The Aryavarta Chronicles Kurukshetra: Book 3 Read Free Page B

and I have no reason to protect him or her. If I say nothing of the Secret Keeper’s identity, it is because I do not know.’
    ‘You may think you don’t know,’ Devala argued. ‘But surely that cowherd has said or done something, let his guard down at some time…perhaps after an intimate moment?’
    ‘We had better things to do at and after intimate moments.’ She added, scathing, ‘You will stop at nothing, isn’t it? Are you so convinced of your beliefs, your notions, that you…’
    ‘How dare you judge us, you worthless whore?’ Devala said.
    ‘Judge you? For that you need to stand for a cause. If there is a whore in this room, it is not I…aah!’ A cry of pain escaped her as Devala slammed the hilt of his sword into her stomach.
    ‘Stop it!’ Sanjaya and Suka pulled Devala away before he could hit her again.
    A defiant silence fell over the group, though it seemed to Sanjaya and Devala that unspoken words passed between Suka and Philista. After some time the scholar nodded as though they had reached a satisfactory conclusion. He turned to Devala. ‘Kill her. Make it smooth. If we leave her alive, those animals…’
    ‘But…’
    ‘Do it!’
    Relief showed on Philista’s face as Devala finally pulled out a small hunting knife and knelt down next to her. He pressed the hilt of the knife into her hands. She smiled, closed her eyes and thrust the dagger into her breast without a word. As the pain flooded her body, her eyes flew open and she clawed once at the air. But her agony did not last long. Devala added his weight to the butt of the knife, twisting it deep into her flesh till it pierced her heart. Philista was dead before her body hit the ground.
    Sanjaya moved back as fresh warm blood made its way across the stone floor. Suka, however, remained as he was, staring down at the remains of a once-beautiful human being. His lips moved, soundless, as though he was saying a prayer over the corpse. Devala sighed, withdrew his blade and wiped it off before returning it to its sheath. Then he joined his companions.
    The three men walked in silence as they left the dungeons for the crisp, clean dawn mist that hung over the palace of Hastina. It was only once the vast distance between the garrison and the main royal quarters had been covered that Devala’s impatient voice interrupted the soothing rhythm of their feet on level pebble pathways: ‘If only we knew who the Secret Keeper was…’
    Suka said, ‘You’d do what? Kill him?’
    ‘Kill him, turn him to our cause, imprison him…or her.’
    ‘A woman as Secret Keeper?’ Sanjaya sounded amused, all the more so for seeing that Suka had deftly avoided revealing what he knew.
    Devala made no response, but Suka did, sticking out his lower lip in thought. ‘They say that Ghora Angirasa once intended for his great-granddaughter to lead them all.’
    Sanjaya said, ‘What happened to her?’
    ‘I heard she died. As did her brother. But if that is true, it is no surprise, I suppose…’
    ‘Why not?’ Devala asked.
    The conversation ebbed as an anxious attendant ran up to them. Sanjaya spoke in hushed tones with the man and dismissed him before turning to the others. ‘They are waiting for us.’
    Suka smiled. ‘So it begins. And there you have the answer to your very pertinent question, Devala. Why not? Because death is what inevitably comes to those who place their trust in Govinda Shauri. Now, it is time to see how many more shall share that fate.’

2
    HASTINA, BHISMA DEVAVRATA OBSERVED, WAS UNUSUALLY COLD for the time of year. He tried not to think of the summers and springs of his youth, but failed as he looked out over the mist-covered ground, oblivious to the wind that blew in through the window. Age was yet to take its toll on him, and he instinctively attributed this to the true Kuru blood that ran in him. This thought, too, he quickly dispelled. He was not the last of the true Kurus. By law and by divine will, and as a result of