Samsāra

Chapter Five

Part two

500 BCE

The bullock cart went by the building Bhalla was leaning on with feigned nonchalance. Inside, he was squirming with pent up frustration and anxiety. When will the signal come? Glancing across the street, his gaze landed on Kattapa huddled around a clay bowl with a twisted staff, acting the part of a blind old beggar, and his frown deepened. He played the downtrodden flea-bitten part well, looking so helpless and nebbish, if Bhalla hadn't known him he would have been truly convinced the bald, sore covered man was indeed a beggar.

But he wasn't, he was the head of the armoury, leader of his own gotra and slave to the throne of Mahishmathi, bound to it by oath sworn in perpetuity by his ancestors, and the most dangerous man Bhalla has ever met. Adept in different kind of martial arts, including the marmashastram, he was a living weapon. Kattapa had overseen him and his cousin-brother's training as children making warriors out of them but Bhalla was sure there had been so much he didn't teach them. Or perhaps didn't teach him, he may have taught Bahu.

Bhalla felt a hot wave of deep resentment. Of course, he would have taught Bahu all those other things. Bahu was his favourite. He was everyone's favourite. The guards, the soldiers, the servants, the people, even Bhalla's own mother. He knew she had little affection for him and all he could get out of that was approval and perhaps her guilt that she didn't love her son enough or as much as she did the son of her brother-in-law.

Another bullock cart rumbled by and Kattapa looked up. Their eyes met. They looked away again.

Bhalla stared at the sky. Evening was falling fast, soon the nagarapalakas will be here to light the street lamps. Somehow, he doubted that. They were in the seediest part of the city, a place he was surprised his mother's reformative hand hasn't reached. It was a place of squalor and vice, a bad mix. Infamous gambling dens and houses of pleasure lined the streets along with small huddling huts of the poor. Every now and then when the wind blew the wrong way, it brought with it the stench of human waste and overflowing drains. Mayhap after their mission, he would mention it to mother. Wait! No! Let Bahu do that.

Thrice, some lady had asked if he in need of a service, showing broken brown teeth in a suggestive leer. He felt a surge of anger watching her ugly mien and the need to bash her face in; instead he fixed his eyes on the sky, his hand behind his back, under his tunic fingering the hilt of his Aruval. He guessed his cousin was waiting for nightfall before making his move and wished the sun would set faster.

Earlier today, their mother had gotten whiff of a group of conspirators plotting against the throne meeting here today. The conspirators have been threatening coup ever since Bhalla was a child but they never took any action and everyone ignored their threats as they were only toothless dogs. Years passed and they faded away. The sudden resurgence had worried Rajamata Sivagami Devi, their mother that she had instantly asked them to investigate. Any guard could have investigated, but this was to be one of her little tests to find which one of them would be the better king and Kattapa was to be the quiet invigilators, observing and reporting back to her about their performance.

The Princes had left the palace disguised in cheap clothing. Bahu, the charming one, had been nominated to go into the den and investigate and Bhalla would be the brute force needed when necessary. He didn't like that he was ascribed to the part of the brawn, the word 'brute' sounded wrong to him, like he didn't have a mind. But he won't have the arrangement any other way. He wasn't a charmer, he did not know how to and didn't bother to try to find how it was done. He tried more unhand methods when he wanted to manipulate and the effects lasted a long time and had mostly produced the results he wanted.