They were restricted to their quarters for the day, while the soldiers searched for the spy. Citta sat meditating, avoiding the need to lie to Ayah or face Nimali’s recriminations, half hoping and half fearing to hear of Hashan’s capture. She tried to focus her mind on her breathing, calmly to observe its ebb and flow. Unbidden to her mind, however, came images of the Moor dragged from his hiding place, thrown to his knees, the swords piercing his flesh. Melancholy odour of incense touched her senses. She wondered whether Nimali would betray her.
When Ayah came in, the princess made her wait for long minutes before she rose from her cushion. She had spent the time deciding that she would pretend to faint when the old woman spoke, to conceal her reaction to her words. However her tidings brought relief.
“They have found nothing. Nobody truly believed any threat could penetrate the palace. They have posted extra guards on the Lion Gate, but most of the soldiers have gone to search elsewhere.”
Citta wondered whether she should faint anyway, just go limp and crash down, take a rest from the constant torment of having to decide what was the right thing to do, enjoy the sympathy and mothering and the reassurance that people around her loved her. She swayed, but the lure of the south terrace kept her upright.
Of course Ayah was still concerned about her going out alone, especially in the twilight. Citta insisted that she needed to calm herself, after the day’s excitement, and that a stroll in the gardens would be soothing.
“Besides, if there was any danger, the soldiers would have found it, wouldn’t they?”
Citta was far from calm as she walked down the steps to the terrace. Her heart fluttered and her hands shook. The gazebo was empty though. Perhaps Hashan had somehow escaped from the Rock.
“Thank you for not giving me away.”
He stepped from the shadows, and again she was startled by his maleness, his bulk and the rough hair on his chest.
“How did you evade them?”
“They are stupid, and lazy, and did not expect to find anything.”
She remembered he had lied to her, and forced herself to an anger she did not truly feel.
“Who are you? Is it true that you are a spy, and not a merchant?”
“Yes.”
Although he towered over her, he hung his head diffidently, like a child who had been caught misbehaving.
“Why are you here?”
He raised his head and looked directly into her eyes.
“I have come to stop you marrying Prince Thandivarman.”
IX
Citta was choked by fury, confusion and a crazy surge of hope.
“You are risking your life to prevent my wedding? Why do you care? What is it to you, or to your masters?”
Hashan sat down, crossing his legs.
“You are a princess, Ummadha Citta, the daughter of a king. Your forthcoming marriage has nothing to do with love, and a great deal to do with politics.”
“What do you mean?”
“What territory does your father rule, Citta?”
“The Island. He is King of the Island.”
“In name at least. In reality, however, his authority diminishes the further you travel from the capital. Ruhuna in the south, the Tamils in the north, even my people — the Moors, as you call them — will all defy him in an instant, if they think they can get away with it. When he came to the throne he had to reconquer much of his territory, which had seceded from the kingdom.
“And his rebellious subjects are the least of his problems. The Tamil nations on the mainland, the Pallava, Pandya and Chola kingdoms, eye this land greedily from across the sea. It is only their constant wars with each other that prevent them from invading and annexing his realm.”
She wanted to deny it, to insist that the Lion People feared nobody, but she had heard enough gossip about affairs of state to know that he was telling the truth.
“The Pallava are our friends, and allies.”
“It would be a foolish king who did not take shelter under the wing of one of the mainland powers, and your father is not a foolish man. He supports the Pallava in their conflict with the Pandyas, and in return he is given their protection.”
“Then my marriage to Thandivarman will strengthen the alliance, and make my people safe.”
Hashan smiled.
“You have a natural grasp of statecraft, princess. Unfortunately, like your father, you do not see far enough ahead, and place too much trust in your Tamil friends.
“A son born from your union with Thandivarman will be the heir to the kingdom of Pallava. But he will also have Sinhala royal blood flowing in his veins. Do you not imagine that he will consider the Island rightly his? It would not be hard to find an excuse to intervene in the affairs of the kingdom; an uprising, a rival claimant, such things are frequent occurrences. He would come as peacemaker, as arbiter, but he would come with an army. As for the rest of it — well, the usual way would be to have the king assassinated, put the blame on the Pandya, and assume control as an emergency measure. The details aren’t important.
“With a Tamil king would come their language, their religion. The brahmins would drive out the bhikkhus, and the Lion People would follow the Noble Eightfold Path no longer. Your son, princess, will destroy your nation, and its way of life will be forgotten in the dust of history; if, that is, you marry the Pallava prince.”
Citta pulled herself to her full height.
“So you have come to save the Lion People, as an act of pure altruism?”
“No, princess. I would not insult you by expecting you to believe that. My masters have a stake in maintaining the balance between Pallava and Pandya, and promoting a resurgence of the Chola. Do not ask me what that stake is. They do not discuss such matters with me. It is unlikely to be anything obvious; the man who sent me here has a taste for the convoluted and indirect.
“It is his interests that I am pursuing here, but it so happens that those interests coincide with yours. If you care for the future of your people, then you will tell your father that you refuse to wed Thandivarman. Otherwise, I may have to kill your prince.”
Citta shivered, although the fear was mixed with a thrill of excitement.
“You admit that you would murder another human being, just to further your sordid political machinations?”
“Princess, the real world, beyond the gardens and pools of the palace in the sky, is a vicious place. Whoever is not the predator, is the prey. If you want to save Thandivarman, then do not marry him.”
The princess was conscious of the weakness of his argument. How could he claim to know with such certainty what would happen in the future? However his words cracked the shell of her destiny, and something was flooding in, something that might be light and air, or might instead be disease. Hashan spoke urgently.
“Citta, when your father comes he will have a man with him, a foreigner, whom you have never seen before. It is he who has persuaded your father to this calamitous path. I cannot tell you what he will look like, but when you see him you will know who he is. And then you will know that I am telling you the truth.”
Citta shook, trying to shake the fear from her spine.
“Enough. I will not sink to your depths of brutality. You may stay here until you are well enough to escape. However if you try to interfere with the affairs of my family or my kingdom, I will hand you over to the guards and you can meet the fate you have chosen for yourself.”
That night Nimali crept into Citta’s room and snuggled beside her. The older girl clung to her friend anxiously.
“What are you doing, Ummadha Citta? Do you even know?”
“I am practising what I have been taught. I am doing what is right.”
“You cannot truly imagine that our elders would be pleased with your actions, or you would not keep it secret from them. That man is dangerous. If a snake came near your baby, you would not hesitate to crush its head.”
“Then will you tell them, Nimali?”
Neither of them spoke again till the morning.
***
The strangest of circumstances can come to seem normal, once they have set into a routine. Citta brought food to the south terrace morning and evening, almost every day. Hashan would remain concealed until he was sure it was her, then emerge noiselessly, never from the same place twice. She found his sudden presence frightening at first, but made it a matter of pride not to let the fear show. After a week or two she grew accustomed to it, and entertained herself by guessing where he might be hiding.
In time her fascination overcame her fear, and she would sit and watch him eat.
“How many men have you killed?”
He glanced up from his meal.
“I don’t know.”
The shock made her voice shriek embarrassingly.
“Is it so many that you have lost count?”
“No, princess. I do not know because it is not always convenient or prudent to stop and check whether your enemy is dead or merely wounded. Why do you ask? Is there a number which is acceptable? What difference does it make, if the answer is seven, or seventeen, or seventy?”
“Is it seven, then?”
“No. How would you have me count it? Shall I only number men whom I have slain with my bare hands, or include those whose murder I have arranged? What about those whom I let die, though I could have saved them?”
“You are mocking me.”
“No, it is you who are mocking me, princess. How many men has your father killed?”
She sipped her water, and he chewed his bread.
“What is it like, to kill someone?”
“You seem unduly interested in the subject, Ummadha Citta. Do you harbour murderous impulses which at times you struggle to contain? Directed, perhaps, at those you most love?”
She stared into her cup, and he went on.
“Besides, the question has no answer. You might as well ask what it is like to talk to someone. Every death is unique. The enemy whose spleen you pierce as he charges you waving his sword; the beloved uncle whom you gently smother when he begs you to put an end to his pain; the man you murder at night because you have sold your soul, and you strangle him for silence, so that you have to watch his eyes plead and puzzle and pop and finally fix on infinity: these are not experiences that have much in common.”
She should have felt horror, when he spoke in this way. Instead she knew a profound pity, compassion for the suffering which was the inevitable consequence of his wrongdoing, arising from it as night arose from day, and sadness at the damage that must have been done to him, that caused his evil to arise in turn.
“You said once you were a poet in your own land. Was that, too, a lie?”
“No, that was true; and I hope will be true again some day.”
“Will you recite to me one of your poems?”
“Poetry cannot survive the journey from one language to another. It is not a cargo to be traded between lands; it is a kiss that lives only in the moment of creation, but which you hope to remember forever. I cannot give you my verse, here where my tongue is meaningless. I can sing to you sounds that will carry no sense, or mouth to you words that have no magic. Neither will be my poem.”
“Then do both, and I shall imagine that they are one.”
He thought for a moment, then recited:
“La tabki Layla wa la tutrub ila Hindi
Washrub ghal al wirdi min hamraa’ kalwirdi…”
His language was soft and melodic, rich in husky breaths pronounced deep in the throat. Although she did not understand the words, the poem sang and danced for her, light and effervescent. When he had finished, she clapped.
“That was beautiful. What does it mean?”
“I cannot convey the sense fully, but it means something like this:
“Don’t cry for Layla —”
“Who is Layla?”
“Are you jealous, Princess? There is no need. There was a real Layla once, but she is long dead. Now she is more of an idea. Her name is used in our verse to represent any unattainable woman. If I may continue?
“Don’t cry for Layla, don’t rejoice over Hind —”
“Who is Hind?”
“This isn’t going to work. Wait, let me try it this way:
“Don’t waste your breath on hoary old poetry,
Pledge your rose rather with wine bright and rosy.
Drink from a cup which, when poured down the throat,
Paints cheek and eye all alike red as ruby.
The wine is carnelian, the glass like pearl,
When you’re served by a girl whose fingers are dainty;
She dispenses delirium, in glasses and glances,
Eyes and then wine, till you are drunk doubly.
My friends have one drug, two intoxicate me
And I am the only one blessed with such bounty…”
He looked to her for applause, but Citta was frowning.
“Why would you write poetry about wine?”
“Because it is what interests me. Because it is a delight to the senses, and a comfort to the soul. What should I be writing about? What do your people write about?”
“About the emptiness of all material things, and the quest for enlightenment.”
“That sounds like fun.”
Citta was peeved by his mockery.
“Would you like to hear a poem in my language?”
“I would like that very much, princess.”
She got to her feet, and proclaimed shyly:
“Flower-snared, sotted with desire, a bee
bites the stalk and hums, seduced by pleasure,
trapped in misery.
Full moon kisses petals of the night-blooming lily, but she
has no mercy. We are different, we can fly; we are free.”
Hashan was silent for a moment. Then:
“I owe you an apology, princess. That was very good. Who wrote it?”
Citta sat down again, biting her lip.
“Actually, I did.”
The Moor bowed, seeming genuinely impressed.
“Then I have underestimated you. But surely you do not believe, as your poem suggests, that pleasure and beauty are snares to trap us?”
“Desire and repulsion alike are illusions, born of ignorance.”
“And if we rid ourselves of them, we are free to fly away, unlike your bee?”
“The Awakened One Tathagata taught us that eight things are necessary to achieve enlightenment: right understanding and right intentions; right speech, right action and right living; right effort, right awareness and right concentration. By practising these things, we aim to escape the cycle of existence.”
“But I like existence. I plan to go on existing for as long as possible. Why would I not want to live?”
Citta was taken aback by this argument.
“Because of the Four Noble Truths: that suffering is an inescapable part of life, that the origin of suffering is attachment, that suffering can be ended, and the Eightfold Path is the way to end it.”
“I can handle a little suffering. Suffering passes in the end. It is the concept of a universe without me in it that I find unthinkable.”
“Is it not a tenet of your religion that you will suffer for eternity after your death, if you have displeased your god in life?”
“It is. I am pinning my hopes on a last minute repentance.”
“But why would you take the risk? You might be cut down before you can be forgiven, particularly as you court danger so assiduously. Why would you not want to do what is right? How can you knowingly choose to do wrong, by drinking and killing and philandering?”
“Because wrongness is the salt that gives life flavour. Too much of it will spoil the feast, I grant you, but without it how would you know you were alive at all?”
Citta tried another tack.
“But if you were to achieve enlightenment; if, in an instant, you perceived and comprehended the whole universe, saw the future and past, were cons
cious of the oneness of all things; why, then, would you want to carry on existing after that?”
“After that? I think I’d probably need a drink.”
He grinned.
“Do you think, next time, you can bring me a knife? I would like to be able to cut my bread.”
The more she talked to Hashan, the more Citta realised how bored she was with the company of Ayah, of the servants, even of Nimali. The palace gossip which would once have fascinated her sounded to her now utterly trivial: the row between the cook and the gardener, the maid who had fallen pregnant, the theft of a silken canopy which was to have been used at her wedding, all seemed bland and unsatisfying. To one who subsisted only on milk, fruit and grains, the Moor brought the rich savour of meat, the sensation of tearing flesh with her teeth; at least in her imagination. As the weeks drifted by she spent more and more time on the south terrace, listening to his tales of adventure and romance.
The servants were glad to keep away, since it gave them less work to do, and Citta kept the gazebo clean, so that on their occasional foray to the terrace they did not have to linger long. Ayah commented on the amount of food she took there, but asked only if Citta was fattening herself up for her husband, with an attempt at a suggestive leer which was so out of character in the old woman that the girls imitated it for days afterwards. Nimali was often short-tempered and resentful, but she held her peace, and took supplies to Hashan when Citta could not.
The deception was so simple that it was easy to pretend it could go on forever, despite the growing number of messengers that came and went through the Lion Gate. However the day of the king’s arrival dawned at last, as every day will in the end, no matter how longed for or dreaded. Citta waited in her quarters listening to the thud of drums and the trumpeting of elephants in the city below, and pictured Hashan on the south terrace hiding in the bushes, wondering what the noise portended.
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