Pregnant King Read online

  The cry reached his ears. ‘He is crying.’ Asanga could hear nothing.

  ‘I can feel it. I can hear it. Take me to him.’

  ‘Later, Arya. Your body has lost a lot of blood. You are drained of all energy. Your wound is still sore. Maybe tomorrow morning.’

  The crying got louder. ‘No, now. Take me now,’ said Yuvanashva rising from his bed.

  Asanga helped him up. Leaning on the doctor the king made his way to the courtyard of his wives.

  The door was shut. One could hear the chattering of women inside. And the crying of a baby.

  The guard announced the king, ‘The king is here. Open the door.’

  The chattering of women stopped. No one replied. The child continued to cry.

  The guard repeated, ‘The king is here. Open the door.’

  Shilavati spoke from within, ‘Tell the king to go back to his bed. He is not well. The queens will come to him when he is better.’

  The guard was about to speak. The king raised his hand and silenced him. ‘I come not for my wives. I come for my child. He is crying.’

  After a long pause, Shilavati spoke, ‘There are women here who know what the child wants. They will calm him down. Go away, son. Let the women do what women know best.’

  ‘Then why is he crying?’ Yuvanashva felt his heart wrench. ‘He is miserable. He needs me. Let me see him. Please let me see him. I must see him.’

  ‘Go away, son. This is not for men.’

  ‘No,’ said Yuvanashva. ‘Bring him out. I must see him. I am his mother.’

  There was silence. The baby continued to cry. Shilavati saw the look in the eyes of the servants and handmaidens. The shame. With a dismissive laugh she said, ‘He will say anything to see his son. Does he not know that after childbirth a woman is polluted? Fathers must see the child only after the thirteenth day.’

  The servants and handmaidens nodded their heads in agreement.

  The child kept crying. Shilavati told Simantini, ‘Take him inside. It took you thirteen years to produce this child. It should not take you thirteen years to nurse him.’

  Simantini was taken by surprise. She looked at Shilavati. She had been declared mother by her mother-in-law. She lowered her eyes in obedience and started moving away from the door. ‘Please let me see my son,’ Yuvanashva cried from outside the door. ‘Please, please let me see my son. He cries for me.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him. He is delirious. The doctor’s potion has made him mad. He does not know what he is saying.’ The women started to follow Simantini. They all moved away from the door.

  ‘Bring him out now,’ Yuvanashva shouted from outside. ‘I, the king of Vallabhi, order you to do so.’

  The women stopped in their tracks. They looked at Shilavati, then at the door. The order had been given. The king had spoken. He had to be obeyed.

  The door was opened. The three queens stepped out. In Simantini’s hand was the little baby. Yuvanashva wept uncontrollably on seeing him. Simantini placed the child against the king’s chest. Instinctively, the child suckled the king.

  ‘I want him to be called Mandhata,’ said Yuvanashva. Mandhata meant ‘he who was nursed by me’.

  Book Five

  the priestess of bahugami

  Long ago, before the other two wives came to the palace, Simantini had gone to the shrine of the goddess Bahugami located on the outskirts of Vallabhi. The priestesses of this goddess were men who lived their lives as women. They castrated themselves, offered their genitals to the goddess, wore women’s clothes and adopted women’s mannerisms. It was said that the blessings of Bahugami’s priestesses always came true. They were known to bless childless couples. And so, on Simantini’s request, Yuvanashva had accompanied her to the shrine of Bahugami in the second year of their marriage. On the way to the shrine, the bards who accompanied the royal couple told them the story of the goddess:

  ‘A handsome prince once rode into Bahugami’s village on a great white horse and asked her father for her hand in marriage. Her father accepted the proposal and the prince took Bahugami to his palace on his horse. There she was welcomed by her husband’s family: her father-in-law, her mother-in-law, her sister-in-law, her young brother-in-law and the many servants of the family. They blessed her and gave her many gifts. The wedding ceremony was a grand affair with a hundred priests invited to bless the newly-weds. Then came the wedding night. Bahugami sat in the bridal chamber dressed in her finest robes. She waited for her husband to open the door and raise her veil and embrace her passionately. She waited and waited but the door did not open. He did not come. The night passed. At daybreak, she opened her window and found her husband in the courtyard below exercising his horse. She found that strange. The following night the same thing happened. She waited and waited. And he did not come. At daybreak she found him in the courtyard riding his horse. Days gave way to months and months to years. Every night she waited for her husband to come to her. He never did. But every morning he could be seen in the courtyard exercising his horse. Her mother- in-law who showered her with love at first slowly turned sour. “When are the children coming?” she asked. Too shy to tell the truth, she replied, “Soon.” But the children would never come. Not until her husband came to her. But he never did. She tried to speak to him. But he refused to speak of it. When she broached the subject, he changed the topic. He laughed and joked and bought her gifts. A gold nose-ring. Silver anklets with bells. A finely woven sari all the way from Kashi. The sister-in-law said, “My brother loves his wife so much and she does not bother to give him a child. The wicked woman.” The princess wept silently. She had no friends in her husband’s house. Whom could she tell the truth? Who would believe her? “Maybe she is barren,” said her mother-in-law. “Maybe we should send her back to her father like we did the first wife. It is time to get our son another wife. A fertile one.” She was asked not to show her face at dawn at the well. “Yours is an inauspicious face,” said the women. When she tried to play with the children, the mothers took the children away. “The touch of a barren woman can make children sick,” they said. Tired by the taunts, unable to tell the truth, the princess decided to force her husband to come to her. After dinner, she followed her husband to the stables. “Go to your room. I shall come,” he said. “Don’t you believe me?” She did. She went to her room and waited and waited and waited. He did not come. The next evening she once again followed him. Once again he said, “Go to your room. I will come. Don’t you believe me?” “I do,” she replied. But this time she did not go to her room. She hid behind a pillar and watched what he was up to. She saw him mount his horse and ride out of the palace. She decided to follow him. But there was no other horse in the stable. How could she follow her husband? She looked around and found a rooster perched on the wall. “Can you serve as my mount and follow my husband?” “I will,” said the rooster, “but you are too big and I am too small.” The princess said, “If I have been faithful to my husband, your size will increase and you will carry me with ease.” Sure enough, the gods who knew she was chaste and pure heard her prayers. The rooster increased in size and became big enough to carry the princess. He followed the trail of the prince’s great white horse. After a long journey, they came to a clearing in the woods. There stood the horse. Next to the horse she found her husband’s clothes in a pile. The princess looked around. She saw a pond. Its waters shimmered in the moonlight. Next to it was a woman. She was crying. “Why are you crying, sister?” asked the princess. The woman jumped up in surprise. The princess looked at the woman’s face and gasped. This was no woman. It was her husband dressed in a sari, complete with the sixteen love-charms of a married woman. “What is this?” she cried in disgust, “What are you doing? Why are you dressed as a woman?” The prince tried to run. She ran after him. “Tell me, what is this? Why are you dressed so? Why don’t you come to me at night? Why do you let everyone believe that I have not given you children?” The prince turned away, refusing to speak. “You owe me an explanation,