Prince of Dharma (82 page)

At first Dasaratha resisted, his body turning stiff with surprise and shock. But as Kaikeyi’s slender and shapely body, barely concealed by the low-slung sari, began to undulate against him, he seemed to melt helplessly. 

Stop her, Sumitra wanted to yell, tell her to get off you! How can you just let her do that to you after all the things she said and did on Holi day? 

But the maharaja seemed to have lost all resolve and willpower. The moment the Second Queen embraced him, he turned into a boneless mass. After a moment, Sumitra saw with dismay, he even began to respond to her passion. She distinctly heard the maharaja sigh and arch his body upwards, bending like a longbow to mould himself to Kikeyi’s caresses. 

That was as much as Sumitra could bear to see. 

She flung the drapes aside and emerged from the alcove into the chamber, making as much noise as she could muster. She walked around the enormous eight-legged bed and put the tray down on a table. 

Then she put her hand on her hip and pretended to notice Kaikeyi for the first time. 

‘Oh, Kaikeyi, it’s you? I didn’t recognise you at first. Why, you look almost as slim as a serving girl! What have you been surviving on? Wine and song?’ 

For a moment, there was no response. The two-headed beast on the bed remained as motionless as a sand python coiled around its prey. Then Kaikeyi raised her head and turned to look at Sumitra. The moment her eyes met Sumitra’s, the Third Queen’s bravado and fury took flight like a flock of pigeons startled off a veranda. For a fraction of a second, just one disorienting instant, Sumitra thought she saw the woman straddling her husband as an enormous serpent. Kaikeyi’s eyes flashed with a yellow glow shot through with a deep red sparkle, and her lips parted to reveal the tip of a flickering forked tongue. 

‘Ssssssumitra,’ the serpent sang. 

Sumitra’s eyes widened, her hands flew to her face, smothering a gasp. She took a step back. The back of her knee struck the table, spilling fruit punch on her sari. 

She hardly noticed. She shut her eyes tight for a moment, then opened them again. 

The Second Queen smiled up at her balefully. 

‘Sumitra,’ Kaikeyi said softly. ‘So nice to see you again.’ Sumitra raised a hand to her quivering mouth. She was seeing things. Surely the Second Queen’s tongue hadn’t really been forked? And her eyes? That must have been a trick of the light! 

Kaikeyi went on, unmindful of Sumitra’s lack of response. ‘How is your handsome son Lakshman? Have you heard yet? Such a tragedy to see a beautiful young boy’s life cut short so abruptly. My heart goes out to you.’ 

Sumitra found her voice. ‘What do you mean? What’s happened to Lakshman? What have you heard?’ 

Kaikeyi smiled cryptically in response. 

Sumitra forced herself to stay calm. ‘Dasaratha? My lord? What is she talking about? Have you heard something of Lakshman and Rama?’ 

But Dasaratha remained silent and motionless, pinned beneath Kaikeyi’s body, his face still obscured by her long flowing tresses. The Second Queen’s hair reached down to her thighs, and even though she had raised her head to speak to Sumitra, it fanned out over the pillow like a black shroud enclosing Dasaratha. 

Sumitra was struck by a sudden premonition. She wanted to cry out for help to Bharat and Shatrugan, run to Kausalya, Guru Vashishta, Prime Minister Sumantra, the guards, the servants, anybody. She didn’t want to be alone in this bedchamber with Kaikeyi, but she didn’t want to leave Dasaratha alone with her either. 

Mustering all her courage, she demanded fiercely of Kaikeyi: ‘What have you done to our husband? Get off him! Can’t you see he’s still recovering? This is no way to behave with a sick man!’ 

The Second Queen opened her mouth and her tongue emerged from between jagged splinter-sharp fangs. The forked purplish-black tongue flashed out half a foot in the air and vibrated, flicking spittle. The sound was exactly like a cobra hissing. 

Sumitra gasped and took another step back. The table keeled over, the earthen mug of punch smashing noisily on the stone floor. Sticky liquid lapped at her bare feet. 

Kaikeyi’s serpentine eyes glowed with a deep reptilian lust that was as sexual as it was predatory. She spoke again sibilantly. 

‘It was good of you to do your wifely duty and take care of my Dasa for me. But now he’s in my hands again. You should run along and join your sister-queen Kausalya. You might want to buy a few dozen white saris apiece, the both of you. For all you know, you might be in mourning a lot sooner than you realise.’ 

Kaikeyi turned her head to look at Dasaratha. Then she reached down and picked him up as easily as a mother raising her child to her breast. Through her frozen shock, Sumitra glimpsed Dasaratha’s face emerge from the curtain of raven-black tresses. His eyes were glazed and empty, like those of a rabbit mesmerised by a snake. He wasn’t aware of anything that was being said or done. Kaikeyi cradled the maharaja’s face between her blouse-encased breasts, her taloned hands stroking him possessively. 

‘As for the good king here, I think all he needs to complete his recovery is the attention of a woman who knows how to satisfy his appetites. Fruit punch? I don’t think so, my dear. It’s Kaikeyi flesh he needs now. I have his cure right here and ready.’ 

And she opened her jaws, revealing two enormous serpentine fangs, each as long as a short dagger. The fangs were ivory white, and glistened in the sunlight streaming in from the windows. As Sumitra watched in horror and disbelief, a viscous white fluid rolled slowly down one fang, formed a drop at the very tip, and then dropped off. It landed on Dasaratha’s crisp white cotton kurta, which Kausalya and Sumitra had helped him don just this morning. The spot where the venom fell turned yellowish at once, sullying the purity of the white cloth. 

With one final heart-chilling hiss, Kaikeyi raised her head and fell on Dasaratha with the fury of a predator in heat. Her mouth closed over Dasaratha’s neck. 

Like a lamp blown out abruptly in a gust of wind, Sumitra’s entire field of vision blinked out, and mercifully for her she saw no more. 

TWELVE 

Manthara allowed herself a tiny flicker of amusement as she sat before her chaukat, enjoying the havoc she had wrought. The image of Sumitra fainting on to the floor of the maharaja’s sick-chamber wavered then blurred to obscurity. 

Everything had gone just as she had planned. 

Rani Sumitra would awaken in moments to find herself and Dasaratha alone once more in the bedchamber. The maharaja would seem to be unconscious, then found to be comatose. A half-consumed mug of the same fruit punch that lay spilled on the floor - it would be taken from the residue in the pot in the rear room - would be lying by the maharaja’s outstretched hand. Drops of the concoction would be on his lips and chin, and staining his kurta. 

On closer examination, the punch would be found to be faintly malodorous, redolent of an intoxicating herb sometimes favoured by tantriks to bring long deep sleep followed by startlingly vivid hallucinations. The finely shredded herb closely resembled the expensive spice kesar which was loved by the maharaja but was forbidden by the vaids in his present condition. Everyone would assume that docile, malleable Sumitra had given in to Dasaratha’s coaxing but mistakenly added the drug instead. 

Sumitra’s head would be cloudy and confused. She would babble incoherently about bizarre images of Kaikeyi visiting the room and turning into a giant serpent. On further investigation, it would be found that Kaikeyi had not left her private chambers for the past eight days. The guards at the entrance to the maharaja’s chambers as well as the guards outside Kaikeyi’s own chambers would confirm this. 

None of them would even think of mentioning the serving girl, one of several who constantly ran to and fro on various errands, who had entered the maharaja’s sickroom around the time of the incident. Sumitra would be adamant that she had seen Kaikeyi and nobody but Kaikeyi. 

The blame for accidentally sending the maharaja’s delicate physiology into a toxic coma would fall wholly on Sumitra’s slender shoulders. Meanwhile, the maharaja would sleep on in his drug-induced coma for days. 

Manthara nodded, satisfied that she had achieved her goal without any risk of detection. She gestured with her trident. The fire died out instantly. She rose slowly to her feet, her hunchback compelling her to lean on the trident for support. She shuffled out of the secret chamber, con-cealing the entrance to the unholy prayer room with a rare mantra taught to her by her mentor. 

She took a moment to check on Kaikeyi, once her ward and now nominally her mistress although Manthara’s true master was none but Ravana himself. 

The Second Queen lay sprawled bonelessly on her bed, looking much as Sumitra had seen her a moment earlier. With one major difference. The Second Queen’s eyes were glazed and unfocused, her gaze turned inwards. That was the result of the drug that Manthara had kept her on these past days. Kaikeyi wasn’t even aware of her addiction or drugged state. She thought she was simply fasting and praying for Dasaratha’s recovery. When the time was right, Manthara would administer a dose of a harsh antidote that would cleanse Kaikeyi’s system of all traces of the drug, and the Second Queen would regain her senses, attributing her fuzzy memory of the past eight days to the unfamiliar rigours of extreme fasting. 

Manthara left the Second Queen tossing and turning, lost in her hallucinatory world, and returned to her own chambers to find her personal serving girl waiting breathlessly. The effect of the mantra had worn off, leaving the girl with her own form and appearance once more, albeit dressed still in Rani Kaikeyi’s garments and jewels. The girl’s face was flushed and her well-filled blouse heaved as she tried to contain her excitement. 

‘I did it, mistress! Everything went just as you said. The maharaja and the Third Queen never recognised me. They believed I was Rani Kaikeyi!’ 

Manthara spoke coldly. ‘Did you do what I ordered? To the maharaja?’ 

The serving girl nodded. A blush crept across her pale complexion as she recalled her illicit encounter with her king. ‘I … kissed him.’ She covered her mouth with her hand, as if ashamed of what she had done. 

Manthara wasn’t interested in the girl’s embarrassment. All she was concerned with was whether the drug had been administered to Dasaratha. She had applied a specially prepared lip paint to the girl’s mouth herself before uttering the mantra that would cause Dasaratha to mistake her for Second Queen Kaikeyi and Sumitra to see her as Kaikeyi as well as a giant serpentine version of the Second Queen. All the girl had actually done was kiss the maharaja, passing on the drug. The toxic venom would do the rest, putting him into a deep coma that would resemble the effect of the forbidden herb. The girl herself had already been given an antidote that made her immune to the drug. 

The girl babbled on about how thrilling her adventure had been and how scared she had been when the Third Queen had come into the room and challenged her. But she had retained her presence of mind and spoken the very words Manthara had made her memorise earlier. She boasted that even performers of the royal Sanskrit Manch could hardly have done better. 

Manthara cut her off curtly, paid her handsomely for her chore, made her strip off the rani’s clothes and don her own cheap garment, then dismissed her, giving her the rest of the day off. She watched the slender slip of a girl race out excitedly, undoubtedly heading straight for the city bazaar to spend her ill-won reward on some frivolous new vastra that was currently in fashion. Before the day was through, she would probably end up in a tavern room with some muscled lout who would use her, then decamp with most of her rupees; the girl had deplorable judgement in men. Manthara had already forgotten the serving girl by the time she left the chamber. She wasn’t worried about the wench telling anyone else about these illicit chores she performed for Manthara-daiimaa. A special mantra ensured that if she even tried, she would choke to death on her own tongue. 

Manthara mused on the next stage of her strategy. There was much work yet to be done. She had no time to gloat on the successful completion of this morning’s mission. 

The day of her master’s arrival was at hand. She had already received word of the twice-lifer he was sending with his false message. The imposter would arrive at any moment, setting another sequence of shrewdly planned events into motion. She marvelled at her lord’s brilliant strategems. 

Her role in the whole scheme was a small but critical one. It would take great daring to pull it off. She might even run the risk of being exposed at last. And she knew the consequences of that. Ever since the incident with Kala-Nemi and the encounter in the city dungeons, Guru Vashishta was alert as an owl. It would take only one small slip for him to catch her. And once caught, she would be shown no mercy, either by the mortals she had betrayed so treacherously or by the king of asuras, who despised failure. 

She gathered her resolve, her wizened face crinkling like a crushed parchment. She vowed to herself that she would not fail this time. The Lord of Lanka would find no fault with her efforts on his behalf. She would prove to him once and for all that a single mortal spy in the heart of Ayodhya could accomplish far more than an entire legion of marauding demons. She would wreak havoc in the next few days like a canker in the heart of the mightiest Arya kingdom in existence. And then finally, her lord would grant her the reward he had promised her so long ago.