The Cloud of the Princess - Part I Chapter 18

Three men were sitting inside a beautifully decorated Mandabam in the Kings palace. All four walls of the mandabam were painted with beautiful drawings depecting natural scenaries. Pictures of different seasons were drawn from left to right following the actual pattern of change of seasons. The perfection of the paintings seemed to baffle the ordinary viewer with its beauty. Especially a painting of the powerful winds accompanied by a hard and vociferous downpour uprooting a huge tree from its base was a masterpiece. It would have made anybody who saw the painting wonder if the artist really sat in the middle of the strong wind and fierce rain while he drew it.

All three men in the room were silent and they had three different expressions on their faces. Their state of mind could be easily compared to the paintings on the wall. King Kunjidhapadhanaar was biting his nails and seemed a bit tensed and confused and his state of mind was similar to the tree blown off by the powerful winds. Dhalapadhi Maithreyan seemed calm and composed and focused on something that he was thinking. His state of mind was similar to a painting that showed a girl in the dark carrying a log of wood on her head as she was walking down the hills finding her path to her home with the help of moonlight. She was focusing both on the rocky path that she had to take and the log of wood on her head that cannot slip off. And so was Maithreyan trying to strike a balance between a number of things that were running inside his head. The other person in the room was Kangeyan and certainly more than the other two, his state of mind had the perfect match to a painting on the wall. The painting showed two ferocious tigers pouncing fiercely over an escaping bear. The bear was just out of reach of the tigers. But that is all that the painting showed. It would have been anybody’s guess that the bear would have not figured anywhere in the painting had the artist captured the scene a few minutes later.

The King cleared his throat and began to speak.

“Dhalapadhi…. what do you think about what Kangeyan has told us now?”

The Dhalapadhi turned to look at the king.

“Ayya… I understand only a very few things from what he has just told us now. We need some more clarification on what exactly happened three years ago on the day when Kangeyan was arrested by my men.”

The King looked at Kangeyan.

“Kangeya! Tell us whatever you know. And you shall get the suitable reward that you are looking for”

“I have told you everything my Lord. I don’t understand what exactly the Dhalapadhi is trying to know". He paused to stare at the Dhalapadhi. It was clear that there was a wave of anger and hatred flowing between the Dhalapadhi and Kangeyan.

Maithreyan cut in.

“I am looking for the truth. And exactly the truth. I don’t want your own stories to be intertwined with the facts. It doesn’t make you any better than what we think you are.”

Kangeyan shouted.

“Do you think I care for what you think about me? Never. I have told the truth and only the truth. And I have told it only because I respect the King and not any other officer who works under him. Not especially those who would dare to marry a girl when she was supposed to marry someone else”

The King interfered before Maithreyan could respond.

“Kangeya… stop it. If you show disrespect to the Dhalapadhi, it is being disrespectful to me. And I won’t tolerate it. If you wish to have what you want, answer whatever the Dhalapadhi asks you. You have no right to speak as you have done now. Don’t think I won’t do anything to you just because you know a bunch of secrets that I don’t. I would very well forget about the cloud of the princess and other such things but behead you at this instant and roar my heart out at your blood that would flow down the floors of the Mandabam”

The voice echoed back and forth and it took a few seconds to die off.

The last few words especially sent a shiver down Kangeyan’s spine. He started to sweat. He realized how stupid he had spoken. He knew he cannot miss a golden opportunity like this just by speaking from his heart. He had to speak from his head. Without giving way for emotions to flush out through his words. He can tackle the Dhalapadhi who had taken his lady love away from him later. More important things need to be done now. He wanted to rule seperately. If this was the chance for it, then there was no reason why he would miss it. He replied without any expression looking at the king's face .

“I am prepared answer the Dhalapadhi’s questions.”

The ever calm and composed Maithreyan seemed irritated at the remarks Kangeyan made about Sembaruthi. But he knew it was not the time he should lose his temper. . He shall save it for the future and unleash it on Kangeyan when the right time arrives. There were more important things to do now and personal emotions had to stay back. He thought for a moment or two and started asking the questions.

“Kangeya. Let us go back three years in time and see what happened on the day when you were arrested. Let me remind you a few things. These are the things that my lord…even you may not be aware of. Kangeya…on that particular day, you had come to the bottom of the hill temple in Araimedu and when you went near a group of girls standing there, you were arrested by my men. I know you were not drunk that day. But I arrested you because some of my men had given me information about the secret group you were forming and I wanted to arrest you all.My first question. why did you come to the hill temple on that day?”

“To meet the girls”

“Do you want me to believe this?”

“I never told so. It is up to you to believe it or not. My Lord ...if the Dhalapadhi wants to provoke me and make me lose my temper, unfortunately he will not be able to do so.”

Maithreyan continued without letting the king to respond.

“If you came to meet the girls, tell me one reason why you wanted to do so?”

“I came to meet my Sister’s daughter. In other words the wife of the Dhalapadhi of this kingdom.I don’t remember the reason why though”

“If you don’t remember, let me remind you a few things. When you came there, your sister’s daughter … the wife of the Dhalapadhi...Sembaruthi was not there in the group. She had gone up to the hill temple. But the first question that you asked after coming there was not about Sembaruthi. It was rather aimed at Kumudhini, Vaithiyar Elanchezhiyanaar’s daughter. I remember the exact words that you told her. ‘Kumudhini… Wait’ were the words. And don’t tell me you wanted to know where Sembaruthi was when you told that. It doesn’t make sense. I am not that big a fool to beleive that either. Tell me the truth. Why did you want to meet Kumudhini? “

“You are clever Dhalapadhi. “

“That does not answer my question”

“Why do you want to know all those things? I have told you what you want to know. The Cloud of the princess will not spare you much time. It is already the second povurnami of Sittirai. You can torture me. You can behead me. But they will take over you. That is bound to happen. The mighty kingdom called Pavazhanadu that the mighty king Aadhirayan built would break up into pieces. It will happen for sure especially if the clever Dhalapadhi will waste time at this important juncture by asking unnecessary questions about some unimportant group of girls who have no relation with the Cloud of the princess or the matters of the Kingdom”

The King interrupted

“Dhalapadhi… even I am quite surprised at your questions. What are you trying to arrive at? How does his meeting with Kumudhini help our cause”

Maithreyan took a deep breath.

“Ayya… if Kangeyan will not tell what happened on that day, then I think I need to tell you. I just was waiting for things to fall from his mouth…but that might just not happen. He is too stuborn and too foolish to under estimate us.

So let me make things clearer. So that we don’t misunderstand or misinterpret the situation.

On that particular day, I had gone to the hill temple beacuase I had one of my Ottran waiting for me at the top of the hill with some information. We had planned to secretly meet on that particular evening near the Sannidhi of the hill temple when he would share all the information that he had collected in the previous month about various things i had asked him to spy for. But before I went there, I saw Kangeyan coming that way and I thought it would be the best chance to have him arrested. So I arrested him and then went up the hill. It tuned out that the information my Ottran had was related to Kangeyan. My Ottran had been following Kangeyan for a while since he was one among the secret group that planned against the oorasars and he was surprised to see what Kangeyan had been doing a day before the arrest took place. The night before all this happened, Kangeyan had followed a group of men to a forest outside Araimedu and had overheard a few things. Unfortunately my Ottran who was following Kangeyan was not able to hear what Kangeyan had heard. Kangeyan had not slept the whole night and the next morning the first thing he did was to rush to Kumudhini’s house. Since he had not slept the whole night, his eyes were blood red. And on seeing this, the soldier outside Vaithiyar Elanchezhiyanaar’s house misunderstood that Kangeyan was drunk refused to let him in.

Kangeyan searched in different places to find Kumudhini, but was not able to. Finally in frustration, he went to the market place that afternoon and slept off. This is when my Ottran left Kangeyan alone and went to the hill temple as we had already planned the secret meeting in the hill temple a long back. And if you remember my lord, my beloved wife Sembaruthi had seen somebody in the hill temple and had fainted the same day. It was none but my Ottran. It happened so that my Ottran was waiting for me a long time and since I was busy with the arrests, he thought I would not make it to the temple that day. Moreover he thought it would be important to follow Kangeyan rather than waiting for me. It was also getting dark and so he started to walk down the hill when he saw an already frightened Sembaruthi. Sembaruthi on seeing the red blood eyes of my Ottran lost balance and started to roll down the hill. My Ottran was about to help her when he saw light flashing from the somebody’s flame torch .He ran away int he opposite direction not knowing that it was the Poosari who was coming down after finishing the temple errands. If I had met my Ottran on that day, I would have known a lot of things long back. But I could not meet him for a long time. And when I met him and when he told me all that had happened, I did not guess that there would a secret group called the cloud of the princess. I miscalculated the whole thing since I had already arrested all the important persons of Kangeyan’s secret group and I thought everything was over. But it doesn’t seem so”

The King was in shock as he listened to the Dhalapadhi’s story. Kangeyan was hundred times more shocked than the King. He had never expected the Dhalapadhi to know so many things that he thought only he knew.

The king spoke

“Dhalapadhi…. things are really frightening me now. So if you know everything that Kangeyan knows, what else do we need to know from him?”

“Ayya… if I had known everything that Kangeyan knows, then I would have found out and destroyed this so called cloud of the princess a long back. But I need to know exactly whom Kangeyan followed into the forests the night before his arrests and what was spoken exactly on that night “

Both the King and the Dhalapadhi turned towards Kangeyan. Kangeyan’s look passed from the king to the Dhalapadhi. It seemed he was mentally preparing to answer the Dhalapadhi’s question.

“Dhalapadhi. You know almost everything. I shall tell you the missing facts.

I first came to know of this group when I was sleeping below a tree in the crowded market place a few months before my arrest. Normally secrets groups would exchange information in secluded places like forests and dilapidated Mandabams. But this group seemed different. They exchanged their secret informations in crowded places. So that they will neither be suspected nor can be followed. Moreover the place was so crowded and noisy that nobody would even hear what they spoke about. I just woke up from my sleep when two men were talking about bringing the king and the kingdom down. I should say I was also thinking in the same lines at that time and so their speech caught me in sudden interest. I pretended to sleep and continued to listen to them. They were clever than I expected. They never mentioned a name in the Kingdom. Their speech was I suppose following some wierd method that I could not understand. Except that they were planning something against the kingdom. And planning to attack some important personality in the kingdom. I tried to follow them after their talks ended. Each person went in a different direction and so i followed one of them . Bu unfortunately i lost track of him in the crowd. I did not talk about this group to any of the members in my group. I wanted solid information before i could do something about it. After a few months by pure co-incidence,I saw them again but this time their place of information exchange seemed to have completely changed. For some reasons I don’t know, they chose a hut in the forest to be their place. I followed them till the hut. I understood that they had a big plan to bring down the kingdom and to execute the plan they needed at least three years. They agreed on the exact date when they would start their attack. And that was the second povurnami of the sittirai month after three years from then. Though they spoke tamil like all of us do, their usage of words was so confusing that an ordinary person like me could not find out much by lisstening to it. After that i kept a close eye on one of them. Though i could not find out where he stayed or what he did, I got only one more chance to follow him and that was on the night before my arrest. On that night ,they discussed a few things that I again did not understand much. But one thing was clear. There was one man in that group who had been living in Vaithiyar Elanchezhiyanaar's house for a few months. Though I did not know the exact reason why they chose the Vaithiyar’s house, I thought it was a blessing in disguise for me. I wanted to meet that person and talk to him about my group so that we could join hands together. And I could not sleep that night. The next day I went to the vaithiyar’s place to find that man there and the Dhalapadhi has told everything that happened after that”

The King looked at the Dhalapadhi.

The Dhalapadhi looked at Kangeyan.

“Do you have any other information?. Why did you plan to meet that person rather than finding more about them by following them. You said you wanted solid evidence before proceeding. And what evidence did you get?”

“Aah… that is the scariest part of all….I forgot to tell you something. I understood that it would be of no use to follow them from then on because of a peculiar reason. And exactly because of that reason, i decided to find out that man in the Vaithiyar's place rather than following him till the forest everytime”

“What was that?”

“They had decided on that night to change their place of information exchange and secret meeting. They had also decided o something else”

"What was it?"

"To change the mode of exchanging secrets"

“And that is?”

“They decided not to exchange secret information verbally”

“then how did they plan to do it?”

“music"

“What do you mean”

“A flute…. they signaled through the strange music of the flute!!”