The Palace of Illusions (17 page)

Coiled on the silver tray like a white snake, the wedding garland was as thick as my forearm. I regarded it warily as though it might, at any moment, decide to strike.

“What's wrong now?” Dhai Ma said. “Why is your face like a blackened pot?”

“It's too heavy,” I said. I imagined placing it around a neck. I could clearly see the corded, straining muscles, though the rest of the face was frustratingly blank.

“Ridiculous!” Dhai Ma said. “If he's a true hero, he'll be able to bear its weight.

“And yours, too,” she added with a wink.

Attendants buzzed around me. A little more lotus pollen to burnish the bride's cheeks; the end of the wedding sari, white and gold, arranged cleverly to accentuate the swell of her breast while creating a virginal effect. An old woman rubbed paste of sandalwood on my navel with a sly smile. Bangles, waistband, anklets, a jeweled nose ring so massive it had to be held up by a chain attached to my hairdo.

“I feel like I'm in battle armor,” I told Dhai Ma.

“You are,” she said. “Enough dillydallying, now! Your royal brother's about to wear out the corridor with his pacing.”

Dhri was waiting outside my rooms to walk me to the wedding
hall, where the kings had already gathered. He looked severe in his ceremonial silks. I noticed the scabbard on his hip, carved with flying beasts.

“Why the sword?” I asked.

Dhai Ma said, “What a question! Don't you know it's the brother's sacred duty to protect his sister's virtue? He'll have his hands full today, with all those dirty old men drooling over you.”

“Your vulgarity never ceases to amaze me,” Dhri told her. She laughed and gave him a cuff on the ears, then hurried off to bully her way into the best seat in the royal attendants' area.

But I knew the real reason for the sword. He expected trouble.

I heard it under the bluster and music, the announcement of the newly arrived: neighs, trumpetings, the clink of weaponry.

Dhri said, “The kings have brought their warriors. They're lined up outside. But don't worry. The entire Panchaal army, too, is armed and ready.”

“Thank you for letting me know,” I said. “Now I feel completely calm.”

“Did anyone ever inform you,” he said, “that sarcasm is unbecoming in brides?”

When I stepped into the wedding hall, there was complete, immediate silence. As though I were a sword that had severed, simultaneously, each vocal cord. Behind my veil I smiled grimly. Savor this moment of power, I told myself. It may be your only one.

First Dhri showed me the kings who had come only to watch, the ones I didn't have to fear.

“Look, Krishna.”

There he was, my friend, my exasperation, conversing with his brother as though he were at a country fair. The jaunty peacock feather on his crown dipped as he raised his hand in a gesture that could be a benediction or a careless hello.

Across the hall, spectators were grouped according to caste. The vaishya sector was marked by a blue banner painted with a merchant ship. The sudra banner depicted farmers harvesting wheat. The brahmins had the best seats, up front, with fat, tassled bolsters to lean on. Their banner, a priest making a fire offering, was made of white silk.

Now Dhri pointed out the important suitors. I tried to match them to their portraits, but they seemed older, heavier, their features flattened by age and perhaps anxiety. To lose in front of this great assembly—even though all but one of them must—would be such a public dishonor. Its sourness would flood the mouth for years. By my brother's rust-edged tone, I knew the ones who were most dangerous—not because they might win, but because of what they might do when they lost.

“Arjun?” I finally asked.

“Not here.”

I marveled at how he'd learned to make his voice expressionless. He went on to name other names. When he stopped, I asked, “Is that all?”

He understood the question beneath the question. His eyes showed his displeasure. “Karna has come.”

Dhri didn't point him out, but I found him. Next to Duryodhan, half hidden behind a marble pillar. My heart beat so hard, I was sure Dhri would hear. I longed to look into Karna's face, to see if those eyes were indeed as sad as the artist had portrayed, but even I knew how improper that would be. I focused instead on his hands, the wrists disdainfully bare of ornaments, the powerful, battered knuckles.
If my brother had known how badly I wanted to touch them, he would have been furious. Duryodhan made a comment—probably about me—and his companions slapped their knees and guffawed. Karna alone (I noted with gratitude) sat still as a flame. Only the slightest thinning of his lips indicated his disapproval, but it was enough to silence Duryodhan.

Dhri was calling me to the dais, his voice so sharp that my attendants stared in surprise. I went, but all the way loyalty and desire dueled inside me. If Arjun wasn't here, what right did Krishna and Dhri have to insist that I not choose Karna?

A trumpet sounded. The contest had begun.

Later, long after a forest was razed and a palace filled with wonders built in its place, after the game of dice, after treachery and loss, banishment and return, after the war with its blinding mountains of bones, bards would immortalize the swayamvar where, some claim, it all began. This is what they would sing:

In that hall perfumed with hopes and decorated with anxieties, where pride played the wedding flute and anger the drum, the greatest kings of Bharat were unable to lift the Kindhara bow from the ground. Of the handful that could aim and shoot, none was successful in piercing the fish eye. Jarasandha missed it by the width of his little finger, Salya by the width of a bean seed, and Sisupal by the width of a sesame seed. When Duryodhan shot his arrow, a cheer rose from the audience, but the steward examined the target and proclaimed that the Kaurava prince had missed it by the width of a mustard seed.

Now only Karna was left. Like a lion he rose to his feet. Light glinted on his armor as on a golden mane. He turned eastward to pray to the sun. He turned northward to bow to his teacher, for
such was his greatness that he bore him no grudge in spite of his curse. He joined his palms in respect as he approached the mighty Kindhara, and when he lifted it—as easily as though it were a child's bamboo bow—all the assembly murmured in amazement. When he pulled on the bowstring to test its resilience, a deep and musical vibration spread through the hall, as if the bow was singing. Even Draupadi held her breath, entranced. But then, as if in reply, came a sound like thunder. The earth herself began to tremble, and one could hear, in the distance, the cries of jackals and vultures. The brahmins shook their heads at these omens and whispered into each other's ears, What calamity will befall us should this man win the contest? Krishna himself sat up in his seat, and the great Vyasa who, it is said, had foreseen the entire history of the land in meditation, watched Karna with alertness, for he recognized this moment as one where the course of history hangs balanced between good and ill.

But Dhristadyumna, who stood at the side of Draupadi, took a step forward and said, Renowned though you are for your skill, Karna, my sister cannot have as her suitor a man of a low caste. Therefore I humbly request you to return to your seat.

Karna's eyes flashed like ice in sunlight, but he had learned much since the tournament at Hastinapur. His voice was calm as he replied, It is true that I was brought up by Adhiratha, but I am a kshatriya. My guru, Parasuram, saw this with his inner eye, and cursed me for it. That curse gives me the right to stand here today among these warrior kings. I will take part in this contest. Who dares to stop me?

In response, Dhristadyumna drew his sword, though his face was pale as a winter evening and his hand shook, for he knew he was no match for Karna. But the honor of his house was at stake, and he could do nothing else.

Then, out of the silence that shrouded the marriage hall, a voice rose, sweet as a koel's song, unbending as flint. Before you attempt to win my hand, king of Anga, it said, tell me your father's name. For surely a wife-to-be, who must sever herself from her family and attach herself to her husband's line, has the right to know this.

It was Draupadi, and as she spoke, she stepped between her brother and Karna, and let fall her veil. Her face was as striking as the full moon after a cloudy month of nights. But her gaze was that of a swordsman who sees a chink in his opponent's armor and does not hesitate to plunge his blade there. And every man in the assembly, even as he desired her, thanked his fate that it was not he who stood before her.

In the face of that question, Karna was silenced. Defeated, head bowed in shame, he left the marriage hall. But he never forgot the humiliation of that moment in full sight of all the kings of Bharat. And when the time came for him to repay the haughty princess of Panchaal, he did so a hundredfold.

I don't blame the bards for what they sing. In a way, things occurred just as they describe it. But in another way, they were completely different.

When Karna issued his challenge and my brother stepped forward with his hand on his sword, a haze of panic blurred my vision. Something terrible was close to happening. There was no one, other than I, who might be able to stop it. But what should I do? I looked at Krishna, hoping for direction. It seemed to me that he pointed with his chin, but what was he urging? Behind him Vyasa frowned. He had warned me of this moment, though my wheeling mind couldn't recall his words. Hadn't he said I'd be the cause of my brother's
death? I gritted my teeth and took a deep breath. I would not give in to fate so easily.