In the Wake of the War

Chapter-38

To say that Vrushali was stunned would be a massive understatement. She had been holding back her tears for the past two days, terrified beyond words as to what would happen when Vrishaketu got here. And then, out of nowhere, Arjun popped up?!

That too dressed as a servant bringing her food?!

She was utterly confused.

Vrushali was half convinced that she had imagined the whole scenario in her desire to be rescued without Vrishaketu being harmed by Anushalva's ridiculous plan that might've just worked, but ..... well. For one thing, she had never considered seeing anybody in the room she was trapped in. She had expected there to be a battle of some kind, she supposed. That was how warriors tended to do things.

But even her imagination could not have cooked up Arjun showing up to bring her dinner where she was imprisoned. It was so ludicrous that it had to be real.

He had said that Vrishaketu was very worried but fine. What did that mean? Was he hiding somewhere in this palace? Or had he actually trusted Arjun enough to let him rescue her alone?!

The latter seemed practically impossible!

She wasn't sure what was going on but she had true hope now. Hope that she could be free without  Vrishaketu being involved or hurt. And it seemed that if Arjun could manage to sneak her out of here(which was not an approach she would have expected any of these warrior types to take), they might just be able to manage avoiding any further bloodshed as well.

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Arjun spent the time after night had fallen and most of the Palace had gone to sleep in the grounds, barely managing to dodge the eyes of the guards each time they looked his way, trying to figure out the best place to hook a rope outside the windows of Angarani's prison-chambers and of course-- how he was supposed to do it without being seen.

He thankfully got the answer to that soon enough.

About an hour or so before the Sun rose, there was a small period when there were no guards present, in between the change of shifts.

That's when he would have to take the opportunity.

And if they managed to get out of Salwa before the Angarani's absence was detected, then almost all bloodshed could be avoided.

Anushalva couldn't exactly accuse them of kidnapping now, could he?

Although it was still not sitting right with Arjun that Anushalva might get out of this whole thing unscathed. What was stopping him from trying something like this again, if he ever got an opportunity? Even if he couldn't get to Panchali or Subhadra, he had shown that he didn't care about who he kidnapped and might go for another one of their sisters-in-law, or heaven forbid Uttara or their mother or aunt.

And it was sort of hard to ensure that all the women in their family which was more than a hundred in number was under heavy guard at all times, especially since a lot of them were busy with helping in rehabilitating all the women who had lost their families in the war. Five of them couldn't be around all of them at all times. 

(And here, Arjun felt a deep pang. Five of them. From a hundred and seven, only six remained alive and only five remained in Hastinapur. No one would have dared to attempt such a thing against Hastinapur had they all been together. But when the women in the family would not be respected by family itself.....)