Victory City(18)
Vidyasagar himself stepped forward to reply. “The gods have better things to do than build temples,” he said. “But for men there is no higher duty they can perform.”
“Be careful,” Hukka warned his brother. “You are on the edge of blasphemy, and if you fall into the pit that lies beyond, no amount of prayers will save your wretched soul.”
“So you’ve changed as well as this place,” Chukka retorted. “Now that you’re turning Mandana into a palace-temple maybe you think you’re the king in here as well.”
“Second warning,” said Hukka Raya, and Chukka’s consort Shakti moved her hand to the hilt of the dagger in the sash around her waist.
“But the temple isn’t finished,” Chukka went on. “All you have so far is half of the entrance tower, the gopuram, the Imperishable Gateway. So I’m thinking you aren’t finished either—not divine or imperishable yourself, or not yet, anyway.”
“We are gathered to dedicate the temple to Lord Virupaksha, who is also Shiva, the mighty consort of the river goddess Pampa, who is also Parvati,” Hukka said angrily, “and so I will not spill your blood today. Today there’s a higher purpose. And as well as the temple, we must speak of the Diamond King of Golconda to the north, who is becoming too powerful for his own good, and follows an alien faith, and must therefore be declared our deadly foe. Not to mention all those diamond mines of his.”
Now Pukka the reasonable Sangama brother spoke up. “I understand about the diamond mines, naturally,” he said. “But for the rest of it, the alien-faith business, don’t be silly. Bukka always said that neither of you cared about foreskins, on or off, and suddenly you’re a hater of the circumcised? That sort of talk isn’t even sensible. At least a third of the armies of Bisnaga, and maybe half of the merchants and shopkeepers trading in the streets, are followers of that alien faith. Are they our enemies too, all of a sudden? Does Bukka now agree with your new extremism? And where is the crown prince, by the way?”
“Never mind,” said Hukka Raya I. “Enough discussion. Vidyasagar, please proceed with the dedication. We must ask the god to look kindly upon us, even upon those among us who are weak in their belief.”
“You’re really different now that you’re older,” Dev Sangama said, speaking up for the first time. “I think I liked you better before. And if I may ask—if this whole city of Bisnaga rose up overnight, people included, and if the wall climbed up around it the next day, and if that was all on account of a bag of seeds, why isn’t that happening here and now with the temple complex? Why can’t we just sit back and watch the magic show as the temple grows before our eyes?”
Queen Pampa answered for the king. “The supply of magic is not endless,” she said. “Divine enchantment is sometimes available to human beings when they first set out in the world. After that initial period the time comes when they must learn to stand on their own feet, achieve their own achievements, and win their own battles. I could say, you begin as children, but finally you have to grow up and live in the adult world.”
“You are the mother of the empire,” Dev Sangama said. “But today your message of love sounds a little harsh.”
* * *
—
In a dirty backstreet of Bisnaga City, in the unglamorous tavern known as the Cashew, Bukka Sangama at the precise moment of the temple’s consecration was drinking the afternoon away with his comrade in debauchery, a grizzled old soldier named Haleya Kote, who had introduced the crown prince to the pleasures of cashew feni, the new liquor in town. Feni could be distilled from many sources, most notably the coconut toddy palm, but this new drink was something else, tastier, in the opinion of many tipplers, and—at least in the version offered for sale in this tavern—significantly more potent. The cashew plant was the other great gift brought across the seas by the Portuguese along with the Arab horses, and in fact the tavern was secretly owned by Domingo Nunes, although he preferred to keep the fact hidden behind a screen of proxy day-and night-managers, because he rightly feared that Pampa Kampana would disapprove. In this long, dark, and narrow place, the drinkers sat on simple three-legged stools around the plain wooden tables nearest the door, sipping the potent feni, each man slipping toward happiness or melancholy according to his nature, while toward the rear of the inn there were things going on over which it would be advisable to draw a veil. After a few jars of liquor, however, the alcohol blurred the perceptions of the drinkers sufficiently for the activities in the rear to continue without drawing any comment.
Haleya Kote was not one of the citizens of Bisnaga created by the magic seeds. He had seen combat with Hukka and Bukka during their soldiering days, was over a decade older than the brothers and more experienced in the ways of war, but had been captured just the same along with them by the armies of the sultan of the north, and, like them, had managed to escape his servitude far away in Delhi, some years after their own flight. He arrived in Bisnaga grayer and thinner than the Sangamas remembered, but his fondness for drink soon began to fatten him up. By the time he reached Bisnaga, Hukka was already lost in the golden labyrinths of kingship and had little time for friends from the old days, but Bukka was delighted to see a familiar face with whom he shared real memories which were not the creations of Pampa Kampana’s whisperings. As the years passed and Hukka was pushed by his private resentments into the embrace of religion, a gulf had grown between the brothers, Bukka remaining cheerfully casual in the matter of faith while his older brother grew ever more austere. Also, the younger brother began to be concerned about the question of succession. Would the agreement he had made with Hukka that he, Bukka, would follow his brother onto the throne continue to hold, or would one of the king’s Portuguese bastards try to make a grab for the empire? He took Pampa Kampana for another walk along the riverbank to discuss this and received a surprisingly positive reply.