If only it were that simple.
For five perfect years, I suspected nothing at all. Not of Rama, nor of discontent in our kingdom, nor that any plan of mine could go awry. Time carried me along its current, ignorant and happy.
In being named saciva, I had achieved all the freedom I could hope to. But I found myself continuing to work, for if it was in my power to assist other women, I felt I had to. And there were still plenty of women who needed help, for attitudes changed slowly. Even outside of the Women’s Council, people brought their problems to me, and I did my best to help.
One evening, after I returned from a meeting of the Women’s Council, Rama came to me. “Do you have a moment?” he asked.
“Of course.” We spoke often, but today he looked unusually pensive. “What is it?”
“Have you spoken recently to the sages of the city temple?”
Whatever I had expected, it was not this. In truth, I avoided the sages as much as I could, both because of my discomfort with worshipping the gods and because I knew they disliked me. “I have not. Have you?”
Rama nodded. “Please do not be angry.”
“Why would I be angry?” I asked, still confused. “You can tell me anything.”
“I have been seeing the sages, to further my religious studies. Our tutor on the subject—well, he is not perfect.” I could hear, running below Rama’s words, some hint of years-old annoyance that Sage Vamadeva had been dismissed. The prince’s new tutor was not a sage, but rather a low-ranking noble who was very studied in the religious texts.
But I could not fault Rama for wishing to learn more about this—about who he was. “Of course I would not be angry. It is admirable to seek out more knowledge, so long as you form your own opinions.”
Rama’s posture loosened slightly in relief. “I have been speaking to them, and I think they are unhappy, and I thought—you help everyone. You could help them. They do not wish to be a burden to the palace, for they are separated from our affairs, but they have told me some of what they fear, and I would like to help them if I can.”
“Why have they come to you? You know they can go to your father if they need assistance,” I reminded him, uneasy at the idea that these men would put responsibility on the shoulders of such a young man.
“I suppose they feel a special connection to me,” Rama said. “Perhaps because they believe me gods-touched, although I am not. They care so much for the gods and their will—for me, although they do not know it—that I wish to repay them. But I have found it to be a difficult problem.”
“I do not understand,” I said. “Are the temples struggling for donations?”
He shook his head. “It is difficult to explain. Perhaps I could show you, though? I would value your thoughts.”
“Of course,” I said. I did not particularly want to visit the temples or talk to the sages. But I cared about one god, my son standing before me, who had come to me for help. If it would ease his mind then I could swallow my discomfort for a few hours.
We agreed to go the next morning, just after sunrise when the sages would have completed their morning rituals but before the city’s inhabitants would arrive for their daily prayers. The palace had its own temple, with an impressive marble floor that was always cool underfoot. In the center of the room stood impassive murtis, gracefully carved from granite, and the air was fragrant with cinnamon and sage incense. Many members of the palace went here to pray and complete pradakshina around the unseeing stone. But while I attended public rituals and observances as a radnyi must, I had only ever been to this more private place a handful of times, and had never exchanged more than a few words with the sages who attended it.
I had never been to the city’s main temple, though I had seen it in passing before, a building of smooth red stone laid so precisely it was impossible to see where one stone met the next. The main chamber stood open and exposed to the elements on three sides, and the roads leading up to the temple were lined with trees. The roof was held up by pillars of the same red stone, carved with depictions of the gods’ triumphs in battle. It was Sumitra who had once told me that a different artisan had decorated each pillar, so that the temple had the craftsmanship of Ayodhya itself imbued within it.
Rama and I took a palanquin there, upon his insistence, and he offered me his arm as we made our way up the temple steps. It was a beautiful, cool morning, the sky streaked with pink and gold, and I shivered slightly when I slipped off my sandals at the entryway. The foliage muffled the sounds of the city, giving the temple an air of calm, although I felt anything but.