By the time she finished, both girls were weeping. From joy, because they knew their father—and mother, too—were still alive. From grief, hearing of the death of their brother.
But, mostly, from fear and heartbreak.
“You are holding us hostage, then,” whispered the youngest.
“Our father will never want us back, anyway,” sobbed the older, clutching her child to her breast. “Not now. Not so great a man, with such polluted daughters.”
Lady Damodara studied them for a moment. Then, rose and went to the window of her bedchamber. Once at the window, she stared out over great Kausambi.
“Hostages?” The question seemed posed as much to herself as anyone. “Yes. It is true. On the other hand . . .”
She studied the sleeping city. It reminded her of a giant beast, washing on the waves of a deep and black ocean.
“Let us rather think of it as a pledge. Malwa has much to answer for. Many fathers struck childless, and children orphaned.” She turned her head away from the window and gazed on the sisters. “So perhaps the day may come when a family reunited will serve as an offering. And so a father grown powerful might be moved to hold his hand from vengeance, and counsel others to do the same. Because the sight of his living children might remind him of the cost of more dead ones.”
The sisters stared at her, their eyes still wet with tears. “We will mean nothing to him now,” repeated the oldest. “No longer. Not after everything which has passed.”
Lady Damodara issued another soft, gentle laugh. “Oh, I think not.” She turned her face back to the window, this time studying not the city so much as the land it sat upon. As if she were pondering the nature of the great, dark ocean through which the beast swam.
“Whatever happens,” she said quietly, “India will never be the same. So I would not be so sure, children, that your father will think as he might have once. A man does not go from such obscurity to such power, you know, if he is incapable of handling new truths. And besides—”
Again, the laugh. “He is said to be a philosopher. Let us all hope it is true!”
When she turned back from the window this time, the movement had an air of finality. She came to stand before the two sisters on her bed, and planted her hands on her hips.
“And now, I think, it is time for us to start anew as well. You will continue in your duties, of course, for that is necessary. Ask no questions. Say nothing to anyone. But, for the rest . . . what are your names?”
That simple question seemed to steady the girls, and bring them back from the precipice of fear and sorrow.
“I am called Lata,” said the youngest, smiling a bit timidly. “My sister is named Dhruva.”
“And my little boy is Baji,” concluded her sister. “Who is as dear to me as the sunrise, regardless of whence he came.”
Lady Damodara nodded. “A good start. Especially that last. We will all need your wisdom, child, before this is through.”
* * *
No one took any notice of the beggar squatting outside Venandakatra’s palace. He was simply one among many beggars. The old man had been plying his trade there for several weeks, and had long since become a familiar part of the landscape. Few people paid any attention to him at all, in truth—and certainly not the arrogant Ye-tai who guarded the Goptri.
Some of the other denizens of the city’s slums noticed him, of course. For all the old man’s apparent poverty, his garments were a bit unusual. Not in their finery—they were rags, and filthy at that—but simply in their extent. Most beggars wore nothing more than a loincloth. This old man’s entire body was shrouded, as if by a winding sheet.
There was a reason for that, which was discovered by a small band of street toughs when they assaulted the old beggar. The attack occurred a few days after he first began plying his trade, in the crooked alley where the old beggar slept at night. The toughs had noticed that the beggar’s bowl had been particularly well-endowed that day, and saw no reason such a miserable creature should enjoy that largesse.