The Journeyer

by Gary Jennings

  “Now here, Marco-wallah,” Tofaa said instructively, “this carven couple are entwined in what is called the kaja posture, named for the hooded snake with which you are acquainted.”

  It looked snaky enough, and it was a position new to me. The man appeared to be sitting on the side of a bed. The woman lay upon and against him, head down, her torso between the man’s legs, her hands on the floor, her legs about the man’s waist, her buttocks held caressingly by his hands, and presumably his linga inside her (upside-down) yoni.

  “A very useful position,” the sadhu recited, Tofaa translating. “Say, for instance, if you wish to make surata with a humpbacked woman. As you must know, you simply cannot put a humpbacked woman on a bed in the usual supine position, or she teeters and rocks on her hump, most inconveniently, and—”

  “Gèsu.”

  “You no doubt lust to try that kaja position, Marco-wallah,” said Tofaa. “But please do not affront me by asking me to do it with you. No, no. However, the sadhu says he has, inside the temple, an exceedingly capable, exceedingly humpbacked devadasi woman who, for a trifle of silver …”

  “Thank you, Tofaa, and thank the sadhu for me. But I will take this one, too, on faith.”

  5

  “I have your Buddha’s tooth, Marco-wallah!” said the little Raja. “I rejoice in the happy conclusion of your quest!”

  Some three months had gone by since his previous similar announcement, during which time no other teeth, small or large, had been brought to the palace. I had contained my impatience, assuming that a pearl fisher was an elusive quarry. But I was glad to have the real thing at last. I was by now very weary of India and of Hindus, and the little Raja had also begun to make plain that he would not weep loudly when I departed. He seemed not to be tiring of my visit, exactly, but getting suspicious of it. Apparently his little mind had conceived the notion that I might be using my tooth quest as a disguise for a real mission of spying out the local terrain in advance of a Mongol invasion. Well, I knew that the Mongols would not have had this dismal land even if it were freely donated to their Khanate, but I was too polite to tell that to the little Raja. I could better allay his suspicions by merely taking the tooth and going, and I would.

  “It is a magnificent tooth, indeed,” I said, with unfeigned awe. It was certainly no counterfeit. It was a yellowish molar, rather oblong from front to back, and the grinder surface of it was bigger than my hand, and its roots nearly as long as my forearm, and it weighed almost as much as a stone of equal dimensions. I asked, “Was it the pearl fisher who brought it? Is he here? I must give him his reward.”

  “Ah, the pearl fisher,” said the little Raja. “The steward took the good man to the kitchen to give him a meal. If you would care to let me have the reward, Marco-wallah, I will see that he gets it.” His eyes widened as I jingled half a dozen gold coins into his hand. “Ach-chaa, so much?!”

  I smiled and said, “It is worth it to me, Your Highness”—not adding that I was beholden to the fisherman, not only for the tooth, but also for my release from this place.

  “Overgenerous, but he shall have it,” said the little Raja. “And I will bid the steward find for you a nice box to put the relic in.”

  “May I request also, Your Highness, a pair of horses for me and my interpreter, that we may ride back to the coast and seek sea transport from there?”

  “You shall have them, first thing in the morning, and likewise a stalwart pair of my palace guards for your escort.”

  I hurried off to start my packing for departure, and told Tofaa to do the same, and she complied, though not very cheerfully. We were still at it when the Musicmaster stopped by our chambers to say his farewells. He and we exchanged compliments and good wishes and salaam aleikum, and then his eye chanced to fall on the things laid out on my bed to be packed, and he remarked:

  “I see you are taking with you an elephant’s tooth as a memento of your stay.”

  “What?” I said. He was regarding the Buddha’s tooth. I laughed at his jest and said, “Come, come, Master Khusru. You cannot fool me. An elephant’s tusk is taller than I am, and I could probably not lift one.”

  “A tusk, yes. But do you think an elephant chews its fodder with its tusks? For that, it has ample tiers of molars. Like this one. You have never looked into an elephant’s mouth, I take it.”

  “No, I have not,” I muttered, quietly gnashing my own molars. I waited until he had made his last salaam and left us, and then I burst out, “A cavàl donà no se ghe varda in boca! Che le vegna la cagasangue!”

  “What are you shouting, Marco-wallah?” asked Tofaa.

  “May the bloody gripes take that cursed Raja!” I raged. “The little wart was worried by my continued presence here, and evidently he despaired of anybody ever coming with another Buddha’s tooth, real or false. So he provided one himself. And took my reward for it! Come, Tofaa, let us go and revile him to his face!”

  We went downstairs and found the chief steward, and I demanded audience with the little Raja, but the man said apologetically:

  “The Raja went out, borne in his palanquin, to ride through the city and grant his subjects the privilege of observing him and admiring him and cheering at him. I was just explaining that to this importunate caller who insists he has come a far distance to see the Raja.”

  As Tofaa translated that, I glanced only impatiently at the caller—just another Hindu man in a dhoti—but my eye caught on an object he was carrying, and at the same moment Tofaa cried excitedly:

  “It is he, Marco-wallah! It is the very pearl fisher whom I remember from Akyab!”

  And indeed the man was carrying a tooth. It was another immense one, and quite similar to my own latest acquisition, except that it was cupped in a mesh of gold tracery, like a stone set in a jewel, and the whole had a patina of unmistakable great age. Tofaa and the man jabbered together, then she turned to me again.

  “It is truly he, Marco-wallah. The man who gamed with my late dear husband in the Akyab hall. And this is the relic he won with the dice that day.”

  “How many did he win?” I said, still skeptical. “He has already delivered one.”

  Jabber, jabber, and Tofaa spoke to me once more. “He knows nothing of any other. He has only this moment arrived, having trudged on foot all the way from the coast. This tooth is the only tooth he has ever had, and he is sad to part with it, for it much increased his crop of pearls in the season past, but he is dutifully heeding his Raja’s proclamation.”

  “What a happy coincidence,” I said. “This seems to be a day for teeth.” I added, as I heard a commotion in the courtyard outside, “And here the Raja returns now, just in time to greet the one honest Hindu in his realm.”

  The little Raja strutted in, trailed by his fawning entourage of courtiers and congratulators and other toadies. He halted in some surprise at seeing our group waiting in the entry hall. Tofaa and the steward and the fisherman all collapsed to lower themselves below the Raja’s head level, but, before any of them could speak, I addressed the little Raja in Farsi, and said silkily:

  “It appears, Your Highness, that the good pearl fisher was so pleased with the reward for the first tooth—and the meal to which you treated him—that he has brought another.”

  The little Raja looked startled and bewildered for a moment, but he quickly comprehended the situation, and realized that I had caught him out in his chicanery. He did not act guilty or abashed, of course, but only indignant, and flashed a look of pure venom at the innocent fisherman, and contributed another blatant lie:

  “The greedy wretch is only trying to take advantage of you, Marco-wallah.”

  “Perhaps he is, Your Highness,” I said, continuing to pretend that I was believing his farce. “But I will gratefully accept this new relic, as well. For now I can make this one a gift to my Khakhan Kubilai, and leave the other as my parting gift to Your Gracious Highness. Your Highness deserves it. There is only the question of the reward I have already paid. Do I give
the fisher an equal amount for this new delivery?”

  “No,” the little Raja said coldly. “You have already paid most generously. I shall persuade the man to be satisfied with that. Believe me, I shall persuade him.”

  He snapped instructions to the steward to take the man to the kitchen for a meal—another meal, he thought to add—and went stamping furiously off to his quarters. Tofaa and I returned to our own to finish packing. I carefully wrapped the new, gold-meshed tooth for safe carrying, but left the other for whatever disposition the little Raja might wish to make of it.

  I never saw the man again. Perhaps he could not face me, realizing that I was leaving Kumbakonam with my never very high opinion of him lowered even further, now knowing him to be not only a posturing travesty of a sovereign, but also a giver of false gifts, a cheater of his own people, an embezzler of another’s rightful recompense and—worse than all that—a man incapable ever of admitting error or wrong or fault. Anyway, he did not say goodbye or even get out of bed to see us off, when at dawn we took our leave.

  Tofaa and I, in the rear courtyard, were standing about while our two assigned escorts saddled our horses and strapped our packs on the cantles, when I saw two other men emerge from a back door of the palace. In the early half-light, I could not see who they were, but one of them sat down on the ground while the other stood over him. Our escorts paused in their work and muttered uneasily, and Tofaa translated for me:

  “Those are the Court Executioner and a condemned prisoner. He must be guilty of some noteworthy crime, for he is being accorded the karavat.”

  Curious, I went a little closer to them, but not close enough to interfere. The karavat, I finally could see, was a peculiar sort of sword blade. It had no handle, but was simply a crescent of sharp steel, like a new moon, each of its points ending in a short chain, and each chain ending in a sort of metal stirrup. The condemned prisoner—not in any hurry, but not too reluctantly either—himself put the crescent blade at the back of his neck, with the chains draped over his shoulders in front. Then he bent his knees and drew up his feet to where he could put a foot in each of the stirrups. Then, after the briefest moment to take a last deep breath, he leaned his neck back against the blade and kicked both feet out straight. The karavat very neatly, and by his own unaided action, sliced his head from his body.

  I went closer yet and, while the executioner relieved the body of the karavat, I looked down at the head, which was still opening and shutting its eyes and mouth in a surprised kind of way. It was the pearl fisher who had brought the real Buddha’s tooth, the only enterprising and honorable Hindu I had encountered in India. The little Raja had rewarded him, as he had said he would.

  As we rode away, I reflected that I had at last seen something which the Hindus could be proud of calling their own. They had nothing else. They had long ago disowned their native-born Buddha and relinquished him to alien lands. The few splendors they could boastfully display to visitors had, in my opinion, been crafted by some different and vanished race. The Hindus’ customs and morals and social order and personal habits had, in my opinion, been taught to them by the monkeys. Even their distinctive musical instrument, the sitar, was the contribution of a foreigner. If the karavat was the Hindus’ own invention, then it had to be their only one, and I was willing to concede them that one—a lazy way of letting the condemned kill themselves—as the highest achievement of their race.

  We could have ridden straight east from Kumbakonam to the Cholamandal coast, to seek the nearest village where the bay-crossing vessels put in. But Tofaa suggested, and I agreed, that we might best return the way we had come, to Kuddalore, since we knew from experience that considerable numbers of vessels called there. It was as well that we did, because, when we arrived and Tofaa began inquiring for a ship that we might engage, the local seamen told her there was already a ship there looking for us. That puzzled me, but only briefly, for the word of our presence quickly circulated about Kuddalore, and a man who was no Hindu came running and calling, “Sain bina!”

  To my great surprise, it was Yissun, my former interpreter, whom I had last seen starting on his way from Akyab back through Ava toward Pagan. We pummeled each other and shouted salutations, but I cut them short to inquire, “What are you doing in this forsaken place?”

  “The Wang Bayan sent me looking for you, Elder Brother Marco. And, because Bayan said, ‘Bring him quickly,’ the Sardar Shaibani this time did not just engage a ship, but commandeered one, with all its crew, and put aboard Mongol warriors to urge the mariners on. We ascertained that you had made landfall here at Kuddalore, so this is where I came. But frankly, I was wondering where to look next. These stupid villagers told me you had gone inland only to the next village of Panrati, but that was many months ago, and I knew you must have gone farther than that. So it is a blessing that we have met by accident. Come, we will set sail for Ava at once.”

  “But why?” I asked. This worried me. Yissun’s spate of words seemed intended to tell me everything but why. “What need has Bayan of me, and in such hurry? Is it war, insurrection, what?”

  “I am sorry to say no, Marco, nothing natural and normal like that. It seems that your good woman Hui-sheng is in poor health. As best I can tell you—”

  “Not now,” I said instantly, feeling even on that hot day a cold wind blow. “Tell me on board. As you say, let us sail at once.”

  He had a dinghi and a Hindu boatman waiting at his service, and we went immediately out to the anchored ship, another good substantial qurqur, this one captained by a Persian and crewed by an assortment of races and colors. They were quite willing to hurry back across the bay, for the month was now March, and the winds would soon drop and the heat worsen and the drenching rains come. We took Tofaa with us, since her destination was Chittagong, and that chief port of Bangala was on the same eastern side of the bay as Akyab, and not far up that coast, so the ship could readily take her there after dropping me and Yissun.

  When the qurqur had weighed anchor and was under way, Yissun and I and Tofaa stood at the stern rail—he and I thankfully watching India disappear behind us—and he told me about Hui-sheng.

  “When your lady first discovered she was with child--”

  “With child!” I cried in consternation.

  Yissun shrugged. “I repeat only what I have been told. I am told that she was both overjoyed at the fact and worried that you might disapprove.”

  “Dear God! She did not try to expel it, and hurt herself?”

  “No, no. I think the Lady Hui-sheng would not do anything, Marco, without your approval. No, she did nothing, and I gather she did not even realize that anything might be wrong.”

  “Well, vakh, man! What is wrong?”

  “When I left Pagan, nothing—nothing that anyone could see. The lady appeared to me to be in perfect health, and radiant with expectation, and more beautiful even than before. There was nothing visibly amiss. What it is, I gather, is something that cannot be seen. Because, at the very beginning, when she first confided to her maidservant that she was pregnant, that servant—Arùn, you remember her—took it upon herself to approach the Wang Bayan and inform him that she had misgivings. Now remember, Marco, I am only telling you what Bayan told me the servant told him, and I am no shaman or physician, and I am not much knowledgeable about the internal workings of women, and—”

  “Do get to it, Yissun,” I pleaded.

  “The girl Arùn informed Bayan that, in her opinion, your Lady Hui-sheng is not physically well adapted for childbearing. Something about the shape of the bones of her pelvic cradle, whatever that is. You must excuse my mentioning intimate details of anatomy, Marco, but I am only reporting. And evidently the servant Arùn, being your lady’s chamber attendant, is well acquainted with her pelvic cradle.”

  “So am I,” I said. “And I never noticed anything wrong with it.”

  At that point, Tofaa spoke up, in her know-everything way, and inquired, “Marco-wallah, is your lady extremely obese?
”

  “Impudent woman! She is not at all obese!”

  “I only asked. That is the most usual cause of difficulty. Well, then, tell me this. Is your lady’s mount of love—you know, that little frontal cushion, where the hair grows—is it perhaps delightfully protrusive?”

  I said coldly, “For your information, women of her race are not matted with sweaty hair there. However, now that you mention it, I would say yes—that frontal place on my lady is a trifle more prominent than I have seen on other women.”

  “Ah, well, there you are, then. A woman of that conformation is sublimely sweet and deep and enfolding in the act of surata—as no doubt you are well aware—but it can ill suit her for childbearing. It indicates that her pelvic bones are shaped in such a way that the opening of her pelvic cradle is heart-shaped instead of oval. Clearly, that distortion is what her maid servant recognized, and was worried by. But surely, Marco-wallah, your lady herself should have been aware. Her mother must have told her, or her nursemaid, at the time she became a woman and was sat down for her woman-to-woman counseling.”

  “No,” I said, reflecting. “She could not have been told. Hui-sheng’s mother died in her childhood, and she herself … well, thereafter she heard no counseling, she had no confidantes. But never mind that. What should she have been told?”

  Tofaa said flatly, “Never to have children.”

  “Why? What does it mean, this pelvic conformation? Is she in great danger?”

  “Not while she is pregnant, no. There would be no difficulty in carrying the baby through all the nine months, if she is otherwise healthy. It should be an uneventful pregnancy, and a pregnant woman is always a happy woman. The problem comes at the time for delivery.”

  “And then?”

  Tofaa looked away from me. “The hardest part is the extrusion of the infant’s head. But its head is oval, and so is the normal pelvic opening. Whatever the labor and pain involved, it does get out. However, if that passage is constricted, as in the case of a heart-shaped pelvis …”