Free The Aryavarta Chronicles Kurukshetra: Book 3 by Krishna Udayasankar Page A

rolling your eyes!’ Abhimanyu baited her, knowing full well she had little patience with what she considered excessive and dramatic displays of emotion.
    ‘Vathu! Shut up!’ Uttara finally said, and returned to the task of feeling around, a little more cautiously, for the wall that had been in front of her. Despite her instructions to the contrary, Abhimanyu stood up and she could feel the warm skin of his arm brush hers as he did so. This time, Uttara did not complain. She knew Abhimanyu’s touch had not been intentional.
    Both she and Abhimanyu had submitted to their marriage to each other given the political importance of the alliance it forged between the Confederacy of Matsya and the Kingdom of Western Kuru, to the extent that the exiled Emperor Dharma Yudhisthir could still be called king. Also, the wedding had been an important element of Govinda Shauri’s plans to reestablish Dharma as Emperor of Aryavarta, or so Panchali had explained. Uttara had agreed, but not without anger, and certainly not without condition. As far as the world, the political audience for whose benefit this arrangement had been proposed, would know, she and Abhimanyu would appear blissfully wedded. But between them, there would be nothing, not even friendship or civility. And so the young couple endured each other’s company in public with smiling faces, all the while exchanging jibes under their breath and letting out sighs of relief when the ceremonies were over.
    Despite the understanding between them, Uttara had arrived in her rooms on their wedding night to find Abhimanyu there. She had been livid and far from restrained in her response to him.
    In response, for the first and last time in the months that she had known him, Abhimanyu had also shown open rage. ‘You think I wanted this? You think I like this? Did you ever bother, Princess, to consider that I too had plans for my life, that maybe I loved another woman and wanted to marry her? By Rudra! I thought you were a different kind of person, but you…you’re just another self-obsessed, spoilt royal brat!’
    Uttara had hoped that the dispute would be enough to make him leave her rooms, but was shocked as he had proceeded to make himself comfortable on her bed. ‘What? Did you want this side?’ he had asked when she had glared at him, but then had turned over and gone to sleep without waiting for her answer.
    The next morning, to Uttara’s amazement, Abhimanyu had apologized for his choice of words to her, but not his actions. She had felt compelled to reciprocate in kind. After that the two of them had tried to meet as little as possible and to altogether avoid speaking to each other. It had taken the fiery couple only a week to their next argument, after which both of them realized that it was easier to maintain snide interactions than it was to not acknowledge each other at all. Thus, a new routine had set in, which had turned out to be not at all unpleasant. Whatever graces Abhimanyu may or may not have had, Uttara had to admit that he did not lack humour and, despite his constant complaint that Uttara was unduly opinionated, Abhimanyu found her to be a most sporting companion, who could hold her own against him in every way. Still, their relationship was far from amiable and, standing close together in the tunnel, Uttara wondered – as she suspected Abhimanyu did too – whether outright hostility had not been preferable. One of the advantages of anger, she realized in retrospect, was that it had blinded her to the fact that Abhimanyu was an exceptionally attractive man.
    Abhimanyu lacked the burly frame of both the Kuru and Yadu clans, and took his height and build from his maternal uncle Govinda. His features, however, were his mother Subadra’s. He had her golden skin, her large doe eyes fringed with long lashes and, Uttara suspected, he had also had Subadra’s rounded face till manhood had chiselled his jaw into strong, determined lines. A child of the turbulent