Watching Devadatta continue his enraged progress toward the royal apartments, Mara decided to precipitate a crisis. He couldn’t use brute force, but an enticing accident opened another way. Devadatta happened to pass by the room where a certain girl waited. She was unsuspecting and vulnerable. To bring forth a demon in the flesh, nothing works better than flesh itself.
It was no trick at all to turn Devadatta’s rage in the direction of lust. Mara wafted a faint perfume in his nostrils, planted an arousing image of swelling breasts, whispered in Devadatta’s ear that he could not rest tonight until he forced his will on somebody whose pain would bring him pleasure. Mara pushed the small switches needed. Devadatta barely suspected that he was being manipulated. He only knew that he had to have a woman now. The insidious mechanism, so subtle in its creation, so violent in its outcome, was set.
SUJATA STARED WITH LONGING out the high open window, placed close enough to the banquet tent that she could hear music rise and fall on the evening breeze. By the light of torches she saw Siddhartha approach in his resplendent outfit, and her fraught emotions made her believe that she saw him shudder as he entered. Catching sight of him made her shudder. She couldn’t completely understand what this meant. She was only fifteen, but that’s old enough to understand many things. For instance, she understood that she must never tell anyone her real story.
Kumbira had gathered Sujata with the other unmarried young women to watch the spectacle from a distance. This would be their sole participation until the secret hour when the men would be allowed near them.
“Here’s a cream to rub out dark spots and lime juice to tighten wrinkles,” Kumbira said, herding them around a table like an anxious madam whose girls must please if she wants to be paid. She had never seduced a man herself, but she was obsessed with the tricks of seduction. Buckets of snow bundled in straw had been fetched by runners from the mountains so the girls could dip their breasts in ice water to firm them up. “Those of you who are smart won’t eat tonight, but if you are starving, no onions and lots of sweet fennel seed.”
Only Sujata had held back, bored and detached from the excited preparations. She even considered paying a lower servant to sneak radishes and onions into her room since she didn’t want to attract any men that night. Any but one. Their toilette complete, the other ladies-in-waiting sat on pillows near the balcony, dreamily feeding their fantasies. They wore gauzy sleeping gowns. Bowls of food covered the low settees in the center of the room. A few woman nibbled and gossiped lazily.
Was I ever so young? Kumbira wondered. She eyed them with envy and dislike. Scraps of conversation floated past her like eiderdown. “Did you see what she was wearing? It might have looked good on her ten years ago.” “Do you suppose she knows?” “Knows? Her lover beats her and won’t give her money for a thing.” Kumbira couldn’t remember being like that, ever, but she must have been. And now she knew as much about the empire as the king himself, although it would be her head if she ever told anyone.
Kumbira watched the young girl sitting apart from the others. She ate from a bowl of grapes, one at a time. Since she had arrived, brought to court at night in a ramshackle wagon with torches on either side, then rushed into the women’s quarters without a proper introduction to anyone, Sujata had kept her own counsel. Kumbira hoped that the girl, whoever she was, had a strong sense of self-preservation. She must realize the danger in luring the attentions of a prince like Siddhartha.
The door curtains suddenly exploded in billows of velvet, and through them burst Devadatta. It was too early, and Kumbira saw immediately that he was in a state.
“Hush!” she warned the girls, who had started squealing and drawing together like startled mice. Devadatta brought danger with him, not seduction. Kumbira strode forward, putting herself between the intruder and her charges. “You’re not allowed in here,” she snapped.
Devadatta scowled insolently. “I didn’t come for you, hag. I want one of them. That one.” He pointed to Sujata.
Kumbira’s first impulse was to let him take her. She couldn’t turn him away, not aroused and angry. If she summoned the guards, provided they weren’t too drunk to put up a fight, they couldn’t lay hands on someone protected by the king. Perhaps it would be better if Devadatta used her and Siddhartha found out about it. That course of action would nip the prince’s interest in the bud. The king wouldn’t appreciate complications.
But Sujata drew back, eyes wide with fright and her hand to her mouth. Her pulse beat rapidly in the hollow of her throat. Kumbira’s eyes weren’t so old that she couldn’t see that. She felt herself moved to protect the girl. And perhaps the prince as well.
Devadatta crossed the room. The other girls parted as if they were the wake left by his rage. He closed his fist on Sujata’s arm. Terrified, she tried to pull away. She dared not struggle because striking a member of the royal family would put her in peril. Her fear made Devadatta’s eyes glint. Even the small fight she put up brought a predator’s smile of anticipation to his lips.
“Young prince,” Kumbira said in a level tone that she hoped wouldn’t provoke him. “I appreciate your lust. But not this one.”
Devadatta glared at her. “Why not?”
Leaning close, Kumbira whispered, “It’s her day of the month.”
“You’re lying.” Devadatta studied Kumbira’s face suspiciously. It wasn’t in his nature to be blocked; there would be an outlet tonight, everything else be damned. “If she is untouchable, why is she here with clean women?”
But Kumbira had learned two generations ago to lie. She did it with a flat voice and no trace of defensiveness, maintaining eye contact. “She should be isolated, yes. But I’m old and softhearted, and this being a royal feast day-”
Devadatta cut her off. “Softhearted as a cobra, you old whore.”
Kumbira held his gaze, not giving him any indication that she disapproved of the way he treated her. She knew how to follow up a lie. Devadatta turned away and grabbed another girl. This one went willingly, even though he almost yanked her off her feet.
Sujata turned to Kumbira like someone in shock. Without warning, she fell against Kumbira’s breast, gripping her tight enough to hurt. “Thank you,” she whispered urgently. “Thank you a thousand times.”
The nakedness of the girl’s feelings moved Kumbira. In her long life of tough resilience and calculation, only Siddhartha had ever had such an effect on her. She almost wrapped the girl, who had broken down in tears, in her embrace.
Then she caught herself and realized what she was about to do-with all the others watching, girls who had no pity for Sujata and would be deriding her the moment they were alone. Grabbing Sujata by the shoulders, Kumbira pushed her away. “You think I did this for you?”
A confused look filled Sujata’s face. She wiped away her tears with the backs of her hands.
“What kind of ninnies are they sending to court?” Kumbira demanded. She reached into her sari and took out the gold coin Siddhartha had given her. “You’re paid for,” Kumbira said brutally. “By the prince.”
“Oh.” Sujata’s voice was flat and weak.
“He’d never forgive me if I broke our bargain,” Kumbira added. “Not without consulting him first.”