The siege wasn’t all machines and rocks, however. On the east, where the Third Sister was the shortest, brave Mathuran soldiers on the wall responded by feverishly shooting arrows down the throats of their equally brave but hapless enemies, who tried to climb the wall no one could scale.

Krishna could not see all of this with his own eyes of course, but his web of informers was kept busy. What he could see from where he lounged was the smoke that rose high in wind sculpted columns outside the Third Sister. The scene would certainly have impressed a newcomer, but for the Mathurans it was just another day in the ten-year-old War with the Empire.

Satyabhama, his third wife, lounged beside him. They were out here under the smoky sky merely to measure the odds of the wager between them. While Krishna read the scrolls even as he balanced his glass perilously on a cushion with the orange on top, Satyabhama was busy putting a whetstone to her sword. He turned towards her to ask a question, but stopped short. Dressed in full armour, Satyabhama looked resplendent. Krishna felt a stirring, an all too familiar sensation in her presence. He gestured for his attendant to take the glass away and leave the terrace. Krishna then set aside his scrolls, picked up his bamboo flute, and cleared his throat. ‘You look exquisite today, Satya, with eyes like obsidian.’ He played a melody of joy.

Satyabhama frowned. ‘So, my eyes are stony?’ she responded without looking up from her sword.

Krishna sighed, scratching the redacted caste mark on the side of his neck. For a man with three wives, he was rather inept at pleasing Satyabhama. Then again, for a third wife, she was rather too haughty. Deservedly so, though Krishna never told her that. He had first married Lady Rukmini, for love. Rukmini, with her impractical dresses that were best worn by heroines of tragic stage dramas, kept to herself these days. Then he had married Jambavati, out of necessity, to win her father as an ally.

But he did not marry Satyabhama. Satyabhama married him. And Krishna still thanked the Fates for his godsluck. For Satyabhama excited him. She entertained him. More importantly, she inspired him. She wasn’t born into the right family as Rukmini had been. She wasn’t born to a powerful creature, as Jambavati was. But Satyabhama was dark magic.

‘Eyes as soft as a doe,’ Krishna rallied with a teasing tune on his flute.

‘Silly weak animal that is hunted on a daily basis. Save it for Rukmini.’

Krishna found himself on thin ice. Rukmini was hailed as an ethereal beauty by the small-folk. A fact Krishna knew bothered Satyabhama sometimes, though he could not fathom why. Satyabhama was radiant in her own right, even if her beauty was of an austere kind. No paint graced her cheeks. No tiara gleamed on her head. She wore her long black hair tightly braided like a commoner. Yet Satyabhama stood out like a moon in a sky of stars. She was a warrior, more comfortable in chainmail armour than sarees, and Krishna cherished her for it. Women are not meant to be understood, just loved, he remembered.