Manimekalai, the beloved daughter of Sambuvarayar, was a lively and cheerful girl who ruled the palace like a little tyrant. Whatever she said became law. Until a few months earlier, her life had passed in song, dance, play, and laughter.
Then the elders began insisting she do something against her wishes.
For the past two or three years, whenever Kandanmaran returned from the battlefield, he would sing the praises of his friend Vallavarayan Vandiyathevan — his bravery, his cleverness, his looks. Manmatha in beauty, Arjuna in valor, Krishna in resourcefulness.
"He is the right husband for you," Kandanmaran would say. "He alone can control your mischief."
Manimekalai loved hearing this, though outwardly she would quarrel with her brother about it. Vandiyathevan began to engulf her thoughts — she imagined speaking to him, laughing with him, making peace with him after quarrels. She spent a great deal of time in this world.
Then, about four months ago, Kandanmaran changed his tone entirely.
"Forget that orphan boy who has neither house, nor position, nor rank," he said. He spoke of seating her on the throne of Thanjavur instead — they were planning to marry her to Madhurantakan, who would soon become emperor. Her parents agreed.
Manimekalai hated the idea. Madhurantakan had no courage, had never seen a battlefield, and until recently he had smeared himself with sacred ash, speaking of becoming a holy man. He already had a wife. And the women of the Thanjavur palace, she felt, were arrogant and looked down on everyone else.
Then came news that hardened her resolve further. When Periya Pazhuvettarayar had last visited Kadambur, everyone had assumed the younger queen Nandini was with him in the covered palanquin. The truth slowly came out — it was not Nandini at all, but Madhurantakan, hiding in a closed palanquin dressed as a woman.
"Am I to marry a man who travels in fear, disguised as a woman? Never!"
At that same visit, Vandiyathevan had also come to the palace and briefly entered the women's quarters. An overwhelming shyness came over Manimekalai and she stood behind the other women, unable to look at him properly. Even so, the half-glimpsed face and the few words he spoke stayed fixed in her memory.
She told Kandanmaran plainly that her heart had gone to Vandiyathevan. He showed her the knife wound on his back.
"Vandiyathevan is not my friend. He is my worst enemy. He tried to kill me. If you attempt to marry him, I will kill both of you."
He said he had survived only because of Nandini's care. "If you have even a little trust in me, forget Vandiyathevan."
Manimekalai's mind changed. She tried to forget him. But his smiling face kept returning, in daydreams and in sleep.
For several months she lost her natural cheerfulness. Then she heard that the plan to marry her to Madhurantakan had been abandoned. The latest talk was of Aditya Karikalan — the crown prince, the man every princess in Bharata dreamed of. And Pazhuvettarayar was bringing Nandini too. Kandanmaran told her it was Nandini who had proposed this new match, and that Manimekalai should personally attend to the queen during her stay.
She threw herself into the preparations — driving the servants mercilessly, rearranging Nandini's room again and again, inspecting the quarters set aside for Aditya Karikalan and his companions. Someone named Parthibendran was coming with him. She wondered idly about him. After all, Vandiyathevan too had once belonged to that circle. If only he had not betrayed her brother's friendship.
However busy she kept herself, she could not completely forget him.
The queen of Pazhuvur was expected that very night. Manimekalai stood before the large mirror fixed along the wall of Nandini's room, studying her own face. She decided, to her satisfaction, that she was in no way lacking in beauty.
Just as she stepped away, another face appeared in the mirror — so close that their cheeks almost brushed against each other. The face of the Vaanar clan warrior who had tormented her dreams.
A small cry escaped her lips.
The next instant, only her own face remained. The other had disappeared.