The Conqueror by Aditya Iyengar

Author:Aditya Iyengar [Iyengar, Aditya]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9789351951483
Publisher: Hachette India
Published: 2018-05-20T04:00:00+00:00

The three women were housed in an empty warehouse until the next morning. They were given a small bowl of rice to share. None of them touched the food. They did not speak to each other either. The queen seemed a little distant since the incident with Pavitran. She kept glancing outside the warehouse window and sighing. Sumitra, on the other hand, fell asleep immediately. The princess lay awake for most of the night, mostly out of concern for her mother, but as the first light of dawn peeped inside the warehouse, she too fell asleep.

Sumitra gently shook her awake a few hours later. They washed their faces with a bucket of water that had been provided. None of them had bathed in three days now, but the princess was growing used to the stench. They were escorted by an armed guard to the customs court that was a short distance away from the dock. The customs court was not housed in a very impressive building. It was a rectangular structure with broken windows and a ramshackle roof. Pockets of men huddled together near the building, talking quietly among themselves. The queen and the princess walked inside with their heads straight and backs erect unlike most of the other women who walked with submissive postures.

The official and Balan were waiting outside. The former looked at them and spoke.

‘There’s no need for a case here. Balan has come to an agreement with me. You can all leave with him.’

He looked at Balan who handed him a small pouch. The official inspected the contents.

‘Gold coins? All of them?’ he asked Balan.

‘Yes, your lordship.’

The princess began to cackle desperately, and Sumitra followed suit, but the official looked at them unimpressed.

‘Balan, they’re yours.’

Balan took a step forwad and slapped the princess with the back of his hand; the force of the blow made her fall to her knees. He held her by the wrist and began dragging her towards the door. The queen began crying out for help, and Sumitra jumped into the fray and began dragging the princess back towards her.

Suddenly, all the men and women around them began to kneel, falling to the ground with their heads touching the earth. A man dressed in expensive silk robes approached them.

‘What seems to be the matter?’

Balan, too, fell to his knees, lowering his head to the ground.

‘M’lord, these are my goods. I’m taking them with me. No matter at all. They’re just a bit feisty.’

The princess shouted him down.

‘No, he’s a liar. We’re not goods. We’re from Srivijaya. I’m the princess, she’s the queen.’

Balan growled. ‘Will you stop with your lunacy!’

‘Interesting,’ remarked the man. ‘Stand up.’

The princess stood up shakily.

‘The girls have bowed before me. It is the protocol expected of a senior minister of state. Yet the elder one does not? Why?’

The princess looked behind her and saw that her mother had not bowed.

‘I can have your head for that, you know?’

The queen replied in a firm voice. ‘I am the queen of Srivijaya.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.