The housewives and servants averted their eyes and feet from the gibbet in the market square. None seemed able to look at its dripping contents for too long, save a slender young man standing beside it.
Raja ran his hand along the rusty metal of the cage, forcing himself to look at his friend. His eyes welled with tears, but he fought them back. Tears were for accidents; not murders. With a final look into Mani’s dangling eye, Raja headed for the capital city’s inner walls.
#
“Nidhi!” Raja bellowed, kicking open the door into the dimly lit room. “Where are you? I want to meet Janeya right now! Take me to her at once!”
Raja’s bluster was knocked out of him as an invisible force took him by the midriff and flung him across the room. The same force slammed shut the door, drowning the room into darkness, before dragging Raja up to his feet and pinning him against the wall. He struggled in place against the sorcerous bind, feeling the fury that had propelled him here draining out of him.
“What is wrong with you, you donkey?” Nidhi stepped out from the shadows, holding a guttering red flame in her bare palm. “Don’t you dare even think her name outside her chambers. Can you even imagine what the king will do to you if he discovers the truth about his innocent little daughter? Now… are you going to behave?” Nidhi asked.
“She had Mani killed,” he murmured.
“Now why would she do that?”
He’d had time to anticipate that question. “Because… because we fought last night. I wanted to meet Mani and she wanted me to stay. And now… Mani is…” Real grief threatened to break forth. Mani was dead, after all. He spat the words at the dirt, “She had him killed! She killed him!”
“And your first thought was to accost her, a dangerous killer by your own admission?”
“I need to talk to her to understand why!” This was half-true. He needed to make sure Janeya knew he wasn’t involved in whatever she thought Mani was up to.
Nidhi sighed deeply, as though exhausted from fighting a battle with herself.
“She wouldn’t do that to your friend, even if you two had some lover’s spat.” The bind on Raja disappeared and he fell into the dirt in a heap, skin clammy from the touch of her magic. Nidhi knelt down to meet his glower; her matronly manner belying her youth. “The princess loves you, no matter how much I warn her about your types.”
“Then who–”
“The king’s guards overheard your friend saying that the princess is giving herself out to commoners.” Nidhi narrowed her eyes and cocked her neck like a hound on a scent. “Where would he have gotten that idea?”
A pit opened up in Raja’s stomach. That couldn’t be it. There had to be another reason. A better reason. “Take me to see Janeya right now.”
“Try ordering me about again and I’ll string you up from the clothesline by your privates.” She replied, matter-of-factly. “Luckily for you, the princess does want to talk to you. Meet me in the usual alley at midnight.”
“Thank you, Nidhi.”
“Come bathed.” She rose to her feet and dusted off the front of her jungle-green saree. “I don’t care how deep in mourning you are. I will spray you down.”
#
Raja dodged drunken revelers and comatose beggars as he traversed the outer city through streets lit blue by the moon. As he grew closer to the inner city, the houses became larger and grew enough space between them to form alleys.
Eventually, he reached the secluded pool of shadows where Nidhi was waiting for him, away from prying eyes. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness around him, he saw Nidhi kneeling in the dirt of the alley. She was breathing prayers into the locket around her neck, asking her god to reinvigorate her sorcery with his holy light.
After a few moments of being ignored, Raja blurted out “Shall we go?”
“In polite society, we say ‘good evening’ or ‘excuse me.’” Nidhi’s eyes opened, briefly glowing with holy light before fading away.
Despite her curt response, she rose to her feet and parted the air before her. The shadows on the wall fell aside to reveal a path into nothingness. Hollow silence pressed close on Raja’s ears as he followed Nidhi into the sorcerous tunnel.
He couldn’t see anything except Nidhi’s glowing outline before him, not even his own feet. Stepping into this void always made his skin crawl, but Nidhi’s confident stride lent him hope. He followed her for what felt like hours until, without warning, the void parted to reveal a chamber filled with dazzling light and color.
A blur of sequins under a dark cloud of hair jangled across the chamber and flew into his arms, knocking the wind out of him. Before he could recover, Janeya’s lips met his. He kissed her back, breathing in jasmine and sandalwood, feeling her warmth against him. As he was about to drown into the kiss, she pulled away with a stifled sob.
“I’m so sorry,” Janeya’s eyes were red-rimmed and cheeks were streaked with kohl. “Father did it. He heard a rumor and… and he just… I’m so sorry. I know what Mani meant to you. I’m so sorry.” She repeated her apologies like a mantra before burying her face into his chest and bursting into full-throated sobs.
Raja met Nidhi’s narrowed eyes over the princess’s head. The handmaiden stood firmly in place, her hands and brows crossed in disapproval. He ran his hands through Janeya’s hair and muttered “I never doubted you, Janu.”
Nidhi snorted derisively.
“Thank you, Nidhi.” Janeya waved a hand behind her. “I will send for you when needed.”
With a final venomous look at Raja, Nidhi ducked back into the tunnel.
Janeya placed a soft, warm hand on Raja’s cheek and stared soulfully into his eyes. “I want to make you feel better.” Her hand slipped into his and she drew him behind her, anklets jangling with each dainty step. Reaching the four-poster bed, she pushed him through muslin curtains to land on the mattress, sending pillows flying. Coy giggles and trembling sighs filled the room as the young lovers eagerly returned to each other’s bodies.
#
A rattan fan creaked ineffectually overhead, bound in its motion by Janeya’s sorcery. Raja and Janeya lay side-by-side under it, sweaty and tangled, their skins cooling in the midnight swelter. Raja stared at the constellations of gold and sapphire on the ceiling, thinking about Mani. Is this what he would’ve wanted? He looked down at Janeya’s head lying warm on his chest, wondering what was going on in there.
As if in answer, Janeya broke the silence. “Father wants to get me married.”
Raja’s blood froze. “What? Why?”
“He wants to ally with Kilav.” Janeya replied. “To end the war.”
“But why now?” Raja insisted. “The war’s been going on for forty years.”
“He wants to head off more rumors.” She continued, still not meeting his eyes. “The spies tell him that people are starting to believe Mani.”
A flash of rage stabbed at Raja’s heart, “Well, he was right, wasn’t he?”
“Don’t fight.” Janeya’s voice was brittle. “Please, not right now.”
Think about the money, Raja reminded himself.
“Sorry, Janu.” He ran his hand soothingly down her back. “I just don’t want to lose you.”
“What can I do?” She murmured.
They fell back into silence. Think about the money. That’s what Mani had told him. And now Mani was feeding crows at the market square. No. Mani couldn’t die for nothing.
Raja nuzzled the top of her head and whispered, “Do you remember the day we met? When we saw each other across the lily pond?” She nodded and he continued, “Do you know what I told Mani that night?”
She looked up, filled with anticipation for a story she’d heard dozens of times. “What?”
“That I knew you were my destiny.” He leaned forward to kiss her again. When he leaned back, her eyes were misty with adoration. Recounting this story worked every time to reel her back in. “Mani told me I was crazy to dream that high. And then Nidhi came to find me at the orphanage. You found a way for us to be together.”
She smiled and looked away shyly, “I’ll find a way again.”
“You always do, Janu.” Raja replied. “I love you.”
She pressed her body closer, hugging him tight. “I love you too. I’ve known that since the first day too.” Meeting his gaze with adoring eyes, she added, “I’ll find a way, I promise.”
“I know you will, Janu.”
She kissed him again and slid out of bed to slip her nightclothes back on. He watched her gentle curves catch the moonlight and felt a tug in his stomach. In a different world, perhaps this could’ve been something real. Raja rose to wear his own clothes.
Watching him get dressed, she asked in a measured voice, “Do you have to go now?”
“There’s a wake.” Raja replied.
“I understand.” She leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. She ran her hand through his thick black head of hair, picking out a shred of straw. “Did Nidhi give you the pouch of rupees I sent with her?”
“I don’t need it, Janu,” Raja insisted.
“Just keep it, will you?” She huffed theatrically before flopping back into bed. “Save your strength for me, not laying bricks.”
“I don’t need that much.”
“Nidhi will give you the pouch at her house. Spend it on your friends if you’d like!” She retorted, lazily waving her hand to open a new tear in the wall, leading into another dark tunnel. “Now, go. They’re waiting for you.”
#
Raja entered the neighborhood watering hole to the smell of cheap arrack. Auntie Damli, the proprietor of this nameless dive, wordlessly handed Raja a pail before returning to the large corner table that served as bar, counter and butcher-block. Under the bar, her one-eyed cat batted about an empty bottle of the acrid palm wine. At the table in the middle of the room, a sea of familiar faces sloshed about in various stages of debilitation.
Of Mani’s mourners, only Dhondo and Shankha were awake enough to notice Raja’s arrival. The pair turned to him with belligerent stares as he neared the table. “Here comesh the great gigolo.” Shankha slurred, sloshing the arrack over his mustache and beard. “Thash right. Come on in, shir. We’re waiting for you. Done with your businesh?”
“Auntie Damli, I’ll pay for this lot tonight.” Raja tossed a full gold rupee at the counter. She snapped it up without comment, unflappable as always. Raja turned back to Shankha, “You got something to say?”
“Yeah I got shomething…” Shankha made to rise from the bench, but was held back by a scrawny hand flung across his ox-like chest. Dhondo and Shankha exchanged meaningful glances before the brute allowed himself to be pushed back down.
“Where have you been?” Dhondo’s diction was untouched by alcohol.
“I went to see her.”
Dhondo snorted. Auntie Damli appeared beside him and passed him a tumbler of arrack, which he drained in one draught. “So, she didn’t kill you, eh?”
“Mani was running his mouth about the princess and me. Someone heard about it and the king…” Raja glanced at the chair left empty in Mani’s honor before tossing over the bundle of gold Nidhi had pressed into his hands. “At least the princess doesn’t know. She gave me this tonight. She still thinks I love her.”
“You can’t trust royals, Raja.” Dhondo wagged his finger as if he knew anything about anything. “We’re just playthings to them. Nobodies. Toys. Don’t ever forget that.”
“I don’t trust her.” Raja scoffed. “She trusts me. And she’s not like that.”
“Itsh getting too dangeroush.” Shankha slurred out. “Mani wash v–”
“Then what do I do, huh?” Raja slammed the table, sending a confused groan through the drunken crowd. “Give up? And then what? Run away? Go join the army? Die fighting Kilav?” He turned back to Dhondo, waving a glimmering gold coin before his nose. “You see this? This is while I’m sneaking around with her. Imagine when we’re married.” He waved around the room. “We’d be in court, not this hole.” He pointed at the cat, now busy toying with a mouse, “That’d be some exotic manticore. Those drunk bricklayers and shit-haulers would be drunk generals and nobles.”
Dhondo pushed Raja’s hand away and shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”
Raja bit his tongue and left the table.
Without another glance at Dhondo, he made his way back to the hovel he called home. In a nondescript part of the warren of the old city, hidden from Janeya and the murderous King and his murderous guards, Raja fell asleep staring at a ceiling of mud and chalk.
#
“Hear ye! Hear ye!” The crier declaimed from a crate in the market square, just far enough from the gibbet to avoid the worst of the stench. “His royal highness, Videh of Garabagarh, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Skies, Conqueror of the world in General and Jehaladh in Particular, declares that his daughter, the princess Janeya of Garabagarh, having seen eighteen rains of life and having completed her studies in the sorcerous arts and the sixty-four arts of the consummate woman, is now ripe for a suitor befitting her inestimable charm and spell-binding beauty.” Raja heard Janeya’s name amidst the man’s cries and bolted out from his hut into the wan morning light. “The princess has chosen to exercise her gods-granted right to a swayamwar. The swayamwar shall begin tomorrow at noon and proceed until the princess’ conditions are met. The princess, his royal majesty and I, myself, wish all suitors of any standing the very best of luck. Farewell, fare well, and fare forward!”
With that, the crier snapped shut his scroll, tucked it into his crate and wandered out, wrinkling his nose at the swinging gibbet. Raja caught Mani’s decaying eye and smiled uneasily.
The brat had found a way after all.
#
Nidhi was waiting for him in the pool of shadows. She raised an eyebrow as he darted into the darkness. Raja raised an eyebrow right back. “What?”
“Didn’t think you’d know to come,” Nidhi shrugged. “Your princess had more faith.”
“What do you have against me?”
“It doesn’t matter if I have anything against you, donkey.” Nidhi ripped open the shadows again and stepped into the void. “You know as well as I do that this will go nowhere.”
“What do you mean?” Raja followed, shuddering at the void’s cold embrace.
“Quite simple, actually,” Nidhi’s glowing outline replied without looking back over at him. “If you actually do love her, her father will kill you. If you’re just after her money, she’ll find out and she’ll kill you. Either way, this ends badly for you.”
“You would love that, wouldn’t you?”
“No.” She replied simply, before sweeping aside the void to reveal Janeya’s chambers.
Janeya leapt up from a claw-footed chair facing the tunnel. “Raju, I knew you’d come!”
#
Raja and his friends waited in the hundreds-strong crowd that had come for the swayamwar. Velvet ropes and broad-shouldered guards fenced the crowd of suitors and well-wishers into one end of the royal court.
At the far end of the court, a dais held the three thrones of Garabagarh. The king sat on the prime throne. To his left hand sat Janeya, dressed in bridal red-and-gold. The king’s right-hand throne was left empty in honor of the queen. The red carpet under their thrones unrolled down the dais like a lolling tongue, stretching all the way till the crowd of suitors.
An altar pit was set up on the carpet, at the foot of the dais. A priest of the fire god Agnar sat beside it, muttering something to himself. A heavy garland of snow-white marigolds hung from a stand next to him.
“Loyal subjects!” King Videh’s voice boomed across the hall, cutting through and excising the chatter bouncing off the marble walls. He rose from his throne, raising his muscle-bound arms to the heavens before bringing them back down into a reverent, folded pose. His uncovered torso glistened with oil, almost as shiny as the purple silk wrap around his legs. “I welcome you to the court on this auspicious day. The peerless Janeya of Garabagarh, the finest sorceress in these lands, the loveliest maiden in the world–” he turned to her and gave her a tender look, “– my daughter and only heir, will today choose her husband by way of a swayamwar.”
As if in response, the altar next to the priest burst into flames. The people gathered in the court clapped with delight as the priest wove incantations and offered ghee and rice into the votive. Before their eyes, the fire grew bigger and spilled over the sides of the altar pit, lurching wildly forward across the red carpet. The flames halted their advance scant feet from the velvet rope.
Raja sniggered to himself at the expression on Dhondo’s face. A searing field of fire separated the suitors from Janeya, but Raja knew the princess’s plan.
“My daughter has declared that she will wed a man only of the most virtuous character.” The king resumed addressing the crowd. “This field of flames before you is imbued with the blessings of the fire-lord Agnar. The man that can pass through these flames using no sorcery whatsoever shall gain the right to garland the princess and declare her his own. May Agnar smile on you all today.” With that, the king resumed his seat, an eerie smile playing on his lips.
The crowd burst into a hushed murmur, only stopping when the priest paused his incantations to nasally announce, “Suitors, please form a queue in the middle of the hall. Any sorcerers with notable achievements to your name, come to me and I will tell you where you belong in line. Onlookers to the sides of the hall, please.”
Raja began heading towards the middle of the hall and felt Dhondo’s hand on his.
“What are you doing?” Dhondo hissed.
“It’s okay. We have a plan.”
Dhondo’s eyes looked at him pitifully. “We who? You and that?” He pointed at the dais, where Janeya sat stock-still, her stony expression hiding the tumult Raja knew lay underneath. “Raja, sit back down. She’ll watch you burn on that fire and laugh as it happens. I don’t care what plan she has. The gods will deep-fry you like a pakora.”
“It’s not the gods, Dhondo! She controls the fire. She’ll let me through!”
Dhondo’s eyes widened as he looked back up at her. “Is that why she looks so–”
“Yes! She’s concentrating on the flames.”
“Does the king know?”
“Yes, of course!” Raja nodded. “Him and I discussed it over hot toddies yesterday.”
Dhondo’s eyes narrowed before he mumbled, “No, you didn’t.”
“Grow up, Dhondo. It’s all a grift. Always has been a grift.” Raja sneered at his friend. “The priest is pretending to control the flame. Janeya has control already. When I step up to the fire, she’ll let me through. That’s it. Simple as.”
“She knows you were after her money, Raja. I’m sure of it.” Dhondo looked carefully at the flames and shook his head. “She just wants you to burn in front of her.”
Raja looked back up to the dais where Janeya sat on her throne, her jaw set with concentration. “No. She wouldn’t have let me back in bed if that was the case. She would’ve just killed me.”
“What if the king doesn’t let you marry her?” Dhondo asked.
Before Raja could reply, the hall fell deathly silent as the first suitor stepped up to the flames. The suitor was dressed in silks and jewels finer than Janeya’s. A green-liveried herald announced him. “The Khan of Chagath will try his luck for the princesses hand. He is pure of heart and noble of stock. His feats of kindness and magnanimity can impress any gods looking down upon us now, be it Agnar the wise or Kuru the brave. Why, if I were to recount–” The herald continued with a tale of how the Khan had liberated a colony of slaves and put the slavers to the sword. “And thus, the Khan shall attempt to cross this divine threshold, praying for the lord to allow him through.”
The Khan stepped up to the fire and flinched, instinctively recoiling from the blaze even as his feet drew closer. He seemed to be reconsidering his attempt when the flames took the decision away from him. A tongue of flame lashed outward at the silk draped around the Khan’s shoulders.
A keening scream erupted from the Khan as the flames spread rapidly across his frame. After a moment of stunned shock, the herald leapt into action, beating the flames away with the unseasonal cloak on his shoulders. After a tense few moments, the Khan stopped rolling on the floor and tottered to his feet. The crowd gasped as one at the sight of him.
His hair had been singed off. Angry red burns coruscated up and down one side of his body, peeking through burned silk melted into them.
Half of the queue dropped away.
Dhondo shot one last warning look at Raja and faded away into the crowd.
Most of the next few suitors walked up to the flames with all dangling clothing tucked away safely. They attempted the same approach: declaring their names, their achievements and what made them worthy of Janeya’s hand. None of them met the same dire fate as the Khan, but there were a few minor burns and a few lost eyebrows.
As Raja watched the queue dwindle away, Dhondo’s words nagged him. What if she just wanted revenge? He’d once seen Janeya use her sorcery to tear the wings off a mosquito that had bit her. A public burning seemed appropriate enough for a boy leading her on. No. Can’t think like that.
The queue ticked on rapidly. Despite joining the line late, soon Raja was only a dozen people away from the fires. Raja almost felt bad for the suitors who had been turned away thus far. Some of them had led raids into heathen territory and settled lands for the gods. Some had fed untold thousands. Some had nursed their village livestock back to health after cattle blights. All Raja had done was meet Janeya at an age when both of them had discovered new uses for their bodies and she’d discovered a seam of rebellion buried under layers of repression.
Another suitor stepped up the flames, ready to disappoint. This one wore a black, hooded shroud that looked very flammable. The crowd waited for him to declare himself, but the man simply stood there. Only when all the murmuring had died down did the man deign to tug his hood down. A gasp of recognition ran through the crowd.
A crown of interwoven strands of gold and silver rested on the man’s curly black hair.
King Videh leapt to his feet and exclaimed, “You!”
“Me.” The king of Kilav replied calmly before turning to the court and raising his hands to command silence. The crowd’s murmurs died out again. “Men and women of Garabagarh, Rabodhan of Kilav comes to you today with peace in his heart! For far too long have our lands been watered by the blood of our children. With this union shall I bring peace to Garabagarh and Kilav. The war of a hundred years has ended, not with death, but with love!”
With that declaration, Rabodhan plunged confidently into the wall of fire and disappeared. The crowd held its breath, releasing it in a collective whoop as he appeared beyond the flames, climbing up the stairs to the dais, garland held high in his hands. Hooting and hollering profaned the ritual air of the court as Rabodhan set the heavy white garland down over Janeya’s shoulders. She looked up at him, face still as if carved from ivory, meeting his kiss with a cursory uptilt of her chin.
He gently raised Janeya to her feet and knelt before her. “My queen,” he continued, “let us bind our kingdoms together and bring peace to these lands. It is Agnar’s will.”
A stone-faced Janeya nodded down at him, her expression unreadable. The crowd began pelting the newlyweds with flowers handed by court attendants. A fanfare of woodwinds and harmoniums mingled with the cheering of the crowd. Raja stood numb in the middle of the celebrations till Dhondo appeared from the crowd to drag him away.
#
Raja stumbled into his hovel, his head muzzy from a day spent wallowing in arrack with Shankha and Dhondo for company. A candle’s guttering light awaited him in the hovel. Next to it was a plump little bag with a scrap of paper tied around its neck. He snickered to himself and tugged open the bag’s mouth.
The arrack evaporated from his blood as he saw the glint of gold.
Sweat beading on his forehead, he spun to look around the empty hovel, paranoid of even the walls. As he turned toward the door, a familiar tear appeared, revealing a dark void. Nidhi stepped out, briefly illuminating the dim hovel with the glow in her eyes.
“You!” Raja sputtered in surprise. “You know where I live?”
“That’s the last money you’ll see from Janeya.” Nidhi’s words were clipped, even more terse than her usual manner. “Take it, head for the Eastgate and get a carriage up the road. Don’t look back till Garabagarh is a smear on the horizon.”
“How do you know where I– Wait– What happened?!” Raja shook his head clear. “She told me I was supposed to go through the fire! Was she going to burn me alive?” The question seemed absurd on the face of it. The brat loved him. She’d risked her reputation to be with him for all these months. Why would she suddenly turn on him? “Answer me!”
“No, she wasn’t.” Nidhi replied. “She loved you.”
“What happened at the swayamwar?”
“We thought it would be her controlling the fire, but the king decided to take over for that day.” Nidhi’s words felt distant, deflated, robbed of her usual liveliness. “So the war would end in an alliance.”
Raja searched her face for any inkling of deception and came away none the wiser. He remembered Janeya’s expression on the dais. She’d looked like she was focused on a spell. “Are you lying?”
“Does it matter?”
Flashes of anger peeked through his haze, brightened by the arrack. Mani had died for this, because him and Raja had dreamt of a better life. Of course it mattered! His eyes began to well up as he met Nidhi’s unfeeling gaze.
“You did this!” Raja brandished a finger at her. “You never liked me!”
Nidhi flinched for the briefest moment before regaining her composure. “I told you, donkey. Your path ended only one way. Either you wanted money, and she’d kill you. Or you wanted love, and the king would kill you.” Her eyes grew kind, as they had the day she’d warned him. She nodded towards the bag of gold. “This is a different path. Take it.”
His eyes flickered from the bag to Nidhi and back. The dark void loomed behind Nidhi, perhaps to Janeya’s chambers, now forever closed to him. The bag felt heavier than usual, but not as heavy as the crown. “What if I’d been ahead in line from Rabodhan?”
A sad smile quirked the corner of Nidhi’s lips. “Farewell, Raja.”
With that, Nidhi ducked back into the void, leaving Raja behind in his dark hovel.
#
Raja arrived early enough to grab a space far up front. This was the furthest he’d reached in months. Around him, the people elbowed and jostled to get closer, but the crowd at the foot of the minaret was impenetrable by now.
Halfway up the minaret, the latticed screen of the verandah swung open to reveal Rabodhan and Janeya, surrounded by their retainers. The crowd shouted with glee, chanting their names and cheering. The royal pair waved down at their subjects, a fixed smile on their faces.
Raja’s heart ached at the sight. He had come here every afternoon since the royal couple had begun these daily viewings. Six months and she hadn’t even noticed him. Maybe today was the day. Maybe today, their eyes would meet and he’d know if she’d betrayed him.
Her eyes were scanning the crowd. As they neared the part where he stood, his heart did a little fillip. He resisted the urge to cry out as her gaze finally reached him.
A bolt of lightning pulsed through him as their eyes met. Smiling, he reached up towards her, waving as if they were once again children sitting across that lily pond. Did you do it? Did you let Rabodhan through or was it your father?
Janeya’s gaze slid off him and wandered on. From behind her, Nidhi caught Raja’s eye just as his hand fell limply to his side. Nidhi shook her head near-imperceptibly in disappointment before looking away as well. With the viewing for the day done, the royal couple withdrew into the minaret.
At least they looked happy, thought Raja. And the war had ended. That was something. Mani would’ve liked that, at least.
Around him, the crowd continued to cheer.