Years earlier a merchant from Lahore had come to the island of Sangladeep and said a name out loud, and King Shivnabh had been waiting ever since.
He had never seen Guru Nanak Dev Ji. He had only heard the name and been struck by it, and now his whole kingdom knew their king was waiting for a man who might arrive any day, on foot.
The learned men of his court did not care for it.
One pandit in particular argued with him about it constantly. Are you giving up the old ways then, he would say. Are you saying the old books are wrong.
I have not said anything of the kind, said the king, wearily. I have not gone in for arguing or hating or scoring points. Something has taken hold of me. That is all. My religion now is love, and I love everybody, including you.
You will throw out the old worship, said the pandit.
Nobody is throwing out anything, said the king. Everybody may keep their own way. What I will do is for Guru Nanak Dev Ji to say when he comes.
And he added, quietly: if I could open my heart and show you what is inside it, you would be glad. But if I opened it, all you would see is blood.
One evening, after a long day of this arguing, a servant came running.
Your Majesty. A holy man has arrived in the old garden. He says he is the one you have been waiting for.
The king did not send for a horse. He did not send for his palanquin. He did not wait for anybody. He simply got up and went, half running, out of his own palace, and his queen came behind as fast as she could and could not keep up with him.
In the garden a man was sitting in orange robes.
And the king went straight down on the ground at his feet, weeping, and put his forehead on them.
The man put a hand on his head and asked politely how he was.
And the king sat up, and something in him did not fit.
He sat there thinking: Mansukh Ji told me my Guru is a family man. This man says he is a recluse. He does not live in houses.
Am I being fooled, he thought. Because everybody knows how much I want this.
He bowed anyway. He gave orders that the visitor be looked after. And then he went home, and lay awake all night turning it over.
Beside him the queen, whose name was Chandrakala, finally said: my dear, I have told you again and again not to argue with that pandit.
You spend your days ruling and your nights saying the Name. Your heart is soft. Then you sit down with a hard man who only wants to win, and it leaves a mark on you, and off you went tonight without stopping to think.
Then she said the thing he needed to hear.
That is not him.
He has none of it about him, she said. None of what Mansukh Ji had. When I watch you love your Guru from a distance I feel glad. When I went near that man in the garden I felt the opposite.
You are right, said the king. My mind was already muddied by all that arguing. I could not tell.
So she made enquiries, and by morning she had her answer, and the man in the garden was not a holy man at all.
And the king said something that showed what sort of king he was.
I would have run out and fallen at his feet with nothing in my heart but gladness, he said. Now, when he comes, there will be a small cold question sitting there, and I will hold back and check.
The fault is mine, and I will be putting him on trial for it.
But Chandrakala would not have that.
No, she said. He is made of love. He will come because he chooses to, and he will know exactly what happened to you, and he will forgive it before you have finished apologising.
And the king thought about that, and found she was right, and slept.
Goodnight. Waiting is hard, and being disappointed while you wait is harder, and he went on waiting anyway, and he was right to.