One day Tara, wife of Prabuddha Sharma, her paternal uncle, took Divya into her arms and said tenderly, ‘It isn’t proper to be so impatient, dear. The grandsire cannot deny your wish because he loves you so deeply. But in these disturbed times, people will not think well of you, if you marry in such haste. Besides, the judgment given by your great-grandfather in Prithusen’s favour will be construed as scandalous partiality.’

The news that Kendras’s army was bearing down on Sagal had brought terror and panic into the innermost recesses of the city palaces. ‘There is no reason for alarm,’ said Prabuddha Sharma reassuringly, both to his wife and to Divya. ‘Our new army, so well organized by Okris and Prithusen, will march into battle after viewing the eleventh moon, on the auspicious day determined by Vikram, the astrologer. The fortunes of war will surely take a favourable turn. There is a world of difference between mercenary soldiers forcibly conscripted, and those engaged in the defence of their motherland.’

Divya learned that after midnight on the fourth day, Prithusen would leave for the front with his army, and she felt a stab of pain in her heart. Divya had had no direct experience of war, but she had heard a great deal about it: that hordes of men, with deadly weapons in their hands, attacked one another, that rivers of blood flowed, that thousands of wounded lay screaming on the ground, that war always meant peril and disaster. In her mind’s eye she saw Prithusen, mounted on his horse, plunging headlong into the slaughter. Under instructions from Mahadevi, Divya was required to help in numerous household duties, to divert her mind from thoughts of disaster and depression. Thus, while her hands were engaged mechanically in household tasks, her mind would see visions of battle: of Prithusen, seated on his white horse, his sword raised high, charging into the jaws of danger. Such visions sent a shiver through her body.

Bahul, the chief-slave and Chhaya’s lover, had now been posted as foot soldier in Prithusen’s army. Separated from him, Chhaya was miserable. Divya would make Chhaya sit by her side and talk to her about Bahul, thereby seeking consolation for herself. Chhaya had procured an amulet for her lover’s safety from Baikunth, the tantric pandit. Divya, too, parted with a gold ring to obtain from the pandit an especially powerful talisman for Prithusen’s protection.

On each of the three days before his departure, Divya managed to slip out of the palace in search of Prithusen. She went to the palaces of Mallika and Vasumitra, to the garden by the lake and to the palace of Prestha. But each time she came back disappointed. She learned from Dhriti Sharma that Prithusen, as commander of the armed forces, was extremely busy, that he knew no rest, that he was spending day and night on horseback, and that if one horse got tired, he would call for another.

‘What if he is so busy? Can’t he spare even a few moments for me?’ she would say to herself. ‘Had he thought of me, he could easily have sent Vapa to me … But this is as it should be, I don’t deserve any better. When have I ever provided any comfort to his tired body or to his anxious mind? I have always thwarted him by my harsh indifference. If, in this struggle, he has chosen to blot me out of his mind, then I have fully deserved it.’