At last I reached Ayodhya.
I left the horse at the stable door and took the familiar route up to my rooms. As I climbed the steps to the women’s quarters, something dripped onto my hands. I looked up, bemused. Was it raining?
Only then did I feel the coolness against my cheeks and realize that I was crying. By the time I reached my rooms I was weeping, the first true tears I had cried for my brother. I did not understand what had sparked this, only that in my chest I could feel the deep hole his presence had left.
Somehow, word of my arrival at the stables must have gotten to Manthara before I did, because she was already pouring water into a tub for a warm bath. I kept weeping as I stepped into it, and she scrubbed my hair as though I was a small child. The story came out of me in fits and starts, and she murmured soft reassurances to me. “It is not your fault. Hush. It is not your fault.”
But I knew better.
I spent the next day entirely in my bed. Asha brought me warm broth, and I drank it to make her feel better, for her worry was rolling off her in waves. Being back in Ayodhya reminded me only of my greater failures. I had failed the people of my kingdom, failed the women who would no longer be protected and the men who would die in pointless wars. I slept lightly on and off, my dreams the same as my waking thoughts, before slipping into a longer tortured rest.
The next morning, I awoke to rough hands pulling me out of bed. I did not struggle—perhaps they were soldiers, coming to execute me—but when I pried open my eyes it was just Manthara. She handed me a rough cotton sari, which I put on to avoid further argument. I had a strange sense that this had happened before, but could not place it. Once I had worn it, she grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me through the palace, out the servants’ gate, and into the streets of Ayodhya. She should not have had enough vigor in her aged body to pull me, but I could not bring myself to resist.
I kept my eyes on the ground, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. When Manthara at last stopped, I fell into her, then righted myself, eyes still downcast. She placed two fingers under my chin and tipped my face up, forcing me to look at—
Ayodhya’s marketplace. I had not set foot here in over a year. At first, I could hardly take in the intensity of the sights, my eyes unfocused and watering in the bright sunlight.
But after a moment, my gaze fixed on one thing: a woman nearby, selling pots, haggling with a buyer.
“Watch, Kaikeyi,” Manthara whispered. “Just watch.”
And so I watched, even though the sight was a familiar one on the streets of Ayodhya. Something about it touched my heart, dampening the unshakable pain.
But then the relief passed, and I tore myself from Manthara’s grip, shuffling back to the palace in shame.
That night I lay awake in bed, unable to get the pot seller out of my mind. Her firm posture, her smile—she was not unhappy or angry because her yuvraja was gone and the soldiers had marched out. She was earning her livelihood, and glad of it.
The next morning, Manthara, without asking, took me back to the market. Part of me felt like I did not deserve to see such things, but a larger part of me longed for that singular moment of peace again.
This time, my eyes were drawn to a group of girls, thick black braids down their backs, sitting alongside boys in the open-air market school under the shrine. An elderly man stood before them, pointing at one then the other to recite sums. One of the girls mouthed the answer to every question, confident in her abilities. Instead of averting my eyes, I watched greedily. They switched from sums to religious studies, something that women had once been forbidden from practicing. But still the girls sat there, learning the lessons.
Part of me expected one of Rama’s men to come running, to stop them, to shout that I was a monster and so was all I touched. Nobody seemed to care. Rama had said that my influence on Ayodhya was poison, and after all that transpired, I had believed it. But this was not poison. It was a child, freer than her mother had been.
Each day for the next week, as Kosala’s army made its slow march back to Ayodhya, I went out and watched the women. On one memorable occasion, I saw a man slouch toward a woman shopkeeper’s stall and ask her something. She drew herself up, angry, and I approached them to better hear.
“You spent that money already?” she demanded. “I will not give you more.”
“I allow you to work here because I am generous,” the man said. “You owe me what you have earned.” My heart immediately jumped to my throat. What would this husband do to a wife who disobeyed him?
But the woman was not afraid. “I work here because you are lazy,” the woman shouted back. Other women were drifting toward the scene.
“Give me just a few coins,” the man said, and I realized he was begging her.
“Why?” the woman asked. “Where do you keep spending my hard-earned money?”
“Reena said she saw your husband enter one of the night-houses,” one of the watching women called out.
The woman gaped at her husband. “Is this true?”
He spun around and glared at the other woman. “What was Reena doing there?” he demanded.
“So it’s true, you do not deny it!” his wife shouted. “You ought to pay me back, you useless man. Do not think I will ever let you touch me again!” I could not help the smile that broke out across my face, although I tried to hide it behind a hand.
“You are my wife,” the man said, but I could tell the fight was going out of him. “You will do as I say.”
“You are a lazy good-for-nothing,” one of the women watching heckled. “Stop bothering her.”
One by one, the other women joined in, until the whole marketplace was giving this man his due. Even men were raising their voices.
The fact that the sages, that Sage Vamadeva, and therefore Rama, had cared at all about moments such as this seemed suddenly so absurd, I could not contain myself. I laughed so hard I felt I could not breathe. And the other women were laughing too. I was just one voice in the chorus.
This was a changed Kosala. I had not prevented Yudhajit’s death. I had caused my family great pain. But there were others besides the gods and the godsforsaken. Their paths were not set. And it seemed possible—no, with each passing day it seemed certain—that perhaps I had been able to change something after all.
I returned, day after day. I lurked near lessons, wandered among stalls, and even snuck my way into the treasury, watching young women my sisters and I had sent there sorting coins. I drank in every sight greedily. I was a desert wanderer who had happened at last upon an oasis.
I could not help these women anymore, but I did not need to. Now they helped me.
“Has this one caught your eye?” one woman asked me when I stared at the small clay horse displayed among her various dolls.
“My son had one like this,” I said. “When he was young.”
She gave me a smile. “My husband made my children toys like this when they were young too. When they got older, we decided to make them for others.”
“Do you like the work?” I asked, hungry to hear more of her story.
“Yes. He is a skilled craftsman, but if he tried to sell them, we would never sell a single ware. I love talking to people, and now our daughter has an excellent dowry.”
My heart was so full I thought I might cry, an absurd reaction to some children’s toys. Instead, I bought the horse. I walked slowly back up the path to the palace, feeling for the first time in a long time that moving forward was not an impossible effort.