A cluster of red markings just to the north of Kosala’s borders caught my attention. I peered closer, to find dashed arrows from villages at the foothills of the Indra Mountains running in and out of Kosala’s borders—raids, it seemed.
“Who are they?” I asked, brushing my fingertips against the shading. I worried perhaps I was being too forward, but I didn’t wish to stop. I had not had any real conversation with my husband since our unexpected moment in the throne room so long ago.
He raised an eyebrow. “You read that quite fast.”
“Thank you?” I said, uncertain.
Dasharath’s eyes flicked up to my face before looking down at the map with a sigh. “It is a newer kingdom, or at least, they proclaim themselves to be a kingdom. In reality they are just a collection of villages united by the warlord Sambarasura, who has promised them a share of Kosala’s riches if they only arm themselves.”
“They’ve been targeting trade routes,” I observed.
“Yes, but you see there?” He pointed to a cluster of villages next to the River Ganga, and when I looked closer, I saw annotations—burned, thirty dead, harvest ruined. “They have made several forays into our farming towns and are growing more violent. Stealing is one thing, but this—” He shook his head.
This time, Dasharath actually studied my face, and I could see him losing interest in the conversation as he remembered why I was there. “You do not need to worry,” he said, coming around the table to take my hand. “It will be taken care of.”
“All right,” I told him. “Kosala is my home now too.” I wanted to add, If there is anything I can do—but no, it was not worth going down that path. After all, what could he possibly need from me?
Without Manthara, I might never have survived those first months. In the privacy of my rooms, free from the restrictive dress and the formal speech of court, I was often too dispirited to do anything but spend hours lying in bed. Manthara would sit patiently beside me, embroidering and teaching me the names and roles of nobility I was certain I would never meet. Once she even offered to practice swordplay with me, as we used to do. I could tell from a glance at the Binding Plane she did not really want to, and it made me realize just how worried she was about me, so I rose from bed to stretch and pace, and then lift objects and review the footwork Yudhajit had once taught me.
But when Manthara was not around, I would lie back in bed and enter the Binding Plane and stare at the strings, despairing at how I had so quickly become useless. If there was other magic out there, something that might help me become a part of this foreign place, it was within the purview of the gods. I was alone.
On one such day, she returned early from whatever other work she did in the palace and found me lying in bed once again. Where before she often viewed me with sympathy, instead she clucked her tongue at me. “Get up,” she ordered. I was so surprised to hear this tone in her voice, one that had been missing for so long, that I obeyed instantly. “Wear your pale blue sari, the one from Kekaya.”
“The court will laugh,” I muttered.
“We’re not going to court.” Her voice brooked no argument and so I dressed myself, intrigued despite the fog that still surrounded me. I followed her down the hallway to a small door, presumably the entrance to a servants’ passage, designed to help them move more easily through the palace. After descending a rickety stair and navigating a short maze of walkways, Manthara pushed open a second door, giving a quick nod to the guard stationed there. He just yawned, barely glancing in our direction.
We had emerged onto a small side alley, on the other side of the palace wall.
“What—” I began, turning around. But Manthara gripped my arm and pulled me out of the alley and into a bustling road.
This was nothing like Kekaya, where the quarters nearest the palace were sparsely populated. Here, just beyond the palace, merchants sold their wares to the streams of city dwellers passing by on their business. Manthara’s arm snaked around my shoulders, and she pulled the pallu of my sari up so the cloth covered my head.
“I have been asked to buy some things by the ladies of the palace. I do not work for them, of course, but it is good to do them favors from time to time. I thought you might want to accompany me. Stay close.”
We set off, and I felt almost giddy to be swept up in the bustle. The thoroughfare next to the palace let out quickly into a large open square. Manthara approached one man who had laid out a gorgeous array of glass bangles in a rainbow of hues. I watched as Manthara haggled for a few minutes before sweeping up a collection, deep crimson and cobalt and saffron all glinting in the sunlight.