A demon's tale doubles as a dig at a king

Vikram again shouldered the corpse and its passenger and strode on in silence toward the sorcerer's fire, and again the Baital, swinging inverted from the wrapping-cloth, began to talk. In the great city of Bhogavati, he said, there once lived a young prince who strikingly resembled this amiable son of your majesty — meaning young Dharma Dhwaj, trotting along at his father's heel. Vikram said nothing. He hated flattery from strangers, but relished it keenly when it touched his own person, a fact the Nine Gems of his court had long ago learned to exploit; and he was shrewd enough to catch the barb hidden inside the compliment even as he refused to give the ghoul the satisfaction of a reply. The night closed in around them, thick with the smell of the charnel-ground, and the Baital's dry, mocking voice carried on undisturbed by the king's stony quiet.

A kind, foolish father, and a king who bristles

Now this prince, Raja Ram, had had an old father exceedingly unlike your Rajaship, the Baital continued, both as man and as parent. He hunted, diced, slept away his days, drank away his nights, dosed himself with tonics, mooned over dancing-girls, and fell in love with the vanity of it all — yet his children adored him, because he had troubled himself to win their hearts, rather than decreeing, as your moral and virtuous fathers are so fond of doing, that a child owes its parent all its love merely by — aïe! aïe! The Vampire's shriek cut off his own sentence, for the warrior king, speechless with fury, had reached behind his own back and viciously twisted a fold of the demon's skin between two fingers. The cry that followed was more mockery than pain, and in another moment the shameless creature had picked up the thread of his insult exactly where he had dropped it.

Three kinds of fathers, and Vikram is the worst

Fathers, great king, come in three varieties, purred the Baital, unbowed by the pinch — and mothers likewise. First, the parent of many ideas, poor, amusing, and adored. Second, the parent of an idea and a half, who might hear a demon's wisdom and think, well, perhaps there is truth in it, and go home and dote on his children for a season, though it never lasts. And third, the one-idea'd parent — yourself, O Vikram, a perfect specimen. You learn in youth that the green stick grows on the trees of paradise, and in age you apply the lesson with the stick itself; nothing can be taught to you before your beard sprouts, and nothing after it stiffens. When any man tries to change your mind you recite your little couplet — what is new is not true, what is true is not new — and shake off his hand. Still, you have your uses, warrior king. Good camels for the mill-track in life; and in death, your ashes make compost no worse than any wise man's.

An empty treasury, a grieving son, and a wise parrot

You will note, Rajaship, said the Baital with mock modesty, how briefly I have treated that digression — and Vikram, teeth set, said nothing at all, only quickened his pace toward the tale. When the old king of Bhogavati at last became air mixed with air, his son found scarcely ten silver pieces in the royal treasury against legacies promised in golden thousands. Yet young Ram mourned him with the deepest grief, telling himself that the emptied coffers were only further proof of his dear father's boundless, careless generosity — for he loved him, and love excuses everything it cannot explain. But the old king had left one treasure that could not be carried off to the pyre: Churaman, a parrot who knew the ways of the world and spoke the purest Sanskrit, and who, by patient counsel and sage guidance, soon set the young Raja's shattered fortunes upright again.

The parrot is asked to find his master a wife

One day the young Raja said to his bird, Parrot, thou knowest all things — tell me where a mate fit for me may be found, one free of hereditary taint, of agreeable name, graceful in her walk as a young elephant, and of exquisite softness of person, as the shastras direct. Churaman cocked his head and answered without hesitation: great king, in the country of Magadh there is a Raja named Magadheshwar, and his daughter Chandravati is the one you shall marry — learned, and fairer still, her skin the colour of gold, her nose like the sesamum flower, her legs slender as the plantain-stem, her eyes wide as the great lotus-leaf, her lips red as the mango's young leaves, her face the full moon itself, her voice the cuckoo's, her throat the pigeon's, her walk the drunken elephant's or the goose's grace. Long before the words ended, the young king already loved a woman he had never once laid eyes on.

Stars, priests, and gifts arrange a marriage sight unseen

To be certain, Raja Ram consulted an astrologer, who studied his charts and pronounced without hesitation that Chandravati was indeed the name written into his marriage stars. That settled it. The Raja summoned a Brahman and dispatched him to King Magadheshwar's court bearing rich promises of reward if the match could be arranged, a promise that lent the priest wings on the road. In Magadh, Raja Magadheshwar received the envoy with every honour and agreed at once, sending back his own Brahman laden with nuptial gifts and instructions to mark the young king's brow with the betrothal tilak and return swiftly so preparations could begin. And so, though neither had set eyes on the other, bride and groom were already, each in their own palace, quietly and thoroughly in love — a condition the Baital noted with some relish, since it made his coming point so much easier to prove.

The princess, too, keeps a bird of uncommon wisdom

Now it happened that the talented and lovely Princess Chandravati kept, as her own confidante, a jay named Madan-manjari, Love-garland, a creature every bit as learned as Churaman and equally fluent in flawless Sanskrit. The two households, though separated by half a kingdom, had each unknowingly raised a small oracle in a cage, and it was to this jay, and not to any human counsellor, that the princess brought her most private hopes — for a maiden, said the Baital dryly, will consult her confidante about her future husband long before she troubles her mother or her priest, having far more urgent questions on that one subject than on all the sciences of the Brahmans combined.

Why birds once spoke, and why they stopped

Do not think me a teller of fables, warrior king, said the Baital, when I tell you birds once discoursed in human speech. In the old days a great philosopher split the tongues of certain birds, bound cords behind their skulls to force the crown of the head to swell and the eyes to bulge, and bred, over many generations, a race whose brains had mastered the art of turning thought into words. But the invention carried a fatal flaw, as the inventions of great philosophers generally do. The birds, once given speech, spoke only wisdom; they told the plain truth so relentlessly, rebuked their featherless masters so openly, flattered them so little and advised them so much, that mankind wearied of listening to them, and let the whole art fall into disuse, until now it is numbered among the things that were — all save a few stubborn survivors, like the two philosophers now caged and quarrelling in this very tale.

A jay's prophecy, and a bridegroom silenced

For perhaps the hundredth time that month the princess asked her jay, where, O jay, is there a husband worthy of me? And Madan-manjari, who had been saving up a lecture on feminine delicacy that a threat of salted supper quickly silenced, answered instead: Raja Ram of Bhogavati shall be your husband, princess — young, handsome, rich, generous, good-tempered, not too clever, and blessed with excellent health. And so, though she had never seen him, Chandravati began at once to love a man who, in his own palace, already loved her just as blindly. How can that be, father, asked young Dharma Dhwaj, I always thought that— but Vikram cut him off before the sentence could finish, bidding him not ask foolish questions, hoping thereby to blunt whatever mischief the Baital's earlier doctrine on unlike parents might still be working on the boy.

A wedding of feasts, fireworks, and a swift departure

Being both of princely stock and comfortable means, the young pair's courtship ran smooth as oiled silk. The Brahmans shuttled between the two courts, tilaks were marked, gifts exchanged, and at last Raja Ram rode in state to Magadh to claim his bride. The wedding, when it came, wanted for nothing — feasting and music, fireworks and lamps, scripture recited, songs sung, processions without end and noise enough to wake the gods. Yet hardly had the turmeric paste faded from the bride's hennaed hands and feet than the bridegroom, having lived only briefly under his new in-laws' roof, took his affectionate leave, gathered up the dowry and bridal gifts, and set out at once for his own country — Chandravati beside him, and, because she could not bear to leave her mother entirely behind, her beloved jay Madan-manjari riding along in a covered cage.

Two prophet-birds, and an idea for a second wedding

Along the road home, Chandravati told her new husband the curious way she had first learned his name from her jay, and he in turn described how the parrot Churaman had guided him to her. Then why, said the delighted young queen, do we not marry these two precious creatures to each other, by the informal rite of the Gandharva-lagana, and put them in one cage together? Why not, love, agreed the king, warmed as bridegrooms briefly are to every romantic notion; surely they cannot be happy in what the world calls single blessedness. And so, without troubling to ask the two parties most concerned, master and mistress had a large cage brought the moment they reached home, and popped both birds inside it together, quite pleased with their own matchmaking.

In the cage, a parrot's hopeful glance, a jay's cold shoulder

Churaman leaned his head to one side and gave the jay a look full of meaning. Madan-manjari lifted her beak, puffed disdainfully through it twice, and turned her face pointedly away. Perhaps, said the parrot at last, breaking the silence, you will tell me you have no desire to be married? Probably, said the jay. And why not? he asked. Because I don't choose, she said. Truly a feminine form of resolution, the parrot sniffed — a woman's reason, that is to say, no reason at all. Have you any objection to being more explicit? None whatever, retorted the jay, stung into plain speech by his rudeness. You he-things are every one of you sinful, treacherous, deceitful, selfish, without conscience, forever ready to sacrifice we, the weaker sex, to your smallest convenience.

A quarrel escalates into a wager of stories

And pray, Mistress Jay, the parrot snapped back, what are you she-things but treacherous, false, ignorant, and avaricious creatures whose only ambition is to keep life from ever being pleasant? This pet of thine grows impudent, said Raja Ram to his bride, amused; and Chandravati agreed that his own bird spoke its opinions rather too freely for comfort. I can prove what I say, the jay whispered fiercely in her mistress's ear. We can confound their feminine minds with a story, the parrot whispered back to his master. And so it was settled between the two birds that each would prove its case with a tale, and Chandravati, quick to claim the privilege for her own favourite, won precedence for the jay to speak first.

The jay begins: a beloved mistress, already mourned

I have told you often, O queen, began Madan-manjari, that before I came to your feet my mistress was Ratnawati, daughter of a rich trader — the dearest, the sweetest — here the jay broke off, weeping, and her mistress wept in sympathy before the bird composed herself enough to continue. In the city of Hapur, she said, there lived a wealthy merchant with no children, who spent his days fasting, going on pilgrimage, reading the Puranas, and giving alms to Brahmans in hope of a son. At last, by the favour of the Deity, a son was born, and the merchant celebrated with such pomp and such lavish gifts to bards and beggars alike that the whole city rejoiced with him — never once suspecting what manner of creature they were celebrating into being.

A monkey's face, a stork's legs, a camel's back

The boy was schooled properly from age five, sent later to a celebrated guru — and grew, in the fullness of time, into a wonder indeed: a face like a monkey's, legs like a stork's, and a back humped like a camel's. As the old proverb warns, expect thirty-two villainies from a lame man and eighty from a one-eyed one, but when the hunchback comes, cry Lord defend us. True to the saying, he skipped his lessons to gamble with idle wastrels, taught them to be as rotten-hearted as himself, and pursued every woman he saw despite his ugliness — succeeding, too, more often than the handsome youths who grew lazy and complacent in their beauty while he, forced by homeliness to work at charm, learned to make women forget his monkey's face entirely.

A midnight rite completes a young man's ruin

Not content with ordinary vice, the hunchback sought initiation as a Tantric, renouncing under an apostate Brahman's guidance every rite of his old faith. In the darkest hour of night, in the most secret room of the house, with eight men and eight women of every station gathered — a Brahman woman, a dancing girl, a weaver's daughter, a courtesan, a washerwoman, a barber's wife, a milkmaid, a landowner's daughter — he drank, was anointed, sat nude upon a corpse, and was taught to feel no shame, no aversion, no preference, no care for purity of caste, only to plunge without restraint into every pleasure of the senses, since indulgence, his teacher assured him, blunted passion as surely as any ascetic's austerity — and let him mock, from the very heart of temptation, the holy men who could only master themselves by fleeing into the forest.

A fortune gambled away, a city fled in shame

When his father died soon after, leaving him immense wealth, the hunchback set about blunting his passions so piously and so vigorously that within a few short years the entire fortune was gone. He turned then to his neighbours' goods, prospered awhile as a thief, and narrowly escaped the stake when caught red-handed. Let the gods perish, he cried at last, the rascals send me nothing but ill luck — and with that piece of blasphemous self-pity, he fled his own country under cover of night, leaving behind him nothing but debts, victims, and a reputation not even his own mother would have owned.

A shipwreck story, and tears that were entirely false

Chance carried the wretch to the city of Chandrapur, where he heard the name of Hemgupt, one of his own dead father's wealthiest trading correspondents. With his usual brazen nerve, he presented himself at the merchant's door in rags, gave his father's name, and wept — copiously, convincingly. I freighted a ship for trade, he told the astonished Hemgupt, sold my goods, and was homeward bound with a new cargo when a great storm wrecked the vessel; I escaped on a plank and have wandered here since, ashamed to show my ruined face in my own city, for my parents are both dead and buried, and everyone there will only mock my folly. Hemgupt, moved to pity by the tale of a dead friend's son fallen so low, rose and embraced him, and asked nothing more.

Trust given, patiently, to the worst possible man

My dear master was thoroughly deceived, said the jay bitterly. He gave the hunchback hospitality, then friendship, then his private confidence, and at last, satisfied with months of flawless conduct, made him a full partner in his business. The villain played the long game with masterful patience, never once betraying, in word or deed, the rot beneath his politeness — and all the while Hemgupt's household watched a model son-in-law-to-be grow more indispensable by the week, never guessing that every kindness shown him was simply more rope for their own hanging.

A father's worry becomes a demon's opportunity

Hemgupt, meanwhile, had a private anxiety: his daughter Ratnawati, thirteen or fourteen now, tall and womanly for her age, still unmarried, while the neighbours whispered louder each season about a father who kept so ripe a daughter waiting past the age nature and custom prescribed. And now, he told himself, while I sit quietly at home, the Deity removes my whole difficulty by sending this very opportunity to my door — it is not right to delay, whatever can be done today is best, for who knows what tomorrow brings. His wife, no less charmed by the hunchback's practiced piety, agreed at once, and between them they resolved, with genuine relief and no investigation whatsoever, to marry their daughter to the very serpent they had been warming in their own house.

The bride the whole family adored

Ah, what a beauty she was, cried the jay, worthy of a demigod's love — hair glossy and dark as a great bee's wing, her brow clear as agate, her lips shaming coral, her teeth two chaplets of pearl. Everyone who looked into her eyes wished only to look again; everyone who heard her voice longed to hear it once more. Her father adored her, her mother felt no shadow of jealousy toward her, her relatives doted, her friends found no fault in her at all. I could speak forever of her precious qualities, the jay said, and did not, weeping instead, and could only repeat, again and again, ah, my poor Ratnawati, my poor Ratnawati.

Obedience, and a slow surrender to disgust

When her parents told her of their decision, Ratnawati bowed her head and said only, it is well — for she was not one of those girls who resent whatever their elders command them to love. Only to her mother did she later admit she could barely look at her intended, so prodigious was his ugliness. But little by little his wit wore down her revulsion; she grew grateful for his devotion to her parents, admiring of his apparent piety, pitying of his invented misfortunes, until at last she had entirely forgotten his monkey's face, his stork's legs, his camel's hump, lost instead in quiet admiration of a mind that did not, in truth, exist at all.

Repugnance turns, unaccountably, into real love

She had vowed, before the wedding, to perform every wifely duty however distasteful — yet after the ceremony she found, to her own surprise, that she loved her husband outright, and loved him, the jay swore, all the more for his very repulsiveness. For repugnance, in the natural course of things, ripens into affection, and we cling hardest to what we once most disliked; and the very ugly man, feigning indifference to his own looks, will chase a heart all the harder knowing the heart will never chase him first. We women, the jay added, are pitiful by nature — a strange perversity, our enemies call it — and a widow will mourn a spiteful, shrunken little tyrant of a husband far longer than she'll mourn one who was brave and handsome and — either hold your tongue or finish your tale, snapped Vikram, whom these remarks had stung in some private, unhealed place. Hi hi hi, laughed the Baital, and obediently made the misanthropic jay proceed.

A hymn to love, and a parrot unimpressed

Yes, she loved him, the jay declared, and how wonderful is our love — a light from heaven raining happiness on this dull earth, a memory of bliss, a present delight, an earnest of felicity yet to come, an alchemy that turns hideousness beautiful, stupidity clever, age young, wickedness good, meanness magnanimous, and vulgarity piquant. Truly, cried the jay, our love is sovereign alchemy for blending every contradiction — and she shot a triumphant glance at the parrot, who merely remarked, mildly, that he might have wished for a touch more originality in the sentiment.

A tiger cannot become a lamb for long

For some months the household knew nothing but happiness. But the old saying holds true, said the jay grimly: never yet did the tiger become a lamb. The hunchback's blunted passions soon wanted blunting again, and he reasoned to himself that true wisdom lay in freedom from attachment to wife, children, and home. I have heard no word of my own family in years, he told Ratnawati, my heart is heavy for them; ask your mother's leave for me to travel to my own country, and come with me if you wish it. Ratnawati went to her mother at once, anxious only that her husband's request be granted without pain to him — never once suspecting that she was, in that very sentence, arranging her own murder.

Leave granted, gifts given, a tearful farewell

Hemgupt, unable to refuse another man's son his own wishes, gave his blessing along with great wealth, a palanquin, and a slave girl for his daughter's comfort. The parents wept bitterly at parting, their hearts, said the jay, like to break — and so was mine, watching them go, powerless to speak the warning no one would have believed from a bird's mouth in any case. Ratnawati left her childhood home in her husband's company, trusting him entirely, carrying with her every jewel her mother had ever given her, and not the faintest shadow of suspicion.

A husband's true calculation, mile by silent mile

For days the hunchback travelled beside his wife in heavy silence, turning a problem over in his mind. He could not bring her to his own city, where she would soon learn the truth of his character and the fraud he had played upon her father; nor did he want her wealth's inconvenient companion attached to it for a lifetime. Somewhere along that dusty road, walking beside the woman who loved him more than her own family, he settled at last on exactly how he meant to be rid of her.

Jewels surrendered, a slave girl murdered, a wife left for dead

Halting at a lonely shed deep in the jungle, the hunchback dismissed the palanquin-bearers and told his wife the place was dangerous — give me thy jewels, he said, I will hide them in my waist-shawl until we reach the city. Trusting him utterly, she handed over every ornament she owned. He then lured the slave girl into the forest depths and murdered her, leaving her body for the wild beasts, before returning to Ratnawati, coaxing her from the hut, and pushing her by main force into a dry well. Then, alone at last with his stolen fortune, he walked on toward his own city without so much as a backward glance.

A stranger's turban-rope pulls a bride from a well

A wayfaring man passing through that jungle heard, to his astonishment, the sound of a woman weeping, and traced it to the mouth of a dry well, where he saw her crouched at the bottom. Loosening his girdle-cloth and knotting it to his turban, he lowered the makeshift line and hauled the bride to safety. Asked how she had come to such a plight, Ratnawati — protecting, even now, the husband who had just tried to kill her — answered that robbers had waylaid them, murdered her slave girl, thrown her into the well, and carried her bound husband away with all her jewels. The stranger believed every word, and led her gently home.

A grieving household waits for a husband who tried to murder her

Hemgupt, hearing his daughter's tale, comforted her at once: have no fear, child, your husband lives, and thieves take men's money, not their lives; he will come to you in a few days, by the will of the Deity. Her parents showered her with ornaments finer than those she had lost, gathered relatives and friends to console her, and the whole house settled into anxious, loving vigil for a man who was, at that very hour, gambling away her jewels many miles distant and thinking of her not at all.

A fortune gambled away a second time

The wicked hunchback returned to his own city flush with stolen wealth and was welcomed back warmly, for wealth buys welcome anywhere. His old gambling companions flocked around him at once, and he fell into precisely the same ruinous habits that had beggared him before. Debauchery and dice soon emptied his purse a second time; his fair-weather friends, finding him penniless again, threw him back out into the street; he was caught stealing and flogged for it; and at last, half starved, he fled that city too, already scheming his next lie.

A murdered wife opens the door to greet him

I will tell them a grandson has been born, and I have come to offer congratulations, the hunchback decided, and made his way back to Hemgupt's house. Imagine his terror when, walking through the door, he found his supposedly dead wife standing before him. He thought at first he was seeing a ghost and turned to flee — but Ratnawati came to him instead, saying gently, husband, be not troubled; I told my father that thieves attacked us and carried you off; tell the same story, and put away all fear, for the house is thine and I am thy slave. Even the hardened wretch could scarcely hold back tears at such loyalty freely given to a man who had thrown her down a well.

Bathed, fed, and presented to the parents as a hero returned

She washed his feet with her own hands, had him bathed, dressed him in fresh clothes, set food before him, and when her parents came home she led him to their embrace, saying joyfully, rejoice with me, the robbers have let him come back to us at last. Hemgupt, deceived and delighted in equal measure, embraced his worthless son-in-law and bade him stay and be happy. And for two or three months the hunchback did exactly that, treating his wife with something almost resembling kindness — a peace, the jay noted bitterly, that never lasted longer than it took him to find a new gang of thieves to plot with.

A knife in the dark, and a house of murder

One night, when his wife lay beside him fast asleep, wearing every jewel she owned at his own request, the hunchback drove a knife into her until she died. He then let his waiting accomplices into the house, and together they murdered Hemgupt and his wife in their beds and carried off every valuable thing they could lay hands on. As the monster passed my cage on his way out, he looked in and weighed whether he had time to wring my neck too — only the sudden barking of a dog outside saved my life. But my mistress, my poor Ratnawati — the jay could say no more, and wept.

The jay's verdict: every man a serpent in disguise

Queen, said the jay when at last she could speak again, all this I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears, and it left me, even in my youth, sick of the company of the other sex — I have resolved, with due respect to your majesty, to live and die an old maid. What crime, tell me, had my poor mistress ever committed? A male is of the same disposition as a highway robber, and a woman who befriends one cradles a black and venomous snake against her own breast. Sir Parrot, she said, turning at last to her caged companion, I have spoken, and have nothing more to say but that you he-things are all a treacherous, wicked race, created solely to—

The parrot demands his own turn to speak

When a female says she has nothing more to say but, Churaman broke in loudly, I know she has merely paused to whet her tongue for what comes next; this person has surely spoken long enough and drearily enough. Tell me then, parrot, said Vikram, drawn despite himself into the birds' quarrel, what faults there may be in the other sex. I will relate, quoth Churaman, an occurrence from my own early youth that determined me to live and die a bachelor — and so saying, he began the tale of a merchant's daughter named Jayashri, whose story would prove, he promised, every bit as instructive as the jay's.

A young bird sold to a widower and his daughter

When I was quite young, before my own schooling had even begun, said Churaman, I was caught in the land of Malaya and sold to a rich merchant named Sagardati, a widower whose only child, the lady Jayashri, had far more liberty than most girls her age, since her father spent his every waking hour buried in his ledgers, scolding his clerks and never once glancing up to see what his daughter did with her freedom — and a mighty bad use, the parrot added darkly, she made of it.

On raising daughters, and a king who has heard enough

Men make two capital errors in rearing what I call the domestic calamity, the parrot lectured on: over-vigilance, which breeds resentment and drives a suspected girl to actual mischief since she suffers the penalties of badness without ever tasting its pleasures — and under-vigilance, which breeds idleness and delivers her straight into the hands of the wicked, who are always more industrious than the righteous. The wise parent instead studies the child's true nature and — all this parrot-prate, cried Vikram, is surely meant only to vex me; if thou must tell a tale, Vampire, then tell it, or be silent, for I am sick to death of thy psychics. It is well, warrior king, said the Baital mildly, and returned obediently to Jayashri herself.

Striking, not beautiful — and, the parrot insists, more dangerous for it

Jayashri was tall and strong-limbed, of heavy passions, her eyes fine but her eyelids somewhat too full, her voice deep enough at times to be mistaken for a man's. Altogether she was neither handsome nor plain, which the parrot called an excellent condition in a woman, since Sita herself was too lovely and was carried off by a demon for it, and Raja Bali too generous and emptied his own treasury for his generosity — exaggeration, even of good qualities, being exceedingly bad. And the plain woman, the parrot insisted, is generally the more dangerous, for she must tempt rather than be tempted, and yields because yielding, not resisting, feeds her vanity. What woman, broke in the jay contemptuously, cannot win some fool of a man's heart — is it not said the pig-faced woman of Landanpur has a lover too?

Half a dozen suitors, and a door shown to any who complained

Jayashri made a few conquests through her looks, more through sheer impudence, and most through her father's reputation for riches. She kept never fewer than half a dozen admirers at once, scheduling their visits so tightly that one had to be hurried out the back as another arrived at the front, and any lover foolish enough to grow jealous or criticize her arrangements was answered, instantly and unanswerably, by being shown the door.

An old love returns, blind to how much has changed

When Jayashri turned thirteen, Shridat, Gift of Fortune, the son of her father's old neighbour, came home after years abroad seeking his fortune. He had loved her since childhood, and returned with his heart painfully, sentimentally full of everything familiar, viewing even the crabbed old uncle and the family's ancient watchdog with melting affection. He could not see that his idol's nose had broadened, her lip grown coarser, her voice harsher, her manner rougher, or that she now admired nothing so much as a well-dressed swordsman on a fine horse — memory had made every changed thing enchanting to him precisely because it had once been dear.

A proposal offered, and answered with a cruel kindness

Having won her father's blessing, Shridat sought her hand, but Jayashri, who prided herself on choosing suitors without any parent's help, led him on through every coquetry she owned before refusing him outright, saying she liked him well enough as a friend but would only hate him as a husband. For a woman's regard, the parrot observed, comes in three states — love, hate, and indifference — and love is the weakest and most fleeting of the three, while hate, being love's sister passion, is easily turned, by a clever enough man, into something that outlasts love itself.

A demon's trap, and a king who refuses to answer

Which of these two birds, mighty King Vikram, had dipped deeper into human nature, the jay or the parrot? asked the Baital in his most wheedling tone. The trap was set far too openly this time even for so proud a king to fall into it. Vikram hurried on without a word, calling sharply to his son, and the Vampire, finding his silence unbroken, simply resumed the tale where he had left it — Shridat's despair on hearing his idol's refusal, wild enough that he thought of drowning himself, of leaping from the cliffs of Mount Girnar, of becoming a wandering beggar — before settling, once calmer, on the far duller and far more successful strategy of patience.

Patience rewarded — to Shridat's eventual sorrow

Six months later, for reasons known only to herself, Jayashri consented to marry the very man she had scorned, and Shridat was transported with joy, calling himself the happiest man alive, thanking the Bhagwan for hearing his prayers, remembering with a thrilling heart every anxious year of his exile, every hope and toil spent loving a woman who had never once truly loved him back. How vain are men to wish, sighed the parrot, and how wise the Deity, who is deaf to their wishes.

A hymn to love, then the demon's own cynical verdict

For truly he loved her, the parrot continued, and there is something holy in such love — an abnegation of self, a devotion solid and ardent, the merging of the merely human into something nobler. And now, Raja Vikram, said the Baital, dropping the parrot's voice for his own, I have given you their two accounts of the tender passion, but I accept neither. Love, to me, is a mania, a temporary theft of one's own identity, that lets a man praise in another what shame forbids him praise in himself — a spell that flatters man's pride and vanity under the disguise of selflessness, for who is not in heaven, prithee, when he is talking only of himself? The king endured this insufferable lecture on the handsome god as long as he could bear it, then seized the chattering bundle and shook it so hard the Vampire very nearly bit off the tip of his own tongue.

A wife's contempt for the husband who adores her

Jayashri conceived, almost the moment she was married, a fierce dislike for her devoted husband and an equally fierce longing for a reprobate who had never once looked her way. The more tenderly Shridat behaved, the more it irritated her; she turned up her nose at his gifts of dresses and jewels, called him fool under her breath, and spent her days on the balcony peering through the lattice for a glimpse of the man she actually wanted, complaining to her friends that her youth was passing and she had tasted none of the world's pleasures, tossing sleepless through every night, forgetting hunger and thirst alike in her restless scheming.

A midnight flight, and an unseen footpad following

Unable at last to bear the separation any longer, Jayashri resolved to fly to her lover. One night, believing her husband soundly asleep, she rose, dressed in her jewels, and slipped out into the dark alone to make her way to his house. A footpad, spying a jewel-laden woman walking unescorted at that hour, wondered where on earth she could be going, and followed her, silent and unseen, the whole way there.

A lover already dead, and a woman who does not notice

When Jayashri reached the house, she found her lover lying at the door, and thinking him merely drunk on hemp as was his custom, sat down, drew his head into her lap, and began to kiss his cheeks and caress him with wild affection. In truth he was already dead, stabbed by the very footpad who had trailed her through the night — a fact his grieving mistress, blinded by longing, never for one moment suspected as she pressed her lips against his cooling face.

A mischievous spirit in the fig tree takes his chance

Perched in a fig tree opposite the house sat a Pisach, an evil spirit fond of roosting in such trees, and watching the scene below, it struck him as a fine chance for mischief. He hopped down, slipped into the corpse, and began returning the woman's caresses in kind — but as Jayashri leaned down to kiss his lips, he seized the end of her nose between his teeth and bit it clean off, then slid out of the borrowed body and flew back up to his branch, well satisfied with his night's entertainment.

Blood on her face, a cold plan already forming

Jayashri did not lose her presence of mind for even a moment. Sitting down amid the wreckage of her own face, she calmly worked out exactly what she would say, then rose, dripping blood, and walked straight home to her husband's room, where she clapped a hand to her ruined nose and began to shriek and gnash her teeth so violently that the whole household, and soon the whole street, came running toward the sound.

Neighbours break down the door and condemn the wrong person

The bolted door was broken open, and lamplight showed the neighbours a mutilated, screaming wife on the floor and a bewildered husband standing helplessly over her, trying only to calm her. O shameless, pitiless wretch, the crowd cried at once, especially the women, why hast thou cut off her nose, she who never wronged thee — and not one of them paused, in their certainty, to ask a single question of the man they had already convicted.

Innocence offered as a defense, and refused

Poor Shridat understood at once the trick that had been played on him. One should put no confidence in a changeful mind, a black serpent, or an armed enemy, and one should above all dread a woman's doings, he thought bitterly, for what limit is there truly to a woman's guile — even the gods, it is said, know nothing of a woman's deeds. He could only weep and swear his innocence on the sacred basil, on his cattle, his grain, his gold, and every holy thing he knew, while the old merchant, Jayashri's father, ran to lodge his own furious complaint with the kotwal, whose men dragged Shridat away bound to face the king's judgment.

A nose, a denial, and a sentence of impalement

At court, Jayashri needed only point to her ruined face and ask why the king troubled to question something so plainly evident. Shridat, offered his chance to speak, said simply, I know nothing of it, and refused to confess even under threat, until the furious king cried, how must I punish such a wretch, and Shridat, resigned, answered only, whatever your majesty considers just, that be pleased to do. Away with him, and impale him, the king thundered, and the crowd began at once to obey.

A thief's conscience saves an innocent man

Before Shridat could be led away, the footpad who had watched every step of that night's events pushed through the crowd, unable to see an innocent man die in his place, and cried out for justice. I am a thief, Maharaj, he confessed boldly, and this man is innocent, and his blood is about to be shed unjustly; your majesty has not done right in this matter — and, charged to speak truthfully by his own faith, he laid out the whole affair exactly as it happened, quietly omitting only his own hand in the lover's murder.

A corpse's mouth reveals the whole truth

Go and look in the mouth of the woman's dead lover, the king ordered his messengers; if the nose is found there, this thief has spoken truly, and the husband is innocent. The severed nose was brought into court exactly as promised, and Shridat was spared the stake at the very last moment. Jayashri's face was smeared with oily soot, her head and eyebrows shaved bare, and thus disfigured she was mounted backward on a ragged little ass and led through every market and street of the city before being banished from it forever, while Shridat and the honest thief were sent off together with gifts of betel and rather more good advice than either of them still needed.

The parrot's proverbs, and a son's dangerous joke

Of such excellencies are women composed, the parrot concluded grimly, quoting proverb after proverb on woman's inborn treachery, on how the beauty of a nightingale is its song, but no one has ever found the true beauty of a woman, which is virtue — a walking pest, a two-legged plague, he called them, whose only purpose on earth is to keep men from ever being too happy. I was only thinking, sire, ventured young Dharma Dhwaj, what women would say of us if they too could compose Sanskrit verses — and Vikram, nettled that his own son should speak a word in favour of the sex, told him sharply to keep such thoughts to himself.

Two birds, two humans, and a quarrel no one can settle

With both tales told, the wrangling only grew fiercer. The jay insisted females were the very salt of the earth; the parrot went so far as to claim the opposite sex had no souls at all and brains barely out of the egg. Chandravati sharply reminded her husband's parrot that only those who keep company with the vicious and low think ill of women, and that he ought to be ashamed of insulting hen-parrots, since his own mother had been one — a point the Baital pronounced truly logical. Raja Ram, for his part, scolded the jay just as sternly, quoting the grammarian's rule that the masculine is ever the worthier gender, until Madan-manjari burst into tears declaring her life not worth having, and all four of them, two birds and two very young, very inexperienced humans, lost their tempers and every scrap of good sense along with them, no nearer settling the question than when they began.

The Baital turns from the birds to the king himself

How, asked the Baital, could four such quarrelsome, inexperienced minds ever hope to untangle so difficult a question as the relative wickedness of men and women? Had your majesty been present, the knot would long since have been cut by the keen edge of your wisdom and experience. Surely, mighty Vikram, you yourself have long ago made up your mind on the matter? Dharma Dhwaj, sensing danger, would gladly have kept his father from answering at all — but the boy had already been reprimanded twice in the course of this very tale, and thought it wisest now to hold his tongue and let events run their course.

Vikram's verdict, spoken plainly at last

Women, pronounced the Raja, oracular and unhesitating, are worse than we are. A man, however depraved he becomes, keeps somewhere within him some flicker of a notion of right and wrong; a woman keeps no such regard whatsoever, none at all. It was the one true answer the Baital had been fishing for through the whole long, tangled evening of birds and hunchbacks and murdered brides — and Vikram, proud of his own clear-sightedness, never once suspected he had just handed the demon exactly the weapon he needed.

One name, spoken with a demon's perfect cruelty

The beautiful Bangalah Rani, for instance? said the Baital, with a demonic sneer, naming the one old wound Vikram could never bear to hear spoken aloud, a name whose very utterance was, by the law of his own court, punishable by the cutting out of a tongue. Vikram's brain whirled instantly with rage. He staggered under the force of his own fury, and flinging out both hands to catch his fall, let the wrapped bundle slide clean off his shoulder and strike the ground.

Free of the cloth, the Baital bolts for his tree

In an instant the Baital had wriggled loose of the wrapping-cloth entirely and was off, laughing lustily at having finally goaded the silent king into speech, scrambling toward the distant siras tree as fast as his thin brown legs would carry him — for once a demon set loose from the corpse-cloth, however briefly, counts himself as good as home again among his own branches.

A tail seized just short of freedom

But his cunning availed him little. Vikram, puffing with fury, tore after him at the very top of his speed and caught the fleeing demon by the tail an arm's length short of the tree, hurling him backward to the ground with such force that the breath went out of him. Planting one foot squarely on the Baital's chest, the king shook out the wrapping-cloth, rolled the still-protesting demon up in it with brutal violence, bumped his back against the stony ground half a dozen times for good measure, and with a final vicious jerk swung him back onto his shoulder exactly as before.

A son catches up, and a new tale begins at once

Young Dharma Dhwaj, who had hung back in fear during the whole wild chase, caught up with his father only some minutes later, once the world had settled back into its normal order. And the Baital, who had endured the whole violent penalty for his impudence with perfect, maddening patience, needed no more than a moment to recover his breath before he began again, in the same honeyed, unbothered voice as ever: listen, O warrior king, whilst thy servant recounts unto thee another true tale — and so, with the night still young and the corpse once more slung silent on his shoulder, Vikram walked on.