The King’s Last Song

Nia had just enough love of war. The strong ox Yashovarman hesitated, and in hesitation made his ground unsteady. ‘I have warned you!’ he said, but retreated.

To his friends, the Prince sighed in disgust as they played checkers. ‘Oh! I wish everyone would cease this matchmaking. You would think the marriage had been announced.’

The friends chuckled. ‘We will not let you escape. The Lady Jayarajadevi is perfect for you. Not just her beauty. It is a matter of her character.’ And they laughed at themselves, for they were imitating old village women.

‘Uh!’ groaned the young prince. ‘Just leave it, please!’

One night the Prince woke up in his hammock, to see Divakarapandita leaning over him.

‘Teacher!’ he exclaimed in fear and alarm.

‘I was seeing how you sleep,’ said the great religious leader. ‘I wanted to see the quality of your dreams.’

The Prince scrambled to make himself decent.

‘No, no, you do not insult me sleeping innocent in your bed. You appear whole and complete with no blemish. Does your penis work, does it produce seed?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hmm. I hear that you have a copious heart and mind.’

‘I can’t judge that.’

‘I can. That is why I am here. Now that you are awake, please cover yourself, and we will walk out into the night so that we can talk.’ The other soldiers in the room lay frozen with that particular listening stillness of people who pretend to be asleep.

The Prince swung out of the hammock, twisted a garment around his middle, and joined the great Consecrator of Kings.

‘What is your view of the Gods?’ the Consecrator asked.

‘Toh! It is hardly for the likes of me to have a view on the Gods.’

‘Of the relation of the King to the Gods?’

‘Even less so.’

‘Come, come, courage, you are a favourite of the King. Let us pretend for the moment that no harm can come to you for any view you express. This interview will go better for you if you do.’

Insects buzzed about them. You couldn’t see the moon, but the high silk-cottons were silver and the light along the leaves joined up as if there were tiny creeks flowing from leaf to leaf.

Nia could not think of much to say. ‘I suppose I think that the King should pay observance to the Gods. Certainly not anger them.’ He sighed. ‘Perhaps invent fewer of them. It seems unlikely to me that one’s great aunt can suddenly become one with a god under a new name.’

‘That is about the Gods and the great aunt, not the King.’

‘I sometimes wonder if it is enough to make observances.’

‘Ah! Elaborate, young prince.’

The Slave Prince looked at the old man’s ordinary face. Despite his beautiful shawl, purple and sewn with gold thread, despite his fine white beard, despite the gold parasol with its ivory handle which he used now like a walking stick, despite all of that there was nothing special about him.

His face had gone waxy like a candle, and was spotted with age. His teeth were brown and crumbled, his back bowed, his arms stiff and shrivelled, bone-thin but with hanging withered pouches of skin along the lower edge. This was an old man, whose every glance stared ahead at his own death.

The young prince felt sorrow for him, sorrow for all things that pass.

The Prince said, ‘I know it takes a lifetime to learn how to make observance. I think it is hard work to parade on an elephant and look like something that talks to gods. Harder still to look like you will become a god when you die. Hard work, but that is not enough.’

The old man blinked. ‘It isn’t?’

‘I once had a friend. She was a slave, a gift to this house. I saw that her world was as big as our own. I saw that whatever was holy in us was also holy in her. I think we try to climb towards the Gods. We get higher and higher up to the King, and then over the King, to the Gods, and when we look at the Gods, we find … what? A cycle? Back down to the flies and the fishes. There is no top. Everything is holy.’

The old man disapproved. ‘A radical notion. What do you know of the Buddha?’

‘Almost nothing.’

‘Oh, tush!’

‘He was a teacher great enough to be treated almost like a god.’

‘And what did he teach?’

‘Virtue. I am to be a soldier, and I will be a good soldier. I will serve with honour, and courage and efficacy.’ The Slave Prince clenched his fist. ‘I have no doubt of that. But what I want, if anyone should ask, would be to be a Brahmin.’

Divakarapandita chuckled and waved a hand.

‘A Brahmin who rides an elephant and fights for his King when the time comes …’

‘Oh ho-ho!’

‘And who is not ignorant.’ The words were hot, they made his eyes sting.

Divakarapandita’s mouth hung open. ‘Ignorant?’

‘I know nothing!’ Then less heated. ‘Nobody has bothered to teach me.’

‘Do you think anybody has bothered to teach the Lady Jayarajadevi!’ The Consecrator looked appalled. ‘You have to teach yourself!’

Nia hung his head. ‘I speak heatedly from shame.’ He began to see what the interview might be about. Another round of matchmaking. Who was this Lady to have the Consecrator concern himself with her marriage?

‘So you should be ashamed.’ But the old man seemed to say it from sorrow. He touched the Prince’s arm. ‘You have no ambition to be King?’

‘Toh. All these little princes, all dreaming of being King, all making tiger faces at themselves. I want to be a holy warrior.’

The old man stopped, shuffled round to face him, took hold of both the Prince’s arms, and stared into his eyes. ‘War is never holy,’ he said. ‘War makes kings, and kings perform holy functions. But the two are separate.’

Nia felt shame again. He hung his head. ‘I feel things. But I don’t know things.’

‘Maybe there is someone who will take the time to teach you,’ said the holy man. ‘And then you might become what you want to be, a wise man.’ He drew himself up. ‘What will you do when the King dies?’

Nia felt alarm, for himself, for his whole life. ‘The King is ill?’

‘Ssh, ssh, no, but he is a man. What will you do when he dies?’

Nia thought. With his protector gone, with the Oxen fighting over kingship, there would be years of violence. He imagined Yashovarman, and found he felt disgust and alienation and fear. ‘It depends how he dies.’

‘How do you mean?’ The holy man’s eyes were narrowed.

‘If someone murders the King, then I will seek justice. If he dies in his bed, that’s different.’

The old man looked up and then back. ‘There is a war coming,’ he said. ‘In Champa and in the lands beyond. You will be sent away and may not come back. You are sixteen and it would be good if you were married. You see, Prince, you are as dear to Suryavarman as the Lady Jayarajadevi is to me. We have discussed a marriage between you and the Lady, the King and I. I have assessed you and find you as the King described.’

The Dust of the Feet drew up his robes. ‘The marriage will proceed,’ he said.

It was only the marriage of a high lady to a prince whose lack of family was made up for by his own subtleties of person.

But not only the Dhuli Jeng, but the King himself were to attend. It was to be held in a pavilion in the royal enclosure. The greatest soldier, Rajaindravarman, General of the Army of the Centre, was to be the young prince’s sponsor, as his father was dead.

And since this prince was already in line for a small throne, the Dhuli Jeng was to recognize him at the same time as a little king. He was to take his title.

The princes and the princesses all washed exuberantly around the cisterns. There were to be musicians and dancers. This was a chance for the King to express his love. A general sense of satisfaction emanated from him and was communicated to his loyal court. They were to be joyous before a time of war.

The Slave Prince was married wearing his quilted flowered coat, and carrying his shield. A crown of bronze had been wound into his hair. As always, he did without his torque, which gave immunity from harm.

Nia marched with a column of his comrades in arms. His friends looked pleased. They passed through the well-wishers and then climbed the steps to the pavilion.

Torches fluttered in the wind. Pressed around were wives of the King, high courtiers, and a few members of Jayarajadevi’s family.

The nephew-in-law of the childless King was there. Prince Nia saw in the eyes of Yashovarman something measured and measuring. He is not an Ox, that one, thought Nia. He may have been one once, but now he simply uses them. How wise he was, to marry the King’s niece. The certitude came. He will indeed be Universal King. As he advanced, Nia sompiahed particularly to him. Yashovarman blinked in surprise, and indicated a return of respect.

So that Jayarajadevi could in fact be married to a little king, the title-giving came first. Consecration was too high and holy a word for it. The Universal King would recognize the new title and the Little King be given a chance to swear loyalty.

So the Dhuli Jeng was to give out one more regal honorific. Which was to be?

The Prince smiled. He had thought long and hard about this. Once he took his title, then his bride might have to give up or amend her own if their titles clashed inauspiciously or gave obeisance to different principles. Why should she change her great name? His smile widened as he said, ‘My name is Jayavarman.’

He had taken a name to match his wife’s and not the other way around. The onlookers murmured among themselves.

It was a better title than Nia, but Jayavarman was also the honorific of many Great Kings. Did it show ambition? Suryavarman’s countenance did not flicker.

Divakarapandita’s smile widened a little further. The overturning prince had overturned again. ‘You are now Jayavarman of the City of the Eastern Buddha.’

Little King Jayavarman beamed as he swore loyalty to the Universal King.

Then he was married.

Indradevi Kansru held up an embroidered cloth so that the Little King could not see the beauty of his bride too soon and then be dazzled speechless or struck blind. Indradevi was so pleased for her sister that a whole night sky seemed to beam out of her eyes.

Divakarapandita himself scattered flowers, and poured water on the stone lingam and yoni. The embroidered cloth still stood between them.

My wife, thought Jayavarman. Behind that cloth is my wife. I shall be a husband, we will be together, we shall make love, we shall be each other’s support, and we will have children, brilliant babes.

Divakarapandita beckoned him forward and the Prince knelt and drank water, sign of everything, source of everything, as poured from the yoni. Unusually, making some obscure point, the Dust of the Feet asked him to drink from the lingam as well.

Then the cloth was lowered.

And Nia was dazzled and he was struck dumb, for there was Jayarajadevi, his wife, and her smile stretched all the way to the moon.

Her smile was pulled wide by a joy she could not express, and her eyes shone. She was sheathed in gold, jewels and signs of office, surrounded by fans and fly whisks and parasols, all borne by her friends. The paraphernalia bobbed around her beautiful face like flowers.

Jayavarman stared and could not speak. People chuckled. His mouth hung open. He had a declaration to make and could not make it.

‘Lord,’ reminded Divakarapandita.

Jayavarman restored himself and stumbled rough-voiced and awkward through the words that declared and promised and established and called upon others to witness. His wife’s eyes were on him all the time.

There was feasting and dancing. The Little King’s friends hugged him, shook him, teased him and declared that they would marry too, it would give them heart for battle, they had not known until now that wives completed warriors.

The bride’s female friends warned him, shaking fingers, that he must treat their friend well or the women would take revenge. It was both a joke and serious.

Indradevi Kansru wove her way towards them, her whole body writhing with happiness. Her eyes shone almost too brightly, and she took her sister’s hand, called the Little King ‘Brother’, and said repeatedly how happy she was. It was a good marriage, and they should both count on her always as a friend. She pulled away suddenly and Jayarajadevi started after her. And stopped.

For Yashovarman was upon them. Their other friends drew back. ‘Little King,’ he said, ‘the Universal King does you a great honour.’

‘He does, oh, he does indeed!’ said Jayavarman, still buoyed up with joy like a bobbing raft.

‘I wish you well in your marriage, and wish you good heart in the coming war.’

‘Oh! The same to you, Prince!’ Jayavarman was not exactly himself, the words were not appropriate for once, but the force behind them was good hearted.

‘We will fight many wars together,’ said Yashovarman. ‘I hope I can rely on you?’

What a dangerous question. The waters of joy receded. Swiftly Jayavarman mounted the bank, the bank of politics, princes, rivalries and himself.

Jayavarman said, ‘I try to be friends with all men and certainly loyal to all my comrades in arms.’

Yashovarman whispered, ‘What if I am more than that?’

Jayavarman did not have the heart to be anything other than direct. ‘I think you will be Universal King, Yashovarman, and I intend to serve the King. For me to be loyal to the next King, my Lord Suryavarman, who is beloved by me, must die in his bed, honoured, and his ashes kept in his temple with great remembrance. Let us have a pact, Yashovarman, to preserve our Lord so that all can see he died a natural death.’

Yashovarman went very still and silent. ‘Of course,’ he said without further ceremony or display of feeling. He very suddenly smiled, and flipped the tip of the Little King’s nose. ‘What a little puppy you are.’ It could almost pass for affection. Yashovarman strode away.

Did Suryavarman see the exchange? It seemed to Jayavarman that the King went out of his way to hold him up to the household. ‘I give you my trusted right hand, my support in old age, my young and supple Shield of Victory!’ the King cried.

There were groans and protests: no you are not old.

‘I give you my cloud-flower of virtue and respect whose name will join the web of stars overhead!’

He hugged Jayavarman’s shoulders, and leaned on him. The King’s breath smelt of wooden teeth and palm wine. The Little King smiled and thought, this could be dangerous. The King whispered to him, ‘My harrow after death.’

Finally, finally he and his wife were left alone. They walked hand in hand to the household reservoir. It creaked with frogs and crickets. So, the Prince thought, I have a wife as beautiful as the moon, as tuneful as the birds. But I don’t really know her. All our friends surround us.

And from somewhere came grief and he found he was crying.

‘Husband,’ said his new wife. ‘You weep?’

She tried to pull him around. It was not manly to weep. He tried to stop. But suddenly he found he could not stop, and that his legs were giving way under him. He slumped down to the ground. Gracefully, Jayarajadevi lowered herself next to him. ‘My Lord, be happy?’ she chuckled, her voice also unsteady.

‘I don’t know why I do this.’

He looked up at the leaves, stars, moon, and the temple, black and red and gilded, dancing with torchlight.

‘I wish my mother was here,’ he said, locating the grief. ‘I wish my father was alive. I wish I’d been with him when he died.’

‘Ah,’ she said, like wind in the trees. She sat in her gold-embroidered gown on the dry ground. She took him in her arms. ‘It is our fate to lose our families.’

‘I will not see her or my father again. My brothers are taken by the wars. My mother said she did not choose this, that she would always think of me.’

‘She was a very wise and loving mother to say that.’

‘I don’t know why I do this!’ He was so frightened of looking unmanly for his bride.

‘You are weeping because you have come home after such a long time.’ Her own words rocked as if over a bumpy road. She cradled him closer and kissed his forehead. She kissed his closed eyes, for all of their dead. ‘Your father. My father. Your mother.’ She looked into his eyes. ‘What is your name? I don’t know your real name.’

Jayavarman smiled embarrassed and shrugged. He closed his eyes and said his real name. ‘Kráy.’

Jayarajadevi’s face froze.

He said, ‘Kansri, don’t tell anyone, please. It is not a name I can live up to!’ The name in Old Khmer meant Huge, Powerful, Exceeding – Too Much.

Jayarajadevi asked, ‘Your father gave you that name?’

‘No, my mother.’ Jayavarman grinned. ‘She had a vision of me. Mothers do.’

Jayarajadevi Kansri sighed. ‘I won’t ever know your parents.’

‘That’s OK, neither do I.’ He looked smiling, accepting. ‘They were the reverse of what you expect a man and a woman to be. My mother was brave, strong and calculating, but also wilder. She saw things. My father, Dharan Indravarman, was sweet and gentle, always saying look, look at the butterflies. Look at the flowers. Maybe the flowers take wing as butterflies. He cried when animals died.’

His wife took his hand. ‘They sound like exceptional people.’ The tears came again. ‘They were. And I hardly knew them.’

She made him look at her. ‘We will make a new family,’ she promised. ‘We will people that family with children who will honour and respect you. We will build a house of our own, a great house where all our families can come home.’

‘And I will learn about the Buddha. My family were Buddhists. Did you know that?’

She smiled. ‘Everyone knows that, Nia.’ She shook her head. ‘That is why we were matched.’

The Prince bounced up and down. ‘Well. We will build a Buddhist capital! We will make a city of compassion.’ Jayavarman, Victory Shield, clenched his fist. ‘We will make a precious jewel of a kingdom and keep it safe from thieves and hold it up as a shining star to light the rest of the world!’

His wife, his queen, draped herself across him. ‘Yes, my Lord, yes,’ she said. There was a sensation as if they had mounted on the back of a swan. Their world was winging.

Then, Jayavarman went away to war.

April 14, 2004

The hatch clunks open.

Luc feels sweet air move on his cheek. He smells sun-baked wood, muddy water and reeds. Something in that smell tells him it’s early morning and he imagines open blue sky and the expanse of the Great Lake.

The boys on the deck grunt. ‘Ugh! It smells like a pigpen. You. Out here to wash.’

Wash! The only thing Luc wants to do now is wash; dust and sweat coat him like a layer of latex. Luc tries to sit up and bashes his forehead on the low ceiling. He inches his way forward on his buttocks. He hears the General being seized by his ankles and hauled backwards across the shallow hull.

No thanks. Luc rolls over onto his hands and knees, and backs his way towards the hatch. He hates not being able to see anything. The joists press into his shins.

Hands grab his arms and pull him up the hatch, peeling off skin from his elbows and ankles.

But the air is as sweet as spun sugar, and the sunlight as warm as a mother’s touch. The bungee cords around his wrists are unsprung. He can move! He hears the tape being torn away from the General’s face and then the plunge when the other man jumps off the boat. The thought of cool, cleansing water makes Luc chuckle with anticipation.

Then a boy shouts. ‘He’s gone under. There! There! There!’ Terrifyingly close to Luc’s ear, gunfire slams out towards the reeds. Feet thud on the deck and the water parts with a puff-whoosh as someone dives.

The General is trying to escape.

Luc reacts like a child. I won’t get my wash, he thinks. He wants to cry from disappointment. He imagines the General diving under the thick layer of floating plants and slipping away through the reeds. He imagines himself left alone with the kidnappers. Despair comes instantly.

Then a thumping on the deck and a streaming of water. ‘Get back up here you old roostershit! Move!’

And despite himself, Luc feels relief, a certain warmth around the heart. He will not be left alone.

Something is heaved onto the deck. The General starts to call out but two quick snaps of gunfire cut him off and he keens like a seagull.

They’ve shot him. The General yelps and squeals as he’s hauled across the deck. The boat’s tiny engine begins to throb and gurgle.

The boys shout, ‘Get in! Get in!’ The boat moves and turns. Cold wet hands grab Luc and push.

‘I’m going, I’m going!’ Luc grunts through the tape. He stumbles down through the hatch and the boys club his head with the butt of a rifle or pistol, to beat him down into the hull. He ducks and dives, slamming his forehead.

The boys clamber down after him and cram him up against the General. The General’s cold skin twitches and he makes a thin continuous wheedling sound, fighting pain. Tape is ripped around him; he howls in agony as someone lifts his legs presumably to bungee them together.

The boys leave the General tossing back and forth like a child trying to rock himself to sleep.

The hatch closes. The boat drones on for hours.

William pulls up at the Phimeanakas at 8.00 a.m. and finds the forecourt crammed with foreigners he doesn’t know.

They are climbing into the back of the dig’s pick-up truck. ‘They say the airport is open again,’ says an Australian tourist.

‘What has happened?’ William shouts to him.

‘They say one of the archaeologists who is staying here has been kidnapped.’ The man’s mouth sours into an odd mix of the fearful and the exhilarated. ‘We’re heading out.’

William tries to find the team’s Cambodian director. Prak the security guard stops him, a hand planted on his chest. William is only a motoboy and not allowed even into the forecourt of the Phimeanakas.

Normally Prak has a sweet temper, but not today. He glowers and his breath smells of beer. ‘Wait outside. If your friends are here they will come out for you.’

‘What’s happened? Who was kidnapped?’ William asks.

‘I don’t know,’ says Prak and stomps away.

If all the tourists leave, there will be no money. No money for anybody.

One of the other motoboys eyes William. William thinks of himself as a businessman. He lays claim to the patch outside the Phimeanakas. He pays a commission to Mrs Bou – and all the other Phimeanakas motoboys pay him.

This is Mons. Mons is older than William and doesn’t like paying him money or being trapped as a motoboy. He pretends to be friendly, but everything he says has hidden teeth.

‘So you have no more UN friends,’ says Mons.

‘Neither have you.’

‘Oh, I have plenty of business today. I drive people to the airport.’

‘Do you know who got kidnapped?’

‘It is a terrible thing. Grandfather Frenchman. Your mentor!’ Mons looks glum but he says it loudly, for everyone to hear. The other motoboys look sullen and confused.

‘You can drive a tourist back to the airport only once,’ William replies in a quiet voice. ‘And when all the other tourists stay away, you’ll see. This is bad for you, too.’

The other motoboys hang their heads.

William turns to the foreigners, smiles, takes off his baseball cap, dips and bows. He tries his Japanese on some Asian tourists and gets business. He’s unsure about some of the Europeans. He tries German; they turn out to be Italian, but they understand ‘Five dollars, five dollars to airport.’

‘I have suitcases,’ says a man in strange English. William organizes two motorcycles for him, ten dollars, but it’s still cheaper than a taxi. ‘I’m sorry,’ William says. ‘Today taxis will be hard to find.’