The Palace of Illusions (12 page)

“Arjun didn't humiliate him!” Dhri said quickly. “He was only following Drona's orders. A warrior has the greatest respect for the man who defeats him in battle.”

Men! They lived by strange rules. I wanted to ask Dhri why our father hated Drona so much, then, since Drona had been the mastermind behind that defeat. But I allowed myself to drift to more pleasant thoughts. To be the beloved of the greatest archer of our time. To be the woman whose smile made his heart beat faster, whose frown wounded him almost to death, whose advice guided his most important decisions. Could this be the way I was meant to change history?

Krishna smiled slyly, as though he knew what I thought. Then he said, “If he should come, if he should win, what a great victory it will be for Panchaal!”

I didn't like the sound of that. “What do you mean, for Panchaal?”

“Don't you see?” Krishna said. “Once he's married to you, Arjun can't fight against your father. He can never be Drona's ally again.”

My mouth filled with ashes. How foolish I'd been, dreaming of love when I was nothing but a worm dangled at the end of a fishing pole.

“Father designed the test to lure Arjun to Panchaal, didn't he?” I said. “Because he'd been defeated by Arjun, he couldn't send a marriage proposal directly to him without losing face. But the
swayamvar—it's the perfect opportunity! He knew a warrior like Arjun wouldn't be able to resist such a challenge. Power—that's all he cares about, not his children.” I'd long suspected this. Still, I was surprised at how much it rankled to articulate it.

“Panchaali,” Dhri started, “that's not true!”

“Why won't you ever admit the truth?” I spoke bitterly. “We're nothing but pawns for King Drupad to sacrifice when it's most to his advantage. At least I'm just going to be married off. You—he's willing to push you to your death just so he can have his revenge.”

As soon as I'd said the words I was sorry—and not only because Dhri looked as though I'd slapped him. Dhai Ma said one could call up a man's death by speaking of it. Had I brought my brother bad luck because I couldn't control my tongue? I said a quick prayer for his safety though I wasn't much for praying.

Krishna touched my shoulder. “Your father isn't as heartless as he seems, my dear. He's just convinced that your happiness lies in being the wife of Bharat's greatest hero. And for Dhri, he's convinced his happiness lies in avenging the honor of his family.”

Even as Krishna spoke, I seemed to smell blood and burning. I was ashamed of my petty worries. The future that awaited Dhri was so much worse than anything I'd ever have to face! I wondered if it would break him or harden him, and which would be worse. I wondered if I'd prayed for the wrong thing.

“As for being pawns,” Krishna was saying, “aren't we all pawns in the hands of Time, the greatest player of them all?”

At night I considered what Krishna had revealed, and why he'd pricked the bubble of my romance no sooner than it had formed. He was trying to teach me something. Was it to be aware of the dark motivations that lay behind seemingly benign actions? Was it to not
let myself be carried away by emotion, to see myself instead as part of a larger political design that would affect the fate of Bharat? Was it to teach me how to wear the armor of caution so that no one could reach past it to break my heart?

Important lessons, no doubt. But I was a woman, and I had to practice them—as Sikhandi had suggested—in my own way. I would approach the problem aslant. No matter what my father's intention, I could still make Arjun's heart beat faster. I could still influence how he thought. Perhaps Time was the master player. But within the limits allowed to humans in this world the sages called
unreal
, I would be a player, too.

8

One morning, the sorceress arrived.

But why do I call her that? She looked no different from the women who sold their wares in the marketplace, with the pleats of her blue sari tucked, peasant fashion, between her legs. A faint smell of salted fish wafted from her.

“Who are you?” Dhai Ma demanded. “How did you get past the guards?”

She had a star tattooed onto her chin and muscled arms with which she moved Dhai Ma—not ungently—out of her way. Dhai Ma stared, her mouth agape at the woman's effrontery. I expected her to shout for the sentry or berate the woman with her usual belligerence, but she did neither.

“I've been sent,” the sorceress said to me, “to fill some of the bigger gaps in your largely useless education.”

I didn't protest. (Secretly, I agreed with her estimation of my lessons.) I was interested in seeing what she had to offer.

“Who sent you?” I asked. I had a suspicion it was Vyasa the sage. He, too, came from fisher-folk.

She grinned. Her teeth were very white in her dark face, their edges sharp and serrated. “Your first lesson, princess, is to know
how to sidestep questions you don't want to answer. You do it by ignoring them.”

The rest of that week she taught me how to dress hair. She taught me how to wash it, oil it, comb the tangles out of it, and braid it into a hundred different designs. She had me practice on her and rebuked me sharply if I pulled too hard, or snagged a tress. Her hair was kinky and unruly, difficult to handle, so I received many such admonishments. I took them with unaccustomed meekness.

Dhai Ma puffed out her cheeks in disapproval. “Ridiculous!” she said emphatically (though not, I noticed, in the sorceress's hearing). “Whoever heard of a queen braiding someone's hair—or even her own, for that matter?” But I felt the sorceress had her reasons, and I worked hard until she declared herself satisfied.

The sorceress taught me other unqueenly skills. She made me lie on the floor at night, with only my arm for a pillow, until I could sleep under those conditions. She made me wear the cheapest, most abrasive cotton saris that chafed my skin until I grew used to them. She made me eat what the lowest of my servants ate; she taught me to live on fruits, then water, and then to fast for days at a time.

“That woman's going to be the death of you!” Dhai Ma wailed. “She's wearing you down to skin and bone.” But this was not true. The sorceress had taught me a yogic breath that filled me with energy so that I needed no other sustenance. The breath made my mind one-pointed, and I began to glimpse subtleties that had been invisible to me before. I noticed that her lessons went in opposites. She taught me adornments to enhance my beauty. She taught me how to make myself so ordinary that no one would spare me a second
glance. She taught me to cook with the best of ingredients and the most meager. She taught me potions to cure illness and potions to cause them. She taught me to be unafraid of speaking out, and to be brave enough for silence. She taught me when to lie and when to speak the truth. She taught me to discover a man's hidden tragedies by reading the tremor in his voice. She taught me to close myself off from the sorrow of others so that I might survive. I understood that she was preparing me for the different situations that would appear in my life. I tried to guess what shape they might take, but here I failed. I failed also in this: though I knew all that she taught me was important, in my vanity I only learned the ones that flattered my ego.

Toward the end, she taught me seduction, the first role a wife must play. She demonstrated how to send out a lightning-glance from the corner of the eye. How to bite, slightly, the swollen lower lip. How to make bangles ring as I raised my arm to pull a transparent veil into place. How to walk, the back swaying just enough to hint at hidden pleasures.

She said, “In bed you must be different each day, sensitive to your lord's moods. Sometimes a lioness, sometimes a trembling dove, sometimes a doe, matching its partner's fleetness.”

She gave me herbs, some for insatiability, some for endurance, some for the days I might want to keep a man away.

“What about love?” I asked.

“The stalk of the blue lotus, ground into honey, will make a man mad for you,” she said.

“That's not what I meant.”

She gave me the name of an herb to arouse my own desire.

“No. Teach me how to love my husband, and how to make him love me.”

She laughed out loud. “I can't teach you that,” she said. “Love comes like lightning, and disappears the same way. If you're lucky, it strikes you right. If not, you'll spend your life yearning for a man you can't have. I advise you to forget about love, princess. Pleasure is simpler, and duty more important. Learn to be satisfied with them.”

I should have believed her and modified my expectations. But I didn't. Deep in my stubborn heart I was convinced I deserved more.