A Woman of Angkor

by John Burgess

  I later heard the servants trading views on which prince had a posture that was truly royal, the fruit of Heaven, which prince looked like, well, the son of a whore, which prince would speak well and get the King’s ear, which would be ignored. And how it looked so unnatural that no prince was at the head of a long column of soldiers, but that each instead had a puny escort of not more than a dozen men, and those dozen lightly armed, because this was the Capital and here only the King and his guard could wield real weapons.

  When the princes reached the bridge to the royal sector, they sent their escorts to find places to sleep in the market, then drove their chariots across the bridge, iron wheel rims clattering on the pavement. On the parade grounds in front of the palace, they drove their vehicles up and down, tearing swathes in the grass, not yet willing to stop while there remained an opportunity to show the other princes their skills and equipment. A few of them got down and sparred with wooden swords. Of course. They believed themselves to have been called to a council of war.

  The next morning, the new lord of Chaiyapoom called at our house to pay respects, due to my husband’s links to that estate. He was a stocky young man, quick to declare his ambitions.

  ‘I’ll be leading two thousand men when we attack the Chams,’ he told us. ‘I intend to be first into the Cham Capital.’

  What could be said of this man? Heaven had settled so much on him, and yet he found no satisfaction in any of it. He wanted more. And he felt the way to obtain this more was to squander what he already had. Scythes and chisels would be converted into implements of war; farmers and artisans who had laboured long and selflessly for their prince would become makeshift soldiers facing death on a distant battlefield.

  The prince looked to my husband, I suppose hoping for a word or gesture that might reveal some specifics of the King’s plans. He got none. Nol was not one to share court secrets with outsiders, even one who came from the Chaiyapoom estate.

  Rumours circulated that the King would address the princes on the second day, but that day came and went with no such event. Instead there was more of the same – waiting and talking and driving chariots up and down. Some of the princes took to flirting with the servant girls who tended the pavilion in which they were staying. On the third day came something different. Messengers from the palace began summoning the men through the palace gate, one by one, alone.

  What shock they endured beyond that gate! Each man was led into a darkened room, where various Brahmins stood. Each man’s palm was cut to draw loyalty blood. Then he was led in the recitation of a long and frightful oath to His Majesty which assured the most awful kind of death for him and his family were there any violation of its terms. This is how loyalty is thought to be created. And then he was presented not with a war plan, but with a long list of men and materials that his estate would deliver to the construction site in the Capital. I can imagine each prince stumbling back into the light of day, rubbing his eyes, unsure whether what had happened inside truly had happened.

  Three days later, the princes were told they were free to leave the city for their estates. But the young prince of Chaiyapoom first came again to our residence. We listened at some length to this newly humbled man – at least he seemed that way to me at the time. He had been willing to all but strip his estate if war were the purpose, but faster construction of the temple? Now he outlined at length why Chaiyapoom should be exempted from the new levy. Surely, surely, it was only fair, he said. The estate had played a special role in the ascent to power, so people there could not be faulted for expecting they would have a new bridge to span its river. They would think that its great house should be maintained and expanded, its temple given new stones to replace ones that were cracking.

  When the speech was finished, Nol responded that he understood the burden and sympathized. The call for new levies did not originate with him, he assured the prince, and he could do nothing to change them.

  ‘But sir, your son…’

  ‘My son,’ replied Nol, ‘is concerned with carrying out the orders of Heaven. Those orders have arrived through the words of His Majesty.’

  Then he called for drinking water for the prince and bade him a safe journey home.

  53: Darit’s request

  Over the years, I continued to travel the Empire in my oxcart, seeing to charitable work and my trading business. How I would have preferred to carry it all out in anonymity. But when I arrived in a place, it was not uncommon that people would come to ask this favour or that. Might I find a minor post for a nobleman’s son in the palace? Could I put in a word with a local magistrate in a case concerning a broken marriage contract? Once I was even asked to settle a theological dispute among the priests of a monastery. Whoever came to me, I felt an obligation to listen and do what I could if the cause was legitimate, but the truth is that as the pleas increased, so did a craving in me for solitude. So as I approached the Capital on my return from a trip, I would often call out to the cart driver. ‘If you would, please turn down the track to Hamlet Veya.’ I always tried to make it sound as if it were on a whim, but I think now that I fooled no one. Soon the cart would be spotted by some child or farmer, who would run ahead to the hamlet with word of our arrival, as had happened on that very first visit, and people would turn out to greet me. The headman would offer me water and fruit and too many other things, and tell someone to carry my things to the house, and as soon as I decently could, I would set off up its trail, alone. Rice and charcoal and other essentials would be waiting by the door, placed there while the headman entertained me. Ducks would be nibbling at greens in the pond – perhaps the ducks were not doing that each and every time, but such is my memory.

  Whatever my initial intention, I would often stay for an extended period, sometimes even for weeks. There was an understanding, with my husband and children, with my staff in the city, with the people of the village, that once in this house I would not be disturbed. There I read the Vedas and recited lengthy prayers. I cooked for myself, kneeling at the charcoal stove. I did my own wash, though I knew this horrified the villagers. When work was done, I sat contented on the porch, experiencing the simple pleasures of breeze, of the rays of late afternoon sun on forehead and breasts.

  One morning late in the rainy season, after a ten-day stay, I left the house to walk back toward the village centre, a bag of possessions over my shoulder.

  As I drew near the village, I noticed some unusual sights – three fancy horses, one with a silver bridle, and a pair of retainers squatting beneath a palm.

  Sergeant Sen hurried toward me, with something on his mind. ‘Lady Sray, the son of the concubine Rom has come and wishes to speak with you. I advise against it.’

  My beloved Sergeant Sen – without complaint, back in his role merely as protector, and always worried about my safety. And sometimes with good reason. Why did I not accept his advice that day? Perhaps that certain ghost was hovering over me just then, planting resistance in my mind. I found out later that the concubine’s son had arrived a full day earlier, requesting to meet with me in the village pavilion. The sergeant had done his best to make him leave, variously telling him I was not there, was indisposed, or did not meet with people such as him. I am sure this last claim was dressed up in some tactful language. It was quite a thing for a bodyguard to say, but Darit did not take offense. Nor did he leave.

  My life was not my own once I left the house by the pond. How could I say no to someone respectfully seeking a meeting? This was what I told myself as Sergeant Sen stood before me, awaiting my decision. I suppose too that I was curious to meet this man who was son of the concubine – and yes, I admit it, son of the man who had given me two golden bangles that even now went everywhere with me in my travels, hidden in my jewellery box. At this moment box and bangles were in the bag over my shoulder.

  So I turned and walked to the village pavilion, the sergeant trailing behind me disapprovingly.

  Most everyone knew the reputation of the man, even me. No
w near his thirtieth year, he had wealth but still no clear place in the world, no estate or commission. He still spent nights on the prowl at wine stalls, the cockfighting rings, and on sleeping mats where he didn’t belong – he had graduated from servant girls to the jaded wives and daughters of noble families. Everywhere he went, he was noticed, and he had a following, ranging from young men with lesser titles to boys who held the reins of his horses outside wine stalls. He had a temper, these people knew, but as long as it was directed at others, I suppose it was part of his appeal. Around his neck he wore that mysterious cloth-wrapped amulet. Certainly it continued to protect him. It was said that wine pots thrown during drinking-stall melees sailed harmlessly past his head, that no aggrieved husband, fiancé or father had ever bested him in a fight one-on-one.

  He held his head pressed to the mat as I approached, murmuring. ‘Lady, it is an honour that you find time to receive me.’

  ‘The honour is mine.’

  Then he raised himself up to face me, and I was at once taken aback, because he bore such a resemblance to his father. There before me were the same broad shoulders, the same sculpted face and knife-edge confidence. He wore the sampot and jewellery of a nobleman, a knife in his waist, and around his neck that cloaked amulet.

  ‘I have come,’ he said, after more preliminaries, ‘to request permission to assist with the hospital that you have begun building in the Capital. If it pleases you, I would like to provide thirty slaves for labour and, when the place is completed, funds for four physicians.’

  ‘How generous is your offer.’ I was caught off guard. I had certainly never heard of this man giving charity. ‘You will earn much merit for your next life.’

  Sergeant Sen sat nearby, his hand close to his dagger, and I could tell from his stony look what he made of Darit’s offer. Various of the village’s people were hovering around beyond the pavilion as well, watching without appearing to. I wondered what they would make of it, but they were not close enough to hear.

  ‘Lady, it is my hope,’ Darit said, ‘and I have conveyed this to a priest, that any merit accruing be settled not on me but on the patients in the hospital.’ He smiled in a disarming way; I wondered if I had misjudged him.

  For the next five minutes we discussed details of what the contributions would consist of and when they would arrive. The business came to an end, but Darit did not leave.

  ‘May I ask something else of you, Lady Sray?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘May I ask that you bless me?’

  This was one of those requests that I received from time to time. ‘But I am not a priestess,’ I replied. ‘Any blessing from me would have no value.’

  ‘I ask that you do it, Lady Sray. I plead for your help. I have done things for which I have special need of a blessing.’ Before I could answer, he put head to mat and held it there. So, I had no choice but to place hands together and say a brief prayer over him. By now almost the entire village was looking on.

  On the trip back to the city, I turned the encounter over in my mind but could make no sense of it. I put the question to the sergeant, who still wore his troubled look. ‘With a man like Darit,’ he said, walking to the side of the cart, ‘there is always some motivation other than what is presented. You must be on guard, Lady.’ The sergeant would be too, I could tell.

  My husband was not in when I arrived at the house, so I decided to go see Mr Narin. The chief scribe’s eyesight had gone bad enough that he no longer worked with manuscripts and ledgers. But he still went to court every day to preside over the compiling of these documents by younger men, and there he learned all sorts of things.

  Receiving me on his house’s terrace, he took some time asking about my trip and the people and places I had visited. When I broached the subject of Darit, my real purpose in coming here, he frowned instantly.

  ‘Lady Sray,’ he said, ‘it is always difficult to speak ill of someone to you. But I should tell you that on one thing at least this young man Darit told you the truth, that he has a particular need to make merit right now. He has committed a very serious crime.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I would prefer not to go into the details, Lady Sray. Someone such as yourself should not be exposed to such things.’

  But I felt I had to know, and with some coaxing Mr Narin gave me a version. Two days earlier, Darit had stopped into one of the night establishments of the central market. He was in a bad mood – he had just lost a large sum at cockfighting. The son of a provincial lord was sitting with one of the establishment’s girls, one whom Darit had taken to an enclosed place in the back a few days earlier. Now he perceived an insult in this other man’s attentions to her. He strode over and demanded he give her up. Witnesses later agreed that the man got no time to comply. Instead, a knife came out from Darit’s waist and in an instant the lord’s son was lying bleeding to death on the floor, slashed across the throat. Darit seized the girl by the arm and pulled her toward one of the booths, she horrified, blood on her forehead and belly, straining to look back at the dying man. The stall’s proprietor stepped in Darit’s path, and received a slash across the shoulder, though not a fatal one.

  ‘He is a vicious man, Lady Sray, as if some demon drives his actions. I am sure you were safe in his presence – neither he nor the demon would dare harm you – but the fact is that he has become a danger to people in general.’

  ‘Perhaps the King will do something?’

  ‘He has already, Lady Sray.’

  It was due to the Brahmins. They saw the crime as a Heaven-sent chance to secure real action against Darit. Subhadra reported it to His Majesty, whose reaction was merely to throw up his hands and turn his back, as if to say that what the Brahmins must do they must do. He loved his son, I know, but he knew also that the time had come. But Subhadra wanted His Majesty to be part of what action would be taken. So first he spoke with various figures of the palace, Nol and Commander Rit among them, and secured their support. Then he sent soldiers out to round up witnesses. Late the following afternoon, when the King was unsuspecting, Subhadra came to court with a magistrate, a scribe, the drinking-stall girl, the proprietor and two other men who had been present at the crime. The priest applied elaborate oaths to the witnesses and then had them tell their stories. When they left, Subhadra declared to the King that the real issue was not Darit’s guilt – that was firmly established – but the King’s response. People in the market were starting to say that Darit’s continuing freedom was a sign that he could not be controlled, even by the King, and that the palace might even be afraid of him and so did not arrest him. The Brahmin left unstated the implication that if the King could not control his own son, close at hand, how could he control the princes of the outlying provinces? Subhadra then ordered one final witness brought in. This one was a labourer who worked for a Chinese merchant, loading and unloading baskets of rice. Two soldiers brought him in, bound, with bruises on his face from interrogation, and pushed him to the floor. Subhadra led him through his story. The man had heard what happened in the drinking place, had he not? He knew that Darit had not been punished, did he not? Was this something everyone knew? And what was his own remark about it? Please, please, the man whimpered, trembling, it is too terrible ever to repeat. The priest declared: Then I will be the one to repeat it! Did you not say to a neighbour that His Majesty was afraid of this Darit, as a small dog fears a big one? Now the man only wept. He did not deny it. Did the neighbour not think that remark funny and spread it around his workplace? Again, there was no denial.

  The prisoner was taken out, and a silence settled over the chamber. The King turned his back and stood there, thinking in his intense way, and for a while Subhadra did not dare speak. Then he found his tongue and assured the King in a whisper that everyone who had heard this remark had been arrested, but that the proper way to deal with this was to eliminate the cause of such talk. We must arrest him, the Brahmin said. The King waved his hand to say, all right – do it.


  Two hours later Darit was brought to the audience room, by the same two soldiers, who held either arm and looked worried that this assignment would end badly for them. He was not bound, because the Brahmin knew that this might trigger some reaction of compassion in His Majesty. Darit knelt at his father’s feet, the guards keeping hands on him, and before Subhadra could say a word, Rom burst into the room. Her first step was to pummel the soldiers, screaming that they must take their hands off her son. They looked to the Brahmin, who signalled to hold firm. She turned then to the King and demanded he be released. Five men had set upon Darit, she declared, and all he had done was defend himself. To everyone else’s most deep relief, His Majesty was not swayed. The Brahmin told her in a settled voice that only compounded her anger that there had been detailed testimony establishing something very different. Then she said that the dead man had provoked her son, in a way that could only result in death.

  It went on like this – Rom shouting and stamping and to everyone’s amazement, the Brahmin starting to shout back. Practically the whole palace could hear. Finally she was reduced to throwing herself on the mat alongside her son, pleading for mercy for him, and reminding His Majesty of her own help in the ascent to the throne, the hidden bow Gandiva, the hidden arrows. The King was showing signs of wavering now, and in the end, she had some effect. His Majesty demanded silence. He announced that there would be no execution. He looked down to his son and shouted: Get out of the Capital! Go to a station on the border with the Siamese territories. Serve me there! As a common man at arms! Sleep on the ground, eat that bitter food, leave wine and girlfriends behind. See if you can take it. The soldiers released their grip, and Rom hurried her son out of the room. The Brahmins could only watch. Not one of them believed that Darit would live like a real foot soldier. But with luck a Siamese spear point would find its way to him.