The King's Last Song

by Geoff Ryman

  * * * *

  The gold leaves have slept for a thousand years.

  Two metres down, below the range of ploughs and metal detectors, they lie wrapped in layers of orange linen and pitch.

  They were carried at night, hurriedly, jostled under a bridge and plunged down into the mud by the canal to keep them safe. They were cast in imitation of a palm-leaf manuscript, inscribed and inked. The leaves still yearn to speak, though the ink has long since soaked away.

  The canal overhead simmered in the heat, then silted up. The water ceased to flow. The soil was parched and inundated by turns for centuries. Rice reached down, but never touched the leaves or their linen wrappings.

  Gold does not rust. Insects and rodents do not devour it. Its only enemy is greed.

  On April 11, in a version of 2004, something fiercely invasive drives itself into the Book. A corer grinds its way down through five packets of leaves. Then it hoists part of them up and out of the ground.

  For the first time in a thousand years, light shines through the soil, linen, and pitch.

  The Book is awake again.

  Light shines on a torn circle of gold. It shines on writing. The words plainly say in Sanskrit, “I am Jayavarman."

  Leaf 1

  My name in death will be Parama Saugatapada. In life, I bore a king's title, Victory Shield, Jayavarman. I will be known as Jayavarman the great builder, father of the new city, the wall-builder of Indrapattha. I am lord of the temple that is like no other, the temple that is history in stone, the great Madhyadri. I will be known as the founder of the King's Monastery. I will be known as the son of Holy Victory City, Nagara Jayasri that rose like a flower beside the Lake of Blood. My face will greet those who come to the City for a thousand years. My son calls it my Mango Face, ripe and plump. My Mango Face looks four ways, in the cardinal directions. My face is the four Noble Truths. I am Jayavarman, the bringer of the new way that subsumes the old and surmounts it.

  Leaf 2

  The Gods themselves listened to the great soul (Buddha) for enlightenment. So it is that the new kingship enlightens the old. This new kingship builds walls to protect the City and builds love in the hearts of the people. Love is also a wall to protect the City. I once had the name of Prince Nia, Hereditary Slave. How a prince came to be called Slave is only one reason why I burn to do a new thing. I will turn the eyes of language away from dedications and gods. I turn my gaze towards people, just as I caused my temple the Madhyadri to honor the images of farm girls and merchants and Chinese envoys. I turn the light of my mind to ordinary days. My words will show lost people. My words will show the sunlight of great days now turned to night. My words will show parades and elephants and parasols whose march has long since passed into dust.

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  April 1136

  The Prince was supposed to be asleep with the other children.

  The adults were all in their hammocks. Only insects were awake, buzzing in the heat. To fill the silence, the Prince stomped up the wooden steps as loudly as he could.

  The King's gallery was empty. The gold-embroidered curtains breathed in and out as if they were asleep. The only other person he could see was a servant girl dusting the floor.

  The girl was about four years older than the Prince. Maybe she'd want to play. He broke into a run towards her, but then lost heart. Old palace women with wrinkled faces and broken teeth would pick him up and fuss over him, but pretty young girls with work to do would be told off for it.

  The Prince grew shy. “Play with me,” he asked, in a soft breathy voice.

  The girl bowed and then smiled as if there was nothing more delightful than to be approached by a person of his category. “I must work,” she beamed, as if that were a pleasure too.

  He was a sujati, a well-born person. The girl was bare-chested, some category of worker. A diadem of wooden slats was tied across her forehead, and the stain across her temples was her passport into the royal enclosure. The Prince watched her clean. For a moment it was interesting to see the damp cloth push grains of food through the knotholes and gaps in the floorboards.

  Then boredom returned as unrelenting as a headache. Boredom drove him. It was nearly unbearable, the silence, the sameness.

  The thin floor rested high off the ground on stilts. The floorboards gave the boy the foot-beat of a giant. He lifted up his bare foot, drove it down hard, and felt the whole house quiver. He giggled and looked back at the girl and then took more high, hammering steps across the floor

  The girl paid no attention.

  No one wore shoes, so dusty footprints trailed across the red gallery floors where the girl had not yet cleaned.

  To the Prince they looked like the tracks of game across a forest floor.

  He was a hunter in the woods. He charged forward. “I see you, deer! Whoosh!” He let fly imaginary arrows. “I see you wild pig! Whoosh I get you!"

  He looked back at the girl. She still dusted.

  Suddenly the footprints looked more like those of enemy troops. He imitated the sounds of battle music: conch-shell moans and the bashing of gongs. He paraded, thumping his feet. He was a Great King. He waved the Sacred Sword over his head and charged.

  He thundered back down the length of the gallery, wailing.

  The girl still dusted, looking hunched.

  He could be naughty, this prince. He had a formal name, but everybody nicknamed him Catch-Him-to-Call-Him, Cap-Pi-Hau.

  All right, Cap-Pi-Hau thought, you want to be slow and boring, I will make you play.

  He ran back and forth up and down the empty gallery until the entire floor shivered. He shouted like a warrior. He cried like egrets on the Great Lake, surprised by battle and keening up into the sky.

  He stalked down the front steps and out into the thinly grassed enclosure. He pummelled his way back into the gallery. He ran in circles around the girl. He bellowed as loudly as he could and jumped boldly, no steps at all, out of the house and fell face down onto the dry ground. He billowed his way back into the gallery, trailing dust behind him.

  Each time he ran past her, the little girl bowed in respect, head down.

  Most devilish of all, he clambered up the staircase to the forbidden apartments on the storey above. He rumbled all the way to the head of the stairs and spun around, to see if he had succeeded in making her follow him, to chastise him and pull him back down.

  Instead the little girl looked mournfully at her floor.

  Everywhere she had already cleaned there were footprints and shadow-shapes of white dust.

  She dared not look at him, but her mouth swelled out with unhappiness. Abruptly she stood up and took little whisking steps towards the entrance.

  Cap-Pi-Hau tumbled out of the door after her to see if he could join in.

  She took nipping steps down the front steps to the ground, holding up her beautiful skirt, palace-blue with gold flowers. What was she doing?

  "Ha ha!” he said, a harsh imitation of a laugh to show this was good, this could be fun.

  She held up her mournful face. She took her cloth to the ceramic water butt and wrung it out.

  "What are you doing?” he demanded.

  "I will dust the floor again,” she said, and turned away from him.

  He followed her up the stairs. Suddenly, his feet felt weighed down. He hauled himself back into the gallery and saw the floor patterned with his dusty footprints.

  Cap-Pi-Hau only slowly realized that the weight he felt was sadness. He had wanted to make the little girl happy, he had wanted to have fun, and now he had a terrible sense of having destroyed something.

  He felt his eyes swell out, as if to burst like fruit into tears. Why did everything turn out bad? Why was fun never possible? Why was it always learning, chanting, sleeping, bowing, and silence?

  The girl knelt down and began to dust again. Maybe she would get a scolding or a beating.

  Cap-Pi-Hau trundled towards her, softly now. “I have a thought,” he said.


  Her swollen, sad face still would not look at him.

  He had thought of a way to make dusting fun. Gently he coaxed the cloth out of her hands. “I'll show you,” he whispered.

  He laid the cloth flat on the floor. Then he stepped back, ran at it, and jumped.

  The floor had been smoothed by years of cleaning. It had to be free of splinters so that bare feet could walk on it.

  Cap-Pi-Hau landed on the cloth, and it slid across the floor, bearing him forward, harvesting dust.

  He giggled and turned back to her. “See? See?” he demanded.

  A butterfly of a smile fluttered briefly on her lips.

  He laughed and applauded to make her smile again. Then he walked all the way back to the edge of the pavilion and ran. It seemed to him that he shook the entire house. When he jumped onto the cloth, physical inertia swept him even farther across the floor.

  "I am the Great King who leads his people!” he shouted. “I am the Great King who leads troops in polishing floors!"

  The slave girl giggled and hid her mouth.

  "You go!” Cap-Pi-Hau insisted. “It will be fine. I will say that I ordered it."

  The girl gathered up her skirt. Her ankles looked like twigs. In comparison, her feet looked big, like the heads of buffaloes. She ran and jumped and slid only a moment.

  Not enough. She spun and commandeered the cloth, and stepped back and ran again. She was older than the Prince and her coordination was better. She pelted down the floor, leapt, and was swept on. She stood erect, skirts fluttering, and she turned to him and this time her mouth was swollen with a huge, smug grin.

  * * * *

  The next day Cap-Pi-Hau asked one of the nannies, “Where do slaves come from?"

  The old woman waved her hands. “Oh! Some are the children of people taken in battle. Some are presents given to the King. Many are given to the temples, simply to get rid of them. Most are attached to the land, like cows."

  The woman had a face as hard and polished as wood furniture. Taken in battle? Given away? Do they know their families did not want them, did not love them?

  The other six- and seven-year-olds were corralled together outside in the shade of the enclosure temple. There was to be a great procession soon, and they would have to learn their parts.

  The royal temple of the Aerial Palace, Vimana-akasha, rose as a holy mountain in stone and stucco layers. Painted red, black, and gold, the temple baked in the heat. Birds landed on the steps and hopped away back into the air, the stones were so hot. The palace children roasted inside their quilted jackets.

  The Prince demanded, “If I wanted to find one of the slave girls, how would I do it?"

  "Oh!” The nanny showed her false teeth, which were made of wood. “You are too young for that, young prince. That will come later.” She beamed.

  "If I want to be friends with one of them now, how would I find her?"

  The smile was dropped suddenly like an unleashed drapery. “You have your cousins to be friends with. Your destiny is to lead troops for the King. I should not grow too attached to the slaves of the royal household. You will not always live here. Your family lands are off in the east.” She looked suddenly grumpy, and for some reason wiped the whole of her face with her hand.

  The children, seated in ranks, stirred slightly with the light breeze of someone else getting into trouble.

  The nanny's face swelled. “You will be turned out of this house. You forget your real situation. The time has come to stop being a child."

  Before he thought anything else, the Prince said aloud, “Then we are all slaves."

  The nanny's jaw dropped. “Oh! To say such a thing!” She gathered her skirts and stood up. “It shows your foolishness, Prince Whoever-you-are. Slaves work, while you sit still in your jacket. You will be at the head of the troops so that the enemy will kill you first, and that is your destiny!"

  She started to strut. The thin line of her mouth began to stretch into a smile. “You think you are a slave? We will call you slave, ah? Khnom! Or are you a hereditary slave, a nia? Shall we call you Prince Hereditary Slave?” Her voice was raised. Some of the Prince's cousins, rivals, giggled. “Children, children, listen."

  The nanny grabbed Cap-Pi-Hau's shoulders and pushed him in front of her, presenting him. “This young prince wants to be called Nia. So will we call him Nia? Ah? Yes?"

  This was going to be fun. The children chorused, “Nee-ah!"

  The Prince tried to shrug her off, but she held him in place.

  "Nia! Ni-ah-ha ha!” chuckled the children of other royal wives, other royal uncles, other royal cousins. They had already learned they had to triumph over each other before they could triumph over anything else.

  The nanny settled back down onto the ground, full and satisfied, as if she had eaten. The laughter continued.

  Cap-Pi-Hau also knew: there are many princes, and I will be nothing if no other princes follow me.

  He strode to her and faced her. She was sitting; their faces were level. His gaze was steady and unblinking.

  Seated, the woman did a girlish twist and a shrug. What of you?

  The Prince felt his face go hard. “I am studying your face to remember you, so that when I am older you will be in trouble."

  From a prince of any degree, that was a threat. She faltered slightly.

  The Prince turned his back on her. He said to the other children, “This woman is a slave. This is what we do to slaves who mock us."

  Then he spun back around and kicked her arm.

  "Oh, you little demon!” She grabbed him.

  Cap-Pi-Hau sprang forward and began to rain blows about her face. Each time he struck her he called her, accurately, by the name of her own lower category. "Pual!" He said it each time he struck her. “Pual! Pual! Know your place!"

  "Get this monkey god off me!” she cried.

  Perhaps she had also been hard on the other women, because they just chuckled. One of them said, “He is yours to deal with, Mulberry."

  Her legs were folded, tying her to the spot. She could hit back, but not too hard, even if this was a prince far from the line of succession.

  Finally she called for help. “Guard!"

  The bored attendant simply chuckled. “He's a prince."

  "Nia! Nia! Nia!” the other children chanted, not knowing if they were insulting him or cheering him on.

  The nanny fought her way to her feet. “Oh! You must be disciplined."

  "So must you.” The young prince turned, and stomped up to the guard. “Your sword."

  "Now, now little master..."

  Cap-Pi-Hau took it.

  The woman called Mulberry knew then the extent of her miscalculation. She had imagined that this quiet child was meek and timid.

  "What are you going to do?” she said, backing away.

  He charged her.

  She turned and ran and he slapped her on her bottom with the flat of the sword. “Help! Help!” she was forced to cry.

  The children squealed with laughter.

  The tiny prince roared with a tiger-cub voice. “Stop, you pual! Talk to me or I will use the blade."

  She yelped and turned, giving him a deep and sincere dip of respect.

  "Hold still,” he ordered. “Bow."

  She did, and he reached up to her face and into her mouth and pulled out her wooden false teeth. He chopped at them with the sword, splintering them.

  "These teeth came to you from the household. For hitting a prince, you will never have teeth again."

  She dipped and bowed.

  "Now,” said Prince Hereditary Slave. “I ask again. How do I find a particular slave girl I like?"

  "Simply point her out to me,” the woman said, with a placating smile. She tinkled her little bell-like voice that she used with anyone of higher rank. “I will bring her to you."

  The guard was pleased. He chuckled and shook his head. “He's after girls already,” he said to his compatriot.

  * * * *

>   The next day, Cap-Pi-Hau found the girl for himself.

  It was the time of sleep and dusting. He bounced towards her. “We can play slippers!” he said, looking forward to fun.

  She turned and lowered her head to the floor.

  "Here,” said Cap-Pi-Hau and thrust a slipper at her. She had no idea what to do with it. It was made of royal flowered cloth, stitched with gold thread. She glanced nervously about her.

  "You do this!” said the Prince. He flicked the slipper so it spun across the floor. “The winner is the one who can throw it farthest.” He stomped forward and snatched up the shoe, and propelled it back towards her. She made to throw it underhand.

  "No, no, no!” He ran and snatched it from her. “You have to slide it. It has to stay on the floor. That's the game."

  She stared at him, panting in fear. Why was she so worried? Maybe she had heard there had been trouble.

  Cap-Pi-Hau said to her in a smaller voice, “If you make it go round and round, it goes farther.” It was the secret of winning and he gave it to her.

  She dipped her head, and glanced about her, and tossed the slipper so that it spun. It twirled, hissing across the wood, passing his. She had beaten him first go, and Cap-Pi-Hau was so delighted to have a worthy adversary that he laughed and clapped his hands. That made her smile.

  His turn. He threw it hard and lost.

  The second time she threw, she lost the confidence of inexperience and the shoe almost spun on the spot. The Prince experimented, shooting the slipper forward with his foot. So did she. The two of them were soon both giggling and running and jumping with excitement.

  He asked her name.

  "Fishing Cat,” she replied. Cma-kancus.

  The name made him laugh out loud. Fishing cats were small, lean and delicate with huge round eyes. “You look like a fishing cat!” Instead of laughing she hung her head. She thought he was teasing her, so he talked about something else, to please her.

  "Do you come attached to the royal house, like a cow?” he asked. Groups of slaves were called thpal, the same word used for cattle.

  "No, sir. I was given away, sir."

  This interested the Prince mightily because he had been given away as well. He pushed close to her. “Why were you given away?"