The Palace of Illusions (11 page)

King Drupad had invited Sikhandi to stay with him, but Sikhandi politely excused himself. (Drupad tried, unsuccessfully, to disguise his relief at this.) However, when Sikhandi said that he would like to stay with my brother and me instead, I sensed our father's uneasiness. Perhaps he was worried that Sikhandi would be a corrupting influence! But I was delighted. Something about Sikhandi drew me to him. Was it his easy acceptance of me? His own unusual life? He bore his
destiny so casually, it made me worry less about Dhri's and mine. He made me realize the existence of possibilities I hadn't dreamed of.

We whiled away his short visit in eating and storytelling and playing at dice (for Dhri had taught me this most unladylike pastime). We laughed a great deal, often at the littlest things. I composed poems and riddles to entertain my brothers and watched as they practiced with swords.

Dhri bested Sikhandi easily, then asked with concern, “How are you going to defeat Bheeshma?”

“I don't have to defeat him,” Sikhandi said. “I just have to kill him.”

Reluctant to let him leave my life, I tried to tempt Sikhandi to remain longer. Was it because one day (if the prophecy about my husbands was true) I, too, would cross the bounds of what was allowed to women? I promised to write a poem in his praise, to let him win at dice, to have Dhai Ma cook his favorite fish curry. Dhri offered to teach him the newest wrestling holds.

Sikhandi shook his head, his eyes regretful. “Thank you for making me so welcome,” he said. “All my life, people have been glad to see me leave.”

Dhri gave him his favorite horse and the best spear in the armory. I gave him sweet laddus to eat on the way, and a yak-hair shawl against the approaching winter. In its folds I had secreted gold coins. I imagined his face when he'd discover them on a cold and hungry day in an unfriendly town.

But he would take nothing.

“To start my penance,” he explained, “I must travel light, living off only what the land yields.”

“Penance!” I cried. “For what? It's others who should be doing penance for all the ways in which they've let you down.”

“To kill the greatest warrior of one's time is a terrible deed,” he
said, “no matter what the cause. It weakens the foundations of society. It's worse when it's done through trickery—and that's what I'll have to resort to, because certainly I don't have the skill to achieve it otherwise. I'm atoning for it in advance, as it's very likely that I, too, will die in the process.”

Under the shadow of the palace gates, Dhri said, “Brother, you've been both woman and man. You must know secrets that others don't. Share some of your wisdom with us.”

Sikhandi's lips twisted in a bitter smile. “Yes, I've learned a few things along the way, though now that I'm neither man nor woman they can't do me any good. But here's one that may be of use to you: the power of a man is like a bull's charge, while the power of a woman moves aslant, like a serpent seeking its prey. Know the particular properties of your power. Unless you use it correctly, it won't get you what you want.”

His words perplexed me. Wasn't power singular and simple? In the world that I knew, men just happened to have more of it. (I hoped to change this.) I would have to ponder Sikhandi's words.

But I had something else to ask before he left. I grasped his hands one last time, feeling those calluses. I'd tried to soften them with a paste, but he'd stopped me. “What's the use?” he'd said. “I'll just have to grow myself some more.”

“When we first met,” I asked, “why did you thank me?”

“I thanked you because you'll help me fulfill my destiny.”

“How?”

“You'll bring about the Great War where I'll meet Bheeshma and kill him.” His face darkened. “But I should have begged your pardon instead for all the humiliation you'll suffer before the war, and all the sorrow afterward. And much of this you'll endure, sister, because your destiny is linked with mine.”

7

I sat stubbornly under a jamun tree in my garden, trying to concentrate on a volume of nyaya shastra. It was a large and laborious book that set out the laws of the land, which my brother was currently studying. (Soon after Sikhandi's visit, Father had terminated my lessons with his tutor, declaring that I needed to focus on more feminine interests.) Around me summer unfurled its drowsy petals in a conspiracy to distract me. Insects sang. Luscious purple jamuns dropped lazily onto thick grass. The paired cry of bright birds pulled at my chest, releasing a strange restlessness. (Was this a feminine interest?) My companions, daughters of courtiers, clustered themselves under canopies hoisted to protect our complexions. (They'd been inflicted on me after Sikhandi's visit by my father. He hoped they would be a good influence, but they merely annoyed me.) They murmured gossip, chewed betel leaf to redden their lips, exchanged recipes for love potions, pouted, giggled without reason, and emitted suitably feminine shrieks if a bee orbited too close. From time to time they sent me beseeching glances. If only I'd decide to go back inside the palace! This pitiless sun—even with a canopy, it was so bad for the skin! They'd have to spend hours soaked in yogurt and turmeric paste to counter its ravages!

I ignored them sternly and continued to read. The book, which described in diligent, morose detail complicated laws concerning household property—including servants and wives—caused my eyelids to droop. But I was determined to learn what a king was supposed to know. (How else could I aspire to be different from these giddy girls, or from my father's wives, who spent their days vying for his favors? How else could I be powerful in myself?) So I ignored summer's blandishments and battled with the book.

But I was fated never to finish learning nyaya shastra. For even as I turned the page Dhai Ma came from the palace, waddling as fast as her bulk would allow. Out of breath and wheezing, her face an alarming red, she shooed my companions away. Then she whispered the news in my ear (but in her excitement she was so loud that everyone heard): my father had decided—Sikhandi's visit must have stirred up a veritable storm of anxiety in him—that I was to be married next month.

Ever since the prophecy, I'd thought intermittently of marriage—at times with excitement or resignation, at times with dread. I sensed, vaguely, that it was a great opportunity—but for what I wasn't sure. I'd imagined that it would be similar to the weddings of my father's other daughters: arranged by elders. But Dhai Ma informed me I was to have a swayamvar. Eligible rulers from every kingdom in Bharat would be invited to Panchaal. From among them, my father had announced, I would choose the man I was to marry.

After the initial shock, I was filled with exhilaration. I ran to find Dhri. “I can't believe I'm going to pick my own husband!” I cried. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“Don't get so excited,” he replied glumly. “Something always goes wrong in a swayamvar—either while it's happening, or later.”

I felt a twinge of foreboding, but I refused to let Dhri's words ruin my mood. He was too cautious. Sometimes I told him that the gods must have got mixed up when they pushed us out from the fire. He should have been the girl, and I the boy!

“I wish Father hadn't made this decision so hastily,” he said.

“You're just jealous that I get to choose my own spouse when you don't!” I joked. As a matter of fact, Dhri was quite taken with the neighboring princess to whom our father had betrothed him. I'd surprised him a couple of times, gazing solemnly at her portrait, which he kept hidden behind a stack of scrolls. But a question gnawed at me: Why would our father, who delighted in control, allow me so much freedom?

“Is it really going to happen?” I asked Dhri. “Or is he going to suddenly change his mind?”

“It'll happen. He's sent out a hundred messengers to invite the most important kings. Pleasure palaces are already being built for them and—”

But Krishna—when had he entered the room?—laughed, startling me.

“Oh, it'll happen, Krishnaa, but it may not be what you're imagining. Truth, like a diamond, has many facets. Tell her, Dhris-tadyumna. Tell her about the test.”

This was what they'd planned, my father the king, along with his ministers and priests, for the good of Panchaal and the honor of the house of Drupad: before the wedding, there would be a test of skill. The king who won it would be the one I'd garland.

“Why even call it a swayamvar, then?” I cried. “Why make a spectacle of me before all those kings? It's my father, not I, who gets to decide whom I'll marry.”

Dhri looked unhappy, but he spoke firmly. “No, fate will decide that. It's not an ordinary test that Father's setting your suitors. They must pierce a fish made of metal, revolving high on the ceiling of the wedding hall.”

His support of our father made me angrier. “What's so difficult about that? Isn't that the first thing warriors learn, how to hit a moving target? Or do your enemies sit on the battlefield, waiting for your arrow to come and find them?”

“There's more to it,” he explained, his voice patient. “They can't look directly at the target but only at its reflection in a pool of whirling water. They must shoot five arrows through a tiny hole in a shield to hit the target. Nor can they use their own weapons.”

“They must use the Kindhara, the heaviest bow in existence,” Krishna added helpfully. “Your father borrowed it, after much supplication, from the gods. There's only a handful of warriors in the world today strong enough to lift it up, and fewer still that can string it.”

I glared at them both. “Wonderful!” I said. “So he's set them an impossible task! Is he mad?”

“Not impossible,” Krishna said. “I know someone who can accomplish it. Arjun, the third Pandava prince, my dearest friend.”

“Arjun?” I said in surprise. “You never told us he was your dearest friend!”

“There are many things I haven't told you,” Krishna said, quite unapologetic.

Dhri's eyes were eager. “Is he really the greatest archer of his time?”

“I think so,” Krishna said. “He's handsome, too, and a great favorite with the ladies. I think our Krishnaa will like him!”

His words had made me curious, though I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing that. “Why would our father want me to marry the man who humiliated him?” I asked.