Victory City(71)
“It’s unclear,” Krishnadevaraya said. “We are making discreet inquiries into the origin of the name, and the reasons for it; but at this moment, we don’t know.”
Zerelda Li sat up in bed. “I see,” she said. “Then I’ll have to be careful what I eat.”
Krishnadevaraya kissed her, and lovingly took his leave, and went elsewhere to attend to the duties of the wedding night.
* * *
—
It didn’t take long for the instant hostility that developed between Tirumala Devi and Zerelda Li to break out into open war. Krishnadevaraya made very little attempt to hide from the senior wife his preference for his junior queen. Tirumala Devi was by nature a proud, even a haughty woman, and this understandably hit her hard, so that her feelings toward her new home, Bisnaga, grew bitter and resentful. She had expected her husband to appreciate her administrative skills and delegate some of the burden of overseeing the empire to her, but this did not happen at first. She also expected to ride into battle at his side, and was abashed to learn that the king had already chosen his preferred quartet of battle companions, Ulupi Junior and Thimma the Huge to his left, and Pampa Kampana and Zerelda Li to his right. “If you insist on accompanying me,” he told Tirumala Devi, “I would prefer that you take responsibility for the running of the army camp, the kitchens and the field hospitals and so on, and leave the fighting to us.” She had no choice but to bow her head in agreement. At that moment such matters were only theoretical, because Bisnaga was not at war. Time enough, she thought, to insist on her proper place when a military campaign began. In the meanwhile her hatred of Zerelda Li festered within her.
Soon enough it was time for the festival of Gokulashtami, celebrating the birthday of Lord Krishna, who had been born at midnight, so the gopis of the court had been singing and dancing all day and deep into the evening until the midnight hour, bringing sweet and savory snacks for the king to eat, snacks which were known to be the favorite of the god himself: betelnut and fruit and sweet seedai, small fried balls of rice flour and jaggery which the ladies took it in turns to place in the king’s open mouth, until he cried, enough, because it was impossible to eat one hundred and five. The last little ball was fed to him by Zerelda Li, which she did with so much sensuous suggestiveness that Tirumala Devi, his senior queen, seated at his right hand, cried out in rage, “Know your place, you slant-eyed foreigner!” Zerelda Li reacted by laughing in the senior queen’s face. “I know my place very well,” she said, “and I don’t think you have a place anything like as enjoyable as mine.” She blew a kiss in the king’s direction and backed away, bowing deeply, with her palms conjoined. When she had gone, Krishnadevaraya turned to Tirumala Devi and said, “I never want to hear such bigotry from your mouth again, or I may ask the palace seamstresses to sew your lips shut forever.” The queen reddened and jerked back, as if she had been slapped across the face, but she held her tongue.
At the climax of the evening’s celebrations the gopis performed the dance-drama of the Ras Lila in the inner courtyard of the palace, exactly as the king had ordained that they should. Zerelda Li took the central role of Radha, even though she had been denied that role in life, and revealed in her performance that her talents as a dancer rivaled even her mastery of the sword. Her flirtatious approaches to, and sudden retreats from the king earned her a new nickname at court. In his poem celebrating the events of that night, the poet Dhurjati named her “the elusive dancer.” This is how I will hold you, her dance said to Krishnadevaraya, by slipping out of your grasp whenever you think you’ve caught me, and so making you want me even more desperately than you already do. Tirumala Devi, knowing that she herself would be incapable of performing so supple and potent an erotic display—understanding, at that moment, that Zerelda Li’s Bliss Potency was far greater than her own—wanted to leave the courtyard, but protocol dictated that she stay and watch her enemy seducing her husband before her very eyes.
Fireworks had been the gift of Domingo Nunes to Bisnaga, and by now the firework makers’ skill had grown so great that they could launch into the midnight heavens fiery images of dragon-breathed monsters doing battle with the god and being slain by him, and giant pictures filling the sky of Krishna and Radha coming together in a series of flaming, but still tender, embraces. When this concluding display was done the king rose and thanked all those who had entertained him. “It is the best birthday I can remember,” he said, and withdrew, alone, leaving the enraged Tirumala Devi and her equally ill-tempered mother Nagala to their own devices. Dragon fireworks were dancing in their eyes, and whirling demons, too.
“Did you hear that?” Tirumala Devi said to her mother. “He imagines this is his own, actual birthday, as if he truly is Lord Krishna and not just a mortal man. Can it be that he actually believes he is the great god come down to earth?”
“I fear, my darling,” her mother replied to her, not bothering to lower her voice, so that her words were heard by all the assembled court, “that your exalted husband, Krishnadevaraya the great, may have gone a little mad.”
Timmarasu the Great Minister approached. “It is unwise, ladies, on such an auspicious day to be heard making such inauspicious remarks. I suggest you go to your quarters and pray for forgiveness. I am sure, the king being the generous man that he is, that your prayers will not go unheard.”