THE HOT SEASON arrives and stays. There is thunder and rumbling in the skies, an occasional drizzle, but not the deluge needed and longed for. When Yasodhara goes out with her aunt and the Manager of the Fields to look at their plots beyond the city walls, she sees, with her expert eye, that the paddy, if it does come to maturation, will have fewer than usual grains on its stalks. As always, she watches with longing the women workers in the raja’s fields, wanting so much to join them, but knowing such a thing is impossible now, given her status in the palace—though her heart aches with her desire to feel the cool earth between her toes, as she did in her youth.

One morning, Yasodhara wakes to the shriek of an owl, and this sound, unnatural in the daytime, fills her with a foreboding that is only heightened by the heat, sharpening her nerves to a knife’s edge. So, when she looks up from picking flowers in the walled garden and sees her aunt hurrying towards her, face contorted with worrying news, it is as if she’s been expecting whatever calamity is about to come. Prajapati reaches her and takes the flower basket from her hands. “Come, daharé.” She leads the way to a bench under a tree, and Yasodhara suddenly finds it hard to breathe. Once they are seated, Prajapati wipes the sweat from her upper lip, then holds both Yasodhara’s hands in her own and regards her sombrely. “Oh Ushas, I don’t know how to say this . . . It’s Siddhartha. He’s alive.”

Yasodhara snatches her hands back. “But that can’t be! He’s dead!”

Prajapati gently shakes her head. “He’s reappeared in the city of Rajagaha. A messenger from the emperor Bimbisara just arrived for your uncle with the news.”

“But that’s not possible. No ascetic who’s taken a fast unto death can last ten years.”

“Your uncle, I, wanted you to know, before the news spreads.” Her aunt blinks at her. “He is staying just outside Rajagaha with a hundred samanas who follow him. The Buddha, the Awakened One, is, evidently, how he wishes to be called. But awake from what, no one knows.”

Yasodhara, her mind numb, gets up, then sits down, then gets up again. In the silence, she can hear, beyond the garden walls, the sounds of the young concubines practising their music in the courtyard, the swish-swish of the swing. After a long moment, she wipes her face with her shawl, takes up her basket and goes among the rows of plants as Prajapati follows. “A hundred,” she murmurs. “That’s a lot.”

“He’s been living these past years in a little forest hamlet called Uruvela. Claims to have found a new path that he calls ‘the Middle Way.’”

“Middle Way. . .” Yasodhara squats to pick some flowers off a jasmine bush. Her calm, she knows, is unnatural.

“Something to do with Four Great Realities and the notion of everything burning, everything being on fire. The messenger wasn’t very clear on this at all.”

“And the Maharaja Bimbisara has no doubt embraced this Middle Way.” She grimaces, bitter.

Prajapati raises an eyebrow. “As well as the entire court; the wealthy merchants; even the Dasas. Yes,” her aunt continues—nodding at Yasodhara’s surprise that the Dasas, so low that they exist outside the caste structure, are allowed to practise Siddhartha’s new philosophy—“the Middle Way is open to everyone, no matter their varna, not just to us Khattiyas and the Brahmins.”

Yasodhara stands and remains unmoving for a long moment. Then, before she can help herself, she cries out, “I wish he was dead, why is he alive, why?” Ignoring her aunt’s appalled look, she wraps her shawl around herself and hurries towards the archway and out of the garden.

In her room, she paces, fingers twisting the pleats of her dhoti, then sits on a stool, leaning forward, hands clasped tightly on her knees. “Yes, yes,” she murmurs, “why isn’t he dead, why?” Whatever ground she has gained in the last ten years, whatever little stability and happiness she has found, is slipping away from her. No—he, her former husband, has snatched it from her. As if to confirm this, she hears her son Rahula shouting, “Ammé, ammé,” as he runs down the corridor.

Rahula bursts into the room, face fractured with shock, with wonder. For a moment he says nothing, seeing that she has heard the news. Then he whispers in awe, “He’s alive, ammé. Ayyaka says he is a renowned guru, that he is the favourite of the Maharaja Bimbisara. Has thousands who follow him like . . . like . . . a raja. Ayyaka is going to invite him here to Kapilavastu. My pita is a famous man throughout the Middle Country!”

Yasodhara laughs. She crouches over, unable to stifle her mirth, tears running down her face. Prajapati rushes in. She pats a frightened Rahula on the shoulder, and guides Yasodhara, now sobbing as well as laughing, to sit on the bed. “Ushas,” she says gently, and signals Rahula to bring his mother a cup of water from the pitcher. Once she has taken the cup, Yasodhara gulps a first mouthful, then sips slowly, shoulders hunched, wiping her eyes with her shawl, appalled at her outburst, depleted by it. Finally, she puts the cup on the floor, straightens and turns to her son. “Rahula, you are ten now, old enough to face up to the truth. Putha, your pita will not come to see you. You should be prepared for this. Look how he has gone first to the Maharaja Bimbisara, the most powerful man in the Middle Country. All he’s interested in is his own glory.”

“Ushas,” her aunt murmurs, indicating Rahula’s dismayed face. But Yasodhara turns on Prajapati. “What I am saying is true, pitucché. Think: he has been alive for ten years and never sent us any word. Think: all these years we mourned his death, all these years his son believed he was fatherless. I lived believing I was a widow. And, while we suffered here, he has been glorifying himself.” She turns to Rahula again. “Puthā, your ayyaka’s hopes are in vain. I know your pita, he won’t come.” Despite the pain seeping into Rahula’s face like a dark dye, she continues, convinced she must make him see the truth. “It truly hurts me to say this to you, puthā, but I cannot, will not, have you hope, only to be disappointed.” She reaches out and takes him by the shoulders. “I’m sorry, but you must accept this. Your pita doesn’t care about you or me.” Then she starts to weep, drawing Rahula close. Soon he is weeping too.