Victory City(79)

In my life (she tells us in her book, the book of which this book is but a pale shadow), I have wanted many things I could not have. I have wanted my mother to walk out of the fire unharmed. I have wanted a companion for life even though I knew that I would outlive any companion who came my way. I wanted a dynasty of girls who would rule the world. I wanted a certain way of life even though I knew when I wanted it that I was dreaming of a distant future that might never arrive, or arrive in some half-hearted, damaged way, or arrive and then be destroyed. But it appears that the thing I wanted most of all was this:

I wanted to be king.

“I told you once before that I don’t want you to build me a temple,” she said to Krishnadevaraya. “But there is an invisible temple that you and I will build, and its building blocks will be prosperity, happiness, and equality. And also, of course, your overwhelming military success.”

“There are two more things,” the king said. “In the first place, I will continue to attempt to make Tirumala Devi the mother of my heir.”

“I don’t care,” Pampa Kampana said, although she did, although she consoled herself with the thought but you aren’t going to be here very much, are you, so that won’t be easy, and that felt good. “What’s the second thing?” she asked.

“The second thing,” Krishnadevaraya said, “is, beware of my brother.”



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(This is the first time in the Jayaparajaya that Krishnadevaraya’s brother is mentioned. It comes as a surprise to the reader, as perhaps it did to Pampa Kampana at the time.)



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Two hundred and fifty miles or more to the southeast of Bisnaga there still stands the eleventh-century fortress of Chandragiri. To the oblivion of this ancient fastness—ancient, we should add, even in the time of the Bisnaga Empire—Krishnadevaraya had consigned his younger brother, Achyuta, an individual of such low character, so ill-suited to royalty, so violent, cruel, and cowardly, that the king, unwilling to spill his own family’s blood, locked him away, heavily guarded, and hardly ever acknowledged his existence. “But he’s sneaky,” Krishnadevaraya told Pampa Kampana. “He will try to bribe and murder and cheat his way out, as he has since the day I sent him there. Send spies you trust to make sure he has not corrupted his guards. Keep your eyes on him or he will burst forth and bring destruction and chaos in his wake.”

Pampa Kampana, preparing for regency, absorbed this information, but for her there were people closer to home who needed to be placated, or at least spoken to. The first person she sought out was Saluva Timmarasu, the power behind the throne, who had successfully insisted that Tirumala Devi be named senior queen, and who might therefore be something less than an ally to Pampa Kampana in her new role, even if the king said he was supportive. She found him on the roof of the palace, feeding his pigeons. He was a big old man, bald, with many chins and huge hands, and watched the birds as they sat on his palms and pecked at seeds. He greeted her without looking up. “When I first met you,” he said, “you, too, were a bird. In my eyes, that is greatly in your favor. These little gray ones here are my friends and my most trusted messengers. In many ways birds are creatures of a higher order than human beings.”

She understood that he was making a gesture of friendship and replied with one of her own. “And I got to know you properly when we had to choose all those ridiculous girls to pretend to be gopis and please the king.” Timmarasu threw back his head and laughed. “The king gets bored easily,” he said. “Those ladies are now quietly growing old in the zenana, ignored, even forgotten. Soon we will be able to retire them and send them back where they came from, wherever that was. But I remember Queen Zerelda Li’s dance. That was worth watching.”

This was his way of bringing up the subject of Tirumala Devi, whom the dance had greatly displeased. “I hope,” Pampa Kampana said, “that the senior queen will not feel the need to resort to any underhand tactics during the period of my regency.”

Timmarasu’s expression darkened. “You must understand that my recommendation of the marriage to the daughter of King Veera of Srirangapatna was purely political,” he said. “It was a necessary alliance. You should not take it as expressing any preference.”

“Good,” Pampa Kampana said. “Then we are friends.”

“It is my impression,” Timmarasu said, “that Queen Tirumala is too preoccupied with dynastic ambitions to take on the daily work of running the empire. She wants to lie with the king and make babies, and I believe the king has explained to you that that will happen. This allows the senior queen to feel that she will win in the end, by producing the heir to the Diamond Throne.”

“Let’s see how that goes,” Pampa Kampana said, and took her leave. As she turned to go, Timmarasu called after her.

“Regarding the matter of poison et cetera et cetera,” he said. “That kind of melodrama will not happen in Bisnaga while I am alive and keeping an eye on things. I have made this very clear to the ladies concerned. They know they are being watched.”

“Thank you,” Pampa Kampana said. “I’ll mention it to them also. And I’ll watch as well.”



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