A String Of Pearls

The Twelve Years

It had shaken her terribly.

(Part of her wondered if that did not mean that Draupadi herself would suffer as well, in the war for her vengeance. Because after all Yudhishtir was one of the biggest causes of her insult, in fact, he was the root of it. The rest of her husbands hadn't exactly done much protesting either.)

Duryodhan was projecting an all confident air, as if nothing could defeat him when he had the three greatest Maharathis on his side.

She had begged him to not be overconfident and he had said that Hastinapur's allies would respond when the time came.

Bhrata Karna as always took the matter of any possible war very seriously however, and scolded Duryodhan for his somewhat callous attitude.

Five years into the thirteen year period, he went on his Digvijay Yatra. He did four in total.

For the next three years, he was unstoppable. Mowing through enemies as if they were nothing, he conquered several Aryan Kingdoms in all four directions.

He amassed vast amounts of wealth and extracted promises and vows of help in case of a war, even from the smaller, seemingly insignificant kingdoms.

Though Bhanumati had regretted being married into the Kuruvansh a couple of times since that dreadful Incident, in that period she was truly glad she was part of it because her Kingdom Kalinga did not have to face Karna head on.

Vrushali di and their sons would worry about him(the latter also being in complete awe of him) and Duryodhan would assure them that nothing could harm Karna, while also desperately missing him.

Vrishasena, Shatrunjaya, Dvipata, Banasena and Prasena spent practically all of the three years in Hastinapur and Vrishaketu, the later two years.

Just because Bhrata Karna was gone, their training couldn't stop, and in Vrishaketu's case, it needed to start.

Vrishasena at twenty one, had brought them here immediately after Bhrata Karna had left and insisted that Duryodhan help him with their training. Duryodhan had immediately agreed and somehow, by hook or by crook, he had managed to get of all people, Pitamaha Bheeshma who so detested Karna, involved in a bit of their training till Karna returned.

Unlike the Kuru princes, they could not go to Brahmin Gurus, despite that fact that they were Princes and that too sons of a King because unfortunately, as much as the insults based on caste had mostly subsided since Bhrata Karna had become King of Anga and since the world truly saw his prowess, there were some matters where they continued to persist.

(Seeing them in Hastinapur only reminded Bhanumati of her own children more. Oh how terribly she missed them, but she knew that even if Duryodhan had not sent them off early, at this point in time, they would have still been in Gurukul and Kanyakul.)

When Bhrata Karna finally returned after three years, Pitashree Dhitarashtra exclaimed that no one, not even the revered Grandsire had ever brought in this much wealth.

Duryodhan immediately insisted on giving half of it to Karna. Karna protested, saying that he was a vassal of the Kingdom and that he had brought in the riches for Hastinapur, but Duryodhan countered that vassals were not asked to give up all their accomplishments to their liege-lords and demanded that Karna stop being ridiculous and generous and take half of what he himself had won.

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Bhanumati missed her children so terribly and now she could see that so did Duryodhana. She could not imagine how most royal mothers dealt with their children leaving for so long.