“Good,” the demon said. “You showed up.”
He leaned closer to whisper in the baby’s ear. “Tell me what you want. I’m listening.” This was always the key, to play upon your opponent’s desire. “Can you hear me in there?” The baby kicked his feet.
“So many souls need you,” Mara said wistfully, resting his arms on the cradle. “But here’s the joke.” He paused to lean in closer. “When you fail, they’ll wind up with me! I’m letting you in on the secret so you won’t say I was unfair. Become a saint. It will only make you a better instrument of destruction. Won’t that be delicious?” As if in answer to his question, the wailing over the dead queen grew louder. The baby looked away and fell quickly asleep.
FUNEREAL SMOKE, oily and thick, twisted through the air and tainted the sky as Maya’s body burned atop the huge pile of sandalwood logs that had been chopped from the forest. The ghatraj, king of the funeral site, was a huge, sweaty man. His face reddened as he shouted orders for more wood, a higher flame, more melted ghee to pour over the body. The ghee had been churned from the milk of sacred cows. Priests walked slowly around the pyre chanting while the wailing women tossed thousands of marigolds into the fire. Behind them hired mourners whipped themselves in their grief and endlessly circled the body.
The spectacle made Suddhodana sick. He had defied the Brahmins by not taking Maya down to the ghats by the river. On his orders the funeral pyre had been built in the royal gardens. Maya had remembered playing there as a child, when noble girls from the region were brought to court on the chance that any might please young Suddhodana. It was fitting that her last resting place would be somewhere she loved. Secretly Suddhodana knew that this was a gesture born of guilt as much as of love. He was the one who still had a future.
Canki, the highest Brahmin, finished the rites by lifting an ax in the air. The most sacred moment had arrived, when he would pray for the release of Maya’s soul while Suddhodana smashed the remains of her skull to release the spirit inside. The king approached the pyre, his expression stony. He glanced down at a necklace in his fist crafted of rubies and gold. He’d given it to Maya on their wedding night, and now he gently placed it next to the skull.
When Suddhodana turned away without raising the ax, Canki didn’t hesitate to put his hand on the king’s arm-for the moment, he was ruler here.
“You must.”
Suddhodana held no deep contempt for the priesthood, and he knew that he had broken a sacred custom when his role was to uphold it. But at that moment the priest’s touch revolted him. He turned his back and walked steadily toward the palace.
A woman was blocking his path. “You must look on him, Your Majesty. Please.”
In the moment it took for him to hear these words, Suddhodana realized that Kakoli the nurse was blocking his way. She carried Siddhartha in her arms and hesitantly pushed him forward. Tears glittered in her eyes. “He’s precious. He’s a gift.” Since his wife’s death, the king had had nothing to do with his son. He couldn’t help feeling that if the boy had never been born, his wife would yet live.
“I should look at him? Let him look at this.”
Suddhodana glared at the nurse as he snatched the infant from her. The baby started to cry as his father lifted him above the heads of the mourners, giving him a good look at the smoldering corpse.
“Sire!” Kakoli tried to grab the child back, but Suddhodana fended her off. Everyone turned around to stare. Suddhodana defied them with a look.
“His mother died!” he shouted. “I have nothing left.” He wheeled on Kakoli. “Is that part of the gift?” The old nurse covered her mouth with one shaking hand. Her weakness only enraged Suddhodana further. He took a step toward her and was glad to see her shrink back from his threat. “Stop sniveling. Let Siddhartha behold what this filthy world is really like.”
He handed the baby back and strode toward the palace. He entered the great hall, his eyes looking for a new target that would promise more fight than women and priests. Suddhodana needed a battle right now, something he could throw himself at with abandon.
He stopped short at what he saw. An old charwoman was kneeling on the floor, scraping ashes out of the fireplace with her gnarled hands. Gray, unkempt hair hung down in her rheumy eyes. When she looked at him, she smiled, revealing a toothless maw. Suddhodana trembled. His own personal demon was here. He stood frozen in place, wondering bleakly what harm she meant him.
The old crone shook her head as if in sympathy. Slowly she took a fistful of ash from the cold embers and held it over her head, letting the ash trickle down into her hair. She was mocking the mourners outside and him at the same time.
Your poor, beautiful wife. We have her now. And we love her as much as you did.
The char rubbed ash in her face, making dark streaks and smudges until only her wrinkled mouth and piercing eyes were left untouched. She had him trapped. If he broke down, releasing all his pent-up grief and horror, it would open a breach that the demons could exploit. Every time he thought of Maya his mind would be invaded by hideous images. But if he resisted her, clamping down his grief with steel bands, there would never be a release, and the demons would hover around him.
The crone knew all this and waited for his reaction. Suddhodana’s eyes lost their anxiety and became hard as flint. In his mind’s eye he conjured up Maya’s face, then he took an ax and smashed her memory, once and for all. The air around him stank of funeral smoke drifting in from the garden. He had made the warrior’s choice.
A HUNDRED OIL LAMPS flickered in the reception hall, each one held high as courtiers craned for a better look. At first the spectacle had been fairly calm, but when the animal sacrifices began, the cries of baby goats and the gleaming of knives changed the atmosphere. Restless now, the courtiers began to mill around, raising a clamor over the chanting Brahmins.
In the middle of the melee stood Suddhodana, growing impatient. It was the official naming ceremony for his new son, and also the time when the baby’s birth chart would be read aloud by the court astrologers, the jyotishis. Siddhartha’s destiny would be pronounced and his whole life affected from this moment on. But pronounce was the one thing they weren’t doing. Instead, the four old men bent over the cradle, stroking their beards, mouthing ambiguous commonplaces. “Venus is beneficly placed. The tenth house shows promise, but the full moon is aligned with Saturn; his mind will take time to develop.”
“How many of you are still alive?” Suddhodana grumbled. “Four? I thought there used to be five.”
The implied threat was empty. Astrologers were strange but revered creatures, and the king knew it was dangerous to cross them. They belonged to the Brahmin caste, and although the king could hire them, he was only of the Kshatriya caste, which meant that in the eyes of God they were his superiors. After Maya’s funeral Suddhodana had spent days alone, refusing to unbolt his bedroom door. But there was a kingdom to look after, a line of succession to hold up to the world and his lurking enemies. It would be a sign of weakness for Suddhodana’s entire lineage if the astrologers had anything dark to say.
“Is he safe, or is he going to die? Tell me now,” Suddhodana demanded.
The eldest jyotishi shook his head. “It was the mother’s karma to die, but the son is safe.” These words were potent; everyone in the room heard and believed them. They would deter a potential assassin, in case someone had been hired to clandestinely murder the prince. Now the stars predicted the failure of any such attempt.
“Go on,” the king demanded. The nearby clamor subsided in anticipation.