The Peacock

“Kosalas and Sakyas,” Gada called over his shoulder in a soft voice. The youth wiggled backwards from the ridge overlooking Yamuna’s waters. “There’s a fortified village about a half mile away, at the steepest rise.”

Chandaka frowned. He had meant to skirt Kalamas territory. It was plain he’d made a wrong turn. They should have taken that fork to the west a few miles back. He’d been in too much of a hurry.

Gada scrambled down the hill to where Chandaka and Prahlad waited in a little copse. He brushed damp earth and leaves from his clothes.

“Many dead on the battlefield,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “They’ve been fighting a while.” He wiped a dirty hand across his forehead, leaving a dark smear. It made him look even younger, barely old enough to fight.

“No need to whisper, girlie,” Prahlad said, washing down a piece of dry chapatti with a squirt from his waterskin. He poured some water over his sun-reddened face and it dribbled down his muscular chest. “Or are you afraid we might finally see a little fighting? Me, I’m itching to kill me some Kosalas.”

“Shut up, Prahlad,” Chandaka said. When he was assembling his troop for this venture, Prince Ajata had endorsed Prahlad as a fine warrior. Immediately Chandaka had become suspicious. Ajata had been scheming against him since his early days at the Maghadan court, even though Chandaka had made every effort to convince his half-brother that he had no designs on the throne. “Take him along, son,” King Bimbisara advised. “He’s a good man in a fight.” Maybe so, but Prahlad was also sullen and insubordinate and arrogant.

Prahlad rose and slung the waterskin over the wooden saddle and tugged at his plain garb. On this assignment they were not wearing the Maghadan clan’s copper and silver colors. Chandaka and his father had agreed it was best to look like they were mercenaries serving no master.

“They’re making enough noise down there that we could all three blow a conch, and no none would even look up here,” Prahlad said.

“But we don’t all three have conchs,” Gada said.

Chandaka suppressed a sigh. Gada was a magician around horses, but he was so literal.

“Of course we don’t, you stupid, sister-fucking fool,” Prahlad grunted.

It appeared for a moment that Gada might cry. He was just a boy, really, an orphan. Chandaka had wrested him from a couple of nasty slavers on his last visit to his mother in the Licchavi capital.

“Don’t let him get to you,” Chandaka said. Prahlad snickered and they. They exchanged glares.

“The Sakyas look to be losing, Lieutenant Maurya,” the boy said, collecting himself.

When Chandaka arrived at court, everyone called him the Peacock—Mayura in the sacred tongue—for the fine plumage he purchased with the largesse his father showered on him. In the peculiar Maghadan accent, Mayura became Maurya, and the mispronunciation stuck.

“It’s not our fight,” Chandaka said, meaning to be kind, but sounding a little sharp.

Gada dropped his eyes and untied his horse from the slender trunk of a young tree covered with dry, brown leaves. “Yes, sir.”

“Could be our fight,” Prahlad said. “You once served the Sakyan prince. Besides, they are our allies.”

Chandaka didn’t want to think about that, but he couldn’t keep from asking, “How many on the battlefield?” Odd that the Sakyas would have trouble with the Kosalas. Once almost invincible, the Kosalan army had in recent years suffered major defeats.

“I counted fifteen elephants on the Kosalan side. Three battalions. Elephants, infantry, and chariots are deployed in the lotus formation.”

“Lotus Formation?” Chandaka asked, incredulous.

“Yes, sir. Don’t you know the story of how Prince Arjuna’s son broke the formation?” he said, mistaking Chandaka’s incredulity for ignorance. “My father would tell us the tale. He would draw the battle lines on the dirt floor of our hut.” For a moment, the boy stared at the ground, unseeing. Then he cleared his throat. “Of course, there was witchcraft involved… but that’s the situation, sir. The Kosalas have caught quite a few Sakyan cavalry in the spiral.”

“I know, I know,” Chandaka said irritably. Modern armies never used that ancient strategy. It was damned tricky. The commander’s elephant was in the lotus’s center and troops deployed in a spiral around him. Enemy cavalry and chariots rode into its midst and were trapped as the formation shrank into itself like a lotus closing its petals. It had been the death of Abhimanyu, though he saved the day for the Pandava army. “Who rides the Kosalan command elephant?”

“It’s not a white one, sir.”

Only a king could ride a white elephant. It must be Prince Virudhan. “How many Sakyas?”

“Maybe two battalions, sir. They have their white elephant with them.”

So Suddhodana was in command. Why on earth would he have attacked the Kosalas in their own territory with only two battalions? “It’s not our fight,” Chandaka muttered, though the Sakyan king had once been like a father to him. But that was long ago.

“Lieutenant Maurya?” Gada said.

“Think your precious Prince Siddhartha is with them, Chandaka?” Prahlad said. “Think his dear old bapu let the future world emperor out of the palace this time? They’re all mad, that Sakyan royalty.”

“What do you know about it?” Chandaka snapped.

Prahlad shrugged and smirked. Gada pulled his short braid over his shoulder and tugged at it.

Chandaka vaulted into his saddle. “We have a mission to complete. I want to get back to my father’s territory with the Gandharan steeds while the weather holds.”

The three of them rode single file through the copse to where the rest of the troop waited. They had stopped by a stream to water the desert-bred horses they bought in Taxila. If they managed to get the small herd back to the Maghadan capital, King Bimbisara would use them to show his officers the virtues of the light chariots the Sakyan army favored, the sort Chandaka used to drive for Siddhartha.

Those years back in Kapilavastu, Chandaka and Siddhartha studied the maneuvers and practiced technique endlessly. They won every competition and war game, yet it was not the same as if they had been tested together on a real battlefield.

Chandaka’s shoulders slumped. Even after all this time in his father’s capital, it pained him to remember those carefree days as the Sakyan prince’s charioteer.

They had barely escaped the foolhardy Varanasi adventure with their lives. Nalaka swept Siddhartha and Dhara away to Kapilavastu, leaving Chandaka behind with Harischandra. Chandaka took a more prosaic route to his father’s court: the fisherman Matsya and his wife took him and the rishiki Bhadda to Rajagriha, the Maghadan capital, in their rather smelly boat. Not long after his arrival, he learned that Siddhartha and Dhara had circled the fire seven times to become man and wife.

“I fear nothing good will come of their marriage,” Kirsa had written to him. It was not difficult to read between the lines and see that her heart was broken. It would have been the perfect time for Chandaka to be there to comfort her, but he had to consider that King Suddhodana would not forgive him for helping Siddhartha slip away to Varanasi. Or that’s what he liked to tell himself. In truth, it was because Kirsa still loved Siddhartha more than him, even if her childhood sweetheart belonged to someone else.

They emerged into the cool glade where the others were waiting. A nameless stream that fed into Yamuna’s river ran through it, its clear waters muddied by the hooves of the thirty horses his troop rode and the fifty they were guiding back to Maghada.

“We should keep as far as we can from Yamuna’s waters,” Chandaka said to his men. “We can cut a little west, then go south until we’re past Surasena and Avanti territory. Then head due east to Maghada.”

Just then, a trim female warrior appeared across the stream. “Lieutenant Maurya!” she called, gesturing behind her. “This path runs into a kind of trail that runs south-southwest. It’s rutted and half-overgrown. Probably won’t meet up with anyone if we take it.”

Chandaka smiled at her. “Then we’ll follow you, Shalini. Mount up, everyone.”

Shalini’s face remained impassive. The Maghadan warrior’s code stated that for the sake of discipline, there were to be no sexual relations between male and female warriors, but she came to Chandaka at night. Punishment for this was anything up to and including death, if the troop commander deemed it necessary, but Chandaka was the troop’s commander, and Shalini was willing. He ignored the regulation.

The blast from a nearby conch shattered the glade’s quiet in the glade. His hand went to his sword. Half his troops had mounted and managed to hang onto the reins and saddlehorns as their horses shied and bucked in surprise. The other half were knocked under the hooves of the panicking Gandharan horses. The warriors shouted and cursed as they gained control of their animals.

An even closer blast sounded, and a rider wearing Sakyan blue and gold burst from the woods, galloping through the shallow stream to plunge into the milling desert horses. His mount reared and pawed the air, and the warrior, who could hardly have been older than a boy, tumbled off and twisted, landing face down in the water.

Before anyone had a chance to pull the Sakyan up, the conch sounded again. Half a dozen riders in Kosalan black and red galloped out of the trees.

“It’s our fight now, sir,” Gada cried as he drew his sword.

Shalini gave a whoop and charged the Kosalas, who were too close together to rein up and turn back downstream. They were quickly surrounded and captured. Meanwhile, most of Chandaka’s warriors had managed to control their own well-trained horses after the initial shock, but he watched with a sinking heart as the fifty Gandharan steeds took off in all directions.

“Gada!” he shouted.

The boy wheeled toward him. “I’ll round them up, sir,” he cried.

“Take Ravi and Urvas.” Gada motioned to the two young warriors and they disappeared into the trees after the escaping horses. “Everyone, in the saddle! More Kosalas are bound to follow!”

The chaos had subsided. Several of his warriors who had fallen underfoot in the initial moments were moving slowly to their feet. A groan rose from right below him. It was Prahlad, who was trying to rise. Next to Prahlad, still face down in the stream, was the little Sakyan, one arm akimbo.

There was something familiar about the still figure. Chandaka slid off his horse and knelt in the cool water. Gingerly, he turned the young warrior over.

A woman. She coughed and spluttered.

“My arm… ” she groaned, and opened her eyes.

Dhara. That arrogant girl from Varanasi. Siddhartha’s wife.

The battle was over; the Sakyas victorious.

Thanks in part to the help of him and his troop, Chandaka thought as he led his warriors through the bloody, dusty Sakyan soldiers. The Sakyas gave off an aura that was simultaneously weary and full of fierce, victorious joy.

“Chandaka!” someone called.

He glanced from side to side, but before he could identify the voice, someone was pounding him on the shoulder.

“Chandaka, old man!”

For a moment, Chandaka didn’t recognize the bearded face caked with sweat and dirt. “Dhaumya?”

“Who else?” Dhaumya laughed. They embraced. “You don’t recognize the one who always beat you at wrestling? Maybe you don’t remember my face because I always had your head in a hammerlock.”

Chandaka felt light-headed. “The last time I saw you, you were beardless.”

A little crowd had gathered around them now, grinning like idiots and pushing each other to give Chandaka bear hugs or pound him on the back. They emanated the stink of the battlefield, of enemy blood, of shit and horse sweat. Some wore hastily tied bandages red with blood. These men had once all been boys surrounding their beloved, the golden Prince Siddhartha. Chandaka let himself be jostled and pushed by these familiar strangers, too full of emotion to speak.

“The king,” Dhaumya said, rescuing him from the friendly mob. He pointed at the white elephant and gave Chandaka a gentle shove in its direction.

“Chandaka.” From atop Marut’s enormous white bulk, Suddhodana fixed him with an amber-eyed stare. The raucous shouts of victorious soldiers and the distant groans and shrieks of dying men and animals faded until the only person in the world was the Sakyan king. “You’ve performed a great service for us today,” the king said. “Your troop is small, but your warriors fought like a legion. You saved my son’s wife.”

Chandaka’s heart beat fast and his hands shook. He hoped Suddhodana couldn’t see. “My—my—” His voice caught in his throat. He took a deep breath. Was he going to cry? Humiliating. “Namaste, my lord.” His voice quavered.

The elephant raised his white trunk as if greeting an old friend—which he was. Stealing down to the royal stables and mounting the great creature was one of Chandaka’s first boyhood misadventures with Siddhartha. It turned out that getting down from Marut was trickier than getting on, and Chandaka had nearly broken his leg dismounting.

He watched in trembling admiration as Suddhodana climbed out of his gilded turret and slid down Marut’s side in one graceful motion, ignoring the rope ladder the mahout held out for him. Without hesitation the king embraced Chandaka. “My boy.” To his acute embarrassment, Chandaka couldn’t suppress a sob. “What’s this?” Suddhodana said with a laugh, holding him at arm’s length for a moment, then embracing him again. “Are those tears of joy? Or are you afraid I’ll have your head for the Varanasi adventure?”

Chandaka returned the king’s embrace with a flustered and tearful laugh. “I’m in your power now, my lord. You may do what you wish with my head.”

“I’m going to drag it to Kapilavastu and show it to Siddhartha, of course. Keeping it firmly attached to the rest of you. Ah, my dear boy, it’s good to see you.”

“And you, my lord.” There was an awkward moment when Suddhodana seemed to be waiting for Chandaka to continue, but he was choked with tears.

His troop watched this exchange with complete amazement, and some among the assembled Sakyan officers smiled. Someone among his old friends started whooping. “Jai, Vivasvat! Jai, Chandaka!”

Suddhodana raised his hand to silence the shouts. Chandaka stood in flustered silence for a moment. Then a murmur moved over the army like a wave over the shore of the Eastern Sea as the outlaw queen rode up.

Chandaka had seen her several times since the night in Varanasi when she saved all of them. She was on more than cordial terms with Chandaka’s half-brother Ajata, though their father Bimbisara did not have the formal alliance with her that Suddhodana did. Her mere presence always seemed to cast a shadow, even on a day like today with the sun blazing in a cloudless sky. It was as though she drew its light to her and transformed it within herself into a dark aura as powerful as Suddhodana’s bright one. Hers was of the earth, the deep forest, the Great Mother, while his was of the sky gods.

The look that passed between the outlaw queen and the Sakyan king charged the air. He’d never seen such raw lust on Suddhodana’s face, not even with Addha.

“You will stay for the feast tonight,” Suddhodana said, a command, not a request. Everyone’s eyes turned to the outlaw.

“No.” A few in the crowd shifted uncomfortably. “The war isn’t over.” She let out a brutal laugh, and everyone stepped back. Suddhodana frowned. She gave another laugh, amused and contemptuous. “My army prefers not to bivouac with yours. Virudha is hurrying back to his father with his tail between his legs, and it will be easy to pick off some of the laggards.” She wheeled her horse and galloped away.

Suddhodana stared after her in fury. No one moved. A faint breeze brought the groans of fallen Kosalas on the battlefield and the calls of the outcastes sent by the Kalamas clan to dispatch their wounded and send their souls for Yama’s judgment.

There was another rustle as the crowd parted to admit Bhela, the king’s priest. “I shall make arrangements for the sacrifice, my lord, to offer our thanks to Indra.”

Suddhodana looked across the river. “There’s your sacrifice. Say your prayers over them.” He strode away. In the awkward silence the king left, the old Brahmin stood watching with his lips pressed tight together. The officers and men averted their eyes and began to move away.

“Where will we camp, Lieutenant Maurya?” Shalini asked.

Chandaka was at a momentary loss for what to do, and then he felt a tap on his shoulder.

“Captain Sukesa!” he exclaimed upon seeing the warrior who taught him military strategy and palace politics. For the second time, tears threatened to embarrass Chandaka.

“I’ll thank you to call me General now, you upstart,” Sukesa said as he embraced him. They looked at each other and embraced again. Sukesa’s round belly sagged a bit more now, and his warrior’s braid was thinner. Wisps of hair stuck to his sweaty face, but it didn’t matter. Happiness got the better of Chandaka, and he had to brush a tear from his cheek. Sukesa laughed. “Ah, how we’ve missed you.”

“I wouldn’t have known,” Chandaka blurted. “In six years, not a word from Siddhartha.” He meant it to come out as light banter, but his bitterness was clear.

“Lieutenant Maurya?” Shalini interrupted.

“Camp over there,” Sukesa said to her. “Near the king’s own tent. You, boy,” he called to a page. “Show Chandaka’s warriors where to pitch their tents. You’ll come with me, young man.” He put his arm around Chandaka’s shoulder and led him aside. “Lieutenant Peacock?” He raised an eyebrow.

Chandaka laughed self-consciously. “I’m known for my elegant attire.”

“As you always were,” Sukesa laughed. “Ratna will be glad to hear her influence has stood the test of time.”

“How is she? Oh, how is Siddhartha?” He couldn’t hide his desperation for news of his old friend. “Tell me everything.”

Sukesa lowered his voice. “His majesty worries about Siddhartha. The old prophecy, you know. The prince is restless. You should come to Kapilavastu. It would do him good to see you.”

“After Varanasi, I can’t believe the king thinks my presence will help.”

Sukesa shook his head. “Let the past lie. Siddhartha’s missed you all these years. You don’t have to stay forever. But we can talk more of this later.” He glanced at Shalini and gave Chandaka a sly smile. “Time to pitch your tent.”