Six Times Sita

Chapter 4: The Jewels of Hope

Hanuman leads them up Mount Rishyamukh with nimble leaps and fleet feet. Rama and Lakshmana toil behind, each hard-faced so as not to give away how strenuous they find all this jumping.

"I feel like a stray goat," his brother mutters, teeth clenched to hold back huffs. "He is showing off for you, and naturally, I am the one caught in the middle."

"If you think I am enjoying this..." Rama begins, then sighs to mask his panting.

"Then why do you not ask our guide to slow down? He seems to like you well enough."

Rama snootily turns his nose up in the air. "We are the scions of Ikshvaku, heirs of the Raghu clan. We must endure."

"You mean you must endure." Lakshmana's voice is sardonic as he continues, "If my honour comes from attempted suicide by heat exhaustion, I care little for it."

"If I have to climb up this thrice-damned mountain without protest, then so will you."

Silence. Rama turns, alarmed, half afraid his jesting has been taken seriously. They have not spoken about everything that came to pass in the weeks before meeting Jatayu, and although Lakshmana's bruise has long healed, Rama's heart has not. But no, his brother is smirking and shaking his head, and when Lakshmana speaks, his voice quivers with mirth. "You are mean."

Rama exhales, yet relief does not come.

"Lak- " he begins, but is immediately interrupted by a joyous shout from above.

"Prabhu!" Hanuman beams down at them, "We are here." Then he turns and addresses someone else, "Oh, please do tell Maharaj Sugriva, he shall be most elated."

Lakshmana eyes the remaining steps and then surveys the distance they have come.

"This should not have been so difficult," he mumbles, and Rama is inclined to agree. Once the two of them could have scaled the peak without breaking a sweat and run three miles afterwards. All that crying and bumbling about the forest must have made them soft.

Sugriva – dressed in old finery and worn purples – comes to meet them in a great, cavernous hall, reeking of cheap wine and misery. The crown on his head is scratched and askew.

"Show them what we found," he tells one of the attendants, after Hanuman has recounted their tale of woe, and nods to them. "Please, have a seat, my lords."

Rama sits and tries not to quiver with anticipation. This is it. He can feel it in the air – this is the key to rescuing Sita. Lakshmana stands by his side, half a step behind, and places a hand on his shoulder.

"We found them on the ground," Sugriva says, tail flicking nervously. "By the time I was called, it was all over, but my Vanaras say a great golden chariot had flown across the skies, and from it came the weeping of a maiden most fair."

He pauses, as a worn pouch is brought in, and a bearer places tall earthen glasses of drinks before them. Rama ignores the latter and reaches for the pouch.

"This has the ornaments you found?"

"Yes."

Rama pulls apart the string holding it together and turns it over on his palm. A familiar necklace falls out, thick and glittering gold, followed by a lonely earring, a chain, and an anklet strung with little bells.

Rama stares.

"Prabhu?" Hanuman probes. "Are these the ones you seek?"

"Yes," he breathes, fingers trembling, stroking the trinkets as if they could somehow pass on his affection to their beloved wearer. "These are hers."

He looks up to an assortment of pitying glances. They can tell the woman is someone important, though neither Rama nor his brother had revealed in as many words that Sita was his wife. Did they think of him an idiot, a desperate father, or a maddened brother, or a lovelorn husband clutching to circumstantial proof of a dear one's presence?

As he has done these past weeks, and all their lives, Lakshmana comes to the rescue. "I recognise the anklet."

Sugriva hesitates. "My Lord Lakshmana?"

"The anklet," he repeats. "I saw it every morn when I knelt for her blessings. I would not confuse them for any other."

"And the others?"

"Uh," Lakshmana blinks. "I would not dare be so importune with a lady as to stare at her person" – here Rama catches Sugriva stiffen minutely, as a guilty man does when caught, but Lakshmana has spoken without malice, and it passes as quickly as comes – "but her sister has an earring of similar fashion."

"You will not look at her but you will look at her sister," Sugriva notes, and it is interesting how he has latched onto that.

Lakshmana turns pink. "I married her sister?" he says, phrasing it like a question, as if all those days with Urmila were a fever dream. Rama can relate.

There is an awkward pause, and his brother plows on with all the daintiness of the bulls that once ploughed the land Sita rose from. "What was she like?"

"I told you – I have not seen her. My people told me this: that she was the fairest maiden they ever beheld, shining like the sun at high noon, that her voice was like starlight, and that she called for the scions of Raghu to aid her. Twice she called for one Raghurai, and once for a Saumitra."

Rama cannot help the smile on his face. Of course, Sugriva will surely ask for some terrible recompense, but he is an outcast King, and exiled besides. He will not shirk from helping.

Beside him, he feels his brother relax. "She is no mere maid," Lakshmana drawls. "She is the daughter of King Janaka, of distant Mithila, and the wife of Rama, prince of Ayodhya. She is Sita."