The Palace of Illusions (18 page)

Dhri unsheathed his sword and braced his shoulders. Karna leveled his arrow—the one he'd chosen to pierce the target—at my brother's chest. His eyes were beautiful and sad and unfaltering, the eyes of a man who always hits what he aims at.

My mind went blank except for one memory: the moment I'd stepped from the fire unwanted and Dhri had gripped my hand, claiming me. He had been the first one to love me. Everything paled before that fact: the newborn tremor in my heart when I looked at Karna, the numbness that I knew would replace it when he turned from me in anger.

Later, some would commend me for being brave enough to put the upstart son of a chariot driver in his place. Others would declare me arrogant. Caste-obsessed. They'd say I deserved every punishment I received. Still others would admire me for being true to dharma, whatever that means. But I did it only because I couldn't bear to see my brother die.

Can our actions change our destiny? Or are they like sand piled against the breakage in a dam, merely delaying the inevitable? I saved Dhri, yes, so that he could go on to perform heroic and terrible deeds. But death is not so easily cheated. When it came for him again, its shape was so much worse that I wished I'd let it snatch him away at the swayamvar, where at least he would have perished with honor.

This much I'm certain of: Something did change in the moment when I asked Karna the question that I knew would hurt him the most, the only question that would make him lay down his bow. When I'd stepped forward and looked into his face, there had been a light in it—call it admiration, or desire, or the wistful beginnings
of love. If I'd been wiser, I might have been able to call forth that love and, in that way, deflected the danger of the moment—a moment that would turn out to be far more important than I imagined. But I was young and afraid, and my ill-chosen words (words I would regret all my life) quenched that light forever.

13

My feet were bleeding. I'd never walked barefoot on common streets, over thorns and stones. I stared at the man striding ahead, the cheap white shawl that covered his wiry back, and wondered if he was who I suspected. An hour ago I'd put a wedding garland around his neck. The punishing sun beat upon my head, dizzying me. We hadn't spoken since we left the palace. My throat was parched. I'd eaten nothing all day, as was customary for brides, and afterward he'd refused to stay (churlishly, I thought) for the wedding feast.

“I must return to my family,” he'd said. “They'll be worrying.” In reply to my father's questions, he stated that he was not at liberty to speak of them, or give us his name.

My father controlled his temper with effort. “Let us bring your family here,” he said. “They can live in whichever of my palaces you wish them to have. Half the kingdom, after all, is yours, according to the marriage contract.”

The man said he had no need of palaces. He asked that I shed my finery, inappropriate for a poor brahmin's wife. The maids brought me a cotton sari. I handed my gold ornaments to Dhai Ma, who was crying. I kept only the necklace of shells which he'd placed around my throat.

“At least let us give you a chariot,” my brother cried in consternation. “Panchaali isn't used to—”

“She must learn it now,” he replied.

Each footstep on the cracked, burning path was agony. I was too proud to ask him to slow down, even when I stumbled and fell. Gravel tore at my knees through the thin cotton of my sari. There were cuts on my palms. I bit at my lips to keep in tears of pain, of anger at my husband's indifference. An insidious voice inside me said, Karna would never have let you suffer like this. But that was no longer correct. If he saw me now, he would have laughed with bitter satisfaction.

I rose and gritted my teeth. I placed one foot after the other.
I can survive this,
I said to myself, the way Dhri might have
.
But it hurt too much. I couldn't keep it up. Besides, it was foolish, what I was trying to do. I was a woman. I had to use my power differently.

I found a banyan by the side of the road and sat down in its shade. I stretched out my throbbing feet. Perhaps it was a good thing that I was so exhausted. My tiredness was a screen that shielded me from my fear, from caring about what my husband (how strange that term) would think. I took a deep breath and crossed my arms. I watched his receding back and waited to find out how soon he'd notice I wasn't following him—and what he'd do then.

This is how I came to be in such a predicament: Karna had left. The hall was abuzz with the dissatisfaction of unsuccessful kings. Duryodhan shouted that the test was unfair. Impossible. And besides, he wasn't going to put up with this insult to his friend. “Let's leave in protest,” he cried to the other kings. But someone else—I think it was Sisupal, his face suffused with outrage, yelled, “Why should we leave so easily, without giving Drupad
something to remember us by?” Dhri's back grew stiff. I saw him signal the commander of the Panchaal army.

Then the brahmin said, “May I try?”

My head was still awhirl with what I'd done to Karna. There was a pain in my chest, as though someone had taken my heart in his hands and was wringing it. I noticed, without much interest, that the man's long hair was gathered in a traditional topknot. White homespun covered his slender shoulders. He seemed young. His smile revealed strong, straight teeth—a rarity among the poor. The kings laughed mockingly, but the brahmins cheered.

“A brahmin is higher-born than any prince,” one of them declared. “He has the right.”

Someone else shouted, “And don't underestimate the power of prayer! It might well prevail where muscles failed!” Glares were exchanged between the brahmins and kshatriyas in an age-old power struggle.

A relieved Dhri motioned the young man forward.

The brahmin chanted something—a prayer, perhaps, though his tone was not one of supplication. In a motion so rapid that his arm was a streak of light, he lifted the bow. Shot. Before I could take in a breath, the shield cracked in two and fell with a clang, and the fish, still revolving slowly, hung askew from the ceiling, its brass eye pierced by the brahmin's arrow.

The commoners erupted in cheers, though the kings were ominously quiet. Dhri grasped the man's hands; my father descended from his throne; the priests hurried to the dais; my attendants rushed forward, strewing flowers and gabbling wedding songs. Someone thrust the garland into my hands. The brahmin was very tall. He had to bend down so I could raise the garland over his head. Who was he? Krishna might have known, but in the press of people, I
couldn't find him. How could a brahmin be so skilled with the bow? I tried to check if he had any battle scars, but the shawl covered his shoulders. Dhai Ma had stories where gods came to earth, disguised, to marry virtuous princesses, but I doubted that I was sufficiently virtuous for that. I tried to look into his face, but it was deliberately angled away. One of the kings blew his battle conch. It was echoed by others. Hurry, Panchaali, Dhri whispered. Why wouldn't the man meet my eyes? I stood on tiptoe and numbly dropped the garland around his neck. Was this even a proper wedding, conducted with such unseemly haste? He slipped a chain made of cowrie shells, such as poor village women wear, over my head. Against my skin, the shells were like cold, minute fists. And so I was married.

The fight started almost immediately. Twenty kings, perhaps more, rushed at my stranger-husband. He disappeared under the flashing of swords. I stared at the roiling mass of men and weapons. I should have been more worried—for my new husband as well as myself—but I couldn't bring myself to care. Dhri shouted orders as he parried and thrust, but a group of kings had barred the doorway, preventing our soldiers from entering.

Impossibly, the stranger emerged from the sea of weapons unscathed. Even the shawl around his shoulders hadn't been disturbed. I expected him to look grim. Instead, a fierce glee filled his face. He thrust me behind him and aimed an arrow at the melee. I thought I heard him speak. The arrow split into a hundred points of light, the dots of light connected, and a sizzling net fell onto the kings. They flailed around, falling drunkenly over each other. It was the perfect punishment. When he aimed again, the kings guarding the doorway broke rank and fled.

“Lady,” the stranger said, his eyes politely lowered, “I apologize for the fright this must have caused you.”

He was no brahmin, I was sure of that. Conjectures bubbled in my mind. I narrowed my eyes to better examine him. “I'm not so easily frightened,” I said.

Soon after I sat down under the tree, my husband hurried back. He was scowling. He started to ask a question, then saw my feet. His face flushed. He knelt and examined my soles, his hands unexpectedly gentle, sure of what they were doing. He fashioned a cup of leaves and fetched me water from a nearby pond to drink. He fetched me more water to wash my feet, then tore a strip from his shawl and bandaged them. He apologized for not noticing my troubles. He was distracted by many worries. When I asked what they were, he shook his head.

I stared at his face, trying to match it to the one I'd seen in a painting a lifetime ago. But that face had sported a moustache, a crown, jeweled earrings, long, flowing locks, oiled and perfumed. This face, thin and sunburned, with its raised, ascetic cheekbones, the hair pulled severely back, confused me. There was only one thing I could think of doing.

Quickly, before I lost courage, I pulled the shawl from his shoulders. There they were, the battle scars! Daringly, I touched one that ran across his taut upper arm. His eyes flew to my face. Strange—they looked so like another pair of eyes! How could this be? But no, I had no right even to think this question. I'd destroyed that part of my life. This was now my destiny. For the sake of my family and the prophecy at my birth, I had to make the best of it.

“Are you Arjun?” I asked.

He didn't answer, but he smiled, and a little of his severity fell away. That should have pleased me, but my heart weighted down my chest like a dead thing. Still, I forced myself to not remove my
hand. I am his wife, I told myself. Against my fingers, the scar was puckered and harder than I had imagined, as though the shard of an arrow were still lodged inside the skin. I ran my nail over it as the sorceress had instructed and heard the sharp intake of his breath. Why should that make my face grow hot with guilt?