Prologue
Late Afternoon
Third Day of the Month of Asadha
Kingdom of Kosala
The renowned sageValmiki meditated under the dancing leaves of the banyan tree, his humble ashram sprawled below him on the banks of India’s most holy river.
Valmiki’s meditation was, in all honesty, a breath away from a nap.He was an old man, after all, and had lived a long, strange life.He was entitled to rest his eyes on a lazy afternoon heady with the breath of summer.
The warm breeze brushed against his weathered skin, rustling the leaves over his head and the grasses at his heels.He allowed himself to lean back against the nested trunks of the tree in the interest of better facilitating that nap.
Small, hurried footsteps pounded up the slope.Valmiki felt them as a subtle thrum of the earth against his aching bones.High, sweet voices called out through the clear air in tones laced with excited urgency.
“Maharishi Valmiki!”
The revered sage cracked open a wary eye.
A half dozen of the ashram’s children gathered around him.They were led by one of the oldest girls, the dangerously quick-witted Iravati.
“There is a woman by the river,” she reported authoritatively.
The wind shifted.The whispering leaves overhead seemed to echo the lilting melody of a song hummed by low caste wives as they drew water from the nearby well.
The moonlit night is here.Come, now, my beloved…
“She is draped in silk and gold,” Iravati elaborated impatiently, hands braced on her bony hips.“She is either a princess or a goddess, and some warrior just left her alone here and went away with tears in his eyes.You must go to her and make sure that she is all right.”
Valmiki, greatest of all living ascetics, who had found enlightenment among the anthills and received the tribute of kings, knew well enough when to give up.
“I’m coming,” he grumbled, bones creaking as he rose.
?
He climbed down the hill, his feet long since hardened against the ground.His chest was bare save for a mala of ruddy, wrinkled rudraksha seeds and the white veil of his beard.
A woman stood on the banks of the river.She wore a sari of petal-soft silk in a hue like the pads on a hare’s foot, the cloth draped modestly over her head.
Something about her arms drew the sage as he approached—the curve of her bicep as full and soft as a ripe fruit in a color like pearl dust over amber.
Iravati’s impatient description echoed through Valmiki’s mind.
A princess or a goddess…
His toes sank into the mud of the riverbank as he stopped at the woman’s side.
Across the water, a nobleman rode away, dust rising from the wheels of his chariot.Even from a distance, Valmiki recognized his princely form and the dark, rich waves of his hair.
“That is Prince Lakshmana, son of Sumitra,” Valmiki noted.“Why are his shoulders bowed with sorrow?”
The lady graced him with a sad, slender smile—an expression of such aching beauty that Valmiki felt certain it would pierce him like an arrow and leave him bleeding on the ground.When she spoke, her voice was the rush of water kissing a midnight shore.“Because he has left me here and ordered me not to return.”
Wary caution shivered over Valmiki’s wrinkled skin.“And does this order come from his lord?”
“It does,” the woman confirmed.
Valmiki winced.
