20

Saahas looked around in bewilderment. Aham lay before him, its landscape blackened and charred as if by a forest fire, a sooty mist hanging in the air. Gusts of hot wind picked up the loose, fine soil and flung it in his face. It got in his eyes, hair and mouth, tasting gritty on his tongue. Even the sky that had once stretched high above, blue and free, appeared lower, as if dragged down by the weight of its dreariness.

Riding through the tiny hamlets he knew so well, he saw the same burnt out devastation. When he tried to talk to people, they hurried on, their faces strained and wary. At the inns, wayfarers ate their meals quickly, keeping their gaze averted. Soldiers passed him frequently and he wanted to cry out to them, ‘Look, it is me, your general.’ But their shuttered faces filled him with foreboding and his words remained unspoken.

And as the days went by, he began to notice ominous, shrouded figures stealthily appearing out of nowhere, keeping a close watch on every movement.

Saahas patted the nag. ‘Slow down. I think this must be the place.’ He had reached the halfway point between the north gate and Sundernagari, a barren place ripped apart, great mounds of dirt everywhere. Hundreds of workers, goaded constantly by soldiers in black and gold uniforms, dug the earth frenziedly. Others carried building materials, piling them up in huge heaps. ‘This used to be so green,’ he said, his voice full of dismay, ‘and full of nesting birds.’

‘Don’t dawdle,’ a guard barked at him, thrusting a leaflet into his hands. ‘Go directly to the construction supervisor. His name is Jokat. He will assign you a job.’

Saahas looked at the paper. It was a command, disguised as a poem, Princess Hussuri’s cramped signature below it.

We like you strong and fit

So don’t just stare and sit

Exercise, the Aham way

Build the temple night and day

Someone pointed out the supervisor to him, the only man on the site lolling in a tent. ‘You are not from around here, are you?’ Jokat appraised the sinewy man before him. Saahas shook his head.

‘Is your horse lame too, like you?’ He laughed at his cruel joke, but something about the impassive face dried up his mirth. ‘Start ferrying bricks to the masons over there.’

Saahas joined the stream of workers, toiling alongside them. By dusk of each day, the men erected camps and the women began cooking, the children watering and feeding the animals. At nightfall, groups of people huddled together after dinner, singing in hushed voices of their homes, of their childhood, of the trees and meadows that were no more.

Every night, Saahas heard the same story, of how the workers had been plucked from their homes, their workshops and brought to the temple site. ‘It is the queen mother’s pet project,’ he was told in whispers with many a nervous glance over the shoulder, ‘our Queen Manmaani. And this temple will be dedicated to her. She is our goddess. Jokat says that her snakeskin dress rustles like the tongues of a thousand kraits. Each tongue whispers your fate, granting your most cherished desire, but only if you do as she says.’

He was delivering materials to a mason one day when the latter suddenly addressed him ‘You don’t seem from around here.’

Saahas looked at him. Misery had dulled the wholesome features, his frame, thin and undernourished. ‘Someone told me you are an outsider,’ the mason continued, ‘like us.’

‘Us?’

The young man nodded towards a petite girl breaking stones. ‘That’s my wife, Dharaa, and I am Riju. Will you join us for dinner tonight? Please do come. It will be a relief to talk to someone without constantly watching our backs. No one here can be trusted.’

In the privacy of their cart, the couple put out a sparse meal. ‘It isn’t much, bhaiyya,’ Dharaa said shyly.

‘But it tastes as fine as a king’s feast,’ Saahas assured her, relishing the plain food.

Riju sighed, ‘We came to Aum, not Aham, a year ago.’

‘Aum,’ Saahas echoed, his heart lurching uncomfortably.

‘Yes, Aum, and how happy we were.’

Dharaa nodded, her doe eyes wistful, ‘It became our home and we were certain we would live here forever.’

‘But then terrible things happened,’ Riju said. ‘And now we cannot leave because Jokat won’t permit it. We are at his mercy.’

A knife twisted in Saahas’s gut.

‘Let us not frighten our new friend,’ Dharaa scolded her husband.

He pinched her chin, ‘All right. Let’s sing to lighten our spirits,’ and struck up a gentle melody.

After some hesitation Saahas joined in, his mellifluous baritone rising on the smoky air, the song helping to ease his heartache.

They sang one song after another, united in the memories of Aum, when a deep cough cut them off abruptly. A hulking figure intruded into their circle, its presence hostile. Saahas bit off an oath. Under his shirt, Shakti vibrated, feeling the intensity of his emotions. The sullen features of the stranger were unmistakable even in the dim firelight.

Ashwath scrutinized the trio, his eyes lingering on Saahas’s wooden leg. ‘Your voice resembles someone I once knew, a traitor, a rogue,’ he sneered. ‘If you weren’t a khanjja, I would have arrested you for impersonating him.’ Shooting a contemptuous glance at the frozen faces, he turned on his heel and vanished as suddenly as he had arrived.

Early the next morning, Saahas slipped away from the site unnoticed, riding west. Wrapping a cotton turban around his head, peasant style, he became one of many on the road. Stopping only to rest his horse, it still took him days to locate the forest of the Gondi, for it had altered too, charred stumps and thorny bushes, the only reminders of what it had once been. The tribe, famous for its skill at camouflage in the thickets, was living in the open now, in squalid little huts standing amidst filth. Hens scratched the dirt for bits of grain and insects only to have their find stolen by the cunning drongo.

No one paid any heed to Saahas. ‘I am looking for Bukkal,’ he told one grizzled Gondi.

The man looked up at him, surly and suspicious. ‘And who might you be?’

‘I . . . I am a friend.’

‘Ha! Bukkal has a friend come to see him,’ the old man announced in a loud voice. Other Gondi men got to their feet, slowly circling Saahas like a pack of wolves. A shout from beyond broke them up and they moved away, darting resentful glances at the approaching tribal.

‘Bukkal,’ Saahas exclaimed, striding forward, but the chief raised his bow, the arrow pointing at Saahas’s chest.

‘Stand back. My friend you say you are?’

Smiling ruefully, Saahas stroked his beard. ‘Yes, that is true,’ he answered, speaking in his normal voice.

The Gondi gasped, growing pale. ‘Return you have from the dead!’

Hustling Saahas into his hut, his bloodshot eyes took note of the limp. ‘Talk we must, but not in the open for guessed I have, yours is a secret mission,’ he nodded at the wooden leg. ‘Murdered the king you did, so they say, brother. But I believe it not.’

Saahas flinched. ‘What has happened to Aum, Bukkal? Why are the forests burnt to the ground?’

‘To find you and your brigade, set fire they did to every woodland. Smoke you all out like jungle rats they hoped,’ the Gondi cackled.

Blood rushed to Saahas’s head. ‘So, they savaged my Aum. God rot their souls!’ After a moment, he whispered, ‘Everything has come apart so fast. Why? Why this fear? I can see it in people’s faces, hear it in their voices.’

The Gondi’s gaze wavered. Taking a long swig from a dried gourd shell, he smacked his lips. ‘Changes, everywhere you look changes there are. Nothing the same. Not you, not I. To the beautiful city you go and see for yourself. Sundernagari gone, changed it has to Andheri.’

Andheri, the City of Darkness. Saahas hugged his arms around himself, aware of a terrible urge to weep.

Bukkal leaned close, his breath fetid. ‘Fear you say, brother? In Andheri smell it you will. Anyone displeases Shunen, next day in the main square they hang. Everywhere they are, the king’s spies, the commander’s men. Escape no one can. So as they say, we do.’

Saahas drew a shaky breath. ‘I couldn’t live like that, like a slave.’

‘Slaves we all are, brother,’ Bukkal shot him a sidelong glance. ‘Destiny’s slaves. Before her, we must bow our heads.’

‘Your destiny awaits you,’ Nirmohi’s words reverberated back to him. It had sounded like a benediction then, but now he wasn’t so sure. ‘I must be off,’ he said, getting to his feet.

‘You head to where, brother? Maybe one more time I see you?’

Something about Bukkal’s expression perturbed Saahas. ‘I’m not sure which direction I will take,’ he shrugged, ‘but I’ll be in touch.’

No sooner did he duck behind a broken shed than Bukkal appeared, whipping his bullocks towards Andheri. A queer sensation wrapped itself around Saahas’s heart, squeezing it. ‘Bukkal has traded his soul for gold,’ he whispered. Shunen would soon learn of his return and then he would be hunted, again.