Eventually, we fell asleep together all tangled up under a tree. As I fell into the dreamlands, I thought about my husband, wondering if he would have joined us today. But no, he was a serious man. Even now, on a summer day, he was away at the big city, counting the new shipment of cloths that had come in. He was in favor with the queen, who specially ordered countless bolts of his most expensive silks. I was proud of him, a true businessman, never a boy. I smiled and fell fast asleep with my daughter curled at my side and my son leaning on my shoulder.

  I woke up, startled into wakefulness by a scream.

  “What happened? What is the matter?” I cried out, looking around, bleary-eyed, ready to run to the rescue. It was my daughter, staring at me with huge tears trickling down her cheeks.

  “Mother, I dreamt of a demon that has many, many heads and lots of arms reaching for me. He had sharp teeth and a red tongue.”

  “Ravana,” my son said, before I could.

  “The monster from the stories,” I said, smoothing her hair. “That’s all.”

  “But he felt so real,” she said, “as if he was standing right next to us. And he was whispering, ‘Wake up, wake up, sweet child, and come to me.’ ”

  I felt a shiver run down my spine and noticed a chill in the air. The sun was going down.

  Suddenly I felt vulnerable, a lone woman with two children. I could hear my husband scolding me, as if I were an irresponsible child.

  “Let’s go home,” I said, hurrying up and away, clutching their hands tightly.

  I even left our steel utensils behind in my fear.

  Once we were on the familiar trail, I felt reassured and let them run ahead.

  The evening rays shone through the trees and it was a peaceful place. I settled into my stroll home, too tired to match my children’s energy. Soon their laughter and calls faded, but they knew the way so I was not worried. We had walked here a thousand times. Humming, I began to pick some wildflowers for a bouquet; I could use the gold-plated vase the queen had gifted us. I froze.

  My daughter’s dream came alive.

  Looking at me with countless pairs of eyes, he stood there, quiet like a statue. Not one of his many arms moved. All his eyes watched me, and all his mouths said, “Wake up, sweet child, come to me.”

  I threw the flowers at him and ran into the forest, too panicked to even think. I heard xiv

  prologue by no one

  him laughing, a terrifying sound. When he caught me moments later, he had put my flowers behind his ears, mocking me.

  “Don’t be afraid, sweetling,” he whispered, pinning my arms to my side.

  All I could do now was plead. “Please let me go. I have two children who need me.”

  My child, being more perceptive, had sensed this monster around us while I had not.

  I could feel my tears running down my neck into my garment and shivered when his eyes followed the movement of my tears.

  “Do you want to come with me?” he asked, mesmerizing me with his gleaming eyes and teeth.

  The way his countless heads spoke in unison made me feel I was being hypnotized.

  This is not real. This is not real! I told myself. Wake up, wake up now!

  I would wake up at the tree and I would be the one who told my children about a dream of a monster with ten heads.

  No, no, no. I shook my head, unable to speak. Then my mind was flooded with a vivid image of my son and daughter. Their . . . heads were . . . ripped off and . . .

  “Come with me and that need not happen,” he said.

  What choice did I have then?

  He said he had not come to kill me. But by the time he was finished with me, I begged him to. There is no going back once you take the hand of darkness. No matter what the reason.

  I’m dead now. Or I’m alive, in another life, far from the one I knew and treasured. I might be one of his queens now. Or I might be a ghost, haunting everyone I meet with my violent end. I was not the only one. Simply one of many.

  I don’t know who I am. I’m no one. I could be anyone.

  xv

  The King

  of the World

  chapter 1

  The Sound of Victory

  anthara had another name once. But in the year she turned fifteen, her back reached its terminal crookedness, and from then on she was called Manthara, “The Hunchback.” Never mind that she lived in a palace and was surrounded by so-called noble people. They were the first to rename her. It was a cruel world for those like her. Her kind, and anyone else with divergent features, was always shunned and considered harbingers of evil. A crooked spine meant a crooked mind. An eye defect meant an inability to understand righteousness. Too much hair on the body meant indulgence. Too little hair meant scarcity. A disease of the body meant a disease of the mind. All of these were cases of bad karma, and the karmi-cally fortunate vigilantly guarded the boundaries of their lives. It was said that Manthara’s mere shadow would cast a curse on whomever it touched.

  At the onset of puberty, when her spine began its determined downward spiral, Manthara naturally retreated, intuiting the change that was coming. She hid in the royal garden, shunning her duties. Like her parents and grandparents, she was a servant in the royal palace of Kekaya, one of the fifty kingdoms under Ayodhya’s rule. It was a position of some privilege, and the elders had noted that Manthara was gifted, a quick learner, someone who never forgot a thing once told. But because she was a servant’s child and, more important, a female, she was

  ch a p ter 1

  relegated to standing in the corner as a dead observer. She was allowed to step out of the shadows only if one of the high-caste children dropped a book or spilled his ink. In short, she was a servant to clumsy idiots. The only pupil who never dropped a thing was Ashvapati, the king’s son. He was the one who always knew the teachers’ answers. He was the one who greeted Manthara as he passed by her in the corner. He was not like other humans, for he could communicate with animals, especially horses and swans. This gift had been given to him by a visiting sage, and the only restriction was that he could never share what he knew.

  His birth stars clearly showed that he would add to Kekaya’s wealth through his natural rap-port with horses, and he was named Ashvapati, “Lord of Horses.” Ashvapati was unusual, for the other high-caste children did not have eyes to see servants. Still, Manthara learned a great deal by listening. She could recall every lesson, from the first to the last. That is how she suspected at once what was happening to her, even before she was sent to the physician. That happened in her eleventh year when her cycles began. The physician told her what she already knew: her spine was deformed, and she would become a hunchback in mid-adolescence. There was no cure.

  Looking back later, Manthara wished she would have understood what her affliction really meant: that she would become repulsive, especially to men. She had been too innocent to understand that. Like most other girls, Manthara had been shy of the natural changes in her body: her budding breasts, the onset of her courses. She became extra self-conscious by the small but discernible hump on her back. Her parents sought a respectable boy for her, but it was the boy and his family who in their scrutiny noted the abnormality of her back. That was the beginning of Manthara. Though she hadn’t truly been Manthara then, it was a defin-ing moment. She had been on the verge of serving hot tea to the prospective family when the prospective groom, a mere boy, made his comment. The steam from the spicy tea made her face moist as she hung her neck in shame. No one wanted a Manthara for their son. She, who had once been a human being, now was a hunchback, an altogether different category.

  Her kind had a distinct reputation for being crooked in mind. It was deemed impossible for someone so ugly to be pious or wise. When the transformation was complete in her fifteenth year, she belonged to another category of the living.

  This exclusion was the pinnacle of cruelty. The philosophy had no depth: it insisted on external beauty, a thing that had nothing to do with what was within. Therefore, Manthara disregarded the superstition of the people; she saw that they were the fools. She would let them whisper their faces blue and their souls black. She knew her own caliber. The soul within was capable of immense power, unimaginable to the feebleminded. She would show them one day what she was capable of. It took some time, however, for Manthara to come to this conviction. The transition from being an ordinary girl into an outcast was a bitter time for her. The world found every excuse to exclude the hunchbacked girl. She was no longer welcome at weddings or birthdays. She was not allowed into the temples or any other place considered sacred. She was barely tolerated by her peers. It was a miracle that she was allowed to remain in the palace at all, and for this good fortune she was meant to be endlessly sycophantic.

  4

  the sound of v ictory

  In her fifteenth year, Manthara’s parents cast her out, and she could not go anywhere in public without children throwing things at her or ridiculing her. No one stopped them. She slunk around the palace, afraid of her tormentors. She couldn’t bear that side of herself and cast about for something worthy to aspire to. She wasn’t sure how to direct her ambition, but her heart burned with the knowing that she was meant to do something great. During these solitary years of survival, Manthara developed a rich inner life, one that gave her solace when externally there was none. She slept outside in the gardens, for the servants’ quarters were full of people eager to squash someone less fortunate. Because of this, she stumbled across Kekaya’s well-kept secret, hidden away in a remote part of the royal gardens. The discovery of a secret was in itself potent, a source of such thrill that it became an addiction. The secret itself influenced Manthara’s path for the rest of her crooked life.

  Manthara came across the secret from her habit of being where she should not. She had been shooed away many times from that area of the gardens. But even from a distance, she could see the unusual brightness of the flowers and trees growing there. One part of her mind suspected the nature of the plants, but she was not close enough to be certain. When she asked the other servants what was there, she did not get even a half-cooked rumor, only blank stares. This intrigued her and was the beginning of the obsession. She had to know the secret. She abandoned the little dignity she still possessed and crawled under bushes and trees to get past the guards. They kept their noses in the air anyway. No one but Manthara would dare go somewhere forbidden. Even so, she was not prepared when she came face to face with two creatures that no words could possibly describe. The three of them gaped at each other. The two beauties exuded a magnetic power so strong that Manthara, who did not like physical touch, felt an urgent need to embrace them. She did not. Only a fool would. Or a man. Manthara’s heart hammered against her chest, and her mind worked faster than it ever had before. She took in every detail of the two women with the brilliant and haunted eyes.

  She knew what they were: not one but two flesh-and-blood Vishakanyas, poisonous virgins, whose very touch could kill.

  This was a secret fit for kings, for the virgins were used as assassins against highly placed politicians or kings. No one could know that they existed at all, for whispers of a Visha would make the most licentious king wary. The virgins glowed with deathly pallor. They had the tragic aura of the dying, yet their life energies were fiercely fighting for them to live, making them pulsate with life. It was as if every moment of their existence was imbued with a life-and-death struggle. The living were drawn to them like flies to a fire. They were powerful weapons, created to kill unsuspecting men. One gentle embrace, one chaste kiss, was all it took. Because men could not see beyond their lust, they were easy to kill.

  Imagine how surprised the Vishakanyas must have been when Manthara came crawling out from a bush, dirty, disheveled, hunched over, and uglier than a demon. They stared at Manthara with open fascination, and Manthara could see that their thinking had not been tainted by societal standards. They didn’t see a Manthara; the Vishas just saw a girl with a terribly crooked back. Manthara loved them at once. They circled around her, never coming too close, but examining her gently with their eyes. Manthara was welcome here. No 5

  ch a p ter 1

  doubt they were starved for affection and company. Manthara was awed by their immense beauty and the enormity of their power. In a sense, they were outcasts too, hidden away, and brought forth only in dire political circumstances when a lustful king would die in their embrace.

  Satisfaction spread in Manthara’s heart. Every woman had a Vishakanya in her, a being whose touch was lethal. Men were such utter fools. Manthara felt camaraderie with the Vishas, and having befriended them, she knew more about herself and the world. Manthara would never give birth to life, but she could cause death. She could be poisonous to the touch. There was satisfaction in that possibility. For many years, this was Manthara’s highest aspiration: she would be a self-made Vishakanya.

  It was a complicated aspiration, for just as Manthara’s kind had a reputation, so did the Vishas. They were always maidens of uncommon beauty, selected at a young age and introduced to a diet of poison, without which they would die.

  Even if Manthara had possessed uncommon beauty, which she certainly did not, she was far too old at fifteen to ever become a Visha. But she was not so easily deterred, having found a fitting goal in life. Several times a week, she crawled through the underbrush and visited the two creatures, observing especially what they ate and drank. That was the most fascinating part. They drank only the water from tender coconuts, and every few days, a man came bearing two vials. Manthara hid away, and the Vishas kept her presence a secret. They would not divulge, however, what type of poison they were administered. Manthara watched the man struggle to be unmoved by the Vishas, for he always had to jerk his sneaky hand away at the last moment. From her hiding place, Manthara could not get a sense of what the poison looked or smelled like. But patience always rewards, for one day, she was close enough to hear the man ask: “How many flowers have you eaten?”

  Suddenly an image of the Vishakanyas eating certain flowers was clear in Manthara’s mind. It dawned on her that they were surrounded by poisonous plants of all kinds. There were white soma flowers, shaped like the moon; pink olean-der bushes; and lots of lily of the valley with tiny white flowers shaped like teardrops. She saw the vivid purple aconite and 6

  ch a p ter 1

  the suicide tree, with its round green fruit the size of her closed fist. The names of the plants came to Manthara effortlessly, one of the many lessons she had absorbed standing in the shadows. This was the answer to her prayer. She would eat flowers too. If the Vishas could casually eat ten of the teardrops, surely Manthara could eat one and work her way up. She found the pristine teardrops and plucked several tears off. Every part of this pretty flower was poisonous. Manthara popped it into her mouth without hesitation. She made it back to her quarters before the vomiting began. She grew dizzy and ill and was bedridden for days.

  But she survived and was well on her way to become a Visha too. Or so she foolishly thought.

  Manthara managed to ingest as many as four of the teardrops at a time before the charade was exposed.

  During this time, it became known around the palace that Manthara was not suitably humble. She dared exchange words with Prince Ashvapati himself. She dared look others in the eye. She dared open her mouth before superiors. She refused to accept her position as a hunchback. Manthara knew she was despised, but the feeling was mutual. Even a dog, kicked once too many, might growl and show his teeth. Manthara was no dog. She showed her teeth at the mere suggestion of a kick. It worked like an incantation and kept the malicious away. Manthara had not yet learned the true nature of humans. Punishment was the twin side of goodness, one followed by the other. Manthara had to be put in her place, as if karma had not already done it. It began as the typical coward’s confrontation: many against one. Manthara was alone in the gardens when they surrounded her, sticks and stones in hand, smug with the fact that no elders where in sight. She counted five males and three females. All known faces, a mix of servants and high castes, people who had once been her friends. It began as a verbal feud despite the weapons in their hands.

  The leader of the gang swaggered forward. He was Manthara’s antithesis, too handsome to be considered cruel. He was the very one who, lifetimes ago, had been her prospective groom. Manthara kept her eyes on him, knowing his vicious streak. “Even the snake knows its place,” he said. “It slithers close to the ground. Manthara thinks she is something special.

  She thinks she can piss on the sacred fire and thereby ignite it!”

  The girls giggled, and the boys voiced agreement.

  “I say,” Manthara replied boldly, “your mother mated with a baboon to beget you.”

  A few boys laughed uneasily. One with an asinine face leered, “You paint your bottom with the sacred clay, mistaking it for your face.”

  This provoked loud laughter, and they began to circle around her. Poking her with their sticks, they threw out what meager insults they could think of:

  “A snail has more spine than you!”

  “Yama’s messengers would run screaming if they saw you!”

  “You leave a trail of slime wherever you go!”

  “The spit of a lowborn is cleaner than you!”

  “Worm!”

  “Snake!”

  8

  the sound of v ictory

  “Witch!”

  Manthara felt the savage threat of the rocks and sticks they held. Her hands were heavy with nothing. But she was not yet afraid; they had needed those objects and each other to even muster the guts to approach Manthara.

  “I say,” she cried, “that you are all low-caste cowards who drink donkey urine.”

  “You see?” the leader said. “She needs to be taught a lesson!”

  “Yes! Yes!”

  “Bow at my feet,” he said. “And I will consider forgiving you.”

  “Your face is nearly there anyway!”

 

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