Lakshmana was ruled by his brother, the favored son of Dasharatha—the greatest king in the history of all India.
Lord Rama.
Valmiki found himself wretchedly certain of the identity of the woman who had just been abandoned on his riverbank by Rama’s loyal brother—and fought back the urge to groan.
She was not just any princess, but the Jewel of Ayodhya—daughter of King Janaka, who could transcend the prison of his own flesh.The woman for whom Lord Rama had conquered and slain ten-headed Ravana and his entire army of demons.
His queen.Sita.
Was the king mad?Or was this bizarre act the result of a godly wisdom greater than any that Valmiki himself possessed?
Why?the sage moaned inwardly—the thought more a momentary indulgence in self-pity than a question.
The lines of Sita’s profile were of unutterable grace as she gazed over the river at the puff of dust that marked the last sign of her retreating brother-in-law, her expression marked by an enduring, stoic grief.
Then Valmiki noticed the curve at the waist of her sari where the silk bent around the early swell of new life—and his knees started to wobble.
There must be some truly egregious sin in one of his past lives for the gods to have handed him this burden.
Fool,Valmiki cursed internally.Lord Rama, the great conqueror of demons, was a bloody fool.
“A great wrong has been done here today, Daughter of the Earth,” the sage declared.“I will travel to Ayodhya and make your husband see reason.”
Valmiki was quite sure that he could do it.He was not a sage for nothing, after all.He had once chanted a mantra so long and so deeply that he had come to live on nothing but the air itself and the earth under his feet, time itself slowing around him like a river turning to ice with the winter.He had danced along infinity, the wisdom of the space beyond the gods laid open to his wondering soul.And he had once been an adviser and companion to Lord Rama’s father, King Dasharatha.Surely, he would be able to make the lady’s noble husband see reason.
Valmiki expected that his promise might meet with a nod of regal acknowledgment or a sob of relief—but Sita’s eyes remained on the land across the river, and her voice, when it spoke, was calm.
“There is an ashram of women hidden in the forest.”
Valmiki jolted with surprise.“The existence of that ashram is a great secret, my lady.How have you come to know of it?”
She did not answer him, speaking instead with the quiet authority of a queen.“I will raise my children there.”
The hairs at the back of the sage’s neck lifted with a creeping chill as instincts born of a lifetime of study and meditation flared softly to life.Each word felt like a step through a quagmire.“A decision that reflects your great wisdom.A prince cannot help but grow into a better man among the ascetics and the wild than he would ensconced in the flattery and luxury of the court.”
“Not one prince.”The queen laid a graceful hand over the swell of her belly.“There will be two.”
By the shape of her body, she could not have been more than four months gone.It was certainly too soon to have discerned through movement or pressure on the womb that she carried twins.
The uncanny chill on Valmiki’s neck grew stronger, and the space between his eyebrows began to itch with an uncomfortable, electric tension.
His gaze shifted to where a bow hung over the queen’s shoulder.The curved wood was elegant and supple, accented with slivers of carved bone—a warrior’s weapon, unfussy and lovingly maintained.
Intuition tugged his attention down.In her other hand, the queen carried an object as long and thin as Valmiki’s forearm, obscured by homespun wrapping like the tattered scrap of a vulture’s wing.The black fabric rippled softly in the gentle breeze from the river.
“What is that you carry, my lady?”Valmiki asked through a dry throat.
“Something I demanded of Lord Lakshmana,” she replied in a voice like silver.“Something that I would see kept safe.”
The wind pulled again, and a corner of the dark cloth fell away from the burden in her petal-soft fingers.
Light flared from the slender gap in the frayed fabric in ghostly, whipping threads—blue and gold, silver and crimson.Hot wind buffeted across the plain, tossing the thick branches of the scattered trees like waves in a tempestuous sea.Pebbles bounced around the calloused soles of the sage’s feet as the ground began to groan with the sigh of a rudely awakened giant.
Weathered flesh tugged against Valmiki’s bones, pulling toward the lady’s hand—and a freedom that could only mean death.
“My lady…” he pleaded, the word rasping like sand in his throat.
With a subtle shift of her wrist, she folded the cloth back into place.
