As the sun began to sink faster and lower in the western sky, Paavai hurried home, all her thoughts of spending her time looking around her village forgotten. Her father and she had to reach the tower before the sun set so that they could relieve the day guard who would then go home for the night, leaving them in-charge of the tower. The guard duty was for only one person from a family, and it was usually the men in the family who took turns for the night duty. But Paavai had insisted that she would accompany Sembuli each time and Sembuli too had found it of little account to protest or prevent her. He would find it almost impossible to climb the tall ladder anyway. And they had set up a system from the very first day. As Sembuli could not climb to the top, Paavai would go up and be the lookout while Sembuli would stand guard at the base of the tower. It had worked with no problems so far.

Sembuli was waiting for her when she got home. She hurriedly washed up and had her dinner. No one was allowed to take food to the tower as eating on duty would make the guard sleepy. Nothing like hunger to keep one awake. Only water was allowed to be taken. Paavai took the heavy cotton shawl that she always took with her. It would get surprisingly cold late into the night and early in the morning. Her staff was ready and her father already had his usual things that he took along with him. Paavai hugged her mother close and then walked out with her father. This might perhaps be the last guard duty she would be on in Natraazhi, she knew.

Father and daughter walked silently as they always did and reached the tower just as the sky was beginning to lose its golden glow. The day-duty man was already waiting for them at the base of the tower, having seen them coming from the top. He informed them that the oil was full and that the rope to the bell was strong and that the flint stones were dry. He also gave the bronze chain that had been hanging around his neck to Sembuli. As the tower had no doors and therefore no key to be handed over, the village had decided on this as the symbolic representation that denoted the handing over of the duty to the next guard. Sembuli took the chain and wore it around his neck, acknowledging the change of guard and accepting the responsibility.

Paavai sat on the first rung of the ladder leading up the tower and nodded at her father. Sembuli nodded back and started his inspection around the base of the tower. They had been later than usual and so it had become darker. Sembuli took slightly longer steps to cover the rotation around the base and inspected that there was nothing that was not supposed to be there. The light had become very faint by the time he came back to his starting place. He then nodded to Paavai signaling that everything was fine around the base and that she should go up to take her position on top of the tower. Paavai nodded and started to climb up. She had already tied the cotton shawl as a waist band and had tucked her staff into it at an angle so that it wouldn’t hinder her climbing.  

It had become completely dark by the time Paavai climbed the last rung of the tall ladder by the side of the tower and reached up. A waist-high parapet bamboo railing served as the guide and the protection against falling off from the top. She took a step to her right in the darkness, reaching out to hold the parapet and stood still for a few moments, letting her eyes get used to the dark. She then removed her staff and placed it by her side, within hand’s reach. She removed her waist band and placed it across her shoulders for she knew that she would begin to feel cold once the sweat from the climb cooled off. As her night vision settled, she moved around and checked the tower, to make sure that everything was in its place. She checked the oil, the rope to the bell and the flint stones and having been assured that they were all as they should be, she looked over the side of the parapet and gave a low whistle to her father to indicate that everything was all right. Sembuli whistled back to acknowledge her. This would be their only form of communication throughout the night. That had been their self-imposed rule.

Sembuli settled down to his routine below. He would take periodic rounds around the tower, as much as to keep moving and not fall asleep as to keep watch. Paavai had her own routine upstairs. Sembuli had drilled into her that she should be doubly vigilant up there as he would be down below. He had established a routine for her to follow so that she would have something to do and to keep herself alert and awake. The night could be very long especially when you were determined not to fall asleep.

The night was a dark one. The stars seemed fainter than usual and the moon was not up yet. The night guards were prohibited from having a light, for three reasons, the primary one being to prevent an accidental lighting of the oil cauldron. Having a huge cauldron brimming with oil and having a lit fire, concealed or otherwise, in its vicinity was not an idea anyone wanted to even entertain. Also, a light of any sort would not only utterly and completely destroy the guard’s night vision that was so very essential to detect an incoming attack but also the faint glow would give away the position of the tower to the would-be attackers.

Anyway the need for a light would not be felt once the moon was up. Those who had duty on new moon days and on rainy nights were the ones who had the most difficulty. Even on clear new moon nights the starlight would be enough to have an adequate night vision. But it was the rainy nights that were the worst. On those days usually two of the villagers came to the tower for night duty.

Paavai took a walk along the parapet, looking intently in all directions. It was a little lighter up there than down by the base of the tower. She came to the place that looked out directly on to the approach from where an attack, if any, would come. She stood silent, her breathing steady, and watched. ‘What sort of people found it all right to attack at night?’ a thought flashed across. There was an established, accepted and practiced code of conduct, even for war, especially for war. But a group of people had come up who found it unnecessary to follow this code, trampling with impunity all over it and making a mockery of the people and their nation that did. And that was why they found it all right to use poisoned arrows in combat, to attack at night, to poison water sources and to use poisoned arrows on animals to make them run amok among civilian population. ‘Perhaps’, thought Paavai, ‘this is what made our king Raja Raja to destroy Kaanthazhoor Saalai, where not only such training was being given but also propagated that it was acceptable, even preferable, to attack using such methods’. ‘Adult wars spilling on to children’s lives’, she thought with a sigh. ‘What were children to do?’ she thought. ‘Stand guard at night, that’s what’, she answered herself and sighed again. She seemed to be sighing a lot in the past few days, she thought again.

Paavai shook herself and looked at the sky. The fifth day after new moon brought up a sliver of moon that provided a little light. The sky was mottled with clouds, casting deep shadows on the landscape. Paavai stretched and did her training exercises and settled into her guard duty routine. Time went by and though Paavai didn’t hear any sound from below, she knew that her father was down there, doing and following his own routine. When the moon was almost overhead, Paavai felt the need to relieve herself. It was impossible to spend an entire night, from sunset to sunrise, without having the need to do so.

Paavai whistled softly to let her father know that she was coming down. Sembuli whistled back to acknowledge her. Paavai then took the cotton shawl and tied it around her head tightly so that her hair would not get caught in the bushes. She came down the ladder nimbly and with a slight nod to her father, walked around the curve of the base, found a safe place and took a few steps into the bushes. She came out after a few minutes and walked back and rounded the curve of the base and froze on the spot.

Her father Sembuli was lying on the ground and a man, with his face covered up, was standing over him with a raised sword. Paavai shrank back behind the curve of the base and crouched down, hiding herself deeper in the shadow of the tower. The man’s voice carried clearly in the silence of the night, “So much for your guard tower”, he said and plunged the sword into the chest of Sembuli. As he did, more and more figures, with their faces covered, emerged out of the shadows and joined the man who had killed her father. Two of them came towards him and they spoke in low whispers. And then the two turned and signaled to the others who immediately fell into rough columns and started moving.

The ground seemed to open up and swallow Paavai. She watched and counted the columns and the number of men in each column. There were a hundred and twenty men apart from the three who had spoken together a few moments ago. Paavai watched with growing horror as she saw each of them carrying not only swords but also bow and arrows. Steel glinted from their waistbands indicating that they also had daggers stuck into them.

The initial shock began to wear off as Paavai’s brain started thinking. She knew that the group of attackers were going towards her village. It would take them at least a naazhigai[1] to reach her village. All she had to do was wait till the last of them was out of sight, then climb up to the tower and ring the bell and light the fire. It may or may not be enough time to warn Natraazhi, but it would surely be enough time to warn the army base. So Paavai lay in wait, pressing herself to the ground, willing her body to meld into the shadows, afraid to move or make the slightest sound. Her father’s killer watched his men move and advance and swiveled his head around. ‘How did father get attacked?’ thought Paavai as she watched the man. She had not heard even a whimper of a sound. ‘How did they know when and where to attack?’ she thought again. ‘How did they slip through?’ she asked herself. She had neither seen nor heard anything, not even the slightest rustle. Even if she had missed, her father would not have, could not have missed such a big group of men making their way over to attacking distance. Had they come in during the day itself? If they had, that meant that the day guard had not done his job at all or worse still, he was in collusion with them. ‘No, that’s not possible’, her mind dismissed. ‘They could not have come during the day’, she decided. If they had they would have seen the change of guard and would have known about her presence too. They would have hunted for her and killed her too. ‘No’, she decided, ‘they must have come in only under the cover of darkness’. ‘Are they that good or are we that bad? Or did they use dark arts as they were rumored to do so?’ The thought chilled her to her bones and she shivered involuntarily. Her racing mind went off in a million directions with a million questions as she watched the last man turn around and start walking towards her village.

Paavai watched with a ragged breath as the man started off in a slow walk and then turned it into an easy loping run. Paavai knew she couldn’t wait any longer. The speed of his run showed her that the group of attackers would reach her village any moment. She had to go up the tower now, if she had to give her village even a semblance of a chance to protect itself.

Paavai got up slowly into a crouching position, making sure that her movements were languid for she knew that the man whose back was still visible to her under the faint moonlight, would be able to somehow sense any sudden movement making him turn around. She crawled around the curve of the base and reached the ladder under which her father lay. She could not mourn him then. She would have time for that later, if at all. If she stopped to mourn him now, she may have to mourn her whole village in the morning. She grit her teeth and averted her gaze from the fallen figure and started climbing up. She climbed the first few rungs slowly and then bounded up faster. And as she did, her skirt got caught on a jagged edge of a broken bamboo and tore with a ripping sound. That noise that didn’t belong to the sounds of the night, got carried by the wind through the silence of the dark and reached the man who had almost gone out of sight of Paavai.

Paavai froze on the ladder midway and the man froze on the spot midstride. They both had their backs to each other and now they turned in unison, Paavai looking at him from her vantage point up on the ladder and the man looking at her from down below on the trail to her village. At that exact moment, the thin moon broke through the clouds and illuminated the young girl hanging on the side of the tower to the man who stiffened in shock. Paavai turned and clambered up, her long legs trying to take the rungs two at a time. The man hurriedly pulled his bow from his back, put an arrow to it, took aim and shot it.

The man watched the arrow find its mark. He watched as the figure on the ladder froze for an instant and then fell backwards. The thud of the slender body hitting the ground from a height carried across to him in the silence. He stood still, waiting and watching to see if there was any movement from the fallen figure, his brain kicking himself for not thinking about the presence of the guard at the base of the tower instead of the top which meant that there was another person with him. He was the leader of the attackers and it was his job to think of all these things. He would not repeat the mistake, he knew. He waited for a few more moments to make sure the fallen figure of the young girl remained fallen. If the arrow hadn’t done its job, then the fall would, he knew but waited anyway. He didn’t want any more surprises. Had he the time he would have gone back to personally check and make sure of that but he didn’t have the time. So he turned and left, running faster to join his men who had already reached the village of Natraazhi.

[1] One naazhigai = 24 minutes