The Palace of Illusions (8 page)

When we reached my rooms, I couldn't hold back my tears. “What did I do wrong?” I asked Dhai Ma as I wept against her ample bosom.

“You did fine. Ignorant cows! They're just scared of you.”

“Of me?” I asked, startled. I hadn't thought of myself as particularly fearsome. “Why?”

She pressed her lips together, angrier than I'd ever seen her. But she couldn't—or wouldn't—give me an answer.

I began to notice things, though. My maidservants—even those who had been with me for years—kept their distance until summoned. If I asked them anything of a personal nature—how their families were, for instance, or when they were getting married— they grew tongue-tied and escaped from my presence as soon as they could. The best merchants in the city, who routinely visited the apartments of the queens, would send their wares to me through Dhai Ma. Even my father was uneasy when he visited me and rarely looked directly into my eyes. I began to wonder whether Dhri's tutor's nervousness at my interruptions had a less flattering cause than my beauty. And whether my lack of friends and visitors was due not to my father's strictness but to people's wariness of someone who wasn't born like a normal girl and who, if the prophecy was correct, wouldn't live a normal woman's life.

Did they fear contagion?

Already the world I knew was splitting in two. The larger part, by far, consisted of people like Sulochana who couldn't see beyond their little lives of mundane joys and sorrows. They suspected anything that fell outside the boundaries of custom. They could, perhaps, accept men like Dhri who were divinely born, to fulfill a destiny shaped by the gods. But women? Especially women who might bring change, the way a storm brings the destruction of lightning? All my life, they would shun me. But the next time, I promised myself as I wiped my angry tears, I would be prepared.

The other group consisted of those rare persons who were themselves harbingers of change and death. Or those who could laugh at such things. They wouldn't fear me, though I suspected they might well hate me, if the need arose. So far, I knew only three such people: Dhri and Krishna—and Dhai Ma, transformed by her
affection for me. But surely there were others. As I chafed in my father's palace, I longed to find them, for only they could provide the companionship I ached for. I wondered how long I would have to wait before destiny brought them into my life, and I hoped that when it did so, one of them would become my husband.

5

Early in my life, I learned to eavesdrop. I was driven to this ignoble practice because people seldom told me anything worth knowing. My attendants were trained to speak in elaborate flatteries. My father's wives avoided me. King Drupad only met with me in settings designed to discourage uncomfortable questions. Dhri never lied, but he often kept things from me, believing it his brotherly duty to shield me from unpleasant facts. Though Dhai Ma had no such qualms, she had the unfortunate habit of mixing up what actually happened with things that, in her opinion, should have occurred. Krishna was the only one who told me the truth. But he wasn't with me often enough.

So I took to eavesdropping and found it a most useful practice. It worked best when I appeared engrossed in some mindless activity, such as embroidery, or pretended to sleep. I was amazed at all the things I learned in this manner.

It was how I discovered the sage.

The sairindhri was braiding my hair in the five-rivers design when I heard one of the maids say, in a squeaky, excited whisper,
“And he promised I'll be married on full moon day in the month of Sravan—”

“So?” Dhai Ma responded scathingly from the next room, where she was setting out my clothes. “Fortune-tellers are always predicting weddings. They know that's what foolish girls want to hear most. That's how they get fatter fees.”

“No, no, respected aunt, this sadhu didn't take any money. Also, he didn't just make vague promises. He said I'd marry a man who tends the king's animals. And as you know, Nandaram, who works in the stables, has been courting me! Didn't I show you the silver armband he gave me last month?”

“It's a long leap from an armband to the wedding fire, girl! Come Sravan, we'll see how accurate your holy man was. Now set out that blue silk sari carefully! And watch how you handle the princess's breast cloth. You're crushing it!”

“But he told me about my past, too,” the maid insisted. “Accidents and illnesses I had when I was a girl. The year my mother died and what her last words were. He even knew about the time Nanda and I—” here her voice dipped shyly, leaving me to guess at details.

“You don't say!” Dhai Ma sounded intrigued. “Maybe I'll go see him. Ask him if that good-for-nothing Kallu will ever change his ways, and if not, what I must do to be rid of him. What did you say the Babaji's name was?”

“I didn't ask. Truth to tell, he scared me, with a beard that covered his whole face and glittery red eyes. He looked like he could put a curse on you if you made him angry.”

“Princess,” my sairindhri said, bowing. “Your hair is done. Does it please you?”

I picked up the heavy silver-backed mirror while she held another one behind my head. The five-stranded braid hung glossily
down my back, sparkling with gold pins. I could smell the fragrance of the amaranths woven into it. It was beautiful, but it only made me dissatisfied. What use was all this dressing-up when there was no one to admire me? I felt as though I were drowning in a backwater pond while everything important in the world was happening elsewhere.

What if the prophecy at my birth was wrong? Or: what if prophecies only became true if you did something about them?

I decided that I'd accompany Dhai Ma to the holy man.

“Absolutely not!” Dhai Ma exclaimed. “Your royal father will have my head—or at the very least my job—if I take you outside the palace. Do you want your poor old nurse to starve by the roadside in her old age?”

“You won't starve,” I said. “Kallu will take care of you!”

“Who? That no-good drunkard? That—”

“Besides,” I interjected deftly, “my father doesn't have to know. I'll dress up as a servant maid. We can just walk to—”

“You! Walk on the common road where every man can look into your face! Don't you know that the women of the Panchaal royal family are supposed to remain hidden even from the gaze of the sun?”

“You can get me a veil. It'll protect me from men and sunshine, both at once.”

“Never!”

I was reduced to pleading. “Please, Dhai Ma! It's my one chance to know what my future holds.”

“
I
can tell you what your future holds. Severe punishment from your royal father, and a new Dhai Ma, since this one's life will be prematurely terminated.”

But because I was the closest thing she had to a daughter, or because she sensed the desperation beneath my cajolery, or maybe because she, too, was curious, she finally relented.

Swathed in one of Dhai Ma's veils and a skirt several sizes too large, I knelt in front of the sage, touching my head awkwardly to the ground. My entire body ached. To get to the banyan grove where the sage was residing, we'd had to ride in a palanquin through the city, then cross a lake on a leaking ferry boat, then sit for hours on a rickety bullock cart. It taught me a new respect for the hardiness of commoners.

I was startled by a rumble like a thundercloud. The sage was laughing. He didn't look too frightening. In his lined, cracked face, his eyes shone mischievously.

“Not bad, for a princess!”

“How did you know?” I said in chagrin.

“I'd have to be blind not to see through such a terrible disguise. At least the old woman could have given you some clothes that fit! But enough of that. Eager to learn your future, are you? Did you ever think how monotonous your life would be if you could see all that was coming to you? Believe me, I know! However, I'll oblige you both—in some part. You first, old woman.”

He informed a delighted Dhai Ma that Kallu would perish soon in a drunken brawl, that she'd accompany me to my new palace after marriage, and that she'd bring up my five children. “You'll die old and rich and cantankerous as ever—and happy, because you'll be gone before the worst happens.”

“Sadhu-baba,” Dhai Ma asked in concern, “what do you mean by
the worst
?”

“No more!” he snapped, his eyes turning tawny, making her
cower. “Princess, if you want your questions answered, you must step inside the circle.”

I hadn't noticed the thin circle etched into the ground around him. Dhai Ma grabbed at my skirt, whispering about witchcraft, but I didn't hesitate. Inside the circle, the earth felt hot against my blistered soles.

“Brave, eh?” he said. “That's good—you'll need it.” He threw a handful of powder onto a small fire. A thick smoke rose until I couldn't see anything outside the circle.

“What's that?” I gasped.

“Curious, too!” His voice was approving. “I made it myself, from resin and neem leaves and a few other select ingredients. It keeps the mosquitoes away.”

In the smoke, shapes—humanlike, yet not human—rose and fell as though caught in a wind current.

“What are those?” To my embarrassment, my voice trembled.

“Ah, that's the other thing the mixture does—call up the spirits. You may ask them your questions.”