The King's Last Song

by Geoff Ryman

  "You will be a lady of the house..."

  Her eyes were steady. “It would be better for you to give me the most likely answer."

  He sighed helplessly. “A kind of a wife. A wife in my heart."

  She blew out. “Consort. Favourite concubine."

  "That's how it will be seen, that is why we should marry..."

  "And what will you say when people ask who my grandfather was? Shush. A consort. A king's consort. Let's see how it works.” She moved towards the door of their hut. Surf was hissing up onto the beach. “I will miss this little house."

  The King put his arm around her. “It has not been a bad life.” They both had been perfectly contented with their daily round, the oyster-colored sky, and the smell of Cat's own milk.

  They slipped away from the hut, bearing their loving burdens of baby and rice, and it was as easy as making love. They walked into night and a different history.

  * * * *

  Night was their cloak.

  They walked at night, fished and ate at night. Day was their time of rest. They hid in reeds or scrub, shading their eyes, listening to wind billow through leaves. They tensed when they heard the crackle of peasant footsteps on paths.

  Jaya and Cat left the coastal plain and climbed up into the hills. Skirting the main trails, they dodged through airy mountain forests streaked with tall, white-trunked trees.

  Finally they came to the Wat where travelers decamped. There they joined a caravan of traders, who would give protection from the hill tribes.

  Hidden among so many people, they climbed up into clouds. Cat shivered, never having experienced air so cool. Shawls over their heads disguised who they were. Rain was another veil to cover their faces. The mountains closed in on either side, and the mist cloaked them from the view of the military towers.

  At Buon Me Thout the caravan came to the Srepok River that gushed through the passes, westward all the way down to the great Mekong. The trail sloped downwards.

  All along the narrow Srepok valley, the Cham army camped. Crouched amid other travelers, Jayavarman saw the night fires of the army along the hilltop trails. From below he heard the raucous laughter of soldiers and the shouting of their wrestling matches. Walking past their encampments, he smelled the heads left on stakes to terrify tribesmen and fugitives.

  So Jaya and Cat took to the night again. They swam down the river, tied together with ropes made of their own clothing, Jaya holding the baby over his head. As quiet as moonlight, they rode the river's currents, dreading rapids and crocodiles. Fish brushed past them and took tiny bites of their legs.

  The river widened, becoming swift and rippling. They waded through shallows or marched on the banks, struggling through thorny scrub. By day they slept as best they could, hidden in thickets.

  Once they were seen by tribesmen. They were fishing from rocks at sunset, heard a cry, and looked up to see men with tattoos on their faces. The tribesmen might have been friendly, but Jaya and Cat ran nevertheless, swift and hardened of foot.

  They joined another caravan. It followed the Srepok westward down out of the hills onto a dusty plain. They arrived with a great wave of folk at the confluence with the Mekong. There was a town with houses on stilts. An old man greeted them in Khmer.

  All along the banks were landings and skiffs for ferrying people across, but Jaya had no money for the fare. The old man turned out to work on the ferry. He let them cling to the stern of the boat as it was rowed across. They hung on to the ferry, trailing in the water and shivering inside, for the Mekong was full of devouring asura-fish and crocodiles.

  They stood up on the opposite bank and were home. Now Jaya and Cat could walk openly on the road, south and west from the northern confluence.

  Dawn here was silver. The sky was silver with white dust, the soil bleached, the trees sparse and spreading far ahead on the flat, dry ground. Their feet were grey like ash.

  Sunset was copper, even more stained by dust. The low light made everything glow.

  They came upon category houses by a river. “I think this is it,” said Jayavarman. He shuddered with something like a chuckle. “I don't quite remember."

  Then over the tops of trees, they saw glowing and golden the modest temple towers of the Eastern Buddha. They walked dazed, hollow-eyed, not sure they entirely believed they were there, wondering what kind of welcome they would have.

  Here, it was an evening like any other. The market was empty except for some children playing in a puddle. They came to the wall that surrounded the central complex. It was decorated with the usual sandstone carvings of celestial maidens and kalas, but Cat saw now how much more graceful they were than the rounded heaviness of Cham statues. She was grateful.

  The gatehouse was guarded. The soldier demanded, “Who are you, peasant?"

  Jaya replied in a low, calm voice. “Bring the lady of the house and she will know me.” His eyelids sagged.

  Cat held the child and found she had wound him up in her thin scarf, to hide his bent and twisted legs.

  "You have served here before?” the guard asked. He eyed Fishing Cat. If your little slave husband bores you, woman, you would find a real man under this armour; perhaps you like a fighting man better, no? He rocked on his heels, grinning.

  Fishing Cat made her lip curl in disgust. A fat oaf like you? She bounced her son as if he were firm and healthy.

  The guard had no other use for her. “No one cares for the likes of you. Come back tomorrow. Or don't come back at all. We have a full supply of nia and pual and kamlaa."

  Jaya answered, “We are none of those."

  "Whatever you are, get out of here."

  Jaya smiled. “Why do you despise category people?"

  "You have no courage, you work in fields."

  Jaya's eyes gleamed like the sunset. “What would you eat, without category people?"

  "Yah. It is your role to make food so that I can fight."

  Jaya still smiled. “I wonder what a king makes of soldiers? I think some kings think soldiers only exist to die for them, to make them great."

  The soldier wanted to show he was up to thinking. “I was more virtuous than you and so I was born of a higher rank."

  Ah, thought Cat, if a soldier can say that then the people here are all educated. Jaya's head jerked back with amusement. “Then I would make sure you are as virtuous in this life as you were in the last."

  "I could strike you down,” said the guard.

  Jaya's voice was as gentle as wind in the reeds. “No, you couldn't."

  The guard discovered that he did not really want a fight. The wind whispered with a hollow sound as if blowing through a clean-pecked skull.

  There was a sound of tiny bells tinkling with the rhythm of walking. Sandals flapped on the paved courtyard. A woman's voice was raised as she approached. “Who is this man, Liver? Do we know him?” She was perhaps a little put out by having to cross the courtyard herself. “I saw him from the upper floor."

  The woman stood in the gateway, and turned towards them. Her face went still. Cat's heart was as bated as her breath—was this his wife?

  "Hello, Sister,” said Jayavarman.

  The woman was lean and handsome, with a diadem on her brow and a tiara above that. A shawl of gold embroidery warmed her shoulders. Fishing Cat could not help but duck and lower her head in respect.

  "Jaya?” the woman whispered in a wan, heart-stricken voice. “Jaya?” A rising note of hope. “O Jaya!” A squeal of joy, as if a heart was an egg to be broken open.

  "Jaya, Jaya, Jaya!” This great lady hopped up and down like an excited child. She bounced overjoyed into his arms, and he hugged her and picked her up and swung her around. “Kansru,” he said and his voice broke apart into sobs. “Oh, ‘Sru, I'm home."

  The woman covered her face, and tears streaked it. She put her hands delicately on his chest. Then she turned and wailed into the house. “'Sri! Sister! Jaya! Jaya, he's hoooooome!” The word home was a lost eagle wail. “The King has
come home to us! ‘Sri!"

  Then she gave a quick, questioning look at Cat. A woman with a child?

  The sound of sandals running and a wailing voice. “Husband! Hus-band!"

  The three of them fell against each other and wept. Fishing Cat waited outside the circle, listening to the wind.

  The last of the light faded, and Jayavarman reached out an arm for Cat and pulled them all together.

  * * * *

  The King called a banquet for all the household.

  He went to the kitchens himself and called for rice and noodle dishes and fish and vegetables to be cooked and laid out in all the household bronze dishes as if honored guests had traveled from afar.

  Then he invited the kitchen girls, the temple workers, and his soldiers. He invited the fat guard at the door. When he had learned who he had insulted, the man had flung himself flat on the ground. The King said to him, “You were mistaken, and we are all mistaken sometimes.” He put a hand on the guard's shoulder. “But do not combine foolishness then, with foolishness now. Get up and show respect, as a man would to his uncle."

  The household was a duststorm of joy. Curtains were taken down and washed and rehung properly, fresh and golden. The category people, knowing that they were to fill their bellies, cleaned all the halls with a will, pursuing dust and spiders and rooting them out of corners. The halls were so full of the sound of flapping sandals and bare feet running that it was as if they had been invaded by flocks of birds.

  The King was as tireless as the sturdy working women. He followed them in their work, asked after their husbands and children. If someone was sick, he made sure that the apothecaries came with medicines.

  On the night of the banquet, the hall glowed with burnished bronze, and the Little King stood up in their midst.

  He wore silk, but with no flowered embroidery, brown silk as if he were a monk.

  "My household, my children, and the children of my household. I am home. I have traveled far and faced dangers to be back among you. First I was guarded as a prisoner and then regarded as an equal by the Cham King. I escaped, and I am home. Home with my beautiful wife, Victory Queen Holy, whose first name I took."

  There was another woman with him, as simply dressed as he was. Brown silk, fine stuff but simple. Some kind of consort, best not to question a king too closely.

  "All of us together will create a new Path,” said their Little King. “Our quiet, prosperous, happy fields will be like a corral that is kept safe for cattle. No one will notice at first. People notice war, not tranquillity. But as part of that corral, I will restock and rededicate the hospital here, for all to use, every category of person."

  Sompiahs and a polite warbling of approval.

  "This house will be open to all who need succour and comfort. If a hungry person comes, we will feed him. Rest houses will be built next to my own house for the weary. Then we will build a school. My great-hearted wife Jayarajadevi has shown the way to me. We will build schoolrooms for all the children of the Eastern Buddha so that all can earn merit through wisdom. All of these things will be consecrated in the name of Lokesvara, the creator, and Gotama, the Buddha, and to the memory of my parents."

  The King's beautiful face, already fattening, permitted something to tremble in its cheeks and eyes: human sadness and mourning.

  The servants remembered his watchful mother and kindly father. He combines the best of them both.

  "This will be a happy house,” he promised them. He held up his arms. “Now, eat!"

  And the category people looked at the wide ears and the wide eyes of his senior wife, bat-faced but beautiful. What, what was she feeling?

  * * * *

  Queen Jayarajadevi Kansri had not remembered how her husband bustled.

  He stomped, cheerfully, lovingly, and relentlessly. In an instant, he had started to run everything. When she had run everything before.

  Whatever good she had done, such as the religious school for the women, was praised and then appropriated. Schools, hospitals, rest houses were founded or restocked. It was as if everything devoted and quiet and private in her heart had been flung open and out into the street.

  The First Queen ate, maintaining her visage, working on her heart.

  "'Sru had reminded her that goodness had to be made into public acts. That was what men were for. That was why she had loved him, wasn't it? Because he was responsible, he took the virtues and made them manifest.

  Why didn't she? There was a little catch in her virtue and it was tripping her up.

  Then there was his little slip of a concubine. Oh, he was a man, men took second wives; they had creatures like these on the side. But she sat here at table as if high-born, and then went down to work in the kitchens. How was she supposed to react to that?

  The idea made Jayarajadevi weary. The truth you have to face, she told herself, is not in scriptures or in meditation. It is lodged in your heart.

  What kind of man would you love? A man who would have left the slave-wife who had sheltered him? Left a baby because it was born incomplete? Would you love a man who vented himself into palace girls and ignored them?

  No, the man you would love would be a man who treated his category concubines with kindness and concern. Look at her, Queen Jaya, this is a woman of true intent. This is not a schemer; this is not a woman who saw advantage and pressed it. Ev3en now every gesture is the gesture of a servant girl to her lord. Regard and learn, throw out useless things like fear and mean-mindedness.

  Look, she keeps her eyes downcast. Look at her face; it is a refined face that is as delicate as a bird's foot.

  You have your strong sister Indradevi Kansru whose selflessness abides beside you, even at the cost of having a household of her own.

  Can this not be a second sister? Out of place, friendless, without anything except the love of the King? A beautiful sister who will know more than you do of hardship and loss? Can you, Queen who prided yourself on your virtue, fail to show her kindness and love? For if you do, you will show yourself to be little and false.

  When your husband has given you the opportunity to be grand, as big as the sky.

  This is your opportunity, woman, to work with him on the project that you yourself started.

  To build a different kind of king. A different kind of kingdom.

  And therefore a different kind of court.

  Oh yes, we could build another hell like Yashodharapura, the City. All the King's wives scheming to get their relatives positions in the hierarchy and their rivals’ children disgraced or even murdered—poisonous hypocrisy, slicing wit, killing smiles, and the silent pounding of fists of frustration against stone.

  There is a seed in your heart, woman, of that kingdom. And there is a seed in your heart also of something new, a fine, tall, fruit-bearing tree.

  That's the seed I choose to nurture.

  The King's wife looked about her at the banquet and saw a low bronze table set out with baskets of food. She rose to her feet and walked to the table, a magnificent piece cast in the shape of flowers and birds.

  The Queen leaned over the table and as if picking flowers selected the fattest most finely battered prawns, the greenest onions, and the most fragrant pickles. She arranged them in a dish.

  Queen Jaya carried the dish to Fishing Cat. “Here, good woman. To recompense you."

  Something in Jayarajadevi clenched with strain, but she held firm. Look at her face, she told herself, look into her eyes. Who is this? This is a kind and faithful woman.

  The servant eyes were horrified. “Oh, Lady, no!"

  Do you believe in category advantage, Queen? Will you do this to show her up, to make her look small? That is what they would do in the City. You could take this same action and turn it into a weapon, and even be praised for it.

  Or you could stay true to your new Way. The Way your husband is holding this banquet to establish. You can do this to elevate both her and yourself.

  "You fed my husband when there was no else
to do it. You were his friend from childhood and you remembered that friendship always. It is a pleasure to return the kindness."

  The King beamed. His hands urged Cat to take, eat. His eyes turned up to Queen Jayarajadevi and beamed approval, joy. And love? Of a kind?

  You will have to share him, Queen Jaya.

  The servant girl bowed deeply, as was her place, and Queen Jaya returned to her cushions.

  Her sister Kansru took her hand as she sat down and with the subtlest flick of her eyes and hands said: a good action, Sister.

  The King's wife thought: you have served me bowls of fruit or rice, “'Sru. You have played with my child as if he were your own.

  Not for the first time, Queen Jaya wondered: what are your feelings, ‘Sru? Have you learned to let someone else have the love you wanted for your own? If so, as always, I have much to learn from you.

  Oh, come lamps and burn with joy! Come honey and sweeten us, come music, come let us have light and joy and peace and kindness. Let us have love, which has to unfold and change or wither. Let everything be as abundant, as generous, and as temporary as a fall of flowers from the trees.

  "Where are the musicians?” Indradevi said, as if reading her sister's thoughts. “Come, play, play for happiness and the restoration of our Lord, and the Way."

  The two sisters’ eyes met and both were glassy in the lamplight.

  * * * *

  You grow used to everything with time.

  You grow used to wearing clean clothes and eating well. That comes quickly. You get so used to the other girls giving you food and bowing that you cease to notice after a while, and then you realize you have forgotten them all together.

  You grow used to your husband, your love, your King going off most nights to sleep in his wife's bed. You grow used to the fluttering of gratitude, of love and of, yes, desire, when your beautiful husband returns to you for a night, and you rest in his soft smooth arms.

  And oh, how the waves of love pass through you then, how desire sighs through you like a gust of wind, how you drape and curl around him, how you open up to let him inside you. How well you sleep.