Chapter 28 Bhumika #2
One afternoon, when the day was still blisteringly hot, she called for a palanquin.
She wore her temple whites as she often did.
But she also wore her gold: her nath and earrings, her bracelets and a necklace, as she always did when she dealt with highborn.
This had to have the appearance of a political journey. She adorned herself for the lie.
There was nothing strange about her needing to meet with one of her highborn in their own haveli.
She assured herself the yaksa would not remark on it.
What care did they have, after all, for mortal politics?
And if they did remark she would bow her head and give some pretty explanation and that would, she hoped, be the end of it.
Jeevan met her with the palanquin and a handful of soldiers to carry it. They made their way across the city swiftly, despite the stifling heat.
In the pink lantern district, where there had once been nothing but pleasure houses, was a library.
Nestled between rows of lantern-strung buildings, it was a modest building with pale walls and narrow windows, its interior pleasantly cool, and filled with the noise of rustling paper, distant strains of song and laughter from the pleasure houses, and the hum of voices reciting the Birch Bark Mantras.
Ever since she and Priya had taken over leadership of Ahiranya, Bhumika had made a point of investing in the arts in a way she had never been able to do as the regent’s wife.
Even when there had been precious little coin to spare, she had arranged for a library to be built, where sages and poets could study, and share their work, and keep their creations safely stored.
Under Parijatdvipan rule, it was the scholars and artists who had kept the memory of Ahiranyi faith and culture alive.
The Birch Bark Mantras had survived in their recitations—in handwritten copies, hidden by household after household.
Bhumika understood very well that to build a new Ahiranya would require strong foundations.
A nation could not survive without food—but it could not survive without a soul either.
Kritika may have believed the Hirana was where the soul of Ahiranya lay. But in Bhumika’s eyes, it was here.
Bhumika emerged from her palanquin before the library’s steps.
Jeevan offered his hand and she took it.
He clasped it carefully, his palm warm and callused around her own.
With the daylight behind him, veiling his face, he was reduced to his harshest angles—his strong jaw and that pronounced blade of a nose.
But she could feel the softness of his gaze on her, just as palpably as she could feel the gentle guidance of his hand.
Ever since the day in the rose garden he had been more careful with her.
She straightened, and clasped his hand tighter in return.
I’m well, she tried to say, with her eyes, her touch.
His head lowered, and after a moment, he released her.
They walked together into the interior of the library. A woman met them near the entrance, with a bow and a smile.
“Elder,” she said. “Welcome. How can we help you today?”
“Have you been well, Amina?” Bhumika asked.
“I have. Though my hands do ache.” A rueful laugh. “I’ve been copying poems all morning.”
Amina had survived, when a dozen other scribes and maidservants had been murdered for crimes against the empire. Now, she was a scribe herself, hair tonsured, fingers ink-stained.
“I would love to see them,” Bhumika replied. “Though perhaps not today.” She stepped deeper into the library; the dim interior was pleasant, after the heat of the day. “I need to see your collection of ancient texts.”
“Of course,” Amina said, without batting an eye. “Let me guide you.”
There were few ancient tomes of faith left in Ahiranya.
The Birch Bark Mantras had survived largely by word of mouth and memory.
And what had once been carefully preserved on the Hirana, etched into stone and stored on inked leaf scrolls, had been burned along with Bhumika’s temple siblings.
But here, carefully wrapped and stored away, were texts of worship and theory and philosophy, salvaged from shops and hiding places in the oldest households and sages’ personal collections.
Some had even been preserved, to Bhumika’s surprise, by priests of the mothers.
“Jeevan,” Amina said, once Bhumika was settled at a table, surrounded by scrolls and books so fragile they near seemed to decay from contact with the air. “If you want to say hello to the others, they’ll be glad to see you.”
Jeevan inclined his head in mute thanks, and Amina departed.
“You’ve been here without me?” Bhumika asked, surprised.
If she had not known Jeevan so well, she would have missed how his jaw twitched a little, at that. He was embarrassed.
“I am not a scholar,” he said.
“I meant no judgment,” Bhumika said honestly. “My apologies, Jeevan.”
“No need, my lady.” He swallowed, then said, “I like tales. Like hearing them. The scribes like sharing them.”
“You are allowed to have interests,” she said quietly.
“And you are allowed to have friends.” She looked down at the scroll before her.
The writing was archaic; the ink blurred into smears by years of humidity.
Reading through all of this would be painstaking work.
“You may go and see them, if you like,” she said. “I’ll spare you this.”
Jeevan was briefly quiet. Then he came to kneel at the table across from her. “No, my lady,” he said. “I’ll stay and help.”
They worked silently for a long time. Long enough that the sun’s rays slanted and dimmed, as the afternoon settled in.
“There is one scribe,” he said, “who has collected tales for children. He told me once about a mongoose and a snake that I will not be reciting to Padma.” He frowned, so disapproving that it made her want to laugh. “But there are other, kinder stories.”
“I am sure Padma would love to hear tales from you,” Bhumika said.
Jeevan turned to look at her, startled, and she smiled, the first true smile she’d worn in what felt like weeks.
He blinked at her. “She may even like the tale of the mongoose and snake. Fables for children are often horrific, I’ve found,” Bhumika added, as she opened another book.
“And children never see the horror in them as we do.”
“Lady Bhumika,” Jeevan said.
“Mm?”
“What do you hope to find here?”
She reached for a new tome. Opened it.
“Any information about the yaksa I can use to understand them, and to protect our own interests,” she said.
“But truthfully, I expect I will find nothing. Sometimes it is necessary to act and plan, simply to know you’re still capable of it,” she said.
“To assure yourself you are still fighting, even if your circumstances do not alter.”
She opened a new scroll. Paused.
An image was laid out before her.
The shape of a body, run through with roots.
It was not a yaksa. Or at least, she was fairly sure it was not.
It looked far too human; a mortal bound to something grander than itself—bound by roots old and deep, stretching gold and green and red through it and beyond it, drifting into deeper waters.
Something was teasing at the corners of her memory. Something she had seen—something she had known.
If my elders lived, she thought, running her thumb over the hues of paint, disquiet thrumming in her blood, what would they tell me about this image? What knowledge died with them that could save me now?
She took the scroll with her when they departed.
That evening something touched her mind in the sangam. A call. A song.
It beckoned her, and she walked across the corridor on legs that did not obey her.
That carried her from her own room to the nursery where her child slept.
As if she had heard Padma cry. But she had not.
There was only silence, and the susurration of leaves, and a tug beneath Bhumika’s breastbone, winding, winding.
And there, in her child’s room—
“I thought you would come,” Chandni said. The moonlight was a spill over her shoulders. In its light, the darkness of her hair was a river—the slick, dark growth of fronds beneath water. “I called for you. The sangam carries echoes so sweetly.”
Padma was awake in Nandi’s arms, but she was silent. Staring up at the yaksa that held her with wide, dark eyes.
There was ice in Bhumika’s veins.
“You have been resisting us,” Nandi said, in that child’s voice of his. Rocking Padma lightly, as if she were a much smaller baby. “Fighting us in your heart. Seeking out our secrets.”
“I… I am a temple elder. It is my duty to learn,” Bhumika managed. “To rule.”
“If you have questions you must come to us. You must learn to trust,” Chandni said, touching her fingertip to Bhumika’s lower lip. Her fingertip was far too soft. Like fruit overripened. “You must trust us. With your country. Your faith. Your people.” A pause. “Your child.”
The hand lowered.
“We will take care of her,” said Chandni. “And you will trust in us.”
There was nothing in Bhumika. Nothing but the way her own eyes were drawn to the empty cot, to her baby in Nandi’s arms; nothing but the desire to move forward, and grasp Padma, and run and run.
It was an animal, awful desire as all her cleverness, her control, her strength crumpled inside her leaving nothing but agony. No.
“Yaksa,” Bhumika managed. “Elder Chandni. Please. I will do—whatever you require. Only. Not this.”
The yaksa who was not Chandni gave a sad smile and shook her head.
“Your little one will remain in our care for now.”
A choked noise from the corner of the room, and Bhumika realized Khalida had been there all along. Trembling with terror, even as she bowed.
“I am only a maid,” Khalida said, in the smallest voice Bhumika had ever heard her use. “Yaksa, immortal one, please—allow me to attend to the child.”
“No,” Chandni said softly. “No. That would be unwise.”
She turned back to Nandi, and he placed Padma back in her cot. There were vines winding in steadily through the windows.
“Both of you go,” she said. “And perhaps you will see her tomorrow.”
Bhumika could not move.
“There is no need to fear, Elder Bhumika,” said Chandni. “The yaksa have raised many a child before. Whole temple councils were reared by our hands. Rest well, and trust in us.”
Bhumika lowered her head.
“Yaksa,” she said, heart howling. “As you say.”
She was bound. This was better than a knife at the throat. They had her—her own gods—by the heart. And it was too late, far too late, for anything to be done to stop it.