The Aryavarta Chronicles Kaurava: Book 2 (20 page)

It felt as though she had hardly sent the messenger back, or perhaps she thought it so for the shock and horror she felt, but Panchali was still standing where the pratikramin had left her when she heard the knock at the door. Her sairandhari looked at her, uncertain. ‘Mahamatra?’ she said, the question in her tone conveying concern.

‘Open it,’ Panchali said, but before the girl could act on her orders, the door splintered apart. The two eunuch guards posted in every royal woman’s chambers at Hastina stepped in to intercept the intruder, but immediately moved aside.

Dussasan stood in the doorway, a hungry expression on his face. ‘You had a question for the assembly, had you not, my dear? I’ve been sent to escort you there, so that you may ask it in person.’ He sprang at her.

Panchali wasted no time on protest or plaint. She elbowed Dussasan in the stomach as hard as could and he doubled over with a grunt of pain. She had hardly reached for her sword when he grabbed hold of her by her hair. She grimaced at the pain, but said nothing.

Dussasan twisted her around, making her face him. ‘Slave!’ he cackled. ‘You whore! Come, you are ours now.’

‘This is madness! How dare you? Let go of me!’ Panchali demanded.

‘Hush, my dear,’ Dussasan said, unaffected. ‘You’ve been duly wagered and lost by your husband. You’re now rightfully our property, a slave to the Kuru princes.’ He caught her face in his thick fingers and forced her to look at him. The action prompted her handmaidens to gasp, but the same sway of authority that had led them to accept their Emperor’s untenable stakes without question now kept them from questioning a prince’s deeds, no matter how vile. They stayed silent and still, their eyes fixed on the floor.

Oblivious to them, Dussasan bent his head and ran his thick tongue up the side of Panchali’ neck and face. She squirmed. In response, Dussasan trailed his thick fingers over her thigh, cupping her from behind to pull her close against him. He forced his fingers against her skin, howling with feral delight as they came away stained red with her monthly blood.

‘They say an insatiable woman like you is all the more desirable when your season is upon you…like a wild animal in heat.’

Panchali let a defiant screech escape her, as she struggled against Dussasan’s hold. It only served to spur him on. His gaze leaving no doubt as to his future plans, he taunted her, ‘If you’d been any other slave in this palace, I’d have taken you right here, right now. The things I want to do to you…’ he left the sentence unfinished. With a chuckle he added, ‘But who knows, you might enjoy my…special attentions…insatiable as you are! We shall see. For now,
slave
, come along. Your masters are calling for you. Come now,
whore
!’ He began dragging her out of the door and towards the assembly.

Panchali fought hard against his hold. She kicked, she slapped and scratched – but to no avail. Dussasan slammed her against the hard walls of the corridors and threw her to the floor, using her long hair to keep his hold on her. When that did not suffice to stop her struggling, he kicked her in the stomach and grabbed her again by her hair. Overcome by her own desperation and helplessness, she felt herself going numb. Her limbs felt heavy, and she could not struggle any more. Afraid that she would faint, she focussed on the raw, burning sensation on her legs from being scraped across the stone floor. Then, just when it seemed she had got used to the pain, she suddenly felt the cool smoothness of marble and heard the hum of conversation. Panchali looked up despite the painful grasp that Dussasan still had on her hair. She was in Hastina’s hallowed assembly hall.

Each and every elder, every vassal, every ally of Kuru, was present and their eyes were on her and her alone. She was painfully aware that her robes had come loose and clung, disorderly, stained and wet with her own blood, to her thighs. Laughter, mocking and derisive, punctuated the air. Vasusena pointed, not at her but to her body. He clapped his hands in glee and cried out, ‘Look at the slave! Look at the whore of the Kaurava clan!’

The words seared through Panchali, filling her with a bitter strength, stoking her fiery spirit out of its submissive resignation. She looked into the crowd around her, searching out, one by one those who ought to have known better. But neither Dharma nor his brothers could meet her eyes. She noted that Syoddhan was staring at her aghast, his mouth hanging open. He briefly looked away to glare, furious, at Dussasan, but the younger prince, consumed by his brutish power, remained oblivious to it. At that, Syoddhan turned back to Panchali, his eyes holding a helplessness that she understood far too well, as she did the controlled horror that she saw in Dron’s eyes, and Bhisma’s, and in every gaze that fell on her.

Fear and ambition rule us all. Fear and ambition… Oh Rudra, how has it come to this?

And then, Vasusena was speaking again. ‘Panchali! You are to proceed immediately to the attendant’s quarters of the king’s palace. There, you will change into the white hemp robes of a slave-woman and cast off all your jewels and begin the menial duties assigned to you.’ He paused, and pointedly added, ‘You are now a slave to the Kuru princes. You were wagered by Dharma Yudhisthir and lost. That is the law.’

Panchali rose to her feet with effort. She turned to look at Dharma and his brothers. The five of them stood with their arms crossed in subservience, eyes downcast in shame and submission. Her own gaze fixed on Dharma, she said, ‘And whose master was Dharma Yudhisthir to make such a wager?’

The assembly erupted in a roar, and indistinct murmurs of disbelief vied with cries of anger. Panchali knew that many of the abuses and admonition were directed at her. Shakuni and Vasusena called for silence and after much gesticulating managed to get the assembly to comply.

‘You dispute that Dharma had a right to stake you?’ Vasusena asked as soon as he could make himself heard.

‘Yes.’

The chaos resumed. Now, even the elders, Dron, Kripa and Bhisma looked offended. Dharma’s head drooped further still. Shakuni stood up and gestured to the assembly to take their seats. Once again, the hall fell quiet and all eyes turned towards Panchali, who continued, unperturbed. ‘We speak of our role, our duty as the rulers of Aryavarta, to ensure that Divine Order is replicated here on this earth. And the greatest function that comes of that duty is to ensure that justice is served; a function that the Emperor of this land swore to discharge without fail. Unfortunately, neither the Emperor nor the Empress of Aryavarta are in a position to preserve that oath,’ she punctuated her words with a sarcasm that was as soft as it was scathing. ‘So it is, that I call on the rulers of Kuru, in whose jurisdiction this matter now lies. I call on the famed justice of Emperor Bharata’s line and submit to the authority of this royal assembly – now in effect a court of law.’ Her speech was more than many could take.

‘Slave!’ Dussasan cried out. ‘You’re a slave and a whore and, by the gods, you will give us brothers as much pleasure as you’ve given those five eunuch cousins of ours!’

With an enraged cry, Bhim launched himself at Dussasana. It took the combined efforts of Partha, Sadev and Nakul to hold him back. Dharma did not stir. His inaction infuriated Panchali far more than Dussasana’s abuses had, and though she tried not to let it show her face was strained with wrath.

Shakuni stepped forward, eager to break Panchali’s confidence in his own subtle way. ‘So, you maintain that you are not a slave?’

‘Yes,’ Panchali affirmed.

‘Because Dharma had no right to stake you?’

‘That is correct.’

In a voice filled with mock astonishment, Shakuni said, ‘But you are his lawfully wedded wife, are you not? Doesn’t the husband have the right to stake his wife? Or do you admit that you are not his wife alone? For if the case is that you are wife to his brothers too, as some suggest… But then, we return to the question of whether a woman of…err…such distinction deserves any protection at all…’

The statement was met with much crude laughter and applause.

Panchali ignored it all. She said, ‘I am wife to Dharma Yudhisthir. However, the moment Dharma’s enslavement began, he ceased to have the rights accorded to free men…including rights as a husband over the
property
, if one should tastelessly call it so, that is his wife. Whether you deem him my overlord by virtue of his position as Emperor of Aryavarta, or as my husband, when a man has lost himself, he has no one left to command and nothing left to rule over.’

‘That is of no consequence,’ Vasusena roared from his seat. ‘The wager was made, clear and loud. It was accepted by Dharma without objection. The stake was then declared lost, and that too was accepted by Dharma without objection. You were accepted by the princes of Hastina as their property and sent for. Again, Dharma did not object. When the one who made the stake has conceded you as lost and the winner has accepted you as newly won, what question then of the propriety of the wager?’

Panchali shook her head. ‘The gambler may dream in his sleep and in the course of his dream believe that he’s playing at dice. He might proceed to lay a wager as he wishes, and even concede the stake as lost. Yet another may dream that he has won at dice and claim the stake as his rightful due. In the sane light of morning, however, neither is the stake relinquished, nor is it claimed. Such is the case here, for a wager made without authority, no matter how unambiguously declared, accepted and admitted, is simply not a valid one. I await the assembly’s judgement. Grandsire Bhisma, you have always led this gathering in delivering justice. I ask you, what is your decision?’

Throwing herself on to her knees, Panchali awaited justice. Bhisma’s expression, however, was far from cheering. By and large, the elder remained impassive, but there was that particular way he thrust his chin up, as though irked at being involved in such sinfully human affairs. Panchali was familiar with the posture, for she had seen Dharma adopt it often enough, as she did the words that went with it:
It is fated. Destiny is willed by the gods, and we are all powerless against it. It is fate that you must suffer. Let the gods do as they will.
Panchali had no doubt that similar thoughts were going through Bhisma’s head.

Finally, Bhisma stood up. ‘My child,’ he said, ‘morality is a subtle thing, and what is considered moral often depends on the situation. Laws are crafted so that we may live noble, honourable lives. Your question isn’t an easy one to answer.’ Clearing his throat, he declared, ‘If anyone here can answer you, my child, it has to be your husband, Dharma, the very embodiment of justice. For he alone can truly say what authority he has, or had, over you, and whether or not you are now a slave. It is for Dharma to speak and set you free.’

In the expectant quiet that followed Bhisma’s declaration, Dharma said nothing. Dharma said nothing at all.

‘Well then,’ Vasusena’s words cut through the void that surrounded her. ‘Dharma’s silence speaks for itself. Dussasana…’

All sound died, replaced by an ominous stillness. Panchali knew that stillness. It was the soundless anticipation that filled the air when a sacrificial animal was brought in, the eager calm when humans, for a short while, believed they were no less than the gods, for the power of life and death that was in their hands. It was the instant before the axe fell, blood splattered in wanton worship and the crowd rose with a roar to celebrate the raw might they held as though each one had struck the killing blow with his own hand, the unmistakeable tumult of life that was a blood sacrifice. And then, like animals at a feast, they would pounce on her to consume her alive, her body left bloodied in more ways that one. She tried to look into their eyes, to find reason, but there was none left in them to find. A mob, no, a pack: a feral pack that worked as one to serve the singular command of brute instinct.

It was all she could do to not bleat in fear as Dussasan advanced towards her. His eyes held an inhuman pleasure and his face was contorted in evil satisfaction. Yet again, Panchali tried to resist his grasp, only to be thrown painfully to the ground for her efforts. She tried to edge away. He mocked her feeble defiance, pretending to tease and bait her. Slowly, deliberately, he raised his leg and brought it down on her thick, flowing tresses. Pain shot through Panchali as he pinned her down, but she tried hard not to show it. As far as she could, she would deny this animal its sadistic pleasure.

But the hunter was not done. His eyes were locked on hers, his gaze that of a predator paralysing his prey. Enjoying every moment of Panchali’s torment, he leisurely bent down to grope at her flesh, in the process grabbing hold of the single length of cloth that covered her body. Then, his breath heavy and ragged, eyes bulging with the anticipation of ecstasy, Dussasan pulled at the cloth.

21

‘MIH!’ DARUKA CURSED. ‘THESE MEN ARE NOT GOING TO GIVE
up without a fight, Commander.’

‘Then a fight is what they will get, Daruka,’ Govinda replied, his eyes fixed on Saubha’s flagship as he remained at the wheel.

Saubha’s archers rained down a torrent of arrows, catching those on the Yadu warship who failed to take cover in time, or were not in a position to leave their posts. Their cries of pain and dying prayers made Govinda’s eyes blaze, though he neither turned around nor offered help. Before their bodies hit the deck, he knew, another one of his sailors would take their place. Each man now fought, not for glory but for their city and their loved ones.

‘Get the oarsmen to abandon ship, right now!’ he commanded. ‘And as many of the crew as we can spare. Get our ships to pick them up.’

The orders left no room for doubt. Daruka gave the signal and the men lowered themselves into the sea. At the same time, the anchored ships sent out rowboats. Keeping well beyond the reach of the current, the soldiers on the boats threw out ropes to the men as they treaded water against the current. Realizing that a collision was inevitable, a few of the Salwa soldiers, too, began to abandon their vessels in fear, taking their rather dismal chances with the raging tides.