The White Rajah (1961)

by Monsarrat, Nicholas

  Richard murmured his satisfaction.

  ‘I would talk of a father’s blessing,’ said the Rajah, ‘but in these modern times, I might seem to be out of date … Let us say that you may look for surprises, at the banquet.’

  ‘I have had enough surprises already, today,’ answered Richard, meeting his mood. ‘I doubt my capacity for sustaining many more of them.’

  ‘I have no fears for your capacity,’ remarked the Rajah, with sly emphasis. It was even conceivable that he was making a broad jest, and Richard, in spite of himself, felt his cheeks warming. Perhaps the Sun Palace held no secrets, after all. The Rajah continued, on this same rallying note: ‘Tell me, Captain Marriott – you still have your fine uniform?’

  The admiral’s coat, with its brave array of medals and orders, had already become a joke between them. ‘I have it still, your Highness.’

  ‘Wear your fine uniform tonight,’ said the Rajah, nodding in high good humour. ‘It will suit a fine occasion.’

  iv

  There was no doubt that the occasion was a fine one. Though Richard Marriott had by now become used to the splendours of the Sun Palace, it seemed unlikely that the first banquet he had attended on his arrival – now so long ago, in everything save the realm of time – could be surpassed. But it did not take him long to realize that, by comparison, that first banquet was no more than a poorhouse supper, when matched with the barbaric magnificence of this night’s entertainment.

  To begin with, there were many more people present; there must have been fifty at the high table alone, and in the body of the room, upwards of a thousand guests ate, drank, and took their ease. There were also many strange faces among Richard’s immediate neighbours; by their bearing, and the number of their personal servants, they were men of importance, but he had never seen them at court before. Their attendance intrigued him, and presently he leant across to address a query to Amin Bulong, seated nearby. The old man, busy as usual with the pleasure of eating, shrugged his shoulders as he answered: ‘Every chief in Makassang is here tonight!’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘They have been summoned,’ said Amin Bulong briefly, and went on to speak of what was clearly uppermost in his mind – the dish of gulls’ eggs spiced with cloves and nutmegs, which had just been laid before him.

  These strangers – most of them old men, grave-faced and withdrawn – had on their arrival greeted Richard with respect. They seemed to know him already, or to have heard of his deeds and to acknowledge his consequence, without reservations. Many of them bore the same badge of office, superimposed on their other regalia; a broad sash of purple silk, worn across one shoulder and held in place by a jewelled emblem. It put Richard in mind, irreverently, of the wine waiters of certain glittering establishments in Paris, who were also thus distinguished. But when, again, he asked Amin Bulong for enlightenment, the answer was short and pointed.

  ‘They are members of the Council of State,’ said Amin Bulong. Then he motioned to the dish of gulls’ eggs, nestling in their bed of scarlet sea moss. ‘Help yourself,’ he said, with very good humour, ‘before it is too late.’

  A second oddity was the presence of Selang Aro. The sour-visaged priest sat in a place of honour, almost at the centre of the table; by turning slightly, Richard had the other man’s face in full view – and the full view was not reassuring. Above the saffron robes and the severe black collar which was his sole mark of rank, the face of Selang Aro reflected nothing save a supercilious disengagement. He might be there, in the unwilling flesh, but in the spirit he was many worlds away. I am a priest, the thin, high-boned face seemed to declare; I witness your gluttony, I listen to your unholy music; but my way of life is different, and my way of life will conquer … Richard wondered why he had been invited at all, and why he had consented to attend – unless it were a matter of command, as on his last appearance at the Sun Palace. His air of reserved power, of being preoccupied with higher matters, made him an uncomfortable neighbour. He ate nothing. He spoke to no one. He was simply present – a dry skeleton at a profane feast.

  Certainly the entertainment was not designed to accord with priestly withdrawal from the world of the flesh. Once again, there were no women yet to be seen, but every other focus of appetite was indulged to the full. The whole audience chamber had been newly hung with tapestries, which Richard recognized as coming from the treasure vault below; against this background of magnificence, the banquet ran its course on a scale scarcely to be comprehended by a single set of man’s senses. The wine flowed in rivers; the dishes were of an extraordinary variety, ranging from such gross offerings as a wild pig roasted whole, standing upright on a golden salver which must have measured four feet across, to tiny brilliant fish not much bigger than a finger’s length, seeming to swim in their bowls of scented oil.

  The flickering torchlight fell on a riot of colour and movement. Servants brought new dishes, in endless relay; beakers of wine circled the room without pause; there was constant visiting from table to table, prefaced always by deep and formal bows towards the Rajah, both on rising and sitting down again. There were tumblers in multicoloured finery, with bells on their ankles, and magicians whose deft hands conjured tendrils and wreaths of flowers from the very air. An Indian with a filthy matted beard charmed a snake from its basket, with such sweet notes upon the pipe that it seemed no miracle to see a lowly serpent unable to resist them. A pair of naked wrestlers, both larded with a thick covering of pig’s fat, slid in and out of each other’s grip like great flopping fish, while roars of laughter rang through the room at their efforts to subdue one another. Their contest ended with a wild chase among the tables, in which many others joined, until the whole roomful of a thousand people seemed rendered helpless with laughter. Then the musicians took up their task once more, filling the air with an insistent yet melodious beauty; and the company fell to eating again, and pledging each other in wine, and bowing towards the high table, restoring to the banquet the sense of a great occasion.

  The Rajah was in fine spirits. He had placed Richard on his left hand, and saw that he was plied with food and drink; the skull cup – which now held so devout a meaning for Richard – constantly passed between them. But he would say nothing of the purpose of the evening – if it had a purpose, beyond this bountiful enjoyment. When Richard expressed his curiosity, the Rajah answered him only in vague terms.

  ‘Let us say that we are celebrating the victory, Captain Marriott. Your victory.’

  Richard looked round him at the fantastic scene. ‘It was not worth so much honour,’ he protested.

  ‘It was worth so much to me … Come … let us drink a toast to victory, and to the future.’

  Richard, looking over the rim of the skull-cup as he drank in response, suddenly found that he was gazing directly into the eyes of Selang Aro, seated a few feet away. After the Rajah’s expansive good humour, it was a shock to encounter the very reverse, within the space of a moment. For the High Priest’s expression, though veiled, was unmistakable; there was envy in it, and bitterness, and something akin to hatred.

  Taken aback, Richard sought to ease the moment with a friendly exchange of words. Still holding the skull cup, he leant across towards Selang Aro, and said with all the politeness he could muster: ‘I hope you are finding amusement here tonight.’

  As if one curtain were succeeding another, Selang Aro’s face changed swiftly, from its cast of malevolence to a customary sour disdain. Though he bent forward with an equal formality, his tone was cold as he answered: ‘Such occasions as this are far removed from the life of the Anapuri.’

  ‘But you must agree that it is a great celebration,’ said Richard carefully.

  Selang Aro glanced pointedly at the skull cup. ‘Greater for you than for myself.’

  Richard, brought up short by the words, which were so uttered as to border on the offensive, decided that politeness had had its fair day. He frowned as he said curtly: ‘I enjoy such hospitality, and I am honoured by it
.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Selang Aro’s thin smile was devoid of humour. ‘I understand that you will be full of honours, before the evening is out.’

  ‘I know nothing of that.’

  ‘Yet I hope,’ said Selang Aro, disregarding entirely Richard’s answer, ‘that you will not receive more honours than one man can safely bear.’

  ‘You talk in riddles,’ said Richard coldly.

  Selang Aro lowered his head, masking his eyes completely. His voice was scarcely above a whisper as he said: ‘Such honours can be heavy enough to kill a man.’

  Richard was about to probe further, to satisfy both his curiosity and his anger at the words, when his attention was distracted. It seemed that the long feasting was at last done; there was now a general movement at the centre of the floor, as the tables were cleared away and the guests withdrew gradually to the steps and porticos flanking the audience chamber. Something nudged uneasily at his memory, and then emerged into clear thought; reminded suddenly of the first banquet at the Sun Palace, and what had taken place when the formal repast was done, he turned aside to speak to the Rajah.

  ‘Is there dancing tonight, your Highness?’

  ‘Certainly,’ answered the Rajah. ‘There will be a special dance in your honour. We call it the Dance of Heavenly Exaltation. It is our rarest entertainment.’

  Richard hesitated, at a loss how to phrase his next question. But he had to know the answer.

  ‘Will her Highness be dancing also?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said the Rajah again. He turned on Richard a bland look of innocence which, if it were assumed, was well done indeed. ‘On this night of all nights, she could not fail to take her appointed place, could she?’

  Richard’s peace of mind was unequal to the moment; he experienced a sudden pang of foreboding, mixed with a wild jealousy. He remembered the first time that Sunara had danced, and her dress which had so fired and pricked his imagination. Would she dance thus again, before a thousand pairs of eyes? It had not mattered at all, on that first occasion; he had been a stranger then, free of thought, careless of glance, tasting all delights with equal appetite; but now all was changed. There were things that a man, a lover, could scarcely bear to witness … He waited in silence, sick at heart, as the dancing floor was cleared, and the musicians, after a pause to allow quiet to fall, began the first notes of a new melody.

  Richard, no connoisseur of the intricacies of the dance, and momentarily too disturbed to form a judgement of any sort, found himself unable to distinguish the dance of Heavenly Exaltation from the earlier dance of the Virgin Sacrifice; to his heavy heart, they both seemed designed to culminate in the appearance of Princess Sunara, in circumstances which he remembered far too vividly for his composure. He watched in brooding anticipation as the line of twenty slavegirls, diaphanously clothed as before, embarked on their graceful measure; he found himself listening with dread to the music, as it worked towards its climax, and the beat of the gong which must herald her appearance. It was shameful that she should be thus exposed to the public gaze … Turning slightly, while the music rose to its appointed crescendo, he saw that the Rajah was watching him; there was in the old man’s glance a hint of sly mockery which in Richard’s present mood seemed intolerable.

  He dropped his glance, determined not to feed this unseemly curiosity. Within a few moments, the music ceased; then the iron beat of the gong reverberated throughout the room; and at that, perforce, he raised his eyes again, as Sunara made her entrance, gliding through the curtained portico at the far end of the chamber.

  Instantly, his spirits leapt upwards, to a peak of love and longing. For Sunara was, after all, unrevealed; indeed, she was clothed from head to foot in a simple, even severe dress of yellow silk, so modest and so demure that it might have been designed to send him a direct message of reassurance. She looked beautiful, and remote, and set apart from the gross world; the ‘heavenly exaltation’ of the dance could only be the exaltation of purity. Watching her, Richard felt ready to shout aloud for happiness; and when, for a brief moment, he glanced again at the Rajah, and saw that the old man’s mockery had become a broad smile, as at a good-natured joke happily complete, he nodded his assent and acknowledged with an answering laugh that he had been fooled – and did not care who knew it.

  Sunara ended her dance with a bow to her father, as before; then, instead of withdrawing, she began to ascend the small flight of steps which led to the high table and the ivory throne. As she drew near, her eyes sought Richard’s, in candid eagerness to restore their loving communion; her look of warming happiness was not lost upon those who stood at the high table awaiting her approach, and there was a murmur of interest which spread gradually, like a lapping wave, until it had reached the far corners of the room. When finally Sunara stood at his side, and Richard bowed low over her hand, the public concentration on their meeting was obvious. Many smiles were bent upon them; goodwill seemed to flow in their direction; there was even some hand clapping from the humbler parts of the room. Only Selang Aro, remote and grudging, remained apart, not choosing to bless with his approval this evidence of a romantic confederacy.

  On this formal occasion, there were certain presentations to be made; Sunara moved gracefully within the circle of the Council of State and the high table, greeting her father’s old counsellors with a blending of the regal and the feminine which was a delight to see. But her concentration, to a discerning or a loving eye, was not perfect; at times, as she made her progress from guest to guest, her glance turned towards Richard – across the space of a table, over the broad shoulder of a stranger, in a small space between one man and another – and in her glance, the recollection of last night’s tempestuous intimacy was lovingly apparent. To receive this private message in the midst of such mannered exchanges was more exciting than any direct communication could have been.

  Presently, her duty done, she rejoined Richard and her father, and took her seat on the smaller throne which her maids of honour now brought forward. The Rajah, still relishing his joke, could not forbear to enlarge on it.

  ‘You danced well, my daughter,’ he told her. ‘As always, it was a pleasure to watch you … Don’t you agree with me, Captain Marriott?’

  ‘A great pleasure,’ answered Richard.

  ‘It seemed to me,’ said the Rajah, ‘that you appeared nervous, before the Princess made her appearance.’

  ‘Nervous?’ said Sunara, with seeming surprise. ‘Now why should that be?’

  ‘I cannot imagine,’ said her father.

  ‘Perhaps it was anticipation,’ said Richard. He did not mind the raillery; he was happier, at that moment, than at any time he could remember. ‘One is inclined to suffer when someone personally known is to make a public appearance.’

  ‘I noted the suffering,’ said the Rajah, ‘but I could not guess its cause.’

  ‘You have a most handsome dress, Princess,’ said Richard.

  ‘Thank you, Captain Marriott.’

  ‘It has a certain merit,’ said the Rajah. ‘Even to a father’s eye.’

  ‘The merit of great beauty.’

  ‘And of great modesty?’

  Richard nodded. ‘That, also.’

  Sunara looked from one to the other. ‘Modesty is a matter of behaviour,’ she said, affecting a severe tone. ‘It needs no dress to aid it.’

  ‘Perhaps you have discovered the core of Captain Marriott’s fear,’ said the Rajah, and relapsed at last into open laughter; while Richard and Sunara, whom nothing on this night could provoke or disturb, smiled at his antique pleasure, and then at their shared amusement, and then for themselves alone.

  As on the earlier evening, other women had followed Sunara’s maids of honour into the audience chamber, and were now joining the gathering; soon the room was thronged, and the company fell to drinking and talking again. But there was an air of preoccupied expectancy about the whole room, which heightened each moment beyond mere enjoyment; people would break off from their talk, and
stare with interest at the Rajah and the other dignitaries, keeping their movements under survey; often they looked towards the centre of the high table, where indeed certain unusual preparations had been set in train.

  A canopy, like a great golden umbrella with ornamental tassels, had been brought, and raised above the Rajah’s ivory throne; and now a kind of portable altar, of the most delicate workmanship – ivory and ebony intermingled – was carried out, and placed on the trestle table under the same majestic covering. Selang Aro, not less grim and withdrawn than before, had come forward, and was busy with the arrangement of certain objects upon this altar; they were a scroll of parchment bound with leather thongs, a tiny chalice of gold supported on a slender stem, and a dagger with a brilliant jade hilt. There was also the skull cup, freshly brimming with wine, which was so placed as to furnish a centrepiece for this strange array.

  Richard, as on so many occasions before, turned to his mentor, Amin Bulong.

  ‘What is this?’ he asked the old man in an undertone. ‘If I am to take part, I must know the formalities. I do not wish to make any error.’

  ‘You are to take part,’ answered Amin Bulong, surveying him with eyes unexpectedly moist with feeling, ‘and you will make no errors.’

  It seemed that he would have said more, but at that moment the Rajah walked forward until he stood underneath the golden canopy, and throughout the vast room an instant silence fell.

  The old man’s bearing was proud and stately; his slight figure had gained in presence, drawing nobility from its regal setting, and especially from the motionless attention of all in the room. When he spoke, after a pause, it was in his own tongue; but he pronounced the words simply and slowly, so that it was easy for Richard Marriott to follow.

  ‘I will not interrupt your pleasure for long,’ said the Rajah. ‘Indeed, I hope to add to it, as well as to my own … You are bidden here for two purposes tonight. One of them you know – it is to celebrate the defeat of our enemies, at the hands of a brave man. The other one, you do not know – though it is possible that some of you have guessed it. It is to witness my adoption of a son.’