When Ketut, or Dargan as she now was, rose from the cushion and strode out onto the floor, all the other dancers made way for her, and Jun felt something very close to terror.
Dargan prowled across the front of the space, her feet stamping, her long-clawed hands moving rhythmically, the merest whisper of flame on her lips. But she harmed no one. The dancers revolved around her, worshipping her, their movements in time with and echoing hers in a wondrous symmetry. Jun tensed for violence—he aimed to resist her will with all his might; he would fight her, kill her if necessary with his bare hands—but Dargan seemed oblivious to his presence. The ceremony continued and slowly, slowly, Jun began to relax. He breathed deeply of the obat fumes; he let the music vibrate soothingly in his chest and, before he knew it, the ceremony was coming to an end. The python-man collapsed, writhing sinuously on the floor, and was carried away by two assistants to be revived. The dancers left the floor one by one and soon there was only Dargan, both arms raised, her body swaying, her monstrous red-black eyes surveying the appreciatively humming crowd of worshippers. And then she was shrinking, diminishing, deflating, folding in on herself and a moment later only little Ketut stood there, alone in that sacred space, running with fresh sweat but quite ordinary once again, a scrawny Dewa fisher girl, now completely spent.
* * *
• • •
“May I introduce you to His Excellency Xi Gung, one of Singarasam’s foremost merchants and moneylenders, a man of great influence across the Laut Besar, and a stalwart of the temple community here,” said the Patriarch. “Without his generosity our little fellowship of faith would be in dire straits, oh yes indeed. Why, this summer he financed a whole new wing of the temple’s Foundling House . . .”
Jun found himself shaking hands with a very plump little Han with a wide, beaming, slightly sweaty face dressed in a long sea-green silk robe, obviously very expensive but which was far too tight around his ample waist. His long black hair was tied in a greasy-looking, skinny queue and was draped over his right shoulder and chest. Jun found himself muttering something about being honored to meet him and privately wondering how long this little party in the gold-bedecked back room behind the temple space must be endured.
He had already met about twenty “stalwarts of the temple” and mouthed simple pleasantries and made small talk with all of them and now he was wondering when the subject of the Khodam and how they were to recover it would be raised. He wanted to ask the Patriarch but the old man had drifted away and was talking to the python-fellow, now recovered and his face glowing with post-trance bliss.
“It is I, indeed, who is more honored by our meeting,” said the funny little fat man who was still pumping his right hand enthusiastically. “I gather from our mutual friend Ratna Setiawan that you are the rightful heir of the Son of Heaven on the Island of Taman—a Wukarta of pure blood—what a tremendous honor indeed!”
Jun coolly admitted that he was, and wondered when this greasy little tradesman was going to let go of his hand.
“Such a beautiful little island,” said the man, at last releasing his grip. Jun had to stifle the urge to wipe his moist palm on the tail of his long shirt. “I often visited Taman in my youth—for both business and pleasure. I had the honor of meeting your father, once, on a rice-buying trip, oh, it must have been all of ten years ago.”
Jun looked at the fellow more closely. He must indeed be a person of wealth and influence if his father had condescended to meet him. Hundreds of merchants visited Taman every year and not one had ever been brought into the presence of the Son of Heaven to the best of Jun’s recollection.
“I was so sorry to hear of his demise,” said Xi Gung. “May Lord Vharkash set a place for him at His right hand at the eternally renewing banquet in Heaven.”
“Thank you,” said Jun.
“I understand that you mean to punish his murderers and are here in Singarasam to recover the ancestral heirloom that was stolen from him—a sacred kris. Is that correct?”
Jun was quite taken aback by this sudden change from platitudes to matters of the utmost importance, in fact, of the utmost secrecy. He was not sure how to reply—so chose to tell the truth. This funny little man was obviously trusted by the Patriarch.
“Yes, the Khodam—the Kris of Wukarta Khodam, we call it at home. The Lord of the Islands has it on display in the First House, or so I am told.”
“Yes, that is very like our own dear Ongkara; he loves to show off his treasures. Even if they are blatantly stolen from their rightful owners.”
Jun could think of nothing to say.
“Let me assure you, Prince Arjun, that the resources of my humble House stand behind you. Should you require a loan, perhaps, or any other small service that I might be able to afford you, please rely on me. I am at your service. Ongkara has become far too high-handed of late and it is time that his wings were clipped, in my opinion.”
“Thank you, sir. You are most generous. I shall . . . I shall certainly bear your kind offer in mind.”
“There is one small thing that I would like to ask you, if I may,” said Xi Gung.
“Yes?”
“I am told that you traveled from Yawa to Istana Kush in a ship called the Mongoose with a fellow known as Farhan Madani. Is that true?”
“It is. We did.”
“And do you by any chance know where Lord Madani might be at this moment. Is he back in Singarasam, perhaps?”
“Erm, I don’t think so. We left him in Istana. As far as I know, he is still there.”
“And yet my friends tell me that Istana is now under attack by forces of the Celestial Republic.” The little man’s eyes had hardened. Suddenly to Jun his soft, fleshy body seemed to be made of stone, a granite boulder in a green silk gown.
“I believe it is so. As we left you could hear the guns firing from the Red Fort.”
“Yet Lord Madani is not a man made for the battlefield, I think,” Xi Gung continued. “I merely wondered whether he traveled here with you.”
“No, no, he was still there, as I say, when we left.”
“Ah, poor fellow. I do hope no harm comes to him. We are old friends. I would hate for anything to happen to him if Istana Kush were to fall. Perhaps, if you were ever to see him again, here in Singarasam, or . . . well, anywhere, perhaps you would be kind enough to give him my regards and tell him that I have not forgotten our old relationship.”
“Certainly, but I doubt I will be seeing him anytime soon.”
“Nevertheless. And once again let me say what an honor it is to have met you, Prince Arjun, and please do not hesitate to call on me if I can be of any service to you.”
Xi Gung gave him a little bow and then wandered away into the crowd, leaving Jun feeling bewildered by the swift turn in the conversation but also rather pleased by the brief encounter. It was wonderful to be called Prince Arjun again. And a loan might be very useful since he had almost no money and no prospects of getting any till he returned home. The fat little fellow was obviously a person of consequence and considerable wealth who might make a powerful ally in this city of strangers.
Jun went over to a side table and helped himself to a honey cake and a cup of palm wine. As he was eating and drinking, he looked about the throng to locate his friends. On the far side of the room, seated on an ornately carved wooden bench, Ketut was wrapped in an old blanket, looking pale and withdrawn. Tenga sat beside her glowering at anyone who came too close. Yet people were approaching, coming up one by one to stand in front of Ketut, saying a few words and then bowing very low, as if in the presence of high royalty. Some even went so far as to lay little offerings at her feet, a coin or two, a bunch of flowers tied up with a burning incense stick, a bowl of peeled fruit. It looked almost as if they were worshipping her. Sometimes Ketut would say a few words to the person who approached her, but most of the time, she remained silent, huddled in her blanket. T
enga would shoo away any who lingered too long.
Closer to him, Jun could see Semar in deep conversation with the Patriarch and his new friend Xi Gung, who was gesticulating animatedly. They saw him watching them and Semar beckoned and smiled. Xi Gung nodded at him and slipped away.
When Jun approached them, the Patriarch seized his hand. “My boy, I congratulate you, you have made an excellent first impression on Xi Gung—which is good because he would indeed make a powerful friend. Indeed, he has this minute pledged to help us in the task at hand: the recovery of the Khodam from the First House.”
Semar was beaming at him, too. “We have other news, too, gathered from several of Ratna’s friends. Tomorrow evening the Lord of the Islands will not be present in the First House,” Semar said. “Ongkara has convened a gathering in the Harbormaster’s House in the eastern side of Singarasam, where he will be addressing the sea captains of his pirate fleet who are now assembled there. Some sort of meeting to rally his troops against the Celestial Republic, I believe. A large squad of his Jath guards will accompany him to the gathering—as will the sorcerer Mangku. This is our chance!”
Jun gulped. “Really?”
“Absolutely, my prince. I have arranged with our new merchant friend Xi Gung that the scimitar-men who remain in the First House be invited to a nearby house of carnal pleasure in their master’s absence, where they will be entertained by some of Singarasam’s most beautiful and immoral young ladies—this all at our friend Xi Gung’s personal expense, Jun. You must remember that. Our Han friend has also arranged for Ongkara’s many concubines to be summoned to a boat party on one of his larger pleasure vessels in the afternoon—a short cruise with entertainments, which will not return till long after dark.”
Jun nodded and smiled vaguely. He could think of nothing useful to say.
“So, it seems that the First House will be largely empty after dusk tomorrow evening,” Semar continued blithely. “Everything has been organized, my prince. To the last detail. Our friend Xi even has a man in the House, a spy, it seems, a servant of the Lord of the Islands. This fellow—apparently he owes the House of Xi a huge sum—can be induced to open a private side door and then turn a blind eye to our activities once inside.”
The Patriarch, who seemed no less excited than Semar, picked up the thread.
“With the blessing of Vharkash, my son, I believe we can enter the First House, make our way up to the Audience Hall, recover the Kris of Wukarta Khodam and escape without detection. The Khodam will be yours once more. Tomorrow it will be in your hands.”
Jun felt a shiver of apprehension—or was that excitement?
“Do you think we can really do this?” he asked Semar. “What if there are some guards left—or other servants discover us who are not in the pay of this Xi Gung?”
“It is not without risk,” the old man said. “But I honestly think this is our best chance of recovering the Khodam. We can be in and out inside a quarter of an hour. And, afterward, we will need to escape from Singarasam swiftly and silently—Ongkara’s rage will shake the Heavens, oh, that would be something to see—but Xi Gung knows of a reliable captain with a fast ship that can take us back to Taman the moment we have the Kris in our hands. I think we can do it, my prince, I really do.”
“Why is the merchant doing all this for us?” asked Jun. “It cannot be merely because I was polite to him at a party.”
“Oh, if I know old Xi Gung, there will certainly be a price to pay,” said the Patriarch. “You may have to give him some rice-trading concessions in Taman once you have regained the throne, or he might ask for a payment of some other kind one day. And, believe me, it would be best then to pay up quickly without a quibble. But I think he is chiefly hoping to humiliate Ongkara—the money he is outlaying on your venture means little to him. But he and Ongkara have been at odds for years over the annual tribute the Lord of the Islands demands from the House of Xi, which I am told is a truly staggering amount. Ongkara has been bleeding him unmercifully for years, charging him a fortune in silver as the price of doing business in Singarasam. But don’t concern yourself with that, Prince Arjun. What matters the cost? This is an opportunity to regain the Khodam. Perhaps your only opportunity.”
In truth, Jun was not too worried about incurring a debt with this little Han merchant. He would have silver enough to pay whatever the man asked once he was back in Taman. He was more concerned with the robbery itself. Would the First House really be empty? Furthermore, he did not like to think of himself as a sneaking burglar; it seemed low, dirty, unworthy of a prince of Wukarta blood. But, then again, it was not actually theft: he was merely recovering property that was his by right. Semar seemed to think it was a good idea. And most of all he longed to go home. He wanted familiar things, familiar faces around him again. He pictured once more the crowds of Taman folk cheering his triumphant arrival with the Kris of his father. Jun Pahlawan! Jun Pahlawan! Hailing the hero’s glorious return.
“Tomorrow evening, then,” he said.
CHAPTER 42
They had worked all night, in near silence and almost total darkness, fumbling through their labors by the light of dark lanterns, with many a squashed finger and barked shin and one heavily laden Artilleryman, who had twisted his ankle on an unseen pile of rubble in the darkness, hors de combat. Yet Farhan had been deeply impressed with the efficiency of the Honorable Artillerymen and engineers, and even plump Colonel Bandi had been filled with a manic, almost gleeful, zeal.
Captain Hawill’s little ship had taken them without incident from the Small Harbor, round the point of land that held the Istana lighthouse and across to the Manchatka shore. The three warships had ignored them, and Hawill had hugged the northern coast, only narrowly avoiding the submerged and razor-sharp rocks that could rip the bottom out of even a shallow-draft ship in a moment. Then, as dusk was falling, they slipped up one of the many narrow river mouths that debouched out of the mangrove swamps, gliding into the gloom beneath huge, twisted trees, swerving around the roots that seemed to rise out of the water like the swollen knuckles of a hand and grip the foul-smelling river with long, slimy fingers.
They had moored the ship a quarter of a mile upstream, leaving Captain Hawill, a flabby, blustering giant of a man, a far-from-home Frank by the looks of his pale hair and skin, and his two crew members behind with strict orders to wait for them. Then they had trekked through the jungle for half an hour to enter the ruins of the Green Fort from the rear.
The heat and stink of the dank wasteland they marched through was appalling—Farhan had been in public latrines in Dhilika that smelled sweeter—and now and then they could hear the gentle gloopy splash of a great beast sliding into the water somewhere off in the darkness: saltwater crocodiles of improbable size, Farhan was told in a whisper, or serpents with bodies as thick as a man’s thigh. He tried not to think about either creature.
The Green Fort was completely deserted, of course; its small garrison had departed en masse when the guns of the Red Fort across the Strait were turned on it. The men had fled into the watery forest or along the mangrove shoreline, some of the stronger ones swimming the Strait to Istana, returning to face the ignominy of their failure. Others simply disappeared. The green, mold-slimed walls of the fort were broken in places and cracked, but not completely destroyed; the guns however had all been knocked from their carriages, one shattered into a dozen iron shards, the other five scattered like a giant child’s toys when playtime is over. Colonel Bandi and his men had begun work immediately, lighting the dark lanterns and using ropes and pulleys and hastily lashed frames to lift the huge tubes of metal back into their heavy, boxlike, wheeled carriages. Farhan took his own lantern and went to investigate the stores. He found to his relief that the magazine was at least half-stocked with casks of powder, and iron balls were plentiful on the racks, along with wadding, fuses and so on. He immediately set a crew of Artillerymen to work fetching them up to the seawa
ll.
Now, eleven hours later, with milky dawn lightening the sky over the Laut Besar, they had three of the Green Fort’s cannon in position against the broken battlements, two guns on serviceable wheeled carriages and the other, by far the largest cannon in the fort, roped and wedged into position in a gap in the stone wall. That one, a monster that took a ball bigger than a grown man’s head, could only be fired once. The thunderous discharge would surely burst it free from the ropes that held it to the battlements. It was a weapon of last resort but it might do great damage—maybe even to the enemy shipping, or so Farhan hoped. He wiped the work-sweat from his forehead, leaving a smear of green lichen against his skin, and peered out beyond the wall into the half-dark waters of the Sumbu Strait.
It was still a suicide mission, he knew. But so far, he believed, they had been undetected in their efforts. There had been no alarms raised or shots fired, and the three warships—one large one, the flagship, in the center and two smaller vessels on either side—rode easily at anchor, with only a few lights shining in the rigging. The three ships were in a row directly between the Green and Red Forts, out of accurate range from the Governor’s Palace. But moving them closer to attack the palace would be simplicity itself—there was no enemy ship to oppose them and the palace was armed only with a pair of antique brass guns called the Two Falcons that were easily a hundred years old and had not been fired in living memory.
All was quiet now on the water but the moment he gave the order for their pathetically small, makeshift battery to open fire, the full fury of the enemy warships and the guns of the Red Fort would be turned upon them and they would all be swiftly blasted into the next life. They had about a quarter of an hour, he estimated, once battle commenced, to strike a blow against the enemy before they were all destroyed. It was suicide, plain and simple. But it had to be done. There was no other choice.
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