tried to gather his wits, his overwhelmed and helpless mind took one obvious decision — there
was no way he was leaving the temple before getting another look at her. He sat down on the
steps once again. As his breathing and heartbeat returned to normal, he finally began to notice
the surroundings that had been consecrated by her recent presence. He stared once again at
the road on the left from where she had turned in. She had ridden past the cucumber seller
standing near the banyan tree.
Incidentally, why is the cucumber seller not trying to hawk his wares? He just seems to be
staring at the temple. Anyway, it is not any of my concern.
He followed the path that her chariot had taken as it had swerved to its left, around the
fountain at the centre of the courtyard. It had then taken a sharp right turn past the shepherd
standing at the entrance of the garden.
Incidentally, where were this shepherd’s sheep?
Shiva continued to look down the path the chariot had taken into the parking lot. Next to the
chariot stood another man who had just walked into the temple complex, but had inexplicably
not entered the temple itself. He turned to the shepherd and appeared to nod slightly. Before
Shiva could piece together the information that he had just seen, he felt her presence again. He
turned immediately to see her walking down the steps, with Krittika walking silently behind. Still
finding this rude, caste-unmarked, obviously foreign man staring at her, she walked up to him
and asked in a firm but polite voice, ‘Excuse me, is there a problem?’
‘No. No. There’s no problem. I just felt that I had seen you before somewhere,’ replied a
flustered Shiva.
The lady was not sure how to respond to this. It was obviously a lie but there appeared to
be a sincere voice behind it. Before she could react, Krittika cut in rudely. ‘Is that the best line
you could come up with?’
As Shiva was about to retort, he was alerted by a quick movement from the cucumber
seller. Shiva turned to see him pulling out a sword as he tossed his shawl aside. The shepherd
and the man next to the chariot also stood poised in traditional fighter positions with their
swords drawn. Shiva immediately drew his sword and stretched out his left hand protectively,
to pull the object of his fascination behind him. She however deftly side-stepped his protective
hand, reached into the folds of her angvastram and drew out her own sword.
Shiva glanced at her, surprised, and flashed her a quick, admiring smile. Her eyes flashed
right back, acknowledging the unexpected yet providential partnership.
She whispered under her breath to Krittika, ‘Run back into the temple. Stay there till this is
over.’
Krittika protested. ‘But my lady...’
‘NOW!’ she ordered.
Krittika turned and ran up the temple steps. Shiva and the lady stood back to back in a
standard defensive-partner position. They covered all the directions of any possible attack. The
three attackers charged in. Two more jumped in from behind the trees to join the other three.
Shiva raised his sword defensively as the shepherd came up close. Feigning a sideward
movement to draw the shepherd into an aggressive attack, Shiva dropped his sword low. The
shepherd should have been tempted to move in for a kill wound and in response, Shiva would
have quickly raised his sword and dug it deep into the shepherd’s heart.
The shepherd, however, moved unexpectedly. Instead of taking advantage of Shiva’s
opening, he tried to strike Shiva’s shoulder. Shiva quickly raised his right arm and swung
singke
(singke)
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