“I cradled the boy in my lap and told him it had been my arrow. Shravan immediately told me he forgave me this honest mistake. In his last breaths, he told me where I could find his parents and begged me to bring them some water.
“When I explained what had happened to his parents, they began wailing and beating their chests. Every breath they took became more labored, and I quickly realized that they too were going to die. I offered them water, but they poured it onto the ground instead of drinking it. And then—” Dasharath cut off, taking deep shuddering breaths that were audible even through the door.
“Peace,” Kaushalya said. “You need not continue. I am sure they too forgave you an honest mistake. Such things happen.”
I personally did not think such things simply happened or were so easily forgivable, but I no longer had any standing to judge others.
“No, they do not,” Dasharath told her, and longing ran through me for our years of partnership, of perfect coordination. “His parents, with their dying strength, cursed me. They said that just as they had lost the light of their life, their beautiful and generous Shravan, I too would one day experience that same grief. I too would lose the son I cherished most. And they hoped it would kill me.
“When Kaikeyi opened her mouth and demanded those boons, I could see it was not her, but the curse itself coming for me. I am being punished for my sins.”
“You are hardly being punished in the same way. Rama will return in ten years, and you simply have to live to greet him again at the gates,” Kaushalya said. “Your son is alive and well.”
“I am being punished,” Dasharath insisted, and he gave a great rasping cough. It was too painful for me to hear, and I peeled myself from the door to lean against the wall instead, studying the tiled floor with bleary eyes.
After what seemed like an eternity, Kaushalya emerged from the room. “He is unconscious,” she said. “You can go see him.”
Unsteady and heartsick, I went up to his bed and brushed my hand against his forehead. His face radiated heat, and my fingers felt as though they had been burned. I had witnessed a fever this intense only once before, with Lakshmana.
It seemed as though he pushed up into my touch, but perhaps it was only my imagination. I rested my whole palm against his forehead, hoping the coolness would provide some relief. Too soon, too soon, Kaushalya rested a hand on my shoulder. “It is time for us to go,” she said. “Say farewell.”
I brushed my lips against his cheek.
“Goodbye,” I murmured in his ear. “I am so sorry, and I love you. May you suffer no longer.” I knew there was no point in hoping anymore that he might wake up again to forgive me. I had heard his deathbed confession and recognized it for what it was.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
DASHARATH OF AYODHYA, THE greatest ruler Kosala had known, died the next night. I heard the cries before a messenger reached me with the news, and by the time he arrived at my door I was already on my knees, tearing at my clothes and beating my chest in pure grief. However difficult our last week together might have been, he had been a dear friend to me. He had given me everything. I had lost a confidante, an ally, a partner.
I stood silent, wrapped in a thin white sari that made me feel like a ghost, while they burned him. As the flames leapt up to claim my husband’s body, I considered joining him on the pyre.
It was not unheard of for women in the depths of grief to fling themselves into the fire after their husbands, though it rarely happened in such civilized and progressive societies as our own. And yet, I thought about it. The release of death might be preferable to the life that stretched before me now.
I spared a glance for Bharata and Shatrugna, standing with their backs stiff at the edges of their father’s bier, and I knew that if I were to die, they would immediately reverse their father’s last judgment. As I watched, Shatrugna placed an arm around Bharata’s shoulders. I wished desperately I could have done that myself, and this longing kept me planted where I stood.
That night, Kaushalya came by my rooms, to inform me that Bharata had ridden out, postponing his coronation by a month so that he could find Rama on the road and beg him to return home. She would be ruling Ayodhya in Bharata’s absence. Despite my fear that Yudhajit might hear of this, and march to war, the news brought me a small smile. In previous eras, Shatrugna would have taken the throne, or one of the senior members of the Mantri Parishad. But times had changed, actually changed, and this was proof. This is what I had fought to preserve, and for a sweet moment it was worth it.