The Palace of Illusions (29 page)

Sisupal thrust his sword with sudden savagery at Krishna's belly. The blade moved so fast, it was a blur. I screamed and covered my face. Around me people were crying out in dismay. I felt a piercing
sorrow as though the blade had gone through my own body, then emptiness like I'd never felt before. It struck me like an iron fist, the realization that if Krishna wasn't in my life, nothing mattered. Not my husbands, not my brother, not this palace I was so proud of, not the look I longed to see in Karna's eye.

When did he start mattering this much to me? Or had it always been so, only I'd been impervious to it until calamity forced it to my attention?

“Panchaali,” I heard Bheem call. “You can open your eyes now. It's over.”

Indeed it was. Sisupal's head lay on the floor, spewing blood. I closed my eyes again hastily.

“Krishna chopped it off with his chakra,” Bheem explained. “But the headless body kept moving forward, its sword still aimed at Krishna. It was something to see! It keeled over at the last moment, right at his feet. The strangest thing happened when the body fell. A light flashed from it and disappeared into Krishna! What do you make of that?”

I was too dazed to make sense of any of it—the outer occurrences, or the turbulence inside me. This time when I opened my eyes, I focused them on Krishna. He didn't look like he'd just killed a man. A slight smile danced on his lips, as though he was recalling an old and not unpleasant memory. Did it have anything to do with the light Bheem had mentioned—and had that been Sisupal's soul? His feet were splattered with blood.

“It isn't mine,” he told me, seeing the expression on my face. “I'm not hurt.” But that wasn't quite true. Blood dripped from the index finger of his right hand. (Could a god bleed?) He must have used it to fling the disc. (Of the disc itself there was no sign. I wouldn't see it again for many years.) I tore a strip off the end of my sari and bandaged the wound.

“Now you've ruined that abominably expensive sari,” he said. “I'll have to get you a new one, although it's probably not going to be as fine. I'm a relatively minor king, after all!”

I stared at him in shock, then reddened. Did he know my other thoughts, including those about Karna?

Kings had leaped up from their seats. Some were protesting angrily. A few had drawn their swords. I thought I saw Narad crouched in a corner of the sabha, observing the chaos with a mix of dread and ecstasy on his face. An unhappy Yudhisthir was vainly calling for order. My other husbands climbed down into the audience, trying to calm people. Was that Karna I saw helping them, arms raised, his back like a giant tree trunk, keeping the roiling crowd away from the dais where I stood? But for once my attention slipped away from him.

If I wanted to tell Krishna what I'd felt, this was the time. (Why was it so important that I articulate for him my confused grief?) The ground felt unsteady under my feet. My face was hot. I'd never bared my soul to Krishna in this way. I was afraid he would laugh at me. Still, I said, “When I thought you had died, I wanted to die, too.”

Krishna gazed into my eyes. Was it love I saw in his face? If so, it was different in kind from all the loves I knew. Or perhaps the loves I'd known had been something different, and this alone was love. It reached past my body, my thoughts, my shaking heart, into some part of me that I hadn't known existed. My eyes closed of their own accord. I felt myself coming apart like the braided edge of a shawl, the threads reaching everywhere.

How long did I stand there? A moment or an eon? Some things can't be measured. I know this much: I didn't want it to end.

Then his voice intruded into my reverie, laughter stitched into
its edges, just as I'd feared. “You'd better not let my dear friends the Pandavas hear that! It could get me into a lot of trouble!”

“Can't you ever be serious?” I said, mortified.

“It's difficult,” he said. “There's so little in life that's worth it.”

There was no opportunity for further conversation, for this time the ground shook in earnest. The pillars of the sabha swayed. Though the magic Maya had woven into them kept them from toppling, people panicked, yelling as they ran. I thought I heard the cawing of ravens. Someone grabbed my arm. I struck out, then saw it was Bheem, his hair wild about his face.

“Steady there!” he said, rubbing his cheek ruefully. “Elder brother asked me to escort you to your quarters. This is no place for you.”

I bristled at the comment, but Krishna gave me a gentle push. “Go, Krishnaa. We wouldn't want you to get hurt.”

Bheem shook his head in dismay. “What an unfortunate end to our yagna! What will happen now? The priests are saying the earthquake is a bad omen. They're saying the gods are angry at Sisupal's death.”

“Priests like to say such things,” Krishna replied. He didn't seem too concerned about the anger of the gods.

As Bheem hurried me along, I noticed Karna. He'd been holding back the surging crowds that were trying to rush to the doorway near the dais, patient with their flailing terror. When he saw that I was safe with Bheem, he gave him a curt nod and turned to leave. I focused all my mental energy at his receding back, thanking him, willing him to look once at me. I know he must have felt the force of my wish—even Bheem glanced at me, his brow furrowed in perplexity. But Karna walked away, his footsteps as steady as though I'd never existed.

23

Duryodhan was acting strangely.

The other kings had departed soon after Sisupal's death—most of them sullen-faced and disapproving, without observing the courtesies of leave-taking—but the Kaurava party lingered on. The rest of us wished them gone, but Yudhisthir was too polite to let us hint at this. Perhaps also, stung by the distrust of our other guests and disappointed at the unpleasant end to the yagna he'd so looked forward to, he was gratified that Duryodhan courted his company. That he was so fascinated by our palace. It pleased him to possess something his cousin admired, and he gave Duryodhan leave to wander where he wished.

As a result, I would come upon the Kaurava prince in unexpected places—in the kitchen, where he examined the cook fires with acute interest, or in the garden, where he interrogated the gardeners as to where we'd acquired certain plants. Soon I realized what he wanted: to build himself a similar palace. But when I expressed my indignation to my husbands, demanding that they stop him, they merely scoffed at his ambition. They pointed out that he'd never be able to accomplish such a task, not unless he got hold of an architect as skilled in magic as Maya, and how would he manage that?

“He'll just drain the coffers of Hastinapur,” Arjun said, “and then burden the people with unjust taxes.”

“Maybe they'll get so fed up, they'll rebel and depose him,” Bheem said.

“Maybe they'll set up one of his saner younger brothers to become crown prince,” Nakul said.

“No chance of that!” Sahadev cried. “You know how
blindly
our revered uncle dotes on Duryodhan.” The four of them guffawed until Yudhisthir put an end to it.

I couldn't take Duryodhan's plans as lightly. We'd poured our hearts into designing this palace. It was an embodiment of our most intimate desires, our secret wishes. It was
us
. Every time I saw Duryodhan measuring a doorway with his eyes, or pointing at a floating stairwell while his uncle Sakuni jotted down notes, I felt violated— the more so because Duryodhan's smirk indicated that he knew exactly what was going through my mind.

The presence of Karna at such moments made things worse. He'd be standing beside Duryodhan, looking supremely uninterested. I'd already heard, through servants, that he'd repeatedly asked Duryodhan for his leave to return to Anga. But each time Duryodhan entreated him to stay, stating that he needed his dearest friend with him.

I knew I shouldn't care. Still, it hurt me that Karna was so keen to leave my palace, that none of its charms were able to entrance him. For the first time, it made me look at the palace with a doubtful eye, wondering if it was truly as special as we'd believed it to be. Or had Maya laid a spell not upon the palace foundations but on us, so that the beauties we doted on had no existence outside of our own longing?

But in this I was mistaken. The palace was fully as magical as Maya had claimed, and like all magical dwellings, it sensed its inhabitants'
thoughts. In the next days, I would feel from it a coolness, a withdrawal. Later I would wonder, was its displeasure with me the cause of the accident that occurred, the accident that would have such far-reaching consequences?

If Duryodhan's days were spent reconnoitering, his nights were spent at elaborate revels that he organized. I resented these bitterly. They were a reminder that, no matter how important I was to my husbands, there would always be places where I couldn't accompany—or advise—them. But my uneasiness had causes more serious than a hurt ego. The reports I heard were disquieting—the scantily clad dancers, the expensive sura Duryodhan ordered in wagonloads and presented to my husbands, the miasma of opium smoke in the sabha by the end of the evening. And the gaming! Each night dice would be set up on boards of ivory, and Duryodhan, with Sakuni at his elbow, would challenge Yudhisthir.

Surprisingly, for all his fondness for the game, the Kaurava prince was neither a skilled nor a prudent player. He bet recklessly and lost more often than he won. Nor did Sakuni, who sometimes played in his stead, seem to have much luck. My other husbands joked about it, saying that if Duryodhan kept this up, he wouldn't have the money to build anything larger than a cowshed by the time he returned to Hastinapur. But Yudhisthir loved the games. He threw himself into them with childlike glee and made no secret of his pleasure when he won. He was not, however, used to this kind of dissipated lifestyle. He would stumble into our bedchamber late at night, reeking of wine and too excited to fall asleep. When he did sleep, he tossed and turned and cried out from nightmares. In the morning he woke heavy-headed and bad-tempered and dragged himself to the royal hall to conduct affairs of state. Dhai Ma, who had her sources, told me that he was too tired to give them his usual meticulous attention. But he refused to put a stop to all
this carousing, as I suggested. I sent a message to Dwarka, hoping that Krishna could talk some sense into him, but he was off on one of his adventures—something to do with a lost gem—and couldn't be reached.

This morning was particularly disheartening, with Yudhisthir so sluggish and morose that I wondered whether Duryodhan had been adding something to his wine. Was he slowly poisoning him? Was this the true reason he stayed on? Had he plotted every step of this insidious plan a long time ago? Had he incited Sisupal to behave in a way that would lead to his death, knowing this would cause the other kings to turn against Yudhisthir? Had he realized that it would create the perfect situation for him to worm his way into his trusting cousin's heart?

My mind raced in a million directions as I stood at my balcony with my attendant women, staring blindly at the beauty that stretched out in front of me. Clearly, I had to do something to stop Duryodhan. But what? In my agitation, I paid little attention to my surroundings until one of the women said, “My queen, see who's here!”