The King's Last Song

by Geoff Ryman

  One floating house has a sunburst gable and a blue roof. A woman leans out from the porch, looking into a floating box of fish. She wears black and a conical straw hat. She is Vietnamese.

  William says hello in Vietnamese and tries to explain. The woman has not even heard of the kidnapping. The army did try to talk to her about something, but they went away again. No, she has heard nothing strange.

  William looks pleased, and tells Map, “The army have not been asking Vietnamese people."

  Map says nothing.

  There are bars with big red Angkor signs. There are stalls on wheels and large floating houses with TV aerials. Everywhere, the army have been first.

  One small boat has a long metal drive shaft trailing behind it. The young girl inside it wears a squashed pork-pie hat and neat shorts. She's Vietnamese. William translates some of her answers.

  "No, she has seen nothing, but she says that a new boat comes and goes from the floating village."

  Map's eyebrows raise. He nods and looks at the sun, now lower in the sky. “Ask if she knows someone who can take us around the lake cheaply."

  William can't stop himself jumping ahead of Map. “She's already offered. It's a great idea. My friend Chea works in a blacksmith shop near here, we can leave my bike with him."

  Map eyes him. “You know everybody. Ask her the price."

  Done.

  They zigzag back and forth across the river. The engine putters under a loosely covered poop deck. The girl sits on the red fuel canister and steers with a tiny polished aluminium wheel.

  The girl knows all the Vietnamese people. Women duck out of their barges carrying babies, and catch the twine she throws to them. She explains, looking to William as if he were the boss. Most of them have not heard of the Book or the kidnapping, but are shocked that the Cambodians would be so stupid as to hurt tourists. “That explains why they have all gone away!” they laugh.

  By now, it's past three o'clock. The day will start to die soon.

  Grandfather Luc, thinks William, we are doing what we can for you.

  The tiny boat braves the wide waters of the lake, approaching the floating Vietnamese village.

  A scaffolding of thin, stripped branches holds a boat up out of the water. The Vietnamese owner stands chest-deep in the lake, hammering wedges between the hull and the scaffold. Vietnamese music, more treble and wavering than Cambodian songs, drifts across the water.

  The girl calls out. William makes out the Vietnamese for hello, Sir, something about boats, and violence. Has he seen any strange boats?

  "Yes,” the boat repairman answers. “You.” He grins, showing horsy yellow teeth. William and the girl laugh.

  They talk to people in barges full of vegetables or hanging laundry over their decks. They wave and chuckle at merry naked children. The mothers have seen nothing.

  Their boat chugs up to a floating timber merchant. Firewood and piled planks swell out over the sides of the barge, supported by uprights. There's even a tree growing out of the deck, a medium-size silk-cotton. The timber merchant swings in his hammock, wearing pyjamas and smoking a pipe. The girl asks again, you see any strange boats around here?

  The timber merchant sits quietly thinking then says in broken Khmer, “One boat. Small. Small boat. Come go, far south, in out, no fish."

  "Sir. Please,” says William in Vietnamese. “Very good man. Very kind man. Hurt by violence. Please. Where?"

  The Vietnamese girl explains that a very good man has been kidnapped. Did he see an old Cambodian man wearing glasses?

  Yes.

  "He's seen him,” whispers William. The timber merchant becomes voluble. He and the girl talk for a long time. The girl translates. “He says that Cambodian men in a very small blue-and-white boat came and stayed a whole afternoon. He says there was thumping from inside the hull, over and over. An old man with glasses came and then the boat left. That was yesterday. They haven't been back."

  "Did the boat have any kind of canopy?” asks Map.

  No, no canopy at all. The girl doesn't know the name in Khmer for the particular kind of boat it is. But medium size. Very low in the water.

  Where did it head when it left? South, out into the reaches of the Great Lake.

  No, the boat did not come back, at least not to the Vietnamese village.

  Then Map says curtly to the girl who has been so helpful. “Back, back!"

  William looks at the girl and he can't stop smiling. The girl looks happy for him and laughs. William thanks her again and again in Khmer and Vietnamese. They pull up alongside her house. It's a poor house, a flat-roofed box with rickety walkways. One of the rooms has no floors, just planks of wood over the water.

  William would take her for a meal, buy her a hat, and pay her extra for all her help and trouble. Map jams the four riels into her hand, and thanks her but briefly. When William bows and says thank you again, Map says, “Come on, motoboy, we've got to get moving."

  William feels humiliated in front of the girl and ashamed of Map's behaviour. He holds out his hands and shrugs. The girl shrugs back and thanks him. Maybe four riels are a lot of money for her. William feels something hot in his chest constrict. He reaches into his own pocket and passes the girl a dollar.

  William balances his way back onto land and by now he recognizes what he is feeling. He's angry.

  He breathes in deeply and finds that his breath has stuck. This has got to be cleared up or he will lose his temper and that could lose him his job.

  As they walk back to his bike, William says, “Grandfather Luc gave you work running his Web site."

  Map grunts.

  "It takes a wise man to see talent in others. He is a good man. That is why I want to help you. I have no other motive."

  "I know,” says Map.

  "Then why are you so rude to me?"

  Map tuts, smiles and shakes his head. “You haven't seen me be rude."

  "I have seen you be friendly to other people."

  "Look, motoboy, I don't have to be friends with you. You are a very lucky guy, everybody in town knows you. Just be content with that. There is only one person in Siem Reap who doesn't want to have anything to do with you."

  William is bewildered. “You said that you didn't like me because I am peaceful. What is the alternative? War? You want war?” William's voice starts to rise.

  Map suddenly jabs a finger hard into William's chest. His eyes are staring, and encircled, like the bottoms of two glasses full of beer. “You call me Loak and you don't joke with me.” He jabs him again, hard. “Do you understand that, motoboy?"

  William is startled, and then unexpectedly afraid, as if Map's breath is a wind that blows right through him and stills his heart. If Map got angry, he would hurt him. That was clear: Map could be crazy and dangerous.

  It's good that you're devoted to Grandfather Frenchman and that you care so much about the patrimony. It's good you have the courage to say things that other people won't say.

  But what is the value in that, if you would rather your people were being bombed?

  Map goes back to Leung Dai, to watch all night.

  h

  William gets home long after the family has had its evening meal.

  His aunty has plainly been fretting. She sees him, and without saying anything, trots out to where his cousin cooks liquorice over a fire trench. She comes back with a fish she has reheated. “You are hungry, I can tell just by looking,” she says, and strokes his hair. “Did you eat anything?"

  William is too exhausted to lie. “No.” He's almost too tired to eat his fish.

  Even his uncle looks sombre. Uncle is as slim and willowy as a teenager, and usually views the world from behind a hazy, beneficent smile. His eyes look forlornly at William. He pours him a glass of water. “What happened today?"

  "We went to Leung Dai, we went to the Lake. Do we know Tan Map?"

  His uncle and aunt shoot a look at each other. Aunty takes over. “We did once. Not well. How long will you
be working for him?"

  "I don't know. Until APSARA runs out of money or until they decide to stop investigating.” With a start, William reaches into his pocket and pulls out his daily fee. Perhaps they look worried because it's less than usual. “I had to pay a Vietnamese girl to ferry us around. I'll ask Sangha to pay me back.” His aunty nods a hectic little thanks and darts away to put the money in the house.

  William asks his uncle. “Did....did we do something bad to Tan Map?"

  "Us?” his uncle sounds at first surprised. Then to William's alarm, his kindly uncle's eyes fill with water. “No. Nothing,” he whispers.

  Then Uncle stands up and, without saying anything, walks away. This is something he never does. William is left alone under the strip lighting.

  William thinks. They never talk about the war; they never say anything about it. They think that if I am kept ignorant, the war cannot touch me. I think the war cannot touch me too, but I breathe it in every day. William sees dust and smoke and something dark within it.

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  April 1160

  Jayavarman passed into the City and fear brushed him like feathers.

  Once again an elephant jostled him up the main road into Yashodharapura. He remembered being a captive child all those years ago.

  Once again he passed the great, foreboding temples. He saw the stalls, tasted the tang of smoke, and heard the babble of merchants. All of it dragged down his heart, and made him feel small and threatened.

  Jayavarman told his memories: hush, child. Be still, little one. Little frightened prisoner, you are here no longer. You are now a strong warrior, tall and arrayed with arms and elephants and sons to defend you. Your kingdom is famous for its peace and prosperity. The King has called you because he needs you and your cheerful, robust armies. He cannot, dare not, hold you against your will.

  You ride, son of Dharan Indravarman, on the back of an elephant, and even the elephant wears embroidered cloth. A servant crouches on the elephant's back to hold aloft a parasol, and another marches behind bearing your pendants and signs of office. Your troops march in front and behind.

  Your Crown Prince, Suryakumara, rides beside you, and he is fierce and strong, and does not look on the City with fear. Little Cap-Pi-Hau, your son is already twice the age you were when you first arrived, friendless and one of many other captives. Your son comes in state alongside his father with a cadre of soldiers.

  But, oh! the faces in the streets.

  I don't see any of the old faces. Time has wiped all the old faces away, like the breath that mists a mirror.

  Different people, replacement people. They still gawk at the higher categories. Their cheeks are sunken; their mouths are full of broken teeth, and the muscles around their mouths swell out. The flesh around their eyes is dark as if they have not slept; and they stare, baffled.

  They remind me of wild dogs that no one wants. These are not men who share the air, rice, and water of a home. They have come to the City for advantage and find thievery and prostitution and the kind of poverty that eats the soul from the stomach up. They smell of sour fruit rinds and baked mud. A cat that lives wild has no fleas, but a cat that stews all day with other cats amid the rinds is full of fleas and worms.

  Something is brewing in those replacement faces. It has been brewing for some time, for it is worse in these new faces than it was in the old. It is bafflement curdling into rage.

  The caravan turned and even Jayavarman had to gape in amazement. There, finished finally, the Vishnuloka—Vishnu's World—thrust its way towards heaven like five mailed fists. Clad in bronze, its five towers were topped with high masts bearing flags. From their lotus-flower petals hung long banners, black and red but mostly gold. The sacred mountain of Suryavarman the Great was as big and yellow as the rising sun.

  "That's it, Son, that is where your uncle-king rests, joined now with his god. His name now is Paramavishnuloka."

  Their elephants turned, following the moat and passing the main causeway leading to the western entrance.

  Jaya said, “It is Mount Meru come to earth here. You cross the causeway and go up two levels. On that high level there are four great pools, each representing the four holy rivers. From those towers you can see all the city precincts."

  His son's face was blank, unmoved as children often are by things that are too big for them to see, too bare of any association to make them feel joy, nostalgia, or regret. Suryakumara had his mother's thin face, but more demanding. “Why is the middle tower blue?"

  "Because it is the color of Vishnu whom Suryavarman worshipped. Oh, Surya, I remember seeing this when I was younger than you are now. It was the day of its consecration, and I remember thinking, what will it look like when it is finished? I never thought I would see it. This day seemed very far off then, all the banks were mud, the towers were still unfinished."

  "Are those bells?"

  From within the walls there came a kind of tingling, ringing sound, too swift and rhythmic for bells.

  "Chisels. Those are chisels. They are still working on the bas-reliefs."

  Surya sniffed. “So it is unfinished."

  The amazing capacity of youth to be unimpressed by the old. How strange to live in a world where King Suryavarman is no more and his great temple is just something old that disappoints.

  Jaya wanted to protect it. “Oh, a building of this size always needs additions and repairs."

  Suryakumara promised, “We shall build a bigger temple, but it will be to the Buddha."

  "The Buddha is so great that he does not need big temples.” Jayavarman's voice was gentle with a father's love.

  He remembered Suryavarman the King. His eyes. How they gleamed. Always thinking. An unattractive man in many ways, at least when he was old and narrow like a knife. He always pawed my shoulder and jammed me under his armpit. But he also made an exception of me. Loved me. Poor man.

  Childless, loveless. But how clever he must have been.

  "Suryavarman was not born a king,” said Jayavarman to his son. “There was a time of terrible confusion, many kings competing. And Suryavarman won by war but also by stealth. And he did sometimes bring peace, and he did sometimes bring a kind of justice."

  "He did not follow the Dharma,” said Suryavarman's namesake.

  "No. No, he did not. But he knew your mother and I should marry. And he kept all the promises he made to me."

  "Including leaving you imprisoned by the Chams.” Nothing Jaya could say seemed to erase the hatred his son had of the Chams and of the Universal Kings. It was as if he preserved his love for his father by blaming them for keeping them apart all those years. Surya leaned backwards and rubbed the top of his head against his father's chest, demanding. Demanding what? Love? You have my love, my son.

  Jayavarman put his hand on his Crown Prince's shoulder.

  "Even if you did name me after Suryavarman,” murmured the boy. “I will be a Buddhist king."

  "Some of the Chams are Buddhists,” said his father gently.

  The boy sighed. “Everything except the Buddha is in confusion."

  That was true. Jaya chuckled. “You are as wise as your mother,” he murmured.

  To their left they passed the high mountain with its thousand stone steps, the Yashodharaparvata, its own high temple out of sight.

  Skirting the mountain, their procession straggled on, not much regarded as it served no holy function. They passed into the City, which lacked walls and gates. The temple of Mount Meru was on their left, looking small in comparison to the Vishnuloka, but still clad like a warrior in bronze.

  Then they took another turn and headed northeast, to Yashovarman's new palace.

  How things change.

  The wooden-toothed nanny will be dead. The Brahmin who banished Fishing Cat now sleeps with his fathers. Half of the Oxen are dead and the beautiful maidens they fought over are now matrons. You won your queen, the beautiful Jayarajadevi whom Yasho had wanted for a second, perhaps more lovin
g wife. You won, and absolutely no one now cares or even knows.

  It has all passed into dust.

  Yashovarman's new palace still smelled of wood stain and the carvings were in the delectable new style of the Vishnuloka bas-reliefs, detailed and less full of old stories and demons. I like that, Jaya thought. Interesting, Yashovarman, how similar our tastes are. Though if we show great ladies on the palanquins, why not the working women who feed them?

  Kamlaa-category people gathered up the leads of their elephants. Conch shells sounded, gongs were beaten. Suryakumara flicked his jacket shut with a twist and a snap, and glared at everything about him.

  It is not fair. Little Surya soaks in my own anger and distrust of this place. He does not regard the City as his own. He could feel pride in his people, in their greatness, but because of me, my old fear, he does not.

  Jaya murmured, “Behave well, Prince."

  "I promise,” said his son.

  They ascended the wooden steps, and there were spotless new floors, the polish still tacky underfoot.

  Surya breathed out. “These floors are rough. Watch out for splinters, Father."

  Little commandant, thought, Jaya, smiling fondly.

  Jayavarman maintained the smile as a mask, to indicate cheerfulness, contentment, and power. Puals led them into a great airy room, curtains pulled back, open to the gardens and the grazing cattle.

  The room buzzed with the sound of kings and generals, greeting, bowing, and moving between groups to build alliances. The recently defeated general of the northwest looked uneasy. Well he might. Any one of these little kings, rushing to his aid, could or would replace him. Other kings had brought their sons to train them, great strapping lads on the cusp of manhood. They scowled like Surya did, looking angry and disdainful.

  Anything to avoid looking afraid. And so, they looked afraid.

  The kings and generals looked relaxed and jolly. The vengeful Little King of Poduli, the mountain, bounced on his heels, jiggling, beaming. “Hah! A small rebellion like this! It is good for the young men to have something to fight; it has been too long a time of peace!"