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She stared them down. This had always caused anyone to disengage before. The leader swallowed hard but waved his stick at her. “Bow down now,” he repeated, but he had lost his authority.
“Not even your mother loves you, cripple,” a girl said in a shrill voice. She threw one of her rocks. It landed at Manthara’s feet. Manthara kicked it hard, stubbing her toe, and the rock flew against the shin of the leader, scraping his skin.
“Bow!” he squealed, swatting her across the arm.
It was a harmless blow but humiliating.
“I would never touch your feet,” Manthara said. “You are a leper.”
“I am not!” the boy cried, a touch of fear in his eyes. He swatted her again, this time harder. Another boy joined in. His stick was heavier, the blow stronger.
“I curse your ancestors to remain disembodied for all time,” Manthara cried. They gasped and looked at each other, but the two boys who were hitting her did not stop. Tears stung her eyes. The sticks stung her skin. “Leave me alone!”
Another stone flew at her, this time hitting her shoulder.
“Your father is a corpse collector!” Manthara shouted, looking desperately for an escape now. Her tormentors were growing frenzied. Manthara sensed the change in the air. But she couldn’t stop her tongue. It was all she had: “Your mother consorts with demons! Your sister is a mongrel! You are not even the stool that comes out of me each morning!”
As blood trickled down her face, she clenched her teeth together. Now everyone who held a weapon began to use it. The sharp rocks cut her, and the sticks lacerated her skin.
Manthara bared her teeth and snapped at every hand within reach. With twisted faces, they herded her deeper into the garden, as if she was a pig they would thrash for fun. The beating grew more vicious. Manthara could not contain her cries, and she fell to the ground. Several of her bones broke, and her words were just pleas. Still they did not stop. Finally she grew quiet, a broken mass of bones.
Spent, they spit on her and left her to die, bloodied and broken.
“Slither out of this if you can,” the leader said.
The night was dark, and darker still in Manthara’s soul.
Where she got the power from, she could not say. But she dragged herself slowly forward, like the slime they had accused her of being. She knew where the wildflower grew. She ate 9
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a whole plant of teardrops, maybe more. The last thing she saw and heard was a flock of swans flying overhead. She walked gratefully into the halls of death, where even the crooked are welcome.
But she was not that lucky. It was Ashvapati himself, recently made king of Kekaya, who came to her when she gained consciousness. Manthara lay in a sickbed in the royal quarters, bandaged and wrapped in soft linen, though she had no recollection of being moved from the gardens nor being nursed. Ashvapati demanded to know what had happened. In a rare concession to his gift, he hinted that his swans had alerted him to her dying in his garden.
Manthara gaped at him, knowing the secrecy he was sworn to. Should he ever reveal what the swans told him, he would die on the spot.
“Who did this to you?” he asked, fixing his dark eyes on Manthara.
Manthara saw something like affection in the young king’s eyes. Hoarse from induced bouts of vomiting, Manthara struggled to describe the attack. She didn’t yet know the extent of the damage to her, but as she spoke, she felt several teeth missing in her mouth. Even small movements caused blinding flashes of pain.
“This will not go unpunished,” Ashvapati promised, asking her to name her tormentors.
Their names felt like curses in Manthara’s mouth.
“Now, about the teardrops.” Ashvapati eyes turned into narrow slits. “Do you wish to die?”
His tone was such that Manthara could not answer yes.
“For if it is,” he continued, “I will gladly assist you. If you think your back is such a 10
the sound of v ictory
handicap that you wish to ignore all else that you have, then perhaps you do not deserve to breathe the same air as those who are grateful for their eyes that see, their ears that hear, their tongue that works, their minds that are brilliant.”
His words made Manthara’s eyes sting. It was not her back alone that she loathed, but every tormentor who loathed her for it. Yet she accepted Ashva’s words as a compliment to her abilities. Manthara’s heart opened and she told Ashva everything. The humiliation she had felt becoming a hunchback and an outcast. Then the camaraderie with the poisonous maidens, and finally about her quest to become a Vishakanya through ingesting lily of the valley regularly.
“I cannot bear to be just a hunchback,” she said. “That is not all that I am. The Vishakanyas are guarded and revered. No one would think of harming them. That’s what I want.”
Ashva listened without a word and then said, “I will engage you in a service suited to your intelligence. I will station you in a position of prominence.”
“Why would you do that?” she asked. “Hunchbacks are forbidden.”
“Will you promise to never seek the Vishakanyas again and swear to keep their existence a secret?”
Manthara’s heart grew shrewd. So Ashva was not simply keen on her welfare. He was protecting state secrets. Manthara had some power here.
“Will you promise to never ingest poison again?” he asked.
“Why don’t you simply let me die?” she demanded. Her sense of power had been short-lived. If Ashvapati had wanted to, he could have simply allowed her to continue her descent into the land of Yama.
“It is my duty as the king,” he answered. “You are not the only one who is targeted. Why should your body be a disqualification?”
On that very day, Ashvapati rebelled against the ancient laws that forbid the crippled and deformed to enter public service and to receive positions of honor. He simply changed the laws; it was like opening the palace doors to beggars on the street, for that is what Manthara’s kind had been reduced to. She herself had been further crippled in the attack, with a smashed knee and broken bones in her hips; she would always need a cane to walk.
Ashvapati allowed Manthara to watch as her tormentors were sentenced to fifty lashes across their backs. She would have sentenced them to death, one and all, but she did not yet have that kind of power. She was sixteen and off to a good start, guarded by the king of Kekaya himself. Of course, children continued throwing things at her and calling her all manner of names when no one else could hear. Manthara always found small ways to have revenge, striking them with her cane, hissing curses at them, or putting a petal from a teardrop in their food, just enough to make them ill for a few hours. She made sure that they would associate their misdeeds toward her with pain and discomfort.
In this manner, Manthara continued mostly being Manthara while remaining unsure of her purpose. It was when Ashvapati married and brought home his queen that Manthara’s world shifted once again. When she beheld Queen Chaya, she experienced the same flare in her core as she had when she encountered the Vishas. Chaya was just as beautiful but in the 11
ch a p ter 1
opposite way, luminous with life. She laughed often and sparkled in every situation, like a multifaceted gem. The normally coolheaded Ashvapati was goo in her hands. Queen Chaya barely had to raise her voice before her order was carried out. She was verily a goddess on Earth. Manthara saw great power and knew that this was what she had wanted all along. To be a queen. Ashvapati worshipped his queen, and that was enough reason for Manthara to dislike her and covet Chaya’s position. True to his word, Ashva employed Manthara as the first assistant to the queen. Chaya was too gracious to object. Manthara began observing the queen as she had scrutinized the Vishas. What did Chaya do that was special? What set her apart from other women?
While Manthara waited and watched, Chaya gave birth to a son. They named him Yuddhajit, “Victorious in Battle.” There was a huge celebration and Ashvapati was not himself at all. He smiled and danced, kissing his wife and child for all to see. Manthara had never seen him so happy. He did not even look at Manthara. If Manthara was herded in an alley now and beaten to death, he would never have noticed. The marital bliss of the king and queen continued in this unbearable manner. Everyone agreed that Chaya was beautiful and passionate in just the right amounts. It took Manthara several years to discover the queen’s weakness—a small thing but a flaw nevertheless: Chaya did not like being excluded. The queen thrived on company and social events: she wanted always to be in the know, to be part of the important events of Kekaya. She grew fretful and anxious when Ashvapati was occupied elsewhere. Once Manthara discovered this, she began making a plan. She smiled to the queen and brushed her hair with gentle strokes, ingratiating herself, so that the queen would be unsuspecting and listen to Manthara’s whispers. Then another child was born, a girl named Kaikeyi.
This is when Manthara followed the persistent urge within her. She knew nothing about child care. It was not necessary. She was simply strong-willed enough to undermine the other woman with just a word or gesture. It didn’t take much to unhinge a new mother. Every time Ashva was expected, Manthara seated herself close to the queen. The moment Ashva entered, Manthara would pinch the little baby and make her scream. Chaya would startle at the sudden outburst, and Manthara would swoop the baby up, and press the child’s nose to her neck, where she had put a strong dose of calming soma pulp. It worked every time. The queen’s eyes would grow insecure and Ashva would look at Manthara with approval. Manthara would make a show of returning the now calm child to her mother’s arms, instructing Chaya what to do in a light patronizing tone.
Manthara didn’t do all the work herself; she made casual comments to the other servants, planting doubts regarding the queen’s mothering abilities. Queen Chaya felt it, growing nervous when she handled her baby. She started shooing the servants out as often as she could, which made them whisper even more. Of course, there were certain servants who would turn the other way when they saw Manthara, and they stood firmly by Queen Chaya’s side. Probably they warned the queen of Manthara’s duplicity. But like most good people, Chaya didn’t muster the spine to accuse Manthara for a good many months. Eventually, though, there was a confrontation.
12
the sound of v ictory
The newborn was several months old and Prince Yuddhajit had turned four when Queen Chaya summoned Manthara to her quarters. “I see what you are doing,” Chaya said, forgo-ing any courtesies. Even in her anger, she was a goddess.
Manthara had never seen the queen’s eyes cold with wrath. Now she saw the queen’s lethal side, and fear climbed up her spine. She hung her head in submission.
“You wish to undermine me before my husband,” Chaya said. Her hands were clenched.
“Why do you do this? What could you possibly gain? I am the queen and you are . . .”
She left the obvious unspoken. As Manthara’s heart lurched, she denied the accusation, complaining of the pains in her spine. At length, she described her aches and blamed all her shortcomings on this obvious fact. Chaya was moved and even patted Manthara’s hump carefully. For several months, Manthara restrained from interfering, but her plan was fixed and she bided her time.
The plan hinged on Ashvapati’s weakness too: once he made a decision, he never ever reconsidered. That was his strength and his weakness. It had served Manthara well when a million and one fools wanted to strike down Ashva’s new laws opening the doors to the crippled. No one could deny Ashva’s strength of vision and the unparalleled kingdom that he had created. Many of the highest positions were occupied by Manthara’s kind, people with extra limbs, physical deformities, who were hideous to look at. One and all were intelligent, like Manthara. In Kekaya, the crippled were physicians, accountants, teachers, and highly placed servants. Ashva’s decision was flawless. Those who had spoken against it were never again welcome in the court. He had expelled many good Kekayans who were too biased to accede to this new law. Many friends had become enemies. That was Ashva’s strength, and the weakness that Manthara would play on. She started with the queen. It was Manthara’s own fascination with Ashva’s gift that gave her the idea. The queen probably hated the exclusion when Ashva spoke his swan’s secret language.
Holding the queen’s hair and brushing it delicately, Manthara began speaking of Ashva’s swans who lived at the large vvve by the horse fields. Not a day went by without Ashva visiting this sanctuary. Innocently, Manthara asked, “Aren’t you curious to know what the swans say?”
“Of course. But I know he is bound to secrecy.”
“If he wishes to tell, he can,” Manthara said. “He told me once.”
In detail, Manthara described how so many years prior, Ashva had intervened with the help of his swans, saving Manthara, who lay half-dead in the gardens. Expertly, Manthara bent the truth, sticking so close to it that the lie would not be discerned.
“Ask him,” Manthara said lightly. “I think he would tell you if you insisted.”
Chaya listened and looked at Manthara with big eyes.
Soon after, Manthara watched as the king and queen left for an excursion to the swan lake. That same night, Manthara and everyone else in the palace’s inner quarters woke up to loud wails. The servants watched in silence as the queen was dragged through the halls and expelled from the palace. The chain of whispers told Manthara that her plan had exceeded beyond her imagination. At the swan lake, Ashva had laughed out loud, and Queen Chaya 13
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had demanded that he share the joke with her. Ashva had taken this as the queen’s callous desire for him to die. She was cast off as queen and exiled forthwith from Kekaya. Manthara’s whole body trembled, and she had difficulty breathing. She didn’t know whether to be elated or sick to the stomach.
Once Chaya was gone, the king rode out into the plains like one possessed, leaving no message saying when he would return. While he was gone, Manthara never left the side of the abandoned baby girl. She was still a suckling of eight months, rooting for her mother’s breast. No one dared take the princess from Manthara, for they did not know the king’s orders.
Manthara held the child and didn’t mind her shrieks. It was the sound of victory. Sure enough, when Ashva returned, he pointed at Manthara, appointing her the sole caretaker of the child. He did not look at Manthara or smile. He had returned from the plains forever changed, hardened and reduced. He would never love or trust a woman again. But he had a soft spot for Manthara because of her deformity, protecting her the way he would an injured animal.
After the queen’s exile, a rumor took firm root that Manthara, the ugly hunchback, was Ashvapati’s lover. Manthara may have started that rumor; she certainly did nothing to dispel it. The evidence lay in Manthara’s frequent nighttime visits to Ashva, when she spoke of the princess, reporting on the child’s growth. No one but Manthara knew what took place during those visits. The king had grown too stern to hear, much less address, such flippant rumors. So Manthara was not the queen, but she was the caretaker of the princess. This was as close to royalty as she would ever become, and she would never let this position of power be compromised.
14
chapter 2
Kaikeyi’s Mother
Night after night, Keyi’s wails broke the silence. Always, Manthara was there, pulling her out from the scary dreams and saying, “Sh! Sh!”
On this night, Keyi hid her face in Manthara’s chest, which was just like a cave.
When she was little, she used to curl herself into a ball and hide inside the hollow.
Manthara’s arms would hold her tight and she would be safe. But now she was a big girl. She couldn’t fit in the cave anymore. Keyi was so big, she had to call Taya by her proper name, Manthara. But it was an ugly word that other children only said when they wanted to cause pain.
Manthara rocked back and forth like a swing. Still, Keyi couldn’t stop crying.
“Be quiet! I’m right here.” Manthara was not happy with Keyi’s terrors. “Six years old and still screaming at night! Curse on your mother! Thirty gods curse the day I got this child. Not a night of sleep since. Always waking up, screaming into my ear. I should have dropped you under a horse long ago, a mercy killing. Sh! Sh!”
Manthara’s strong voice made the darkness flee. Keyi didn’t always know the meaning of the things Manthara said. But that was okay, because Manthara was the most intelligent one in all of Kekaya. Keyi didn’t feel stupid for not understanding. In due time, Manthara said. That meant when Keyi grew a hump on her back, just like Manthara. Keyi had learned that she could not repeat
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Manthara’s words to others, or they would look at her with round mouths. And Manthara would be very cross, calling Keyi a gossipmonger.
But still, no matter what Manthara said, she always pulled Keyi into her lap. She always held Keyi until the terrors ran away. Sometimes she whispered about the pain in her back.
She said it was like living with a nightmare all day and all night. All because the people in the palace wanted straight backs and no secrets. Secrets were things that everyone pretended not to know. Manthara didn’t pretend and so she had no secrets. That’s how Keyi wanted to be.
As soon as the thump-thumping in Keyi’s chest stopped, her arms slipped off Manthara’s neck. Keyi heard a great sigh as Manthara heaved Keyi back onto the bed. The night terrors had passed, but they waited for Keyi. The next night they would come again. For now, feeling safe next to Manthara, Keyi dreamt of a place where the sun always shone.
“Keyi,” someone whispered.
Keyi opened her eyes. A shadow stood over her. It spoke with Yuddha’s voice, so it had to be him. Her brother looked huge in the dark. Manthara was fast asleep, another shadow by Keyi’s side. Manthara’s mouth was wide open and her breathing sounded like grasshoppers singing. Keyi would never dare place anything into Manthara’s open mouth again. She had gotten so mad, Keyi had to hide under the bed to escape from Manthara’s cane.
“Wake up, Keyi!” Yuddha shook her. “Indu is foaling. She is already lying down. Hurry or we’ll miss it.”
“Not even your mother loves you, cripple,” a girl said in a shrill voice. She threw one of her rocks. It landed at Manthara’s feet. Manthara kicked it hard, stubbing her toe, and the rock flew against the shin of the leader, scraping his skin.
“Bow!” he squealed, swatting her across the arm.
It was a harmless blow but humiliating.
“I would never touch your feet,” Manthara said. “You are a leper.”
“I am not!” the boy cried, a touch of fear in his eyes. He swatted her again, this time harder. Another boy joined in. His stick was heavier, the blow stronger.
“I curse your ancestors to remain disembodied for all time,” Manthara cried. They gasped and looked at each other, but the two boys who were hitting her did not stop. Tears stung her eyes. The sticks stung her skin. “Leave me alone!”
Another stone flew at her, this time hitting her shoulder.
“Your father is a corpse collector!” Manthara shouted, looking desperately for an escape now. Her tormentors were growing frenzied. Manthara sensed the change in the air. But she couldn’t stop her tongue. It was all she had: “Your mother consorts with demons! Your sister is a mongrel! You are not even the stool that comes out of me each morning!”
As blood trickled down her face, she clenched her teeth together. Now everyone who held a weapon began to use it. The sharp rocks cut her, and the sticks lacerated her skin.
Manthara bared her teeth and snapped at every hand within reach. With twisted faces, they herded her deeper into the garden, as if she was a pig they would thrash for fun. The beating grew more vicious. Manthara could not contain her cries, and she fell to the ground. Several of her bones broke, and her words were just pleas. Still they did not stop. Finally she grew quiet, a broken mass of bones.
Spent, they spit on her and left her to die, bloodied and broken.
“Slither out of this if you can,” the leader said.
The night was dark, and darker still in Manthara’s soul.
Where she got the power from, she could not say. But she dragged herself slowly forward, like the slime they had accused her of being. She knew where the wildflower grew. She ate 9
ch a p ter 1
a whole plant of teardrops, maybe more. The last thing she saw and heard was a flock of swans flying overhead. She walked gratefully into the halls of death, where even the crooked are welcome.
But she was not that lucky. It was Ashvapati himself, recently made king of Kekaya, who came to her when she gained consciousness. Manthara lay in a sickbed in the royal quarters, bandaged and wrapped in soft linen, though she had no recollection of being moved from the gardens nor being nursed. Ashvapati demanded to know what had happened. In a rare concession to his gift, he hinted that his swans had alerted him to her dying in his garden.
Manthara gaped at him, knowing the secrecy he was sworn to. Should he ever reveal what the swans told him, he would die on the spot.
“Who did this to you?” he asked, fixing his dark eyes on Manthara.
Manthara saw something like affection in the young king’s eyes. Hoarse from induced bouts of vomiting, Manthara struggled to describe the attack. She didn’t yet know the extent of the damage to her, but as she spoke, she felt several teeth missing in her mouth. Even small movements caused blinding flashes of pain.
“This will not go unpunished,” Ashvapati promised, asking her to name her tormentors.
Their names felt like curses in Manthara’s mouth.
“Now, about the teardrops.” Ashvapati eyes turned into narrow slits. “Do you wish to die?”
His tone was such that Manthara could not answer yes.
“For if it is,” he continued, “I will gladly assist you. If you think your back is such a 10
the sound of v ictory
handicap that you wish to ignore all else that you have, then perhaps you do not deserve to breathe the same air as those who are grateful for their eyes that see, their ears that hear, their tongue that works, their minds that are brilliant.”
His words made Manthara’s eyes sting. It was not her back alone that she loathed, but every tormentor who loathed her for it. Yet she accepted Ashva’s words as a compliment to her abilities. Manthara’s heart opened and she told Ashva everything. The humiliation she had felt becoming a hunchback and an outcast. Then the camaraderie with the poisonous maidens, and finally about her quest to become a Vishakanya through ingesting lily of the valley regularly.
“I cannot bear to be just a hunchback,” she said. “That is not all that I am. The Vishakanyas are guarded and revered. No one would think of harming them. That’s what I want.”
Ashva listened without a word and then said, “I will engage you in a service suited to your intelligence. I will station you in a position of prominence.”
“Why would you do that?” she asked. “Hunchbacks are forbidden.”
“Will you promise to never seek the Vishakanyas again and swear to keep their existence a secret?”
Manthara’s heart grew shrewd. So Ashva was not simply keen on her welfare. He was protecting state secrets. Manthara had some power here.
“Will you promise to never ingest poison again?” he asked.
“Why don’t you simply let me die?” she demanded. Her sense of power had been short-lived. If Ashvapati had wanted to, he could have simply allowed her to continue her descent into the land of Yama.
“It is my duty as the king,” he answered. “You are not the only one who is targeted. Why should your body be a disqualification?”
On that very day, Ashvapati rebelled against the ancient laws that forbid the crippled and deformed to enter public service and to receive positions of honor. He simply changed the laws; it was like opening the palace doors to beggars on the street, for that is what Manthara’s kind had been reduced to. She herself had been further crippled in the attack, with a smashed knee and broken bones in her hips; she would always need a cane to walk.
Ashvapati allowed Manthara to watch as her tormentors were sentenced to fifty lashes across their backs. She would have sentenced them to death, one and all, but she did not yet have that kind of power. She was sixteen and off to a good start, guarded by the king of Kekaya himself. Of course, children continued throwing things at her and calling her all manner of names when no one else could hear. Manthara always found small ways to have revenge, striking them with her cane, hissing curses at them, or putting a petal from a teardrop in their food, just enough to make them ill for a few hours. She made sure that they would associate their misdeeds toward her with pain and discomfort.
In this manner, Manthara continued mostly being Manthara while remaining unsure of her purpose. It was when Ashvapati married and brought home his queen that Manthara’s world shifted once again. When she beheld Queen Chaya, she experienced the same flare in her core as she had when she encountered the Vishas. Chaya was just as beautiful but in the 11
ch a p ter 1
opposite way, luminous with life. She laughed often and sparkled in every situation, like a multifaceted gem. The normally coolheaded Ashvapati was goo in her hands. Queen Chaya barely had to raise her voice before her order was carried out. She was verily a goddess on Earth. Manthara saw great power and knew that this was what she had wanted all along. To be a queen. Ashvapati worshipped his queen, and that was enough reason for Manthara to dislike her and covet Chaya’s position. True to his word, Ashva employed Manthara as the first assistant to the queen. Chaya was too gracious to object. Manthara began observing the queen as she had scrutinized the Vishas. What did Chaya do that was special? What set her apart from other women?
While Manthara waited and watched, Chaya gave birth to a son. They named him Yuddhajit, “Victorious in Battle.” There was a huge celebration and Ashvapati was not himself at all. He smiled and danced, kissing his wife and child for all to see. Manthara had never seen him so happy. He did not even look at Manthara. If Manthara was herded in an alley now and beaten to death, he would never have noticed. The marital bliss of the king and queen continued in this unbearable manner. Everyone agreed that Chaya was beautiful and passionate in just the right amounts. It took Manthara several years to discover the queen’s weakness—a small thing but a flaw nevertheless: Chaya did not like being excluded. The queen thrived on company and social events: she wanted always to be in the know, to be part of the important events of Kekaya. She grew fretful and anxious when Ashvapati was occupied elsewhere. Once Manthara discovered this, she began making a plan. She smiled to the queen and brushed her hair with gentle strokes, ingratiating herself, so that the queen would be unsuspecting and listen to Manthara’s whispers. Then another child was born, a girl named Kaikeyi.
This is when Manthara followed the persistent urge within her. She knew nothing about child care. It was not necessary. She was simply strong-willed enough to undermine the other woman with just a word or gesture. It didn’t take much to unhinge a new mother. Every time Ashva was expected, Manthara seated herself close to the queen. The moment Ashva entered, Manthara would pinch the little baby and make her scream. Chaya would startle at the sudden outburst, and Manthara would swoop the baby up, and press the child’s nose to her neck, where she had put a strong dose of calming soma pulp. It worked every time. The queen’s eyes would grow insecure and Ashva would look at Manthara with approval. Manthara would make a show of returning the now calm child to her mother’s arms, instructing Chaya what to do in a light patronizing tone.
Manthara didn’t do all the work herself; she made casual comments to the other servants, planting doubts regarding the queen’s mothering abilities. Queen Chaya felt it, growing nervous when she handled her baby. She started shooing the servants out as often as she could, which made them whisper even more. Of course, there were certain servants who would turn the other way when they saw Manthara, and they stood firmly by Queen Chaya’s side. Probably they warned the queen of Manthara’s duplicity. But like most good people, Chaya didn’t muster the spine to accuse Manthara for a good many months. Eventually, though, there was a confrontation.
12
the sound of v ictory
The newborn was several months old and Prince Yuddhajit had turned four when Queen Chaya summoned Manthara to her quarters. “I see what you are doing,” Chaya said, forgo-ing any courtesies. Even in her anger, she was a goddess.
Manthara had never seen the queen’s eyes cold with wrath. Now she saw the queen’s lethal side, and fear climbed up her spine. She hung her head in submission.
“You wish to undermine me before my husband,” Chaya said. Her hands were clenched.
“Why do you do this? What could you possibly gain? I am the queen and you are . . .”
She left the obvious unspoken. As Manthara’s heart lurched, she denied the accusation, complaining of the pains in her spine. At length, she described her aches and blamed all her shortcomings on this obvious fact. Chaya was moved and even patted Manthara’s hump carefully. For several months, Manthara restrained from interfering, but her plan was fixed and she bided her time.
The plan hinged on Ashvapati’s weakness too: once he made a decision, he never ever reconsidered. That was his strength and his weakness. It had served Manthara well when a million and one fools wanted to strike down Ashva’s new laws opening the doors to the crippled. No one could deny Ashva’s strength of vision and the unparalleled kingdom that he had created. Many of the highest positions were occupied by Manthara’s kind, people with extra limbs, physical deformities, who were hideous to look at. One and all were intelligent, like Manthara. In Kekaya, the crippled were physicians, accountants, teachers, and highly placed servants. Ashva’s decision was flawless. Those who had spoken against it were never again welcome in the court. He had expelled many good Kekayans who were too biased to accede to this new law. Many friends had become enemies. That was Ashva’s strength, and the weakness that Manthara would play on. She started with the queen. It was Manthara’s own fascination with Ashva’s gift that gave her the idea. The queen probably hated the exclusion when Ashva spoke his swan’s secret language.
Holding the queen’s hair and brushing it delicately, Manthara began speaking of Ashva’s swans who lived at the large vvve by the horse fields. Not a day went by without Ashva visiting this sanctuary. Innocently, Manthara asked, “Aren’t you curious to know what the swans say?”
“Of course. But I know he is bound to secrecy.”
“If he wishes to tell, he can,” Manthara said. “He told me once.”
In detail, Manthara described how so many years prior, Ashva had intervened with the help of his swans, saving Manthara, who lay half-dead in the gardens. Expertly, Manthara bent the truth, sticking so close to it that the lie would not be discerned.
“Ask him,” Manthara said lightly. “I think he would tell you if you insisted.”
Chaya listened and looked at Manthara with big eyes.
Soon after, Manthara watched as the king and queen left for an excursion to the swan lake. That same night, Manthara and everyone else in the palace’s inner quarters woke up to loud wails. The servants watched in silence as the queen was dragged through the halls and expelled from the palace. The chain of whispers told Manthara that her plan had exceeded beyond her imagination. At the swan lake, Ashva had laughed out loud, and Queen Chaya 13
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had demanded that he share the joke with her. Ashva had taken this as the queen’s callous desire for him to die. She was cast off as queen and exiled forthwith from Kekaya. Manthara’s whole body trembled, and she had difficulty breathing. She didn’t know whether to be elated or sick to the stomach.
Once Chaya was gone, the king rode out into the plains like one possessed, leaving no message saying when he would return. While he was gone, Manthara never left the side of the abandoned baby girl. She was still a suckling of eight months, rooting for her mother’s breast. No one dared take the princess from Manthara, for they did not know the king’s orders.
Manthara held the child and didn’t mind her shrieks. It was the sound of victory. Sure enough, when Ashva returned, he pointed at Manthara, appointing her the sole caretaker of the child. He did not look at Manthara or smile. He had returned from the plains forever changed, hardened and reduced. He would never love or trust a woman again. But he had a soft spot for Manthara because of her deformity, protecting her the way he would an injured animal.
After the queen’s exile, a rumor took firm root that Manthara, the ugly hunchback, was Ashvapati’s lover. Manthara may have started that rumor; she certainly did nothing to dispel it. The evidence lay in Manthara’s frequent nighttime visits to Ashva, when she spoke of the princess, reporting on the child’s growth. No one but Manthara knew what took place during those visits. The king had grown too stern to hear, much less address, such flippant rumors. So Manthara was not the queen, but she was the caretaker of the princess. This was as close to royalty as she would ever become, and she would never let this position of power be compromised.
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chapter 2
Kaikeyi’s Mother
Night after night, Keyi’s wails broke the silence. Always, Manthara was there, pulling her out from the scary dreams and saying, “Sh! Sh!”
On this night, Keyi hid her face in Manthara’s chest, which was just like a cave.
When she was little, she used to curl herself into a ball and hide inside the hollow.
Manthara’s arms would hold her tight and she would be safe. But now she was a big girl. She couldn’t fit in the cave anymore. Keyi was so big, she had to call Taya by her proper name, Manthara. But it was an ugly word that other children only said when they wanted to cause pain.
Manthara rocked back and forth like a swing. Still, Keyi couldn’t stop crying.
“Be quiet! I’m right here.” Manthara was not happy with Keyi’s terrors. “Six years old and still screaming at night! Curse on your mother! Thirty gods curse the day I got this child. Not a night of sleep since. Always waking up, screaming into my ear. I should have dropped you under a horse long ago, a mercy killing. Sh! Sh!”
Manthara’s strong voice made the darkness flee. Keyi didn’t always know the meaning of the things Manthara said. But that was okay, because Manthara was the most intelligent one in all of Kekaya. Keyi didn’t feel stupid for not understanding. In due time, Manthara said. That meant when Keyi grew a hump on her back, just like Manthara. Keyi had learned that she could not repeat
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Manthara’s words to others, or they would look at her with round mouths. And Manthara would be very cross, calling Keyi a gossipmonger.
But still, no matter what Manthara said, she always pulled Keyi into her lap. She always held Keyi until the terrors ran away. Sometimes she whispered about the pain in her back.
She said it was like living with a nightmare all day and all night. All because the people in the palace wanted straight backs and no secrets. Secrets were things that everyone pretended not to know. Manthara didn’t pretend and so she had no secrets. That’s how Keyi wanted to be.
As soon as the thump-thumping in Keyi’s chest stopped, her arms slipped off Manthara’s neck. Keyi heard a great sigh as Manthara heaved Keyi back onto the bed. The night terrors had passed, but they waited for Keyi. The next night they would come again. For now, feeling safe next to Manthara, Keyi dreamt of a place where the sun always shone.
“Keyi,” someone whispered.
Keyi opened her eyes. A shadow stood over her. It spoke with Yuddha’s voice, so it had to be him. Her brother looked huge in the dark. Manthara was fast asleep, another shadow by Keyi’s side. Manthara’s mouth was wide open and her breathing sounded like grasshoppers singing. Keyi would never dare place anything into Manthara’s open mouth again. She had gotten so mad, Keyi had to hide under the bed to escape from Manthara’s cane.
“Wake up, Keyi!” Yuddha shook her. “Indu is foaling. She is already lying down. Hurry or we’ll miss it.”
