Victory City(64)
Saluva Timmarasu was a man of humble origins, not learned in the texts, a brusque worldly fellow who had made his way up by soldiering; a plain man, who knew himself to be inadequate to the task of rehearsing these pseudo-gopis in the characters they must now inhabit to please their royal master. He therefore turned for help to the one he thought of as the senior of the two celestial beings who had flown down into their lives, and who, being celestial, would know about the characters and antics of the timeless personages inhabiting that other world. It so happened that, unknown to Timmarasu, this Senior Celestial Being was also the person in Bisnaga who was most learned in the books, the one who had spent her childhood years from the age of nine in the company of the sage Vidyasagar, studying and striving to understand the ancient texts. This was Pampa Kampana, of course, and if Timmarasu was accepted by the king as his personal tutor, then Pampa Kampana became Timmarasu’s teacher, as well as the instructor and confidante of his one hundred and five consorts.
At first Pampa Kampana didn’t want to do it. Her advanced views on the position of women in society were incompatible with a royal household of over a hundred wives. She wanted to approach the king and say, just choose one wonderful woman and rule with her, side by side. But Timmarasu suggested this would be unwise. “He is deeply struck by you and Miss Zerelda Li as well,” the minister said, “because of your magical nature and your unrivaled prowess in combat. But he is beginning to think of himself as a god, and so in his own opinion he outranks mere metamorphic apsaras. Don’t get on the wrong side of him now, at the beginning of things. Slowly, slowly is the way to make him change. Also, I’ve seen the way he looks at both of you. One of you, or both of you, may be granted a very high rank.”
“There are things I have to tell Krishna Raya about us—about me—that I hope will make him take me very seriously indeed,” Pampa Kampana said. “But you are right. Everything in its own good time. Let us wait until Bisnaga has a queen.”
“As to that,” Timmarasu said, “I expect and intend to be influential in the king’s choice. That is a matter not of love, but of state.”
“I see,” said Pampa Kampana. “So I’ll find out eventually whose side you are on.”
She began her assignment with the eighth-ranked consort, formerly a flower-seller’s daughter, now renamed “Sudevi,” and chosen for her complexion, which was the color of a lotus stamen. “There’s a lot for you to do,” Pampa Kampana old her. “You must always be sweet-natured, no matter what the provocation. You must bring the king water whenever he is thirsty, and massage his body with perfumed oils after he comes home from the day’s exertions. You will train parrots to perform for him, and roosters to fight. You will also be the guardian of the flowers in the zenana, making sure they are fresh in their vases. Certain flowers blossom when the moon rises. Those are auspicious flowers. Learn their names and make sure there are plenty of them in the palace. Also, you will keep bees. And once the queen is crowned, you will braid her hair, and spy on the other gopis to make sure they are not plotting against her. Can you do this?”
“I will do this with love,” said the eighth-ranked gopi.
The seventh-ranked gopi was “Ranga,” originally a washerwoman’s daughter. “Your job,” Pampa Kampana told her, “is to flirt incessantly with the king when the queen is absent, and, when the queen is present as well as the king, to make her laugh by telling her a nonstop stream of jokes. In the summer heat, you must fan them, and in the winter cold, bring coal for their fireplaces. But you must also study logic, so that if the king chooses to philosophize, you can join in the conversation with impressive competence and verve. Can you do this?”
“The logic part won’t be easy,” said the seventh-ranked gopi, “but I’ll make up for it by flirting extra hard.”
When the sixth-ranked gopi, now called “Indulekha,” formerly the daughter of a palace cook, was brought before her, Pampa Kampana said, “Oh, you’re the hot-tempered one, probably because of all that heat in the kitchen. You will make for the king meals that taste like nectar, and fan him while he eats. In addition you will master the charming of snakes so that they may dance for him, and the arts of palm-reading, so that you can tell him his fortune every morning, ensuring that he is well prepared for the day. Once there is a queen, she and the king will use you to send messages to each other, so you will know their secrets; and you will be the mistress of her wardrobe and her jewels. If you should ever be so foolish as to tell any other living person a royal secret, or to steal…”
“I will never be that foolish,” shouted the sixth gopi, “so kindly don’t accuse me of being either a blabbermouth or a thief.”
The gopi of the fifth rank, now known as “Tungavidya,” a schoolteacher’s child, had been chosen for her high intelligence and wide-ranging knowledge as well as her mastery of the arts. “You are here,” Pampa Kampana said, “to stimulate the king with your expertise in the eighteen branches of knowledge, including morality, literature, and everything else. Also to dance. And I believe you can play the vina and sing in the marga style. That is suitable. It can also be that if the king wishes to make a political alliance he may call upon your diplomatic expertise. And if the king and queen should quarrel, your diplomacy will be required to smooth things over, although at such times your senior, Chitra, will always take the lead, and you will do as she asks.”