Anna and the King of Siam

by Margaret Landon

  This was so unexpected that Anna’s lips trembled with irrepressible laughter. “Of course not! What a funny question. Why do you ask?”

  Lady Thiang looked affronted and said sternly, “Mem, this is not a laughing matter. This is deadly serious, maybe for both you and me. While we were all at Petchaburi there was a powerful sorceress in the Palace. No one knows who she was, no one saw anything out of order. But all of a sudden, although every door was locked and guarded as usual, and no one passed in or out, the Princess of Chiengmai vanished in the night.” At Anna’s look of incredulity, she went on, “Yes, right out of her cell in the prison. The cell was locked, and the prison was locked, and the gates were locked and barred. There were guards at all the doors and gates as there always are, but the princess was conjured through them all in the dead of night. No one saw the witch come. No one saw her go. She was just there. When the Amazons opened the princess’ cell they found in her place a deaf and dumb slave girl that the sorceress had substituted for her. There she lies on the princess’ bed like a clod, not seeming to know anything, and nothing has been seen of the princess at all.”

  Anna was taken completely by surprise. Mae Pia! She remembered her last words: “Something is going to be done to save her, even if I die for it.” Well, she had done the impossible! But how? She had chosen her time well, with the King out of the city and the harem vigilance somewhat relaxed. Nevertheless, it was beyond imagination to figure out how she had spirited her mistress from the prison and away from the Palace. No wonder Lady Thiang thought it was the work of a sorceress!

  “I wish,” Lady Thiang burst forth, her face working, “oh, I wish that this dumb girl could be exorcised and made to speak, and then we might know how it happened, and how the old witch looked, perhaps, and who she was. And then she could be caught, and you and I would be safe. Mem cha, I’m afraid for my life and the lives of my children, and even the very stones of this dismal city fill me with dread and horror. And do you know,” she asked, her eyes growing rounded as her panic mounted, “that HE has shut HIMSELF up in HIS topmost chamber, and guards are set at all the doors and windows, to keep out suspicious-looking people, because the witch may still be around disguised in human form. And no one is allowed to enter but an old lady doctor, Khun Mo Prang. She serves HIM all HIS meals, and HE won’t come down until the Palace and the whole city has been exorcised. Oh, and there will be no school tomorrow. I almost forgot to tell you. Because HE has ordered all the royal children to be shut up in their houses until noon. The Brahman priests will exorcise the city in the morning, and in the afternoon the priests of Buddha will purify it with burning incense and sprinkle the houses and the walls and all of us with holy water.”

  Anna breathed a little sigh of relief. A natural cause for the disappearance of the princess did not seem to have presented itself to the mind of the head wife, nor to the King, if what Lady Thiang said was correct. Anna was comforted to think how widespread the conviction seemed to be that the spiriting of the princess from the Palace was supernatural. This did not promise much hope for Mae Pia’s safety, but it was better than nothing. Sooner or later some cool head like the Kralahome’s would deduce the real course of events, and when that happened Mae Pia’s life would be forfeit. Anna had come to love and admire the slave far more than her mistress, and she knew that the slave’s situation was one of deadly peril.

  Lady Thiang went on nervously to tell Anna that the court astrologers were trying to unravel the mystery and that large rewards had been promised to them if they could throw any light on it. Lastly, the two Lao captives and the deaf and dumb changeling were to be exorcised and examined in the ecclesiastical court by the wise men and women of the country.

  The head wife put her face in her pillow and wept, terrified. Anna tried to comfort her, but it was useless. She was afraid that in the course of the trial her own small efforts to alleviate the suffering of the princess would come out, and would connect her with the princess’ disappearance. Between her fears of the supernatural and her fears of being denounced in court she was completely demoralized and quite inconsolable.

  The only thing Anna could say that seemed to be of any comfort to her was that she herself would go to the ecclesiastical court and attend the exorcism, and that she would come back to the Palace afterward and tell Lady Thiang all that had been said and done there.

  The next morning—November 20, 1866—Anna set out on horseback for the scene of the exorcism. She was accompanied only by an Indian groom. She had managed to learn that the three women who were the central figures in the case had been taken from their cells, half stupefied by the foul air of the damp holes in which they had been thrust, and conducted through the silent streets while the city was still asleep. Only after their contaminated persons had been removed could the work of purifying the Palace and its environs begin. Since these were to be completed before the trial Anna had plenty of time.

  It was the pleasantest month of the year and the morning sun shone brightly but not warmly. She rode toward the northeastern wall of the fortified town, enjoying the golden air and the leisurely motion of the horse. The section into which she came was occupied by Brahmans, to whom it had been allocated by the kings of Siam when the city was laid out. There was not a modern building in sight. Anna thought that she had never seen, even in her travels in India, so perfect a historical picture of ancient Brahminical architecture, unaltered by modern ideas. India itself had changed and become hybrid with the advent of British culture, but here in this little corner of Bangkok the traditional was scrupulously preserved. The varied gables, the quaint little windows, the fantastic towers and narrow doorways, the endless effects of color were all here. The Brahmans who occupied the houses still clung to the costume of their forefathers, which made the picture complete.

  She came at last to the temple called Wat Bawonniwet within which was the court where the exorcism was to take place. Part of the temple seemed new, and part very old, with stained walls and huge trees covered by parasitic plants. A deep, narrow valley through which a tiny stream ran over a stony bed was crossed by a stone bridge black with time. Anna stopped her horse on the bridge and looked down at the mad little stream. Its steep banks were covered with grass and furze. There was a loneliness about it, and a sort of darkness, too, whether because of the shadow of the trees or not, it was hard to say.

  Deep in the glen stood an old shrine to Phra Kan, god of death. Running along behind it, like a jagged shadow gloomy even in the brightest sunlight, were the blackened roofs of the monastic dwellings of the Brahman ascetics.

  Anna alighted from her horse and handed the reins to the syce. “Keep the horse outside the temple grounds until I’m ready to go home,” she said, and sat down on the bridge to wait. The syce walked off, but in a quarter of an hour returned with oil and fresh flowers and sweetmeats. He tied the pony carefully and went into the temple with his offering. Anna followed him. There were a great many gods in the temple, and he prostrated himself in front of each one. Anna took the notebook and pencil she had brought and began to make sketches and memoranda.

  Vishnu, Siva, Krishna, and the black wife of Siva were the chief deities of the temple. They were the heroes and heroines of the numerous grotesque myths sculptured on the walls. Here was Vishnu lying comfortably on the thousand-headed snake, Shesha, or sporting as a fish, or crawling as a tortoise, or showing his fangs as a wild boar, or shaking his head in his last and fifth avatar as a dwarf. The carvings were admirable. Here, too, was Krishna, like another Apollo, whipped out of heaven for playing tricks on the lovely shepherdesses of Mathura, whose tender hearts he stole away, and whose butter he found so tempting that he perpetually ran off with it secretly, and whose jars of milk it was his madcap pleasure to upset. In another compartment, crumbling with age, he was seen again in his last prank, perched on a stony tree with the milkmaid’s stony habiliments under his arm, and an unmistakable grin on his face, made greasy by worshipers with their offerings of oil, while the o
wners of the dresses were standing below in various attitudes of bashfulness imploring their restoration. Before the gods and goddesses in various places stood the Lingam. Here also was a sculpture of Siva and his wife Parvati, with the sacred bull, Nandi, lying at their feet, and Kali in combat with the monster Mahishasura; and close by again caressing an antelope, or Nilgau, that lay on the ground looking up at her.

  How long it had been since she and Leon had set out one morning to see the Kali Ghat in Calcutta! It had been during the festival of the Juggernaut. There had been something enchanted and demoniac about that temple as there was about this. The black face of the goddess had been surmounted by long hair which had the appearance of innumerable serpents. A red tongue had protruded from the hideous mouth. The expression of the eyes had been strange, almost to madness. She had had four arms, in one of which she grasped a knife. In the second was the head of a man, in the third a lotus, and in the fourth a wheel. Around her neck had been hung the skulls of murdered victims, and she stood on the body of a prostrate worshiper, who was represented as shouting her praises while she crushed him to death.

  How long ago it had all been, yet how clearly it came back to her now! Anna sighed and went out into the fresh air. She rambled about in the grove but there was little else to see. The procession had not yet appeared and she had begun to be hungry. She called the syce and sent him into the village for an earthen lota of milk and a flat cake of Bajri bread. These she ate sitting under the deep shadow of the temple and trees.

  Very soon after she was through she heard the sound of drums and the shrilling of music. She rushed to the place where the sound seemed to come from and saw a weird-looking procession approaching. There were old women dressed in scarlet and yellow, and old gray-headed men in every variety of costume out of the past. Some were on foot and some on horseback, with embroidered flags flying in the wind. In the center, dressed in black and crimson vestments and riding on white mules, were about twenty men and women, some quite young and others extremely old, advancing with slow, solemn steps. These were the royal astrologers, wizards, and witches, attached to the court. They received salaries from the Crown. Anna had never seen them all in one place before, although on several occasions individuals had been pointed out to her with awe. She saw that they were all Hindus, or if of mixed blood, as seemed likely, had adopted the Hindu dress and religion.

  In the rear came some Chinese coolies hired for the occasion, carrying two boxes and two long planks. Were they to be used in the ritual, she wondered? More likely they were what Mae Pia had used to get the princess out of the Palace. In the wake of the procession came a motley group of well-dressed Siamese and a crowd of ragged slaves.

  The court was to be held in the grand hall, the roof of which was badly crumbled away. In spite of its dilapidation its shape bore a strong resemblance to the wonderful temple of Angkor Wat, although on a much smaller scale. Anna stepped out of the deep shade in which she had been standing beneath the bo trees and took a seat on a broken stone pillar, still under the shelter of the trees, but close enough to the hall so she could both see and hear clearly.

  As soon as the procession entered the portal of the temple it halted. The men and women threw up their hands, folded them above their heads, and repeated the words of Krishna:

  O thou who art the life in all things, the eternal seed of nature, the understanding of the wise and the weakness of the foolish, the glory of the proud and the strength of the strong, the sacrifice and the worship, the incense and the fire, the victim and the slayer, the father and the mother of the world, gird thy servants with power and wisdom today to slay the slayer and to vanquish the deceiver!

  After this they marched into the temple to music, and offered their sacrifices of wine and oil, wheaten cakes and fresh flowers. With their eyes lifted to the dark vaulted roof they prayed again, calling upon Brahma the father, the comforter, the creator, the tender mother, the holy way, the witness, the asylum, the friend of man, to illumine with the light of his understanding their feeble intellects to discern the devil and to vanquish him.

  It was only when the long prayers were complete that the astrologers, wizards, and witches took their places in the hall, with the eager crowds all around them, standing in rows on the steps of the building. Then two officers stepped forward with a royal letter from the King. They were the chief judge of the high court, Phya Phrom, and his secretary, who were to record the proceedings for the King. When they were seated the prisoners were brought—Mae Pia, and the two maids-in-waiting of the princess. They were placed at the end of the hall, strongly guarded by fifty Amazons, while soldiers scattered themselves around the building. There was utter silence. The strange assembly looked fearfully about, eyeing Mae Pia as if she were indeed a witch. The three prisoners sat motionless, waiting apathetically to hear their doom. The “deaf and dumb changeling” was deadly pale. Her eyes burned with a strange light, almost of insanity, or perhaps of intense suffering.

  Anna grew restless. Why didn’t the trial begin? There were the boxes and planks. She saw that there were little niches cut in the planks, deep enough to make it possible for a nimble person to climb with the tips of the toes. Obviously these were what Mae Pia had used to scale the walls. Even so, the feat was no mean physical performance! How had she managed to get the planks up and over the first wall so that she could use them again on the inner wall? And how had she escaped unseen? How had she got the princess, weak after her long confinement, over the wall? And how had she got into the prison? It was still incredible.

  Anna turned to a soldier standing near and asked him why the trial was being delayed.

  “They are waiting for the holy man of the woods,” he explained. “They have blown the conch shells for him three times, but he has not come yet. And they will not begin the trial until he does, no matter how long they have to wait.” He told her about the yogi who lived all alone in a cave in the rocks adjoining the temple grounds. He rarely emerged during the day, but pious Hindus bathing in the stream in the evening could sometimes see him moving in the moonlight, and hear him calling upon God. He fed on tamarinds and wild fruits, sleeping all day like an animal. All night long he prayed aloud, oppressed by his longing and yearning after the Invisible as by some secret grief that knew no balm. Anna was reminded of the words:

  … At night the passion came,

  Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream;

  And shook him from his rest, and led him forth

  Into the darkness, to pray and pray forevermore.

  After an hour’s wait a man appeared on the opposite bank of the stream. He stood a moment looking and listening with the intentness of a deer. Then he plunged into the stream and emerged on the side of the temple. He was dressed only in a loin cloth. His thin brown body was heavily muscled and wiry, and his hair was long and unkempt. He shook the water from it as a dog will shake itself and came toward the hall, where he sat down almost shyly close to the prisoners. Anna got a clear view of him. He had a fine face, sensitive and gentle, and his head was noble in spite of the matted hair.

  The soldier whispered to Anna. “This man’s eyes are opened,” he said reverently, “so that he can see things which the paid wizards of the court cannot. That’s why they make it a point to invite him to help them in their spiritual examinations.”

  The trial began. The judge read the King’s letter, which spoke of the mysterious and important nature of the accusation made against a person or persons unknown, who had abducted from the Palace a state prisoner, a lady of high rank and unflinching integrity. It called upon the assembly to do their utmost to unravel the affair and determine the guilty person or persons.

  After the royal letter had received the customary salutation—three profound salaams from the assembly—the judge commanded the two Amazons who had been on duty at the door of the prison when the princess disappeared to speak. Their testimony followed. “On the night of the fifth day of the rising moon in the twelfth month a sudden st
rong wind arose that extinguished our lanterns, leaving us in utter darkness. And immediately afterward we were aware that a great tall figure enveloped in a black veil had entered the hall. As she approached us we saw that she was more than human in size, and held a short dagger in one hand and a great bunch of keys in the other.”

  They went on to explain that the horror which fell upon them deprived them of all power of speech and action, and they could move not even a little finger, so powerful was the spell cast upon them. As the strong being stood over them brandishing her glittering knife, there had flashed all around her a hideous light. By this light they saw her proceed to the cell in which the princess Sunatda was confined, open it with one of her mysterious keys, and lead the princess forth, dragging her by the hand. Then the flashes had died away and a double darkness fell upon them so the prison had the terrible unearthly blackness of the tomb. After nearly two hours, while they were still paralyzed and unable to move, the strange figure reappeared, pallid and more ghastly than before but without the veil or the dagger, or the bunch of keys. She passed quickly by them and shut the prison door after her so hard that it closed with a dismal cry of pain.

  The two Lao attendants of the princess were called next. Their story was brief. They said: “On the night of the fifth of the rising moon we were awakened by the slamming of the cell door. When we looked toward the bed where the princess had been sleeping we saw a figure sitting on it. We called out to the princess but she did not answer us, so we lit the lamp and found that our mistress was gone. This dumb slave girl was sitting there on her bed. We shrank away from her in horror because we were afraid that she might change us also into some unnatural thing.”

  It was plain to Anna that the Amazons believed their own story and in this there was a shred of hope for Mae Pia. They had been so frightened and so vividly impressed by the apparition they thought they had encountered, that they were prepared to swear solemnly that they had seen a supernatural being twice human size and altogether unlike the deaf and dumb slave before them. “It was a spirit,” they insisted, and the assembly nodded sagely, for there was no one present who did not accept this explanation as logical under the circumstances.