The Rise of Hastinapur (42 page)

‘Fondly or otherwise?’

His smile steeled. ‘Some fondly, some otherwise.’

‘I take it that you do not share your people’s enthusiasm for him.’

‘No, my lady, but I do not hate him, either. He has done more good than harm to the mountain so far, of that I am certain.’

‘And yet you wish to see him destroyed.’

‘That is because of the harm that he promises to bring us in the future.’ He stretched his shoulders once by turning them around in a circle. He prodded at this slate with his carver. ‘Now. If you please?’

From under her upper garment Gandhari retrieved the trade parchment that Chyavatana had brought her the day before. Giving it to Kubera, she said, ‘This is likely two or three months old, but you shall have a fair idea if you read it.’ As he took it and began to scan it from top to bottom, she said, ‘I will also need to know your prices, sir. I am prepared to compensate your traders for all the concealment and danger of this route, but I cannot stretch beyond the prices you see on that sheet. Hardly anything remains after the hefty tribute we give Hastinapur, sir; you must certainly know.’

Kubera did not respond to that. His eyes were immersed in the parchment, and his one hand worked the carver over his slate. She doubted if he had heard her at all. She detected a faint odour of musk in the air; it perhaps came from his open cloth sack.

At last he rolled the parchment and returned it to her. ‘We shall give you all of this,’ he said, nodding at his slate. ‘And our items shall be better than Hastinapur’s. Our trees are stronger, our fruits are juicier, our milk is creamier, and our lands more fertile.’

‘More Mysteries, I suppose?’ she asked.

He smiled and shook his head. ‘Just the bracing mountain air. Now, coming to your fears of price.’ He looked up at her. She stiffened. If he asked for a higher price than Hastinapur, she would have to find more men to work at the mines. That would mean raising the amount she would have to pay them all, and the nature of the ‘benefits’ they received. Already in her mind she began to calculate how many waiting-women she would have to train, and how many acres of land she would have to let go from the royal holdings.

Then he said, ‘We will not take any gold from you.’

‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ she said, sitting up, suddenly alert. ‘Did I hear you right?’

‘You did, my lady,’ he said. ‘We shall give you all of this that you ask and more. We have a mine of our own, as I told you, so we need no gold from you.’

‘Then you must need something else? Cattle, perhaps? Land?’

He shook his head to both. ‘We just need you to build your treasury as quickly as you can. We will help you by giving you a portion of the gold that we produce, but we use it for trade ourselves, and not much gets left over. But Indra has told me that he shall do whatever it takes to increase our gold production so that we could replace some of your stolen gold.’ He raised a finger in caution. ‘But most of it must come from you. We will support your populace until then, but you must get more people into your mines.’

She nodded. If they were willing to take the burden of Gandhar on their shoulders without taking anything, she thought, they would come to her at the very end and demand something as payment. Perhaps they would ask her to lend her army, to which she would gladly agree. Even if it were not that, even if they just wanted to raise two strong kingdoms in place of one, in the hope that power would balance itself that way, it would mean that Gandhar would rediscover her path to glory. So no matter what their future price would be for this favour, it seemed to her that it was worth paying, for it meant that her kingdom would live for another day.

‘I am deeply grateful to you for this help that you offer, my lord,’ she said, bowing to him. ‘I only hope that Gandhar would prove herself worthy of it.’

‘I am certain that it will,’ he replied, setting his slate and carver back into his bag and tying the knot. The smell of musk became less intense. As he got up, he said, ‘Think not that we are doing this out of altruism, my lady. Our interests are deeply entwined with Hastinapur’s fall, and we think that Gandhar’s rise is vital to achieve that.’

‘I understand.’ She got up and walked behind him to the door.

He turned around and inclined his head. ‘We shall talk about the price when we are able to bring an end to everything, just as planned. But I shall come to you after the midsummer feast has passed, on the onset of the first monsoon.’

She bowed to him. ‘I shall await your visit.’ When she opened her eyes and raised her head, she saw that the man had already left. Only a whiff of musk lingered in the dark corridor.

NINE

T
he morning after the feast, even though hours had passed by after sunrise, the city did not stir. Gandhari stood at the window and watched the empty lanes and streets. Near the north-eastern wall, the statue of Idobhargava stood out for its stark loneliness. It was customary to have one guard on duty by the foot of the pedestal, but today even he was absent. She wondered if the tall and thin vault-keeper would be found behind his desk, poring over his ledger and muttering to himself. No matter, she thought, the time would arrive shortly enough for those robbers to leave the city.

A knock appeared on the door, and the three men she had summoned arrived, dressed in their royal finery. Only Shakuni came barefooted, his eyes red and swollen. She made a mental note to find out which woman he had lain with the night before and have a quiet word with her. All her maids had been trained in ways and means to prevent getting with child after laying with a man, but one needed to repeat the message every now and then. One never knew when a maiden would get it into her woolly head that she should become a mother. Most of them did not protest, and for those who did, there were other ways of dealing with them.

All in all, things would be much easier if Shakuni could control his impulses. Indeed, did she not have eyes for the handsome men of her court? They would come to her chamber too, if for no other reason but that she was the queen. But they were royals – palace gossip always found ways to get out on the street, so it was always better to kill that flame right when it took birth. But then Shakuni was a man; her father had been the same too, only rarely spending the night in his bed alone. Every time he would beckon a waiting-woman or two, Gandhari would look at him, and he would say that it was a hot night and that he needed someone to fan him to sleep.

Men’s desires did not die as simply as a woman’s, she had heard her father say, and so when Shakuni began to take maidens to his chamber – around the time he turned thirteen or so – she pretended not to notice. She had once or twice told him to be careful, and he had nodded, but he never had to deal with the women afterward. They came to her, and she would assuage their bruises – not just the ones on their bodies – with some soft words and a gold necklace or two.

Chyavatana and Adbudha took their seats. Shakuni sat opposite them, to her right, draped in black and gold. He had a curious way of leaning to one side even when he sat; she had never understood why. She assumed that he was habituated to being lopsided. She turned to the other two men.

‘Adbudha,’ she said, ‘this year, we are going to increase the amount of gold we mine to two thousand one hundred
tulas
. I understand it was seven hundred
tulas
last year?’

Adbudha’s hand stopped on his beard, and his eyes hardened. ‘Yes, my lady,’ he said. ‘You wish to increase the mine’s output by three times?’

‘That is so. What shall you need to make that happen?’

‘Well, for starters, my lady, I shall need six hundred able-bodied men.’ He snorted in derision and looked at the other two men.

‘You shall have them,’ said Gandhari curtly. Turning to Chyavatana, she said, ‘Tell all our traders that we shall set up royal stalls in the town centre, Chyavatana.’

‘As you wish, my lady.’ There was no hint of scorn on his face. For once she appreciated Shakuni’s taste in selecting men. ‘Shall I ask all the traders to shut shop, or only some of them?’

‘All of them. Employ as many of them as possible to man the stalls that we will set up.’

‘Yes, my lady. What will these stalls sell?’

‘Everything we receive from Hastinapur,’ she said. ‘Milk, furniture, apples, and everything else that goes onto our trade sheet every month. We will sell our own milk, our own furniture, our own apples – and we shall sell them at less expensive prices than the traders from Hastinapur.’

Chyavatana paused to wedge his tongue against his cheek. ‘Our traders have been trying that for a long time now, Your Highness. But the people from Hastinapur do not seem to wish to sell their goods for a profit.’

Gandhari sat up straight and pulled aside the sides of her garment. ‘What is the lowest price that the traders are willing to sell an apple for, Chyavatana?’

‘Ah, I am not fully certain, my lady, but I believe it is around four copper coins.’

‘We shall sell our apple for two.’

‘And what if their traders bring it further down to one copper coin?’

A smile spread on her lips. ‘Then, Chyavatana, we shall give our apples away to our people without taking anything from them.’ She let that statement sink in, taking a moment to survey the faces of the three men. Shakuni was frowning at her and chewing on something. Then she said, ‘The traders from Hastinapur will not journey all the way here from their kingdom to give away their goods, will they, Chyavatana?’

‘No, my lady,’ said Chyavatana, ‘they will not. But–’

‘Yes, I shall tell you. You have heard, have you not, of the race of men that lives beyond the icy mountains east of here?’

His eyebrow went up. ‘I have been told they are mere children’s tales, my lady. I do not think it wise to pin our hopes on people that do not exist.’

‘Do not exist, you say,’ she said, smiling at him again. ‘Their chief trader came to my chambers last night, and he left after the feast had begun.’

‘Indeed?’ said Chyavatana. Adbudha resumed caressing his beard, and Shakuni blinked. ‘And what were their terms of trade?’

‘That they shall give us all that Hastinapur gives us, but they shall give it to us for free.’ She saw a suspicious look enter Chyavatana’s eyes, and hastened to add: ‘In return, they will take our army when they need it, to quell Hastinapur.’

‘But my lady Gandhari, Hastinapur’s soldiers shall not allow this trade route to be set up.’

‘It has all been arranged, Chyavatana,’ she said, mildly irritated. ‘We shall need no traders, fruit-growers, merchants or milkmen. We shall need only farmers and water carriers to do their jobs. Of the remaining, half of them shall go to the mines, and half shall be trained as soldiers.’

Chyavatana paused again, looking down at the ground. ‘I beg your pardon, my lady, but at the rates we pay the miners–’

‘Increase them! Double their allowances, and promise the unmarried ones female company at night.’ She thought about that for a second. ‘Also to the married ones, with a further promise that their wives will not know about it.’

Shakuni spoke for the first time that morning. ‘I shall oversee the selection and training of the soldiers.’

Gandhari ignored him. She looked at Chyavatana, who still seemed troubled. ‘What is the matter? You do not think this will work well for Gandhar?’

‘I … I am not certain, my lady. We seem to move from relying on one city to relying on another. What if tomorrow, these men from the north were to withdraw their trade? What shall we be left with?’

‘Do not think that I have not considered this, Chyavatana,’ she said, angry and impressed at the same time. ‘This is not a permanent ploy. Once we have accumulated enough gold in our treasury to rival that of Hastinapur, we shall build our own industry. We shall find fertile land outside of our borders and claim it. We shall do all that we need to be self-sufficient. But for now,’ she said, looking out to the mines, ‘for now we must throw everything that we have at Hastinapur, and we shall see if Bhishma has the power to withhold it.’

‘Yes, my lady.’

Chyavatana’s tone suggested hesitation, and she found herself getting agitated at the man’s doubt. She asked Adbudha, ‘If I were to give you all the men that you asked for, will you give me two thousand
tulas
of gold by the end of this year?’

Adbudha nodded without pausing to think. She beamed at him. ‘Then,’ she said, ‘we shall move ahead with full speed. That will be all, gentlemen.’

TEN