any breed. He had always had a kitten, a pup, a fawn, a cub, or some other youngling in his chubby arms, cradled close to his chest.
She remembered calling out to him on numerous occasions:‘Kaamu, my son, give the poor thing room to breathe. You’ll smother it with your love!’ And both Ugrasena and she laughing as Kamsa blushed, his milky-fair face turning red in the same splotched pattern every time as he ran away in that shambling hip-swinging toddler’s gait, his latest acquisition clutched close to his little chest.
She smiled, wet-eyed, remembering how adorable he had been, how proud Ugrasena and she had been of their son, their heir. What dreams they had spun, what plans, what ambitions ...
But then she recalled something she had almost forgotten, a seemingly insignificant fact suddenly made significant by the spasa’s report.
All those tiny kittens, puppies, fawns, squirrels, calves and other younglings ... where had they gone?
Kamsa had always had a different pet every few days or weeks. At first, they had stayed for longer periods, she thought, with one or two even growing noticeably larger and older. But over time, they seemed to change with increasing rapidity. Until finally, by the time he was old enough to play boys’ games and outgrew the toddler phase, he seemed to have a different pet every time she turned around, at least one every day, until it had become a matter of great amusement to his parents. She even recalled Ugrasena’s joke about Kamsa being an avatar of Pashupati, the amsa of Shiva who ruled over the animal kingdom.
What had happened to the earlier pets? Where did they go once Kamsa finished playing with them? Where did the new ones go each day?
A cold sword probed her heart, piercing painfully deep, her feverish blood steaming as it washed upon the icy tip.
Where indeed!
And there, with a lurch and a start, her memory threw up the recollection of a day when she had found Kamsa crouching in that peculiar toddlers’ way at something in a corner, something wet and furry and broken that had once been a kitten, or perhaps a whelp. Kamsa standing over a pile of burning rags and a tiny, charred carcass in the back corridor, eyes shining in the reflected light of the flames ... Kamsa carrying a stick with a sharpened tip sticky with fresh blood.
There were more memories. Many, many more.
She had dismissed all those incidents as accidents or merely the passing phase of a young boy’s normal growth pangs. But now, they sent the tip of that icy sword deep into her bowels, raking up terrible guilt and regret.
There had been signs. Kamsa had never been quite like other boys, other princes. Even when older, he had not made friends easily, had gotten into fights that ended with terrible consequences for at least some of the participants – almost always those who defied or refused to side with him – and there had been incidents with servants, serving girls, maids, a cook’s daughter ... A minor scandal over a young girl found dead and horribly mutilated in the royal gardens, last seen walking hand in hand with Kamsa the day before, which was his twelfth naming day.
Yes,signs.
Many signs.
But nothing that had prepared her for this.
A mass murderer? A leader of marauders, ravagers, rapists, slaughterers of innocent women and children?
Her Kamsa?
Her little boy with the fair, pudgy face and curls grown up to be the Rakshasa of Mathura, as they were calling him now?
It wasn’t possible! There had to be some mistake.
She stormed out of the chamber and went striding through the palace, her guards and serving ladies in tow. Curious courtiers and ministers’ aides watched her sweep imperiously through the wide corridors with the marbled statuary, brocaded walls and art- adorned walls.
She stopped outside the sabha hall only long enough to ask the startled guards if the king was alone or in session.
A dhoot had just arrived bearing news and the king was in private session, they
She remembered calling out to him on numerous occasions:‘Kaamu, my son, give the poor thing room to breathe. You’ll smother it with your love!’ And both Ugrasena and she laughing as Kamsa blushed, his milky-fair face turning red in the same splotched pattern every time as he ran away in that shambling hip-swinging toddler’s gait, his latest acquisition clutched close to his little chest.
She smiled, wet-eyed, remembering how adorable he had been, how proud Ugrasena and she had been of their son, their heir. What dreams they had spun, what plans, what ambitions ...
But then she recalled something she had almost forgotten, a seemingly insignificant fact suddenly made significant by the spasa’s report.
All those tiny kittens, puppies, fawns, squirrels, calves and other younglings ... where had they gone?
Kamsa had always had a different pet every few days or weeks. At first, they had stayed for longer periods, she thought, with one or two even growing noticeably larger and older. But over time, they seemed to change with increasing rapidity. Until finally, by the time he was old enough to play boys’ games and outgrew the toddler phase, he seemed to have a different pet every time she turned around, at least one every day, until it had become a matter of great amusement to his parents. She even recalled Ugrasena’s joke about Kamsa being an avatar of Pashupati, the amsa of Shiva who ruled over the animal kingdom.
What had happened to the earlier pets? Where did they go once Kamsa finished playing with them? Where did the new ones go each day?
A cold sword probed her heart, piercing painfully deep, her feverish blood steaming as it washed upon the icy tip.
Where indeed!
And there, with a lurch and a start, her memory threw up the recollection of a day when she had found Kamsa crouching in that peculiar toddlers’ way at something in a corner, something wet and furry and broken that had once been a kitten, or perhaps a whelp. Kamsa standing over a pile of burning rags and a tiny, charred carcass in the back corridor, eyes shining in the reflected light of the flames ... Kamsa carrying a stick with a sharpened tip sticky with fresh blood.
There were more memories. Many, many more.
She had dismissed all those incidents as accidents or merely the passing phase of a young boy’s normal growth pangs. But now, they sent the tip of that icy sword deep into her bowels, raking up terrible guilt and regret.
There had been signs. Kamsa had never been quite like other boys, other princes. Even when older, he had not made friends easily, had gotten into fights that ended with terrible consequences for at least some of the participants – almost always those who defied or refused to side with him – and there had been incidents with servants, serving girls, maids, a cook’s daughter ... A minor scandal over a young girl found dead and horribly mutilated in the royal gardens, last seen walking hand in hand with Kamsa the day before, which was his twelfth naming day.
Yes,signs.
Many signs.
But nothing that had prepared her for this.
A mass murderer? A leader of marauders, ravagers, rapists, slaughterers of innocent women and children?
Her Kamsa?
Her little boy with the fair, pudgy face and curls grown up to be the Rakshasa of Mathura, as they were calling him now?
It wasn’t possible! There had to be some mistake.
She stormed out of the chamber and went striding through the palace, her guards and serving ladies in tow. Curious courtiers and ministers’ aides watched her sweep imperiously through the wide corridors with the marbled statuary, brocaded walls and art- adorned walls.
She stopped outside the sabha hall only long enough to ask the startled guards if the king was alone or in session.
A dhoot had just arrived bearing news and the king was in private session, they
Similar Books
