#kunti

Draupadi followed behind Satyavati. This woman, half a mother to the Kuru princes' old grandsire Bhishma, was clad in the plain garments of widowhood. She seemed displeased by Draupadi’s slightly slower pace, turning her head to cast a sidelong glance at her granddaughter-in-law. A length of white cloth, like a hooded robe, covered her dark hair entirely. The thin fabric cast a translucent shadow over her face, soft yet revealing, and that shadow only sharpened Satyavati’s already severe features, making her seem even more unapproachable. By age, the queen mother was old, but in appearance, the flesh of her face remained full and precisely in place. Her wrinkles had grown only to the point of lending her the charm of a mature woman, and then stopped. Why? Was it because of the blessing that made her body fragrant? ...After all, a shriveled, wrinkled mango would not be sweet-smelling, even fragrance required a vessel worthy enough to contain its miracle.

“Look,” Satyavati indicated with her eyes, gesturing for Draupadi to examine the portraits lining the corridor walls. She did not point with her hand. Her hands seemed made only to rest with dignified composure, folded before her chest, and there was little in the world that would compel her to lower herself to gesture. “These are the queens of Hastinapur, from the time of King Shantanu onward.”

“And before him?”

“None,” Satyavati said. “Because I was the first to summon painters to capture the likenesses of women, and then have these outside man beheaded.”

The woman in the first painting bore no resemblance to Satyavati at all. Satyavati was beautiful, yes, but her expression was too cold, too rigid. Even Draupadi’s elder sister, raised as a man and wearing her hair bound, possessed more warmth than she did. At most, Satyavati showed a trace of gentleness only when speaking with her grandchildren. But the young woman in the painting… her brows and eyes seemed ready to lift into laughter, as though if the portrait were moved from this solemn corridor, which resembled a gallery of memorial images, she might leap from the stone slab and alight upon the floor like a bird settling on a branch.

Perhaps accustomed to such doubt, or she also think they don't look like, Satyavati said, “That is indeed me.”

Draupadi nodded, then turned to the second painting. There were two women in it, their appearances similar. She ventured politely, “These must be the two queens of King Vichitravirya.”

Satyavati shook her head. “There is a third person in the painting.”

“The servant holding their garlands?”

“Of course she is. Why would she not?” Satyavati let out a cold, self-mocking laugh. “That is the mother of Vidura, the minister.”

To be fair, the second painting was not as interesting as the first. Though Draupadi had not lived long in this world, she had been born with divine insight, and though she could not speak of technique, she could keenly sense the emotion within a work. There was something of a maiden’s spirit in Satyavati’s portrait, but the three figures in the second painting simply sat in timid stillness. Even though the women in these portraits all bore similar faces, differing only slightly in posture and attire, Draupadi could still feel what the three of them feared. The painter had likely embellished their beauty somewhat, but, when no other emotion, only fear remained on their faces, what more could he invent?

Draupadi shifted her gaze to the third painting and recognized the figure immediately. It was Kunti, before she had been widowed. Even in her youth, her face already held a mother’s softness.

Draupadi found it difficult to define her feelings toward this widow, now half a mother to her. Kunti was full of contradictions: both old and young. Her face held the enduring joy of maternal devotion and the weariness of widowhood, yet her cheeks were still full with the bloom of youth. When light fell directly upon her, Draupadi could even see the faint softness of downy hair at the tip of her nose, like that of an infant.

She was hateful, and yet not. With a single sentence, she had bound Draupadi to five husbands. And yet, beyond that, she had never seemed like the author of a misfortune. Before returning to Hastinapur, Kunti had stood beside a vat of milk, patiently teaching Draupadi--who had never done such work--how to stir this half-curdled mixture. Draupadi had stood obediently behind her, able even to smell the scent of earth and leaves in her hair. For a moment, she had forgotten that she was the wife of the five Panduputra. Forgotten how she had sat stiffly on the bed the night before, awkwardly receiving Yudhishthira, her husband for this coming year. It was, as if she had no bodily relation with any of the five men, would never have one. As if, in truth she was simply another daughter of Kunti. She ought to call those men her brothers, not her swami.

As for the fourth painting, she guessed it depicted the mother of Nakul and Sahadev. The second painting had been dull, but Madri’s portrait was so aggressive. From the eyes of that brightly dressed figure, Draupadi could see a glint of sharpness, far keener than her two sons gifted by the gods.

At last, she finished looking through all the portraits. The corridor stretched on, its empty walls lined only with burning lamps. Draupadi had not yet mastered the art of speaking indirectly. She turned to Satyavati and asked:

“Were they all like me?”

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Parishrami now stood as the most respected among the court maid. She was Vidura’s mother. Bhishma raised both the sons of the two queens and the son of this Shudra woman at his side, teaching them without distinction. Yet Vidura was quiet by nature, he disliked conflict and felt little attachment to training his body. Perhaps his mother had told him something. Given Parishrami’s own experience, it would not be surprising if she had warned her son not to outshine the princes in martial prowess during their studies. After all, after giving birth to Vidura, she had for a time lost the favor of her master, who she had come with as part of her dowry.

Though the two princes were undeniably noble, but one was blind, and the other had been born deathly pale, so pale that one might have mistaken him for a stillborn child... Then again, newborns hardly resemble living things to begin with. Their skin is wet, wrinkled. If labor drags on too long, their flesh may even take on a bruised, purplish hue, like poison.

Vidura had been healthier than them. The moment his umbilical cord was cut, he cried out loudly, so loudly that even the crows drawn to the palace roof by the bloody scent of the placenta were startled into flight.

The two queens harbored a quiet resentment toward her healthy son. That health had been bought through Parishrami's lewd, through Parishrami’s submission to a man who was not her husband, to that dark, hairy figure who seemed almost beastlike... and in return she had borne such a child.

As for Parishrami, she could only cling to her son and pass her days in anxious fear. She had pawned her morality to her masters, that alone meant she had no courage to speak against her mistresses.

Fortunately, when Vidura was three or four years old, hair began to grow across his chest. Ordinarily, body hair appears only in adolescence, under the arms, at the groin, across the limbs and torso... but Vidura’s came far too early.

Bhishma said it was because Krishna Dvaipayana favored the child, and so Vidura would resemble him more. But Ambalika did not believe such face-saving words. She stroked the infant’s fine, soft hair as though petting a domesticated animal.

Vidura laughed under her touch, waving his tender limbs, like a turtle flipped onto its back, flailing without order as he tried to grasp the queen’s hand.

“Little black swine,” Ambalika said with a cold smile, yet she magnanimously accepted both her servant and the servant’s child.

As Vidura grew older, he learned and played alongside his two elder brothers. But at mealtimes and at night, he would sometimes return to his mother’s side. To not let sage's son suffer hunger, Parishrami’s daily provisions were quietly improved as well.

“Are we really not calling Vidura?” Pandu still held some reservations about Dhritarashtra’s plan to leave Vidura behind.

“It’s precisely because we’d call him that we wouldn’t be able to go anywhere,” Dhritarashtra ran a few steps ahead and planted himself before Pandu, hands on his hips. His movements were far more exaggerated than others’, for he could not see. He could hear running water, or locate the trees where birds sang, but the clods and uneven ground beneath his feet are silent to him . So he had to take larger strides to step over such obstacles. “Vidura listens to Parishrami in everything. If she finds out we’re going to see Mothers and Queen Mother Satyavati, she definitely won’t let us go.”

Women and men each held half of the palace, inside, and outside. Boys who had not yet come of age enjoyed slightly more freedom than princesses: they could receive the training of Kshatriya warriors, yet before their beards grew in, they could also move--like girls--through every part of the palace, even those forbidden to adult men. The queens, too, liked to keep their honored sons by their side. Only when summoned by Queen Mother Satyavati did they hand the boys over to maids.

Parishrami dressed the two queens. To Pandu, it felt as though his mothers were preparing for a festival. As Parishrami applied color to the corners of their eyes, sweat poured down this maid's face, but her hands did not tremble in the slightest. It was as though she were not painting their features with pigment, but dancing with a blade across her mistresses’ faces.

Dhritarashtra could not see this, but the heavier-than-usual scent of powder made him recoil. He had stayed once beside his mother while she was being dressed. Afterward, he broke out in a rash and struggled to breathe. Yet from that day on, his lungs were never again swollen by the damp pollen of spring. The physician said he had inhaled too much turmeric in a single breath, and was now as healthy as a young elephant.

The widowed queens quietly donned gold ornaments beneath their veils. After that, Parishrami would no longer allow the three children to follow them. There was no king in Hastinapura, Pandu thought. Perhaps Queen Mother Satyavati and their mothers were remembering their husbands. Widows ought not to adorn themselves so, but, maybe, gathered together like this, they could let the palace mirrors briefly reflect the gleam of jewels upon their ears and hair, and imagine that their husbands still lived. It was improper, but human.

The two boys walked on. Dhritarashtra remained unaware, his face still bearing that confident smile peculiar to the rich blind, not directed at any one person, but at the world itself.

Suddenly, Pandu felt a sense of unease. Never before had he seen a corridor in the palace so empty, not a single servant passing through. The luxury and prosperity of Hastinapur showed even in the bright clothing of kitchen maids. Once, a performer had recited a poem to Satyavati, comparing the palace to a fruit, its straight corridors to fruit-bearing branches. Only Hastinapura’s branches, he said, remained evergreen, for in other kings’ palaces drifted dull, withered leaves, their branches lay in winter. But here, birds and butterflies-- the busy servants--flitted through the corridors... Without realizing it, Pandu quickened his pace and moved ahead of Dhritarashtra. Before the queen mother’s chambers, the curtain, rarely drawn, hung closed. His fingers trembled as he slipped them between the strands of the beaded curtain, lifting two of them gently, no heavier than a passing breeze.

He saw the three women he revered most in his life gathered together in a twisted posture. Ambalika, whose prominent nose bridge once lent her an air of proud elegance, had lost it entirely. She lay sprawled across the bed as though dying, her body turned sideways so that Pandu could see her profile. Her full lips, began to resemble a fish’s mouth. Pandu only knew that fish mouths remained open like that, open in a way that felt almost indecent... Satyavati’s hands were obscured by Ambalika’s thigh, she was not looking at this daughter-in-law. Ambika knelt before her, bowing toward the queen mother’s loins. Her back trembled as she labored, eager yet fearful, drawing water ceaselessly to please the well. Satyavati seemed satisfied with this devotion. She had lowered her head,  she rarely did this, looked upon thess young women, whom she usually found lacking in spirit, with something almost like tenderness.

Cold sweat poured down Pandu’s back. He had only looked for a moment, yet it felt as though a year had passed. A year later, so it seemed, he jolted awake. Dhritarashtra was still more than ten steps behind him. Panicked, Pandu hurried back and stood in front of his brother, blocking his way. At that moment, a gust of wind stirred the beaded curtain into a crisp clatter. His blind elder brother likely could not hear the suppressed breathing within, in such a vast chamber, perhaps the sounds of breath did not even reach the doorway. But through some strange mingling of senses, Pandu felt he could hear them: the women’s breathing, and the damp, creeping sound of sweat sliding across skin, like a slug moving over leaves.

Dhritarashtra only frowned in confusion. Suddenly, Pandu felt that such empty, unseeing eyes might be the true source of happiness. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

At last, Pandu forced himself to act. He stretched out his right hand. “The queen mother is discussing important matters with our mothers. Her old servant struck my hand and told me not to make a sound or disturb them—to go back at once.”

Hearing this, Dhritarashtra reached out and felt Pandu’s palm. It was hot, but not the burning pain left by a blow. He felt Pandu's sweat, heat, and three crescent-shaped indentations. Pandu had clenched his fist too tightly while watching.

“If your palm hurts, don't dig your nails in like that,” Dhritarashtra admonished him seriously. “Otherwise, when the skin breaks, both your palm and your skin will hurt.”

Pandu could not as usual, reassure him with a smile Dhritarashtra could not see and a tone he could hear. He remained silent for so long that his brother began to wonder if he was crying without making a sound.

“I’m fine,” Pandu shook his head hard, the rush of air told Dhritarashtra what Pandu was doing. “It doesn’t hurt as much as when uncle strikes with the flat of his sword.”

It was not entirely a lie. Pandu quickly forget the absurd scene involving his mother and grandmother, this was a skill peculiar to children. He fell asleep with unease. The adult mind, was like a beast with an enormous mouth. At night, when people unaware, it devoured everything one had experienced in a brief lifetime, chewing it over and digesting it into the shapes of dreams. Some dreams were fit to be remembered and discussed the next day, others were nothing more than the beast’s passing wind. But before a person had fully grown, that beast was like a creature whose mouth and ass were connect straightly, eating what it saw, yet incapable of producing anything profound. Relying only on his half-formed sense of morality, Pandu felt uneasy before sleep. But the next morning, the sun rose as always. When he opened his eyes, the blanket still lay gently over him. The night had not been hot. Even the nape of his neck, where his hair brushed his skin, bore no prickling trace of sweat. No servants ran in panic through the palace announcing the queens’ deaths. Our Lord was merciful. Pandu was suddenly seized by a strange indulgence, like being raised in careless abundance. Sheep in a pen are never harmed by the shepherd before they are slaughtered, not even scolded. Before falling into hell, neither child nor mother would be punished today.

He let those three women--not mother and grandmother, but simply women--fade from his mind. But not entirely. Bhishma often spoke to the three princes about Vichitravirya, for their births were, in a sense, part of that king’s death. This was not to say that niyoga was part of a funeral, but in terms of cause and effect: had Vichitravirya not died, had the Kuru line not faced extinction, had the dark sage not been summoned to continue the lineage, these three children would never have been born.

They were all the result of Vichitravirya's death.

Dhritarashtra took pride in his noble birth and status as the eldest son. Eagerly, he drew from Bhishma every tale of their father’s greatness. To avoid disappointing him, Bhishma had to weave together Vichitravirya’s character with borrowed valor, until in the end, not only Dhritarashtra, but even Bhishma himself, half believed that his frail younger brother, whose early death likely owed much to excess, had hands capable of wrestling rakshas.

Pandu, however, he fell into thought when he heard how the queen mother had married King Shantanu. Shantanu. Satyavati. The river goddess Ganga. When these three names were placed together, Pandu almost saw again the three women from that day, joined in disregard of all propriety. It had not even seemed like three separate people in that chamber, only three breaths.

Those three breaths belonged to a single, more authoritative will that encompassed them all, a will whose tone was Satyavati’s. They were like a three-headed idol. For symmetry, such an idol would have only one body, with the other two heads growing from either side like ornaments. Ambalika and Ambika were like those two side heads, mere adornments subject to the first. They were like a many-armed deity. Satyavati stood upon the base. As Pandu watched Bhishma’s lips move, he seemed to see her invisible form behind Bhishma. Her left hand held her veil, her right hovered with authority before her abdomen. Behind her extended two more arms, like Vishnu holding lotus and conch. Her fingers rose, passing through the two queens’ bodies as though through the opening of a divine discus. She was not Shantanu’s wife, she was of his kind.

Pandu’s throat grew parched. He swallowed, but it only made the dryness worse, leaving a faint bitterness at the root of his tongue. Bhishma went on recounting trivial stories. Dhritarashtra continued to take comfort in being the son of King Vichitravirya. But Pandu, he found that's better, being the descendant of Shantanu.

He also wished, his brother would turn toward him suddenly. Beside Dhritarashtra sat a bowl of water. Because he could not see, the servents took special care, as the queen mother had instructed, to attend to him in every detail. Pandu only felt something was strange. There was no king in Hastinapur. Yet he could not ask the servants outright how they would treat a king. He could not compare himself and Dhritarashtra to Vidura or to Bhishma, they were different. Vidura received only the respect necessary to preserve the dignity of the kingdom, their uncle seemed prefer to refuse enjoyment and take pleasure in austerity. Only he and Dhritarashtra truly received this all-encompassing care, and Dhritarashtra’s was even more meticulous than his own.

...But this did not match what Queen Mother Satyavati had said. It did not match what he had always believed. It did not match the simple truth that the eldest son would inherit the throne. This kind of service, where even water was placed into one’s hand, lest one suffer thirst, was not the indulgence due to a king. Pandu was unbearably thirsty now, thirstier than the endlessly speaking son of Ganga. He wished his brother would smile gently, lift the bowl, and, facing him, bring it to his lips in brotherly kindness.

Suddenly, he understood the difference between indulging the blind and indulging women.

The latter was to give them leisure, so they might bring pleasure to the king, to make them freer even than their husbands, so that a king’s time with them would be unlike that of a Shudra returning home to his boring wife.

The former was simply because they could not manage on their own.

In the end, that invisible Satyavati was only a fleeting illusion. Pandu blinked again, and it vanished. Only much later, when he met the princess of Madra, given to him as a bride, did he suddenly recall that palace filled with desire.

The princess of Madra had faint calluses at the base of her thumbs. They were not obvious, one might think her delicate hands had only just snapped a flower stem, and that the wounded plant’s sap had stained her skin without her noticing, drying there in thin traces. Yet no matter how considerate Pandu might be toward his wife, he would never notice such small details. In this, he was much like Satyavati: he found it difficult to perceive trifles, while she simply disdained to look. In the end, the result was the same. Kunti let Madri rest her head upon her lower abdomen, combing through her dark, wavy hair, curling like black tides. The king will never notice this tiny flaw in a flawless jade, she thought.

Madri could drive a chariot. When the king of Madra presented her to Pandu, hoping to impress the well-traveled ruler of Hastinapur, he had his sister dress in men’s clothing, don armor, and mount a war chariot. “I have no rarer tribute to offer,” he said, “but, O king of the four quarters, I can give you another charioteer, one who will drive for your life and your nights.”

And as he said, Madri did indeed drive everything for Pandu.

As the first to marry Pandu, even though Madri arrived only a month later, even though Pandu had not yet been intimate with either of them... At first, Kunti still feared this sudden new queen. She had never thought herself blessed with the privilege of being the king’s only wife. Perhaps, when she was still Pritha, before she had ever recited that mantra to the sky, she had harbored a faint hope of being husband's one and only. She feared Madri because faint marks had already appeared on her abdomen from past pregnancy. She could undress only in darkness, refusing on the pretext that daytime was not for conjugal union. But if Madri chose to plotting against her, no concealment would suffice. Because of invasions from neighboring lands, Pandu left on campaign before his wedding night could be consummated. Kunti felt both disappointment and relief.

Out of curiosity, she had once invoked Surya, reciting a mantra for a child. And she learned then that gods were not so different from men, the fruits of their austerities isn't knowing restraining desire. Once summoned, the god would not simply swallow his passion and return later at a more convenient time, when the woman needed a child. Kunti could recite the mantra, but she was not its master.

Still, Surya had taught her something: how to deceive men, how to make them believe that a woman had lost her chastity by accident, such as a girl suffered an accidental strain while running intensely... But Kunti had never rehearsed such words with anyone. How could she dare to seize another and pretend he was her future husband? She had only practiced alone by the river, speaking to her own reflection. She watched her river reflection's lips move, speaking lies, yet the reflected sun was so bright that it filled her with fear. She never dared speak those words aloud again.

The king of Hastinapur, mindful of order, decided after two days of rest that he would first share a bed with his first queen, and only afterward with Madri. As Kunti had expected, he questioned her body. Then Kunti spoke the words Surya had taught her. Pandu only looked at her, neither angry nor pleased. The only thing she could tell was that he did not believe her. If he questioned her maid, if the palace interrogated her like a criminal... Pritha’s secret would be exposed. There would be no unchaste queen in Hastinapura. Kunti trembled uncontrollably. Then I will disappear.

“You are right, my king. Your queen is deceiving you.” Madri’s voice came from outside the door, bright, sharp enough to sting Kunti. She wore garments so light they bordered on impropriety, making no effort to hide that she had been listening. Her face was flushed; her eyes burned with something like love. I am finished, Kunti thought. But Madri continued, “Because your other wife is insatiably hungry. She envies the beauty of your first queen. Just as the uniting between Bhagavan and Mahadev showing a higher divinity, I long to unite with her, to gain twice the radiance.”

Madwoman. Madri was not crazy enough to deserve that name, she speaks logically, but Kunti could find no better word. Pandu looked at Madri, seemed not to doubt her at all. “My king,” Madri said, “enjoy me tomorrow. No king has ever known a woman like me.” She glanced at Kunti, just once, then Kunti felt as though she were sitting on needles. “I possess the chastity of two women. To have me, is to conquer Pritha as well.”

From then on, Pandu began to keep Kunti’s secret, though what he concealed was not quite the same as what she hid. Madri rested her head on Kunti’s abdomen, softened slightly by childbirth, once made full with the fat that had nourished a fetus. “Kunti, even if you are not a Kshatriya woman, you should understand gratitude,” she said, clutching at Kunti’s sari, though not pulling it down. Why she don't pull? Kunti wondered. Maybe Madri still had some awareness of limits, after all, her authority was less than Pandu’s.

“I will not give you my body,” Kunti said, gently removing her hand.

“I’m not asking for something from you,” Madri said, looking at her earnestly. “I am giving you something. Hastinapur says a queen may possess everything her husband has, except power. But Pandu has wives. Do you?”

“I am giving you a wife.”

“Don’t be foolish,” Kunti sighed. Rather than a madwoman, Madri seemed more like a child. She was young, at the wedding, Kunti had seen Queen Mother Satyavati frown slightly and remark, “Such a young gift. The Madra king should have given a fertile woman a noble title and sent her instead.”

“Does the king, like me, possess a husband?” Kunti asked.

Madri laughed, her tone dripping with mockery. “Who knows? They can have whatever they desire.”

When she finished laughing, she found Kunti still staring at her, unmoved, without the slightest guilt. A woman like stone. Others sealed their bodies, she sealed her heart against any madness. Madri sighed, though her brows remained arched, clever, teasing, like peaks no flood could submerge. She was young, yet a natural deceiver. Her brows were like snow-capped mountains, reflecting different lights at different times, golden dawn, harsh white noon... Pandu had never accuse her dare to mock king, though he seems accuse nothing at all. “One day, I will die at the hands of someone as heartless as you,” Madri said.

Yet the two queens, knowing little of the palace’s inner secrets, could not understand why, when the queen mother invited them to visit again, Pandu rose first and declined on their behalf: “But we are leaving tomorrow to tour and rest for a few days. Let us speak of this when we return.”

“Very well. You may rest more,” Satyavati said. “After all, Hastinapur has managed for years without a king.” Beside her, a maid silently fanned her. Her lineage was nearly as old as the Kuru dynasty itself. Once, a servant had dared lie to a king, his tongue was cut out. Strangely, his crime had doomed his entire lineage to muteness. The disabled rarely married. Their line should have died out. But within the palace, like cattle carefully bred regardless of their survival in the wild, the kings maintained them, deliberately pairing them, preserving them as a living lesson.

Satyavati cast a glance at Pandu. She had grown weary of fearing the decline of her lineage, to the point of an excessive anxiety about heirs. “Why neither you nor Dhritarashtra has yet produced a child.”

Later, Pandu came to think that it was not Madri who had caused him to shoot the sage, but Satyavati. When the queen mother looked at his two wives, there was no desire in her eyes, no hunger for their beauty. She did not want them in that way, she was not asking for love. Pandu humbly avoided her gaze. He knew that if their eyes met at that moment, what lay between them would no longer be the indulgent affection of grandmother and grandson. They would become two lions fighting over scraps of flesh. He could not understand: if Satyavati did not love them, why did she still want to summon these women and keep them close at her side? Had she, in a former life, been a crow that stole offerings, and now, after living too long as a carefree widow without labor, her old instincts had awakened?... But one does not need to understand what a tiger says when it roars in order to start running. Pandu made his decision at once. They would surely return after their rest, but if he did not leave now, he was destined to have his queens taken from him by the queen mother. If not for Satyavati, he would not have brought his two wives into the forest to hunt. Madri would not have asked for that mating pair of deer. He would not have shot the sage who had taken the form of a deer… He would not now, like Rama, be exiled to the forest.

In the end he thought, was Satyavati’s doing. When Madri was gathering flowers, thorns tore her garment at the chest. The coarse cloth split, and her breast, like a nursing mother’s when a child suddenly turns away, leaving a drop of milk behind, began to bleed. But Madri said nothing. Like the warrior Bhishma once described with a sigh, Chitrangada, whom he praised as fearless and mighty: had he inherited the throne, all Aryavarta would have bowed to him. He fought enemies as terrible as Asura without complaint. His chest bled like a stream, then a river, then a waterfall--until at last, the blood ran dry. At the time, Dhritarashtra had asked, “You saw him die, didn’t you?” As a child, he had been obsessed with understanding what others could see.

“No,” Bhishma had said. “I only saw his corpse. The dried blood had formed a crust over his chest, like a layer of armor.” Madri pulled her torn garment together, hiding the pale skin of her cleavage. But after a few steps, the blood soaked through the rough cloth. Pandu’s final thoughts were of that “warrior bleeding like blossoming red flowers.” He wiped the blood from Madri with his hand, and then, just as the sage had cursed, the moment he try to cuddle with his wife, he died.

His breath stopped at once. When he collapsed onto her, his body seemed suddenly to weigh a thousand pounds. Madri understood instantly what had happened. What absurd in it: the husband she had held in her arms for years was now a corpse. If she set him down, even with a cloth between his back and the earth, Bhumi mata would soon smell the decay not yet fully risen from his body. Before long, he would rot. They would have to burn him before sunset.

Kunti heard an unusual sound of footsteps in the yard, something like when Pandu dragged back a slain animal. They rarely hunted for meat. Often Brahmins would ask Pandu to protect their sacrificial fires, to kill boars with tusks, or deer that had trampled ritual ash. “Once, they even asked His Majesty to kill bats,” Madri had joked. Pandu never treated such things as anecdotes. Those men seemed to have a gift for turning trivial matters into grand significance, and they would grow angry if they learned the wives laughed over such seriousness in private. Yet, like the endless battles between gods and asuras, the quarrels between ascetics’ anger and wives’ amusement never ceased.

Pandu had warned Madri not to repeat such talk. A sage might take offense. Madri had nodded—but still whispered to Kunti with a smile, “But I think the fire just went out in the wind. What do bats have to do with it?” Today, the footsteps sounded heavy, uneven, dragging. Kunti feared Pandu had been injured by some beast. She hurried outside.

She saw Madri carrying the body of a man far larger than herself, almost comically—like a hunter returning with prey. She dropped Pandu heavily to the ground, just as he used to cast down wolves, before they were turned into leather.

The children, hearing the noise, came out. Kshatriya sons were taught what death was, what an honorable death was, what a shameful one was, even if they were never taught small things like trimming nails or pulling scabs. Pandu bore no wounds. Nor was he old. He had not lived to the age when breath thins and death is expected. The boys wept loudly, not only because their father had died, but because his manner of death resembled the coward’s death he himself had used to frighten them.

They placed Pandu upon the pyre. The sun had been strong these days, the wood burned easily. Soon came the smell of scorched cloth, then the sharp odor of burning hair and nails. It spread quickly, carried with the black smoke over those by the river. Madri’s two younger sons, less strong, covered their noses and coughed. That night, after covering the children with blankets, Kunti saw Arjuna, the middle one, wrinkling his nose in sleep, kicking like a rabbit held by its ears, fleeing the smoke of the day. She tucked his feet under the blanket. Perhaps… they should return to Hastinapura, rather than remain in this silent hut where someone had died.

Kunti returned to the husband and wife's chamber. Only Madri remained on the bed, waiting, unsleeping. “You want to take the children back, don’t you?” Madri said. She did not call them Pandu’s sons. Among the three adults, now two, it was understood whose sons they were. “But you cannot give Hastinapura an explanation. If such a curse is fulfilled, they will need a wanton woman to repay the blood debt. I understand.”

“Give me a month,” she continued. “Your wish is my wish. If you want to return, I will help you. But let me stay with you for one month--just one. Then, I will walk into the fire myself. Even if I beg, do not believe me. Just watch me die. It will only be my cowardice speaking, I am willing, in my heart, to die for you.”

She asked for only one month, one month without outsiders. The next day, Kunti prepared flatbread and filled jars with butter for the children. Bhima, though strong, had to drag six jars on a small cart. The others carried what they could, food, flint, wooden bows... She gathered them, bent down, and embraced them all. “Go into the forest. After one month, you may return. Then I will take you to the palace where your father grew up.” Madri watched them leave, indifferent to whether they lived or died. In that secluded hut, she and Kunti passed the days playing endless roles, like temple women: husband and wife, parent and child, king and slave, Shiva and Nagini... Between games, Madri wiped the sweat from their bodies and sighed. “If those children are not truly blessed, if they die this month, torn by wolves, devoured by rakshasas, and you keep your promise, watching me burn… when even someone who loves you this much is gone--will you regret it?”

“Don’t be foolish,” Kunti said, patting her cheek.

On the final day, Madri indeed faltered. She stood before the fire, frozen, until she drew so close that she felt its heat calling to her. The fine hairs on her face stood on end. She reached out toward it, as if answering that call, and only then did she feel the full weight of death. Within that heat was a terrible cold. But Kunti had to return to Hastinapur. Madri trembled. Even the first time she had ridden a horse, looking down had felt like standing atop a tower, but it had not been as terrifying as this. “Push me, didi,” she said, her voice shaking. “My legs can’t move.”

Kunti did. Madri fell into the fire. And almost at once, she changed. She screamed, trying to crawl out. Her dark curls tightened as they burned. Her bright face grew even more vivid--charred skin like kohl, red flesh wrinkling like silk, and beneath it, golden fat melting and dripping. “I regret it!” she cried. “I don’t want to die!” Her voice grew more desperate. She knew that once her mouth burned, she would not even be able to cry out. Kunti turned away, gripping the long pole used to stir the fire. When Madri’s hand emerged from the flames, she thrust her back in—again and again. It could only be said that when the princess of Madra died, she was not much more fragrant than Pandu. When the five boys returned, Kunti carefully checked them for injuries. Thankfully, they were unharmed. They looked at the emptier hut in confusion. Kunti crouched and explained: “Madri has gone to join your father.”

That month alone in the wilderness seemed to leave no visible scars. Yet it changed the way they lived. They had once been like free-ranging horses, affectionate and equal. Now they became like goats, accustomed to seeking protection from their eldest brother in times of danger. Draupadi did not know what bound her five husbands so tightly together, so that though they were separate men, they were at times more inseparable than conjoined bodies. Even these sons of Pandu could not explain it, except to say it was dharma.

At the far end of the corridor, Satyavati stood before a long stretch of empty wall. “There will be portraits here one day,” she said. “The Kuru dynasty will endure for countless agesu, ntil the end of this yuga. These empty spaces will be filled. And when they are, another corridor will be built.”

As Satyavati said this, her finger pointed toward the empty night sky. Looking at that finger, a faint nausea rose in Draupadi’s heart, which had been calm for so long. Though Satyavati still appeared youthful, perhaps due to the blessing she had received in her early years. Her hands told the truth of her age. They were the only part of her that betrayed the passage of time. Reclining against soft cushions, she looked at the princess of Panchala leaning against her knee, and tapped her face lightly with that aged finger. “You are not like the others. Amba’s two sisters, Gandhari, Bhanumati, though she was already terrified when she was brought back, you are not humiliated or frightened like them.”

“Because I have played such games with my sister,” Draupadi replied without a moment’s thought. For once, Satyavati’s eyes widened, eyes that had grown somewhat dim with age. She had never cared much whether she could see others clearly. Aside from herself and the king of Hastinapur, nothing was worth a direct gaze. Either Draupadi was a naturally clever liar, or the daughter born from King Drupada’s sacrificial fire truly was the kind of wife all kings dreamed of. “I am only familiarizing myself with how to serve my husbands,” Draupadi continued, “and ensuring that my radiance is not defiled by any man of base heart to whom I do not belong. Who would accuse Lord Vishnu of being unfaithful to Lakshmi because of his divine play?”

Satyavati laughed. “You are cunning. When something cannot be changed, you call it a game. Just as when Bhishma asked how you could accept such a marriage, you invoked Vyasa and Krishna, saying it was a trial destined for you.” She laughed more freely now, and at last, her voice—always authoritative, ageless—carried a trace of age. “…I like you. Panchali, only you are fit to accompany the king of Hastinapur.”

The thought of those aged fingers has entered her body made Draupadi feel faintly sick. And yet, this was the key Satyavati had given her: They will fear you, as they fear the husbands they depend on. Standing beside this strange yet powerful queen mother, Draupadi felt as though she were floating in an ocean of knowledge she had never known. Though it was knowledge, she could not tell whether it contained dharma.

At first, she merely remembered everything Satyavati taught her, without intending to use it. These things unsettled her, much like the fact that she had to marry five men. Only later, when they took other princesses as wives, did she begin to waver. And when Arjuna brought back Krishna’s sister, she finally began to apply the arts Satyavati had taught her: the arts of wielding power, and of dealing with women. She use them, except for Subhadra, and for the daughter of Shishupala, Karenumati.

Satyavati’s methods worked only within the palace. Subhadra was different from those who came as princesses or spoils of war. She was simply Arjuna’s wife, she fulfilled none of the duties of a queen beyond sharing his bed. As for Karenumati, her father had been slain by Krishna for publicly insulting Krishnā, and her brother, seeking favor with Indraprastha, had offered her in marriage to Nakul. Before Karenumati was sent here, Draupadi persuaded Nakul not to approach her until she had been presented before the elders. The most handsome prince of the Pandavas had little interest in such politically motivated marriages anyway, he likely loved his own reflection more than any new bride.

How could she not make the girl tremble and weep before Satyavati? Draupadi remembered the insult Shishupala had given her before his death, remembered the slanders cast upon her friendship with Vasudeva. If death could atone for everything, then why, after the guilty were punished, did the victim's widows and children still cling to relics and weep?

Not long after the Rajasuya sacrifice, Duryodhana invited Pandavas to see the new hall in Hastinapur. Draupadi took only Karenumati with her. But upon arriving, she learned that Satyavati had already died. Her husbands showed an appropriate sorrow, but how could it just be only sorrow? Draupadi was stunned. Such a terrifying woman had died so quietly, without even a formal announcement sent to Indraprastha! As though her death meant nothing. As though she had been no different from any ordinary, powerless woman.

In her shock, Draupadi bit her tongue. The taste of blood spread like an omen. She felt uneasy within the palace. When Pandavas accepted the invitation to gamble, she thought she had found the source of that unease. When Yudhishthira gambled away his brothers into slavery, she thought nothing could be worse. She was wrong.

In the end... everyone knew--All the kings present at that assembly, every attendant they had brought with them, every friend and relative in those attendants’ households who hungered to hear the secrets of great lords, and beyond them, everyone, and the generations that would follow them... Panchali stood wrapped in a length of red sari that had fallen as if from the heavens, the bruise still swelling on her forehead where Duhshasana had dragged her and slammed her against the ground.

Servants fled the queen’s guest palace in Indraprastha, too frightened to remain. Only Karenumati, whom Draupadi had brought with her, was left, shrinking uneasily in a corner of the royal residence. She had been terrified by Duhshasana. But he hadn't paid her any mind, he had been concerned only with carrying out Duryodhana’s order to drag Draupadi away, didn't notice there was another queen present at all. There are always such people in the world: they care only for doing what is required, never for doing it well. Draupadi seized hold of her red cloth, it was enough to clothe dozens, dragged it into the chamber behind her, then slammed the doors shut with force.

“You think this is retribution. You think your father should not have died,” Draupadi said as she walked toward Karenumati, the long red cloth trailing behind her like tail of a huge serpent. “You think we punished him too harshly. So you think I deserve this humiliation--that the words of Shishupala should come true... Why aren’t you laughing? Weren’t you waiting to laugh? What you crying for?”

Karenumati dared neither cry nor laugh. She clutched her shoulders tightly as golden and pearl rained down over her like a storm. Draupadi overturned her own jewel box. By law, if a young woman defiles another with her hands, she must pay a fine of two hundred panas, and provide double the dowry in compensation to the girl’s father. But Karenumati’s father was already dead. His offense had been washed away. He had, we could say, returned to Brahman... whatever people chose to describe him, In any case, he was dead. These ornaments were Draupadi’s own. Yudhishthira had not staked them against Duryodhana--though even if he had, they would not have sufficed for a single round.

But who cared? The rain of gold would not stop. The queen of Indraprastha stood with her hair unbound, vowing that she would not tie it again until it had been washed clean in the blood of the Kurus.

She thinks differently when the child kicks the basket and the divine boot sends the woven lid flying; when he moves the way babes do, joyful and squirmy, and the sun reflects the shine of his gifts, blinding with wealth, attractive to all manner of unsavoury men.

“Lord,” she prays, bent over. “Lord, look after him, for he is yours, and now he has no one. Send him to someone who loves.” And Surya, cruel and wise and mourning, does.

2.

Radha finds a babe laden in gold. His armour, so tight it is as if it is fused to skin, gleams; his kicking feet hit with the might of hard metal.

“Divine,” she declares, “and god-given.”

Adhiratha does not speak. His brow is furrowed, troubled, but he picks the child up anyway, cradles him against his chest.

Radha holds his hands, and counts ten little fingers, kisses each. They curl against her mouth, tiny nails pricking her like old needles. She moves to his little legs, holds each one as Adhiratha sways, makes faces at him. The babe giggles.

Radha tugs at a shoe. It does not budge. She tugs again.

“Huh.”

“You hold him,” her husband says, in the proud and slightly mocking way men do when their wives need help in some task of physical strength. “Let me try once.”

Adhiratha tries once. Adhiratha tries twice. Adhiratha tries thrice. He tries four times, five times and then six, notices his wife’s tilted smirk.

Adhiratha straightens, head held high. “Shoe’s not coming off,” he says with dignity, and stalks away. Radha runs after, half-laughing and half asking about doctors and soaps and other instruments of relief, child in her arms and joy in her heart.

3.

“Oooh, look at him, suited and booted, come to fight!” Prince Bheema glowers at him, hooting lost to a shout of rage. “Good boots does not a king make! Go back to your horses and your whip.”

Vasusena shakes a little, down to his toes. It makes his boots rattle a little against the earth, a dull clunk-thud, barely audible amidst the people’s cheers, but embarrassing nonetheless.

Duryodhana blusters some answers. Bheema blusters back. Arjuna picks his bow in challenge, but the fight is left unfinished.

Duryodhana takes him home.

In the splendour of the royal palace, Empress Gandhari runs her hands over his face, his shoulders, and his armour, in the manner of one who cannot see seeking the shape of what they wish to know.

“What is this?” she asks of him, at the carvings.

“An armour, divine in origin, and most beautiful,” Duryodhana boasts, as if it is his own. It is. Vasusena is his, has been since that moment when the angry prince Duryodhana came to defend him, will be till the bitter, bitter end.

“And shoes as well, I hear,” Dhritarashtra says.

“Bheema is too much!” Duryodhana shouts.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he says, and when he rises, Gandhari is smiling.

The Emperor shakes his head. “No, not that. I hear him when he walks, even though he is rather quiet. Well, child, if you be my son’s friend, I hope I shall hear your steps in my halls many times more.”

Vasusena bows. The blind Emperor does not know it, but the Empress, with her hands on his shoulders, does.

+1.

Afterwards, when the satisfaction of having the king of gods shamed and holding his boots is gone, when his skin has healed to a smooth baby pink; afterwards, when he goes home, and his son runs to greet him at the door – to touch his feet – and stops; afterwards, there is no creature as wretchedly startled as Vasusena.

He stands in the grass for a long while, feeling it tickling his toes. It is a sensation violently gentle, one he cannot help but long for, half-nauseous with the feeling like a starving, hungering thing.

Vrishasena takes him by the arm and leads him inside. The floor is cool under his feet, the marble slightly damp from recent wiping. His bed is soft against the length of his body, and so is Padmavati when she hugs him, but differently, half familiar and half not. He holds her close as she laments and weeps, and her tears burn.

They sit together a long time, till day sinks into dusk and then night, and lamplit houses twinkle in the horizon. Vrishasena returns the hour before dinner, a lumpy thing in each hand.

“Father,” he says, placing them by his feet. At Vasusena’s uncomprehending look, he lifts them meaningfully in the air.

“Shoes,” he says.

Shoes.

For him.

For Vasusena.