NOVELLA

JAYAMPATI

Jayampati’s head was spinning as he saw his mother sprawled semi-nude on the ground. He let the image sink in for a while as his anger built up within his chest. The sudden rush of adrenaline-laced blood flooded him from head to toe as his field of vision was spotted with red splashes. That red blur rushing through the air was all he could see as he advanced threateningly, knife gripped firmly in his hand.

With a gasp, Vishaka crossed her arms over her breasts as Rudran picked her up.

“Son…Jayampati…”

“Don’t…call me that…” He bit his words as he spoke. “You betrayed my father!”

His mother was in tears as she spoke, kneeling at her son’s feet. “Your father! He…I loved him do much, and yet he always left us here! He always put his job, his position, before his own family, and finally my hatred found a way in, my son. Don’t you understand?” Her voice became an ear-splitting scream of desperation, sweat and tears running down her cheeks.

“Don’t you even remember? When Abhaya stayed back on his last visit, he told us that your father wouldn’t be coming back for a very long time! I don’t know how else to explain it to you! I showed the world that I loved him.” Her hands reached for the lower half of her sari, but Rudran put his cloak around her, thus helping her to stand up. “I tried to convince myself, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want a husband who was away all the time! Look at it from my perspective!”

Jayampati turned away in disgust for an instant, but instantly pulled himself back. “So you didn’t love him?”

“I tried to. But then…” Her eyes wandered toward her new friend as he gritted his teeth, a signal to her to stop. Yet Jayampati caught on, eyes widening in shock.

“That’s why? I saved your life, you dirty Tamil! And is this how you repay me?” he yelled, rushing at them with his knife raised, heart filled with bloodlust. Rudran attempted to hold Vishaka back in desperation, but she threw herself at her son. Vishaka floundered for a minute or so, madly trying to grab hold of his hands, but the furious Jayampati sliced his blade through the air, grazing her upper arm.

Vishaka winced in pain, and Rudran rushed in, palms raised in surrender.

He wore a look of fear as Jayampati growled, “I will have your head, bastard!”

“Don’t do this! Your mother may get hurt, so please, don’t do something you’ll regret,” he protested as the angry boy advanced on him. He backed away slowly, seeing a familiar flame in the teen’s eyes. The hot fire of pure, unsurpassed rage was strengthening his body as the lamps shone fiercely on him. It was that same fire that he’d seen on countless enemies out on the field. “I could kill you easily, boy, with or without a weapon.”

With a loud yell, the boy, blinded by rage, rushed at Rudran, knife raised, but the warrior intercepted his attack. His hands flew at Jayampati’s throat and right hand, while the muscles of the latter’s wrist attempted to drive the rusted blade through that of the former. The powerful man pushed Jayampati away, against the wall opposite to them, finally bringing his forearm against his opponent’s neck. Jayampati’s wrist though, was powered by a very strong arm, and he suddenly jerked, the knife digging into Rudran’s solid shoulder muscles.

He screamed in pain, pushing himself away from the boy as he tried to wrench it out. Finally, it came away in his hands and he threw it away, still wincing at the injury.

Yet he was bent over as his fingers went for the knife handle.

Jayampati flew at Rudran, tackling him and pushing him against the ground for a few minutes. He tried to punch his enemy, but Rudran’s immense strength gave him the upper hand. Gripping Jayampati’s hand as the boy went in for a good punch, he suddenly pushed once more.

Jayampati flailed as his legs began to give away, while his mother’s shrieks and protests filled the air with a chorus of horror.

His teeth were gritted as he slipped against the ceramic floor tiles, lying on his back and gasping for breath. Rudran’s great weight was still upon his, the Tamil fighter’s huge legs straddling Jayampati’s body. The boy kicked out, but the harder he resisted, the more Rudran came closer to dislocating his hands. Jayampati gasped, calming down. His body relaxed, but his mind was still filled with that thirst for this man’s blood.

Visions of Rudran lying dead, his limbs broken and twisted, his head rolling across the floor, still rushed through him, but as he felt Rudran relax as well, he stood up. His fingers and wrist were sore, and he winced slightly as he cracked his knuckles and flexed them experimentally. He got up halfway, leaning against a pillar. His eyes stared darkly as Vishaka threw herself at Rudran, crying into his shoulder. Another thunderclap roared through the sky, lightning illuminating them under a bright spotlight. As most of the lamps died out, Jayampati was left to grovel in the dark, squatting. His eyes were wide again, a mix of confusion and anger swirling through him.

He felt the genius of madness stretching his hand out towards him to drag into the deepest, most terrifying depths of his mind.

His lips trembled as the power of speech deserted his being. The shadows and silhouettes of the monks, that old sow Ethana, and a manservant or two were visible.

Damn.

Respect and power washed away by the flood of temptation and misdeeds. No matter how much the waters receded, there would be no coming back from this. The whispers among the onlookers grew louder, turning into stentorian trumpets, deafening his young ears. Jayampati’s face had a mask of insanity on it, still thirsting for enemy blood.

“So Mother,” he began venomously while Ran Ethana held Vishaka by the hand, helping her to get up, “is this what you really want? Is this my fate? To be betrayed by the one I love more than anyone else? I finally thought I had you to…to myself!” His eyes stared pathetically at Vishaka as she looked at her son. “So I have to live as the one who’s always betrayed, do I?”

He looked down, still laughing maniacally. The old chief bhikku appeared from the back. “Son, you aren’t well. Please, let us help you. There is a devil inside your mind, and I can”-

“Stay away from me!” Jayampati pushed him away; his teeth were gritted, and turned to the two women in the room. “If only I could’ve killed you, Mother. If only…we could go to hell and be together forever. I’d…”

Laughter, mixed with tears, shot out from his lungs and eyes.

“I’d…be with you always…isn’t that what you want, you bloody cow? To be with your broken family? To always have us, lying beside you when you wake up every morning, to wash your damned body and to

fall at your bloody feet and feed you every morsel of food?”

Vishaka’s voice came at him as a helpless whimper.

 “Stop talking, please.”

 Real tears streaked down his face as his fingers gripped his rusted old knife. Jayampati’s hands trembled and he sweated as he suddenly launched himself at her.

Rudran suddenly leaped before the two women, pushing Vishaka and her servant away. He floored Jayampati with a quick left hook, catching the boy directly in the face. The boy was sent reeling, his head hitting a pillar as he fell backwards.

Vishaka screamed at the sight of her son’s bloodied lip. “He’ll live, it’s alright. I had to hold back a bit,” Rudran reassured her, holding her hands. He turned to the head bhikku. “Venerable sir, I’m so sorry about this. This night was not supposed to have gone like this! I wish I could have prevented it.” Finally, the last lamp died away, but its fading flame revealed to them the grim face of the big monk as he turned away, shaking his head.

 “By the way,” he began, looking sadly and disgustedly at Rudran and Vishaka. “There is a small bodhi sapling growing at the gate. Remove it instantly. The house of Buddharaja is a house of accursed sinners, and I will play no further part in the lives of its members.” He walked out, shaking his head in distaste, accompanied by the menservants, his young personal attendant and the other monks.

The room was now in pitch darkness, but a sudden flash of lightning showed them the unconscious Jayampati, lying on the floor. His mind was racing angrily, and the coppery flavor of blood filled his mouth.

Outside, the monks battled the cascade of rain, unfurling their umbrellas as they tried to make it back to the Mahiyangana monastery. The gutters spewed forth a mass of dirty water and grime into the drain than ran by the house.

At the head of the group was the lead bhikku. He made a bee-line for the gate, and bent down, feeling the soil with his hand. A tiny plant too fought against the showers of falling water. Its leaves were circular, but had a sharp end, pointing outwards. Promptly, he grasped it and ripped it out. Its roots came away too as it cried out in a language he could not understand.

The little plant found itself torn and twisted, wafted away by slow currents as it was lost to the puddles and streams that were in their way.

“Come on now,” he ordered sternly. “Let’s keep moving.”

He pulled up his robe and led them through the torrential rain.

The boy woke up to a rough hand on his shoulder, shaking him out of the pleasant dream of burning the house down, with the Tamil bastard and his whore of a mother inside it. Jayampati groaned loudly, stretching his arms. His eyes were rather glassy at first, but as he looked around, he saw the face of his mother’s closest maid.

“Ethana…what are you…doing here? What happened?” He felt dizzy, his hands running across the top of his head, cursing as he fingered the large welt at the back. The old maid looked nervous. Her silver hair was in a tangle and her near-black skin glowed with sweat that pooled within the caverns of her wrinkles.

“Master, you’ve been out cold for almost an hour!”

“What? Speak up, please!”

“You were knocked out, master Jayampati,” she told him again, much louder. “You got into a fight with your Tamil friend. Do you really remember nothing? You”-she shuddered for an instant as he stood up-“you really scared me at the time.” She looked away from him for an instant. He thought he saw a tear shining in her ancient eye as she shook her head.

“Stop holding back!” he demanded, but then softened his tone just as quickly. “I do remember that fight with Rudran, but what else happened? What of the ceremony?” Ran Ethana’s lips trembled for a minute as she hobbled over to an old stool. She fought a lump in her throat as she continued.

“Your mother has brought disgrace and dishonor upon this entire household and upon her caste and clan. She is irreligious and an infidel! I’ll bet she’s sleeping with that fellow at this very moment!”

 The old woman stood up for a minute and wagged her finger angrily in the air, but quickly sank back into her stool, a sudden stab of pain shooting through her hip.

Jayampati was still rubbing the swelling on his head when he heard it. His memories began to flood back into the void left during the fight.

“So it really did happen, did it?” he quizzed through angrily gritted teeth. His last image was of his mother, sprawling on the floor, her naked breasts pressing against Rudran’s body. That damned Tamil man’s arms were around her as well. He wished that he could relive the scene, so that at least Rudran could lie dead on the floor, as he had planned.

“Ethana, why don’t you stop crying and go to sleep?” grunted Jayampati in disgust. “And”-he noted that the old woman was staring at him intently. Another maid or two had appeared as well, and their expressions terrified him-“why are you looking at me like that? Stop it, will you?” He got off his stool in a trice, fists clenched.

He was embarrassed that the servants of the household had been part of the struggle as the episode flashed back into his mind. “You two! Kamala! Ranmali! Get the hell out of here!” he growled at the other two women. They tried their best to back away, but their eagerness to see a nobleman’s fall kept them glued to the spot.

“That look…what did I do for them to look at me like that? All of you, answer me!” His voice grew desperate as the women’s eyes bored into him in scrutiny. He felt instantly vulnerable and naked as he sank onto the floor when their words came out:

“You tried to kill your mother.”

Jayampati looked at his hands, kneeling down, pushed to the ground by the weight of his shock and horror. He imagined Vishaka’s blood staining them had he done it. The dread chorus still rang loudly in his ears as the foremost of sins reverberated inside his heart.

Thoughts of her head being cut off and her spirit haunting him for the rest of his life, driving him to the brink of insanity filled his head. Visions of her roasting with him in a fiery pit; her for her infidelity and he for his murder, were incised into his young mind.

He wore the mark of a sinner, the holy white thread having being stained black.

Jayampati Buddharaja, son of the mighty warrior Anuruddha, and his patient young wife Vishaka, had fallen…

All reality spun away with him into a black abyss as he stood up.

The three maids supported him as his bleary eyes fell on the inviting form of the rusted knife, which was now lying on the floor. His hand reached for it as his vision turned red, but his strength had deserted him.

“I’m sorry, my child,” whispered Ran Ethana softly in his ear. She left him where he was, blowing out the lamplight and the candles in the room. But one light still shone on Jayampati.

The flash of lightning that illuminated him, as the voice of Lord Sakra boomed in the skies above that there was another hell-bound sinner born on the earth below.

Jayampati’s leg muscles shook under his weight as he stood up.

The voices in his head were crying out to him in anguish. They cried out only one word, a word that pierced the sudden silence that followed the last clap of thunder: Run.

He did not know where, or how he could ask for any shelter as tears ran down his eyes. But the voices still lived in his ears, calling him a sinner, a cruel man who could never be saved.

The rain still cut at his skin, his cloak blowing in the wind.

Jayampati’s heart followed the roads leading away from his house as he commanded his horse to gallop faster. The animal was soaking wet, but its rider was cruelly urging it forward.

A small village tank appeared in the distance as the rain gradually ceased.

A flash of lightning spooked the horse, and it reared up suddenly, hammer-like hooves thrusting out at anyone or anything that were foolish enough to appear in their way. With a few whispers of encouragement, Jayampati calmed it down long enough to steer from the near-flooded, broken-down road. As the clouds began to part, he too grew more confident. The horse’s route became easier as they rounded a bend which ran through a wooded area of close to the temple.

Yet the rain began once more, beating down on the two.

The horse was ordered into a canter, more slowly now, but Jayampati himself was much calmer now. He spotted the great hulk of a mansion looming up in the distance after passing a large trading town. Salesmen were rushing to take their wares inside. The great house up the road was three-storied, with a tall, ornamental gateway built in likeness of a temple gateway, with its makara thorana.

Nervously, Jayampati pushed his mount onwards, dismounting at the front door, and knocking hard.

“Saliya!” he cried, attacking the huge door.

“Saliya, please open up! Please! Saliya, Chitra! Could either of you please answer?” The chill of the rain around him bit at his skin and he wrapped his cloak tightly around his body, hood covering his head.

The doorknob turned after a few minutes, and he rushed in suddenly, jerking the reins of his horse. Jayampati nearly slipped on the floor as he flung off his cloak. His eyes looked up at a pair of slim legs, and up to a sari-clad torso, a tiny, tight bodice with a low neck, and a darkish young face.

“So it’s you, is it? Where’s Saliya, Chitra?”

“Jayampati…what happened to you?”

She saw that his eyes were webbed with red veins, and that his curls were in a matted, wet mess. His sarong itself was muddy from rushing through puddles on his way there. The girl sounded concerned. Bending down, she helped him up gently, but strongly.

“Please get your brother. In the meantime, I’d better put my horse in your stable. Poor thing will catch his death if he stays another minute in this tempest!” He tried to open the door again, but Chitra’s hands felt so warm against his shoulders that he hesitated. “Call for your stable boy…he’s gentle, my horse. I’m so tired, plus I have to see your brother. It’s urgent.”

Chitra led him to the main room, a wonderfully furnished open space ringed by carved pillars with comfortable couches and velvet-covered cushions. Jayampati could not recline. Instead he sat, basking in the gentle light of the only lamp that was lit in the whole room. A maid brought a few sweetmeats, but he could not eat, much less touch the food. His belly though, ached just as much as his heart. Chitra, who sat on the edge of the couch opposite to him, looked like a ghost in the warm orange light.

“My brother will be out shortly. If you want to see my parents, they went out this afternoon with a caravan coming from Gokanna. They’re doing their best to support the soldiers you see. Your father and his regiment mostly.”

 Jayampati’s expression darkened. “I’m sorry, but no, we have no news of him whatsoever. I don’t think anybody does”-she placed her hand on his-“so we have to assume the worst.”

“My father…is…not…dead!”

The girl drew back in fear. Her friend groaned as he cleared his throat, regretting his harshness immediately. “Look, what else can I say? All I can do is maintain some kind of hope! But not my mother! No! She gave up, and…and I…” He looked wildly about, tears rising inside his eyes. His body lifted off the seat as he put his hands to his head. “I…I can’t talk to you about this, Chitra!” His voice was cloaked with angst and desperation as he gripped her shoulders firmly. “I can’t! Only your brother can”-

“Only I can what? Jayampati?”

The figure that appeared, stalked cautiously, but finally made himself more obvious. A tall, thin boy with long hair, fine facial features and sparkling eyes walked out of the darkness, short sarong in a bit of a mess, but clearly revealing graceful, deer-like legs. “It’s the middle of the night. What do you want?” grunted Saliya. “And besides, didn’t you tell us that you didn’t need us anymore?”

“That was weeks ago!” shouted Jayampati in exasperation.

“Still, you distinctly told us that you didn’t. And you never once came to see us. Too occupied with that Tamil friend, I presume?” He turned to leave, but Jayampati caught him by the arm and whispered into his ear. Saliya’s sister too strained her own ears to catch some of the words, but she couldn’t. She stood up, and tapped Jayampati on the shoulder a few times. “This doesn’t relate to you,” her brother told her with a warning tone that was, somehow, filled with concern. Chitra glared at Saliya as Jayampati broke away.

“I think you both deserve to know, now that you’re all I can count on around here.” He took his seat once more. “Listen, Saliya. Our Tamil friend, he…my mother…my mother doesn’t think that Father will ever come back! So she relied on that bastard for comfort. I’d hate to imagine what’s going on there at the moment! I mean, how could she ever think of betraying him? After saving her life as a girl? After, after finally giving her something to live for?”

Brother and sister looked at one another, and then interestedly at their friend. Above them, the unconcerned deities halted their tears as the rain eased completely and the cloudy curtain covering the world was finally drawn.