The Three Queens

I loved Kaikeyi from the moment I was taken to her cradle by my mother and told to watch over her. It was the moment that gave shape and meaning to my whole life; till then the world was a dull haze of rough words and hard slaps. I knew I was different; when I was old enough to understand, I heard myself being addressed as ‘tortoise’ or ‘frog.’

My mother was her mother’s slave. And her mother was queen. Who was my father? I do not know. It was not important. Men are not of much importance, except as they can be manipulated and charmed and made to work your will. As worshippers of the old religion, of our mother goddess, we understand that women are the subtle rivers that carry the world forward.

My Kaikeyi grew like a flower in that beautiful land of mists and mountains that I have not set eyes on for so many years. Word of her beauty spread from the time she was twelve, but very few people knew of the sharp mind and strong will behind that dazzling fairness. A lot of people felt the whip which she wielded in temper, and the sting of her tongue; but she never laid a hand on me. She would tell me all her secrets, I was her intimate other self. I knew every mood, every thought that passed through her mind.
And then her father lost the war against Dasharatha. The campaign had been going on for so long that we had accustomed ourselves to deprivation and even hunger. In the end our soldiers were no match for these strange, dark-skinned plainspeople with their metal-tipped arrows and their fleet horses. When Rajgriha was about to fall, Kaikeyi’s father sued for peace. Among the prizes taken was Kaikeyi by whom the stranger-king appeared bewitched. To be fair, he married her according to our rites, but as she whispered to me as we prepared her for her wedding night, “He’s so old, Manthara.”

It was taken for granted that I should travel with her to Ayodhya. I would not be separated from her, that was all that mattered.

On the long, tedious journey back, Kaikeyi entwined herself even further around the king’s heart, by saving his life when he was seriously wounded by a stray arrow from one of the rebel tribesmen. She nursed him back to life with my help and won his gratitude and esteem; he begged her to ask him for anything she wanted. She wisely refrained from voicing any desire, and made him believe that she had done it for love.

The heat of the plains was the least we had to contend with in the beginning. Kaikeyi’s alien beauty, the soft sibilances of our language, even the food we preferred, earned the mockery of the court, and the jealousy of those who resented her power over the king. I had to protect my queen from the innuendoes and slights of the majority of courtiers, as well as from the flattery and servility of a minority; as for me, there was no end to the mischievous tricks they play on me, even now, children and adults alike. Within the palace, I am a mere slave, a ‘dasi,’ beneath contempt, fair game.

All roads lead to Ayodhya. It is the powerful and resplendant centre of a vast empire. The Raghus have ruled for many generations and by giving the king an aura of divinity, politics has become a skilful game of intertwining history and myth and legend. The brahmins who surround the king are clever and devious; different factions and their intrigues surround the king. Religion, politics and sex are all that interest the people and of course, gossip. Marriage has allied the king with other ambitious rulers, and political diplomacy keeps the strong at bay; vast sums of money are spent in keeping the army happy, trade with distant countries brings prosperity and spies bring information.

However, Dasharatha is ageing, and he has no sons. The three queens maintain a precarious balance of civility on the surface but deep-rooted jealousies have entwined themselves around all their lives. Kausalya is almost as old as the king; they are cousins, they share a lot of memories. Sumitra was the princess of another nearby kingdom, younger by several years, good-humoured, and not a rival in any real sense. But when Dasharatha brought Kaikeyi as his prize after his long campaign in the North-West, the older two queens knew they had lost him. She was beautiful, exotic, temperamental, and most importantly, much younger. She does not speak the same language and does not bother to learn the rigorous Kshatriya code they live by. The king is besotted, her sexual slave.

Kausalya has the status of the Eldest Queen, she even has a daughter by Dasharatha, she was the one chosen to behead the horse that was the centre of the Ashvamedha yagna, that great, auspicious ceremony, which established the king as the supreme ruler. But I can see how hollow it all is.

The king, it is said, has only his people’s interests at heart. It is said, that dharma guides all his actions. But how do you keep a vast kingdom in order? Tree-lined streets, beautiful temples and palaces, religious rituals and festivals that coincide with the seasons, a generous food distribution system, taxation that is not a scourge. People need to feel that they are part of something larger than themselves. Outside the city are warring tribes, and sometimes the wars spill into our territory. Ayodhya is a golden bubble that could burst at any time.

Kaikeyi’s court is the most splendid. Ambassadors from other countries first pay her homage before visiting Kausalya and Sumitra. Her jewels, her clothes are always the talk of the city. There is music and dance and entertainment on a scale that Ayodhya has never seen, and the king spends most evenings with her. She has her own retinue of servants, and she surrounds herself with beautiful young women, except for me….. who remain in the shadows, the ugly hunchback, but the only one she can trust completely. I bring her all the information she needs to know.

So when Vasishtha, the king’s prime minister called on Kausalya a few weeks ago, and revealed under the severest oath of secrecy that he had come by an aphrodisiac which when taken under the right circumstances, could beget a son, the queen understood what was really being said. If Kaikeyi had a son, her father and brothers would take over Ayodhya, become de facto rulers, and that would be the end of the House of Raghu.
But neither Kausalya nor Sumitra is trained in the arts of seduction. They are plain women, schooled in a stern Kshatriya discipline. Kausalya has turned to religion, always a recourse for disappointed women, and Sumitra tries to emulate her in good works. What Vasishtha required of them was that they tempt the king back to their beds, how were they to do that? Kausalya invited the king to see her, one evening, and clumsily plied him with wine. And another evening, Sumitra wore her finest clothes and perfumed herself, and tried to waylay him in a corridor.

But nothing goes unnoticed in a court. Even the flicker of a royal person’s eye is noted and commented on or the information is relayed to a possible bidder.

The news of Vasishtha’s visit was brought to me by one of Kausalya’s serving women. I had got this woman’s son a place in the palace and she was grateful. When this was followed by the uncharacteristic behaviour of the two queens, I informed Kaikeyi. Her first reaction was to laugh, but when she teased the king about these incidents, she noticed a certain evasiveness in his manner. It did not take very long for her to find out what had happened and to figure out why.

Talk of the three queens’ pregnancies has become the talk of the land. Clearly a miracle has happened and all kinds of purificatory rites and propitiation of the gods are being performed. Kaikeyi was eager for her child to be born in her father’s house, but I warned her that she is too delicate to attempt the long, arduous journey back. Besides if she has a son, it is quite likely that the king would name him crown prince; his rights would need to be safeguarded. And there is no one more able than I, Manthara, to see to it that he is, one day, crowned king.


Seasons turn, years pass.

Dawn comes, and another and yet another. Outside the cluster of huts, children call out shrilly, a man’s voice is raised in anger, a dog stretches lazily, and there is the dull thud of wood being chopped. Smoke from several cooking pots hovers in the air mingling with the dust raised by a sharp wind. A fine mist covers the river from view, but it is there in the damp chill, which creeps into people’s bones.

A woman lies dying inside one of the huts. Time no longer has any meaning in her consciousness; rather she ranges freely, hovering now like an eagle over the far peaks and valleys where her childhood was spent, then spiralling down into the city just a few miles upstream, with its gleaming towers, its proud temples and palaces, the tree-lined streets where she grew from girlhood into womanhood. She murmurs restlessly, her eyes fluttering as if she were trying to focus on one face, one name. The words she utters are indistinguishable, clearly in another language. The girl who tends her has a hard time holding her down. It is as if the woman is listening for a call; she arches her body in an awkward twist, the shoulders are raised in a strange misshapen mass. She turns her wide, flat face to the door, eyelids fluttering, then falls back exhausted. Her breathing grows hoarse and urgent, the wide span of a lifetime has narrowed to a pinpoint for this woman.

From the door, there is the sudden sound of people running, voices are raised in excitement. The girl goes out to look; the early morning sun has cleared away the mist. There is a distant sound of trumpets and the steady beat of drums. She turns her face upwards and gasps and points at what she sees. A name is uttered, someone else takes it up and sudden anticipation fills the air.

“The King has returned! Rama has come back…” and the murmurous, hypnotic sound, that name becomes a low roar, enters the hut, swirls around the dying woman like a mist. There is a convulsive movement, a low groan and then she is still.