Chapter Text
Mahendra never has to go far to find his father. Sometimes Father is out in the quarries to check on the machinery there, and he shows Mahendra how the wheels and gears fit into each other to smash the rocks the workers bring down from the mountain. Sometimes Father is deciding an argument between some of the other villagers, and Mahendra can crawl into his lap and let the sound of his voice lull him to sleep. Some evenings, like today, Father is out at the edge of the mountain, looking out at the great golden palace below, and Mahendra always tries, on evenings like these, to take him by surprise.
It’s not an easy task, but Mahendra has been attempting it as long as he can remember. He does his best to step lightly, to avoid snapping any twigs in his path, to breathe slowly and carefully, and it’s no use: at the last minute, without even looking back, Father stretches out an arm and scoops him up.
He tries to sulk. It doesn’t last very long. No one can be angry at Father for long. Mahendra gives up and turns to look at the palace alongside Father. He can’t see why Father looks at it so much. It is a very large house, but Mahendra is sure their house is better. The palace doesn’t have Father’s laughter or Mother’s quick tongue and quicker smile or the bow Father carved for Mahendra’s most recent birthday. It doesn’t have the mango tree pockmarked by his parents’ archery practice, the books and blueprints tucked in their corner, or neighbors nearby who always have a toy or sweet or time enough to play with Mahendra whenever they visit. He tells Father this, and is rewarded by Father’s chuckle.
“The King wouldn’t agree with you,” Father warns, but the corners of his eyes crinkle with mirth.
“He couldn’t,” Mahendra has to point out. “He lives there. He has to like it, even if it is boring.” Father says nothing, and Mahendra, guilty but not sure why, adds: “There are nice things there, too. There are elephants, Gopu says. And Grandfather lives there, when he’s not visiting us.”
“Yes,” says Father. “And the Queen Mother Sivagami.”
It’s strange. He sounds sad, but when Mahendra twists to look at him, Father is smiling.
“Let’s go home, Mahendra,” Father tells him, lifting him so he is sitting on Father’s shoulders instead of in the crook of his arm, “before your mother takes it into her head to cook dinner.”
He rides on Father’s shoulders all the way back to the village, which means he’s tall enough to pick flowers from all the ashoka trees that grow along the way. There’s too many for Mother, so Father stops at every house on the way, and Mahendra carefully leans down to hand a few to the lady of each home. They all bless him, and some of them even blush, and he feels very grown up.
Mother isn’t there when they come home. Mahendra knows, because Father lets him down and Mahendra, impatient to give Mother her flowers, checks the kitchen and the main room and the goatpen before coming back outside to tell Father that there is no one there. Father doesn’t say anything, but his hand squeezes Mahendra’s shoulder.
“Stay—“ Father begins, but from behind, they hear: “Mahendra?”
Delighted, he runs forward. “These are for you,” he says in his very best grown up voice, just as he spoke to the other ladies, and solemnly hands her the ashoka flowers, her very favorite. As long as he can remember, either he or Father have always brought some home for her.
And every time, just like today, Mother breathes, “Oh, Mahendra, they’re beautiful,” and kneels down so he can run forward into her arms. He smells turmeric and honey when she pulls him close; someone must have been hurt and needed her help elsewhere. It wasn’t anything to be worried about at all.
“Was it a very bad wound?” he asks, and Mother, though she doesn’t seem surprised at the question at all, is slow to answer.
“A snakebite,” she says finally, and she looks up at Father, “incurred when the workers were obeying the royal decree to re-open the southeast mines.”
Father frowns. “Those were abandoned ten years ago. We were told that while there may be more gold to be found, that part of the mountain was so unstable that it wasn’t worth the risk.”
“You weren’t misinformed. It’s fortunate that the mine itself didn’t collapse in on them when they brought out Seshu out after he was bitten.” Mother sniffs. “Though I’m sure his illustrious majesty had an excellent reason for sending them there in the first place.”
“Devasena,” says Father in that tone he uses when he feels he should disapprove but can’t quite manage it. Not that it means much; Father approves of everything Mother does, even when any other man wouldn’t, and everyone knows it. At least that’s what Mahendra’s uncle says, and he should know. Uncle has known Mother and Father for longer than Mahendra can remember, even before Mahendra was born, and he always adds, shaking his head, that they haven’t changed at all. He tries to sound disapproving, too, but he must mean it as little as Father does; he always smiles as he says it.
Now, Mahendra’s stomach rumbles, though he tries to hide it, and Mother smiles down at him again as she stands. “My poor boy. Dinner’s already ready.”
Mahendra manages to turn his groan into a cough, but Father clearly isn’t as good at hiding his horror, any more than he can hide his grin when Mother’s eyes narrow.
“And,” she says deliberately, though he suspects she is really speaking to Father. “your Aunt Lakshmi prepared it and sent it for us, so there’s no need to look so worried.” That’s all right; if he strains his memory, he can remember when Aunt Lakshmi used to live with them and help take care of him, before she got married and moved to another house in the village. She has all the patience for cooking that Mother lacks, and doesn’t get called away more often than not in the middle of her preparation.
He races inside the house just before Mother and Father, but Mother only has him set down his flowers before she bids him sit down to his studies while there’s enough sunlight to see the leaves of the book clearly. Mahendra scowls but obeys. No other boy in the village has to spend time reading such old books, but when Mahendra had tried arguing the point to his parents, Father had only shrugged and said that Gopu had to spend time helping his father while Mahendra was free to play; did Mahendra want to join his friend there instead? He’d considered it for a minute, but Gopu has always claimed the smithy was terribly dull,too. Muddling his way through confusing words might not be so boring in comparison.
He squints at the first few words, frowning. In the kitchen, he can hear Mother and Father talking as they finish preparing dinner.
“….A bad bite,” Mother is saying. “I was certain we’d lose the leg. I wanted to send him down to the physicians in the city, but of course they’ve all been summoned to the palace. Two I could understand, even three—but all of them?”
“A man has a right to be worried at a time such as this,” Father says mildly.
“And a king has a responsibility to make sure his subjects do not suffer because of his personal concerns,” retorts Mother. “Who knows what would have happened if—Mahendra? I can’t hear you.”
With a sigh, Mahendra looks down at the book again and reads aloud: “Practice righteousness, not unrighteousness. Speak the truth, not an untruth. Look at what’s distant, not what’s near at hand. Look at the—the—“
“Highest,” Father supplies from the kitchen.
“Look at the highest, not at what’s less than highest.”
Fortunately, it’s not much longer before his parents decide he has read enough and call him to eat. Mahendra puts the book down gratefully and joins them on the veranda, where they always eat. From time to think their neighbors stop by, whether to pay their respects or to thank Mother or Father for something; one of them comes by to tell Mother that Seshu is recovering well, and her shoulders relax. In between these visits, Mahendra tells his parents about his day:
“And then Gopu told me if we went up, we would fall and break open our heads, and he didn’t want to go around with a broken-open head, so I told him I had fallen plenty of times and my head wasn’t broken at all. Then he told me that was because I was so hard-headed, and I told him he was a lily-livered coward, and he said he was going home. So I went to go find Father instead.”
“Gopu wasn’t wrong,” Mother says sharply. “You know better than to climb on the machinery.”
Mahendra flinches at her disappointment. “I only thought, if I could make it all the way up, I could see what’s on the other side of the mountain.”
“Nothing worth the danger,” replies Father. “More mountains.”
It seems he will have to do more climbing than he planned to satisfy his curiosity. “And past them?”
“Kuntala, I suppose,” says Mother.
The name is familiar, but it takes him an instant to place it. “That’s where Uncle lives, isn’t it? If it’s so close, why can’t he come see us more often?
Mother and Father exchange looks. “It’s not so close as that,” Mother explains at last. “There are quite a few mountains in the way. Besides, your uncle is busy helping the King of Kuntala.”
Mahendra frowns. “But you always say Elder Uncle and Aunt are busy at the palace there, too! Why does the King need all of them?”
“It’s a difficult job, being King,” says Father, sounding amused. “I’m sure he appreciates all the help he can get.”
“Maybe,” grumbles Mahendra and turns his attention back to his dinner. It really is wonderful; Aunt Lakshmi is a better cook than he remembers. He decides to bring her something nice tomorrow to say thank you, perhaps flowers or a pretty rock he finds abandoned in the quarries. Mother will help him think of something. And until then—“What’s Kuntala like?” he asks, taking another bite of food.
Mother smiles. “Green,” she says, “and peaceful. They work farms there, not mines and quarries. The air is cool, even in the summers, and the sun shines more often than not.”
Mahendra considers this. “That sounds nice. Can’t we go there someday?”
Mother makes a noncommittal noise, and Mahendra rejoices. She hadn’t said no!
“And then we could visit my uncles, too, even if they won’t come to us,” he adds happily. “But I’d miss Grandfather—we should take him along, too.”
“Mahendra!” Mother is laughing. “Eat your dinner before you plan out all of our futures. Otherwise it’ll grow cold.”
He obeys, but his heart is too full of the lure of Kuntala to say much more until dinner is over, and Father takes him to the field behind their house to teach him how to fight. It is the only thing Father is strict about: Father teaches the other boys and girls, too, if they want to learn, and doesn’t mind if they miss a lesson or two, but Mahendra has to practice every day. It must be because he’s Father’s son, he thinks. He doesn’t mind, though. This is his favorite part of the day.
Father calls out different blows, and when Mahendra does his best to obey as quickly as he can, he always puts a hand out to test Mahendra’s strength. He doesn’t say anything else throughout, just watches Mahendra carefully, but at the end he smiles. “You’ve been practicing, Mahendra,” he says. “Well done.”
That means Mahendra is free to bound forward and throw his arms around Father’s middle, and to laugh and laugh when Father flops onto the ground and announces he’s been overcome by his too-strong son.
Mother comes out with their bows and quivers in time to catch that last, and she laughs too. “If so, then you’ve no one to blame but yourself.”
Father sits up, still holding Mahendra. “I seem to remember you played some part in the process,” he says reproachfully.
Mother only laughs again and hands Mahendra his bow. Father carved it and the arrows to go with it so they were exactly the right size, and only last week, after months of practicing under Mother’s keen eye, Mother finally allowed him to release his arrows instead of only nocking them and waiting for her appraisal. He scrambles to his feet and tries to pick out a target. There is not much to choose from: only the mango tree Mother uses for her poultices, and a few deer in a distance. Mother has impressed upon him that he’s never to raise arms at a living thing unless it poses a threat to himself or others, so that only leaves the mango tree.
To his side, Mother and Father seem to have come to the same conclusion, except Father doesn’t seem as interested in trying to hit the target as he does making sure Mother doesn’t hit hers. She lowers her bow and the arrows and says something to Father Mahendra can’t hear; whatever it is, it can’t have helped much, because it just makes Father chuckle, pull her close, and start kissing her.
Mahendra makes a face. As much as he loves his parents, they can be a terribly embarrassing burden to bear at times. Someone at least should try to bring some mangos down, however, and so he carefully takes aim for a cluster of three at the very bottom of the tree. He holds his elbow out of the way, just like Mother says, and trusts his instinct, just like Father advises, and looses his arrow.
It meets its target, sending the mangos tumbling down, and Mahendra realizes that they will fall into the dirt, which seems an awful waste of good fruit. Only just in time, he looses another arrow meant to pin the mangos to the trunk of the tree; to his surprise, that one finds its mark as well.
“Did any man have a better son?” he hears Father say, and turns to look at his parents. They’re not kissing any more —thank goodness!—but Father’s arm is still around Mother, and both of them beam at him. His chest swells with pride.
They practice until night falls, and then for dessert they share the mangos, each bite all the sweeter to Mahendra because it was his shot that brought them down. Then Mother sends him off to wash before they lie down to sleep, Mahendra tucked between his parents, warm and safe. He can hear them talking about nothing in particular, and the sound of their voices lulls him into drowsiness.
He’s very nearly asleep when the knock comes to the door. His parents both freeze before Father gets up and goes to the door. Mother stays with him; he can feel the tension of her body, but her hand continues gently stroking his hair. Mahendra forces himself to feign sleep and listens as closely as he possibly can.
The voice at the door is one that he doesn’t recognize. “Forgive the intrusion, Lord—“
Father must recognize him, however; Mahendra can hear it in his voice. “There’s no need for such formality between us, Uday. You’ve known me since Kattappa was still clipping us both around the ears for laughing too much during our practice.”
“Be that as it may, Lord—“ but there is a softening in the stranger’s voice. “I bring news from the palace.”
“I see,” says Father. “Good news?” The stranger must nod, because Father continues: “And the Queen?”
“Doing as well as can be expected.”
“I am glad to hear it,” says Father. “Please convey my congratulations to the King. Will you take some water before you go?”
The stranger clears his throat. “That is not all of my message,” he says, almost apologetically. “You, your wife, and your son are required to present yourselves before the court tomorrow by mid-morning.” Mahendra hears Mother’s breath catch; her hand above his hair clenches.
“And this order comes from the King?” Father says, voice sharp.
“No,” says the stranger. “From the Queen Mother Sivagami.”
There is a long pause; Mahendra is fairly certain Mother is holding her breath. Without meaning to, he holds his breath along with her.
Finally, Father says: “Then she already knows that if she orders it, I will obey.”