Pregnant King Read online

  Shilavati did not reply. She kept sobbing, feeling sorry for herself.

  Mandavya left the queen’s chamber angry with Shilavati. She was capable of so much more. Had he misjudged her? How could power corrupt her? She was a woman.

  On a faraway hill, enveloped by winter clouds, the Angirasa sensed Mandavya’s rage. ‘He thinks a woman should respond differently to the corrupting influence of power,’ said one. The rest laughed.

  the abandoned yagna-shala

  On the day after the burning of the two boys, Mandavya and Vipula had found the ceremonial pot, empty and turned upside down in the maha-sabha next to the throne.

  ‘Who left it here?’ Mandavya had asked the guards.

  ‘The two Siddhas,’ they replied.

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘They left at night from the eastern gate.’

  ‘Why did you not stop them?’

  ‘We were scared.’

  Mandavya and Vipula rushed to the enclosure where the yagna had taken place. They found all the ritual pots overturned and all the ladles broken. The altar had been dismantled. The charred wood kicked in every direction. Butter had been spilt. The fruits and flowers crushed and mixed with dirt. The sacred diagrams had been wiped out in a hurry. ‘This is not a good thing,’ said Vipula.

  ‘We must perform a ritual to cleanse this place and to pacify the angry gods,’ said Mandavya. He realized that the previous evening the fire-god had been fed living human flesh. This would have disturbed the equilibrium of the cosmos, unsettled the ritual of the Siddhas. He told the guards to fetch the Vaishya elders, ‘Tell them to bring to the palace a hundred and eight cows. I want the sound of their lowing to fill this space. I want them to shed dung and urine in this enclosure. This place which was to create life now has the stench of death. It is like a womb stripped of life. The cows will help wash away all inauspiciousness.’

  ‘Then this entire enclosure with everything in it must be set aflame, and the ashes must be cast far away from the city,’ said Vipula.

  Yuvanashva meanwhile lay in bed cradled by his three wives, a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. He rested his head on Simantini’s lap. Pulomi rubbed his feet with oil. Keshini massaged his hands. The maid gave Simantini some freshly boiled rice on a plantain leaf. ‘No, not rice,’ said Yuvanashva turning away.

  ‘Then what?’ asked Simantini, giving the rice back to the maid.

  ‘Tamarind.’

  Simantini held her husband against her bosom. So powerful and frightening in court just seven days ago, now so weak and helpless. Yuvanashva snuggled, his eyes shut, feeling safe in Simantini’s arms.

  ‘Shall we send for the musicians?’ asked Keshini.

  ‘No. No music. Just silence,’ said Yuvanashva. Pulomi started to get up, ‘Don’t go, Pulomi. None of you leave my side.’ Suddenly he opened his eyes, looking anxious, ‘Where is my mother? Why has she not come to me? Is she well? Does she know of my condition? She may wonder why I have stopped greeting her in the morning.’

  The queens looked at each other and did not reply. ‘Rest, Arya,’ said Simantini. ‘Mother knows everything and is offering prayers for your health. She will be here soon.’ The words comforted Yuvanashva. He shut his eyes and soon fell asleep.

  Matanga had been called. He noted that the sickness lasted only in the morning, followed by an intense craving for sour food in the evening. He did not understand what was happening. He wondered if the sickness was a manifestation of his guilt at having taken over the reins of the kingdom, rather forcefully, from his mother. But he kept his opinions to himself. ‘Too much bile,’ he told the queens as he handed over a potion that the king had to take along with the evening meal. In the morning, however, the sickness caused the king to throw out the evening meal as well as the potion, making him weaker than ever.

  The queens were scared. The guards who had found the king sleeping on the throne on the day after the burning of the boys had said he kept mumbling something about ghosts. ‘Could it be the curse of the two boys?’ Keshini wondered aloud. ‘I have heard that the angry glance of a dying man can cause sickness.’

  ‘Or maybe, it is the curse of the Siddhas? They left without informing anybody,’ said Pulomi.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Simantini. ‘It must be something he ate. No more meat for him.’

  ‘That’s what you said yesterday,’ said Keshini. ‘But he insisted on having mutton with his evening meal. Mark my words, this evening he will ask for fish.’

  ‘Spicy and sour,’ mumbled Yuvanashva without opening his eyes. The queens smiled, feeling relieved.

  ‘Maybe we should organize an utsava. A grand performance of dancers and singers to wipe away the mood of melancholy those two scoundrels brought into the city,’ said Vipula.

  ‘An utsava now? But that would be highly inappropriate, Rajan,’ said Mandavya, ‘Especially with all of Ila-vrita mourning the slaughter at Kuru-kshetra.’

  ‘So what?’ said Vipula. ‘We did not participate in the slaughter. No one in Vallabhi killed or was killed. Why should household quarrels of the Kuru clan dictate the royal decisions of the Turuvasus?’

  Mandavya looked at his son. He realized that the sidelining of Shilavati was as much about Vipula gaining power as it was about Yuvanashva claiming his birthright. ‘My son is a Brahmana by birth but a Kshatriya at heart,’ he thought, ‘So much like Drona and Ashwatthama.’ He felt sorry. Yes, the war at Kurukshetra marked an end of an era. It was the duty of Brahmanas to connect man with God, temper worldly ambition with spiritual truths. With men like Drona and Vipula that tempering had stopped. Dharma was now all about power.

  Mandavya realized why the Angirasa constantly said that they were witnessing the dawn of Kali-yuga, the age of spiritual darkness. He was neither unhappy nor bitter. ‘Life has taken a decision for me,’ he said. He went to his hermitage and asked Punyakshi, ‘Mother of my children, shall we go to the forest? We have outlived our utility.’

  Punyakshi stopped kneading dough. She washed her hands, picked up her walking stick and joined her husband. In the forest, after all these years, she would have him all to herself. No more competing with Vallabhi. No more competing with Shilavati.

  the company of ghosts

  Meanwhile, in Hastina-puri, a triumphant Yudhishtira realized victory does not guarantee happiness. The palace he entered was full of widows. No children. The war had claimed not only the hundred sons of Gandhari but also the five sons of Draupadi. Arjuna had lost two more sons, Abhimanyu and Iravan, born to other wives. Bhima’s son by Hidimbi, Ghatatkocha, was also dead. ‘Who will inherit my kingdom?’ Yudhishtira wailed. ‘Will the Kurus be cursed like the Turuvasus? Will Hastina-puri too be another Vallabhi where fields are fertile and palaces barren?’

  But that was not to be.

  Barely a fortnight after the war, Abhimanyu’s widow, Uttari, princess of Matsya, married a month before the war, announced she was pregnant. News of new life brought back cheer into the lives of the Pandavas.

  ‘Abhimanyu was just a boy,’ cried Yuvanashva’s wives. ‘But before he died he proved himself to be both a man in battle and a man in bed. So much more than our husband.’ Yuvanashva overheard this. He withdrew from his wives.

  Shilavati noticed the crows were silent since that fateful night when the two boys were burnt alive. Sure enough, as the astrologers had once warned, silence did not guarantee sleep. She tossed and turned all night in her bed, feeling rejected and betrayed. Unloved and alone.

  ‘Perhaps they were more interested in me not being queen than in my son becoming father,’ reasoned Shilavati because she missed the crows.

  The ghosts laughed. Only Yuvanashva heard them.

  As the weeks passed, Yuvanashva became moody and irritable. He could eat nothing. He could not even drink milk. ‘Leave me alone,’ he told his wives when they fussed around him. They retreated quietly. After he had burnt the boys, his temper terrified them.

  When Yuvanashva was alone, whenever he