by John Burgess
‘Don’t talk to me like that!’ It would have been said in his best imperious voice. ‘You have no right. You’re the daughter of a concubine.’
‘Be careful what you say! My mother is closer to our prince than your father, don’t you think? I can make trouble for you.’
‘You wouldn’t dare.’
He turned his back on her and walked away. Supposedly, he had only just then thought of something that needed tending to before the procession. But I think that in fact he felt shame that this girl was not frightened of him.
By the time he was twelve, Nol knew as much as his father about how to distinguish good silk from bad, how to replace a fly whisk’s missing strands, how to keep mildew from forming on palm-leaf fans during rainy-season storage. He had learned the calling’s human side as well, which in some ways is as important as questions of craft. He could pick the right team for a particular audience, matching experience with the visitor’s rank and business. He knew to get men into place without taking them past the estate’s kitchen house, where at least one would otherwise stop to flirt with a maid. Inside the audience hall, he could recognize the subtle motions of the prince’s hand that signalled how many petitioners gathered outside should be admitted to the hall. That is my husband, then – very sensitive to subtle things if they concern work, less sensitive if they concern life at home.
Nol travelled with his father, visiting twice a year the village near the Capital that made the estate’s fans and parasols, the village Kralann. They went to the Capital itself for annual meetings of the guild of parasol masters. Twice they went along on military campaigns against the Chams, at the side of Prince Vira, who led a militia unit contributed by the estate.
And when he was thirteen, his father included him in an embassy that Prince Vira led all the way to the Siamese territory. There he sat nearby as the prince negotiated terms of the tribute the Siamese would send to the Capital. Nol learned customs of the Siamese, their language, their very way of thinking. What an honour it was for a boy that age, and how it must have affected his own assessment of himself.
When the embassy returned to Chaiyapoom, Nol’s admirers were even more impressed with the boy and they began to show it. Probably it was at this time that he began to feel accustomed to being addressed with honorifics normally reserved for grown men. The estate’s silversmith gave him armlets of a kind that normally would have come only after his training was complete. His father took pride in this treatment, as any father would. Probably he had come to feel by now that Nol would achieve more as a parasol master than he had. Yet there was no sign of when the boy might inherit the post. The father, people said, had stopped aging the day Nol was born.
Let us move forward now, to Nol’s fifteenth year. One day, his father returned from Prince Vira’s audience hall. He called his son, told him to sit, and then informed him that the prince had received an invitation to visit the estate up the river.
I’ve told you now perceptive my husband was, even as a boy. So you can understand that he grasped right away that this was significant. The estates’ two princes had not met in years. I must tell you – this other prince was Prince Teng. He had become a chronic and delinquent debtor to Prince Vira and therefore avoided him. Year after year, the yields of Teng’s paddyland had been falling. The local spirits had been courted with offerings and Teng’s engineers had secretly built dikes to divert some of the water that by rights and tradition fed the fields of Prince Vira. But nothing worked. Each year, Teng sent an apologetic steward down the river to negotiate loans of rice and other staples from Vira’s surplus. It was always depicted as a temporary advance against production that was sure to improve the following harvest. His steward never offered even a hint of acknowledgment that things could not go on in this way. So Vira and his courtiers made a decision. This year, when the man stepped up from the boat at the dock by the palace, he was welcomed, given cool water to drink, then politely informed that Vira’s surplus had shrunk so small that sadly no additional loans could be made.
My future husband’s first question to his father was: ‘Did the invitation from Prince Teng include any word on what he plans to do concerning his debt?’
This was the question to ask, of course, and you can imagine that Heng smiled in pride. ‘Yes. It expresses hope that he and Prince Vira can discuss the future ownership of paddy land that begins at the second village on the river.’
‘Shouldn’t Prince Teng come here instead?’
‘The message suggests that our prince will want to inspect the land and therefore he is invited to go there, and that Teng wants to entertain him.’
Nol had seen the land in question from a distance, during one of Vira’s tours of the outer sectors of his own estate. ‘I would think, father, that it’s just his opening offer – that land’s not very good. Only a bit of it gets water.’
‘You’re right, it’s not the best. But keep in mind that this is the first time we’ve had any kind of overture at all from Teng’s side. Our prince is quite happy over the news. He believes, and so do I, that what’s most important is that the prince there recognizes that things have to change.’
Nol was troubled, but he merely answered: ‘Yes, father.’
I am finding I have difficulty continuing with the story. If only Heaven had seen fit that my husband, this boy, press his case more strongly that debtor should come to creditor! Or if only Heaven had sent a thunderstorm the next day, putting off the departure.
At that moment a servant brought bowls of water to drink.
‘You know, Nol,’ said Heng after a moment’s reflection, ‘in the old days, this kind of thing would have been settled by the magistrate in the provincial town across the hill. Our master would have sent a man there with the loan records. Someone from the other estate would have been called to answer for it. A decision would have been made. But the magistrate seems afraid now. He has no soldiers to back up his decisions. None of the noble families around here seem to care what he does now.’ His father smiled grimly. ‘But what can we expect when in the Capital we have a King who worries mostly about orchids?’
After morning rice the following day, the prince emerged from his palace and walked to the estate’s dock. Waiting there was a long wooden boat with four parasol bearers, eight rowers and a helmsman wearing a bright blue sampot. Heng and Nol stood to the side and bowed as their lord passed, then followed him onto the vessel and sat down in the rear. Out on the water another boat was waiting, carrying bodyguards, the chief of the estate’s grain stores and a scribe.
Rowers pulled at the water and the boats proceeded gently upriver. After a bit, Heng and Nol were called forward to join the prince. He sat cross-legged on a dais lined with silk, shaded by his four parasols. A tray with water and rice sweets had been set before him, but these he ignored. What always drew the prince’s attention on a trip like this were sights of nature. As the boat advanced against a lazy current, he took pleasure in pointing them out to Nol and Heng – a gibbon peering out from a treetop, a pair of crocodiles sunning themselves on a sandy bank, an eddy covered with lily pads. I can see Nol smiling as he was expected to, trying to show interest, though for his whole life sights like these made him uneasy. He preferred the man-made order of a city or an estate’s grounds.
After a while, Prince Vira turned to the business at hand. ‘So, Heng, were you able to find those figures?’
‘Yes, Highness. I spoke with the chief of the grain stores and he estimated that the land Prince Teng’s people are offering would produce about six hundred weight of rice per year.’
‘And what have they been borrowing from us?’
‘About sixty-four hundred weight last year, Highness.’
‘Ahh – so they’re offering land that would take more than ten years to produce what they borrowed in just one year.’
‘That’s correct, Highness.’
‘So what is your view?’
‘My view, Highness, is to treat it as a given that
you will get that piece of land, but that it will be just the appetizer to the meal.’
The prince smiled. ‘And the main courses?’
‘I spoke with a farmer who used to live on that estate. To the east of its principal settlement is a large block of paddies. They are old and fertile and on the far side there’s a stream that flows into Your Highness’s land. It’s the one from which they’ve been diverting water. Those paddies would be a very good addition to your holdings and getting control of that stream would also end the problem of diversion.’
The prince mulled that, and then turned to Nol.
‘And what does the boy think? I wonder if he’s got some idea that wants to come bursting out.’ You see, it was not only the retainers who took a special interest in Nol. ‘Now come on, boy, don’t be afraid to speak up.’
Nol was not afraid, of course. He was only pretending to be.
‘My idea is the same as my father’s, Highness.’
‘But...’
‘But perhaps Your Highness should add some type of security for the existing loans?’
‘What kind? I’ll bet you’ve thought it out.’
‘Silver from Prince Teng’s own body, Highness.’
Vira’s eyes went wide at this suggestion. He was enjoying himself. ‘Now why do that, boy?’
‘Because every day he should be reminded that he owes a debt to Your Highness, that something important is missing from his own personal wealth. He won’t like to give land, of course, but once you have taken it, he will forget it. He’ll never visit it. But if each morning, after his wardrobe servants have applied his jewellery, he looks down and sees that a pendant is gone, he’ll be reminded again who is the real lord of this region and what he must do if he is ever to get the pendant back.’
‘So you know all about jewellery – no doubt from wearing some yourself, boy.’ Prince Vira gave an approving tap to Nol’s armlets. ‘Now, it won’t just make him angry?’
‘There will be some anger, yes, Highness. But he will recognize that he has to put it aside. His estate is small compared to yours, his militia is smaller, and he will know that he must keep things peaceful.’
The prince turned to Nol’s father. ‘This is quite a strategist you’ve produced.’ Then he looked back to the boy. ‘It’s an interesting idea, but I worry that it would get things off with the wrong tone. I would like to keep things friendly when we talk this time. It’s been quite a few years, but I’d like to give Prince Teng a good-faith chance to set things straight, with his honour intact.’
‘Yes, Highness.’
‘Still, a very interesting idea, that one. Keep thinking them up.’ Then the prince stirred: ‘Now look there, Nol – a wild boar, a big one!’
Two hours later, the boat passed a stone marker on the shore that marked the start of Prince Teng’s holdings. Nol looked up the river and saw the spire of a distant shrine. A sign of civilization. It was a welcome sight after this passage through the wild.
An hour later, the boats came upon a tangle of lily pads that covered much of the river. The prince’s helmsman stood up to look for a way through, then called out a turn to the right, where there was a clear channel close to the bank. The boat entered it, with the second one close behind.
It was then that the wickedness began. There first came a whistle and a dull thud, nothing very loud. But the sounds were sufficiently odd that Nol glanced about seeking their source, curious. He looked to his master. A shaft of wood extended from the prince’s upper chest. His jaw was slack; he was trying to raise his hands, but they wouldn’t come. A storm of these whistle-thuds sounded and Nol realized that arrows were striking the boat.
He grabbed the tray that had held the prince’s water and food and held it up as a shield, for him and for the prince. But it did no good. One arrow cut right through the tray, coming to rest half way along its shaft, another pierced the prince’s neck.
Shouts of panic came from the rowers; some of them had been hit too. Prince Vira began to sink to the mat on his dais, bleeding. Nol used his free hand to try to hold him up, but the weight was too much.
Suddenly, noise that seemed a mix of human shouts and animal snarls was coming from below. There were men in the water, concealed in the mass of lily pads, and they were thrusting knives and spear points over the edge of the boat. More shouts were heard, this time from the boat of bodyguards behind. It was capsizing.
Men in Nol’s boat began swinging their paddles at the men in the water, but to pathetic effect. More arrows streaked in from the bank. One grazed Nol’s upper arm. The prince was lying face down now, blood pooling around his face. Nol could not help. It was now that he remembered his father. He dropped the tray and turned to look for him, but he was gone. A struggle was underway in the water over the side, and Nol saw men setting like wild dogs on a bleeding form clad in the same colour fabric that his father had been wearing. The prince was in even more trouble now. A dripping man in a loincloth was squatting over him, thrusting a small knife into his body again and again.
Another hand with another knife lunged up from the water. Nol dodged it, and I think that now, for the first time, he became terrified for himself. He turned and launched himself head-first high over the side of the boat. He passed over writhing forms, then hit the water, or rather a wet tangle of leaves and stems. He struggled to stay beneath the surface, to move away as fast as he could. He came up for a breath, pushing off a stout root that seemed to grab his ankle, and then he went down again. He had one objective, to fight his way clear of the vegetation. In open water he might find a friendly current that would carry him downstream, away from the mayhem. He bumped against human forms, some dead, some alive. Wicked hands reached for him, but found nothing to hang on to. Surfacing for a second time, he heard noise only from behind. He was free of the vegetation now. He caught a glimpse of the far bank – it seemed to be moving, but then he realized it was he who was moving. He was in the current’s grip. He went down again and kicked hard to help it move him along. Then he felt terror as he met something long and abrasive, first on his face, then the length of his body. He realized it must be a net, strung across the river by Teng’s men to prevent their victims from escaping. The current was now his enemy, pressing him against the net, holding him under. His breath was giving out, but something told him not to try for the surface, but to go further down. He did, feeling with his hands, the water becoming a deeper brown, then a terrifying black as he descended. Then he felt the sand of the river’s bed. Here the net was not taut. He lifted it. The current, now helping him again, propelled him through. On the other side, he broke to the surface, gasping. The shouts and the clank of metal on metal were receding now.
The current kept him moving, but soon it was all he could do to stay afloat. His armlets were heavy, and so he pulled them off and let them sink into the darkness below. After a while he grew fatigued again and felt himself sinking and only then did he make for the bank. His feet found bottom. He stumbled ashore and collapsed on a bar of sand. He lay panting, but when his breathing calmed he felt exposed, and forced himself to crawl up the bank and hide behind a gum tree.
What a shock it all was. He was only fifteen and had never been in personal danger.
He took stock. The cut the arrow had made on his arm was small and no longer bleeding. He had no other real injuries. But he was sure he was still on land owned by Prince Teng. He had nothing, save the sampot that clung to his waist and silver bangles around his wrists. He began to consider how to get home. Perhaps he could float the rest of the way once he’d rested. He looked back to the river – but no, the current was quite slow from here on. And with a start, he remembered the crocodiles. He would have to go on foot and steal past villagers and guards. He would wait for darkness.
He lay down and began to shiver, though he was not cold. Scenes from the slaughter replayed themselves in his mind; he was horrified at how loud and messy the process of killing was. He searched his memory for clues as to what ha
d happened to his father, but he had only that single image of a bleeding form in the water. Perhaps Heng was already dead even then.
When the sun was low, he saw something long and large approaching in the river. At first he took it for a crocodile, but then he saw it was a body, lashed to a log! Behind it, as if in procession, were half a dozen more. Prince Teng’s men had removed the net, it seemed, and were sending the dead downstream as a taunt. Can you imagine such cruelty?
As night fell, Nol sat with knees pressed to his chest, casting glances into the foliage overhead. He had become convinced that there was a menacing spirit in the leaves, one that had been feeding off the floating bodies and had now alighted here in hopes of getting live flesh. He crawled away from the tree and waited some more, and when full darkness arrived and the night insects began their chorus, he took a deep breath and marched himself into the jungle. Immediately, rocks were biting at his feet, vines and low-hanging branches at his face and shoulders. Each step seemed to disturb some creature that fled unseen with a terrifying rustle. He soon realized it is not possible to move in pitch black through jungle. There wasn’t even starlight to help. He made his way back to the riverbank and found another tree, this one seeming more receptive to his presence. He pressed his head to the dirt to ask its spirit’s protection. Then he sat himself down, back to the bark, to wait out the night.
He’d chosen the tree well, because its spirit let him sleep and kept animals and all but a few insects away. When dawn began, he got to his feet, then set off again through the jungle. But before he’d moved even a short distance, the foliage gave way to paddy land. Not so far across it were perhaps twenty farmers, Teng’s farmers, weeding. Beyond them was their village. Nol could see no way around. The river now seemed more appealing as a route home.
Find a log, he told himself, and float with it downstream. Any of Teng’s people who see it will think you’re just another of the dead. And perhaps, perhaps any crocodile that sees you will no longer be hungry. He began searching and not ten paces from his friendly tree he found a log – a freshly fallen one, with some wilted foliage on it. He turned to the tree and its empathetic spirit, put hands together to express thanks, then dragged the log to the water. He grabbed hold of a branch, and kept all but his head submerged.
