“Oh.” I turned to face the entrance again. Would Dasharath want to bed me? It normally took considerable exertion on his part, and he was sorely wounded. No. He probably wanted companionship, someone to talk to.
I took another breath, released my hold on the Plane, and entered the tent.
Dasharath lay in his bed, propped up against several pillows. Strips of cloth covered his torso, and he had dark smudges under his bright hazel eyes. But he smiled up at me when I entered, showing all his teeth, and gestured to the place next to him with a careful motion of his arm. “Please, sit.”
I perched on the edge of the cot, sandals sliding for purchase in the dirt floor. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I was grievously wounded in battle,” he said in a teasing tone. He had never used such with me before. “But better injured than dead. I was informed that I have you to thank for that.”
I gave him my best impression of a demure smile. “I only drove the chariot to safety. You did all the work.”
“Did I?” Dasharath asked, and my heart sank. “You see, my sweet wife, I do not remember throwing any spear. In fact, when Sambarasura broke the chariot wheel, I recall drawing my khanda.”
He had trapped me. I could not contradict my husband. Neither could I agree with his remembrances. My head throbbed, whirling in panicked circles, and in my panic, I could not focus enough to find the Binding Plane. I was reduced to averting my eyes.
“Have you nothing to say?” he asked.
“No, Raja.”
“Then you agree that I could not have slain him. And yet we have his body. How can this be?”
“Perhaps a spear from another one of our soldiers?” I offered. My whole body tensed, and I fought the urge to spring up from the bed and flee. If you cannot fight, run, Yudhajit used to say, but this was not combat. Dasharath could banish me for lying, for unwomanly conduct. For defying the will of the gods by raising a weapon. Would my father take me back? I doubted it.
“Perhaps. Though my advisors tell me that when they received the body, it was my spear that was embedded within it.”
I forced myself to look at Dasharath and accept his judgment. But his face was blank. Somehow this neutrality calmed my heart just enough for me to slip into the webs of magic around us. Our armored thread had somehow thickened into a rope the breadth of a strong arm. Only Manthara and I had a stronger connection.
“That is strange, my husband,” I said at last.
“Do you find it so?” he asked. “Because I do not. My wife grew up among the ferocious Kekaya people. She has seven brothers. She can drive a chariot better than most men I’ve seen. That she can also throw a spear is not strange.”
I stood up from the bed and knelt, knees in the dirt. “I am sorry. Please, I beg for your forgiveness.”
Dasharath struggled for a moment, then managed to lever himself off his pillows, and swing his feet off the edge of the bed. “Kaikeyi, there is nothing to forgive.”
His words stunned me. “There isn’t?”
“You slew my enemy and saved my life,” he said simply, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Why would I be angry?” Before I could answer, he continued, “I understand why you lied to my advisors, although I would be remiss if I did not request that you refrain from doing so in the future. But between you and me there should be no secrets.”
“Yes, Raja.” My voice shook. To my shame, tears welled in my eyes. Through my blurry vision I watched our connection grow ever stronger, a shining beacon of gold.
Dasharath cleared his throat. “For your valor on the field of battle, I grant you one boon. For your efforts in saving my life, I grant you a second boon. I place no restrictions on these. You may ask anything of me, anytime you wish, and I will do everything in my power to fulfill your request. This I swear by the River Ganga, by the Indra Mountains, and by the gods themselves.”
I rocked back onto my heels in shock.
“Two boons?” I asked, just to be sure I had heard correctly.
Dasharath kept his face stern, but his eyes were soft. “Yes, Kaikeyi. Now please, help me lie down again.”
I scrambled up, helping guide his body back against the pillows. “Will you tell your advisors the truth?”
“Do you want me to?” he asked. In the six months we had been married, he had never once asked what I wanted.
I considered carefully. I had risen in Dasharath’s esteem after he learned the truth, and after my conversation with Asha, I thought it possible that I had misjudged the Ayodhyan court as a whole. Perhaps his advisors would like me better if they knew what I had done. But I also knew how fragile my connections with all of them were, and experience had taught me that lying was considered more unbecoming on a woman than on a man. “No, Raja. That is not necessary.”