part0068

Half the reason he had given up to Kali was because of Urvashi. She was his little princess, with a beautiful face and a golden heart, rightly like her mother. And he didn’t want his ego to wreck her life. It would be more understandable to work with Kali than to fight him and to lose. You can have your city again, but once you lose your daughter, there isn’t going back.

Today, she was already asleep. He came inside and stood there, smiling. Perhaps, she didn’t want a story to be told or perhaps she was tired. Not only was he educating her through books, but also about warfare; about how to ride a horse and handle a sword. It was important to survive in this world and royalty is a fickle disease. The title and associated privilege came and went. What if tomorrow it was robbed from Vedanta? Urvashi should know how to go out there and fight like a warrior.

“Father?” a soft voice squeaked.

“I apologize for troubling you; I thought you weren’t asleep so I came…”

She interjected. “I’m your daughter. You don’t need to apologize to me.” She shifted on the bed, turning to Vedanta. She was just thirteen years of age. In the light of the candles, her face had ignited and resembled someone whom Vedanta loved dearly.

“You remind me so much of your mother.”

She stretched a grin. “Tell me about her.”

Vedanta shook his head. “Another time, sweetheart.”

“It’s always like that with you,” she frowned, “you always escape from something that has happened in the past, father. Never let your failures overcome your present or even future.” She came up and leaned against the headboard.

“Where have you learnt that from?”

“From the same stories that you preach.”

Vedanta chuckled. He was caught in the snare of his own words. He swivelled his head, the smell of a plant coming to his nose, and he knew what it was. He stood up and walked to the plant that was close to the window, with its leaves unfurling into a lotus. It was light green in colour. He began to touch it tenderly. “I’m glad you have not mistakenly lost this one.” Urvashi would clumsily lose the plants he would give her. He was not an idiot. He knew she didn’t like the gifts, but she didn’t realise their value, so he didn’t blame her entirely.

“Yeah, it doesn’t smell as bad as the last one.”

“It’s supposed to get rid of the evil spirits.” Vedanta patted the plant gently.

“Your love for these little things is kind of scary.” Urvashi grinned.

“As if you don’t have your own strange hobbies.” Vedanta signalled over at the wooden figurines she loved carving with her pocket knife. “We all have our passions, for they establish our character, the way we are in reality.”

He walked back to the chair. “Don’t you lose the plant, child. I have brought it for a specific reason. We are not living in luxury now. In fact, we are in times of turbulence. We need to be careful. Each step should be well thought out.”

Urvashi nodded. “Don’t worry, it will be. I am being careful. When do you plan to get rid of the Tribals?”

“Soon.” Vedanta had expressed his doubts earlier to Urvashi, about how he was annoyed by the Tribal inclusion. But he didn’t tell her that he was working with one of them now. “You question me like your mother.”

“Well since she has passed, there needs to be someone to take care of the man of the fort.”

Vedanta smiled. He hugged her tightly while she wrapped her arms around his frame. They remained like that for a while, until there was a knock on the door.

“Whoever it is, not now!” Vedanta roared.

“My lord,” it came as a whisper, as if afraid.

Vedanta sighed. He looked at Urvashi, mouthed “I love you” and with a bitter frown masking his face, he made his way outside. Once outside, he saw the man was panting and sweating, clearly flustered by something. But worst of all, his silver breastplate was sprayed with blood.

“What happened?”

“My lord,” the guardsman’s eyes widened, “it’s a bloodbath.”

Vedanta stood over the blood that had splashed over the floor. He was standing inside a brothel that would be active at night, but in the morning, it would be just another inn. Vedanta walked around, seeing all of the known faces with their throats slit.

The manager whimpered behind Vedanta, following him wherever he went. Vedanta entered every room, where it was the same disturbing image of men with their throats slit. All the pillows were now drenched in blood. The floor was stained by the bloody footsteps of the prostitutes. And the smell, by the Gods, was terrible. Vedanta had a shawl wrapped around his nose as he watched all of it.

They weren’t just any men. They were his ministers, and his Senapati. He had no one any more, or at least that was the first thought that crossed his mind. He chose not to dwell on it. He closed the door behind him and put the shawl down, breathing heavily.

“Why were they in a bloody brothel?” he asked his guardsman. The manager was at the side, not saying anything except rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, clearly still in shock. “What in the world were they celebrating?”

The guardsman didn’t utter a word, but the manager did.

“Kingship, they come often in groups to party and enjoy with my girls.”

Vedanta couldn’t believe his ministers were partaking in an illegal activity. It was against the morals of the society he had upheld for so long. Why had he built temples to Lord Vishnu and Lord Shiva and Lord Indra if he had to have escorts on the other end, dallying with immorality? The thought disgusted him to the core. He felt crippled by not just their deaths, but by their dishonesty towards his rule. The very fact they did it meant they didn’t respect Vedanta as a ruler in the first place.

“Girls? They didn’t see anyone who did it?”

“Kingship, I have not asked. They are quite traumatized about what they have seen.”

Five ministers dead and he was worried his bloody prostitutes were traumatized. Grabbing him by the collarbone, Vedanta pulled him towards him. “Now bring them and line them in front of me. I want to see each one of them, right now.”

The manager nodded instantly, scampering off. Waiting diligently, Vedanta came forward with his five guards. The prostitutes were lined up. They were all wearing skimpy clothes, with a white cloth around their body that barely concealed their chest. He had never seen so much skin on a woman except his wife. She was the only woman he really loved, in and out.

He walked forward, slowly, watching each of them intently. He was trying to study the flickering emotions that crossed their faces. And he stopped at one.

“What did you see?” he asked her.

“I…uh…” the woman had a shifty mien, as if trying at all costs to avoid the questions. There was something off about her.

Vedanta shook his head as he grabbed the woman’s hair. The manager gasped. It was a fake. He tossed it on the ground. Standing in front of him, was a man in disguise. “Sell yourself the way you want to, it’s your choice. But don’t be ashamed of it by hiding behind a woman’s image.”

He had seen in other cities when he had travelled, rulers of his kind complaining how they had ordered for a woman at a brothel but found a man. And for these men who sold themselves, it was their own preference. It was surely against the rules of the Gods, but those rules were written a long time back. Things were different then, and Vedanta didn’t mind all of it now. But prostitution was still illegal in Keekatpur.

“You all stood there while my ministers were murdered, one by one, and you are saying, you didn’t see anything.” His voice had an impassive quality, almost shrivelling others with the sheer menace it held. “Either you speak now or this brothel shuts down and you all go to prison for soliciting sex.” He would do that even if they would tell him the truth. But that was a good leverage he could play around with right now.

The manager was crying. He was a wimp. But then, there was hesitance. Vedanta walked to the woman and stood there. “Yes? You want to say something?”

“All of it happened while we were sleeping alongside them.” The woman had a way with her words. She was afraid to look at him, but her words showed no fear. “It had seemed like the person was waiting for us to fall asleep.”

“All of you were sleeping?”

“Sleeping, yes,” they said in unison.

Vedanta narrowed his eyes. His ministers were calculatedly murdered, perhaps given a drug-laced wine to make the job easier. “Has anyone seen, by any chance?”

A hand went up. Vedanta walked to it.

“Yes?”

The woman had blue eyes, and was perhaps a Naga. “I woke up earlier than I was supposed to and I saw the figure.”

“Yes, please tell me.” He waited, curiosity burning his mind.

“The person saw me…Erm…and it ran, right through the window.”

“What was it wearing?”

“A shawl wrapped around the face; it was all covered.”

“Anything in particular that stood out?” Vedanta waited while the woman concentrated really hard, her mouth pursing and her eyes squeezing tight in contemplation.

“Yes,” she sighed, her eyes widening with a sense of realisation. Vedanta’s heart thumped. This could be a little clue to find the culprit. “The person, whoever it was, was in a hurry. When it leapt from the window, I was able to glance at the hair due to the wind.”

“Yes?”

“It was the hair I could see.”

“What’s so special about that?”

“My kingship,” she said, “it was silver in colour and we all know, not many silver-haired people walk in this city.”