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Everyone said that Yuddha and Keyi looked exactly alike, with black hair and blue eyes.
But Keyi had long shiny hair, like the tail of a horse. Yuddha’s hair was short on his head, though he was ten, almost all grown. He knew things that Manthara didn’t, especially about horses and how to kill enemies. Usually you had to sit on top of a horse, that’s how the enemies were killed, and why everyone in the world wanted to get horses from Kekaya. The mares had to make new foals every day so that righteous kings could kill their enemies.
Keyi ran to her secret hiding place under the divan, a place Manthara could reach only with great difficulty. She made sure Manthara wasn’t awake, and then pulled out breeches and a vest, her brother’s old clothes. When she turned around, Yuddha was already gone.
She had to run to the stables by herself. She had never been there before at this hour. It made her heart gallop like a spooked horse, even though she knew all the statues were actually guards. They were supposed to come alive and save her if anything happened. She was special because she was the princess. Everyone had to be careful around her. That’s what Manthara said. She told Keyi everything. Keyi knew lots of things other six-year-olds didn’t. Not even Sukhi and Dukhi, who were eight, knew what Keyi knew. The reality of the station, Manthara called it. Or something like that. Keyi still got mixed up with her words. Manthara didn’t mind. She was very patient. Only her cane sometimes wasn’t.
Keyi ran across the courtyard towards the stable. She had been to the fields where millions of horses ate grass, but she had never been to a foaling. Yuddha had explained it all to her many times, eager to show how grown up he was. You know it is time, he said, when the mare starts sticking her bottom and tail up in the air. Once she lies on her side, you know it 16
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will be any minute. Then the foal comes, hooves first, if all went right. Sometimes it didn’t, and there was a lot of tension around Father then. He didn’t like to lose a single horse. He had lost too much already, he said. Yuddha couldn’t explain what Father meant by that.
The main thing was not to be worried when the foal came out. It would look very strange, because it was hidden inside a white covering. The first time Yuddha attended a foaling he had thought a ghost was being born. But he was a nice brother. He didn’t want Keyi to be fooled.
Keyi reached the stable. She took a deep breath, safe in this known place, her favorite playground. She didn’t need daylight to find her way. Here, she would often shadow Yuddha, jump in the hay, climb on the horses, and hide in the empty stalls. Keyi knew exactly which stall Indu lived in. The stable was dark, with only two torches burning by Indu’s stall. The shiny eyes of the other horses watched Keyi as she ran by. Only Yuddha and his guard Soma were there. Yuddha waved at her to come quickly. He reached for Keyi’s hand. “You didn’t miss it yet. Remember what I said? It will not look like a foal at all when it first comes out.”
“I’m brave,” Keyi said. When she was awake, the night terrors were just shadows.
“Look! Look! There it comes,” Yuddha said. He squeezed her hand tightly.
A white bubble grew from Indu’s bottom. Then Keyi saw small hooves poking through the white layer. With each of Indu’s breaths, a little more of the foal was pushed out. Brother and sister held their breath as Indu gave a final push and the foal slid out, landing on the hay.
Right away, Indu turned to look at her foal, and then she started licking it, moving away the slime that covered it. Indu didn’t think the foal was strange. She wasn’t disgusted by all that white goo on her foal. She just licked it all off. Then Keyi saw how perfect the foal was, with nice hair all over. How had it all fit inside the mare’s belly? Keyi felt an ache in her throat. It got really tight, as if she had to cry. “Can I touch it?” she asked. “Can I touch it?”
“No, Keyi. Not yet,” Yuddha said. “Soma, is it a filly or a colt?”
Soma was examining the foal with gentle hands.
“A filly,” Soma said. He didn’t have to call Yuddha “prince,” because he had been Yuddha’s guard since he was born. Just like Manthara didn’t have to call Keyi “princess,” or even by her proper name.
Keyi couldn’t take her eyes off the newborn filly. The mare kept on licking and licking her, all over.
“Why is she doing that?” Keyi asked.
Soma smiled and said, “That’s how the dam bonds with her foal. She is showing her motherly affection. That’s how they grow connected as mother and child. If the dam doesn’t do that, if she turns aggressive by kicking or biting, then we have a problem.”
Keyi got a strange feeling in her stomach. As if she knew the answer to something. But it was all a jumble. She had to be sure. With her cheeks feeling hot, she asked, “Did Taya lick me like that when I was born?”
She looked at Soma real fast, and saw his eyebrows coming together. He didn’t understand. She didn’t see pretend in his eyes. But Yuddha started laughing.
“She means Manthara,” Yuddha said, in a voice that meant Keyi was very dumb. “Why 17
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would Manthara lick you? First of all, humans don’t do that. Everyone knows that. Second of all, Manthara isn’t our mother.”
“I know she isn’t our mother!” Keyi cried. “You hate her. But you can have your own mother, and I can have mine.”
“Well in that case you would have a ugly crooked back like her, wouldn’t you?”
“YUDDHAJIT!”
Father’s voice thundered through the stable. The horses flattened their ears, and Soma stood up and bowed to the king. Yuddha flattened himself against the stall, looking down at the ground. Even when Father wasn’t admonishing him, Yuddha got stiff around Father, pressing his arms in towards his sides.
“How dare you ridicule Manthara?” Father yelled, walking towards them almost like he was running, “You know the great lengths I’ve gone to here in Kekaya to protect those like her.”
“Yes, Father,” Yuddha said in a tiny voice.
“Is there anything wrong with Manthara’s mind or her faculties? No. But there seems to be a problem with yours. Name-calling is not fitting behavior for any Kekayan, much less the prince!”
“I’m sorry, Father.” Yuddha looked like he was a small boy.
Keyi looked from Father to Yuddha with anxious eyes. This was not good. Yuddha would find a way to have revenge on her. She wanted to beg Father to hug or praise Yuddha, but even she was scared of his wrath when he moved with swords for arms.
“You should take a lesson from your little sister here,” Father said, making it worse. “She does not judge based on body. See how kind and gracious she is towards Manthara, accepting her unconditionally.”
“That’s because she thinks Manthara is her mother,” Yuddha said, glaring at Keyi. “But we have no mother!”
Father jerked away from them both when Yuddha said that. His lips turned down, as if he had eaten spoiled food. Father started inspecting the newborn filly, smacking his lips and making silly sounds. His hands were not stiff or rough at all when he touched the filly. He was like a different Father once a horse was near. He loved them more than anything else.
Yuddha lifted his hands towards Keyi and made a pretend motion of strangling her. That’s how much he hated her right now. Keyi knew he was regretting bringing her along to the foaling. Then he stood very close and pinched her underarm as hard as he could. Keyi closed her eyes and didn’t flinch, or the punishment would be worse later.
Taya is my mother, Keyi decided stubbornly. No matter what Yuddha said.
“What should we name this little one?” Father said, and now his voice was sweet. He looked only at Keyi, excluding Yuddha. Father preferred Keyi, saying out loud that she was better than a boy. When she was grown, she would be king of Kekaya, she was sure of it.
“Surya,” Keyi said. The name of the sun god. Keyi loved the sunlight. There were no nightmares in daytime.
“But Surya is a boy’s name,” Yuddha protested.
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“Yuddha,” Father warned. “If Keyi says Surya, then it’s Surya. Horses aren’t obliged to live by human rules.”
“It is a boy’s name, stupid,” Yuddha whispered into her ear. “Don’t talk to me ever again.”
Keyi crossed her arms over her chest. That’s how Father showed he didn’t care. It was not a boy’s name. Indu meant moon, and someone had named the mare that. So a filly could be named after the sun.
Father didn’t stay long because he had to attend to other mares that were foaling out in the fields. Each day in Kekaya, a thousand million foals were born and Father attended them all. That’s why they barely saw him. Keyi watched until Surya stood up on shaky legs. Indu was still circling around the filly, smelling her and kissing her on the muzzle. Mother and daughter wanted to be together, and that’s how it would be, even when Surya was grown.
Yuddha was on the other side of the stall.
“Are you still angry at me?” she asked him. But he was ignoring her, which meant that he was. “You can change Surya’s name if you want.”
Yuddha didn’t answer, but then he said, “Our mother was beautiful. She was the queen.
She had long black hair like you. There was no one as kind as her in all of Kekaya. Manthara is not beautiful. She is not kind. Her eyes are mean. Her ways are crooked, like her back. I wasn’t name-calling. Why can’t Father see that?”
“Why are you lying?” Keyi said. “You told Father yourself that we don’t have a mother.
Don’t pretend now. Don’t pretend that you know anything!”
“Ask anyone in the palace, if you don’t believe me. Our mother was a beautiful queen.
Everyone in Kekaya knows.”
Keyi crossed her arms even more. This was supposed to be a happy day, when she got to see her first foaling. Instead Yuddha was being mean and telling lies.
“It’s all Father’s fault,” Yuddha said, and then left. Soma followed him, but stopped by the door and turned to Keyi. “I know your brother speaks with anger and doesn’t say the right words. But he is right. Your mother was a true beauty.”
Soma hurried out, leaving Keyi to look at Surya, the lucky filly who had a dam that wanted to nuzzle her all day. Keyi looked one last time at them. Manthara had to be Keyi’s mother.
How could a little filly have something that a princess didn’t?
By the time Keyi left Surya and Indu, the sun had come out and the whole palace was awake. Keyi stopped by the alcove next to her room to visit with Sukhi and Dukhi, Keyi’s best friends aside from Manthara. Keyi told the twins all about the foaling. She was just about to ask them about Yuddha’s lies when Manthara appeared out of nowhere. Keyi hadn’t even heard the sound of her cane.
“Begone!” Manthara shouted, threatening the twins with her stick.
Sukhi and Dukhi ran away as if Manthara was a scary witch. She did look a little bit like one when she waved her cane like that. “You should not trust other children,” Manthara cautioned, waving her fist at Sukhi, who peeked out from behind a pillar. “You’ll see, the closeness you have with them now will not remain.”
Keyi eagerly caught hold of Manthara’s hand. “I have something to ask you.”
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“You’ve dressed as a prince again,” Manthara scolded, looking at Keyi’s leather vest and breeches. Keyi felt clever for having hid them from Manthara.
“I am a prince,” Keyi said. She put her hands on her hips and set her feet wide apart, an imitation of Yuddha. Manthara sighed loudly.
“I have to ask you something,” Keyi insisted. “I have to ask you something.” Keyi didn’t tire of repeating the same words all day until Manthara listened. “You have to sit. I have to ask you something. And I want you to think about it first.”
Manthara smiled. It was what she always said to Keyi. Always telling her to think, think.
She let Keyi lead her to the seat in the alcove. The sun was very bright here. Manthara’s eyes got smaller than usual, and she turned away from the sun. Keyi put her hands on Manthara’s cheeks. When Manthara grew still and looked into Keyi’s eyes, Keyi said: “I’m going to ask Father to make you my mother.”
Manthara stood up. “What is this nonsense!?”
“You didn’t even think before you answered!”
“There is nothing to think about.”
“Is that because—because—because . . . you are my mother?”
“Keyi . . . What has gotten into you? You know I am not your true mother.”
“Then who is?” Keyi asked.
“Sh-sh-sh,” Manthara said, taking a firm hold of Keyi’s arm. She looked over her shoulders, as though she feared being overheard. “You must not speak of her. Especially not in front of your father.”
Keyi tugged at Manthara’s clothes and then her face, pulling her down. Manthara unwillingly knelt so they were face to face. Keyi put her nose to Manthara’s and made her voice quiet. “Why can’t you be my mother? I want you to be my mother.”
“Why do you suddenly care to have one now?” Manthara asked.
“This morning Surya was born. I named her myself,” Keyi said, “Indu started licking Surya all over. That’s how she found a mother. Maybe my mother didn’t want to lick me.
Maybe she thought I looked ugly like a monster when I came out from her.”
“Is that what your brother said?” Manthara held her cane and heaved herself up. “My legs are numb,” she muttered. “I feel ancient. Only thirty years and already a hag.”
“Don’t be a hag. Be my mother,” Keyi said.
“Should I tell her the truth?” Manthara was talking to herself out loud, ignoring Keyi.
“Tell me, Taya. What’s the reality of the station?”
“Sit-u-ation! But no. This is different. Your father has given me orders.”
“A secret?”
“Sh! Your father doesn’t want you to know.”
“But I can keep secrets, Taya. Promise.”
She could see Manthara thinking. First, her eyes went to one side and then the other.
But she wasn’t really seeing what was in front of her. Sukhi and Dukhi had snuck close and were sitting by a pillar making faces at Keyi. Keyi shook her head at them. Not now. It was a sit-u-ation.
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“Maybe if I tell her those night-terrors will go away,” Manthara said to herself. This is how Keyi knew so much. Manthara would forget that Keyi could hear. “But if Ashvapati finds out . . .”
Keyi grew impatient: “When no one can hear, I’m going to call you Mother.”
“You will do no such thing!” Manthara exclaimed, so loudly Sukhi and Dukhi jumped up and ran away. Manthara grabbed Keyi’s arm, exactly where Yuddha had pinched her.
“Ouch!”
“Now, you listen to me,” Manthara said, dragging Keyi along. “We are going back to your rooms to change your clothes, and once we are there, you may not call me Mother, understand? You really should be addressing me as Manthara. Be done with all this childish Taya, Taya. You’re old enough to use your tongue properly.”
“I will not change my clothes. I’m going riding with Yuddha later.”
“You are far too young to be on horseback. You could fall off and break your bones. Then we both would be crippled.”
“But I want to be like you, Manthara.”
“Sssssssss,” Manthara said, hissing like a cobra. She was outraged.
Keyi pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t say any more wrong things.
“The whole kingdom adores you,” Manthara said, getting out of breath from walking and talking. “What do you need a mother for?” She paused to take a deep breath. “Your mother would ruin you if she was here.”
Keyi stopped. Manthara tugged at her arm, but Keyi was stronger.
“The grass would grow all over me?” she asked. “And no one would visit me?”
Manthara frowned, but then lifted her eyebrows. “ Oh. You’re thinking of the wasteland beyond the fields, the old Kekayan palace?”
Keyi nodded. “It was empty and full of ghosts. No one likes it there. I don’t want to ruin me.”
“Not as long as I live,” Manthara promised.
Keyi looked up at Manthara and said, “Mother, Mother, Mother!” Then she tore her hand from Manthara and ran away, as fast as her legs could carry her.
“Kai-keyi!” Manthara cried, spitting out her full name. “Come back this moment!”
Keyi made a neighing sound. She threw her hands on the ground and bucked her legs, kicking them to the air several times. She jumped up and raced away in the direction of the stables, but kept her ears behind her and heard Manthara order a guard to bring the princess to her rooms. Keyi was not faster than her guards—not yet. So she ran back, running straight towards Manthara. Keyi came to a halt right by Manthara’s ear, her long hair swaying forward. She leaned in and whispered, “Mother!”
Manthara tried to catch hold of her, but Keyi was faster and ran away again.
“All right, Keyi,” Manthara shouted, “Stop this game. I will tell you what you asked.”
Keyi twirled on her feet and started dancing back.
As soon as Keyi was within reach, Manthara grabbed for her hand. But Manthara was too slow, and Keyi ran ahead towards her room. She could hear Manthara calling to the other 22
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servants, ordering a hot bath, their morning meal, and for the garments and jewelry to be brought. Everyone in the palace did what Manthara wanted within the snap of a finger. Ten million servants came running in. They pulled off Keyi’s clothes and pushed her to the bathing room. They splashed warm water on her arms and shoulders and scrubbed her clean.
The water smelled like flowers. One of the servants was the mother of the twins, Sukhi and Dukhi. Why did they have a mother when Keyi didn’t?
Keyi stuck her lip out and caught a glimpse of Manthara, who was on the bed getting a massage with a stinky brown oil. It was good for her back, she said. While the servants dressed Keyi, she whispered the words “Manthara” and “Mother” to herself. As Manthara got a bright sari draped around her, she did some funny movements with her arms and head, lifting them up and down. She said this would improve her chances of living for a long time.
