Free Pregnant King, The by Devdutt Pattanaik

horses to the men of Ila-vrita who wish to be father of kings.’
    ‘How much am I worth, father?’ asked Pulomi, the princess of Vanga.
    The king of Vanga replied without shame or guilt, ‘You are priceless, my child, but your womb is worth seven hundred cows, three hundred bullocks and a dozen bulls.’
    Pulomi burst into tears. The king of Vanga wanted to hold her, hug her, comfort her but he restrained himself. He had a kingdom to think of. A mysterious disease had killed most of the cows in his land. When cowherds squeezed udders of the surviving cows, they found blood and pus oozing out instead. The bulls had become blind and could barely stand. The bullocks were too weak to pull a plough or a cart.
    ‘It is the wrath of Shiva,’ declared the Brahmanas. ‘He has spat the poison in his throat into your cattle sheds. Maybe we forgot to let him partake of the leftovers of our yagna. Maybe we insulted his dogs, kicked them out without offering them milk. Until we appease him he terrorizes us. We must offer him raw unboiled milk of seven hundred cows.’
    ‘Where are the cows?’ asked the king of Vanga.
    ‘In Vallabhi. And they will come to us if you accept Shilavati’s offer.’
    The king of Vanga accepted the offer. The daughter was sold. Seven hundred cows, three hundred bullocks, a dozen bulls, each one decorated with bright red tassels and copper-plated horns made their way on great barges down the Kalindi to Vanga. The residents of Panchala who saw the passing ships told their daughters, ‘That is how an Asura marries an Apsara.’
    A few days later they saw another barge decorated with marigold flowers. In it sat Pulomi dressed in red and gold, accompanied by her maids and fifty Kshatriya warriors who had come all the way from Vallabhi to fetch her. The banner of the Turuvasus with the image of a turtle fluttered from the ship mast. The daughters of Panchala said, ‘There goes the Madhavi of Vanga.’
object of pleasure
    Before the cows and bullocks and bulls left Vallabhi for Vanga, Yuvanashva had gone to Simantini. ‘I will not buy her without your permission, Bharya,’ he said, looking into her sad eyes.
    She touched the tips of his fingers and said in a choked voice, ‘I have done everything I could. Every new moon night, I am the first woman to offer jabakusuma flowers to Ileshwari. Every time I bleed, I make offerings of gold cradles to the tamarind tree in the corner room. I eat no spices and drink buttermilk to cool my body. I have talismans hanging round my neck, my arms and my waist. I have walked round the sevengoddess’ shrines in Tarini-pur. I have asked the priestesses of Bahugami to dance around me. But still my womb has failed to hold your seed. I have failed you Arya. You need another wife.’
    ‘The fault could be mine,’ said Yuvanashva. Every night he was haunted by a vision of hundreds of dhatura flowers, brown with age, offered by him to Ileshwara Mahadev, tumbling down as the lord who is both god and goddess looked over his shoulder at all the other men prostrating in the temple on full moon days. So many men, all fathers. And he, alone, childless, graceless, rejected by the gods.
    Simantini looked at her husband with a horrified expression on her face. She put her hand on his mouth. ‘Please don’t say such things, Arya. You are the perfect husband. The perfect man. So tender. So gentle. So giving. No woman could ask for more. Go ahead, get yourself a new wife. A fertile field for the royal seed. She will be my sister.’
    Simantini did not tell Yuvanashva what the priestesses of Bahugami said in their trance as they danced round her. Waving branches of neem, they kept repeating in shrill hoarse voices, ‘He is fertile. Yes, he is fertile. Oh yes, he is fertile. The goddess smiles upon him. He is fertile and he will have a son.’ It frightened her.
    Yuvanashva sensed the pain in Simantini. Her sense of invalidation. But he had to take another wife. He had to father a son.