A Mauryan Adventure by Subhadra Sen Gupta

Author:Subhadra Sen Gupta
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788184756623
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-05-17T04:00:00+00:00

5

A Prince Rides Past

Kartik stared at the scattered pieces of the palm leaf pages and exclaimed in horror, ‘They are in pieces, Tilaka! How can we read them? It is quite impossible!’

Madhura had seen palm leaf books, but what they had before them were just torn, broken and shredded pieces with bits of writing on them. Usually a palm leaf book had these neatly cut leaves that had been dried and smoothened out. On the leaves, the words were written in neat rows using black ink made from a mix of oil and the soot of lamps. On some pages there were pictures drawn in many colours. The pages were tied together by a thick thread drawn through two holes punched into one side.

Then two pieces of wood were placed on the top and bottom to protect the delicate pages, tied together with a string, and the whole packet wrapped in a red cloth. A palm leaf book was a precious thing, because it took months of work as all the writing and the drawings had to be done by hand. Now what they had in front of them were the pages all crumpled and broken, stained with dust. Madhura also spotted some dark spots that made her wonder if it was the blood of poor Bhikshu Sudhira.

Tilaka put the torn pages back into the cloth bag and said, ‘I’ll have to take this back to Pataliputra to the royal calligraphy studio. There they write and illustrate all the books for the king and they will know how to repair these pages. Then perhaps we’ll be able to read them.’

Kartik stared at him, ‘You’re going back to Pataliputra, now?’

‘Yes. I’ll talk to Sudhira and then go back and report everything to His Majesty. This is getting too serious for us to handle on our own, and we never knew such a disaster would happen. We were going to Ujjaini to meet a spy, not to investigate a theft. We need written orders from the king about what we should do next. I can’t start looking for the thief without proper orders from His Majesty.’

‘And what do I do while you are gone?’

‘After we have met Sudhira you go on to Ujjaini as planned. Meet the spy who is coming from the Shaka kingdom because right now the Shakas are our biggest enemy and always trying to attack. We need all the reports we can get. Also, I suggest you meet Prince Kunala and tell him about what has happened to Sudhira.’

‘Meet the prince?’ Kartik scratched his chin. ‘I’ll have to find a way to meet him alone. There is a traitor in his palace and I cannot risk the man finding out that I have met him. And that won’t be easy you know.’

Tilaka grinned, ‘You’re clever, Kartik. You’ll find a way.’

Later that day they went to the hill called Vidishagiri that stood on the highway between Vidisha and Ujjaini.

Queen Mahadevi had built a monastery on the hill and now the king was building a stupa here.

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