Anna and the King of Siam

by Margaret Landon

  As usual his turbulent personality had involved him in controversy. He was the defendant in a lawsuit over some extensive teak forests in his principality. The plaintiffs were an English firm from Moulmein, and the case was of such proportions that Mr. Knox had gone to Burma the year before to see about it personally. There had been a rumor afloat in Bangkok for some months that the prince was flirting with the idea of transferring his allegiance to the King of Burma. He was known to have sent a gift of two elephants to Ava just recently. They were not white elephants—that would have been open treason—but they had white patches around their eyes and peculiar tails. The King of Burma had been enchanted with them and had more than repaid the value of the gift with a present of gold jewelry set with rubies. This cordial rapprochement had not pleased King Mongkut. Now the Prince of Chiengmai had appeared boldly in the capital. Mae Pia had undoubtedly come down the river in his retinue.

  The slave continued her story: “Phutho! Phutho! Mem cha, the princess has been a prisoner in the Palace of the King ever since the death of her husband. Two of her serving women are with her, we think, but we have heard nothing from any of them for almost a year.”

  Anna was sitting up straight now, her pulse beating rapidly. Could it be true that the princess was in the Palace? And if so, why had she not heard about it? She had been very much interested in the princess because of her rumored defiance of the King. Surely if the princess had been transferred to the regular prison the whole Inside would have seethed with the news, for little was ever concealed there successfully.

  Mae Pia was speaking: “… and no one knows, not even her brother, whether she is alive or dead. This letter is for her, Mem chao kha. There is nothing in it that will bring you any trouble, even if it falls into the wrong hands. It is only a little note of greeting and sympathy from her brother, Prince Othong Karmatha, who is my master. Oh, Mem chao kha, the gods will surely reward you if you will deliver it to her! Sooner or later, it doesn’t matter when. But it must be done with the greatest caution and secrecy! It may be the means of saving her life, at least it is our only chance. That is, if she is still living.” As Anna looked incredulous at the contradiction between the importance the slave attached to the letter and its supposedly innocuous contents, Mae Pia hurriedly added: “Because she must be dying of grief and pain to think that we have never answered the letter she wrote us from Ban Sita before the Second King died.”

  Anna did not commit herself at once. The letter was thick, much too thick to be merely a note of greeting. Furthermore, the slave’s unguarded words about “saving her life” were more suggestive of a scheme to effect the princess’ escape than of condolence and encouragement. This was not a simple rescue like Son Klin’s or even L’Ore’s. Considering the importance of the people concerned, it was difficult to guess the extent of the intrigue lying back of the request that she deliver the letter. Mae Pia was acting for the royal family of Chiengmai. They were a haughty clan who chafed under King Mongkut’s sovereignty. They must resent bitterly the imprisonment of the princess. Was King Mongkut actually holding her as a hostage? Was the gift of the elephants to the King of Burma a tacit threat to King Mongkut to release her or suffer the consequences of civil war? Something was afoot, and Anna hesitated to involve herself without knowing a good deal more.

  “Where is the prince, your master?” she asked tentatively.

  “He is on a visit to the Governor of Paklat.” Hmmm! Anna thought. He was Lady Son Klin’s father—another potential rebel—who had little reason to love King Mongkut.

  Anna’s indecision was apparent, but before she could ask another question, or accept or refuse the dangerous commission, Mae Pia was gone. With a swift, graceful movement she leaped through the window. As she jumped Anna saw in the folds of her skirt a short Lao dagger attached to the English belt.

  The storm which had been gathering all day now burst in fury. For three hours thunder, lightning, and rain were all that could be seen or heard. Anna did not move from her chair. She sat full of a turmoil that matched the storm, revolving endlessly her new quarrel with the King, the interview with Mae Pia, the meaning of the red velvet envelope still lying at her feet, the curious fate of the Princess of Chiengmai and her own responsibility, if any, to a woman she had never seen. She wondered if the Lao woman were battling the storm on the tremendous currents of the river.

  When the storm ended at last, well after midnight, Anna picked up the letter, closed the shutters, and went up to her room. She had reached no decision. For the time being she locked the letter in her leather trunk. Then she went to bed.

  37

  THE TRIP TO PAKLAT

  Anna woke tired and unrefreshed. She debated the wisdom of staying at home until her status was clarified, but after careful thought decided that it would be better to continue with her normal routine as if nothing had happened. In her absence her assistant, Mae Prang, carried on very well. But if she did not go to school, her failure to appear would be reported to the King and might lead him to believe that he had succeeded in overawing her. Her success in dealing with him had been the result of her apparent fearlessness. More than once her friends of the harem had remarked on her temerity almost enviously. “Only a farang could do that!” they would exclaim. “Farangs are so bold!” Anna knew very well that she was not bold, but she had schooled herself to resist the appearance of weakness on the ground that her position and even her safety depended upon her ability to show always a cool and confident front.

  She started out with Louis at the regular time and passed quickly within the wall of the Palace. A crowd of poor slaves, who lived outside the royal confines, was squatting near the inner gate waiting for it to open. They knew her well and greeted her with profound salaams. Lounging about the gate was a group of soldiers and rough-looking men whom Anna had never seen there before. It’ was broad daylight. Nervous as she was, there was nothing about them to warn her except their churlish appearance. She walked toward them confidently, never doubting that they would give way before her. Instead the whole group, including the soldiers, rushed at her shouting threats, thrusting her back violently. Stones appeared in their hands and their arms swung up. Anna was too taken by surprise to feel anything. She saw the jagged pieces of rock, the upraised arms, and in some distant area of her mind supposed she would experience their impact against her face and body almost immediately. Then suddenly she was surrounded by a warm rush of humanity. The crowd of slaves had leaped shouting to her defense. They pressed close to her and Louis on all sides, interposing their own bodies between them and their attackers. They began to edge her away from the gate. Still close around her and Louis they worked them out of the Palace and to their home, where they pushed them through the door, and shouted to the servants to come quickly. A few minutes more and the house was in a state of siege, all the doors and windows locked and barred.

  As the anesthetic of shock wore off, Anna found herself very much shaken. Beebe hovered around her solicitously, never leaving her alone in the room. At lunch she tried to eat in order to reassure Louis, who was still frightened, but she had the greatest difficulty to keep from dropping her knife and fork. The water glass trembled in her fingers. Whenever Anna looked through the slats of the shutters she could see people idling near the house. Several men squatted for more than an hour at the edge of the road not far from her front door. She thought she saw someone hiding in the bushes. A few people came boldly to the door and knocked, but she had forbidden her servants to let anyone in.

  Her first impulse was to write to the British Consul and tell him what had happened. She hesitated for several reasons. She had never yielded to the temptation to depend on consular protection in her dealings with the Siamese. It would look cowardly, and therefore contrary to her practice of outfacing her enemies, to do so now. Then, too, there would be complications if she invoked Mr. Knox’s assistance. She and Louis often rode horseback with him on fine mornings along New Road, and regarded him as a friend. But the King
disliked him and anything he said might only inflame the King against her further, while it was possible that by keeping perfectly quiet she could ride out the storm.

  She did sit down at her desk and prepare a letter, in which she explained all that had happened since the previous morning—her quarrel with the King; the word that had come from the Palace that the King had openly incited his courtiers to attack her; the assault of the men at the gate, and the fact that people were lurking near the house. She sealed and addressed the letter, ready to send if any attack were made on her. Then she had one of her servants go for a carpenter to install iron bars at all the windows, so that she could resist entry long enough to send for help—if it came to that—and also get some sleep at night. She had never felt the need of bars before, but the ease with which Mae Pia had jumped into her living room had convinced her that they were a wise precaution.

  After that she wrote to Captain John Bush. The circular referred to in the King’s list of accusations had been in Captain Bush’s hands. In fact, it had annoyed the American Consul very much. Mr. Hood had come to Bangkok only the fall before, and was extremely careful to maintain the dignity of his position. He had felt insulted by having his name written at the bottom of the circular while the British Consul’s and Mrs. Leonowens’ names appeared at the top. Anna recalled the incident because she had had a good deal of sympathy with the American Consul’s resentment. Her own name certainly should not have appeared above his. She knew that she had not been responsible, and that her handwriting appeared nowhere on the circular. She thought she had a clear memory of whose handwriting did. In her note she asked Captain Bush merely to try to find the circular, if it was still in his possession, since some trouble concerning it had come up between herself and the King.

  He arrived that evening, still her cheerful, red-faced friend of the first day in Bangkok. “Here it is, Mem,” he said, holding it out to her. Ah, good! She had been right, she saw. “But what do you want it for?”

  “All I want you to do is to take it and give it to the King.”

  Mystified and somewhat amused, he agreed. With difficulty she persuaded Phra Alak, who lived nearby, to arrange an immediate audience for Captain Bush. Phra Alak was still annoyed by her refusal of his request on the day before. She reminded him rather sharply of the number of times she had befriended him when he was in trouble with His Majesty, and at last he consented.

  Admitted to the King’s presence, Captain Bush handed him the circular. “Mem Leonowens tells me that you want to see this,” he said simply.

  The King looked at him questioningly, but the smiling Englishman had no explanation since Anna had given him none. His Majesty took the circular and examined it carefully. His face went blank, then bewildered, then a disgruntled expression appeared. He put his hand to his brow. The handwriting was his own!

  “I have forgotten,” he said bemused.

  Captain Bush was back at Anna’s house in a short while, chuckling at the discomfiture of the King. “Now tell me what it’s all about,” he demanded. And Anna did. “And was there something about a book, too?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, “the King accused me of stealing a book from his library.”

  “That makes it perfect!” And Captain Bush threw back his head in a roar of laughter. “While I was there a little princess came crawling into the room with a book in her hand, and said something about finding it in one of the sleeping apartments. His Majesty looked more upset than ever and made a remark about thinking that you had it. I didn’t get the connection.”

  The captain had brought assurance from the King of a cordial reconciliation. But Anna hesitated. Surely it would take a little longer for such titanic anger to wear off!

  She reopened her doors and windows cautiously, but she did not enter the Palace for several weeks.

  When the Chow Phya arrived with foreign mail, the King summoned her to return to her duties. She obeyed quietly, saying nothing. She sat down at her familiar table and began copying the pile of letters that the King had written. After a little he approached her. She did not look up.

  “Mem, you are one great difficulty!” he said in a reproachful tone. “I have much pleasure and favor on you, but you are too obstinate. You are not wise. Wherefore are you so difficult? You are only a woman. It is very bad you can be so strongheaded. Will you now have any objection to write to Sir John and tell him I am his very good friend?”

  Anna could not help but smile at this evasion of the issue between them. “None whatever, Your Majesty,” she answered pleasantly, “if all you want is a letter of good wishes.”

  She wrote the letter and handed it to him for his perusal and signature. He wasn’t satisfied. He had hoped that she would yield. His face showed it. With a grunt he returned the letter to her and left the apartment to vent his annoyance on someone less stiff-necked than his “one great difficulty.”

  In spite of this not-too-hopeful beginning the reconciliation was complete so far as the King was concerned. He took Anna into greater confidence than ever before. He had one of his recurring bouts of illness and was confined to the topmost chamber of the Palace for weeks. She was summoned there every day to write notes, or to translate English documents into the vernacular with the help of a Siamese woman secretary.

  All this time the letter that Mae Pia had left at Anna’s feet lay in its red velvet envelope in the leather chest. In the gossip that floated around her as she went her way in the streets and homes of the Inside there was no hint of the imprisonment of the Chiengmai princess. Anna began to wonder if Mae Pia had not been misinformed, and if the princess were not confined in the palace of the Second King—if she still lived. Anna was afraid to say much to her friends of the harem about the matter. There might be danger to herself and to the princess in any undue interest on her part. She went only so far as to inquire of Lady Son Klin whether anything had ever been heard of the Princess Sunatda, and she said no in a hurried, uncertain way that showed she did not wish to discuss the subject. The Prince of Chiengmai was still in Bangkok. His retinue was anchored across the river at Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn), where they always stayed.

  Then one day when Anna was working in a room that adjoined the royal bedchamber she heard Mae Ying Thahan come up to wait upon the King. Anna had been struggling with a mass of perplexing documents in the King’s own handwriting, which she had been ordered to prepare for publication in the Bangkok Recorder. His Majesty had been in the best possible humor all morning. The manuscript on which Anna was working was a reply to Dr. Bradley’s theory of Original Depravity. These two crusty gentlemen of advanced years, the King and the doctor, were sparring through the columns of the newspaper.

  Dr. Bradley had come to Bangkok in 1835 and had been intimate with the King during his long seclusion in the priesthood. From their first meeting they had had long and involved theological arguments, each determined to convince the other of the flaws in his religion. The King was delighted with the idea that his newest paper completely refuted Dr. Bradley’s theory and would put the reverend gentleman properly in his place. He had been chuckling to himself all morning at the thought of the devastation he was making of the doctor’s arguments.

  Through the thin walls Anna heard the chief of the Amazons crawl into the room next door, and without approaching too close to the sacred person of the King, tell him in a voice which carried clearly that the prisoner, Princess Sunatda Wismita, was very ill. “Let the princess be taken for an airing in the gardens, then,” he replied cheerfully. “And transfer her to a better cell. Also order the chief physician to attend her.”

  The Amazon crawled out backward and started down the stairs. Noiselessly Anna rose from her table and tiptoed after her, being careful to keep the Amazon in sight without letting her know that she was being followed. Mae Ying Thahan walked through the harem streets rapidly, only pausing now and then to drop to her knees as some great lady approached and passed. Anna saw that she was moving toward the central prison wher
e long ago Anna had gone for the first time to find Lady Son Klin. The Amazon disappeared through the gate of the rambling structure. Anna did not try to enter, but stood a little distance from the door and waited.

  An idle crowd of slave-women and girls were lounging about. Any opening of the prison door attracted their interest. Other slaves passing on errands pressed close to swell the group. No one seemed to know what was about to happen, but all welcomed the slightest event that broke the monotony of their lives. The street was soon choked with spectators. Anna stood back and watched until a guard of Amazons appeared from the prison, marching in file. In the center of the group moved a Lao woman, obviously the princess, followed by two of her countrywomen. She did not seem to notice the sensation which her appearance created, but walked composedly as if she were alone. She looked depressed and ill, withdrawn into the privacy of her sorrow.

  The crowd fell in behind her and Anna with them. When the procession reached the nearest garden, which was laid out in Chinese style, the princess intimated with a proud gesture that she could go no farther. She sat down on the edge of an artificial rock beside a pond of water in which goldfish were swimming. She hung her head indifferently, as if the air had no power to revive her. Her beautiful features were set in stern lines, her face stamped with sadness.

  A murmur of compassion arose from the crowd of women and girls, who were gazing awe-stricken at the face of the princess about whom everyone had heard for years. Even the Amazons were expressing guarded sympathy. For the first time the princess seemed to become aware that she was surrounded by people. Anna could just see that she raised her dark eyes to the crowd and then lowered them again.

  After an hour the procession re-formed, and the crowd stirred. They had exchanged looks and whispers of pity to their hearts’ content. Some half-palsied and aged slave-women had lifted up their hands and prayed aloud for the ill-fated princess. As the Amazons moved off, the crowd of slaves fell in behind until they saw the prison doors open and close once more. Then at last they hurried away to their homes with the news.