The Palace of Illusions (16 page)

And Karna will hold himself very straight and reply, When the time comes, I will do so for you, my liege and my friend—or I will die trying.

“So that's how Karna became a king,” I said. “Why didn't Krishna want me to know?”

Dhri said, “He felt that it would make you too sympathetic to Karna. And that would be dangerous.”

“Dangerous? How?”

“Arjun isn't the only one who can pass the swayamvar test.”

The pulse in my throat started hammering. Guiltily, I turned away, facing the dark garden. “You mean Karna could do it, too?”

“Yes. He plans to come to the swayamvar, along with Duryodhan. He plans to win you. We must not allow it.”

I wanted to ask: If he were, indeed, as wondrous a hero as Arjun, why should it matter if I married him instead of the Pandava prince? Wouldn't he be as great an ally for Panchaal? Why was Krishna so against him? Was it just that he favored his friend Arjun? There were other secrets here. But I sensed that my uncomplicated
brother did not know them. So, instead, I asked, “How can you stop him? If he wins, aren't we honor-bound by Father's oath?”

“The honor of family is more important than other kinds of honor,” my brother said. He waited a moment, as though daring me to disagree. “I'll think of a way. Krishna will help me. You, too, must do your part.”

I didn't want to argue with Dhri, but I wasn't ready to turn against Karna, not even for the sake of family honor. Instead I asked, “Adhiratha said Karna had been gone for many years. Do you know where he'd been?”

Dhri nodded grimly. “The lost years of Karna's life: that's the most important part of the story, and the main reason I'm telling it to you.”

Early in life Karna demonstrates a passion for archery. At sixteen—still believing he is Adhiratha's son—he goes to Drona, the foremost teacher in the land. He confesses that he is lowborn and begs to be accepted as his student. But Drona is busy with princes
.
I will not teach a chariot-driver's son, he says. Disappointed, insulted, Karna vows he will learn from one who is greater than Drona. He leaves the city for the mountains and finally, through great effort and even greater luck—though whether the luck is good or bad is uncertain—he finds the ashram of Parasuram.

“Drona's own teacher,” I whispered. “Didn't he once erase the entire race of kshatriyas from the earth because they'd grown corrupt?”

Dhri nodded.

Since truth hasn't served him well, Karna does not risk it again. He tells Parasuram that he is a brahmin. Seeing his potential, the sage agrees to teach him. In time Karna becomes the best of his students,
the most beloved, the only one to whom Parasuram imparts the invocation for the Brahmastra, the weapon that no one can withstand.

The day before he is to leave Parasuram's ashram, Karna accompanies his teacher on a walk through the forest. When a tired Parasuram wants to rest under a tree, Karna offers his lap as a pillow. As the old man sleeps, a mountain scorpion creeps from its hole and stings Karna repeatedly on the thigh, drawing blood. The pain is intense, but Karna does not want to disturb his teacher. He sits unmoving—but blood spurts from his wound onto Parasuram's face and wakes him. In rage Parasuram curses his favorite student.

Shock forced me to interrupt. “But why?”

Dhri said, “Parasuram realized that a brahmin could never have borne so much pain in silence. Only a kshatriya was capable of that. He accused Karna of having deceived him. And though Karna told him that he didn't belong to the warrior-caste but was merely a charioteer's son, Parasuram wouldn't forgive him. He said, Just as you've deceived me, so will your mind deceive you. When you need the Brahmastra the most, you'll forget the mantra needed to call it up. What you've stolen from me will be of no use to you in the hour of your death.”

I was outraged. “Didn't Karna's years of devoted service mean anything to Parasuram? What of his love for his teacher, because of which he bore the scorpion's sting? Wasn't that worth some forgiveness?”

“Ah, forgiveness,” Dhri said. “It's a virtue that eludes even the great. Isn't our own existence a proof of that?”

A disconsolate Karna makes his way back down the mountain, having gained and then lost that which he'd set his heart on. It is night. Resting in the woods outside a village, he hears a beast lumbering toward him. His mind in turmoil, he shoots an arrow at the sound. From the beast's dying cry, he realizes he has killed a cow, that most sacred of animals.

I shut my eyes. I didn't wish to hear any more of this story. I willed Karna to walk away from the fallen animal before he was discovered as its killer. I knew he wouldn't.

In the morning he finds the owner of the cow, confesses his deed, and offers compensation. But the enraged brahmin says, You killed my cow when she was defenseless. You, too, will die when you have no means of protection. Karna pleads with him to change his curse. I'm not afraid of dying, he says. But let me die like a warrior. The brahmin refuses.

“How could Karna bear to keep on living after all these misfortunes?” I whispered.

Dhri shrugged. “Suicide is the coward's way. And whatever his faults, Karna isn't a coward.

“I told you this story against Krishna's advice for two reasons. One is that the unknown is always more fascinating than the known.”

(But in this my brother was mistaken. Nothing has more power over us than the truth. Each painful detail of Karna's story became a hook in my flesh, binding me to him, making me wish a happier life for him.)

“But also,” Dhri continued, “I want you to realize that Karna is cursed. Anyone joined to him will become cursed, too. I don't want that to happen to you—because you're my sister, but also because
you're born to change history. You don't have the luxury of behaving like an ordinary starstruck girl. The consequences of your action may destroy us all.”

I was annoyed at being pressed in this way. But even more, I was frightened by the conviction in his voice. All this time, I hadn't known that he'd taken my destiny as seriously as his own. Still, I spoke lightly. “I'm glad you have so much confidence in my power! But remember what Krishna said? We're nothing but pawns in Time's hands!”

“Even a pawn has a choice,” my brother said. “The day Sikhandi left for the forest, I longed to go with him. To leave the palace behind without a backward glance. To live out my life in peace under the trees. To escape the bloody fate toward which I've been pushed every moment since I was born. I could have done it. Sikhandi would have hidden me so skillfully that the entire Panchaal army wouldn't have found me. But I chose not to.”

“Why?” My throat was dry. How wrong I'd been all this time, thinking I knew my stoic, resigned brother.

“Two reasons held me back,” Dhri said. “One was you.”

“I would have gladly come with you,” I protested hotly. “If you'd only asked—”

“The other,” he interrupted, his harsh voice scraping against my ears, “was myself.”

Through the long night, out of love for Dhri, I tried harder than ever before to bar Karna from my mind. But can a sieve block the wind? Fragments of stories floated in my head, women who had saved their husbands by countering their ill luck with their virtue. Perhaps I could do the same for Karna? In the midst of that hope a regret leaped up like a leopard. Why hadn't Dhri sidestepped his
fate when he had the chance! I imagined him carefree under a canopy of gigantic mahogany trees, his brow erased of the creases that marred his handsomeness. But the next moment I was proud of his resolution—the way I had been of Karna for facing the angry brahmin. I knew I should not compare them, that my loyalty should be aimed only toward my brother. Yet as I swayed between sleep and waking, the two men began to melt together in my mind. How similar their nature and their destinies were, pressing them both toward tragedy, forcing them into acts of dangerous nobility. No matter how skilled they were at battle, ultimately it would not help them because they were forever defeated by their conscience. What cruel god fashioned the net of their minds this way, so they could never escape it?

And what traps had he set up for me?

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