A score of ladies-in-waiting, each dripping with jewels, followed the Princess. The crowd of suitors, weighty under their brocades, rubbed shoulders and craned necks to get a better look at tomorrow’s auction prize. Krishna walked out of the throng to the Princess and gracefully bent before her. Taking her hand gently, he led her forward. As they passed Bhagadatt, Krishna gave him a wink.

‘I hear they are calling Krishna a God these days, Lord Shalya,’ Bhagadatt remarked when the bridal party had gone safely past.

‘That they are, Your Grace.’ Shalya came to stand beside Bhagadatt. ‘Quite a growing cult.’

‘Good,’ Bhagadatt said. ‘I’ve always wanted to see a God bleed. Draw up the papers.’

Shishupal found his appetite returning as he looked at the retreating figure of Krishna. Just a few months of Armistice left. When Spring came, the Empire from the South, the Pragjyotishans from the East, and the Yavanas from the West, the largest host ever assembled in Aryavrat, would march towards Mathura with blazebane and upon airavats. The Usurper stood no chance.

SHAKUNI spied the figures of Shishupal, Bhagadatt, Kalyavan and Shalya behind Krishna, and wondered what the chances were that Krishna would end up outsmarting them all. The way he was gallivanting around the place like a flamingo amidst alligators, made one almost wonder whether he was even bothered by the War the Mathuran Republic was embroiled in. But then again, one cannot refuse to eat just because there is a chance of being choked.

Shakuni’s musings were interrupted by the sound of flutes and harps. The attendants ushered the guests away to create an empty circle in the central space. No one cared about cripples in a crowd, and he had no plans to steal the limelight from the Princess with a sudden performance of pain. He saw Karna and his nephew at the furthest corner of the terrace, and limped over to where they stood. It also gave him a good view of the show about to unfold. While he made a show of disgust at having to share space with the Resht, privately he was not entirely averse to his company. No one liked to be alone in a place filled with people. How long ago it seemed since he had been the centre of attention at such parties…

As the assembled crowd moved away like an ebbing tide, attendants lumbered in with an enormous weighing scale. Two large plates, their rims set with lozenges of smooth-polished rose quartz, swayed drunkenly from thick chains. The chains were fitted into a large oaken frame. A yellow canopy was soon erected over it.

Ah, the weighing of the lamb before the slaughter.

In her saree of gold, that accentuated her burnt skin and still girlish figure, Draupadi, Princess of Panchal, advanced to the weighing scales to the strains of a veena.

‘What’s going on?’ Sudama asked.

‘Grocery purchase,’ Shakuni commented dryly.