The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Read Free Book Online Page B

understood, suddenly, the unspoken questions the spirits had answered: Who would I marry? Would I ever be mistress of my own home? Would I find love? Were these the kinds of desires hidden in my heart? How puerile they were, things my maids might have wanted!Was I then no better than the women who surrounded me, wrapped in the cocoons of their unimaginative lives, not even knowing enough to want to escape? It was a mortifying thought.
    Other nights I considered the mystery of the book the sage showed me, the story of my life. How could such a book be written before I'd lived the incidents it described? Did this mean that I had no control over what was to happen?
    Surely it wasn't so. Otherwise, why did he take the trouble to warn me?

    I didn't speak to the sage again for many years, though I heard of him from time to time. I learned his name: Vyasa the Compendious, because of the many hefty books he'd written. Vyasa the seer, born on a dark island of a union between an ascetic and a fisher princess. On my wedding day, I would see him in the marriage hall, seated on my father's right, his placement revealing an importance I hadn't guessed at. He'd gaze at me, blinking mildly, as though he'd never seen me before. When I'd make my first great mistake, his expression would remain unchanged, so that I wouldn't realize the enormity of what I'd done until it was too late.
    Later, among my wedding gifts, I'd find a wooden box. When I'd open it, a familiar smell, wild and bitter, would rise from the powder inside. I'd use it in Khandav, and later in the Kamyak forest. Thrown on fire, it warded away insects, just as he'd promised, and nightmares as well. On those nights, my rough bark-bed seemed softer. But no matter how much I called for them—for by now I had other, wiser questions—the spirits did not return to me again.

6

    The palace was in turmoil because Sikhandi had returned.
    My maids gathered in corners and corridors, whispering fervently, but they scattered like sparrows when I approached them. Dhri was shut up in council with our father, so I had no way of asking him. And Dhai Ma, when she finally appeared, wringing her hands, was so distraught that I could hardly get any sense out of her.
    “But who is Sikhandi? And why is everyone so afraid of her?”
    “She is—was—oh, I don't know how to say it!—your royal father's eldest daughter, then she did something terrible and King Drupad sent her away. Now she's returned. They say for the last twelve years she's been in a forest somewhere, performing the strictest austerities—eating only leaves of the holy bel tree, standing neck-deep in freezing water all winter, that kind of thing—so that now she's been turned into a great and dangerous warrior.”
    I was intrigued by this sister whose existence had been hidden so successfully. (What else, I would wonder later, had they been keeping from me?) I'd never met a woman who was a dangerous warrior. “I'd like to see her,” I said.
    “Well, I guess that's a good thing,” Dhai Ma muttered, “becauseSikhandi wants to see you, too. This afternoon, in fact. Only—she isn't really a woman anymore.”
    “Do you mean she no longer behaves like one?” I asked. Dhai Ma had a lengthy compendium of rules as to how women should behave. For years she'd tried to din them into my head. Already I felt sympathy for the unknown Sikhandi.
    But Dhai Ma sped off, with more hand-wringing, to ensure that the noon meal befitted the dignity of a great and dangerous warrior. She paused only to inform me that Dhri, who usually ate with me, would not be here because Sikhandi had expressed a desire to speak with me alone.
    I waited with some excitement to view my sudden-found sister. I wondered what she looked like. Was her body hard and muscular, her arms scarred from weapons? Or was it her heart that had changed so that it no longer shook at the thought of killing? How had she survived in the forest—for she must have been just a girl