One day, when the boys had just turned fourteen together, it began as a typical match. Channa tirelessly lunged and slashed, which was his favored style. Siddhartha would watch and sidestep when he could, playing the sinuous panther to Channa’s clumsy bull.
“Hit!” Channa cried out, but he was premature. He had only landed a glancing blow to Siddhartha’s burlap tunic. The reckless thrust gave him too much momentum, and as he hurtled past, Siddhartha slapped him on the butt with the flat of his blade.
“I called a hit, didn’t I?” Channa grumbled. Siddhartha just shrugged. Channa hated the grin on his friend’s face, and rather than argue he risked a second lunge, which also missed. Siddhartha fisted Channa’s shirt in his free hand, lifted his sword to his friend’s throat, and drove him back against the stable wall. Their breath hit each other’s faces as they glared at each other.
Is this what my father takes such joy in? Siddhartha asked himself. He knew by the way he talked about war and being in battle how his father felt about the struggle to survive under bloody conditions.
There was no referee this day because Bikram had been called to the smithy to help hold an unruly warhorse that was being shod. The boys took advantage by fighting harder to test each other’s limits.
Setting himself, feet apart and weight balanced as he’d been instructed, Siddhartha attacked with his blade. He had already learned that he had reach and height as his advantage. He’d grown to be the leaner and taller of the two. He struck quickly, getting as much brawn behind the blow as he could. Channa lifted his sword and blocked, steel ringing against steel. The harsh noise always made a few of the horses snort and stamp nervously in their stalls.
“Just say when you want me to stop playing around,” Siddhartha taunted. They were both sweating heavily after an hour’s practice. The swelling of muscles in their limbs was suggesting the contours of men, not boys.
“Playing around?” Channa said. “I’m getting sore from holding back so you can stay in the match.”
Although his strength was flagging and air burned his lungs as he breathed, Siddhartha pursued Channa, driving his foe before him.
“Hit!”
This time it was Channa calling out that he had been struck with the point of Siddhartha’s sword in the chest. The prince smiled grimly, shaking his head. Let’s have this one out, the smile said. Seeing Channa stumble off balance, Siddhartha tossed his sword with a quick twist of the wrist and caught the hilt overhand, using it like a dagger to plunge into Channa’s heart. He felt the fierce exultancy of his dominance, and in an instant he was kneeling over Channa’s body, the edge of his blade tight against his friend’s throat.
He let Channa up, not looking into his eyes. If their gazes met, he knew Channa wouldn’t be able to disguise a flicker of hatred, the despising look of the defeated. There was something else too. He thought he heard someone approaching all but silently. But before he could find out, Siddhartha felt his legs go out from under him. As he had turned away, Channa had stuck his boot out and tripped him. Siddhartha fell facedown on the stable floor, spitting out dung dust. The next thing he knew Channa had rolled him over and was shoving the point of his sword into Siddhartha’s throat. Even shielded with lead, the tip dug painfully into his flesh.
“You forgot to finish me off,” Channa said. He wore his usual gloating grin, the one reserved for when he recovered from the threat of defeat. But his eyes were dark with a feeling that left a cold spot in Siddhartha’s heart
“See?” Channa said, leaning over him so their faces were only inches apart. “That’s the difference between you and me, Siddharth’.” He smiled confidently. “I’m not even thinking about not killing you.”
“Did one of you girls talk about killing?” The two boys were startled. Without a sound Devadatta had appeared. “You’ll never see the day, I promise.” He drew closer, bestowing a pitying smile on them.
“Care to give it a try?” Channa blurted out impetuously. He raised his sword under Devadatta’s chin.
Siddhartha stiffened. The three of them were constantly in each other’s company. “Throw the three of them together,” Canki had advised Suddhodana. “If we isolate the prince, he will sense that we have designs on him.” It was another of the small irritants in their relationship that the Brahmin couldn’t stop talking like a conspirator. “Why teach him to hate Sakya’s enemies when we only have to put him in the same room with an enemy of his own?” The jealousy that Devadatta harbored toward his younger cousin was no secret.
“I don’t mind the boy and his cousin. They’re both royal,” Suddhodana conceded. “But why Channa?”
“We will give the prince someone he can trust and confide in. The day will come when you won’t be able to read his mind, and he will stop telling you what he really thinks. Then we can turn to Channa and find out everything.”
Secretly the king had doubts about this plan, but he had his own reasons for agreeing to the Brahmin’s suggestions. Devadatta would be able to report on the priest’s lessons in case they went too far in extolling the Brahmins at the expense of warriors. And Channa might serve as an informer in Siddhartha’s private life-Canki was right about that.
This arrangement at school sorely rankled Devadatta from the first. He, a Kshatriya, had never physically touched or shared food with anyone like Channa, a despised half-caste. This was the term for someone of unknown parentage, and it was true that Channa had never known his mother. Her name was never mentioned, nor did his father say why she had abandoned them. Bikram himself had been born in the stables he now managed. When Canki gathered his three pupils for lessons, Devadatta turned his back on Channa; there was never an occasion when he addressed him directly. For Channa to dare to pick a fight with him now was an outrage.
Devadatta considered what to do. The two obvious possibilities were to dismiss the taunt with cold silence or attack without warning. Inflicting a swiping cut with his dagger would do. But Devadatta was eighteen now, already a man. Men don’t respond to boys’ threats. The nicety of the question teased him, and he decided the one thing he couldn’t do was let the insult pass.
“What sort of test did you have in mind?” he asked. He spoke slowly, and as he did, he lifted up the point of Channa’s sword and unscrewed the lead ball. “We’ve had enough of pretending.”
Channa was brave, but he was also fourteen. He stared nervously at the naked point of his sword as Devadatta pulled his own weapon from its scabbard.
“Up to you, boy,” Devadatta said. He watched Channa’s Adam’s apple tremble. They both knew that Devadatta could run him clean through without fear of reprisal.
But there was something else that no one but Devadatta knew. The fear he inspired did not come from his own menace. Siddhartha may have forgotten Asita, but his cousin had not forgotten Mara. He wasn’t allowed to. The demon fanned every ember of resentment in him until it glowed red hot. There was no mistaking the demonic element in Devadatta’s character. When he picked a fight, he could intuitively read his opponent’s weakness, and he gave no quarter once the clash began. Mara had also made him an extraordinary seducer. Devadatta moved in with unswerving confidence, capable of using honeyed flattery or the grossest suggestion, and he didn’t give up until the prize was won. His passions had drawn him into the lowest places-alleys and taverns where the pretensions of caste were thrown aside. However, it was not this that made him extraordinary in matters of lust. It was his complete ferocity toward any rival, even a husband, who stood in his way. Devadatta didn’t mind using a blade to persuade another man that his woman was free for the taking. There were rumors of clandestine murders that had resulted when the man put up too much resistance. Whether the rumors were true or not, more than a few villagers walked around with livid scars on their faces or across their chests.