Traditions of Dead Generations

Round Four - Manipura, Pt. 3

Chitrangada sighed and sat carefully, her mind whirring. What next? Would her son bring Arjuna back to the palace? She would have to see him then. What would Viyati do? What could he do? They were never going to be able to keep her husband away forever. At least they had one night...

"Go prepare a meal for my son and husband," she bid the servant, "and," her voice almost caught in her throat," set a place of honour for the guru who instructed my son this afternoon. We must thank him for this victory." Would he even sit at a table with them?

The servant scurried away, already shouting the news to the rest of the staff. Chitrangada hovered in the yard, squinting by torchlight past the walls. The war party should be back at any time. It was dark, and her son had won his challenge. Where were they?

Shouts. Chitrangada was sure she could hear shouts in the distance. She glanced around her, and finding her maids had gone inside to help prepare for supper, she let her feet lead her out into the forest. 

This is madness, she told herself, You will be eaten by a wild beast. But something was wrong. The war party should be returning, at the least so that Arjuna could have his wounds treated. What if Arjuna had decided to take Babrunahana back to his own camp? What if Viyati had been wrong, and Arjuna had been here for the boy all along? Why would he seek an old wife he hadn't seen for fifteen years?

Chitrangada suddenly felt cold and under-dressed under the dark sky. What if Viyati had not come for her, but for his son?

She sped up, winding through the trees with the skill of someone who had walked among them her whole life. The stream was to her left, the gurgling and giggling of the Goddesses audible even from this distance. She couldn't hear the expected thrum of horse-hoof or ratha-wheel, but she kept off the road nonetheless, in case someone should come blundering along in the dark. The clearing where Babrunahana had been sent was not far now.

The forest was silent, but not because it was deserted. Chitrangada could make out now the silhouette of dozens of heads ringing the clearing, flickering torches casting demonic shadows like cast bones. Babrunahana's ratha glittered at one end of the clearing, as prickled with arrows as a thorn bush. His flag was torn and wasted, and both of his horses lay dead. Chitrangada forced herself to look to the other end of the clearing.

Arjuna was her son's ghostly reflection. Both men were dismounted, bows strung and at the ready though they were only a few dozen feet from each other. Babrunahana's dark flesh and gold armour looked so solid, so true compared to Arjuna's pale flesh and silver armour. The older man leaned heavily on his bow, bleeding freely from a thick wound to the shoulder that made Chitrangada shudder. With a great gulp of air, he hoisted himself straight and tucked a shaft onto the string.

"Stand still," he growled at her son, "I will repay you in kind." He fired the arrow up into the sky. Babrunahana tracked it and darted to the side, letting the arrow fall fast to earth where he had once stood. He frowned at the man in return.

"Stand down, you old fool!" he hissed, "Or I will cause the stars to rain down on you. You have lost!"

"I am Prince Arjuna, son of Indra, blessed of Lord Shiva! You can not kill me!" He fired another arrow into the air, which Babrunahana lithely slipped out from underneath.

Is he mad? Chitrangada asked herself, searching the crowds for Viyati. Only Babrunahana's restraint was keeping the prince alive, and the boy seemed to be running out of patience. Surely even Arjuna could see that?

Arjuna fired two more arrows from his bow in quick succession, causing the poisoned shafts to fall precariously close to where her son danced and dodged. Babrunahana's brow darkened and Chitrangada could see his fist tightening around his bow. He would not be patient much longer. Where is Viyati?

Arjuna's archery was legendary. They say he had defeated Rakshasas in heaven, and his bow, Gandiva, had been crafted by Brahmah himself. With his bow he had won Draupadi; he had defeated the Kauravas at Virata. Arjuna and his brothers had slain every single son of Dhritarashtra in the Kurukshetra war. The whole Kingdom had fallen before Arjuna and his bow.

And now he fired it on her son. Chitrangada could only watch as Arjuna seemed to fire a hundred arrows at the stars, willing them to fall again in flames of gold across the battlefield where only her son's skill prevented him from from being killed a dozen times over. Babrunahana had already hit true with his arrows - what more could he do?

Babrunahana plucked one of Arjuna's golden arrows from the ground and set it on the string, fixing his eyes on the man he thought was his father. He drew back the string, pointing the tip of the arrow at the moon, just as one of Arjuna's arrows fell, slicing through the flesh of his thigh. Chitrangada screamed, but the noise was masked by the gasps and exclamations of of the watchers. Babrunahana sank to his knees and the arrow tumbled from his bow, but nobody was watching him.

Arjuna had been knocked to the ground. The arrow that felled him had cloven from his collarbone to the final rib on his back. The wind stopped blowing and the trees stopped growing as they waited for Arjuna to rise, to moan or even to breathe, but none of these things came. His attendants rushed him, bearing his body up and away, leaving only the confused and staggered servants of Manipura on the field.

"Go to him!" Chitrangada yelled, emerging from the trees, "Go to your king! The fight is over!"

Men swarmed the dark pitch, though Chintrangada was the first to her son's side. "Babru-jan! Speak! Oh, ja, you had better live or I swear to you I will not!" She took her son's head in her lap and cried when he opened his eyes. An arm encircled her shoulders then, and Chintrangada turned to see Viyati.

"Peace, Begum," he whispered to her, looking around, "It is over." Chitrangada met his eyes. He frowned, though he should have been happy. Then she saw the strung bow in his hand.

"You..." Chitrangada looked back and forth three times between Babrunahana's unspent arrow and Viyati's empty bow. Then she met his eye again. His look told her everything she needed to know. 

"I will not share you with him, jan," he whispered, "Not either of you."

 (Judges: Thanks for reading! My story is set in ancient India, and is based on events outlined in the Mahabharata. Arjuna, the hero of the Mahabharata and one of the Padavans, fathered a son, Babrunahana, with Chitrangada, princess of Manipura. But because of the laws of Manipura, Chitrangada's heirs could not be removed from the kingdom - thus when Arjuna had to return to Hastinapoor, Babrunahana and Chitrangada stayed behind. Arjuna didn't return until Babrunahana was a young man, and the circumstances of his return were pretty much exactly as I describe here. But, my twist: in the Mahabharata, when Babrunahana struck Arjuna down, Arjuna is brought back to life with a magic gem. In my version, Arjuna is killed. The love triangle with Viyati is entirely my fabrication.)