Her neck was beginning to hurt from all the staring up she had to do. She was massaging the back of her neck when she overheard Billadev all but begging Shota.
“Come on, Shota. Just one more time, please…”
“Go away, don’t bother me. Ask Girish.”
“Girish said he doesn’t know this one about Amarendra. And none of us can readBrahmi.”
“Youcan,” said Shota rudely.
Billadev grinned unrepentantly. “Ah, but reading is work and I’d prefer if others do it for me. You were always better at it, anyway.”
Shota looked unconvinced. “I honestly regret ever telling you the story of the wall sculptures,” he said, sitting back on his heels. “I must’ve taken leave of my senses.”
Billadev’s grin widened to reveal perfect teeth. “Come on. You’ve been working all the time. Look at the dark circles underneath your eyes. You could take a story break now and then.”
“I always have dark circles underneath my eyes.” Shota squinted up at him. “And somehow it doesn’t seem like a break when I’d be the one telling a story.”
“If you are talking about King Amarendra’s story, I can help,” Chandra volunteered, tucking away that information about Billadev knowingBrahmi. Veer’s friends came well prepared indeed.
“Would you?” A genuine smile lit up Billadev’s face. “Thank you, Princess.”
Chandra soon found herself standing before a group of eager men, who had all assembled to listen to the story. Staying here in the caves for so long, they were probably starved for entertainment.
She coughed a little, nervous, and took a seat on a small boulder right next to the statue of the ancient king.
She had learned about the founder of Amaravathi at her father’s knee and knew the story by heart, so she didn’t need to read the inscriptions on the wall that accompanied the carvings.
“Long ago, there lived a demon named Andhaka. He had the body of an octopus with eight arms. He reigned over the underwater world. But not content in that domain, he spread his tentacles above. In that conquest, he came upon a ship carrying a beautiful maiden. He captured her and sank the ship.
“It so happened that this maiden was the intended bride of King Amarendra. The king searched for her far and wide and finally came to know the truth. But he couldn’t enter the underwater world. King Amarendra then prayed to Goddess Parvathi. Pleased with his devotion, the goddess granted him the ability to traverse the aquatic domain.
“The king defeated the demon Andhaka and was able to rescue the princess and marry her. He built a temple in honor of the goddess, and that is how she became the patron goddess of our kingdom.”
* * *
“What happened to the demon?” asked Veer, unwillingly drawn to the story. He hadn’t been interested yesterday when Shota explained the story behind the bas-reliefs, and privately thought of them as bedtime stories told by grandmothers to gullible children to scare them into going to bed early.
“Some say that the king forgave the demon, but he made a pact with him never to bother humans again,” replied Chandra, running her hands affectionately over the carvings. “King Amarendra is the greatest king Saptavarsha has ever seen.”
“That was nice of him,” said Billadev, who was listening with rapt, wide-eyed attention.
“Isn’t it a tad boastful to claim he was the greatest king Saptavarsha has seen?” Veer crossed his arms. “What basis do you have to make that statement, apart from old wives’ tales that is—”
Chandra swiveled around, bristling with outrage. “They are not old wives’ tales!”
“You mean to say the records from King Amarendra’s time have survived the disastrous fire a few decades ago?” he countered. She stared at him in astonished silence. “You shouldn’t be so surprised, Princess,” he said with a sardonic smile. “I made it my duty to know as much as I can about Amaravathi.”
Chandra cleared her expression fast. “Then you should know that written records are not all that we have left of the past,” she said. “During his reign, Amaravathi had expanded, trade boomed, our kingdom became a center of culture. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that people lived safely in those days, free from the fear of invasion by the barbarians of desert hordes. You only have to look at these magnificent buildings he built to know he was a great ruler.”
The comment about barbarian desert hordes had struck a little too close to home for Veer, whose ancestors, before they formed a kingdom, had lived in the desert as wandering tribes. “And yet the monuments you praise, that he had built with so much pride, do not stand anymore,” he retaliated.
Chandra looked perplexed. “What do you mean? The royal palace, the temple at Devarakonda, are all standing. Not to mention Kalpeet, the Brihadeeshwar Temple, and thepanch-pashuthrone,” she said, counting them off her fingers.
“Yes, two buildings out of all the others remain standing in Amaravathi. What of the King’s Pathway?” he asked.
“I thought there was a King’s Pathway in Amaravathi’s capital city,” said Billadev, frowning. “Didn’t you tell me so, Shota?”
Veer’s lips curved into a snide smile. “The one in Amaravathi is fake, Billadev,” he said. His eyes bored into Chandrasena, daring her to deny it. “Several centuries ago,one of Amaravathi’s ancestors built an imitation of the King’s Pathway to discourage treasure seekers from ever going after the original and losing their lives.”
