Prince of Dharma by Ashok Banker Read Free Book Online Page B

food and drink of an intelligent mind. But that’s all the tales of the asura war are now. Stories. And may they always stay just that, Vishnu be praised.’ 
     
    He looked up abruptly, squinting at the eastern sky. ‘Past gate-opening time. Move to it, greenhorn. Time enough for stories and wine when the shift’s ended.’ He winked, his grizzled features a grey shadow in the dusky dimness. ‘You want Jatayus? I’ll tell you a story about Jatayus that’ll turn your blood to icemelt, over a matka of the maharaja’s bhaang at the Holi feast today. Now get back to work.’ 
     
    The gates opened a few minutes later and the two mismatched guards had no time to discuss mythical giant vultures again. They were busy working the heavy winch-wheel that lowered the enormous wooden gate. The gate also served as a bridge across the moat outside; when lowered fully, it spanned the fifteen-yard gap. The sound of it settling in its iron cradle was like a giant thumping his fist. Then they worked the levers that drained and refilled the moat with fresh water directly from the river. This was done weekly to avoid diseases breeding in the water. 
     
    A small crowd was waiting outside the gate when it came down. The brief chatter between the two guards had delayed gate-opening by a few minutes. The other six gates had already opened and allowed in the travellers eager to enter Ayodhya. 
     
    It was a motley bunch. Mostly bullock-carts carrying entire families from the outlying northern farms, children squealing excitedly at the thought of spending a feast day in the great city. A few Kshatriyas, professional armsmen, also arriving for the festival or simply passing through. A courier from Mithila, Ayodhya’s sister city in the eastern region of Kosala, with Maharaja Janak’s royal seal on his leather bag. A few Brahmins on foot or riding mules and asses, their enormous bellies murmuring at the promise of the feast ahead. A vendor leading three camels laden with bagfuls of rang, the brightly coloured powders used during the Holi festival. An assortment of street entertainers—a snake charmer, a family of acrobats carrying their paraphernalia, a rope climber, two jadugars, a flautist, a Shaivite self-flagellator wielding a five-yard-long set of metal-tipped whips, a bear-and-monkey show-man. They were just the early birds. By sunrise, there would be an incessant flow of traffic into Ayodhya. In recent years, it seemed as if every citizen in the kingdom of Kosala wanted to come to their capital city to avail themselves of the king’s open-house policy of free food and drink to all for the day. Holi was the biggest festival day of the Arya year apart from Deepavali. And while Deepavali provided one last opportunity to celebrate and feast before the onset of winter, Holi marked the celebration of the first day of spring. A new beginning to a new harvest year. 
     
    The two seventh-gate guards watched the ragged caravan of travellers trundle excitedly through the open gates. It was Somasra’s ageing but still sharp eyes that saw the figure in the thick of the crowd, a tall white-bearded man clad in the red-ochre robes of a seer, carrying a wildwood staff. Somasra peered at the seer and blinked, startled. 
     
    The crowd cleared, turning right and left as their business took them, and for a moment the seer was clearly visible, illuminated in the flickering torchlight from the mashaals bordering the gate. He strode purposefully into the city, heading up Harishchandra Avenue. Somasra rubbed his eyes, unable to believe he was seeing right. 
     
    If his eyesight hadn’t failed him at last, then that old seer over there, now already several dozen yards down the main street of Ayodhya, was none other than the legendary seer-mage Brahmarishi Vishwamitra himself. The famous likeness was unmistakable, a mirror image of the huge portrait in the Seers’ Gallery. But how could it possibly be Vishwamitra? The great seer hadn’t been seen by