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Karna kept his peace and held his tongue in Duryodhana's chariot, the more so for he had nothing kind to say. He was yet seething with rage at Arjuna's affronted glares and Bhima's mocking rejection, his inability to return Arjuna's sullen insults in kind, and Karna did not wish to repay Duryodhana's kindness and generosity and the offer of his love with bitter words. This did not, though, go as unnoticed as he might have wished.
"You are quiet, Karna," the man beside him made comment when many moments passed and he still said nothing. "What troubles you?"
Karna tried not to appear ungrateful, to keep his anger to himself and turn a smiling countenance toward his new friend. "Nothing troubles me, my friend. I am crowned the King of Anga with all due rights and privileges and ceremonies by your generosity, and I have all the love that I asked of you. What should trouble me further?"
Duryodhana frowned. "You have only half of what you have demanded and are rightly owed, and I regret that I was not able to reward your valour and your skill with the other. But repay me in kind for the kindness I have shown you of free will and gladly, tell me honestly what troubles you."
Shamed by Duryodhana's generosity, Karna did admit his consternation. "I have been humiliated by princes who have no more skill than I, ridiculed for no fault of my own but a chance of my birth. My parents are honorable people whose failing is nothing but that they labor for others. You are the only one who takes me on my own merits."
By this time they had passed beyond the camps of the Pandavas and ragged cheers of acclaim and admiration were beginning to surround the chariot. Duryodhana acknowledged the praise with gracious nods as he listened to his friend speak of the chagrin he had felt at Kripa's words, the shame and fury at Bhima's laughter when the prince had heard of Karna's lineage and told him to take up the driving whip and the charioteer's robes instead.
"Your skills as a warrior would be wasted in confining yourself only to driving a chariot," Duryodhana assured him. "And those who cannot see merits plainly demonstrated are fools who would squander the wealth they have been given or refuse any treasure they were offered. They are not worthy of your talents."
Thus soothed, Karna relaxed and allowed himself to enjoy the evening as they reached the encampment and sat to the evening meal in Duryodhana's tent. Though he was at first apprehensive of going among strangers after the tantrums of Arjuna and the laughter of Bhima, he quickly came to discover that Duryodhana's warriors took their behaviors from their leader. There were many who approached him to hear stories of the contest of arms between himself and Arjuna, and no few of them praised his skill.
No few of them, too, were men of birth hardly more noble than his own, as he discovered when the subject of insults and rights of combat came into the conversation. Duryodhana had spoken of the merits of all, regardless of rights of birth, but it was another thing entirely to see that belief put into practice as he watched warriors spar with warriors and could not tell which among them had spoken to him of farming or herding and which among them were raised to riches and responsibility.
"You see," Duryodhana told him, when the fires had died down and most of the men were in their beds or trading stories around banked coals. "It is as I said. There are many who have the worth of princes and lack only a few names of significance in their bloodline."
Karna shook his head. "It is only the truth. I have no born riches, no manners trained from childhood, no land or wealth or title to my name. I am not of their caste and I cannot claim any gloried heritage. I am not a match for any of the Pandavas, even the loud-mouthed Bhima, in that."
At this Duryodhana's face clouded with consternation, and he gripped his friend by the shoulder. "But only in that, and nothing else. If one man may wield a heavy sword or carry a fallen comrade from the field of battle, does it matter to those whose lives he has then saved what his bloodline is? If a man lives a life of valour and duty, does it matter who his father is?"
"It mattered to Kripa," Karna pointed out, keeping other words behind his teeth in deference to the prince's advisor. "When he forbade me to engage Arjuna in combat because my father was Adhiratha the charioteer. And Kripa is your friend. It mattered to the Pandavas."
"But it did not matter to me." Duryodhana clasped his friend's hands in his own and leaned forward to speak in earnest. "I named you King of Anga because I believed you are a good and just man. Because I see the worth in you that you do not see in yourself. See yourself through my eyes, not those of the Pandavas, and believe that you are just as great a warrior as they in every aspect of your being."
Duryodhana was so earnest and so forceful that Karna saw that he believed what he said, and moreover it was useless to argue. He bowed his head before his friend's words and allowed himself to remove the barbs of the Pandavas' words. There was one, at least, among princes who he was, and not who his father or his father's fathers were. One who saw him as an equal and did not scruple to fight beside him or duel against him, whichever might be required by the circumstance. One who had seen fit to gift him with a kingdom of his own solely that he, Karna, a charioteer's son, might accomplish a duel at least partly of spite and revenge.
One who showed him in his actions, as well as in his words, that he could be as great and desired a companion as the prince could ever ask for.