Mostly, he heard gossip about the damn swayamvar. All the world seemed to care about was how Krishna had managed to wed the Panchalan Princess to all the five sons of Kunti. It was the scandal of the century.

And again, wispy as a blown cloud across the moon, the face of the boy he had undertaken to protect, drifted into his mind. Shishupal shook his head violently to purge the flashes, desperately clutching for another train of thought. Krishna...Draupadi...anyone else but Sudama. It worked.

Loath as Shishupal was to admit it, Krishna’s machinations made sense. If Arjun was to sire a son with Draupadi, before Yudhistir, it would sow the seeds of a succession dispute yet again. Five brothers, five wives. It was a recipe for disaster. Anyone could then pull that thread to sow discord between the brothers. And with Yudhistir clamouring for the throne, he could not afford Panchal’s allegiance lying with his younger brother, rather than with him. Somewhere within, Shishupal felt sad for Draupadi; a pawn in the hand of forces beyond her control. Did she deserve it for the way she had treated Karna? Perhaps. Who was he to judge anyone? Then there was Arjun to consider, who suddenly found his new wife, a common property to be shared with his brothers. He did not even have first rights over her. Shishupal did not know whether he had consented to this arrangement, but it did not require an Oracle to guess he was not happy about it. He had no doubt, however, about who the real victim of the debacle was. The face of Karna, comatose, eyes livid with rage, beside his nephew’s corpse, made his head hurt again. The Saptarishis should just ban swayamvars, and the world would be the better for it.

Calling it a day, Shishupal strolled back towards the inn where he had rented a room. Vadeh was a river port, and it smelled of rot, shit and piss. It was far enough from Mathura to escape Jarasandh’s attention, but close enough to trade with once the war clouds receded. But for all the trading the port did, its people got no richer. Filled with refugees from the years of war, the line of beggars at the temples was cruelly long. Not that he could see them. It was winter, and the lantern in his hand scarcely lit a dozen cobbles in front of his boots, slippery in the damp mist. Xath fend, how I hate the North!