Excerpt Novella 2019

Chapter 9

When the space ship, the Metro, took off, the inhabitants did not know. There was no roar, no fire, no sparks, just the sudden realization that they were now in the void. They woke up when the alarms rang on their bedside clocks, when the shower sputtered without water in the bathroom, and when their food pipes did not produce the customary custard. The entire city, so long landlocked on earth, was now a roving planet, carrying its paperless inhabitants into outer space.

Stella looked out of the window, and saw the night sky.  She thought, “Its Perpetual Night, so we are on the move. About time too. Light years away, from earth, no possibility of return.” She sighed, and rang the bell for her attendants, but they seemed to be in coma. Well, then, she would wait for them to land. She started to imagine, what it would be like.

There was once a kingdom, she thought. There were castles on the hills, fortresses barricaded by many walls, each concentric and guarded. The walls led people to different caves and entry points to the castles. Once they had passed each circle of impediments, they were led closer to their goal. Their bodies were the only indicators of time, of everything else they had no inkling, no wisdom. So there they were, on the planet Mars. Its surface corroded by billions of years, pock marked by fallen meteors. Water lay just below the surface, and once they landed, they would be led to their own underground lake. For many decades now, people without country, without homes had been arriving from planet Earth. They brought with them their seeds and inventions. Each one thought  of home, and propelled their nostalgia in known ways. They had been waiting to land, waiting to arrive.

The populated portions had started blinking their lights to the rest of the universe. Unwilling to call themselves Martians, they referred to themselves by their Metro names, and led simple lives. Food was plenty, they had cartons of capsules, as agriculture was not a possibility for a millennia atleast. And that too, would be possible only if the future generations willed it. And the sun, constant, appeared only in the way in which it could, as a memory. Without light, there could be no re generation. There was talk of migrating to the six planets, which were closer in time scale to earth, having a sun and a 24 hour circle of night and day. Alas, the maps did not permit them to voyage forward. Six hundred years in preparation, and a thousand in transit. After that, maybe.

Stella yawned. There were no risks involved. Once the earth dismembered, what else was there? They had dispensed with their Gods long ago, and a few priests remained on earth to safeguard the shrines. They needed little but their own sense of valour to concentrate their energies, or to remember the names of the Gods and Goddesses. Artifacts of ivory and stone had long ago disintegrated when they had re entered The Empire of Stone, a backward track in time, which all recognized. It went parallel to their entry into The Empire of Space.  The first years of the latter were marked with surprise, delight, and the warmth of technological light. Then, in a couple of decades, it deteriorated into disappointment. Everything was composed in formulae, everything disappeared when the electricity fluctuated. So they lived and lost, lived and turned the page to more monotonous year. Stella was unaffected, because memory had become sufficient to tell the tallest tales to those who had sought to confine her imagination to the present. She believed that, Schezerade like, her existence depended on this act of constant retelling. For a while, there was interest, as she described events, activities and institutions which were quite extraordinary, atleast to the listeners. But then, she could not find a listener, for they were all bent on going to the Moon. Earth was now incomprehensible to them, as magma sprouted at every turn. Hot winds blew, the earth erupted noisily. The green ring of trees around each home became so much a pile of brown inflammable wood, its rustling leaves promising a sparking without invitation. Floods, then fires, a cooling down and an ultimate entropy. No one had imagined such heat, such immense fear. Hailstones hit their homes, and then in the damp, after such an event, they would hope, but the dark brought new terrors as insects landed dazed by the circumstances in their window of time, which the sudden cooling had brought. The movements of animals brought them immediate knowledge of what was to come, and they would flee their homes, because they knew that when the deer, snake, rabbit and dog jumped to some unheard tune, that the earthquake was imminent, and they would have to take note.

They usually left without possessions, as these, like memories were heavy to carry. Once they crossed the desert, there were the oceans, and after that forests. They held on to one another, burning the carcasses of the dead without shame or honour. They beheld battles, they mourned the loss of kin. Friends remained together and no shame was thought necessary for the immediate copulations that resulted in children. The old were unable to keep in tune, unless they were carried by someone, and everyone was too tired and emaciated to do that. Life, as they knew it, was no longer possible, so they died terrible deaths with no one to comfort them, or to shut their eyes. The Metro had become the last Empire, before the Final Entry into the Space Age, and those who had come in when the gates locked, counted themselves lucky. Here, they had quickly been divided into the old and the young, and separated accordingly. Stella had thought herself lucky to have entered while there was still hope of survival.

Looking out into the endless night, she thought achingly of the sunlight that had been recreated by the permanent sun, a technological innovation involving endless bursts of hydrogen, but that too had become extinct in the matchbox called Time. So they vanished from earth, and were left in the vacuum the old world had called space. There were light years to be crossed, and they were prepared to do that. At the end, there would be the planet of Mars with its iridescence, and its many flags. “Dig deeper!’ the slave drivers would roar, as they pierced the crust looking for the turquoise water that their computers had discovered so many aeons ago. It was a time of stillness, the journeying, the preparation, the longing.

“Up the high mountain, with the wind blowing. The desert loomed closer, the empty earth, rid of its many plants became a kind of crumbling dust. Too many people wanted to reach the top of the mountain, so the soldiers had been harsh, and sent back the old and the encumbered. Children were not allowed, for instance, nor the sick. What was there, at the top? Why, a castle. What was there in the Castle? A Queen. What did she do there? No one knew.

It was  dark in the rooms, and the young woman lived alone. The cruelty of the men was known only too well among her serving maids, so they hid her away. And yet, she herself longed to meet her husband and her brothers, for she knew that they rode up every day to meet her, before setting off for  pillaging and war. She had no idea why they wanted to kill and usurp, but they said that that was what they did. They had need of priests too, so they brought them along whenever they came to glimpse her as she walked in her gardens. They saw her, she was alive, that was sufficient for them, and away they rode off ridding one more farmer of his land, one more gardener of his fields, one more shepherd of his flock . Their pettiness surprised her, she felt the sorrow of the people among who they were strangers, but there was nothing she could offer them, and no one came to see her in any case. She could hear them screaming when they were robbed, and their women captured. Looking from her windows, the field lay completely fallow, and the chopped heads were united to bodies arbitrarily, and the limbs were all piled together and burnt for the convenience of the marauding soldiers. The smell of roasting bodies wafted up, but she returned to her embroidery, thinking that the world of women was perforce separated from those of the warriors. She was sad for those lost souls, and had prayers said in their honour. The evening brought the stars, and forgetfulness. The dreams she had were of the families who had lost sons. She wept as she knelt and prayed asking for forgiveness, but those prayers wafted up with the incense, and did not find the gods she sought, for they had been left behind in their own country.

She understood then that her brother’s gods wanted war, lusted for blood, that they were conquering heroes who knew only this one creed. They came as giants into hot luxurious countries, and then slaying the people, made their beds on the earth soaked with blood. She had no way of stopping them. They were the dragon seed, where one fell, a thousand took their place and grew to manhood thirsting for blood. After them came the farmers, running over the mountains, for their fields had been stolen by others, and each brought with him his plough and married the wives soldiers had slain, and then they grew the maize and millets that were to feed them on the land manured by the blood of dead warriors.

Each Spring, they dug up the earth, and smiling skulls turned up, which they threw to the dogs, or buried in another field. War had turned their brains, they knew neither friend nor foe. They recited the sacred scriptures before hunting, before digging the fields, before setting out to war. There was nothing to be mourned. The terrible heat, the drought, the shudder of an occasional rain…this they knew. The women were as foul mouthed as the men, their children torn from the womb, they were like blood hounds who know their victim. When the fields were harvested, the sheaves bound, the wheat would throw up a tooth or two, which would be thrown away like river pebbles occasionally found in the grass. Was there ever a season without flames, was there a cycle of growth without death. The time of looking forward was now gone, they only looked backwards to what they did not have, to the the time of hunger and death. Now, the granaries were full, and the people were busy hunting others down. Loot in the name of war was perfectly legitimate. Robbing, conquering, shooting, killing…all these were commonplaces. There was a war cry, and then a collective lunge, and stabbing if not being stabbed was seen to be perfectly normal.

Below the earth, was now a steaming puddle which could absorb the magma in a hiss and tremble. The soil was thin and dry, pebbles seeming to magnify, become brittle and then crumble into dust. People no longer tried to walk on the land, as their feet would burn, the soles becoming worn out by the incessant heat. War brought ashes, and ashes brought famine. For the moment, the granaries containing the plenitude of other kingdoms, and petty chieftains offerings satisfied them, but as they had no time to plough, sow or harvest they knew that they could indeed starve in the winter. So they set the women to be farmers, while they roamed the naked land for more people, more goods to steal. The women sang songs, took lovers, bore children, and forgot the men who had first enslaved them. New villages arose, and were taxed by ruling kings. They too, became in time, a new class of soldiers, setting foot in new lands. And remembered that they were only substitutes to those who had left  the community to achieve greatness and immortality.

And the great warrior arose among them, looking to the hill tops to build his    castle. He built one for himself, replete with courts and gaming houses, abodes for courtesans, and stables for horses and stys for pigs. And here he did not permit his wife to enter. For her, on an adjoining hill, he built a filigree palace, exquisite to behold, and quite different from his own. Here, there were rooms which emptied out from the rock into the sky. Flower gardens were laid, and music halls and dancing rooms. Alone, she would live, his prisoner, subject to his whims, never allowed to leave. He was her brother, and given in marriage, for their mothers were sisters, to her so that she would know that her only duty was to bear children. There were slaves ofcourse, to guard her. The Abyssinians had come specifically for this task, and they had nothing to do, except to see that any lover who climbed up the ramparts would be killed immediately. So the days were empty, and the men gone to war, and there was nothing to do except read and write poetry. Here, then were the sorrowful laments of women who had known nothing but death, who had no future, who went unnamed in history, because their only task was to wait for the men to return.

Looking from the window, for miles and miles, it looked as if the people accepted their subjugation. There they were, going to their prayers. Vishnu perpetuated his guiles upon innocent milk maids, who languished when he departed with his conch. Every single woman thought she had him for her own, but he appeared somewhere else, with a fresh conquest. Nothing the Queen did brought him to her. She alone had to wait for her King to return. And he did, once a year, with bugle and lanterns, accompanied by a hundred soldiers, who waited for him outside, with the fires lit, and the stars all turned up to see their royal couple. It was boring for the soldiers who had seen the king at work with his courtesans every evening, and who had enjoyed the voyeurism of the lowly. Here there was no work, but the placid sounds of snoring, and the hushed turning over, and the placid creaking  of a handmaiden’s fan, by  the bedside of a queen, growing older every year. What was her purpose? she thought, again and again. The children born to them were by other women, she had never labored, and her bed remained clean sheeted and full of the subdued verse that the Gods liked to hear from their chatelaines. It was this she was used to, there was nothing new that she could offer. From the depths of her heart she loved her brother, he alone who could by the genealogists notation be her mate. He had been her childhood playmate, the one who understood her every gesture, her expressions, her covert glances. It was understood that one day she would be her queen, and he would be her consort. But then, no one knew what the future would bring, how matriarchy would fall, and kingship prevail.

One of the first things he did, after their marriage was to cut her off from her friends, from her brothers, from her mother. Her father had died in venomous battles with kin folk. They were known to be blood thirsty, they had no conscience, they had no will…death ran in their veins, and only by spurting the blood of brothers could they ascend their thrones. It was as if loss of life was a paltry thing for the jewels, playthings and huge tracts of land that they got in return. This instinct to murder was accompanied by the love of the finest things, and they coveted what they did not have. It was a simple expedient to give up family, domestic harmony, the ordinary, the everyday routine pleasures for what they saw as their right. The mildewing pleasures of mother’s milk and contented coitus was beyond them. The passivity of the glades of romance, of the swarthiness of workers and oil pressers they left to their women to harness. They had no rights in their children, who clung to their mothers. As soldiers, they found pleasure where they would. This sense of belonging to the sword and the blood run fields was what they took to be the real world. Armies marching, shepherds fleeing, the billowing of flags, the hollow call of the trumpet, and the soft pulp of strange vaginas, a new body ransacked every night…this then was their world. The anonymity of captive women, killed after a night’s pleasure or yoked to the bullock cart with the other loot of war was not unusual. It was indeed as if people whose villages were burnt were immensely wounded by what had happened to them, but the wars between chieftains was known to them by history and by song. Sometimes, when life returned to normal, and they crept back to their homes, they found that everything they loved was gone.   

Ofcourse, they knew that would be so, but the treachery that had surrounded them shocked them once more. Where were their vessels, their tents, their bales of wool, their sheafs of corn? What would they now trade for salt and gold? Yet, they settled down, and began to till, plant and sow. When the first ears of millet stuck its feathery brushes up, and the women too were willing to be pleasured by their lovers, the tax collectors would arrive, pulling up their kingly chariots, carting their sacks and seals with the authority of deputies.

Selvi would usher the tax collector in the Queen’s room. The maid knew that they could not hope to teach him manners, but surely he knew he had to enter bowing and prostrating himself?

The very day he had seen her he had known that the king had chosen well. She was large and fair, her very being carried a certain authority. She was not bedecked with jewels, nor dressed in fine linens. A simple cloth was draped around her body, tightened under her  left arm with a single knot. They said that her family was from the mountains, and that as clan members of the king, the intimacies between them had soured with the years, and the number of wars fought and won. It was not unusual, wives were meant to stay home, and bring up their children. In this case there were none.

“The King sends his salutations.”

“He was here just last month, before the harvest.”

“Yes, that’s why I am here, so that the Queen may be divested of her excess.”

“I have no need of anything, as I follow the path of my master.”

“And who may that be, Lady?”

“The Lord of the Seven Hills.”

“So be it, meanwhile, I will meet your head accountant.”

He bowed, and left, never turning his back to her, his black eyes gleaming. She was not frightened, though his manner both apologetic and arrogant made her feel that he would not find fault with her arrangements. He was a chattel to the king, after all, just like herself. The Bailiff had power only for such time as he had money and tribute to bring to the king. The moment that stopped, his reputation was tarnished, and not being a soldier, his sedentary occupation was always at risk. The soldier could ride off, he could attach himself to another chieftain. The Bailiff knew that the fear he felt for the King was not about the loss of his life, but it was about the seizing of his properties, of being beggared. He had a worldly manner, his height was proportionate to his task, for he had to frighten people into giving up their secrets. The Queen did not even know his name, she was contented to see him leave her apartments, knowing that he would not visit till the next harvest. She went back to her embroidery, to her parrots and dice games. Every moment was accounted for, her solitude was noisy with the accompaniments of slaves, who in turn whispered her day’s activities to the soldiers who accompanied them everywhere, and took back what she had said and done to the King.

Ofcourse the King had a new consort, and it was a matter of pride to this court that he kept her imprisoned in her quarters,  feeding her the finest foods, and draped in garments embellished with gold. The diamonds and sapphires she wore were so heavy, that he really  could have furnished a new army for wars across the furtherest borders. The Queen thought about it, and then shrugged her shoulders. Here, high up in the fort, Hampi was of no consequence. Here, the air was clear, the eagles flew high up, and she had the finest of cottons to wear. The Empire came with a price, and cheated of everything, she had learned to engage herself hour after hour, with new teachers. There was the drawing master, the fencing instructor, the masseuse, the embroidery teachers, the language teachers, the theologians. There was no possibility that she could escape the hill, except to throw herself down. When the summer grew hotter, and the plains burnt down from threshed paddy and maize and millets to a dull patina of browns, she hid in the inner rooms, counting the days till the seasons turned and they could come out to the terraces again.

The Castle was built only to conceal her. As chieftains of wandering armies they could not possibly take their families with them. And every day was spent apart, each with distinct duties. No wandering monk was permitted by the soldiers, and how the queen had found the poems of the elite squadron of foot soldiers was beyond any one’s understanding. Three thousand years of verse, and the sound of untranslateable phrases in their ears every morning came from her quarters.  The sorrow of her people, those whom she had adopted, by the simple act of looking from the ramparts of her fort, was implicit in these verses. The wind had rounded the rocks, the trees and bushes were sparse. From where she stood, she could see the King’s castle, more comfortable than her own, with courtesan’s chambers, and a hunting lodge for itinerant chieftains who came to present tribute. She could see the Artisan and Oil Pressers’  Barracks, from which she got word every day,for the bee keeper sent her messages wrapped to the delicate foot of pigeons. They were of utmost simplicity and evaded the eyes of the soldiers, flying straight to the window of the queen’s apartment, and she sent it back with a note of her own, before the sun was up. The notes even if  found, could not possibly hurt or alarm any one. It was the easiest way to learn a new language, the simplest way of staying alive.

The Queen looked up startled. It looked as if it was going to rain. The hot winds, the blue skies, had given way to clouds that were as black as the rocks, and a cool

breeze wafted in through the windows. There were no windows to shut, brown screens of dried hay protected them from the rain, they would just move into the inner quarters and let the storm do its worst. Down,  two miles below, the horses were neighing, and the threshed paddy was falling over in bundles like soldiers cut down in war. It seemed unnecessary to tell the serving maids what to do, for they were all running around, with set expressions and doing what was required. They did not even glance her way, she was the one set aside for a paramour. The King was so well loved, that there was no regret in the mind of the people that he had set aside his ascetic wife, who had not given birth to sons. Their faces were impassive. Her beauty was dead wood to them, and her orders ignored. Finding her unconcerned, they went about their duties wanting only to keep their jobs and feeding their bodies. Her austerity was an embarrassment. They found her suitably occupied through the day, and thought that it sufficient that they did not have to worry about her sanity. As for her love for white pigeons which flew in from the oil pressers fort, they were curious but not preoccupied by doubt or suspicion.

For every note she received, she sent a single word back. There was no mercenary motive, lust was not their idiom. Basavana had been their mutual lord, and every single moment was a tryst with him. If they did have a way of meeting, we do not know about it. The soul was ever constant, and the circularity of the snake biting its own tail was the symbol of immortality. First, the verse, then the syllable. The cost of living was not worth the breath that went into each, separately or together, they could hear one another, they could bear the gravity of their situation.

The soil was dark, thick, crumbly, rich. The plants which grew in the ravines parted with their juices willingly, and the artists drew their gods intertwined with the bodies of the men and women who lived in their thatched huts. The golden leaves that cured jaundice, when rubbed on the body, made it of a golden hue, and wealth poured into the homes and hearts of those who  knew the secret mantras. The very secrets of the earth were told to the chosen ones, who kept their remedies to themselves, and the Queen, rendered a vagrant by the order of her Supreme Commander, Lord of all three Forts, kept her counsel, and learned from everyone equally.

Leaving the fort was not easy, so she waited for the dark night of the new moon, and as it became a disc in the sky in a few days, her time was very limited. Selvi was her only friend, the one she trusted with her keys, and she would sleep in her bed and pretend that she was the Queen, while the guards let out the one whom they thought was Chaya the servant maid. Chaya slept undisturbed in her quarters, willing to wake up only when the sun was high up in the sky. The guards thought she, Chaya, was going to keep a tryst with her lover, and did not enquire closely. The slave was the duplicate, she was the one who had freedom, her work designated to keep her close to all, without giving up her identity.

In the forest, her feet bare, the thinnest of anklets decorating her feet, the Queen was pleased to smell the fruits of summer, the hot fragrance of mangoes, and to compensate, the cool scent of jasmine. She breathed the air, and saw the stars cluttering the dark sky with their distant light. She felt as if her life was captured in the intensity of time, caught in starlight and meteor journeys. If the King were to cross her path, he would not recognize her. That was why she chose the few days when he did not go hunting, when he dazzled his court, and his courtesans with poetry.

The road, what there was of it, was rugged, and the stones cut into her feet. The wind was cool, and the embers of the sky, flying across the train of stars, drizzled the black night. She waited for the hoot of the owl, and sure enough, there it was. Crickets and cicadas were so loud that she could hardly hear herself think. Shades of the night passed her by, whispers, sounds, the wind, the trellis of creepers rustling, dry leaves under her feet. She heard them all, under the flapping wings of bats, telling herself that freedom was for the bold. She knew that hunters were about, and if they saw her, they would shoot their arrows, for women out at night were thought to be ghosts, yakshis, demons of the dark.

The bee keeper had met her just once, and he had kept her secret. He was a large burly man, with the sharp nose of the peasants, who had escaped being rounded up for soldiering. He had large black eyes, and he was almost mute. When he had seen her, sweat had broken out on his brow, and his fire torch had wavered in his hands, and he would have dropped it, but she said, “Tell no one, I am your queen.” He had thrown himself on the ground, and then when she told him “you have to help me get to the town”, he had laughed, held her hand with respect and adoration, and then together they had walked till morning, when she could see the town before her, with its bustling shops, its metal smiths, and its cowherds. Their return was more fleet footed, up the steep hill, and they had not stopped for food or water, because her return would have to wait till dusk, when the guards assembled near the iron studded gate. She entered quietly through the jungle, merging with other waiting women, and no one noticed her absence or her return. It seemed to the beekeeper that the hours he had spent in her company were a dream. They had not spoken, and the silence was worthy of the seers who kept their own counsel.

The Queen bathed in rose water, and sandalwood incense filled her rooms. The King made sure she had every comfort, and she lived as if there were no tomorrow. The day was sufficient to her, she did not enquire where the food came from, and who brought it to her. Selvie did all the talking and sometimes she thought that the world depended on the images of speech, of the concern that the poor had for the rich, who were not remotely human. To be human was to care for each other, to look out for signals, to know right from wrong. Selvie always wanted to know, “Do you not care what he does to you? Do you not feel that you have a right to know what your future is?”

“When the men are at war, and have courtesans to comfort them, then what need they have for spiritual seekers?”

“You must ask for the right to adopt a child. Our Lord still visits you, though his visits are fewer and fewer.”

“What we have is the comfort of our habits.”

“Ask him to take you with him, when next he comes.”

“Water finds its own level, and people must make do with what fate has chosen them.”

“Your fate is what you make, not what descends on you like bird shit.”

“Leave me alone.”

“I see a white pigeon at your window.”

“Shut the door, and bring my food in the afternoon. Rice with thin curd. I want only what the artisans eat.”

“I will inform the King.”

“So be it. Remember, you are my only companion.”

“Alright, I wont tell him then. But if a stranger appears at your window, then remember, we will know what it is you do.”

The maid left, clanging the plates she had brought, the food, ravenously eaten, the millet doshai and the black peas with shredded coconut, and small pieces of raw mango having been eaten so rapidly, that the maid had been shocked. It had been long since the Queen had an appetite. They were not allowed to call her by name.

The door shut softly behind her, and the Queen went to the pigeon. The paper was thin, hand made, with flecks of some flower on it. The man was able to tell her simply that he loved her. His neck would go, as would hers, should the king find out. “It’s of no consequence to me what you feel” she had written back. “I do not understand”, it was  just one word, in the artisan’s tongue. The pigeon fluttered back. It was not so far to the Oil Presser’s Hill, and he would have his answer soon, with no possibility of replying till the moon waned.

Chapter 10

It was morning. The jeweled sky had disappeared into the bright light of day. A scythe of moon showed, and the fragrance of jasmines filled the room. The night had gone by in a blur of dreams. The very stability of the Queen’s existence depended on a good night’s sleep. It was being said that her husband would never return, that he was enamored by his new wife, and she never left his side, even accompanied him to the battle fields. It made her own head heavy, though she imagined her competitor’s armor, so she did not even think about it. It was summer, the days stretched hot.

The beekeeper had not sent her the pigeons for many weeks. Their letters to one another head ceased. Selvi said he had been seen wandering in the forest, and no one knew why the Queen asked about him so often. He had brought herbs too, for the royal baths, and was much sought after by the women in the Queen’s fort. She was not competing with her slaves, and had him come in alone when he could be found. An abandoned Queen was of no interest to anyone. She could do as she pleased.

The fort gave her pleasure. Enclosed from all sides, the climb up was never monotonous. The cool breezes blew, the butterflies swept past her myriad coloured, the wild flowers bloomed in the hottest months. All she wished for was the days to pass, each one unique, studded with events. The court poets who resided with her were quick to write verse about her, though she aged in the brazen sun, and wrinkles creased her smooth skin, the mouth turning downwards a little in disappointment and solitude. She still remained their Queen, though most days, they never bothered to visit her, or on seeing her in the gardens early summer mornings, walked quickly in the other direction. No new incumbents entered, they were tightly wrapped together, remembering the past at Hampi.

They had heard that a Roman  and a Moroccan were coming to visit soon, and the preparations had begun. They did not know how he would speak with them, but apparently he knew their language, and had interpreters. She was happy to meet someone new. Conquest was one thing, rule another. To oversee these rich land, one had to have power. Even to greet the pepper merchants money was needed. However large the territory, or small the kingdom, it had to have one who knew the King intimately.

The birds were singing loudly outside the window. She rose, and went to the window. No pigeon awaited her. To have a friend seemed the most blessed thing. The beekeeper had been her sole companion for many months. He knew poetry, and like other artisans living with him, they thought in verse. His understanding of the Gods was complex, and he lived by his wits. Now that he had gone on his mandatory journeys, crossing the borders of alien kingdoms, she was left alone. He had warned her ofcourse, for when the moon was full circle his journeying into the forests would begin. No one knew where he went, except that he returned to the oil pressers hill with huge combs of honey, each with the queen imprisoned within.

Outside, it was calm, the farmers were busy with their rice fields, and the earth was thick and moist. It seemed only yesterday they had arrived from Hampi, crossing the parched earth with their caravans and hunting dogs, the women carrying their scythes, shields  and swords with equal worth. Hampi, where the palaces and temples were always bedecked. The land was arid, but they got everything they needed from the enclosed gardens and ponds. The Vijaynagar empire only grew every year by conquest, and the women stayed in their interior places. Of the common people, they knew nothing. How did they survive, these slaves and farmers? Their palates knew only millet, and wild berries. The King, however had rights of tribute, and received their best produce – rice, coconuts, bannanas, yams, tendrils with the accompanying gourds, packed in large shallow baskets to excess.

She stretched, she looked at her feet, henna and toe rings just as they ought to be. So he would not return to her? Well, she had heard Basava had embraced the Lord with a sigh. She too hoped to die, having no memory of it. People thought her life dreary, but she was filled with the blessed light, the incandescence of stars. Nothing displeased her, nothing incurred her wrath. She was always delighted by the smallest thing. The hot wind blew in her face. They were from Bellari, the heat of Gingee was nothing. She had hoped to return to Hampi, but after some years, she knew she had been forgotten. The King had used her palace as a hunting lodge, rising only to use his bow to shoot deer, rabbits, and with  a sling shot bring down the occasional egret, which would fly skywards, its white wings furling outwards before it fell like a stone. The summer would become heady when he arrived, but after a few days he would get weary of playing chess and swimming in the courtyard, and the early morning hunting brought him back empty handed, and he would be gone before the sun had reached it zenith. The silence that enclosed the castle, the simple fort in the hill was so total, that she could hear her own heart beat.

The Queen was still standing here, near the window, where the disc of a daylight moon was paling and fast disappearing. The maid came in, along with the entourage of cooks. Odd that one woman should have so many people to serve her. But yes, they always anticipated the King’s return, always presumed he would be present for lunch..

“And what will you eat today?”

“Horse shit.”

“Madam, the King has sent a messenger today asking that you be fed well today. He has won a major battle.”        

“I will eat nothing.”

“He asks that you be fed well.”

“So be it.”

She withdrew herself into the inner chambers. Her bath water was ready, and she bathed, and was scented and clothed in the finest embroidered cottons. The  reign of Deccan Kings from the North had left behind a language, and the softest of robes. The soil embaraced the good things that conquerors left behind, and forgot them entirely when they left the place.

The King believed that his presence brought bounty to his people. By his absence, he willed the land to rot, his people to die. War was pestilence.

“Let him go!”

“Where, Madam?”

“To his death!”

“That is a curse, the soldiers will take messages to the King.”

“Ah yes, I whispered it.”

“I did not hear it, Lady.”

“I must become a new woman. Let me learn new arts. Send the poets.”

“They are at work on a new poem of love and death. The losses incurred by the king’s love for war, and yours for the black skinned beekeeper.”

“Everyone knows?”

“How can anything be hidden?”

“You know that he is the boon?”

“And you will die unattended in the sun, your fort a necklace of skulls, and we too.”

“He is human and his smile is all I seek.”

“There are no words?”’

“Yes, poetry.”

“He treats you like a man would treat his courtesan.”

“He treats me like his Queen.”

‘That title no one can take away from you, dear Lady!”

The women having finished their work of soaping, scraping, scrubbing, paring, washing, drying, went away to their quarters. She looked at her ornaments They were too heavy, too precious. The arched open window brought in the sky. A sole eagle flew high up, swooping down, its target seen . The day had begun, nothing was sought from her except the recovery of  memory.. the beekeeper had given her the black string with the amulet that he wore. He was a follower of Kali, though he immersed himself with sandal wood paste, and the fragrance of dried herbs, he thought of the young wild haired goddess, who pounded her father, and He, benevolent and detached, allowed her her prey. “I am her prey!” the beekeeper would shout, intoxicated with honey. She knew that her lover thrashed the ground, and cried for her. He            could not distinguish between Goddess and Queen. The metalsmiths who mended the shoes of the cavalry and kept him company on drunken nights, told the soldiers that the beekeeper was the most loyal of them all.

The temples to Vishnu were precious to her, and she brought flowers for the incarnations each bedecked by previous kings chariots,  sea shells, tortoises and wild boars. At the bottom of the hill, were the sacred drawings, aeons older than her, hidden by bushes. The stories were told with a linear simplicity. She lost herself in meditation only Basava appearing to her, and the songs to Shiva her only verse. The legend of the Shephard King remained in her memory. With him, she had learned much, each syllable of his advice remained in her mind. He had no fears, he had been prisoner to the Deccan king, he had seen their coins, earned their wrath, travelled to Delhi, understood their language. Slave kings, having the ambition of their fathers, who were slaves once, and Lords forever.

The dusty wind blew into the fort. With it were leaves, and faded petals of flowers. A light drizzle, barely reaching the earth, before it vanished, fell. The date palms were swaying, and the people far below, were tethering the buffalos and the goats. The people did not think much of the fort. It was a necessary evil, if not the Cheras, then the Pandas, or the Cholas, and now these Rayas, afraid of no one. The marauding kings from the North had arrived too, and taken prisoner one of the young princes who had disguised himself. He had gone as prisoner, and learned their language, and imitated them, when he was free. He was a shepherd king, one of them, Vijayanagara was embellished by his presence. He had no need of armour, he rode with is soldiers, and wore his jewels in layers so that they protected him. The Queen looked out of the window. There was a caravan approaching . She could see the dust clouds, and knew there would be a mile of them. The wind blew them here, they knew the routes from the maps drawn for them. Each time they visited, they had new things of her. There were songbirds in golden cages, and myrrh. Ofcourse, olive oil, and handpainted fans. She was delighted by their visits. It meant there was someone she could talk to, and if she waited at the window, she would know if the prince accompanying these treasures was someone she knew. Hampi was the most crowded of cities, and everyone knew that this outpost that she governed had a thousand coveting eyes.

These rules of warriors and petty kings, that they must always know that at the end of the day, there was one richer and more powerful than them, to whom they must bow, was something that she understood perfectly. Here, in the Queen’s Fort, they lived by the day, waiting for news of a lost war. Meanwhile, they enjoyed the privileges of their kind, and found friends among one another. From the Artisan’s Fort,  they got all their news, for the horse shoe fitters were replaced by others, when wounded, and as new men left for the battle ground, the wounded would recover from the scourge of battle, and slowly start reporting to the men around them. They were ofcourse many, who knew the
Songs of the battle lines of earlier times, and they quite easily turned to verse, the new events, setting them to tunes which they composed as if the lyrics were their heart beat, the sound of drums at sunset. The queen knew she only had to ask for the bee keeper, and he would entrance her with his music, his rough body lying over hers. She believed that the secret of their ardour was safe, till such time as the King returned. No one would dare to whisper to him while he fought but once he returned to the Fort, someone would surely tell him.

She was now 22 years old, a discarded Queen, keeping the Fort for reasons of convenience. There was no reason for her to fear for her safety. Yet, the bee keeper always told her that their time was limited, and that love was not a thread that connected them, it could not be. He had a wife, she loved him, he returned to her. Is that a problem? He laughed, showing her his teeth, sharp and stained, his hands rough, and his feet gnarled by many years of climbing the rocks, which hung over all of them, with the steep incline, the occasional bush, the heat, which burnt their bodies without leaving marks. The wind blew, and the smooth rocks, round and mellowed by the work of the rain and wind, were like stepping stones of time, and the King had only to call his soldiers to get the artisans together to build the fort, and the extensions of parks and steps, and lakes and houses. The very presence of the King, she remembered, made men drop their armour and do what he asked. They carried the Queen and her women in palanquins, and settled them into the Fort when it was ready. She delighted in its odd stylishness, its perfection, knowing it was her prison.

Every day was the same, the dust beat them, and the sun burnt them. They stayed close to the trees, and waited for the cavalry to return. The horses were fleet footed even on the most rugged terrain, and the Queen’s hearing was so good, that she could hear them neighing even before they arrived. She felt that her life was counted by the pulse beat of the soldiers, if they won, there would be gifts and feasts, the concubines would arrive dressed in plumes and silver on their breasts and ankles. If there  was defeat, there would be death and funeral pyres. The Queen knew that the Rayas brought with them the legends of the long dead slave kings, that they themselves were cherished soldiers of the Golconda kings, who had become Rayas perforce, wearing fine linens and keeping horses.

Their sojourn in Delhi had been spent mainly in the company of sages and pirs, the holy men of Islam. Although they knew everything about battle, and were masters of strategy, yet they knew that one day they would return home. They were sure of their manoevres, and waited for the day when their Lords would trust them so totally, that they would be given their freedom to roam. And that’s how they became familiar faces in the market places, their fairness, and their aquiline noses the spitting image of their father, the great Raya himself. The logos of battle was to win, or to die, and by the time the brothers were fifteen years old, they knew that their lives were written by the stars and the eye of time.

The  heirs of the Slave Kings had contrived to be ever present, they hired look alikes to merge with the people, disguised as the King, and always in command, these men brought to their city the reputation of ceaseless domination. The Rayas too, became hardy at their work, mingling with the shepherds, learning their language, sharing their food, and then joining with their commanders to learn new skills in battle. When they returned to Gingee, they had to hide for many months, before they could display their skills. And finally being King was to subdue the local people, and spin tales about Hampi, which they yearned for. The river stretched in their minds, for glittering miles, and it was for Hampi that they swore victory over death.

The Queen had no wish to live. She thought that her duties had been given to her by the Queen Mother, who had died when she was still a child. Even if she had no memories of those conversations, the maids who waited on her, had memorized them, and daily told her what needed to be done. She was content to live in the palace, high up on the hill, and watch the slow circling eagles. The romance with the bee keeper was kept a secret, and no one so much as winked at her, for keeping her secret. She was alone more than ever, and the meditation and sighs of pleasure over food and jewels now remained her only pursuit. The caged birds had been allowed to fly away. And as the days passed, there was news that the King and his bride would visit her, on their way to the next battlefield. She was horrified by the news. What would she say to them? She had betrayed the King, and had no remorse. Her monthly period had stopped. Her breasts were swelling. The bee keeper had no news from the Queen, as she sent back his birds, or wrenched their necks.

It was Spring before the King returned. His wife was small and pretty, and kept to herself, not wanting to enter into dialogue or dissension between the First Wife, the Concubines and the other rivals. She was young, her hair fell soft and straight, quite unusual, so it was presumed that she was an Artisan’s daughter. The King enjoyed her company, playing with her like she was a small forest animal. That he was so many years older did not cause anyone but the First Wife discomfiture.  When they met, the two ladies by passed each other, without sharing a glance. It was as if the other did not exist. The King noticed that the Queen was larger than when he had met her last. However, having no interest in her at all, he only asked for his food to be brought to him. There was some commotion, because it had been a hard summer, and only the mango harvest had been of any worth. To feed an army on maize was not considered seemly so they had killed all the goats and deer in the vicinity, and the soldiers were satisfied with their meal, accepting the millet bread with alacrity.

The Queen looked at her husband, the killer of his brothers. They had been influenced by the Slave kings, and had brought the terror of siblinghood and rivalry. Alas! She who had loved them both, and had been forced to choose, and now the one she truly loved was dead. She had to live with the secret. She knew they had taken the path of no return, that his ghost would not visit her, she had betrayed him. They had returned, no longer slaves, but free men, dressed in fine linens and jewels. Then they waged war against Mohammad Bin Tuglak, seeking to wrest back kingdoms, but found only the lesser, a descendant. They had won, battle after battle. The one at Kamlapur which she had heard about was the bloodiest. They lived to tell the tale, that itself was a surprise. But after winning back Anegunde, did they stop? Their father had been mighty, and they owed their people victory. Yet, blood lust did not leave them, and they wished to put back the clock. The sorrow of grieving men and families meant nothing to them. To soldier, to wage war, to win battles, they  had no sense of loss. If they lost a battle, they hid in the woods, then they would amass armies and bring them together again. They had known every detail of Mohammad’s madness, how he loved to feast warriors, and bring them to his table, giving them expensive gifts, honouring them, flattering them, then when they had left, sending them a death warrant. They had learnt, as his prisoners, the arts of emulation, subtle manipulation, shrugging off evil deeds with a slight grimace. The art  of war was camaflouge, it was to deaden the live spirit, love, honour, gentleness, fidelity…all that which they had learned as children. Here, now, were new men, who saw the bullion of war as the only gain. What need did they have for fealty and justice.

Hampi had been built from their successes. The return to the Gods of their childhood. That had been the supreme sacrifice to belong to Nandi, and not worship. To have grown up in the ardour of Shiva in the arms of Pamba, and to repudiate her in the court of their enemies, where the brothers had climbed from being slaves to soldiers to Lords in the space of a few years. To give up one’s love for one’s own Gods and then camaflouge splendidly and appear like luminaries of Allah, whose shining light they did deduce, for they were shepherds first, willing subjects of which ever king subdued them.

Hampi had been their jewel. The huge ramparts of fortresses, the sanctuary from war, where they returned with the loot and slaves, where foreigners came, and business was heady. Here, they would build to the Gods, and leave the strategies to their generals. It was where the temples would bring as much money as they burnt in clarified butter, and the ashes smear on the brow of the weary and the desolate. Not that the shepherd kings had much to weep over. After they had fled the courts of Delhi, they had disguised themselves as wealthy merchants, wearing fine linen and brocaded shoes. They had travelled over thousand of miles with their camels, giving new names in every city. They never had to prove themselves, people recognized their mules, and called them Gaddhas. The mules were driven by servants who brought metals, jewellery, silks, and as the camels had to be left behind when the monsoons arrived with their customary lashing ferocity, the Rayas too, rode mules, wearing now the disguise of turban,  sheathed swords and long cotton coats, with tight fitting pants.

The brothers stopped at every village and small town, when they had escaped the Quzbat kingdom, a woman had risen, the aged mother of Tughlaq, and they were quick to flee. They knew that once their escape was known, they could never return to the arched domes of the stone palaces, for they would be hanged like robbers. Ofcourse, they were enemies to each other, for competition between brothers is the reason for fratricide. For the moment, having a common aim, they could suppress their rivalry. Where ever they went they had new roles to play, sometimes presenting themselves as comediennes, some times uncle and nephew, other times, master and slave, two lovers, and even husband and wife. The older Raya demanded fealty, the younger one gave it. Submission was not hard, it only required good manners and a sense of humour.

Closer home, they would be recognized, however beautiful their costumes. So they turned back to the simple clothes of hunters and goat herds. Their manners became more rough, they were more fraternal, back slapping and easy in their conduct. No one recognized them. They knew they were home, when they saw the mountain slopes, harsh and sudden, arising from the slopes of ever  verdant forests, when the land became terraced, and open to the hot winds. The flat plains of their native land burned in the sun, they saw the rigid lines of Vijay Nagar with its fluted plain architecture, the splendor of the temples, the luminescence of the water, which had collected in the monsoon. As they rode their horses, the sweat gleaming on man and animal equally, they knew that no one could tell them apart. 

Their similarity had been their virtue, though they were divided by many years, the older rougher and more martial, the younger slimmer fairer, and muscular and, yet, if they switched roles, people believed them. It was not their features, it was their bearing, their voice, the sense of power that they  had. Many times while wandering in the forests, they would meet bands of robbers, but were never hurt or wounded. They would take on the identity of those whom they were guests. They would present themselves exactly as if they were one of them. It did not matter whether they were princes, or monks or dacoits, the brothers were skilled at the languages of each principality. They spoke Telugu with Kakatiyas, and Tamil with others, and Kannada with their own Badagas. They acted as if they were men of the world, and having been for long years with the Moroccan, Ibn Batuta, they did not see it misfit to abandon friends and families after years of being with them.

Sometimes they thought of the woman, their kinsman had betrothed to the younger. Who knew what she did in the years they were away. It was not their fate to live as householders do. When they died, they always remembered the years of war, not the years of harvest. Blood flowed not in their veins,  but in the fields that they had destroyed, like the crushing of a beetroot harvest. They felt agony for lost souls, and built temples to the Gods, to the Great Annihilator, lingams promising ever more wealth to the priests. The priests were nonchalant, for they had their daily duties to perform, the lotus to be bought to the temple before the sun rose, the preparation of sacred foods, the coconuts to be smashed with every prayer. The sea was distant, but every monsoon, the Tungabhadra swelled, and spilled into Anegunde and Hampi. The very nature of their destiny  was deprivation of the soul, and squalor of the body. Yes, they wore fine clothes, and displayed their jewels, but both the brothers knew that they, as companions were also rivals. When Mohammad Bin Tuglaq had reduced them to paupers, and when they hid in the forests with their families, they had known hunger and death. They had hidden in the dread dark, the twilight of green for months. They had escaped to Hampi, and seen their temples and towers torched. Divested of everything they  had, they knew that the treasures they had underground, the diamond mines, would be waiting for them. What could they say on finding their world famous marketplace divested of every coin, every merchant, every animal. Mohammad never forgave his enemies, and after destroying them he would give ceremonial coins, and elephants to one or two survivors. Yet, the two brothers had survived the visit to Delhi, had come back better equestriennes, were able to duel and sing marvelous poetry. They had not known hunger, only imprisonment, and that too, behind filigree walls. When Delhi was emptied, the Queen mother had given them their freedom, and they walked home.

The brothers had a sense of humour, they knew that the Violator was God, so they carved his image. How  could they differentiate the Annihilator from their named and venerated God. They carried memories of him, so sharp nosed, so aquiline, so fair.  His face was beautiful, and his heart knew no mercy. He believed that friends were foes, and his foes were  friends,  keeping them all at a distance, frightening them daily with his gift and threats. The Rayas knew that he had been impressed with them, and that they had escaped with their lives. The mules had replaced horses, and their fine robes by hemp and local cloth. No one could tell them apart, and they dined with all, presenting themselves as holy men. Their artifices had  become legion, and all they thought was to return to their Queen. She ofcourse had died decades before, but how were they to know? They had no newsbearers while travelling from Delhi to Daulatabad. They were unknown, and then, when they returned home, they found that she, their childhood friend had died in childbirth. Or so they told anyone who asked them.

“Nothing is  known of the child, we were by her side. It was a girl, a small dark thing, with no features which we recognized. It could have been the bee keeper’s child, for he was the only companion that she had. We think that they were lovers, but so many years have passed since you returned, we did not imagine that you would come back.” Selvi told them without remorse, though she knew that death was a paltry thing, compared to dishonor.

The brothers did not speak of the Queen again, and she was forgotten. It was as if their memory of her was so simple, so clear, without a line of truth. Was she their sister? How had they found her to be so innocent, when she was not theirs to own or know. It was as if among their 3000 concubines they had attached themselves to her. They had not found happiness with her it was true, but that recognition, they still preserved,  that she was married to one, but loved the other. This they knew to be true. So many years had passed, they were old men now, but their instinct to rule was still intact. They had left her in the solitude of her own fort, and the older had given up his rights to her, in favour of his younger brother, thinking that she would live longer with the younger. But, that was a fantasy, the younger had  an obsession with war, not love, and the many brothers they had, sometimes substituted for one another. They looked similar, and women loved them all equally. The truth was their memory was failing. She was one among hundreds whom they had known ephemerally. How simple were their lives, they knew no guilt. They sometimes said that they had been captured by Mohammad Tughlaq, sometimes they said yes, captured, but delegated with military powers. Fifty thousand men had died, Mohammad had retreated. They rebuilt Hampi, they venerated  Shiva and Pampa, they used their wealth to empower the idea of Vijayanagara, they were the brothers who were loyal to their father. What was a son or a bride, what was a mother, or a concubine? They were like fragile threads in a spider’s web,  and to escape them, they had to keep control of their territories. The Queen had only been a pawn, like so many others, they heard she died at 20, of an illness. The little girl who was born was returned to the Oil Pressers’ hill. It was always noted, if not recorded, colour and web of blood, and the practices of tutelage. She would grow up curly haired, strong, dark, intensely worshipful of her father who took her to the bee hives hanging high up on the side of the rocks. Her love for him was as delicate and respectful, as the love her father had bestowed upon her mother when she was living on the ancient hill, all by herself.”

The story was over, Stella stopped recording, for there was no one to read it, and she was alone, as the stars continued to shine, and the black hole was their galactic neighbor.

The End