Victory City(68)



But was she in love with him?

And how long do you have to know somebody to fall in love with them, anyway? Seven years? Or seven minutes?

The reign of love will be established across the empire. He had said that, and it was greatly to his credit. In all her long life she had never heard any king—any man—privilege love above all other values. She, too, in her heart of hearts dreamed of such a thing, of a Bisnaga in which all divisions—of caste, of skin color, of religion, of thought, of shape, of region—would be set aside, and premarajya, the kingdom of love, would be born. She had never confessed to anyone, perhaps not even to herself, that she harbored so sentimental a desire in her heart, and then this Krishnadevaraya had just said it out loud for everyone to hear.

The reign of love.

He probably didn’t even know what he meant, Pampa Kampana told herself. It was just a phrase he tossed out, a rhetorical emptiness. But if she were the one standing next to him, she could teach him what it meant. If she were restored to her former place of glory she might whisper words of love into the king’s ear, and the ear of his Great Minister, and into every ear in the land. She could make it her life’s work, the life that still remained to her after almost two hundred years.

But she could do that anyway, couldn’t she? She had whispered to a whole city once before. Why didn’t she just go ahead and spread the gospel of love, if that, as she was now telling herself, was her dearest wish?

Her place of glory. Was it because of glory that she had been thrown off balance? Was that what she really wanted, after all this time, after everything? The desire for renewed glory, masquerading as the desire for a not-particularly-desirable man, and his crown?

She was obliged to admit to herself, even though it made her feel ashamed of herself, that this was probably the right answer. Zerelda Li was not the only one to have spent long years in exile, not the only one who craved belonging, and a kind of validation. But Zerelda Li knew almost nothing about Bisnaga other than what her mother had told her, and what her mother knew was only what had been passed down to her through many generations. She had no lived experience of it; she was now hungry for that experience, certainly, but a hungry woman was, frankly, a woman who hadn’t been fed.

Pampa Kampana, on the other hand, knew everything. She knew what she had done to make Bisnaga what it was, and she remembered the bitterness of her forest exile. To have something and lose it, she thought, was a good deal worse than never having had it at all, and not even really knowing what it was. She wanted everything back: to be seen once again as the magical creature she was, the human person with the goddess dwelling within her, who had created an empire from a sack of seeds, and whispered its history into its ears, and, by doing so, had made it real. She wanted to sit alone with the king and tell him the true story of his kingdom and of her central part in its making, and to have him see that this was not some fairy tale handed down over two centuries, but the truth, embodied in the woman who was telling him the tale, who looked to be not more than thirty-seven years old but had in reality seen her one hundred and ninetieth birthday come and go. That would be better than a crown. And if recognition brought love with it, the king’s love and maybe also the love of the people, if a crown were to be offered, then she would gladly accept that, all of it, as a kind of confirmation.

She accused herself of vanity.

Zerelda Li burst into the room, running, crying, and laughing at the same time. “I’m not going to be queen after all,” she cried, “but I’m going to be junior queen!” and in a tumble of words, sobs, and giggles she told Pampa Kampana about the political match with Tirumala of Srirangapatna, “but I don’t care, because she’s probably a hag, isn’t she, if the only way she can get a husband is through some cold-blooded political arrangement, not so romantic, is it, and who cares about her, anyway, because he took me into his most private of private rooms and told me I am his one and only true love, he said that the love god loosed all five of his arrows and struck him five times and that’s that, he loves me for the rest of my life, it’s so beautiful, he’s so, so, sincere.”

“I see,” Pampa Kampana said, embracing the young woman who had rushed into her arms. “Well, congratulations.”

“Junior queen is still queen,” Zerelda Li sobbed into Pampa Kampana’s shoulder. “Right?”

“Yes, indeed it is,” Pampa Kampana said.

Zerelda Li wiped her eyes. “Do you know about the five arrows of Kama?” she asked, still a little tearfully.

“Yes,” Pampa Kampana said; but there was no stopping the young woman. “Well, I didn’t,” Zerelda Li said, “but he explained it so beautifully. He said the arrow decorated with white lotus flowers, Aravinda, struck his heart, and made him feel excited, youthful, and happy. The second arrow, decorated with Ashoka flowers, hit him on the mouth and made him cry out for love. The third arrow, with the mango tree flowers painted on the shaft, Choota, penetrated his brain and made him mad with adoration. The fourth arrow, the jasmine flower arrow, Navamallika, struck his eye, and after that when he looked at me he saw a great radiance of beauty such as only the greatest goddesses exude. And the fifth arrow, the one with the blue lotuses, Neelotpala, struck his navel. Actually, he said, it doesn’t matter where the fifth arrow hits you. Wherever it lands it fills you with love, you feel like you’re drowning in a sea of love, and all you want to do is drown.”

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