Victory City(67)
“They say she’s a military lady,” Timmarasu said, “so maybe you will want her to fight alongside your other great heroines, Ulupi Junior, Zerelda Li, and Pampa.”
“They won’t get on,” the king prophesied.
“They must,” Timmarasu said. “Because you will command it, and you are the king.”
Krishnadevaraya thought for a moment. “What am I supposed to do now?” he asked, and his voice was not thunderous anymore, but almost piteous. “Just minutes ago I told the world that Zerelda Li would be my Radha. Am I supposed to demote her before anything has even begun?”
“The royal court is a school of hard knocks,” said Timmarasu. “There are ups, and there are downs. It will be a valuable lesson for the girl to learn.”
“Then I must go out and tell her that she cannot be Radha but she can be Lalita, which is just one step down. It’s still a very important position.”
“I believe Tirumala will ask her mother to accompany her to Bisnaga,” Timmarasu said. “She may not be with us all the time, but the position of closest companion must be hers. So the second-place ‘Lalita’ role must go to her.”
“You want me to push Zerelda Li down into third place?” Krishnadevaraya cried. “She can’t be Radha or even Lalita, so she must be Visakha. This may be hard for her to take.”
“She is a sort of foreigner,” Timmarasu said, brutally. “There is in her more than a touch of the Chinese, and maybe of other races, too. Tell her no foreigner has ever occupied so high a position in the empire. There was once a foreigner in charge of explosions, but this is a far more elevated position. Tell her it’s impossible to place her higher, because that would perhaps indicate to the Chinese emperor that you were willing to accept some degree of Chinese authority in Bisnaga. This may lead to an invasion, a fleet arriving at Goa, followed by a war we do not want. It would be better, really, if you did not give her any rank at court at all.”
“You go too far,” Krishnadevaraya said to Timmarasu. “This is the woman that I love. I must hurt her for your ‘reasons of state,’ but I will continue to love her. Tirumala may become the queen empress of Bisnaga, but Zerelda Li will always be the queen empress of my heart.”
“Really?” Timmarasu demanded. “This isn’t just some infatuation of yours? You have hardly spoken to the girl since she arrived. You don’t know her.”
“It is not an infatuation,” said the king. “When you see someone fighting on the battlefield their entire nature becomes apparent. When life and death are the only questions there’s no room to hide. I saw her at Diwani. She was magnificent. She is extraordinary. I can’t think of a better woman to have by my side for the rest of my life. Well, the other apsara, the one who calls herself Pampa Kampana, is perhaps even more extraordinary, but in spite of her apparent youth and beauty she gives off, for some reason that I don’t understand, the air of a very old woman, and even though I respect and admire that old soul which she seems to possess, I need youth that acts like youth. These are the reasons for my feelings. They are not superficial. They are profound. And I will make one more point that may be to the liking of your calculating way of thinking. It may even be a ‘reason of state.’
“If it’s true that, as she says, she is descended from Zerelda Sangama, then a union with her unites the Tuluva and Sangama dynasties and makes our claim to the Lion Throne—my claim and our children’s claim—impossible to refute. We don’t need to mention this to Tirumala or her father, but this may be my preferred line of succession—the best line of succession for my house.”
Timmarasu scrutinized him closely. “I see that you are telling the truth about your feelings, and that you are also thinking ahead in an interesting way,” he said at length. “So I will protect and enable your love. But Tirumala must be the senior queen. We will face the question of what happens to any offspring at a later point. Now we must return to the throne room and make everything clear.”
“Very well,” Krishnadevaraya said. “Let’s get this over with.”
* * *
—
After she left the throne room, Pampa Kampana went to sit alone in her chambers, and asked herself what the matter might be. Her own recent behavior was a puzzlement to her. Why had she spoken so competitively to Zerelda Li about the king’s glances toward her—“He looks at me in the exact same way”? Why had she left the throne room in an inelegant, red-faced fit of pique? It was true that she had wanted no part of Krishnadevaraya’s ersatz Vrindavan, his “Holy Basil Forest” filled with counterfeits of the retinue of the god. It was true that she resented having been dragged into the whole foolish business, as the girls’ educator and mentor, by Minister Timmarasu. It was also true that Radha had been her own mother’s name and so it was painful to see it bestowed upon another. But none of that should have created a rift between Zerelda Li and herself. Also, she could readily understand Zerelda Li’s eagerness to be a part of her new world, her yearning to enter into the heart of a culture which was hers, but still largely unknown to her; her desire to belong. What, then, was going on, Pampa Kampana wondered. Why was she so upset?
Was she herself in love with the king?
Ridiculous idea. His vanity, his godly delusions, his pockmarked face. There were a hundred reasons why she wouldn’t want a man like him. He was the opposite of her type. And anyway, she hardly knew him.