‘The agnibaan fever never breaks,’ continued a stunned Ayurvati. ‘This is a miracle.’

Shiva looked up, his face shimmering with the ecstasy of a soul that had salvaged its reason for existence. ‘May the Holy Lake bless the Somras.’

Parvateshwar noticed Sati’s hand clutched tightly in Shiva’s but he did not comment. The bliss of this moment had finally crowded out his instinctive drive to stop something unacceptable under the laws of the land.

‘My Lord,’ said Ayurvati softly. ‘We must bathe her quickly. The sweat must be removed. However, considering that her wounds cannot get wet, my nurses will have to rub her down.’

Shiva looked up at Ayurvati and nodded, not understanding the implication.

‘Umm, my Lord,’ said Ayurvati. ‘That means you will have to leave the room.’

‘Of course,’ said Shiva.

As he got up to leave, Ayurvati said, ‘My Lord, your hands would need to be washed as well.’

Shiva looked down, noticing Sati’s sweat. He looked up at Ayurvati and nodded, ‘I will do so immediately.’

‘This is a miracle, Sati. Nobody has ever recovered from an agnibaan!’ said Ayurvati, beaming ear to ear. ‘I’ll be honest. I had given up hope. It was the Lord’s faith that has kept you alive.’

Sati was lying on her bed wearing a smile and freshly washed clothes. A new bed had been brought in with freshly laundered and sterilised linen. All traces of the toxic sweat triggered by the Somras had been removed.

‘Oh no,’ said a self-conscious Shiva. ‘I did nothing. It was Sati’s fighting spirit that saved her.’

‘No, Shiva. It was you. Not me,’ said Sati, holding Shiva’s hand without any hint of tentativeness. ‘You have saved me at so many levels. I don’t know how I can even begin to repay you.’

‘By never saying again that you have to repay me.’

Sati smiled even more broadly and held Shiva’s hand tighter. Parvateshwar looked on gloomily at both of them, now unhappy at the open display of their love.

‘All right,’ said Ayurvati, clapping her hands together as if to signal the end of an episode. ‘Much as I would like to sit here and chitchat with all of you, I have work to do.’

‘What work?’ asked Shiva playfully. ‘You are a brilliant doctor. You have an exceptional team. I know that every single injured person has been saved. There is nothing more for you to do.’

‘Oh there is, my Lord,’ said Ayurvati with a smile. ‘I have to put on record how the Somras can cure an agnibaan wound. I will present this at the medical council as soon as I return to Devagiri. This is big news. We must research the curative properties of the Somras. There is a lot of work to do!’

Shiva smiled fondly at Ayurvati.

Sati whispered, ‘Thank you Ayurvatiji. Like thousands of others, I too owe my life to you.’

‘You owe me nothing, Sati. I only did my duty.’

Ayurvati bowed with a formal namaste and left the room.

‘Well, even I...,’ mumbled Parvateshwar awkwardly, as he walked out.

Parvateshwar was surprised to find Ayurvati waiting for him outside. She was standing at a safe distance from the guards. Whatever it was that she wanted to talk about, she did not want the others to hear.

‘What is it, Ayurvati?’ asked Parvateshwar.

‘I know what’s bothering you Parvateshwar,’ said Ayurvati.

‘Then how can you just stand by and watch? I don’t think it is right. I know that this is not the correct time to say anything. But I will raise the issue when appropriate.’

‘No, you shouldn’t’

‘How can you say that?’ asked a shocked Parvateshwar. ‘You come from a rare family which did not have even one renegade Brahmin during the rebellion. Lord Ram insisted that the laws had to be followed strictly. He demonstrated repeatedly that even he wasn’t above the law. Shiva is a good man. I won’t deny that But he cannot be above the law. Nobody can be above the law. Otherwise our society will collapse. You above all should know this.’

‘I know only one thing,’ said Ayurvati, determined. ‘If the Neelkanth feels it is right, then it is right.’

Parvateshwar looked at Ayurvati as if he didn’t recognise her. This could not be the woman he knew and admired, the woman who followed the law without exception. Parvateshwar had begun to respect Shiva. But the respect had not turned into unquestioning faith. He did not believe that Shiva was the one who would complete Lord Ram’s work. In Parvateshwar’s eyes, only Lord Ram deserved absolute obedience. Nobody else.

‘In any case,’ said Ayurvati, ‘I have to leave. I have a theory to think about.’

‘Really?’ asked Shiva. You mean it is not necessary in Meluha that the Emperor’s first-born son succeed him?’

‘Yes,’ replied Sati smiling.

Shiva and Sati had spent many hours over the previous week talking about matters important and mundane. Sati, while recovering quickly, was still bedridden. The convoy had set up camp at Koonj till such time as the injured were ready to travel. The journey to Lothal had been called off. Shiva and Parvateshwar had decided that it was better to return to Devagiri as soon as the wounded were able to.

Sati shifted slightly to relieve a bit of the soreness in her back. But she did not let go of Shiva’s hand while doing so. Shiva leaned forward and pushed back a strand of hair that had slipped onto Sati’s face. She smiled lovingly at him and continued, ‘You see, till around two hundred and fifty years back, the children of the kings were not his birth-children but were drawn from the Maika system. So there was no question of knowing who the first-born was. We could only know his first-adopted.’

‘Fair point.’

‘But in addition, it was not necessary that the first-adopted child would succeed. This was another one of the laws that Lord Ram instituted for stability and peace. You see, in the olden days there were many royal families, each with their own small kingdoms.’

‘All right,’ said Shiva, paying as much attention to Sati’s words as to the hypnotising dimples that formed on her cheeks when she spoke. ‘These kings would probably be at war all the time, so that one of them could be overlord for however short a period.’

‘Obviously,’ smiled Sati, shaking her head at the foolishness of the kings before Lord Ram’s time.

‘Well, it is the same everywhere,’ said Shiva, remembering the constant warfare in his part of the world.

‘Battles for supremacy between the kings led to many unnecessary and futile wars, where the only ones who suffered were the common people,’ continued Sati. ‘Lord Ram felt it was ridiculous for the people to suffer so that the egos of their kings were fed. He instituted a system where a Rajya Sabha, the ruling council, consisting of all Brahmins and Kshatriyas of a specific rank, was created. Whenever the Emperor died or took sanyas, the council would meet and elect a new Emperor from amongst Kshatriyas of the rank of brigadier or above. The decision could not be contested and was inviolate.’

‘I have said it before and I’ll say it again,’ said Shiva with a broad smile. ‘Lord Ram was a genius.’

‘Yes, he was,’ said Sati, enthusiastically. ‘Jai Shri Ram.’