Victory City(60)



It is plain that Pampa Kampana in her telling has little time for the gruesome and violent legends in which the foreigner Vieri seems to rejoice. She suggests that, in reality, old King Tuluva placed a dagger in the center of a large carpet and challenged his sons to seize it without walking on that rug. Narasimha was at a loss, but Krishna just rolled up the carpet until the dagger was within his grasp, and so won the day.

Vieri retorts with a rumor of a fight to the death between the two half-brothers, at the end of which Krishna stood over the other’s corpse and held aloft his bloodied sword and so won the crown.

All these tales can be treated with respect or dismissed as tall tales, as the reader prefers. For our purposes the most important version—although perhaps the hardest to believe—is the eighth one, in which Pampa Kampana is present herself, along with Zerelda Li.

On the day of their father’s death (Pampa Kampana tells us) Krishna and his half-brother walked together to the palace gates to announce the passing of Tuluva Raya to the gathered crowd. As they came forward, Krishna looked up into the sky and saw two cheel kites circling overhead, high up in the heat-shimmered air. Once, twice, thrice they circled, until he believed their presence might be an augury.

“If they circle around us seven times,” he said, “then it’s certain they come with a message from the gods.” And indeed the two kites did make seven circles, coming down gradually, lower and lower on each circle, until they were flying right over the two princes’ heads. Then they dropped to the ground at the two men’s feet and to everyone’s amazement they metamorphosed into two of the most beautiful women anyone had ever seen: sisters from heaven, or so it seemed. In a swift movement they knelt at the feet of Prince Krishna, bowed their heads, and offered him their magnificent swords. “We place ourselves at your service, and at the service of the empire of Bisnaga,” they said. After that there wasn’t any argument about the succession to the Lion Throne. The half-brother Narasimha disappears from Pampa Kampana’s manuscript and is never heard of again. We must hope that Krishna Raya allowed him to live in comfortable anonymity for the rest of his days.



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The spectacular arrival in Bisnaga of Pampa Kampana and Zerelda Li was a gamble that paid off. There were risks in such a bravura entry, there was the danger that such beings as they were revealing themselves to be would engender fear and hostility rather than acceptance. But Pampa Kampana had been determined to enter Bisnaga through the front door this time, instead of crawling through a tunnel. This time, she wanted to be seen for who and what she was. Fortunately, their timing was excellent. The newly crowned Krishna Tuluva—now Krishna Raya—was convinced that Pampa Kampana and Zerelda Li were supernatural beings, apsaras (celestial nymphs who were known to be shape-shifters), sent down from above to bless his reign; and after that their safety was assured. They were given lavish accommodations in the palace, and expressed their gratitude for it, although Pampa Kampana, who remembered the days of living in the queen’s quarters, was obliged to smother a surge of disappointment. It was plain that the young king was intoxicated by the two women who had descended from the skies, thought to be sisters by one and all, and was already thinking about romance, although his preference was unclear, even to himself. But in the beginning he was engulfed by matters of state and understood that love and marriage would have to wait.

By this time the grand old sultanate of Zafarabad had broken up into five smaller kingdoms, Ahmadnagar, Berar, Bidar, Bijapur, and Golconda; and nobody spoke about a “Ghost Sultanate” anymore. This is how history moves; the obsession of one moment is relegated to the junkyard of oblivion by the next. All five of the new sultans, undeterred by their smaller territories, were hungry for expansion, especially the sultan of Golconda, rich in diamonds, who was happy to be freed from the domination of the old Zafarabad regime, and had plans of his own to establish a new dominance over the region. In addition, the Gajapati dynasty’s kingdom to the east had grown more powerful, and they too had designs on the lands of the Bisnaga Empire. The arrival of a new, young, untested king on the Lion Throne encouraged them to try their luck.

When Krishna Raya’s army was ready to march against the oncoming, combined forces of Bidar and Bijapur, Pampa Kampana and Zerelda Li asked for an audience with the king. “Do not number us among the brocaded ladies of the royal court, accustomed to lounging among silken fabrics and eunuchs, singing love songs all day, smoking opium and drinking sweet pomegranate juice,” Pampa Kampana told him. “You will find no better warriors in your service than ourselves.” Krishna Raya was impressed. “The old kwoon constructed in the time of Grandmaster Li still stands,” he said. “We will bring the finest women warriors of our palace guard there, and let’s see how well you do against them.”

“We have been trained by the very best,” Zerelda Li said. “So we would prefer to be tested against men as well as women.”

“Don’t underestimate the fighting women here,” said the sizable woman who was the head of the palace guard. “My forebear was the invincible Ulupi, and I have taken her name in her honor. You will find me the equal of any man.”

The king was amused. “Enough, enough,” he said, laughing. “Ulupi Junior will fight you both, my two apsaras, and we will find a mere man to put you to the test as well.”

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