He hung back as Channa and his father rounded the corner and entered an open stall. The gate shut behind them. Siddhartha squatted in the straw-covered dirt. His eyes roamed over the array of saddles and bridles hanging on the wall; he caught the clinking of hammers on the smithy’s forge out back. Listening intently, he thought he heard Bikram’s muttered voice, then Channa’s.
The boy was uneasy being left alone. He had a secret. Not the kind he was ashamed to reveal so much as one he couldn’t fathom. To escape thinking about it, he gazed up at the stable roof. It was old, and the timbers had warped over the winter, letting in the rain and beams of bright sunlight when the weather was clear.
His eyes caught a sunbeam now, and he watched motes of dust dance in it.
Look closer.
Siddhartha shivered and tried not to listen. The words in his head didn’t feel like his own. They came unlike ordinary thoughts. The voice had begun about a week earlier-this was his secret-and almost always said the same thing. Look closer.
The sunbeam fell warmly across his eyelids, and he felt dreamy. The dust motes seemed to seize his attention and grow bigger.
What if we are made of dust? All things that come from the earth are only dust.
Siddhartha looked down at his arm and brushed away the film of dried dung that had settled on it. More dust flew up into the sunlight.
I am just dust, he thought.
He jumped to his feet and began to run.
Only dust.
The voice had turned on him, was suddenly harsh and mocking. Siddhartha didn’t want to hear it anymore, and it was all the boy could do not to cry. He raced toward the stall where Channa had gone. He paused at the gate, not wanting to be seen this way, weak and shaken. Above him, in the shadowy rafters, an unseen figure sat. Eyes watched the boy trying to calm down, and a calculating mind considered its next move.
Siddhartha pushed at the gate, but it was locked from the inside.
On the other side Bikram’s voice was sharp. “Hold her down, I said.”
Siddhartha heard a horse whinnying in pain and hooves clomping against the ground. He peered through a crack in the gate. A sick old mare was lying on her side, heaving and quivering. At one end crouched Channa, trying his best to hold the mare’s head still. At the other end Bikram was tying her hind legs together with rope; he had already tied the front legs, and they clomped helplessly against the ground. Bikram stood up. Siddhartha saw the grimness in his face and the fear in Channa’s.
“It’s going to be all right,” the boy whispered into the mare’s ear, which twitched as if hearing a nearby predator. Eyes rolling wide and white with terror, the horse sensed what was coming.
“I need you to be strong,” said Bikram. “You know why the prince couldn’t be here for this?”
“No.”
His father shrugged. “No need. Just remember, he can’t be here, understand?” Channa nodded. “Once everyone’s asleep tonight, we’ll take her outside the gates and bury her. He doesn’t ever need to know she’s dead.” Channa nodded again.
Above Siddhartha, an unseen figure-Mara himself-peered down, considering his next move. He had waited a long time to rejoin the boy and draw him closer. Close enough to become a voice in his head. The demon clapped his hands, wondering if the boy might look up, but Siddhartha’s eyes were fixed on the scene in the stall. Bikram picked up a heavy ax and turned the blunt side of the blade outward, like a club. He walked slowly to the mare’s head.
“Look away, boy.”
Channa did as he was told; his father raised the ax high in the air, brawny knots standing out from his bare arm. Out of the corner of his eye Channa saw him bring the ax down; there was a loud thud and the crunch of bone, but in the instant before, as if sensing its fate supernaturally, the old mare screamed.
Siddhartha heard it as he ran, a piercing pitiful cry that made the other horses shiver in their stalls. He was terrified, but he hadn’t witnessed the blow. Something pulled the boy away at the last second-weakness, or a better impulse?-saving him from the grisly sight. Panicked, he ran outside, putting as much distance between himself and the stables as he could. Prajapati’s two young servants saw him and gave chase.
Mara knew the moment was ripe. He was suddenly beside Siddhartha, arms and knees pumping as he matched him stride for stride.
“Yah!” the demon shrilled. “Giddyap! Let’s see you run!”
Siddhartha turned his head, and his eyes widened. It was only a quick, panicky glance, but Mara was certain he’d been seen. It was the first time, a milestone.
Turning his gaze from the horrible sight, Siddhartha focused on the palace ahead of him. The building was huge and ornate, a thing of beauty according to every visitor the young prince had held audience with. He ran through an arched doorway, not slowing at all. Soon he reached the closed door of his father’s bedroom. No one had followed him, and gradually his breath stopped burning in his chest. Cautiously, hearing the murmur of voices from within, Siddhartha tried the lock. It was open. Moving with the natural stealth of a child, he pulled the door open and peered inside.
His father’s private chambers were vast and ornate. The best silks and the finest gold made up the bedding and decorated the furniture. Polished floors gleamed with candlelight, and a small group of men huddled around his father’s bed.
Suddhodana sat propped up by pillows. The men around him were court physicians, who poked and prodded, examining their royal charge gingerly.
“Get on with it,” he grumbled. “If you’re here to get me closer to dying, don’t bother. Time is taking care of that.”
Siddhartha drew back. He had never known his father to be sick, barely recognized these men as doctors. They had rarely appeared in his short life, and only before dawn. The king didn’t want his son to be awake when he needed tending. But Siddhartha could vaguely remember, as if seeing through a fevered haze, the same poking and prodding he now observed.
One of the physicians gestured to another, who held a large wooden bucket with a lid. Removing it, the second physician reached inside and withdrew a large, fat leech.
“Lie back, Your Majesty. This will be the last time, I promise.” The lead physician was a thick man with gentle hands. He was called Gandhik, Siddhartha remembered. Taking the leech, Gandhik applied it directly over his father’s heart. It was all Siddhartha could do to remain silent when he saw the six leeches already feeding on his chest. Swollen and dark, they looked like they were trying to crawl inside him.
“Disgusting,” the king snapped. “You and your so-called arts.” He heaved a sigh of resignation. “Disgusting.”
“Hold still, Your Majesty,” Gandhik directed in a quiet, patient tone.
“I want to be strong again,” Suddhodana said. Then he shook his head. “Who am I fooling? I want to be young again.”
Lying there on the pillows, his graying hair feathered out around him, the king permitted the indignities of medicine as a distraction-they kept him from dealing with the passage of time. Every day seemed to be a weight around his neck, depriving him of another ounce of strength.
“You will be strong after this,” Gandhik promised, holding another writhing leech pinched between his forefinger and thumb. Something in his reassurance sounded false, even to himself.
“Idiots!” the king exploded. “Flatterers! I might as well suck my own blood.” He glared at the leech and struggled with giving up on the whole damned business of medicine, only to lean back, his eyes closed, no longer willing to look. “Get on with it.” Cautiously, Gandhik applied the final leech to the king’s chest.
Siddhartha’s eyes focused on this, but his mind was fixed on something he couldn’t comprehend: his father showing fear. This sent tremors through him, as if he had been standing on a mountainside that suddenly began to slide out from under his feet. Siddhartha backed away and closed the door without a sound.