#sunaina

The ascetic couple plodded through the decorated arcade, just another old parent mourning their dead child. Through the ajar door on the left, where they had been summoned to meet Rama, raised voices floated out. Janak blinked at his wife, who raised a patrician eyebrow. By silent agreement, they stepped closer, lightly pressing towards the door. Dimly, Janak wondered why there weren’t any guards around. Lakshmana’s anguished voice cut into his thoughts, “- no, no please, I beg you, do not make me do this. Not this, never this.”

Rama’s reply was placating and pleading all at once, “Laksh...”

“No, Your Majesty no. I did not stop you when you, in front of all Vanaras and Lankans, bade Bhabhi to undergo the Agnipariksha. I said nothing when you entertained the asinine claim of one drunken washerman- ”

“The whole kingdom was saying so Laksh, you cannot expect me to ignore everyone.”

There was a crash from inside, and Sunaina gave him an uneasy side eye. Janak nodded to the door. There were no heralds around, so he gently pushed the ginormous mahogany monstrosity and knocked on the wooden frame. Neither of his sons-in-law paid them any attention. This close, he could see Rama’s haggard appearance, and Lakshmana’s frankly appalling attempt at looking normal enough to carry out court. Neither had shaved in what seemed like forever, Lakshmana’s mop of unruly hair now resembled a crow’s nest, and Rama’s face shone with a layer of oil and sweat. Lakshmana was still going on, “The whole kingdom was saying? Did all of Kosala break the Pinaka? Did she garland this kingdom? She was your wife, and Kosala’s Queen. A Queen is a mother, and how dare anyone question their mother? On that note, maybe we should inform the Gurukulas to teach people how to count. She was pregnant eight months after she returned.”

Rama shook his head despondently, “No, you do not understand, Laksh…”

“Don’t make me do this. I will not stand before that faultless man and tell him we killed his daughter.”

Rama had tears in his eyes. His chapped lips parted in horror, “We did not kill her, Laksh. Laksh, we- we- ”

Lakshmana slumped to the floor. “Oh, Your Majesty,” he moaned, “Oh, oh brother, what have we done?”

In another time, Janak might have found this a tad dramatic, but not now. He stared at this defeated man, one who had left his daughter alone in Dandaka, one who had left her near Valmiki’s ashram, and the only one who seemed to protest against this atrocity.

Janak wanted to scream, to demand why he let her die if he revered her so, to hit him and curse him and rip him apart. But Lakshmana was Urmila’s husband, and he had already lost one child. His head hurt. There was an ancient ache in his chest, and for a long moment, he carried the sorrow of all of Sita’s struggles in his bones. Sunaina pinched his elbow, and only then he remembered Urmila, and his nieces, the sisters who still lived. So, he shook off the feeling, rapped his knuckles loudly against the carved door, and spoke, “Emperor, with your leave, we are here.”