yamaraj to escort me on that final journey to the afterworld. I pray, my honourable victor, give me leave now to depart from your presence.’ 

Parsurama turned to face the mountain once more, lifting his axe only when his back was to Rama, and placing it upon his shoulder. 

‘Mahadev,’ Rama said, striding forward. Sita remained where she was, watching him walk over to the mountain face before which the Brahmin stood. Rama held the bow out to Parsurama. 

‘You have forgotten to take Vishnu’s bow,’ Rama said. 

‘Nay,’ Parsurama replied, without turning around. ‘I have no further need of it. It belongs to you, Rama Chandra. It has always belonged to you. Do with it as you see fit.’ 

The Brahmin stepped directly into the mountain, passing through the solid rock like water absorbing into cotton, and vanished completely from sight. 

FOUR 

Lakshman’s horse crested the rise and he sat speechless for a moment, enraptured by the vision of the Sarayu Valley spread before him for as far as the eye could see.
Home at last
, he thought. Despite the delay caused by the encounter in the ravine, Guru Vashishta had worked his magic. Their passage over the back of Mount Mahendra and through the ravine had brought them out not on the far side of the same range, but a good fifty yojanas further north and west, into the heart of the Kosala nation. Lakshman’s heart leaped with sudden joy as he recognised familiar landmarks and realised that they were almost within sight of Ayodhya. 

With an involuntary whoop of joy, he spurred Marut forward and downward, negotiating the winding path that would connect up soon with the raj-marg, the king’s highway that led straight to Ayodhya. Now, as the procession descended the far side of the mountain range, he found himself longing with all his heart to see the familiar spires and marbled domes of Ayodhya once more. Could Rama and he have been away only a mere fortnight? Surely it was longer than that! It felt like an eternity now. 

Behind him came the chanting legions of the First Akshohini, raising a new round of jubilation as they spied the familiar vista too. For hours now the Ayodhyans had shouted themselves hoarse, cheering and chanting praises to their prince and saviour. If any of them had felt some disappointment at not staying in Mithila for the full duration of the wedding feast days, it was more than made up for by the extraordinary encounter on the mountain. Already riders were splitting away from the main company, setting off towards Ayodhya at double speed, dispatched by the captains to carry the news of Rama’s historic duel with Parsurama to the capital city before their arrival. One more legend to add to Rama’s growing list of achievements. 

Lakshman rode towards the head of the long procession, to join his family and share with them the glorious thrill of returning home to Ayodhya once more. 

As they came on to the last straight stretch of the king’s highway, Sita braced herself, her mind swirling with long-remembered images of towering spires, vaulting arches, looming domes, and, most of all, the lights, the fabled jewelled lights of Ayodhya. That was what she remembered best from her childhood visits to Mithila’s sister city: that breathtaking panorama of lights glittering like a regal crown astride the roaring Sarayu. 

If anything, she expected to be regaled by an even more fabulous view than the one from her childhood memories. Coming here after eight long years, she expected to find the Kosalan capital even more resplendent and regal. The years of peace had been good to all the Arya nations, and most of all to Ayodhya. She had heard so much about the richness of Ayodhyan fashion, jewellery, lifestyle, architecture, culture and goods. She had grown up hearing the glowing accolades paid to the growing prosperity of the Kosalan nation by the many diplomats and delegates who returned to her father’s court with chests overflowing with gifts and samples; had read about it in the travelogues of scholars and sadhus who made the long trek to study the wisdom of Ayodhyan seers; had been discreetly shown the advances in military technology and technique by the weapons masters and few veterans who still clung to the old ways even in peaceful Mithila. Except for spiritual and philosophical learning, the capital of the Kosalan nation had clearly outstripped even its neighbouring Vaidehan sister in its accumulation of wealth and magnificence. As Mithila had progressed spiritually and culturally, Ayodhya had enriched itself literally. And while she had been her father’s good daughter, taught to respect Vedic learning as being more important than the garnering of wealth and fine things, she had been made naturally curious by those tales of Ayodhyan luxury. And of course, there had always been her sister and cousins, ever eagerly gossiping about wildly exagerated tales of the decadent Ayodhyan lifestyle. 

But in her heart, it was still that first clear sight of the lights that she sought. To measure the now against the then, complete the long circle of time, pin past with the present, and see with her newly matured eyes if the fabled city could truly measure up to the one of her childhood memories. 

All that cumulative expectation came to a head as she brought her horse in line with Rama’s as they took that last turn together and came into the straight. 

From the elephant palanquin she heard Rajkumar Bharat shout proudly: ‘Princesses of Mithila, behold the jewel in the Arya crown … Ayodhya!’ 

‘Ayodhya!’ echoed Shatrugan. 

A chorus of excited squeals rose from Sita’s sister and cousins and their maids. Normally Sita would have felt irritation at such a show of girlish giddiness, but now, after all that had transpired, she couldn’t help but feel a certain surge of excitement too. The air was thick with anticipation; the soldiers had stopped their singing a moment ago, growing silent all of a sudden as they came around that last bend. Now she could feel the hastening rhythm of fifty thousand hearts beating faster as they came within sight of their beloved capital. She found her own breath caught in her throat and reached out without realising she was doing so, catching hold of Rama’s sleeve. 

He glanced at her, allowing himself a small smile, brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it gently. 

‘Su-swagatam,’ she heard him say.
Welcome
. ‘Welcome to your new home.’ 

Airavata, the lead elephant, raised his trunk and bellowed a loud tribute of his own, answered down the mile-long procession by his close to two hundred fellow elephants. After travelling tens of yojanas to Mithila and back these past two days, and losing a dozen-odd fellows in the avalanches and earthquake on Mount Mahendra during the skirmish with Parsurama, even the bigfoot were pleased to be coming home. As the last elephant bellows faded away, echoing off the high rises of the dense woods that flanked the Sarayu Valley, the entire procession fell silent, marching in perfect step along the last stretch of the raj-marg. 

The front line came into the straight, and were immediately buffeted by a cool wind blowing down the length of the Sarayu. The voice of the river, ever present since Mithila Bridge, now became a resounding roar, dimmed only by the height of the king’s highway above the bed of the river. To her right, Sita saw the road fall away sharply to the river twenty yards below. The far bank was a good thirty yards or more distant, heavily wooded with a profusion of trees. The glacial tang of the river filled her nostrils, assailing her senses with its powerful perfume redolent of Himalayan ice-glaciers and a mineral content so rich that the royal vaids in Mithila claimed that simply drinking Sarayu water would cure all minor ailments. Unlike the gentle oceanic swelling and ebbing of the Ganga in her own kingdom, the Sarayu was a potent force of nature, wild and robust, crashing and shattering its white glacial waters upon the splintered dark rocks that lined its lower banks. Far ahead, she could hear angry rapids and cascading waterfalls. The very air blowing off the river was so sharp and sudden that she knew her delicate sister must be shivering at the abrupt drop in temperature. 

But while her ears and other senses absorbed all these thrilling observations about the river, it was her sense of sight that was commanding her attention. 

She peered ahead, at the glittering light-bejewelled city of her childhood memories.