RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA (13 page)

From the rooftops on which they had taken up positions even as the first verbal exchanges had begun, the royal archers took aim as a single unit and loosed their first volley.

Bharat winced in anticipation. However acrobatic, swift and lithe the rishi may be, even the most athletic body could hardly dodge a carefully placed rain-pattern of metal tipped Ayodhyan arrows loosed from the finest honed Mithila shortbows. The rishi was a dead man.

Hanuman watched with detached interest as the volley of lethal missiles flew towards the semi-clad, bearded ascetic standing on the avenue. The PFs, alerted by their Senapati’s bellowed command, had retreated posthaste several yards, far enough to remove them safely from the arc of fire of the rain-pattern. As the arrows rained down on the avenue, Hanuman’s view was partially obstructed by the close-ranked PFs standing before the gates; he couldn’t be bothered to shift enough to see more clearly. The intruder had proved himself both foolish and intrepid. The leaping and lunging he had indulged in might have impressed the humans watching, but it was nothing to a vanar. In fact, he resented the vanar-like agility of the man. Clearly, the fourteen years since he had last seen Valmiki fight rakshasa berserkers alongside Rama in the jungles of Janasthana had not been spent in meditation and spiritual contemplation alone – the man was clearly a master of the arts of war. But why not simply stick to the more common mortal methods of warfare? Why indulge in these inhuman acrobatics? It bordered on the obscene to see a hairless straightback (two of many names Hanuman’s people used for humans) contort his body, twirl and somersault like a vanar in the redmist mountains of Kiskindha

– even if, Hanuman acknowledged grudgingly, the rishi did execute the manoeuvres with a modicum of talent. Well, now the man could cease resisting and dodging like the furry yoddhas he sought to imitate: faced with a volley such as this one, even a vanar could do little more than chitter in fright…and die.

“SHANESHWARA!” cried a soldier standing beside Hanuman, in a ear-bursting volume that made him turn his head away. Why were humans always so
loud
? Probably because they rarely passed on one another’s distress calls as vanars and other creatures and birds of the forests did, so felt the need to yell cautions themselves. The man who had shouted probably thought to alert all Ayodhya. Hanuman peered over the head of the PFs before him, trying to see past their armoured shapes.

What he saw almost drew a chitter from his own throat!

Rishi Valmiki stood as before, standing upright and straight-backed on the avenue. Around him lay a scattering of blackstick arrows, the kind favoured by Ayodhyan as well as Mithilan archers due to the profusion of lohitwood in the nearby region. In the rishi’s left hand, held at an angle above his body, was a whirling blur. Hanuman frowned, momentarily unable to discern what the object was that could cause such an effect.

Then the rishi’s wrist twitched once, then again, and his right hand shot out and grasped hold of something in mid-air, and the whirling blur resolved itself into the thick wooden staff he had been carrying when he first came up the avenue. The length of the staff was pincushioned with black arrows, some two dozen of them at least. They sprouted between the fingers of Valmiki’s hands like obscene outgrowths. Hanuman blinked, realizing what had happened in the last moment or three when he had looked away, disinterested.

The rishi had snatched up the staff and twirled it like a protective shield, using it to catch each and every arrow aimed at his torso by the archers on the rooftops. At such a short distance, the archers had found it easy to aim at the intruder’s chest and vitals, ignoring the groin and long sinewy legs. The smaller target area and precisely simultaneous loosing by the well-drilled archers meant that Valmiki could accurately judge the trajectory of the volley. Even so, the skill required to block
every single arrow
was impressive. As Hanuman watched, a tiny bead of blood rose from the webbing between the forefinger and middle finger of the rishi’s left hand and dripped down to land in the dust of the avenue. The metal head of an arrow was buried in the body of the staff, its lethally sharpened double edges touching both fingers. Apparently, that was the only injury he had sustained.

Saprem Senapati Dheeraj Kumar cursed and turned back to glance at Hanuman.

“Who is this fool?” demanded the general gruffly.

“An old friend and fighting comrade of our Lord Rama,” Hanuman replied calmly. “He led the outlaws in the jungle where our Lord spent his exile and they fought the rakshasas together for fourteen years.” He felt proud of his ability to speak the mortal tongue as fluently as any Arya human; even the most sociable vanars envied him this fluency.

His eloquence was rewarded with an expression that didn’t often appear on the Senapati’s face.

“And you tell me this
now
? After I have almost butchered the man outside our palace gates?” Dheeraj Kumar sputtered.

Hanuman shrugged. “He was disobedient. You were following your protocol. In any case, he is still alive despite your best efforts.”

Dheeraj Kumar started to make a choice remark, then quite obviously bit it back. He shook his head, his mane and beard ruffling, then turned back to bark an order. At once, the gate was opened and a passage cleared to let him pass. He stepped outside the gate onto the avenue, Hanuman following in his wake.

Rishi Valmiki watched them approach, the arrow-riddled staff still clutched in both fists. He kept the staff raised at its diagonal angle as they came within easy speaking distance. Hanuman wondered what would happen if the general ordered two simultaneous volleys from different directions; would the rishi be able to catch them with his whirling staff as effectively as before? Or would he resort to some other athletic demonstration of his martial skill? He wished the general had not elicited from him the information about Valmiki being Rama’s friend just yet – it might have been interesting to see how long the rishi survived the efforts of Ayodhya’s best tactician, and how.

Even though Dheeraj Kumar strode ahead and was quite evidently in charge of the situation, Hanuman sensed the visitor’s eyes on him, questing, probing, studying. He had a moment when he almost felt the cool touch of the rishi’s mind making contact with his own, then the Senapati was speaking in his typically authoritarian tone and he was never sure if he had simply imagined the sensation or if it had been real.

“Maharishi,” said the Saprem Senapati, “Hanuman here has just informed me that you are an old fighting friend of our Maharaja Rama Chandra from his years in exile.”

Valmiki inclined his head very slightly. “This is true.”

The Senapati used his beefy hands to indicate the dhoti-clad body of the visitor. “And after your not unimpressive demonstration of martial ability, it is quite evident that you are unarmed.” Dheeraj Kumar cleared his throat, “Except, of course, for that stout staff which you put to such excellent use just moments ago. And a body that itself is a lethal weapon of war!”

Valmiki’s nod of acknowledgement was more noticeable this time, as was the flicker of amusement on his beard-shrouded face. “I thank you for the compliments and yes, this observation is also true. I am unarmed.” He added with a distinct note, “As I announced at the very outset.”

The Senapati spread his hirsute arms wide in a welcoming gesture then brought them together in a formal namaskara. “Then it is settled. Maharishi, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to Ayodhya in the name of our king Rama!”

Valmiki glanced briefly at Hanuman with another twitch of amusement, then returned his gaze to the Senapati. “Am I to understand that after attempting – unsuccessfully – to have me skewered by over a dozen spears, then run through by more spearpoints, then fired upon by a volley of arrows aimed to kill rather than merely maim or injure, you now declare a cessation of hostilities and are offering me the hospitality of the palace?” He looked around, as if looking for someone else to confirm these observations – there was nobody near enough, “Just like that?”

Dheeraj Kumar was a direct and forthright man. There was no place in his lexicon for apologies or explanations. “Just so,” he replied in his characteristic no-nonsense way and executed a swift, polite namaskara with just the right inclination of his leonine head and whitened mane to convey dutiful respect. “Please, follow me.”

Rishi Valmiki did not respond at once. He looked at Hanuman and their eyes met in another soul-searching glance tempered by that faintly mocking expression that Hanuman felt sure was more than just the result of the rishi’s old bear-claw scar. Not too far away, an elephant trumpeted impatiently and emptied its bowels – the rank odour drifting downwind caused Hanuman’s nostrils to twitch involuntarily; there were certain things a vanar couldn’t help, no matter how well he learned human customs and language.

He waited for the rishi’s response.

FOUR

At last, after what seemed like long minutes of waiting but were in fact mere seconds, Rishi Valmiki nodded and said quietly, “Very well. Lead the way.”

Hanuman’s reluctant respect for the human grew another tiny notch. The man was not one to hold a grudge, it seemed. Despite the intense hostility with which he had been treated thus far, he was still able to accept the hand of conciliation. It was not a quality to be sniffed at. Vanars were not known for their ability to forgive; it was one of the things Hanuman had come to admire in the human race – one of the very few things, no doubt, but still one that had no counterpart in his own race. The ability to prioritize, to start afresh, to put the past aside and begin anew. To forgive if not forget. Vanars, on the other hand, were more apt to forget than forgive! He nodded at the rishi as the bearded sage lowered his staff and stepped after the senapati.

“I shall lead you to my lord Rama,” Hanuman said. “He has instructed me to bring you to him at—”

His last word was drowned out by an eruption of noise and chaos so sudden it took even his prescient senses by surprise.

Without warning or indication, the avenue rose up and attacked them.

Rama stopped pacing and stood still. Sita frowned, trying to make out what had alerted him but she could neither hear nor sense anything. She thought she heard something from the North when Rama shot her a look and moved to the entrance.

“At the gates!”
he said and began running.

She followed close on his heels. Out the sarathi shed where the royal chariots were neatly lined up in rows, past the royal stables where familiar snouts snorted and heads were tossed in brief alarm as their mounts scented their still-unfamiliar odours. She had been saddened to know that almost all the Mithila mounts – elephants as well as horses – that had accompanied her to Ayodhya as part of her wedding trousseau had been stricken down in either one of two epidemics over the period of exile. She had seen several of those beautiful beasts foaled and calved and watched them grow to adulthood; she had known them individually as well as she knew people. After her sisters, she had missed them the most. Past the guards shed which lay unusually empty and that itself was evidence that something was wrong. Past the lotus pool and fountain bordering the towering, seventy feet-high statue of Suryadeva standing at his chariot gripping the reins of his magnificent Kambhoja stallions. The early morning light slanted across the rounded silhouette of the Garhwals, flashing through the tall sala trees that lined the periphery of the inner wall.

And then they were moving through a small army of PFs – mounted and on foot – spearmen and archers, elephant quads and chariot-archer teams, all in defensive formation forming a formidable inner wall of last defence in the unlikely event that any intruder was able to pass through seven heavily guarded gates set in seven unclimbable ring-walls, encircling seven deep and wide moats teeming with deadly predators. They were all facing outwards, as they should, and Rama had to bark terse words of command to alert them: to their credit, they responded with perfect reflexes, swinging aside smartly to allow both Rama and Sita room to pass through. They sprinted through the massed rows upon rows, Sita feeling as if she was approaching the frontline of an army on a battlefield rather than simply exiting her place of residence through the front gate, and then they were at the vaulting iron gates and out through a sally port and on the avenue proper.

It took her only an instant to take in the archers on the rooftops, the quads standing at precise intervals in wave-attack formation, the elephants trumpeting and stamping their feet farther down and up the avenue, two men on horseback about a hundred yards up Raghuvansha just about where it was crossed by Harshavardhana, and in the centre of this tableau, three figures: Hanuman’s distinctive furry long-tailed form, the bearded, burly shape of Saprem Senapati Dheeraj Kumar and a long-bearded tapasvi sadhu she assumed was Maharishi Valmiki but would never have recognized on her own.

All three lay on their backs, like straw puppets flung to three corners of a box stage in some festival puppet show. The avenue beneath them was cracked and sharded, jagged ends of rock pointing at upward diagonals. The three prone figures had been separated by three large chunks of earthrock that stood out of the ground, leaving a gaping irregular hole, but there was a network of cracks radiating outwards from the hole itself and numerous pieces and chunks of the avenue lay strewn around. A sizable dustcloud was still wafting across the scene, and the neighing, white-eyed horses and trumpeting elephants indicated that whatever had occurred had only just occurred. All three were already leaning on elbows and peering around through the wafting cloud of dust, which told her they were unharmed, merely thrown off balance and stunned by whatever the event had been.