Victory City(95)
No sooner had they arrived than Achyuta Deva Raya, infuriated by Aliya Rama Raya’s stratagem, told them their services weren’t required. “Okay, so you’re here, not my idea but that’s the way it is,” he told them in his uncouth fashion. “However, we don’t need any advice from the likes of you. You’ve made the journey for nothing. Too bad. Stay a while, rest up, we’ll eat tonight, and then you can all be on your way.”
What he thought was: Four sick old men and a kid. Nothing to fear here. He also had a number of unpleasant thoughts about followers of that religion which it is unnecessary to repeat here. The Five Sultans no doubt entertained equally unpleasant thoughts about him.
That evening at dinner, Aliya Rama Raya spoke one by one to all Five Sultans. He soon learned that Hussain Shah of Ahmadnagar and Darya of Berar looked down on Ali Barid of Bidar and Adil Shah of Bijapur because their dynasties had been started by former slaves of foreign origin (their slave ancestors had come from Georgia). Qutb Shah of Golconda looked down on Hussain Shah and Darya because Hussain’s family had originally been Brahmin Hindus, and the Berar sultanate descended from Hindu converts too. Qutb Shah was hated and feared by all four others because of the wealth and power of Golconda. All five seemed happier talking to Aliya than to one another. As for Achyuta, he sat some way away from his guests at the far end of the table, and drank. It was the only way, he reckoned, to get through this disaster of an evening.
Aliya Rama Raya thought: How interesting that they really don’t like one another. We need to keep it that way.
Outside, the rain thundered down. The roof of the banqueting hall proved to be in need of repair and provided an imperfect defense against the downpour. Water came through in several places. Palace staff ran about with buckets and mops. It was necessary to hold umbrellas over the heads of the sultans of Bijapur and Golconda. This did nothing to improve the general mood.
Achyuta the king was right. The evening was a disaster. The Five Sultans left the next morning before dawn, all of them furious about their pointless journey.
Adil Shah of Bijapur thought: Bisnaga is in terrible shape, divided against itself, run-down, leaky-roofed, confused. Time, perhaps, to make a decisive move.
The banquet was notable for one other thing. It was the last function of state at which the now very old Nagala Devi was present, seated between her grim daughter ex-Queen Tirumala Devi and her reserved, though pleasant-faced, granddaughter Tirumalamba Devi. The three women sat upright, ate little, drank less, said nothing, and retired early. That night, Nagala Devi died.
* * *
—
The old lady slipped away quietly in the night lying in bed listening to the frogs croaking during a break in the rain. “It was the only thing she did quietly in her whole life,” her granddaughter Tirumalamba said to Pampa Kampana at the mutt, before bursting into tears. “You can go on loving somebody even if you feel unloved by that person, isn’t it,” she wept. “Maybe it makes things worse. If you stopped loving them the pain would be less. When I was a little girl I sat at her feet and she told me stories and took me to see things. She was different then. Maybe she was happier. She told me about Tirumalaiah, the chief who built our great temple, or so she said, more than five hundred years ago. Then she took me to the temple and showed me everything, all the way inside, even the sanctum containing the god and the snake with seven heads. She also took me to the beautiful waterfall. Srirangapatna is an island inside the Kaveri river which divides when it reaches our home and then reunites beyond it. She is the one who told me that that place, the place where the two streams of the river rejoin, is the most auspicious place for the scattering of ashes. She took me to see it and pointed to the best place from which to do that work. So now we must take her there and scatter her on the water.”
“Talk to your mother,” Pampa Kampana said. “She has lost her mother and she needs her daughter by her side.”
“You are my mother now,” Tirumalamba Devi said. “I am your daughter.”
“No,” Pampa Kampana told her. “Not today.”
Tirumalamba found her mother Tirumala Devi alone in her bedroom with a dry-eyed face as impenetrable as a locked door. “Your grandmother gave up her marriage to come and live here in Bisnaga with me. She loved your grandfather and he still loves her and yet they agreed she would come with me and make sure I was safe in this hellish place where everyone thought we were nothing but poisoners.”
“We should take her back to her husband now,” Tirumalamba said.
“I want to go back also,” her mother told her. “You don’t want or need me and I have no place here anymore. I want to spend the few years that remain at home, as my father’s daughter once again, so that we may comfort each other for our loss.”
“Ask the king,” Tirumalamba told her. “I’m sure he will agree.”
They did not embrace, or weep together. Some wounds are too deep to be healed.
Tirumala Devi asked for an audience with Achyuta. He received her formally, seated on the throne while she stood before him like a common supplicant. She ignored the insult and spoke courteously. “As my husband and mother have both left us,” she said, “I ask that I be allowed to return to my father’s house, my work here being complete.”
“But it’s not complete,” Achyuta said, picking strands of fatty meat from his teeth. “You being in Bisnaga keeps your father honest. He will not dare to break our agreement or move against us in any way while we have you.”