She trailed off as Adam lurched into view.He threw himself around one of the columns and hung onto it as his knees buckled.
“Ssss’ fine,” he slurred queasily.“Just… need a lil minute…”
He started to slide off the column.Neil dragged him to safety.Adam remained on his back on the floor, staring up at the stone ceiling of the veranda.
Constance peered down at him.“That’s right.You aren’t very fond of heights, are you?”
“Nope,” Adam replied succinctly, making absolutely no move to get up.
“But were we seen?”Neil demanded nervously.
“I haven’t heard any gunshots,” Constance replied reasonably.
Neil swallowed uncomfortably.“That’s… reassuring.”
Ellie moved to the far end of the rock-cut overhang.“The entrance to the chamber is over here.”
Constance felt an enticing thrill of imminent discovery.They were standing at the threshold of one of the most important stories in India’s history.Who knew what wonders would be inside, waiting for them to discover?
She prodded Adam’s bare flank with the toe of her boot, not bothering to hide her impatience.“Can you move yet?”
“Sure,” Adam groaned.“I’ll get right on that.”
?
Ten minutes later, they finally stepped inside.
The rock-cut chamber was cool and dark.The space was graciously sized compared to the smaller cave they had hid in earlier.Ample light poured through the entrance, illuminating a slab carved into the wall for a bed and a niche that likely served as an altar.
There were no artifacts, only a few old birds’ nests and a pile of shelled nuts from some industrious rodent.Thick spiderwebs draped the corners, and bird droppings stained the rock below a natural ledge.Something cooed with mild alarm as they moved deeper into the room.
As she hobbled inside, Ellie blazed with excitement as though the rugged ceiling was the eighth wonder of the world.“This was clearly adapted from a natural formation in the rock!”
“I think these scratches might actually be Indo-Aryan petroglyphs,” Neil burst out happily.
“That carving’s nice,” Adam commented.
He was looking at the wall that faced the entrance, which was decorated with images of tangled vines rich with flowers.Children played with delicate deer while lovers fed each other sweets.The artwork was weathered, time softening its details.
The nesting birds cooed again in the corner.
“If this was Sita’s chamber, it doesn’t seem very queenly,” Constance commented, trying to hide her disappointment.
“Isn’t an ashram kinda like a monastery?”Adam asked.
“They are places of contemplation and spiritual work,” Ellie offered as she peered under a pile of leafy debris.
Adam shrugged.“Then maybe that’s what she was looking for, instead of another palace.”
Constance was struck by his words.
She had always thought of Sita as the victim in Rama’s story—cast out by her husband, weeping and powerless, over accusations that he’d already known were false.Constance could imagine her throwing herself onto the hard stone bed cut into the wall as she bewailed her terrible fate.
But the woman Neil had seen from across the valley had left him consumed not with sympathy but with a terrified holy awe as he raised his hand in the mudra for fearlessness.
She thought of Aai’s words in the Kali temple.
Sita is both more powerful and more complicated than you give her credit for.
