A Kingdom of Spoken Vows

The balcony stones still carried the masons’ chisel-marks, sharp against Arjun’s bare soles. He had come up barefoot on purpose; the small pain kept his thoughts from scattering. Below, Indraprastha crawled outward like a living thing—mud roads hardening into permanence, scaffolding clotting the sky, laborers calling to one another in a dozen dialects. Twelve years ago this had been scrub and dust; now it pretended at empire. He flexed his right hand. The calluses from the bowstring were almost gone, replaced by the soft burn of parchment. A diplomat’s blister. He hated it.

Morning heat lifted the smell of wet lime and fresh-cut sandstone into his throat. Somewhere beneath that was the river, green and sluggish, carrying away the soil they scraped aside to make room for palaces. Everything smelled provisional, as if the city might decide tomorrow to sink back into the earth and forget them. He understood the impulse.

Footsteps behind him: a guard clearing his throat, then retreating. Courtesy, not deference; they were still learning how to treat a man who had once been exile first, prince second. Arjun stayed at the rail. From this height he could see the skeleton of the great hall where his brother would soon receive envoys who did not yet believe the Pandavas were real. Envoys from Dwarka, especially—men who spoke Balarama’s name the way priests speak of sunrise. He pictured their faces when they understood the exile had returned with an army of carpenters instead of soldiers. Would they laugh, or would they simply leave?

A kite wheeled overhead, wings slanted against the wind. He followed it until his eyes watered, envying the clean arc of its flight. The Gandiva leaned in its unstrung rack inside the chamber behind him, waxed and oiled, the curve of its limbs reflecting nothing. He had not touched it in forty-three days. At night he felt it breathing, a second heartbeat under the bed. Sometimes he dreamed he drew the string and released only dust.

He pressed his palms to the stone. The balcony was wide enough for two chariots, yet it felt narrower than any forest trail he had slept on during the exile. Here the stakes were measured in cubits of marble, not spilled blood, and the ambiguity chafed worse than iron fetters. Bhima wanted war drums; Yudhishthira wanted ledgers. Arjun wanted—he stopped the thought before it formed, ashamed of its smallness. A warrior did not yearn for quiet; he carved quiet out of chaos and called it victory.

Down in the courtyard a girl chased a chicken, both of them shrieking. The sound rose, thin and human, then dissolved into hammer strokes. He wondered what Subhadra would make of this half-born city if she ever saw it. The name surfaced before he could prevent it, sharp as a splinter under skin. He had never met her, yet she lived in his brothers’ cautious sentences: Krishna’s sister, Balarama’s jewel, the key Dwarka kept close. He whispered the syllables once, testing, then crushed them against the roof of his mouth. Promises existed for this reason.

The sun cleared the eastern scaffolding and struck the balcony full force. Sweat slid along his spine, tracing the scar an naga arrow had left on the southern road. He lifted his hair, letting the breeze find his neck. Somewhere below, a foreman cursed in Magadhi; timber cracked; men shouted numbers. Each sound was a brick in the wall their future would stand on or die against. He inhaled until his ribs protested, trying to store enough of the raw, dusty air to drown the taste of uncertainty.

When he turned back toward the chamber the Gandiva caught the light, a dull gleam like a hawk’s eye at dusk. For a moment he imagined stringing it, sending a single arrow into the sky so it would fall miles away, beyond the river, beyond the exile, a message no ambassador could misread. Instead he stepped inside, letting the curtain fall behind him. The city could rise without his blood for now; there would be time enough to feed it later.

The curtain swung shut behind him, cutting the clang of masons’ chisels to a muffled pulse. Draupadi waited inside, arms folded so tight the bangles bit her skin. She had left her entourage at the door; even the maid knew when husband and wife needed the bare room.

“Balarama’s envoy arrives before the gong,” she said without greeting. “He will ask for a tribute calculation. You will offer the river customs. He will refuse. Then we bargain.”

Her tone was the same she used to tally grain in the exile camps: exact, bored. Arjun watched a droplet of sweat slide from her hairline to the collar-bone. He remembered tasting that salt on nights when five bodies pressed under one torn blanket. Now the palace loomed around them and she still spoke like a quartermaster.

“I promised you never again,” he said. The words felt rehearsed; he had murmured them to the balcony stones minutes ago.

“Promises are for children,” she answered. “Kingdoms run on counter-promises.” She stepped closer; the scent of sesame oil clung to her from morning toilette. “If we must eat shame,let us serve it on silver.”

A conch blew far below; the envoy had crossed the outer gate. Arjun felt the vibration in his soles. He reached for her hand—an old reflex—but she kept both palms locked under her elbows.

“Say the figure,” he demanded. “How much of me do we sell today?”

Her eyes softened for one blink. “Only the part that still believes selling is different from giving.” She turned toward the door. “After the council I will inspect the granary ledgers. Walk behind me. Bow once. Then leave.”

She exited without waiting for assent. Arjun stayed in the hush noticing how the chamber smelled of new plaster instead of river mud. Between one heartbeat and the next the room filled with the echo of future arguments: Draupadi negotiating while he calculated the weight of his own silence. He flexed his fingers; the absent bowstring had left them too clean.

He left the council chamber by a side door, ignoring the steward who hovered with tablets of tribute figures. The corridor smelled of wet plaster and lamp oil; torches hissed where masons had dripped rainwater onto the brackets. Two turns brought him to the east wing, where the builders had finished first. Ulupi had chosen rooms overlooking the Yamuna, claiming the scent of the current reminded her of the Narmada where they had met. The guard outside her door stepped aside without comment; word traveled fast in half-built palaces.

Inside, the windows were shuttered against the noon glare. Brass bowls of river water sat on the floor, catching reflected ripples from the cracks between planks. Ulupi knelt before the largest bowl, hair unbound, fingertips stirring the surface in slow circles. She wore only a dark cloth wrapped once around her hips; the scar he had given her during their first duel curved pale across her shoulder blade. She did not look up.

“The fish are frightened,” she said. “They see a net that has not yet been cast.”

Arjun closed the door. “Balarama’s envoy?”

“Larger.” She lifted her hand; droplets slid down her wrist like small transparent beads. “The river tastes of iron three days upstream. Someone is sharpening spears.”

He sat on the low stool, forearms on his knees. In exile she had spoken the same way, calm announcements of omens that always proved accurate. He had learned to listen without asking how she knew. “Can you read whose?”

She shook her head. “Only that the water remembers.” Rising, she crossed to a clay jar, poured water over her fingers, then dried them on the cloth at her waist. The motion lifted her breasts; the nipples tightened in the cooler air. She saw him notice and smiled without triumph. “You carry tension like a drawn bow. Shall I loosen it?”

He almost said yes; the habit of her body was a remembered solace. Instead he stood. “I need to see Chitrangada before the envoy finishes his meal.”

Ulupi tilted her head. “She is breaking sticks in the lower courtyard. Go quickly; splinters fly.” She stepped close, pressed her mouth to the hollow beneath his ear, then stepped back. “Return tonight. The river may speak clearer after dark.”

He left, the print of her lips cooling against his skin.

The lower courtyard was open to the sky, paved with uneven stone the masons had not yet levelled. Chitrangada moved across it in lunges, wooden practice sword meeting bundled reeds with a sound like wet cloth tearing. Sweat darkened the back of her tunic; strands of hair clung to her neck. She had tied her skirts high, the cloth bunched between her thighs, and each stride flashed the scarred muscle of her calves. When she saw him she did not pause but drove the blade through the last bundle, scattering straw across the dust.

“Balarama sends grain demands,” she said, breathing hard. “Bhima wants to answer with arrows. Yudhishthira counts coins. What does the archer-prince want?”

He picked up a second wooden sword, tested the balance. “To finish the palace before we have to defend it.”

She snorted. “Stone won’t feed anyone.” She stepped into guard stance, weight forward. “Show me the wrist form you used against the Gandharas.”

They circled. Her first strike rang up his arm; he parried, countered, felt the familiar ache return to joints that paperwork had softened. She was faster than he remembered, hips pivoting low, blade flicking at his ribs. He caught her wrist, twisted; she reversed, brought her hilt against his throat, stopped a finger short.

“You hesitate,” she said, not moving the weapon. “In the forest you would be bleeding.”

“In the forest I had nothing to lose.”

She lowered the sword, eyes narrowing. “We are still in the forest, only the trees are marble.” She stepped back, unknotted her skirts so the cloth fell to her ankles. “Speak plainly.”

He told her the envoy’s demands: two seasons of river tolls, a pledge of mutual defense, the implicit requirement of Dwarkan backing. While he spoke she unbraided her hair, shaking it loose so sweat-dark strands clung to her collarbones. When he finished she was quiet long enough for a mason’s hammer to echo twice from the upper terraces.

“Marry the girl,” she said finally. “Krishna’s sister. Take her, bed her, send Balarama a wedding gift. Politics accomplished.”

“I vowed—”

“Vows are words. Hunger is louder.” She stepped close, the wooden sword still in her hand, and laid the flat of it against his chest. “I will not break because you share another blanket. But I will break if we starve while you mourn promises.” She lifted the blade, tapped his cheek lightly. “Bring her home. I will teach her the sword forms she’ll need to survive this nest.”

She turned away, already calling for a fresh bundle of reeds. He left her there, the sound of splintering stalks following him down the corridor.

Three women, three rooms, three versions of himself: the listener, the penitent, the strategist. He walked the unfinished halls tasting each identity like different metals on his tongue, none quite fitting the shape of the man who would face the envoy in the hour ahead.

The lamps were lit early; the hall smelled of clarified butter and fresh lime wash that had not yet dried. Servants moved between the pillars with pitchers of soma, their footfalls muffled by reed mats still shedding dust. Arjun took his place on the lowest couch—new cedar, the carving unfinished so that ridges bit into his bare thigh. Across the long table Bhima was already tearing a goose apart, grease shining on his knuckles. Nakula and Sahadeva spoke in low voices about horse prices; their words flicked back and forth like shuttlecocks. Yudhishthira waited until the last platter was set before he lifted his hand for silence.

“We are a province, not a kingdom,” he began, voice calm as counting beads. “Our granaries will last four months. After that we buy with credit. Our credit ends when the winter caravans decide we are worth the risk.” He did not look at Arjun. “Balarama tells every coastal port that Indraprastha is a castle built on sand. He reminds them that we were exiles twelve years and have no allies who will march.”

Bhima swallowed meat and spoke with his mouth full. “Then we march first. Take Dwaraka by surprise, put Krishna on the elder brother’s seat, let Balarama choke on his own gossip.”

“Krishna will not thank us for civil war in his city,” Sahadeva said. He turned a cup between his fingers, watching the wine climb the sides. “He prefers riddles to corpses.”

“Riddles do not feed children,” Nakula answered. “Grain does.”

Arjun felt the stew congeal on his tongue—lentils, tamarind, dried leaves that tasted of dust. He drank, but the soma was thin, watered to stretch the stores. Around the table the faces were the same that had shared roots and berries in the forest, yet the silence between bites was new, heavy with sums none of them had learned to calculate.

Yudhishthira unfolded a parchment. Ink marks crossed it like black ants. “Here are the answers we have received.” He read: Kunti’s old allies in Panchala—regret, harvest insufficient; Chedi—will trade iron for hides, no military pact; Kasi—praises our patience, suggests we lower our banner until the gods decide. After each refusal he lifted his eyes, letting the sentence settle like grit. When he finished the parchment curled on itself, snapping shut with the sound of a dry leaf.

Bhima wiped his fingers on his beard. “Words. What of armies?”

“Armies follow flags that do not fall,” Yudhishthira replied. “Balarama says ours is already falling.”

Arjun felt the goose rise in his throat. He set the morsel down, half-chewed. “Krishna values his sister. If we asked—”

“Krishna values dharma more,” Sahadeva cut in. “He will not gift his kin to a house Balarama calls illegitimate.”

Nakula leaned forward. “Then we offer what Balarama cannot refuse—trade rights on the western river. Ten years toll-free.”

“Tolls we have not yet collected,” Yudhishthira said. “Promises spoken from an empty granary sound like wind.”

The conversation circled, tightening. Each proposal carried the echo of the last defeat. Arjun listened, counting heartbeats, aware that every plan skirted the single fact they avoided naming: without an unbreakable bond, Indraprastha would remain a client, its kings forever petitioners. Marriage was the only chain that rust could not weaken; marriage into the house that commanded the sea roads. The knowledge sat in his stomach like cold lead.

When the servants cleared the dishes, the scrape of bronze on wood was loud. Bhima cracked a bone for marrow and spoke to the empty trencher. “A man may keep his honor or keep his people. The forest taught us that.” He did not look up, but Arjun felt the words strike the same place where Chitrangada’s wooden sword had tapped his cheek.

Yudhishthira folded the parchment again, creasing it so hard the ink smudged. “Tonight we fast,” he said quietly. “Tomorrow we decide which hunger we will feed.” He rose first; the others followed, leaving Arjun alone with the lamp fluttering in the draft from the unshuttered window. The smell of lime and goose fat lingered, coating the air like a film. Somewhere in the city a dog barked, the sound thin against the vast dark that pressed on the unfinished walls. He sat until the wick drowned in its own oil, tasting nothing, hearing everything—the creak of new rafters, the slow grind of stone on stone, the future demanding its price in a currency he had sworn never to spend.

The lamp had burned low, its flame a wavering tongue that licked at the edges of the tapestry. Arjun sat on the edge of the cot, elbows on knees, fingers tracing the woven threads without seeing them. The wool was coarse under his skin, dyed with indigo and madder, the colors already fading though the hanging had been unpacked only days ago. A craftsman in Kampilya had spent a year on it: Arjun in the forest, bow drawn, a tiger leaping from tall grass. The tiger’s eye was a single knot of black silk. He pressed it until the fingertip went white.

He had been twenty-two. Draupadi twenty. They had quarrelled—he no longer remembered the pretext, only the sound of her breathing when she turned away. That night she had spoken of the other wives the Pandavas might one day need, her voice flat, as if reciting a ledger. He had caught her wrist, too hard, and felt the small bones shift. Words had come out of him—raw, unmeasured—ending with the vow: no more weddings, no more women brought into the circle that already felt too crowded. She had not answered, only looked at him until he let go. The bruise he left lasted four days. The promise lasted longer.

He lifted the lamp, brought the flame close enough to scorch the tiger’s ear. Smoke curled, carrying the smell of singed hair. He set the lamp down before the wool caught. His hand smelled of burning.

The chamber was spare: lime-washed walls, a chest still packed, the cot’s ropes creaking under his weight. Through the unshuttered slot of a window came the smell of wet earth from the excavations, and farther off the river, carrying silt and sewage and the faint sweetness of marigolds left to rot after yesterday’s welcoming rites. Somewhere a mason’s chisel rang once, then stopped; the night watch had called the hour. He counted the beats—five—and waited for the sixth that never came.

He had kept the vow easily at first. Exile simplified everything: days measured by walking, nights by the size of the fire. Women in the forests were spirits or grandmothers, not prospects. Later, Ulupi had risen from the river like a story, her thighs slick around his waist, her mouth tasting of algae and copper. He had told her about the promise afterward, voice hollow with guilt. She had laughed—low, surprised—and said river folk did not count vows made on soil. Still, he had repeated the words to himself the next morning, a charm against repetition. Then Chitrangada, then the long circling back to Draupadi’s tent, her eyes asking whether the tally had changed. He had shaken his head, unable to say aloud that it already had.

He unbuttoned his tunic, let it fall. The scar from a Naga arrow ran diagonally across ribs; another, older, from Khandava, cut the muscle of his shoulder. He traced them the way he had traced the tiger, naming each: fire, water, cousin, brother. The body kept its own vows, skin thickening where the blade had entered, memory knotting under the surface. He pressed two fingers to the pulse at the throat—steady, traitorous—and felt the same beat he had felt yesterday beneath Subhadra’s breast when she leaned to lift a fallen plant in the rain. The image arrived without permission: her nipple seen through wet cotton, dark, small, tightening as she straightened. He had looked away, then looked back; she had seen both gestures.

The lamp guttered. He rose, crossed to the window. Outside, torchlight moved along the new wall—guards changing watch. Their footsteps sounded young, certain. He rested his forearms on the stone, the chill biting. If he called down, they would snap to attention, proud to salute the prince who had brought them a kingdom. Instead he counted the seconds between their steps: four, four, four. The rhythm matched the pounding in his temples.

He thought of Draupadi earlier that evening—how she had stood beside him while servants replaced the burned lamp, her silence asking whether he intended to keep the promise now that geography had changed. He had opened his mouth, closed it. She had turned away first.

He returned to the cot, sat, palms on thighs. The tapestry hung opposite, tiger and hunter frozen mid-leap. He spoke aloud, voice barely above breath: “I will not.” The words tasted of iron, as if he had bitten his tongue. He waited for thunder, for the rafters to crack. Nothing came—only the distant chime of a mason’s level dropped on stone, and then the long, ordinary hush of night filling the room like water rising in a well.

He lay back, the rope bed creaking under him. Above, the ceiling beams were still raw, sap gleaming in the joins. He fixed his eyes on a single knot of pine, darker than the rest, and held it until the flame shrank to a blue parenthesis and died. In the dark the vow kept repeating, smaller each time, a pebble turning in the palm of memory. He closed his fist around it, felt the edges bite, and knew the skin would heal over the shape until only he could feel the stone beneath.