A Woman of Angkor

by John Burgess

  ‘Deal with these two later, not now, Highness,’ counselled Nol. ‘And not here. If you kill them here, the whole city will find out and be abuzz about it. We want people to talk about other things today. Better to have the animal led off for now. We will say that it went lame due to Prince Indra alighting on its back...alighting with the force of Garuda the Bird God.’

  My husband had a way, don’t you think? First he saved the life of that Siamese commander, then the life of the elephant handler. In both cases, of course, he acted with practical purposes in mind.

  Without waiting for a response, Nol called for the elephant that the prince had been riding to be brought forward. It quickly came; its mahout and Sadong then stripped Kumari of her royal vestments and put them on the other animal. On command, it raised its trunk half way and the prince used the footing to spring up onto its back.

  Nol moved to Sadong. ‘Take your animal back to the stable.’

  For the rest of the day, the prince passed up and down the city’s avenues, drawing ever bigger crowds as word spread of what had happened. Here and there the procession stopped, and Indra stood atop his mount, holding the golden sword high, and addressed the people. In late afternoon he returned to the palace. There the war games continued. The prince’s archers displayed their skills, as did spearmen and charioteers. The sun set, but the prince ordered that oil torches be lit and the competition extended. Later that night, he retired into the palace, and in the royal audience room commanders of major military units presented themselves to crouch and pledge loyalty.

  Indra’s own Commander Rit was not there, because on the prince’s orders he was conducting more acts of wickedness. He was leading a team of soldiers that was hunting down the Crown Prince and other key members of the royal family, three generations in all, as well as servants and teachers – and executing them, right on the spot where they were found. About one hundred forty people died over the course of six hours, starting with the aged Queen, killed with her four attendants on the palace terrace by spears through the chest, within moments of the King’s own death. But by strictest instruction, Princess Benjana and her attendants were not touched; she was Indra’s wife now, and the claim to the throne would rest in large part on his marriage to her.

  After sunset, Rom went to the concubine pavilion with her own squad of soldiers. They burst inside and ordered to the floor the terrified women they found there. Rom went from jewellery box to jewellery box, taking what caught her eye. Then she shouted that all must clear out immediately and never return.

  The Brahmin Subhadra was seen by no one in the hours after the assassination, because he was in the torch-lit chamber of the palace shrine, in prayer. I think he settled with himself that the Empire’s welfare required that he serve the future monarch and guide him however he could toward policies of benevolence. When finally he emerged, at day’s end, he looked tired and older. The first man who approached knelt extra low and addressed him as Rajaguru – Kingly Preceptor. So did the next man, and the next after him.

  Subhadra’s first act in this new role was to order preparations for formal elevation to the throne. He took possession of the royal flame and the state linga, in which resided the divine essence of Kings. He directed that all retainers below a certain rank remain at their posts. He commissioned a coronation verse in both Sanskrit and Khmer, and gave orders that to mark the coming event gifts would go to every temple in the Capital – cloth for priestly garments, silver bowls, jars of musk and camphor, oil of sandalwood, flutes and brass cymbals.

  Subhadra convened a team of twelve Brahmins untainted by connections to the expired sovereign to consult on a name for the new one. Within just three hours they grasped Heaven’s will: the lord of the Eighteenth Reign would be called Suryavarman, Sun King-Great Protector. The Empire had been ruled by one other King of that name, a century earlier, and he had achieved magnificent things, suppressing a usurper, expanding the borders, constructing the western reservoir. The new King would continue that tradition.

  In private, Subhadra presented the name to his prince. It produced a mood, however short, of serenity in the young man, and this the Brahmin used to offer teachings, that the Sovereign of the World must have strong arms and skills of war, but must also know when to display the jewel of mercy. Heaven would expect it, his subjects would expect it, advancement in his next life would depend on it. In that regard, he should begin by ordering that the former palace Brahmins, now held in a stockade, be spared and allowed to cremate the bodies of their deceased lord and his family. The prince raised a hand to signal acceptance. So Subhadra went quickly to the stockade and informed his predecessor of the commutation. He told him that when the cremation was over, he and the others must disperse to hermitages around the Empire and have no contact with one another, on pain of execution. But first put the late King’s ashes aside in a safe place, Subhadra advised, to await the day when permission is granted to deposit them in a monument for permanent honour.

  The elevation rite took place the following day, overseen by an aged priest who had enthroned the two previous Kings and, by his presence again, signalled that Heaven welcomed this new one. At the close, bells rang and cups of wine were drained all over a city where people were growing addicted to celebratory tumult.

  That night, the new King climbed the steep stone steps of the royal compound’s gold-spired pyramid, the Palace of the Air. There Rom awaited him, dressed in silk. Her body had become for the night an incarnation of the spirit of the Naga serpent. The Khmer race was about to be reborn, as it had been in the mists of history by the Brahmin who came from India and united with a Naga in woman’s form.

  Through all of this I stayed in my house; the servants delivered bits and pieces of information, starting with the role that my husband had played in the assassination. I could not accept that I was the wife of this man. I retired to my room.

  That night, Nol came again to the family house.

  I was still in my room; his steps brought a creak from the teak planks underfoot, but I did not turn to face him.

  ‘Please…’ he said, after a moment.

  He put a hand to my shoulder. It chilled me; I shook it off.

  ‘Husband! How could you be party to the murder of the King? A peaceful man who cared about his people, who prayed at the temple and grew orchids. I only hope that our son was not drawn into this.’

  ‘He was not, in any way.’

  At least that, then.

  Nol dared sit down next to me. But I refused to raise my eyes.

  ‘Yes, the King is dead,’ he said. ‘He was an old man, he was kind to people in this life and he will be rewarded in the next. He went quickly, rather than declining slowly, unable to see, to walk, even to squat at a privy.’

  ‘Of course you view it in that way.’

  ‘Gentle wife, it is not only I, and you, who will advance from this. The past reign brought trouble, decline, corruption, even danger from our enemies beyond the frontiers. Now the Empire will thrive by having a King who can not only love his people but protect them as well. People in the market, they recognize this.’ He was quiet a moment, then added: ‘What has happened was willed by Heaven.’

  ‘Did Heaven also will the death of tiny grandchildren? Killed on their mats as they slept! I have heard about it. Even his orchids will be uprooted, they say.’

  ‘It is sad, but when a new reign begins there must be a clean break. For the sake of harmony on earth, everyone must know that the old order is finished, gone forever, that no trace remains. Even the King’s elephant will die.’

  ‘Kumari?’

  ‘I do not know its name. But it is the elephant on which the late King was riding. It could have served the prince, but it refused. Now it is in its stable, waiting to be killed.’ He leaned closer, as if to suggest that he found this particular detail hard to accept. But without warning, a grimace cut short this performance.

  ‘You’re injured.’

  ‘No, there’s nothing wrong.�
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  ‘Husband, you are injured and you are in pain. I can see it.’

  He denied it again.

  ‘It is from what you did today, isn’t it? People say the prince’s foot struck your back with the force of a war club.’

  Nol denied it once more, and I could tell he was feeling a special kind of misery, from the pain, from his unwillingness to admit it, from my ability to see through his dissembling.

  Suddenly, that seemed of no consequence. I was weeping, hands to my face. ‘I worry so much, Nol, for what will happen because of this.’

  ‘Darling wife,’ he said. ‘We are in no danger for what I did. The prince is grateful, and now he is King. What happened today will be recorded in inscriptions.’

  It was intolerable to hear this. ‘Husband, don’t you see?’ I could barely get the words out. ‘With the prince’s support, or without it, we are like anyone else. We can never be sure of what will happen in this life. We can never be sure that we won’t fall ill or be bitten by a scorpion or struck by a lightning bolt. Or that powerful people will not find out things we hide and seek retribution. And even if we make it through this life without such misfortunes, what of the next? That is the more important question. Whatever sins remain unaddressed in us will be transformed into a terrible burden that we will carry forward, like a load of stones on our backs, and these can have only the most frightful effect on our next incarnations. Do you want to return as a blind beggar in the marketplace, covered with sores? Do you want to be a rat, stealing its food from the scraps of the poor? My own sins are considerable and I have tried to erase them with deeds on which Heaven will smile. Husband, please tell me you will do the same!’

  ‘What I have done I cannot undo,’ he replied. ‘I am prepared to accept the consequences.’

  I rose and left the room.

  I sat on a mat on the veranda which gave on to the house’s lotus pond. My lamp burned lower and lower, and then went out, but I did not replace it. My thoughts moved on from my husband. They arrived at the one thing that was not yet done, that I could stop, though doing so would take courage I wasn’t sure I had.

  Later I left the house in darkness, carrying wrapped in a krama a small but weighty object. I went first to the shrine of Bronze Uncle. It was a long walk, in the darkness, but I could not proceed without first seeking his approval and help. Before the god I knelt and prayed, longer than usual. Then I went to the royal stables. With the god’s help, I passed without trouble through the tall bamboo fence. I suppose the sentry was made to think I was a wine-stall woman come to visit a stable keeper.

  I found Sadong. He was standing alone, as if paralyzed, and when he saw me, he dropped to his knees and declared his agony over what had been ordered. But I stopped him. I stood him up, placed the wrapped object in his hands and spoke with courage that Bronze Uncle had given me.

  ‘Take the elephant out of Angkor immediately. Tonight. Bribe people if you have to. Take her to a very far village, a place where you and she are not known. Then sell what I have given you here and use the silver to support her. Don’t let anyone know of her powers; pretend she’s just a common draft animal. Hire her out for labour from time to time to keep up appearances.’

  He seemed of two minds about what I was asking him to do. No, not asking. I suppose I was ordering.

  ‘Sadong, there are laws of this world and there are laws of Heaven. We must never forget which have first claim on us. Kumari deserves to live. Your life with her will not be easy, it will require sacrifice. There must be no hesitation, no waste of silver, and certainly no morning cups of rice wine.’

  Sadong opened the cloth I had given. Inside was the neckpiece that Nol had brought home. He had acquired it by sinful means; now those sins would be wiped away as the necklace was applied to a virtuous purpose.

  Sadong clutched my hand. ‘You have been sent by Heaven, Mrs Sray! I can feel it. What you suggest is the right thing and I will do it. Now, please, leave. Someone will see you here.’

  But I said no, not yet. I had to say good-bye to Kumari.

  In the darkness, the great eyes turned to greet me, catching a glint of light from a torch across the stable. I put out a hand, and Kumari met it with the tip of her trunk and for a moment we held on to each other. I closed my eyes. I was certain that a spiritual essence was flowing between us. Then I looked again and trembled with a sudden realization: the soul of the departed King resides now in Kumari.

  Some weeks later, Nol came to me. He had noticed that the neckpiece was no longer in its box. Could one of the slaves have taken it? I said no, I had placed it for safekeeping in a locked cell in the palace, a place in which I kept silver for our master’s accounts. Nol nodded, though something in his manner made me think he was wondering if that was true. But he never asked again. I have no doubt that he was more concerned that I now communicated with him mainly through the maid, and that I called in a masseuse from the market to knead his back to reduce the pain, rather than doing it myself. And that I always slept away from him, on the veranda.

  But then Nol came home one evening and found that my mood had brightened. We ate together by lamplight and then sat on the veranda together. I passed the night with him. The next morning, I heard him asking the maid if anything unusual had happened concerning her mistress the day before. The only thing she could think of was that a messenger had brought me a private communication. Nol asked me about it, and I replied that it was confirmation that a bulk purchase of rice for the royal household had been completed at a particularly favourable price.

  How easily that lie flowed from my mouth. But I did not care. The messenger had brought word that the holy elephant was safe.

  Part Two

  Palace Prominence

  We pray with sometimes unseemly insistence for specific things to happen. We give no thought to the myriad ways in which they might come to pass. Do you see? We forget that Heaven has its own designs. It granted my wish that our family would again live together. Nol and Sovan remained in Angkor, to serve the new King. But the resulting existence was not at all what I had yearned for.

  For a start, we lived not in the house I had prepared, in which Bopa and I had found some measure of happiness during our lengthy wait. Slaves came with baskets and upended that place, moving our possessions to the newly vacant residence of the Royal Parasol Master near the palace compound. It was a large tile-roofed house with carved gables, pond and gardens and entirely too many rooms to fill. And spirits that seemed not to welcome my presence.

  And though I again lived with my husband, I could not but feel he was not the man I had sent off that long-ago morning, carrying fish and rice in a krama. His role in helping that spear point pierce the heart of our former monarch – I could never put that from my mind.

  And of course there was the concern that I must never be seen by His Majesty, for who could say but my face might spark a memory across the span of so many years. He was frequently away from Angkor for inspections and new military campaigns, but when he was in residence, I hid behind the walls of our house or left for the provinces to trade or find places where some of the silver I was amassing might go to good works.

  What gave me comfort in that period was that I still had my daughter, that sweet, fragile soul in need of guidance in the new life. And I had my son. Each morning, he would come sit with me and take a cup of tea. It was almost as if he sat again like a child on my lap, such was our level of empathy.

  23: Sergeant of the palace guard

  The palace servant who approached that morning was apologetic, as all of them were, even if they had given no conceivable offense.

  ‘Please, Lady, be patient a tiny bit longer,’ he said, standing by the covered oxcart in which Bopa and I were waiting for a journey to begin. ‘The escort will arrive in just a minute or two, Lady.’

  ‘Oh! I didn’t know there would be an escort.’

  He had no answer to that, perhaps afraid to acknowledge he knew something I did not. Instead he
repeated his message and withdrew.

  The words roused Bopa, who had been napping on her side next to me. ‘We still haven’t started?’

  ‘No, daughter,’ I replied, patting my girl’s shoulder gently. ‘Go back to sleep and next thing you know we’ll be on our way.’

  I looked back to the holy text that was open before me. I didn’t mind the delay, really. I needed to continue with my reading, and that would be hard once the cart began to roll.

  Six years had passed since the accession. And almost eight since I began my studies. Please do not take this as a boast, but by this time I had read the entire Baghavad Gita, committed large parts of it to memory, and studied commentaries that were many times longer. Now, with the help of that same young priest who had called at my house that day, I was making my way through the Ramayana. That was my text that day. Lord Rama, travelling toward the holy island Lanka to rescue his beloved Sita, was in alliance with the monkey general Hanuman.

  Bopa stirred again, frowning faintly. My girl recognized this trip for what it was, one of her mother’s periodic attempts to remind her that outside the palace walls was a quite different world, which the family had once inhabited, however hard that was to believe. In this other place there were no servants to bring rice sweets at any hour, no gong players on hire or silk-edged sampots or silver trays of betel nut. There was peace and fresh air and rights to go about life free from people watching without watching, listening without listening. There was perhaps a better chance to think and act in ways that would purify the soul and build a store of merit toward the next life.

  The trick in making these journeys was to get started with minimum fuss and baggage, and certainly with no maids. Take only those things that could be carried, in a straw bag over the shoulder. But a very large collection of people – my husband, the servants, members of the palace staff – looked askance at anything done simply, and conspired to complicate. I would have preferred to travel in a farmer’s cart, but the stable master maintained that all that was available was the fancy vehicle in which we now sat, its teak sideboards carved and polished, its hubs painted in silver, its top covered for protection from sun and rain. Inside were finely woven mats and a portable shrine. In its yoke were a pair of well-fed oxen with drapes over their backs and silver caps on the tips of their horns. And now this last-minute assembling of an escort. It was impossible to know who exactly was behind it. My husband was at the parasol-making village today, but perhaps he’d left instructions that soldiers go with me. Though he would often say that the Empire’s roads were more secure under His Majesty’s firm hand than in the old days, he nonetheless worried for my safety. But I think his main worry was that his wife would be seen travelling in the manner of the market women she once was. Or maybe it was just some nameless palace functionary, thinking that an escort was what the Lady Sray wanted but was by the grace of Heaven too modest to request.