Read Online KRISHNA CORIOLIS#1: Slayer of Kamsa by Ashok K. Banker - Free Book Online

replied with bowed heads, not daring to meet her agitated eyes.
    She cut them off abruptly, ordering the sabha hall doors to be opened to let her in. They obeyed at once, without protest. Like most traditional Arya societies, the Yadava nations had long had a matriarchal culture. Women owned all property, from land to livestock, right down to even the garments on everyone’s back. Inheritance was by the matriarchal line, as was lineage. Every stone, brick and beam in Mathura was quite literally the property of Queen Padmavati.
    She strode into the sabha hall, past the startled guards and surprised courtiers. There were not very many. Inside, Ugrasena and a few of his closest advisors and ministers sat listening keenly to a road- dusty courier – a dhoot – who broke off and peered fearfully over his shoulder at her unexpected entrance, as if afraid it might be someone else.
    Padmavati strode up to the royal dais. Ugrasena frowned down at her, openly surprised.
    ‘Padma?’ he said, lapsing into informality.
    ‘My Lord,’ she said,‘I have urgent private business to discuss with thee. Kindly send away these honourable gentlepersons of the court.’
    Ugrasena looked at her for a long moment. In the flickering light of the mashaals, she saw how he had appeared to age in the past few weeks. The peace treaty had taken a greater toll on him than the troubles of the preceding years, was what the wags were saying around court.
    No, not the peace treaty. Our son’s devilry.
    ‘It is about Kamsa, then,’ he said, without a trace of uncertainty in his words.
    She did not answer, not wishing to say anything impolitic in front of the others.
    He nodded as if he understood.
    ‘Come, my queen,’ he said kindly, in a weary voice. ‘Seat thyself and listen to the latest tales of derring-do of our beloved son.’

    ten

    Ugrasena and Padmavati sat on the royal dais. Except for the mandatory royal guards at the far end of the hall, by the doors, they were alone. The dhoot had finished his report in Padmavati’s presence, recounting further episodes of Kamsa’s vileness. From the sighs, head-shakes, shrugs and other gestures and reactions of the others, she had understood that these reports were now commonplace. She shuddered at the realization: innocent lives snuffed out, butchered by her own son, and even Mathura’s wisest heads accepted it as commonplace. She did not know which was worse: the fact that he had committed and was still committing such terrible acts, or the fact that they were tacitly accepted and tolerated by those governing the kingdom.
    She turned to Ugrasena now, her mind raging.
    ‘We must curb him,’ she said. ‘This cannot be allowed to go on.’
    He sighed, rubbing his hand across his face, looking terribly weary and old, a pale shadow of the man she had wedded, loved, and shared her life with for over two decades.
    She now understood why he had taken ill these past several weeks, why he had not come to her bed at nights, why an endless procession of royal vaids seemed to always be coming from or going into his chambers, why the annual festival had been cancelled, why no entertainers or artists had been invited to the palace of late ...
    Her father had once told her that no matter how comfortable and luxurious it may appear, a royal throne was the hardest seat to sit on. And to remain seated on it meant foregoing all comfort forever.‘All these things,’ he had said, gesturing expansively at the rich brocades, luxurious adornments and gem- studded furniture, ‘exist to pay homage to the seat itself, to the role of king or queen. For the man or woman who sits on that hard spot, there is no luxury, no comfort, no rest.’
    She saw now the truth of those words. Truly, Ugrasena, at the peak of his reign, at the helm of the greatest Yadava nation that had ever existed, had no comfort.
    ‘Yes,’ he agreed at last. ‘This ought not to be permitted to continue.’
    She waited, knowing that he was not