He placed the three matals under arrest and ordered his attendant to hand them over to the authorities. He then ordered the torch-bearer to proceed towards the palace of the Chief Justice. He himself rode alongside the palanquin. ‘What else can be expected, when low-caste people are encouraged to occupy posts meant only for the nobility?’ he asked contemptuously. ‘Perhaps the next thing will be that we shall be turned out of our palaces and made to rub shoulders with the populace, losing our identity altogether.’

After the palanquin had gone some distance, Divya said, ‘Many thanks for your timely help. The Arya need not trouble any further. I gave my word to Devi Vasumitra that I would pay a call at her palace. That was one of the reasons why this route was chosen. It won’t be difficult to get a torch-bearer from her palace. It’s a safe road from there on.’

Dhata glanced at Divya in surprise but did not contradict her mistress. ‘My lady is awaited at the palace of Vasumitra. Greetings to the Arya from this humble servant,’ she said.

On instructions from Ajeya Verma, the torch-bearer changed direction. At the brightly lit entrance to Vasumitra’s palace, Ajeya Verma offered his salutations to Divya and took his leave.

Divya stepped out of her palanquin at the gate of Vasumitra’s palace. Instead of going towards the reception hall, she entered the garden. Not understanding her mistress’s intention, Dhata followed her closely. Divya went to a thick grove of trees and sat down on the ground in the dark. ‘Amma, you may go now,’ she said. ‘Take the palanquin and go back to the palace. There is no place for me there any more like I have no place in the house of Prithusen. I have been cast out. And I don’t know which way to turn, where to find refuge—on the roads, in the city streets, under a tree in the forest or in the waters of the Apaga river. You may go, Amma. You nursed me on your breast like a mother. It is customary for a mother to bid farewell to her daughter when the latter goes to her husband’s house. Bid me farewell in the same way. My husband has played me false. And now there is no place for me either in the house of my great-grandfather, or in the house of the father of my child. I don’t know which way I shall go.’

Tears welled up in Dhata’s eyes. She had once suckled Divya, had held her to her breast. And Divya, though her mistress, in this unbearable crisis had become for her like her own daughter, a part of her very heart. She sat down by her side and putting her arms round her said, in a voice choked with emotion, ‘What are you saying, my child? How can I leave you? Where will you go?’

Divya’s eyes were dry and her voice firm. ‘Amma, how can I live in the grandsire’s house, now that I have become pregnant before marriage? When there is no place for me in the house of the man who is responsible for this pregnancy, from whom else can I seek shelter? I belong where my child belongs. If I don’t find a place, I shall work as a drudge somewhere, sell my own body and somehow save the one who is lodged within me. Whatever god wills …’