“I warned you he would do as much,” Malini reminded him.
“That you did,” Khalil acknowledged. “You worked very hard to seed ill will toward the false emperor in your missives,” Khalil said. “This, my wife told me too.”
“Your wife is a canny woman.”
“That she is.”
They walked for a moment in silence. Birds fluttered above them. The sky was bright with stars, the lacquer garden gleaming strangely.
“A cruel emperor is unpleasant,” Khalil said. His tone was light, almost conversational. “But if he protects the interests of those close to him, he can be forgiven a great deal.”
“Chandra does not even protect the interests of his own family,” Malini said. And ah, that was more honesty than she should have given.
“And that is the crux, is it not?”
Malini walked on. Steady, sure. “Aditya will always protect the interests of those loyal to him,” she said. “I can promise you that, my lord.”
“Aditya will indeed,” Khalil murmured, gazing at her with shrewd eyes. It was not Aditya, his eyes seemed to say, that would protect his interests.
But that was all right. Malini’s interests were aligned with Aditya’s own, after all.
“I leave you here, princess,” said Khalil, bowing his head.
“My thanks,” murmured Malini.
She and Lata waited as he walked away.
“They are kinder to their women in Dwarali,” said Malini to Lata, when he was long gone. “I took a risk.”
Then, to herself, she muttered: “Someone has to.”
RAO
More than a dozen men saw it when the messenger—not one of Prem’s, but a Saketan in deep green, his braided hair half-unfurled and slick with blood—fell from his horse and collapsed at the far end of the bridge. He was already beginning to crawl his way across when the men reached him, helped him.
“Soldiers from Parijat,” the messenger gasped, once he was on monastery soil. “They’re—they’re coming. One battalion only, mothers be praised.”
“Do they know he’s here?” Narayan asked urgently.
“I don’t know,” the messenger gasped. “I don’t know, I—ah! ” And with that gasp of pain, the soldiers and priests alike were upon him, flocking around him and lifting him up to get him to safety. One Dwarali man drew off his own sash, holding it to a wound in the messenger’s side.
Rao’s mind raced. Had one of Santosh’s men managed to escape their encounter? Or had a contingent been left behind in Hiranaprastha, to seek help if Santosh did not return? There was no way to know.
Rao saw a flicker of movement from the monastery doors. A flash of blue, as a watcher vanished into the interior.
It could have been any of the priests. But Rao knew it was Aditya.
Rao stared at the door for a long moment, a kernel of bitterness and regret blooming in his stomach.
Aditya had listened. And then he had run.
Once, Rao had admired Aditya’s stillness.
The man had never been rash or quick to anger. He had been scolded for his slow reflexes when they practiced with sabers, but the sages and the military leaders who had educated him in the rules of honorable warfare, in ancient and modern military strategy, had admired his careful consideration of all factors. Aditya was a thinker. Aditya had always been a thinker.
Aditya had always wanted to do what was right.
He had spent hours poring over texts, weighing up military strategies and gambits, mulling over the ethics of warfare, puzzling out the best choices, the stratagems that would provide the perfect balance: low cost to human life, a swift victory, an honorable battle.
He rarely found that he could achieve them all.
“It will not be this easy in the real world,” Aditya had once said as they played catur, eyes fixed upon the board. His hand kept moving, hovering first over the little carved elephant, the charioteer, the infantryman, the minister. The king. “Here I can choose to sacrifice whoever I must to win.” His voice, his expression—both were oddly subdued. “In our lessons, we’re taught that we must. But sometimes I think, if there were no war at all—that would be easier.”
“It would be,” Rao had agreed, mystified. “But war happens.”
“Does it have to?”
“I don’t know,” Rao had said. “I think it’s just the way the world is.”
Aditya had frowned. Stared at the board. Then he had picked up the piece that symbolized the king and placed it beyond the board, on the edge of the table.