The conqueror, p.21
The Conqueror, page 21
The Raja called both his wives to his bedchamber that night.
‘You are both dear to me. But I need to appoint an heir to the kingdom. One of my children will serve as prime minister during my reign and then progress to becoming the ruler.’
‘Your boys will be delighted, my lord,’ said his new wife. ‘They look forward to it.’
He nodded at her but looked at the queen for her response. The queen merely looked at the ground and nodded; she felt a hot flush of anger. This was as much her kingdom as his. How could she let it go without a fight? She had already lost one kingdom. She would not lose another simply because the Raja did not want an heiress. For a moment, she contemplated getting the wife murdered. With a little money, the right people to do the job, the wife and her children would sleep one night, and not wake up the next. She was almost gleeful at the thought when she raised her head and saw the Raja looking at her with an expression of concern.
In that moment, she realized that the kingdom was not worth fighting for, not if it meant hurting the person you loved most in the world. Airlangga had wanted this perfect life for so long. A male heir and a wife to bear him one. A picture worth painting on the walls. A family unit of king, queen and heir. He had yearned for what he believed was normalcy his entire life. And he now had the opportunity to have it all.
She would not stand in his way.
6
A man entered my cell to summon me so I took leave of the scribe who continued scribbling on his palm leaf parchment, and walked through the dark prison and out into the light. I was blindfolded and made to step inside a carriage. I took a deep breath and tried not to think of my impending death. The carriage stopped, and I was marched into a building of sorts, then up a set of stairs and finally made to sit on a chair. I blinked as the blindfold was taken off me.
I was in what had been my room. On the bed lay Rajendra.
‘The situation has been reversed. I lie on the bed now, and you sit in front of me,’ he spoke in his rumbling voice.
I sat silently and let him speak.
‘The first thing you learn about being a king is there is no room for error. Do my prasastis speak of my mistakes? Do anyone’s? I’ve had you spied upon for over six years. God himself probably doesn’t know as much about you as I.’
He picked his fingernails as he spoke. ‘Not all spies are men who lurk in the shadows. My ablest proved a courtesan who stayed hidden in broad daylight. You know her, of course.’
‘Paravai?’ I asked, disbelievingly.
‘You look surprised? She’s been working with me for some time now. Courtesans get access to places most men do not. In this case, the life of a foreign king who found it difficult to make friends away from home.’
‘What of Bhaskaran?’ I asked.
‘When Paravai told me about your great deception, I was genuinely hurt. Bhaskaran had ceased to hurt me. We had suspected his movements for some years. He is the son of my father’s minister. Somewhere along the way, he thought he could be king and started engaging with the Chalukyas. When Indravarman finally reached out to him, and Bhaskaran brought him and the Srivijayan merchants together with the Chalukyas, we knew something significant was being plotted. Bhaskaran seemed to be of the impression that he would govern Chola lands once the Chalukyas came to power. It sounds incredibly naive, but I have little doubt, judging by the scale of his ambition, that he intended to use them as a mere stepping stone. There has never been a better time for upstarts in this land. Some years ago, the marauder from Ghazni in the far north near Persia came and laid waste to the lands up to nearly central Bharatvarsha. Since then, that entire region has been fermenting. The Chalukyas were inspired to follow suit, and so was Bhaskaran, by the looks of it. If a marauder from the outside can cause so much havoc and displace so many empires, what could an insider do with some outside interference?’
He cleared his throat and continued. ‘Predictably enough, the first plot involved an attempt to rescue you. There was very little chance of that happening, I can say now. We had catapults ready to shore up our meagre coastguard. The only time things got a little problematic, I am told, was when you started moving with the pirates in the night. My men were terrified their arrows would hit you.’
He chuckled to himself. ‘But you returned safely of your own volition. After the Indravarman incident happened, we decided to use Bhaskaran as an asset against the Chalukyas. We put him in important departments and gave him the responsibility of projects that looked significant from the outside, but really were not fundamental to the safety of the kingdom. We nurtured him without his knowing.
‘He became a truly exceptional asset. We avoided a Chalukya war in the year of the famine when we convinced him that the villagers were threatening to riot against us and would riot against them if they came into power. When he decided to commit rajadroham openly by trying to murder me, we all sighed heavily.’
He looked at his fingernails and then looked at me. His eyes were sad. ‘But when he brought you into the fold and told you he had a son of mine working against me, I felt vulnerable for the first time in over fifty years. My sons, I knew, were dissatisfied with the way the kingdom was being run, each in their own way. I had not expected them to want to kill me for it. The feeling made me numb. But another kind of pain afflicted me when I heard that you, too, were behind it. I thought we were friends, Sangrama.’
He pursed his lips, and looked disappointed. ‘I have been worried about the issue of succession for some years now. You know that. I decided to use the occasion of my murder to learn which son wanted me dead – and if Porus would treat Alexander as befitted him. I sent a message – indirectly, of course, through Paravai – to each of my three boys to hurry to the mansion at midnight since there was to be an assassination attempt on me by you. If one of my boys wanted me dead, I was reasonably certain they would call off the plan and my impending murder once they knew I had learned about it. Imagine my joy then, when it was just the two of us alone in the room at midnight with the assassins. I was prepared, in that moment, to die if my boys had not come in time to rescue me. And they nearly didn’t. Another elephant had gone mad in the streets, I was told, and had died on the path to your house, which delayed them.’
‘Later, after the assassination attempt, I found out that Bhaskaran was lying about allying with my sons. We did not even need to torture him to reveal it. He told you that one of the princes was involved to gain your trust in the endeavour. After the assassination, he planned to head towards the border and join the Chalukya army there. I believe he was counting on the fact that the princes would be too busy fighting each other for the throne to notice the Chalukya invasion. As it turned out, they didn’t.’
He looked at me and smiled. ‘The moment they heard that you were going to assassinate me, both Virajendra and Rajendradeva sent word to Rajadhiraja assuring him of their support should I fall.’
His smile grew even wider.
‘When I heard about this later on, it was the proudest moment I had ever had as a parent. The decision of who will be king had been taken off my shoulders by my sons themselves. Rajadhiraja will rule, supported by his brothers. And he will be succeeded by his brothers when the time comes. And I couldn’t have learned this without you.’
He paused here for a moment, and his smile evaporated for an instant. ‘I should have fallen to the assassin’s blade. What I wasn’t prepared for was what happened next.’
He looked down at the mattress and then at me. ‘You saved me, Sangrama. Why?’
I took a deep breath. ‘You are my friend.’
He grunted and looked down at the mattress. ‘Thank you,’ he said, his voice soft for the first time in our acquaintance.
The queen went to the Raja the next day and told him of her decision to become a bhikkuni , a female monk. She wanted to leave the kingdom and meditate on life.
‘Isn’t that a little drastic?’ he asked her.
It was what she wanted, she insisted. Besides, she said, there was no room for her in the palace, with the new wife. She could fight for her position in the kingdom, the place she had helped build, but she had decided against it.
He gaped at her. At least stay for the announcement of the heir to the throne, he pleaded.
A week later in the royal hall, the announcement was made.
7
Rajendra Chola apologized for keeping me in prison after the assassination attempt. He needed that time, he told me, to get all the facts from as many sources as possible. I told him I understood, and to let the past be. When I asked him about Bhaskaran’s fate, he told me that there was much to be investigated on that front. Chances were that he wouldn’t make it out alive, unless he could conduct a plot against his former employers, the Chalukyas. I had little doubt that he would have any problem with that.
The Cholas are sending a trade mission to China. The docks are filled with spices, gold, wood and pepper that will be loaded onto ships and never see their home again, and will probably occupy pride of place in another man’s home or dinner plate.
One of the items travelling with this cargo is, however, going home. Me.
I met Rajendra and his sons for the last time. We spoke little, but Rajendra embraced me, and thanked me for my friendship. I would like to think there were tears in his eyes as I left, but that could have just been the dust. Gangaikonda Cholapuram is expanding rapidly, and the dust cloud around it has become an almost permanent feature.
The trade mission hosted by the Thousand Directions Guild will go to China – from Puhar to Eelam to Kadaram and then Barus, unloading cargo along the way. It will then twirl around the Sunda straits and then pass through the Melaka straits and towards China.
I will complete my voyage at a port in Hujung Galuh, a port city in the state of Kahuripan. Not home, but close enough. I will see my daughter and her husband. From there, I will find a way of taking back my kingdom.
A sudden dread seizes me. It has been nearly seven years since I left those shores. Will they remember me fondly?
Worse, will they have forgotten?
The men on the boat are getting visibly flustered. Storm clouds loom in the horizon. The deck is a blur of activity as the Tamils lash the cargo in the hold and on the deck to different parts of the ship. I should be worried. I have sailed through storms before, and they are never easy to negotiate.
And yet, I feel serene. The storm is outside me for once.
I go down below the deck and find a stout piece of rope to tie around my waist and fasten it to a pillar. I begin humming a tune, and end up singing the song. It is a cheery one about the summer, and the sun that seems happiest in those months. I am at peace as we enter the storm.
All the ministers of states and the chiefs of different regions had gathered in the great hall of the palace. The king sat on his throne flanked by his wives. When the silence in the room became almost deafening, he stood up and addressed them all.
‘They say I never got what a Raja should get. I was born of another land, and spent my early years wandering the forests of Vanagiri with old Narottam here. Then I spent the early years of the kingdom fighting wars and negotiating petty and humiliating treaties with more kingdoms than I can count. I was never treated like a Raja and I had no official investiture. We grew from a few villages to this prosperous land to which you can all claim allegiance. This ceremony, as it were, is perhaps the first regal one of my reign.
‘For many years, I sought to be like other kings. Perhaps because it was taken away from me so brutally when I was young, I needed to regain it for some kind of closure. I wanted an empire of my own and a male heir, because other kings had one or desired one. But, over the years, I’ve learned that a king alone does not make a kingdom. This kingdom has become what it is because of the people who have loved it and worked hard to build its glory.’
He paused for a while, looked at his audience and then continued. ‘We have always been a kingdom that has done things a little differently, guided by love rather than the dynastic norms that govern other kingdoms. Most of you think that I will make one of my boys the next ruler-designate of the kingdom. I love them dearly, and when the time comes, I will ensure that they get their due. But this kingdom has been guided to its current zenith by not one but two extraordinary women. I see no reason why there should not be a third.
‘I have no hesitation then to announce that my rakryan kanuruhan – my prime minister and heir to the throne – will be my eldest child, my daughter, Sanggramawijaya. Her mother, the queen, shall monitor her progress with me, and we will make sure that she is fit to rule the kingdom by the time she attains maturity. I also want to announce that my daughter’s mother, the queen, will, from now on rule with me as Queen Regent and, in the event that something happens to me, will be the new ruler of the kingdom. She has seen Kahuripan from its earliest days. No one knows more about the kingdom than her.’
Even as the audience in the hall – ministers, Daatus, Rakais and warlords – cheered loudly, the queen’s first instinct was annoyance. Why hadn’t he told her before? They had always taken all the decisions together, hadn’t they? She almost glowered at him in front of all the ministers. But before she could dwell on this further, the crowd began chanting her name and drew her attention back to the court. The new wife smiled at the queen but did not say anything. Before he resumed his speech – where he said that his two sons will eventually also learn how to govern so that when they attained maturity they, too, would help administer the kingdom, and then began a long diatribe on what fiscal policy needed to be followed that year – he glanced at the queen and smiled at her. She smiled back and resolved never to doubt his love for her again.
‘Thank you, Airlangga,’ she whispered.
‘Thank you, Dharmaprasadottunggadewi,’ he replied.
A HISTORICAL NOTE
All stories are lies. And storytellers? The less said about them the better.
In 1025 AD, Rajendra Chola sent a naval armada to invade the Srivijaya kingdom. An attack of this nature had never been perpetrated before. The Srivijayas were all-powerful in their part of the world. As the epigraph at the beginning goes on to say, Rajendra Chola conquered fourteen cities, including the capital that was located in the area occupied by the current city of Palembang. A city without a name makes for an interesting narrative device, so I have eschewed any identity for the capital city of the Srivijaya empire in this book. Timelines, too, have been tampered with but only a little. The Chola raid did happen around 1025 AD. And, in 1033 AD, a mission of theirs did reach the Chinese. I have taken some liberties with the artefacts of the age too, which a keen historian might be able to spot. Also, the use of the Gregorian calendar and the use of ‘Europe’, and ‘China’ as an entity (rather than referring specifically to Song dynasty territories which only included a part of what is today modern China) is more for the convenience of the reader than anything else. I have also, in this spirit, taken the liberty of referring to Rajendra Chola’s son, who was also called Rajendra Chola (or Rajendra Chola II), as Rajendradeva, to distinguish him from his father.
Other than that, the sources are suspiciously silent on the matter of Rajendra Chola’s age. One source said he was born in 960 AD, but there is no verifiable proof that I could find on this. However, he was closer to middle age than youth when he ascended the throne; that much is certain.
The books of Nilakanta Sastri and the excellent compendium of essays ‘Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa’ have been invaluable aids for information about the Cholas. The translation of the fragment of an epigraph at the beginning is also Nilakanta Sastri’s.
Much like Airlangga, the historical fiction writer ‘crosses the water’, and takes a leap across the gaps that invariably come up in our knowledge of ancient history. He makes certain assumptions that he hopes don’t fly in the face of commonly accepted historical fact. And, if they do, he tries to make the rest of the story enjoyable enough for the reader to forgive them. In the end, the historical fiction writer just wants you to read. Not just more fiction, but also more history. Any liberties I have taken that may offend the student of history are my own, and not the fault of any of the sources I have mentioned. I have, at times, disregarded certain details or accepted certain assumptions over others for the purpose of creating a more cohesive story. Human life is messy and unstructured, and left without the pruning effects of narrative, is virtually impossible to render into a story.
So why did the Cholas raid an empire in Indonesia? Many historians believe it was probably a trade dispute. The Srivijaya monopolized trade to China, and even at one point made the Chinese believe that the Cholas were their vassals, as exemplified by the use of ‘coarse paper’ in correspondence mentioned in this novel. The ‘Thousand Directions’ were a real merchant guild, and probably benefited from the Srivijaya invasion.
Sangrama Vijayatunggavarman was the real king of Srivijaya. His life is lost to history after the invasion, and all we hear of him is that he was captured by the Cholas, a practice not uncommon. Mahinda, the king of Sri Lanka, was also captured, as I have mentioned in the book, and kept at Thanjavur till 1030 AD when he passed away. It is not inconceivable that this would have been Sangrama’s fate, too, if he had been captured. The manner of his imprisonment is not known.
Certain sources like Nilakanta Sastri mention that Sangrama Vijayatunggavarman was allowed to reign over his kingdom after paying a hefty tribute to the Cholas. Some sources also say that Srideva became the king of Srivijaya after Sangrama’s capture. Lacking any real knowledge to take a stand in the matter, I have kept both possibilities alive, and also the hope of a sequel.
The princess’s story, while largely lost to us, seems to be an interesting one. Dharmaprasadottunggadewi was the real wife of Airlangga, whose remarkable story is captured in brief here. Perhaps all the sources of her life, as with most of the characters in this novel, come from epigraphs. While one finds little consensus in the source material I referred to or on the Internet, the general understanding is that she was a Srivijaya princess or had some relation to the Srivijaya court and found herself in Airlangga’s new kingdom. Some sources that I have referred to say that this happened before 1021 AD, which means they may have already been married before the invasion and she would have already been queen, while others feel that she may have only come into the court after the Chola invasion. For the sake of this story, I have assumed that she came after the invasion. The manner of her doing so and, in fact, her life in this novel, is fictionalized.
