The water-clock chimed, and Vigraha awoke, as he always did, well before the first roosters of the city began to crow. Throwing off his sheets of fine muslin, he first washed himself with the bowl of jasmine-scented water his body-slave had placed besides his bed in the night, then lit a lamp and went to his desk to read. He had a new compilation of the Manusmriti, straight from Taxila, written upon palm-leaf and bound in calf-skin. For all the attention the treatise on artha gave to the treatment of cattle, and given his own position in the apparatus of state, he found the irony delightful. There was also a pair of letters tucked inside the manuscript, missives separate couriers had dropped off and that he had hidden the night before.
Vigraha read the first one again, smiling to himself, telling himself he must remember to bring it with him, then he read the second, and frowned. “Ahh well, if everything were easy then nothing would be fun would it?” He sighed to himself. When the first rooster crowed, it was time to get to work.
He first went to take a bath, the water already well warmed and made fragrant by his servants, having his skin scoured and the night’s stubble shaved ever so carefully away. Then he went to the his home’s vyayamakendra, adjacent to the the private courtyard of his family’s manor, to train. The floor was already spread with fresh sand, and Xaravalana, his fencing instructor and bodyguard, would already be waiting for him. Exercise for that irritable saka meant riding a horse, and no matter how many times over the years Vigraha had explained to the man from the steppe that no, arya such as him did not duel from horseback and that yes, where he to be set upon by assassins it would almost certainly be in the marble corridors of some palace and not while riding past some ancient kurgan amidst a sea of grass, Xaravalana could not see it otherwise, and so he had had a pommel horse installed in the gymnasium as well, with the first half of the days training devoted to what the yavana’s would call “gymnastics”.
Afterwards he would bath again, his skin slathered with oils and painted fancifully with red and yellow sandalwood paste. His wives often asked him. “Husband, if you are just going to get all sweaty training in the morning, why then do you insist on bathing before?” To that he could only smile and say that, as his father had taught him, life in the city was a game, a game in which appearance was everything, to both stranger and kin. Especially, he would tease with a sly smile, to kin. He would eat the morning’s meal prepared for him by Ishani, his first wife and the mother of his daughter. Or rather, a slave would prepare the meal and Ishani would spend a minute garnishing it and ladling it onto his plate, by such action satisfying the law, if not perhaps the spirit, of her duties as described in the sacred Vedas. After eating, he would brush his teeth, sweeten his breath with citron, apply red lac to his lips, and head out to attend to the mornings business, of which there was never a shortage.
His manse was in one of the better quarters of Sagal, within sight of the palace in fact, so that his view may ever be graced by the abode of his king. Xaravalana would accompany him of course, along with at least two other sword-bearers, and a slave to carry his parasol. He could have brought more, it would perhaps be wiser to do so, but there was a tax on armed retainers, to which Vigraha, as the zaulikila of the capital province, was exempt. To wander about the well-swept streets of Sagal with an army in tow would have incited undue resentment amongst his fellow nagaraka, and so he made do with this current coterie of minions, minuscule though it was by the inflated standards of the times. He had his sword of course, but more importantly, his vilna, for it was said that a man of good breeding, when out on the town, should always either have his arms about the slender waist of a lady or holding the bow of his harp.
The sun shone lazily down through the turrets of the city, it’s regal glow bisected here and there by great kits trailing prayer flags which floated languidly upon the morning breeze. The streets were already crowded, nagarakas of all different castes mingling in the streets, strolling and chatting, noble kshatriyas arm in arm with vaishyas and even the occasional shudra, the finery of their attire making their respective castes indistinguishable, mixing like the perfumes of their bodies to paint a picture most cosmopolitan, all trailed at respectful distance by retainers of every description, while palanquins borne on the well oiled backs of strapping slaves went to and fro, the tasseled veils hanging from their frames tempting the onlooker to attempt and spy the beauty of the dames within.
There were many monks as well, heads shaven, their begging bowls rattling, their saffron robes clean, laundered by the King’s own washer-men. There were almost as many vesyas, already in search of custom at this early hour, their profession advertised not by their garb, which was a rich as that of any of the ladies lounging about the manors, but by the old, club bearing women who escorted them! Oftentimes, the monks and vesyas could be seen together, for it was said that in Salwa, a monk’s bowl was never empty, and neither was a prostitute’s bed.
The streets were lined with trees and mansions, some belonging to warrior clans such as his own, some to the srethenis of prominent guilds, some to traders, some to officials of high rank. One of them, Vigraha touched his middle and ring finger to his thumb and extended his pinky and index finger towards in the sign of the apana mudra, as if it were the source of an illness he wished to rid himself of. It was a large manor, large but spare, built with a sort of conscientious frugality that set it apart from its neighbors and yet made it appear somehow to be grander than the rest for all of their fanciful garniture! It belonged to one Prithichand, the King’s sannidhata, a man who was, more than anyone else in that dharma graced city, a thorn in Vigraha’s side.
All the other mansions were seemingly in competition to outdo each-other in the ostentatiousness of their decor and the rarity of the flowers woven into the garlands which each day at dawn were purchased and hung at their gates and by nightfall wilted and given to the chandalas to be replaced by even more expensive arrangements the next! Parrots and trained monkeys squawked and hooted from gilded cages hung from balconies upon which the well heeled daughters sat in their silken finery, sipping tea and eying with long lashes the peoples passing below. To them Vigraha would smile coyly and pluck a few notes from his harp, eliciting well practiced blushes and fluttering of the eyes.
It wasn’t that he wished to court any of these women. His two wives were plenty enough for him and besides, he had no wish to face a charge of adultery. No, it was that he wished to be seen flirting with them. It was one of these strange ironies of civilization that things which were proscribed come to be seen as romantic and therefore, paradoxically, the honorable purvey of those very people who are supposed to represent the very best of the society which proscribes them! Dueling was much the same. He had no wish to cheat Ishani, but people would gossip that he did, and as long as they were gossiping about him, then he was satisfied. “It’s all a game, my son!” His father had said, and he loved the fucking game.
On a normal day, Vigraha would have extended his stroll, choosing at random some thoroughfare and parading down it, seeing who he could find to chat with, who he recognized, who recognized him, to the constant irritation of Xaravalana, but today, he had to cut it short. He had business. He made straight for the manor of Diodotus, the nagarika of the city. Diodotus’s home was of unsurpassed splendor, eclipsed only by that of the palace itself, a delirious mix of yavana and aryan architecture, with fluted columns topped by snarling lions and triangular arches decorated with the statuary of foreign gods and reposing Buddhas alike! Vigraha was ushered in immediately, as he was expected, and found himself in the reception hall, a space nearly as large as an entire floor of his own manor!
Men and women gathered and chatted, reclining on couches set between little channels in which scented water flowed while peacocks strutted about, chasing dainties tossed to them by giggling ladies and other birds in a rainbow of feathers chirped and called from cages hung from the ceiling, their songs mixing with the plucking of harps and soft patter of tambourines such that all sound in the place seemed both lively and muted and one could hear the pleasant din of conversation without comprehending the words and follow the beat of music without being distracted by its pitch.
To one side of the hall, a number of easels had been set up for a painting contest, with several ladies working at them while gentleman watched and called out lecherous, but not salacious, advice, to which the ladies would respond with exaggerated rolls of the eyes as if following a script. In another, the floor had been tiled like a gigantic chaturanga board, and servants in costumes representing the pieces moved about, commanded by two teams of young men who stood like exalted generals upon their chariots as they conferred with each-other over their next move.
But the center of the social-gravity of the room, the focal point of this gosthi, immediately detectable by any man or woman schooled in the subtle vocabulary of natya, was a small table set into a corner, shadowed and partially obscured by an ingeniously woven screen, at which three men sat to whom all in attendance at all times showed through subtle ways deference, and it was to this table that Vigraha headed, smiling here and there with a dismissive nod of his head towards the various sycophants and hangers-on who made attempts to approach him.
“You’re late.” Spoke one of the men at the table. That was decidedly not per the precepts of natya. “Hello to you as well Diodotus.” Viagraha returned with a grin in almost perfect ionian. The man who had addressed was none other than the nagarika of the capital himself, a distant relation of Basileus Menander, and the second wealthiest man in the Kingdom. He was broad of shoulder, with brown skin verging on bronze and dark, impeccably curled locks and beard. “Are you planning on playing a tune for us?” Sneered another man, glancing at Vigraha’s vilna. He was also a yavana, who went by the name Bacchides, but whereas Diodotus was the pattern of a grandee descendant from those whom had followed the god-king Iskander from the west, Bacchides was a dwarf, his body surely the rotten fruit of some misdeed committed in a previous life.
“Only if you will get up on the table and dance!” Replied Vigraha. Diodotus snorted while Bacchides gritted his teeth, his face turning bright red. He had once been a jester under the old Basileus, Demetrius II, who Menander, for desire to bring the laws of man in accordance with the laws of god, had bravely overthrown while Demetrius had been off fighting a civil war bahalika. Bacchides had acted as a spy for the then general Menander, and his reward had been the office of rasadhyaksa, the superintendent of liquor!
Vigraha sat down, nodding at the third man, who nodded back. He was long of limb and stern of face, with skin like leather left too long beneath the sun. His name was Vajraditya, a kshatriya much like himself, and a scion of that most ancient and venerable clan, the Apracharajas, who had once been counted as kings during the time of that half mystical kingdom of Ghandara, and which had served ably and with honor all those dynasties which had come a-conquering since Ghandara’s fall. His estates were many and his herds numerous and, it was said, none save the Basileus himself could match his skill at the tilt!
Vigraha looked at the three men, who all stared at the table in front of them as if trying to divine meaning from the grains in its expensively lacquered teak, the tea and ornate plates of delicacies set before them ignored. “Well what is it? You all look as if you’ve seen a tiger’s tail in the brush!” In response, Bacchides spat a wad of orange betel nut into the silver spittoon on the table, and Diodotus looked up. “There is a merchant in town. My spies reported him to me just today. He tells tales from the Kingdom of Pushyamitra.”
Vigraha shrugged. “Merchants always tell tales! It’s why we keep them on the payroll.” “His tales say that the head of the Shunga clan has declared that he will undertake to reconstruct the stupa at Bharhut.” Diodotus continued, pausing to let the implication sink in. For Vigraha, to whom the artha was as familiar as the hilt of his sword, the problem was obvious. “Ahh…” The others all nodded. “And this merchant, he’s not one of ours, correct?” “Why the fuck would I ever want a merchant talking about that! I’ve spent so much money paying bards to spread the sordid tale of the stupa’s destruction, and now the bastard is rebuilding it?” Eclaimed Bacchides, the volume in which he said it raising the hairs on the back of Vigraha’s spine. “Just trying to prevent ahh, friendly fire.” He said, raising a hand for calm. Another silence descended upon the table. In the reception hall, he knew, all eyes, subtlety or not, where on that table. That’s why he aways sat with his back to the gosthi, so that none could read his lips.
“Well then. This merchant will have to go.” Everyone nodded. “When?” Asked Diodotus, and Vigraha shrugged. “Today. Preferably before noon.” The yavana raised a bushy eyebrow. “So soon?” “Yea. Why not? I’ll be leaving tomorrow anyway, so I might as well get it out of the way.” “You’re leaving?” Asked Bacchides, revealing a row of orange stained teeth. In answer, Vigraha withdrew the first message he had received earlier and lay at down on the table, allowing his fellows to take turns reading it. He did not mention the second.
“So… King Gomitra has invested Rajgarh…” Mused Diodotus. “His son has-.” Began Vigraha. “That means Salwa will be next, and then…” He trailed off. “The end of the rebellion.” “Indeed! I sent some of my foresters to enlist as mercenaries, sent them off with fat sacks of coin bearing Pushyamitra’s ugly visage and letters bearing his seal.” “Atavis! Forest tribes! Do you really think them reliable?” Bacchides snapped with a contemptuous spit. “Yes. I do. We have a ahh, bond, of sorts.” “So you say.” “So I say! And when they sack the city, those coins will be found in the hands of dead traitors! The only one I’m worried about is the Prince. It is said he is virtuous…” “You needn’t worry.” Spoke Vajraditya for the first time, his voice low and level, like a stream flowing over gravel. “The Prince trusts Govindraj implicitly. So does the King. When their minister of war brings evidence of the Shunga’s complicity in the rebellion, he will be heard.” “And you trust Govindraj?” Asked Diodotus. The thakkur of Bajaur stared at him as if the the master of the city were a charging bear and his eyes his spear. “With my life.”
In an attempt to cut the sudden tension, Vigraha said. “Prince Gomitra II is young and brash and by all accounts quite fond of war! Once he sees what those letters contain I wouldn’t be surprised if he calls his thakkuras and starts his own campaign!” “The question is of course-.” Mused Diodotus. “Whether all of this will be enough to push King Gomitra to ask our Basileus, whose wisdom is of course the envy of even the gods, for aid.” “And if the Basileus, may the sun never turn its gaze from his glory, will heed the call.” Added Vigraha. “There is little doubt of that.” Rumbled Vajraditya. “Govindraj has assured me that once the campaign has been concluded, the horse festival at Mathura will finally be allowed to take place. Already the merchants clog the fields with their herds in anticipation. When Vigraha reaches it, Lord Menander, who’s skill is second only to Rama, will have no choice.” “Yes yes yes, the Basileus is fucking great and all that! Now what about this merchant?” Growled Bacchides, his small fists white at the edge of the table.
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Vigraha sighed at the little man’s churlishness, but Bacchides had the right of it. It was not at all a sure thing that Menander would accept a call to arms from his vassal even if asked. King Menander was, by both all accounts and Vigraha’s own personal experience, a real sage, a true believer in the words of Buddha who burnt with the fervor one only found in converts. He was wise, a master of sword, horse, and men, an able administrator, and above all learned to degree which had shocked Vigraha when he had first began working under the man.
He banned the serving of meat and alcohol in the royal palace, save for visiting dignitaries. He passed laws limiting animal sacrifice, proscribing the abuse of cattle, and curtailing the sale of alcohol. He was a member of the sangha, but he accepted all castes and creeds at his court, and patronized the temples of all religions. Under his reign the almshouses never wanted for bread and widows never wanted for state employment. He was everything a subject could hope for in a monarch, and had brought a measure of peace to this land of five rivers which was not to be found anywhere else in the Arayavarta during this wicked age! Which was all well and good, wonderful even, unless you were an ambitious official trying to provoke a war!
Vigraha thought for a moment, then began. “The merchant must be a spy surely, sent by Pushyamitra, or perhaps that damnable Prithichand, to spread soothing tales in our own Kings domain. Or at least he must be found to be a spy. Bacchides-“ He turned to the Superintendent of Liquor, a sudden thought occurring to him. “Do you have an inn available?” Seeing immediately where the zaulikila, the Superintendent of Passports, was coming from. “Why yes I think I do!” He said, flashing another one of his foul smiles. “And Vajraditya, could you-.” “I will send a letter immediately. This merchant is a dealer in cotton, and I hold the title to many pathaka and their cotton fields. This merchant will no doubt wish to meet with my representative.” “And Diodotus-.” The big yavana waived a hand and said. “Yes I know. The guards will avoid the inn for the rest of the day. I believe I know which inn it is you have in mind.” “Wonderful!” Vigraha clapped his hands made to rise.
“Hold on man!” Exclaimed Bacchides, before lowering his head to look around the hall. A surer sign of duplicity there was not, but Vigraha could only smile and remain where he was. “What of Prithichand? That bastard son of a goat and a dog will surely smell our hand in it!” “I’m sure he will. No plan is without risk. Are you getting cold feet Bacchides?” Responded Diodotus with a grin no one could interpret as anything but threatening. “No! It’s just!” The dwarf began, before lowering his voice. “It’s just that that mounoskylo has the ear of the Basileus! He might err, give our lord, may his springs never run dry, the wrong idea about all of this!” Vigraha smiled and replied. “Then maybe you should start doing cartwheels at court. It might distract him.” Then he rose before an enraged Bacchides could reply, making sure to scrap the legs of his chair loudly upon the tiled floor.
The rest of the conspirators arose as well, retiring as one from the reception hall. All eyes of the gosthi followed their retreat without even a pretense of subtlety. Thick as thieves, those four officials were known to be, the nucleus of one of the strongest factions at the Basileus’s court. Everyone would want to know just what it was they had been plotting, and rumors of this meeting would dominate the canards at the salons and tea-houses and temples and everywhere where those of sophistication and whom played the game of politics frequented. They would certainly keep old, prune-faced Prithichand up at night worse than his weakening bladder already did. Vigraha smiled at the thought.
This suited his purposes just fine, for rumors had a way of becoming established fact, and with a few well placed whispers, their spies could push those rumors in whatever direction they wished, and suddenly it would be known that the four of them had been discussing a marriage alliance between the scions of two client clans on the northern border and any hint at all that they discussed the sayings of a simple merchant would be dismissed as uninformed and quite frankly rather embarrassing to posit! “Are four of the greatest men in all of the Basileus’s domain now aged crones who fret about the price of cotton to fix a dress?”
An hour later, a group of men left the manor of Diodotus. They came out of the back, as was only appropriate for men of such obviously low-caste. They wore cheaply woven garments, chapkans with frayed hems whose original color could not be seen for all the red dust which clung to them and the long sandals of riders which belted up around their calves. They marched down the street with the swagger of the mercenary and the menace of the thug, the pommels of the swords at their hips well polished but otherwise unadorned, and they headed for the craftsmen’s quarter of the city, some of their number pausing here and there to spit rudely into the drains which ran along the sides of the well paved streets, drawing distasteful glares from the passing nagarakas.
The parts of the city they soon entered was crowded, not by nobles and their painted domestics, but by working men, washer-men and their wives with thick forearms and baskets of soiled clothing, potters with their ever stained skin, blacksmiths with burned hands and scribes with their calloused fingers and black lips. There were many merchants as well, mostly humble, independent varrtavaha’s with their carry poles and shaded packs strapped to their stooped backs and their donkeys with their little bells tinkling from their saddle-blankets. Through this throng the men made their way, shoving aside none too gently those who did not make haste to clear their path. They came to an inn, a low structure whose walls had long since been abandoned by their plaster, with a triangular flag bearing what the weaver had probably intended to be a mango flying from its roof. A few poor perfumers and garland makers, their wares the sort at which a lady of quality would have had her servants beaten had they purchased, were just beginning to set up shop in the small courtyard, but upon seeing the arrival of the men, they quickly bundled up their wares and retreated outside.
The interior of the inn was dark and dingy with furnishings of cheap and brittle make, for they were broken too often in drunken brawls for the innkeeper to have sprung for anything else. The hard-faced women who ran the place stood behind the bar, eying the men as they entered. Nod were exchanged, nothing more, and an old slave-woman was summoned to bring them drinks. Curiously, the men spread out amongst the various tables and booths, appearing as if they did not know each-other at all! The once empty room became filled with the low hum of conversation. At one point, the curtain over the entrance was pushed aside to admit a pair of loudly arguing copper smiths, still clad in their aprons, but immediately upon entering several men stood with swords half out of their scabbards and intimated heavily that this was not the place to hash out matters of business and accepting the wisdom of this the two smiths turned on their heels and left.
A few minutes later, another man arrived, clad in rich fabrics and earrings and rings that flashed in the low light. The man could not help but wrinkle his nose at the sight of the place, nor could he help but clutch tightly at his coin-purse, but greed overcame apprehension and he stepped into the inn and up to the bar, for after all, was not Sagal supposed to be the safest city in all of the Arayavarta, where even a virgin girl could walk its streets with golden ingots pilled atop her head and go unmolested? He made a query to the landlady, showing her a letter, and she nodded without smiling towards a low table in the center of the room, and the man sat down, smiling with a sort of nervous optimism.
Vigraha studied the man, who he now knew for certain to be the merchant they sought. He sat across from Xaravalana, a mug of rough, unglazed clay in his hands. All traces of the man’s exalt status had been stripped away, replaced with expertly drawn scars beneath shocks of white dyed into their hair so that he looked very much the ideal of the hard-scrabbled, sun beaten mercenary. The merchant looked to be an ordinary sort. Not much bone to be found in his spine, if Vigraha had to guess, though as he well knew men of even the softest appearance often had a way of surprising. Mostly he felt bad, as he always did, before such an encounter.
The merchant, they had found, had a family, had traveled here with a young son, hoping to teach him the family business. A innocent man caught between the machinations of powers he could comprehend for the crime of telling a tale he had no way of understanding the import of. Vigraha shot a glance to Xaravalana. If such underhanded skulduggery bothered the saka warrior, he gave no sign. “Well. Let’s get this over with.” His bodyguard nodded, and their faces became masks of casual scorn.
They drained and broke their cups, then rose and stomped over to the merchant, who looked up them with a start, but did not make to move. The indecision of the too-civilized man when confronted with obvious danger. It would cost him his life. “Let me see your passport.” Growled Vigraha. The man blinked. “I’m sorry?” “Your passport. Get it out. Now.” “Who are you?” Suddenly Xaravalana had grabbed the man’s arm and the back of his head, shoving him down upon the table. The merchant cried out in fright as Vigraha began to rifle through his robe, finding both the letter from Vajraditya and the man’s passport in a few moments.
The merchant began to struggle, to squeal. “Help! Help! Someone get the guard! I have money! Help!” As if in answer a clash of symbols went up from outside of the inn as a troupe of musicians, who had settled in the courtyard just after the men had entered, began to play. They continued to play as the man continued to scream. Xaravalana released him, and he finally made to run but crashed straight into the chest of another man who had blocked the door, falling on his behind. Looking around wildly, the merchant saw that everyone in the inn had risen to form a circle about him, looking at him with hard eyes, and he desisted.
“I have money! Here take it all!” He threw his coin-purse at Vigraha’s feet, but he just kicked it back. By now, the landlady and her slave had left the room. The merchant lay there breathing hard on the ground, looking from face to face in a confused panic. Vigraha shook his head and sighed. “It’s a real shame. The stupa at Barhut, is Pushyamitra really rebuilding it?” “Huh?” The merchant shook his head as he sat up. “I, what? Yes, I have heard he is! I mean, I heard it from the Superintendent of the visti himself! He was gathering up a corvee! Please! Let me go! I have a family!” The man gulped, his body beginning to shake as if some portent of what was to happen had come to him. Vigraha checked the passport, saw the merchant’s signature, which would be easy to forge, and sighed again, then nodded to the man behind the merchant. “I have more gold! At my lodgings! My fami-.” He merchant grunted as a blow from a mace struck the back of his head, killing him instantly.
Not an hour later, another group of men, a smaller one, left the rear of the inn, from the entrance at the alley were the chandala usually came to make their deliveries and take their cups so that the eyes of the arya of the four varnas would not be accosted by the sight of them. Indeed, these men appeared to be chandalas, for they wore shawls of woven rags and banged bowls and rang bells as they walked, so that all would know of their approach and be given the opportunity to avert their gaze. They carried a number of bundles, crude wooden boxes wrapped in white cloth, and the man at their rear swept the ground behind them as they passed, so that men and women who had not committed such heinous of crimes in their past lives as to reborn as one of them could walk the ground they vacated without needing to burn their sandals. By a series of back-alleys they navigated the city, the paths they were allowed to take marked by chalk symbols of a flayed dog drawn crudely upon the walls of the alleys.
They made their way to the chandala’s quarter, a place without wells, where the houses were little more than mud huts and the streets were strewn with refuse not thrown away, but collected and brought there, by the untouchable families who lived there. Gutters there were not, nor markets, for the chandala were forbidden from buying food where others bought it and from collecting water without the intercession of someone of a higher caste. In this aspect, the reign of Menander had improved their lot greatly, for the city was greatly peopled by mleccha monks and nuns who, putting no stock in the laws of Manu and being well paid by the King, had no problem bringing water to the chandalas and providing them with food as well, so that these most lowly of men were perhaps the most loyal of all to the King, a loyalty which Vigraha never hesitated to exploit!
At it’s center lay a great stone bier, in which a fire was already blazing. The gampa of the district, an old man whose face bore the scars of many a weathered pandemic, met the train of corpse-collectors with a discreet bow, and Vigraha fished a golden coin from beneath his filthy mantle and tossed it to him. Other chandalas came to take with ash streaked hands the burdens of his men, and then throw them upon the fire where they went up immediately with a puff of white smoke and a foul, greasy odor.
Vigraha stood for a moment to watch the dismembered remains of the merchant burn up, and to ponder just exactly how the annoying Pritichand would react to being bundled up in the night and dumped in this neighborhood. Not well, he thought with a grin. With luck, the poor merchant’s jiva would be carried off on that white smoke to some better realm. His men were eager to leave this place of pollution, and some of them no doubt would insist on performing ablations in contravention to his explicit instructions not to do so, for if one were to clean oneself as if having visited the chandalas then the question would arise, “When did you visit the chandalas?”
Vigraha had no such compunctions, he rather thought it was a cozy district, what with these untouchable’s simple, wholehearted devotion to the sacred laws which so heavily circumscribed their lives, their pride in following the dictates of a creed which condemned them to be seen as something less than human. They in a sense, were playing a game as well, and they played with such fervor that they did not know it was a game!
The confession bearing the merchant’s signature would by now have already made its way to the city dharmadhikari, who was of course, a direct subordinate of the Nagarik Diodotus. A trial would be held, which no one would attend, and a judgment of death rendered. In accordance with the laws of Menander, mercy would be shown to the merchant’s family, who, being unaware of their patriarch’s duplicity, were really victims as well! They would be given gifts and promises of future favor when it came to the bestowing of trade licenses and the son would be given an urn with ashes, perhaps not those of his father, but ashes nonetheless.
A petition would be drafted and presented at the evening’s sthane, the royal audience, at the palace, which King Menander never failed to attend, and presented by that very same magistrate. The petition would call for the Basileus to dispatch a pravada at once to Pataliputra to present a statement of grievances to the vile King Pushyamitra, amongst which would be included the matter of the merchant and the web of lies he had spun! Chamberlain Prithichand, knowing that dharmadhikari to be a creature of Diodotus, would object. This would then so surely mire the whole royal sthane down in argument as to whether such an emissary should be dispatched, that none would stop to question whether the charges were true at all!
This was the way to play a king. Vigraha could hear his father’s words almost as clearly as if he had been by his side at the funeral pyre. A King must always be in charge of their Kingdom, must always be the final arbiter in all decisions, and this prerogative must never be challenged, lest the protector of the dharma feel his authority threatened and therefore act with the rashness and rage Kings were often known to direct at their servants, whether loyal or not. Especially towards those who were loyal, it sometimes seemed. This went double for a competent monarch like Menander. The key then was to control what decisions came before the King! Rule in whatever manner he like, Vigraha’s purpose would be full-filled, for even now the innkeepers of Sagal, those who wished to retain their licenses anyway, were telling in low voices the tale of the merchant spy who’s design had been to veil the gaze of their wise King to the crimes against the sangha committed by the Shunga clan!
Vigraha turned to return to his home, well satisfied. He was no traitor, he told himself, and he truly believed that this was so. His was a righteous cause! King Menander was simply too great a sage, his vision too august, aimed to high, to see the rot which festered at his feet. Never would he deign to start a war, to send so many men to their deaths even to vanquish a truly powerful foe, for he loved life too much. It fell then to men like Vigraha, to make sure that the war, which was as much a necessity for the safety of the Kingdom as the rains were to the rice-paddy, happened regardless. And if his clan and himself, as a high official of the King, should benefit from such a war, then that was merely the dharma giving him his due for polluting himself so! He had told himself this until he believed it, and if he believed it, then others would too.