“It is nice to be nice,” said Kamala with a sage nod. “And it is also nice to eat people,” she added as an afterthought.
The crowd of people pushed forward. The iron gates were beginning to open.
“A king would never deny a holy person that has come to his doorstep,” said Kamala.
My skin was damp with terror as I allowed the crowd to buffet me to the front. A man pulled me from the swarm, his eyes so bright they looked like gems.
“You must beg the Raja’s audience. He has sent so many of our sons into that war. He has claimed so many of our daughters and not returned them. And now he has forsaken our war hero.”
Another woman ran forward, pressing my hands to her cheeks. “Sadhvi, please. Please help. The Ujijain emperor will not let any of them go. He is calling them all prisoners of war and the Raja Skanda will not ask for their release.”
The Ujijain emperor … could that mean Vikram? I remembered his mother walking through the Otherworld. She had died the same day, still carrying a bundle of wilted flowers. It meant that Amar had chosen to pull out the red thread. It meant that many of my people would die, but that the kingdom would be saved. Peace would come.
I couldn’t look the villagers in the eye. Another person tugged on my arm. I looked down to see a boy with a gap-toothed grin. “Tell him to send Gauri-Ma. She will win him back.”
I stopped walking. “What name did you say?”
“Gauri-Ma,” said the boy again, this time staring at me as though I were a fool.
The man who had first approached me nodded fervently. “Everyone knows her. The princess with the dimpled smile and the deadly aim.”
“She is there now,” said the woman by my elbow, still clutching my hand. “The courtiers are talking about forcing her to break her vow of chastity. The Raja will make her marry. He will make her leave Bharata and her wedding will be her exile.”
“He is furious,” whispered the boy. He mimicked his hands as if he had a swollen belly. Skanda.
Joy and fury warred inside me. Gauri was alive. But now they wanted me to send my own sister to the forefront of a war against a kingdom that would claim so many of Bharata’s people. The crowd pushed us forward, smiling around mouths full of blessings as they damned my sister.
“Is this what fame is like?” whinnied Kamala into my ear. “How delightful.”
“This isn’t fame,” I whispered back to her. “This is fear.”
As we walked forward, I wondered if Skanda had kept our father’s sanctum the same. Maybe that’s why he held court outside. Maybe he never wanted to see helmets piled up, their spaces in the iron opened up for smiles and screams or blood-choked cries. Or maybe, it was too full of helmets to make room for people and plans. Maybe it was just a mausoleum now.
The people formed a dense semicircle around me and Kamala. We stood at the end of the Raja’s welcoming “hall.” It was a makeshift platform. Up close, the lotus blossoms that I thought had strung its sides were nothing more than artfully folded ribbons of silk. Had we run out of flowers too?
Skanda braced his elbows on his knees. The smile he flashed was too narrow.
“You are the first ascetic to pass through the realm of Bharata in quite some time,” he said.
A layered greeting. Skanda had at least some shadow of our father’s style. But there was also a glint in his eye. He did not believe I was a sadhvi and I didn’t blame him. I moved awkwardly in my hermetic garb, constantly tugging at the turmeric-yellow robes and pushing the crusted ash and salt off my skin. Maybe a real sadhvi wouldn’t do such a thing.
“To what do we owe this honor?”
Every pair of eyes turned to me. I pushed my body a little closer to Kamala, fumbling for the right words.
“I—” I paused, racking my brains and thinking of the boy’s words. “I’m here to see … Gauri.”
Skanda’s eyes narrowed.
“The Princess Gauri.”
Oh God, I hope I am right. I hope that’s who the boy meant. I hope he didn’t take me for a fool.
“Why?”
“I have traveled across … places … places of great woe. Of great”—I turned, looking at the crowd of people pressing up one against the other, and thought about everything they’d said and everything they wanted—“of great sorrow. I am here to warn you that no place is safe. And that an army is necessary to protect its people.”
“We have enough of our army remaining.”
Before I could say another word, a furious growl ripped across the platform. I jerked my head up just in time to see Gauri storming across the stage and pushing aside the weak efforts of Skanda’s guards to block her.
“Remaining,” she repeated in a furious voice.
I could hardly speak. Joy blossomed in my heart. Here she was. Gauri was safe. More than that, I realized, as I followed the expressions on the citizens of Bharata’s faces: She was adored. Gauri was strongly built, and she wore her hair like I once had, scraped back in a tight braid.
Even as she glowered, dimples flashed in her cheeks. But the most striking thing of all was what she wore. She had forsaken the garb of the harem women and wore the armor of a soldier. But her outfit was different; it was inlaid with emerald, so that when she moved, the light skittered across the metal like light dancing on a pond. She looked like a beautiful naga woman, a snake goddess wreathed in light, moving serpentine and sly.
“You cannot be serious, brother, even the sadhvi has pointed out the error of your ways. Our city could come under attack at any point. We should be ready. You should send me to reclaim the lost troops from the Ujijain Empire.”
“My city,” corrected Skanda, this time standing up so fast, he toppled a platter of sweets that was waiting beside him. “My empire. I have indulged you for too long. I allowed you to train beside the other soldiers. I allowed you to show your feats of archery to the citizens of Bharata. I allowed you to leave the harem and walk through the cities, acting as my ambassador. And now you dare to spar with me in front of an audience?”
One man beside me clenched his jaw, and I sensed that a fight would break out in her defense if Skanda made one wrong move. Skanda must have noticed because he suddenly sat down, his face assuming a blanket of calm.
“Now that the sadhvi woman is here, perhaps we could let her decide.”
No one would argue with that. Even Gauri bowed her head deferentially. I shifted my feet and attempted some measure of mysticism and authority.
“Does your stomach ail you?” whispered Kamala.
My attempt clearly failed.
“I would be honored to settle the dispute,” I said loudly.
Gauri was looking at me quizzically, her eyes roving over my face and hands … settling at my neck. Did she recognize the necklace that was once hers? If she did, she gave no sign. I bowed at the hip, deftly spinning the sapphire pendant away from my throat and onto the back of my neck. I loved Gauri, but if she didn’t trust me, she might out me as a thief by accident.
“Then it is settled. You will be my guest,” said Skanda.
“What about me?” muttered Kamala in my ear.
“And my horse?”
“And the horse,” said Skanda, with such false graciousness, I almost considered letting Kamala eat him.
22
EONS AND BLINKS
There’s nothing quite as strange as having an old and familiar haunt explained back to you in an alien language, with unfamiliar words and false skins stretched over each place like a new blanket. Skanda and his retinue of yes-men escorted Kamala and me through the grounds, asking us to bless things. I tried to act spiritual, but I wouldn’t consider it a rousing success. When Skanda asked me to make an offering that would bring him happiness, I threw an offering on Varuni. The goddess of wine. And when Skanda asked me to prophesy about the future of his reign and his legacy, Kamala urinated on his foot.