His phone started ringing. "Hello. . . Ramaiah, we have taken a holiday after many years, why can't you let us live in peace?. . . What! No, wait, we're coming."

A worried Durga asked, "What happened Rudra?"

"Do you know ASI Regional Director South Zone Abhilash?"

"I had heard about him from Appa. What has happened to him?"

"He is waiting in our office. He wants to speak with us, specifically you."

"Me? Why me?"

"Maybe Akshad Sir was a good friend of his. Just a vague possibility. We should leave immediately."

***

An old hoarse voice asked, "Ramaiah, have you informed them?"

"Yes Sir, they should be here in ten minutes."

"So this Durga, I have heard she is married second time. . ."

"Yes sir, that is true."

"So what happened to her first husband?"

"He was drunkard, narrow minded person and with the ego of getting satisfied by hitting his wife. You should know this that when he started irritating her after their divorce, she beat him blue and black. In fact she was about to send him to coma."

The Regional Director started sweating. "Rudra, her current husband, didn't he feel scared or something?"

"Scared? Nah, he fell in love with her after he saw her thrashing Indrajeet."

"Wow! What an interesting love story!"

Ramaiah gave a smile. He watched at the people sitting next to Abhilash. To his right was a lean man with thick mop of black and grey hair; he wore a pair of black rimmed spectacles, clean shaved face and had his eyebrows knitted together.

He was in furious discussion with his junior who was, unlike him, stout, clean shaved head with thick moustache and beard.

I wonder how these two cartoons are in Epigraphy branch. They just gave a polite namaste and sat off.

Rudra, dressed in plain white cotton shirt and black slacks, opened the door of the conference hall. He was followed by Durga, who had draped a red colour saree with minimal golden border. They folded their hands to a namaste and sat on the chairs.

The two 'cartoons' stood up. The lanky one introduced, "We two are from Epigraphy branch, Sanskrit and Dravidian inscriptions. I am Srihari Iyengar, Deputy Superintending Epigraphist Director and this is my junior, Mallanna Rao, Assistant Superintending Epigraphist."

Ramaiah hid his smile. Their posts are longer than their names. He caught Rudra giving a mischievous look to Durga who in turn was glaring at him.

Abhilash stood up and gave a small smile. "I am here to speak to you about the island, 'Sahasyabhumi'. From the official news statement issued by ASI, everyone is aware about the distorted canvas painting of 5×4 feet that has been discovered. It was of Queen Kanyaka."

Taking a brown colour file from Srihari, he jumped to the third page. He turned the opened file towards Rudra, who hadn't got the chance to see it. Durga and Ramaiah shared a quick glance.

"It is assumed that she was born in Sahasyabhumi but was buried elsewhere."

Rudra scratched his chin and asked, "How can you be sure about it, Sir?"

"This lady was born at the time when Devadasi Pratha and Bhaktism were at its peak. It's quite possible that she would have opposed either of them or both. If she was a good queen, there would be some memorial at the place of her burial like an tombstone inscription or veeragallu."

Durga asked, "You mean those memorial heroic stones?"

"That's a vague guess for there are such numerous stones in Karnataka. If she was a bad queen, there would have been big statues of her," Abhilash said, winking his eye to Durga. She was surprised but narrowed her eyes. He gulped remembering what Ramaiah had told. To change the topic, he quickly turned to next page.

"This is the picture of the bronze coin that was discovered."

SriharI continued, "The amazing fact is all the coins are of same size with same inscription and same denomination. We can safely assume that the denomination of the coin was of very high value, for royals and royal ministers. Unlike other developed kingdoms of that era, Sahasyabhumi could have been using barter system."

Ramaiah reacted, "Barter system?"

Mallanna answered, "Unless we come across other such coins, we can make a story out of the little evidences we have collected."

Durga, who was silent all this time, looked at the coin. What are those triangles? Why is one of them upright while other is inverted? Could it be something related to Bhaktism? Why didn't I get any dreams about it? What I saw was incoming Portuguese invasion. Why did Abhilash miss out that point? Should I tell him? No, Durga, let him tell and then you decide what to speak.

Rudra asked, "But this is a distorted image. In broader terms, we can say that these inscriptions are of some Dravidian language. Looking at the letters, it could probably be Kannada or Telugu."

"Out of all the severely damaged coins, we found this one to be one percent better than others. After consistently treating them with chemicals and referring to several Kannada scholars, we have decoded it to be this," Srihari said, turning to next page.

ರಾಣಿ ಕನ್ಯಾಕ

ಸಾಹಸ್ಯಭೂಮಿ ರಾಜ್ಯ

Durga read out, "Rani Kanyaka, Sahasyabhumi Rajya. So the coins belong to Queen Kanyaka. Why isn't there any king's name?"

Answering to Abhilash's suspicious look, she added, "Isn't it usually the king who rules? Patriarchy is centuries old concept, isn't it?"

Rudra asked, "What are these symbols depicting?"

Abhilash asked, "That's for you to think. Think in terms of separate triangles. What does upper triangle and lower triangle represent?"

*~*

Updating after a long time. I may not be able to reply to your comments because my studies, but I do read them in the emails I receive. The comments and votes are a boost to any writer. So if you like the chapter do vote and comment.

I was busy writing my other story 'Mahishi'. Hopefully, I am planning to update Kanyaka at least twice in a month until my college and University doesn't conduct many tests and assignment submissions.

Thank you for reading!