“I don’t want to fight you. We were just practicing,” Channa mumbled.
“Not good enough. You challenged me. Now you have a choice. Apologize on your knees, or get ready to wake up dead tomorrow.” Devadatta smiled, but he wasn’t pressing the issue for his own amusement. He had a point to make about crossing lines that shouldn’t be crossed. If Channa had been able to see beyond Devadatta’s threats, he would have realized that his enemy wasn’t secure enough at court to actually kill Siddhartha’s best friend.
“Stop it!” Siddhartha stepped in between the two. He had hesitated for a moment, knowing that if he intervened, the fight would be deflected toward him. Channa would hotly deny that he was about to back down; Devadatta would curse Siddhartha for snatching away his prey. But that didn’t happen. Instead, both opponents shoved him aside with looks of hot rage.
“No, this has gone far enough.” Siddhartha stepped in again, and this time Devadatta screamed at him with pure malevolence, “Get out of the way!” But the hand that knocked him back with a stiff, clipped punch was Channa’s. The look in his friend’s eyes said, Don’t you dare save me from this! I will never forgive you.
Siddhartha was stunned. He couldn’t actually see Mara working inside his cousin, but he saw that Devadatta was not an arrogant aristocrat at all. He was a slave to his violent passions. And Channa was too. At that moment there was no difference between them.
They’re not even people. What’s happened to them?
Siddhartha asked this question, and his vision seemed to pierce the two. Their bodies became transparent, like the filmy membrane of a fish’s tail, but instead of seeing blood coursing through the membrane, Siddhartha saw lives. Each person was a package containing many lives, all crammed into the tiny space of a body. A wave of hostility surged from the darkest past of both fighters. Devadatta was only the carrier of this wave, its instrument, as infected people carry typhoid. But Channa? How could he be a carrier too?
Siddhartha did not reason any of this out. He felt it. Neither Devadatta nor Channa had looked his way. He drew his sword and leveled it between them. “Go ahead and fight,” he said, staring them both down. “But you will have to fight with my sword between you, and if you touch it, you have challenged me, and that’s the same as challenging the throne. Is that what you want?”
Neither knew if this was a ridiculous ploy or brilliant diplomacy. The two foes backed away, continuing their combat through hating looks. Devadatta sheathed his weapon, gave an arrogant bow, and left without a word. Channa ran away with a look of barely concealed contempt. The wind blew through the stable windows; gradually the air cleared. It was left to Siddhartha to wonder if his gift had visited him again. If it had, why should he take on the pain that others denied they even had?
I’m the one they’re going to blame. I kept them from killing each other.
The deepest cut, the one that would not heal for years, was the contempt he’d seen in Channa’s eyes. If he as much as Devadatta was a carrier of hatred, then there was no difference between them, and the distinction between friend and enemy was meaningless. Something between Siddhartha and Channa, the unspoken vow two boys take that nothing will ever step between them, at that moment started to die. There was no escaping it. Yet if Siddhartha could have found a way to erase just one memory, this would have been the one.
7
You just might do. In a pinch.”
“Just? Thank you very much.” The youth in the mirror smiled at being teased. At least Kumbira still thought of him as a child, if no one else did.
“From me, that’s saying a lot,” she replied.
Kumbira regarded Siddhartha with an appraising eye. His ceremonial dress fit perfectly. He stood in front of his reflection with a flutter of young ladies-in-waiting around him. On this day, when he turned eighteen, he would be acknowledged as the heir to old Suddhodana. He had begun the robing ritual bare-chested and bare-legged before all the layers of cloth, oils, and perfumes were piled on. Each of the women, Kumbira imagined, would have looked upon him with lust-filled eyes if they dared.
And why not? she asked herself. There must be taller and richer princes in the world, but not in their world. Still, she could see the boy in him. Much of Siddhartha’s innocence was yet his. Kumbira cherished that about him without being able to point it out to anyone. What his father wanted to instill was the opposite of innocence.
“Let me ask you something, Kumbira. How happy should I be right now? If anyone knows, it must be you.”
“Don’t talk nonsense!” Kumbira’s eyes narrowed, and she sniffed at him. “What am I smelling? He doesn’t smell right. More sandalwood!” Immediately one of the young attendants raced away to the royal store of unguents and spices.
“It doesn’t matter how I smell, Kumbira. I’m not dessert.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
The girls tittered, and she saw his brief smile fade as he regarded himself in the glass. The approaching day had seemed to dim any joy Siddhartha once found in it. Kumbira had caught him off guard at moments when sadness darkened his eyes and held his mouth tight and narrow. It nearly broke her heart to see him so withdrawn.
She approached from behind and laid a rich silk sash across his chest. “What’s the matter? Whisper in Kumbira’s ear. I’ll send your troubles to the gods, and they’ll never dare return.” Siddhartha shook his head. Kumbira sighed. “Are you determined to spoil everything? The rest of the palace and the people have been looking forward to this for a long time.” He didn’t answer.
“Young men, that’s what it is!” Kumbira snapped her fingers at the girl sitting at the toiletry table, her momentum stopped by the prince’s mood. “Rose water to sweeten the temper.” The girl grabbed the proper vial and hurried over to anoint Siddhartha’s flowing black hair, which curled at his neck. Kumbira tucked in a stray lock. Every detail had to be managed precisely. The king was introducing his heir to the world. As much as Kumbira feared royal wrath, she wanted this day for the prince as fervently as she would have wanted it for her own son.
Siddhartha pulled on the jewel-encrusted coat held out for him. He groaned and shifted under its weight. “Somebody must have made a mistake. This is meant for one of the elephants.”
A girl giggled, and Kumbira shot her a look. Even though he had been surrounded by women for two hours, something made Siddhartha’s head turn. He saw one of the youngest attendants try to cover her amusement by coughing and waving a hand in front of her face as if she were choking. Kumbira was poised to drive the girl from the room when she noticed something more unsettling than a breach of decorum: Siddhartha had evidently chosen that moment to discover how beautiful the young girl was. His eyes widened, and he unconsciously assumed a bolder stance, like a peacock preening before a hen.
Kumbira was wise in such ways. She had witnessed the behavior of men for many years, and this reaction was unmistakable. She held her tongue and waited to see what would happen. Although aging, Prajapati kept a close eye on her charge, and everyone remarked, not with complete approval, on how chaste Siddhartha remained. Now Siddhartha’s eyes were still caught by the young girl who had laughed at him. Sujata was young and soft, rounded in all the right places, with flowing hair and smooth skin. Even more attractive, though, was her discomfiture: she was blushing now at the prince’s interest in her. That, Kumbira knew from experience, was a challenge no warrior could resist.
But instead of confronting the girl’s behavior with the arrogance that highborn men often exhibited before a potential conquest, Siddhartha blushed as well. For an uneasy moment the silence between the two young people held sway in the dressing room. Hastily Kumbira stepped forward between them, breaking the eye contact. She started to wind a red turban around Siddhartha’s head.