The King's Last Song

by Geoff Ryman

  The tribesman had stuffed his mouth full of mud, swallowed it whole. The surface of his open eyes was coated in mud; his nostrils were clogged with it. His bones quaked with an animal effort to breathe.

  One of the hot, bored soldiers called from the bank, “Let him go! He wants to die."

  Suicide would condemn the man, push him further down so that he would be reborn as a rat or a slug. Jaya tried to gouge out the plug of mud and reed from the man's mouth.

  The soldier stood up and waved. “Get back to work. Let him die!"

  There was a pop as the plug of mud came free. There was a rasping gasp, and the man swallowed mud, and then coughed.

  "Oh shit!” shouted the soldier. He stomped down into the mud, and casually swiped Jaya across the face, knocking him aside. He grabbed hold of the other slave's long queue of hair, hauled him up onto the bank, and left him there.

  "Work, idiot! I've got mud all over my jacket!"

  Once I had a wife as beautiful a celestial maiden with full and milky breasts and we were as fertile as fruit. I had a beautiful son. I had been restored to my family home, surrounded by fields and the line of coconut palms I had known as a child, the oxen tamely tethered beside the hay. I called to my men, I rode into battle, I was brave and rode my elephant fearlessly. I served my King, my old and failing King. I served the Buddha and so did without noble finery.

  How foolish I would have looked to the Gods. My lack of finery meant I was not recognized as a high-born person. The winged blade cut my elephant's throat and down I fell, a prize, a man no longer. I am a slave whom no one knows or regards. Who sees comrades choose death.

  Just work, Jaya. Empty your mind. The only way to end suffering is to end happiness as well.

  No happiness, not in this life, not now.

  Jaya went back to work and prayed for the man. Live, Comrade. Live, and learn. Be reborn as a prince for all your travail. Be a better prince than I was.

  The mountain man woke up, was hauled to his feet and was sent back to work. He glared at Jaya as he passed and spat at him.

  Work, Jaya, taste your own sweat. The sun will set. Endure.

  * * * *

  Time crawled, but night was inevitable, bringing rest and disappointment.

  The slaves were herded back into temporary shelters full of insects. Slave women dumped noodles direct onto the slaves’ callused hands. The noodles were lukewarm and half-cooked in lumps. No one had the strength to care about anything.

  Some new cooks had been shipped in. Their faces were still dusty from the march. One of the women shook lumps of rice into Jaya's hands and widened her eyes at him. No doubt he was in such a terrible state as to inspire pity.

  His hands were now as rough-skinned as his feet, and so filthy that it would be rude to point them at people. Let alone use them to shovel food into his mouth.

  He dropped onto the ground like a bundle of loose sticks. Be grateful Jaya, be grateful you work the rice fields.

  His first torment had been a timber camp up in the hills. The timber camps were cold and damp. He had shivered all night with no fire or blanket.

  The stone quarries had been baking hot. The heat slammed back from the rock-face. The sharp broken edges of the stone cut his feet. Boulders fell on men, or crushed their legs to paste.

  We build our graceful temples on that.

  So, Jaya, the rice fields are best. You have the best work possible for you. You are lucky, but you complain.

  The wide-eyed woman approached.

  Jaya felt the dullness of his mind. She was so unimportant that the guards did not prevent her walking over to him. What do you want? Jayavarman wondered. If you think this soldier can give you any sex, you are wrong. Work has made this rooster a hen.

  What is in your eyes, woman? Pity? Why me? Look at the others; some of them are in an even worse state than I am.

  The woman spoke Khmer. She said, in a voice as sad as any song, “Lord. My Lord, is that you?"

  Jaya thumbed a fly out of his eye.

  The woman reached up and pulled something from her neck.

  Jaya had seen it before. An amulet of protection. He stared at it, his lower lip feeling as heavy as a sack full of rice.

  "Fishing Cat?” he asked.

  Her hands involuntarily flew up to her mouth. “Oh, my Lord, what has befallen you?"

  "I was caught,” he said.

  "Oh, my Prince,” her voice slid up and down the scale of notes of pity and sadness and regret.

  He was baffled. “What are you doing here?"

  "The war washed over my village. We were taken."

  "Oh, Cat. We are both slaves."

  She knelt in front of him. She dipped low and placed her forehead on the ground.

  "Cat, don't. Don't, it will only make trouble."

  "You are my Prince.” She looked up and she was crying. “You are my kind and noble Prince, who sent me back to my home, my beautiful Prince. Oh! This life is unkind. I pictured you in your home with your family and I thought that you at least would be happy."

  "Sssh, Cat. Sssh. That way lies a sore heart."

  "I can bear things for myself, but for you..."

  "I am used to it now. Almost."

  She looked down at the amulet. “You told me that it could not protect me."

  "Do you....are there....any noodles left?"

  Jaya could not be too proud to ask for more, if she could get him some.

  Cat's face worked, with misgiving and sadness. Abruptly she stood and walked back to the temporary, smoky trenches.

  The world closed its eyes.

  And then bounced back into awareness with the rustling of her skirts, her skirts smelling of charcoal and fish.

  "It was for the soldiers,” she muttered. Two roasted catfish fell from the folds. She looked away as he pushed both of them into his mouth at once. He chomped crackling bone. There were fish flakes in his moustache.

  The other slaves stirred awake and she ran.

  h

  No law said that slaves should not love or that slaves should not marry.

  In the weary, drugged, hungry evenings the two slaves still found the strength to walk a short way together. They would lie on their backs next to each other, chastely looking up at the sky, not even their hands touching.

  Sometimes when the sun had blistered his back, she would lance the pouches of skin with fired needles.

  Sometimes, when his legs wept blood from leeches, she would wash them with boiled water.

  "Tuh, she looks like a servant girl with her king,” the guards chortled.

  "Yeah, well, he was one, wasn't he?"

  "Naw, that funny little guy? He was a stone carver more like."

  "He keeps talking religion. I reckon he dressed up some of their temple dolls.” The Cham guard mimed an effeminate priest.

  "Aw, let ‘em be. They've got to have a life too."

  "Yeah. It could be us. It could happen to us. Next war.” The soldier grunted as he turned over his helmet for a pillow.

  Cloud-flowers. It seemed both of them were buoyed up by something invisible and spinning, something that you could not eat or drink and which would not keep off the sun or the rain.

  Cloud-flowers that nevertheless nourished and perfumed, making the sky and the sun and the mud and the rice noodles beautiful, savoury.

  In the afternoons as she scrubbed the blackened clay pots she would look to the fields, thinking of him.

  By day in the fields, his back was more supple, bearing its load more flexibly. His step bounced even at the end of the day.

  As they sagged gratefully down onto the ground together, something else seemed to open up and expand, something that everyone could see.

  Love was still possible. Kindly love, alleviating love, love which warmed and elevated. Love which made sweat sweet, feet beautiful, grass into a soft bed. Love gave anyone with the capacity to be happy for others a moment of pleasure. Love gave hope to anyone with a particle of courage left. It gave an
yone whose strength was not exhausted a reason to think that life could always offer something.

  So no one was surprised, only a few were displeased or jealous, when finally the slave girl Fishing Cat and the man who was ashamed of his name ("Victory” indeed!) announced that they were man and wife. No witnesses, no ceremony. Who cared if slaves died, let alone married?

  But the declaration was accepted by all.

  And they were left alone to hold each other at night on the cold dewy grass, sharing their warmth.

  They shared what food there was. She found herbs during the day, or caught crickets or geckos, and they ate those. It was noted that her respect for him was exaggerated, always something of the servant girl in her reactions to him. About him, there was always something of the relieved and grateful settling of someone used to better things.

  Did they screw? There was no privacy, people would have seen them, but it was as if they had promised not to bear children here. Maybe they were both too tired.

  Instead, like a cat and a dog by the hearth, they would rest on each other. Cat and Dog became their nicknames.

  Until one day two cavalry men on fine horses came to the camp. Between them walked a slave.

  "Which one is he?” a Cham noble in a high helmet demanded. The slave scanned the faces and answered. The slave was Khmer, but they both spoke the shared religious language, Sanskrit.

  "That's him,” the old slave said, pointing at Dog. “That's him. Hello, Lord! Hello!” The old man looked back and forth between the guards, smiling, happy, relieved. “That's the one called Jayavarman."

  * * * *

  The Queen consumed herself.

  Indradevi Kansru looked at her sister as she collected yet another untouched tray of food.

  Even in the shadowed depths of the monastery-temple, heat and starvation had made her skin scaly and coated it in sweat. Queen Jaya's round face rested on a thin neck like a plum about to roll off a plate.

  Lamps hanging from the ornate fixtures cast an orange glow. An old woman sat with her legs folded under herself, fanning the Queen.

  "Has my sister eaten anything at all?” Indradevi Kansru asked.

  The old woman shook her head. She had tiny eyes, wizened and dark.

  Kansru turned to her sister. “'Sri? ‘Sri, I have some water for you. You should drink at least!"

  "I am so nearly there,” said Jayarajadevi.

  "You are so nearly dead."

  "I can so nearly see the great cycle. I can so nearly hear the great deep sound of the void."

  Indradevi put down the jug. “Do you want your husband to come home and find that you have died? That there is only your older sister here to greet him and say: she died of a broken heart waiting for you. Consider, Sister, if that would earn merit. Or would it be considered selfish?"

  As if pricked by a pin, Jayarajadevi's eyes opened. There were strands of muscle in arcs around her mouth; you could see the skull under her skin; there were pouches of flesh like a squirrel's around her chin.

  Jayarajadevi asked, “Explain."

  "You focus on your own salvation, when the household needs you to be its head. It is not Dharma to indulge a broken heart and call it the path of asceticism. This is the time for an orderly life in your home with your family."

  "I have no family."

  Indradevi discovered that she was angry. “Thank you for that. Should I call you Sister, since you have no family? You may well wish that you didn't have a family, but you do! You have a son who never sees his mother!

  The Queen swayed. “I did not mean that."

  "You say many things that you do not mean. You say them anyway without thought or care for others."

  "Sister!"

  Indradevi boiled over. “How alone am I and how much more alone will I be if you starve yourself to death, grieving for a husband you do not even know is dead?"

  The old servant woman kept fanning.

  Jayarajadevi seemed to melt back into herself. “He is dead. What else can he be? He was supposed to die; he was sent off to be killed."

  "This is not Dharma! Dharma is patience and forbearance with a cheerful mien. You wish to follow the Dharma, Sister, go out among the women and take up your spindle and busy yourself cheerfully among them. What is your body that you have to take revenge upon it?"

  "I seek to understand!” Jayarajadevi's eyes were wide with pain. “How love can be wasted and how vengefulness and hate can so triumph."

  "It surpasses understanding,” said Indradevi. “Don't try. Accept. Then you will learn. Not this way.” Indradevi ran a hand across Queen Jaya's forehead. “You are in error, Sister."

  One of the lamps flickered out.

  "Oh!” Indradevi snarled in rage. “Why aren't the lamps kept full!"

  It's not the lamps that make you angry, Indra. It's not even your sister. It's you, yourself, for letting this happen.

  It is not her weakness, but yours that allows this to happen. You are the one who must change.

  Indradevi grabbed hold of her sister's arm. “Come on, stand up. You're going outside."

  The Queen raised and lowered her hands, like a querulous old woman. “I am in meditation!"

  "You are in self-indulgence.” Indradevi was the stronger of the two and had no difficulty in pulling the Queen to her feet. It was like hoisting up light, dry sticks.

  "Let me be!” The Queen turned to her servant. “Stop her doing this."

  "Out!” Indradevi drew a shawl around her sister's shoulders and pushed her. “You do nothing worthwhile. You could barely show up for the funeral of your beloved guru."

  The Queen wept petulantly, and her feet made little sobbing steps. “You torment me!"

  Indradevi kept pushing. “You are not being ascetic to attain the truth. That is not honest, Sister. This is grief. Unenlightened, all-devouring grief. Accept it as grief. Call it by its right name. Do not call it devotion. It is not."

  They came to a flight of steps. Indradevi swept her sister down them as if she were a reed broom.

  Sunlight seared an inner courtyard.

  On a raised platform there grew a bougainvillaea, a butterfly tree. It was April, the time of butterflies, and the tree was covered in them. Startled, the butterflies rose up from the bougainvillaea in a cobalt, orange, black, and yellow cloud.

  Indra pushed her sister into the tree's shade, made her sit, and arranged the shawl over her head.

  "The air is beautiful,” the Queen whispered. “It smells so clean."

  "It's not full of incense.” Indra drew a deep calming breath herself.

  By all that was holy her sister looked awful—tangled, thin, and worm-eaten. And she had once been so beautiful. Tears ripened in Indradevi's eyes.

  Queen Jaya whispered, “We only had a year.” She meant herself and Jayavarman.

  With a sigh, Indradevi settled next to her and hugged her. Jaya trembled in her arms like a bird fallen from the nest. “It was a beautiful year,” said Indradevi.

  "Yes, yes it was,” replied Jayarajadevi, her voice creaking with a mixture of gratitude and sodden grief. She was as frail and shivering as the butterflies. She looked up at them in the tree. “'Sru,” the Queen asked, “bring me my little boy."

  Indradevi ran.

  * * * *

  Her son came, fat and stomping like his father.

  The Queen experienced uncertainty. I must look like a ghost to him.

  She berated herself. Kansri, this is not good, you have not seen your boy in weeks—a lifetime to a child. While you poke around in the dark, what sort of man is he growing into? How will he be worthy of his father if he is neglected? How can the memory of me be his rock if Yashovarman decides to take him away to the City?

  Her sister walked behind him, guiding him by the hand. Indradevi's smile was wide and joyful. She is so pleased that I am seeing him. Oh, Sister, how faithful you are! My Kansru, my delight, my boon companion.

  Jayarajadevi said, “Indra, thank you.” Then she bowed low. “Hel
lo, my little boy. Hello, my little prince."

  Queen Jaya tried to snag his attention with her eyes. He sighed grumpily, and his thrusting, angry male body was difficult to pick up and hold.

  She wrestled him up onto her lap. “Mother's-child, mother's-son,” she called him. “Suryakumara. Do you know how you got your name?"

  Oh, woman, while you were out burning your mind up to heaven, your son was calling. Your boy, all that may be left of your husband, the most precious thing you have.

  You neglected him. You even thought of him as a worldly distraction, a bond to the earth. How could you think that a neglectful mother would attain wisdom?

  "Your father named you Surya after the Universal King. King Suryavarman loved your father, so that is why you were named after him.” Kansri kissed her son's forehead. He leaned away, as if reaching for a toy, but there was no toy to reach for.

  "And you were named Kumara, Crown Prince. Which you are, here in Nagara Gotama, City of the Eastern Buddha. Here, you are a very important little man."

  She kissed his round, tiny hand.

  "There is a new Universal King now. And he does not love your father. Some day, not now, not for a while yet, but some day you will have to go the royal palace to serve the King. That is far from here."

  Jayarajadevi remembered her wedding night, out under the stars.

  The boy asked, “And Daddy?” The little face was solemn, too solemn, and the eyes too demanding.

  Jayarajadevi found she could be strong. “Your father was a warrior, and a king and...” How could she put this to a little boy? “Your father was a holy man. He was entirely trustworthy. His beloved King called for a war, and so your father fought. We have been waiting for him to come back. But I do not think he will be coming back. I know he would come back for you if he could. I saw his face when he held you for the first time, and there was never a father so proud of his son. Your father loved you."

  The little boy's face was a blank. He had never seen his father; his father meant nothing to him and perhaps never would.

  "Is he dead?” the little boy asked.

  "Warriors often die,” said Jayaraja, her voice as light as a butterfly.

  "Am I King, then?” He looked only slightly baffled.

  "Not yet. We do not know for certain that your father is dead. And you will only be a king here. Your name is a loving name, but it is a dangerous one."