Chapter 1 — The Discarded Ornament

Tomorrow morning, the nurse said, King Dasharatha would consecrate Rama as crown prince.

Manthara, Kaikeyi’s maidservant, had just asked a nurse why the whole city was cheering. The nurse in white silk answered with wide-open eyes, already laughing before her sentence was finished.

“Under the star Pushya,” she said. “The king himself decided it. Rama, his eldest son, who has never let anger master him. Rama’s mother has been giving away her wealth all day. The whole city knows.”

Manthara asked nothing more.

From that high palace roof she could see all of Ayodhya. The broad avenues were wet with freshly sprinkled water, and lotus petals clung to the stones. Banners fluttered from every rooftop. Brahmanas passed by carrying flower garlands and sweetmeats, and from temples whose doors had been freshly painted white rose the chanting of the Vedas. In the stalls below the palace walls, horses and elephants added their voices.

Manthara turned her face away from it all and went down the stairs. Her steps were quick. The hem of her garment caught on a step, and she jerked it free without pausing. Behind her the nurse was still talking to someone else about golden jars and consecration water.

She had been raised alongside Kaikeyi. Ever since the two of them were children in Kekaya, Kaikeyi’s homeland, Manthara had served her, and when Kaikeyi became King Dasharatha’s wife, Manthara came with her to Ayodhya. She knew every corridor leading to that woman’s chamber by heart. She knew which door creaked, and at what time of day Kaikeyi liked to lie undisturbed.

Today she did not knock.

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Kaikeyi was lying on her white bed when the door flew open and struck the wall.

“Get up,” Manthara said. “What a fool you are. Why are you lying here? Great danger is coming upon you, and you have no idea what a flood of trouble is about to sweep over you. You boast of your good fortune, when that fortune is like a river in the dry season. Soon enough its water will be gone.”

Kaikeyi propped herself up on an elbow. Her maidservant stood on the threshold with sweat on her brow, her chest still heaving from the stairs.

“What is it, Manthara? Is something wrong? I have never seen your face look like this.”

Manthara stepped inside and shut the door behind her. She spoke low, close by the door leaf, yet her words came out fast.

“The king is going to consecrate Rama as crown prince. Tomorrow morning. I heard it on the roof, and the whole city knows, everyone except you.” She came closer to the bed. “I ran here because your grief is my grief too, Kaikeyi. If you rise, I rise with you. If you fall, I fall with you.”

“And what of it?”

“Your husband speaks sweetly, yet his heart is crooked. You think him good, and so you are easily deceived. His words to you are soft, while today what he sees to is Kausalya’s welfare. He sent Bharata far away to your kinsmen’s house in Kekaya. While your son is off there, he seats Rama upon his ancestors’ throne without a single thorn in his path.” Manthara bent down until her face was close to Kaikeyi’s. “You have been nursing a venomous snake in your lap and calling him husband. The time has come. Act now. Save yourself, save me, and save Bharata.”

Kaikeyi pushed back her coverlet and stepped down from the bed. Her face was bright, and she laughed.

“Rama is to be consecrated? Tomorrow?”

She slipped a golden bracelet from her arm, the heaviest one she wore, and laid it in Manthara’s palm. She closed her maidservant’s fingers over the gold.

“That is the very news I most wished to hear. What can I do for you for bringing it to me? To me Rama and Bharata are no different. The king means to consecrate Rama, and no word could sound sweeter in my ears. Ask whatever gift you please, Manthara. I shall give it to you.”

Manthara opened her fingers. She looked down at the bracelet, still warm from Kaikeyi’s arm.

Then she flung it to the floor. The bracelet rang against the stone, rolled, and came to rest at the foot of the bed.

“Fool,” she said. “Why rejoice at a time like this? You do not see that you are drowning. Inside I am laughing at you, because what you greet with joy is the very thing you ought to weep over. What woman in her right mind rejoices to see her rival’s son rise? Rama and Bharata have an equal claim to that throne. For that very reason Rama will fear Bharata, and a man who fears strikes first. That is what makes me tremble.”

Kaikeyi looked down at the bracelet near her foot, then drew her feet up onto the bed.

“Tomorrow,” Manthara said, “the most fortunate woman in this realm will be Kausalya. The brahmanas will pour water over her son’s head under the star Pushya, and he will rule the world. You will stand before her with folded hands and become her servant, and all of us will serve her alongside you. Your son will wait upon Rama’s commands. Rama’s wives and their attendants will rejoice, and your daughters-in-law will weep every time Bharata’s name is spoken.”

Kaikeyi walked to the window. In the distance a drum was struck twice, then fell silent.

“You are unjust to Rama,” she said without turning around. “Rama knows dharma. He is virtuous, grateful, truthful, and pure of heart. He is the king’s eldest son, and it is only right that he should become crown prince. He will guard his younger brothers and his servants like a father. Why does hearing of his consecration burn you so?”

She turned back.

“A hundred years after Rama, Bharata too will rule the kingdom inherited from his father and his grandfathers. At a time as auspicious as this, why do you grieve?”

Manthara’s jaw set hard.

“I love Rama more than Bharata,” Kaikeyi said more softly. “And he loves me more than his own mother. If the kingdom belongs to Rama, it belongs to Bharata as well. Rama looks upon his brothers as his own self.”

Manthara blew a hard breath through her nose.

“You call ruin good fortune because you refuse to see,” she said. “Listen to me. Rama becomes king, and after Rama his son, and then his son’s son. Bharata is cut off from the royal line. Not every son of a king ascends the throne, Kaikeyi. If all of them ascended it, the realm would fall into chaos. That is why a king hands the kingdom to the eldest. Your son will be cast out from his own house and live alone in the world.”

She picked the bracelet up from the floor and weighed it in her hand.

“You give me a present because your rival’s son is rising. You do not understand that I am taking all this trouble for your sake. Once Rama holds the kingdom without hindrance, he will get rid of Bharata, sending him to some distant land or to the other world. Bharata is still a boy, and you yourself sent him off to his uncle’s house. Shatrughna went with him. Lakshmana guards Rama, and Rama guards Lakshmana. The whole world knows how close the two of them are. Rama will never harm Lakshmana. Yet to Bharata he will do evil, of that I have no doubt.”

Kaikeyi sat down on the edge of the bed. Her hand sought the edge of the mattress and gripped it.

“And Kausalya,” Manthara said. “In the past, when you stood above her, you slighted her out of pride in your good fortune. Do you think she has forgotten? Once Rama holds the earth down to its seas and mountains, Kausalya will pay it back, and you and Bharata will bear the brunt of it.”

She laid the bracelet in Kaikeyi’s lap.

“Rama must be sent to the forest,” she said. “Think how to raise your own son to the throne, and how to drive out your enemy.”

Kaikeyi looked down at the bracelet in her lap. It was the same bracelet she had slipped off laughing a short while ago. She brushed it aside, and it rang against the floor again. This time she did not look to see where it rolled. Her cheeks were flushed, and her lips pressed tight together. She stood up.

“This very day Rama goes to the forest,” she said. “Bharata shall be consecrated, and never Rama.” She looked at Manthara. “Show me the way.”