by John Masters
The king said, ‘Wine! Wine for Lord Jason the ambassador!’ Jason cheered up and said, ‘Gallons! I love it. No one could get drunk on this. Horsepiss, really. You want to get drunk, you try English ale. It’s the best. You know, to get drunk on this stuff is IMpossible. Ha ha!’
The king said, ‘So young a man, a stranger and a foreigner--so delicate a mission?’
‘No need to wonder. I thought of it. Look. What do the Portuguese do . . ?’ Then it got hard to explain, but he came out swimming strongly at the far end. The king would understand now.
The king said, ‘You must excuse me from believing you, Lord Jason. On the other hand, it would be worth much gold to me to learn the inwardness of this matter--say, five thousand gold pieces. Five thousand.’
‘I understood the first time. Do you think I’m drunk? Are you calling me a liar?’ He rose to his feet and swayed grandly over the king. He saw swords and spear points waving under his nose. He said, ‘I’ll knock your head off.’
The king’s eyes were cold and dark. He had a thick neck and cold, greasy eyelids. He was a cold, greedy bastard, not like the little fat Manairuppu king. He wasn’t cruel. He was a funny man with a funny hat.
The king said, ‘Pray be seated, my lord. No insult was intended, I assure you. Can you tell me a little more about...?’ He’d tell them. They were such fools that they couldn’t see their own left hand if it was held up in front of their noses.
‘Ah, look at that girl in the middle!’ The statues were real, after all. Round as a wheel! Phew, what would Grant say to this? Molly would giggle. Emily--Emily would be shocked, because she was what she was.
The king was talking to Parvati. He’d better watch this dance. It was a very difficult one. He was a dancer, and he knew. He’d fix his eye on one part of her--the navel, obviously. But there was a small bright light in the back of his head too, which he had to look at, so he was looking two ways at once.
All the same, the dance was important. He muttered to himself, ‘The Oak and Horn!’ It was nothing like, but this was another dance that had been going on a long time, and if he could understand it, get it silhouetted in front of the little bright light in his head, he’d get rid of that small, cold feeling of being lost. He’d be an Indian.
An Indian! And he’d already been a Roman and a trout and an Englishman and a sailor and a seagull, and one of the men who had built the Henge. But this was the closest and the biggest.
He strained to catch the slightest sound from the dancers’ bare feet, but there was none. They stood facing him, their knees bent and their feet flat-placed on the stone floor. The stone wall behind them was carved in trident designs; every man in the room wore the red and white trident on his fore--head; and the hangings behind him were violent black and yellow, the trident pattern printed on them.
But the yoni was not at the centre of the dance. The dance was something to do with birds, or perhaps God.
Yes, it was the yoni. If you continued that motion the dancer in the middle was making you were a woman with a man. But, controlled, held down to a single flick of a single muscle, there was no woman and no man in it. You couldn’t lust after nothing, so the power that made the movement was not lust.
God’s blood, he could hardly see a thing. Instead of seeing, he felt. In his head and in his belly the dancers danced now. Say it slowly, what you feel: The holiest, wisest man in the world grew out of lust, four legs in a bed, a lingam and a yoni. Good. But this dance was not the beginning of life. It was the end of creation. They made little movements, but he was thinking of the sky, of mountains, of God. Therefore the movements of the dance were lustful, but the dance itself was not.
The light shivered, and his head began to ache. All gone. He got to his feet. ‘Late,’ he muttered. The king gave him gracious permission to retire. Jason looked at Parvati. He wanted her to come with him now. He would tell her about Stonehenge, and she’d break through the curtain between him and the dance. If she did that he’d understand everything--Vishnu-bhaktas, Right-Hand factions, and all.
But Parvati glanced away with a smile for the courtiers on her left, and Jason wobbled out of the room.
He took a gulp of water, put down the jug, and heard a mysterious groan.
Ah, it was himself making that mournful sound. He drank again. Outside the dawn was coming, lifting the golden trident of the temple out of the night; and a few lamps burned in the city. His head opened and shut like a fist. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, shuddered, and lay down carefully on the mat.
After a while he said, ‘Parvati, did they drug me?’ She didn’t answer.
Just like a woman to be snoring asleep when you needed her. He said, ‘Wake up. I want to know, was it a drug, or only that wine? God’s blood, it tasted like old sour cream. Do we have any coconut milk here?’ She didn’t answer.
He said, ‘Where are you?’
He brought the little oil lamp in from the inner room and held it up in his hand.
She was not there where he had been lying. He went through all three rooms of their quarters in the king’s palace, searching for her. His head was the middle of a jumpy ball of light, much too bright, and no one in the world loved him enough to stay with him when he was ill.
He whispered, ‘Parvati? Where are you?’
She wasn’t anywhere. He sat down on the stone floor, holding the water jug in one hand and the little lamp in the other.
She might have fainted somewhere. She might have lost her way in these long red passages. She was drugged, as he had been. She was in danger! Where had he seen her last? God’s blood, no one was going to harm her. He’d kill them.
He wrapped his clothes round him all anyhow, snatched up his sword, and ran into the passage.
The flame bent back in the open bowl of the lamp, and his shadow hurried along, broken at the knees, just behind him, and the cold warnings of day lay in wait at the narrow window slits as he rushed by them. The passages were damp underfoot and smelled of rain and night and the sleeping animals in the stables below.
He saw a soldier leaning against the wall and ran silently up to him, boiling with rage, and shouted, ‘Where’s Parvati? What have you done with her?’
The soldier had been asleep on his feet--an old soldier. He awoke with a yell, and his pike fell clattering to the floor. He clutched at Jason’s face, screaming, ‘Mercy! I am a poor man!’
Jason shouted, ‘Mercy? Where’s Parvati? Tell me or I’ll run you through.’
The passage was full of galloping soldiers and shouting, and swords clashed against his, and half-naked men jumped up and down around him, and everyone yelled. The sentry’s eyes bulged, and his red mouth bawled, ‘Help, help! That’s him!’ Jason shouted, ‘Where is she? What have you done with her?’ His sword flashed and clashed, and his head was ready to split.
A captain ran up from a mile down the passage, waving his sword and shouting, ‘Don’t hurt him! That’s the ambassador of Manairuppu.’
Jason lowered his sword. This was the same man who had commanded the guard of honour on their arrival in Ponpalamai. Jason grabbed his arm and grated through clenched teeth,
‘Where is Parvati? Let her free this minute, or, by God, I’ll--‘
‘Please, Jason, be quiet. I am well.’ She was there at his side, cool, smooth, gentle of eye.
Where had she come from? He looked round in an aching daze. There was a curtained doorway beside him, where the sentry had been, and now he saw two more soldiers peering through from an inner curtain and He said, ‘That’s the king’s room! Was he hurting you?’
One of the soldiers laughed suddenly. Jason glared round at him, and he fell silent.
Parvati took his hand and said, ‘Let us go back to our room. It is morning.’
They went side by side along the passage to their own place. The soldiers behind them began to laugh, louder and louder.
In their quarters Jason said, ‘I awoke, and you weren’t here. I was afraid. Oh, Parvati, yo
u didn’t go to the king! No, you didn’t!’
She stood in front of him, and she was the same princess he had met the first time in the temple. He turned away, his shoulders hunched in his misery. She said, ‘I wanted to go.’ He said, ‘How can you say that? Don’t you love me?’
She said, ‘You know I do. But you don’t understand. I am married to Shiva. Shiva touched this king so that he needed to worship him, through me. It was a great victory, for this king is a Vishnu-bhakta, as I told you. I don’t know why you are so sad, Jason. I love you.’
Jason lay down on the mat and closed his eyes. He said, ‘Go away.’
But she would not leave him. She whispered in his ear, ‘We have almost won. Oh, you were so drunk, and because it was you, and drunk, they could not help believing you.’
Was he hurting you? he’d said. No wonder the soldiers laughed. But, O Saviour of Men, he could only go on loving her.
She whispered, ‘There may be more trials in store for us, but I think the king more than half believes.’
She loved him, but... It was impossible, but. . . They had almost won, but. . .
Her hands stroked his forehead, and he fell asleep.
‘Up! You, up! And you. Come along!’
Through harsh, stony abuse Jason crawled up from sleep. It was midmorning, only four or five hours since he had found Parvati. This time she was here, shrugging slowly into her day-time skirt, and with her back to the men in the room. There were five soldiers here, and the same captain.
‘What is this?’ Jason asked.
The captain snarled, ‘You’ll find out soon enough. Hurry! Get dressed.’ He jabbed the point of his sword toward Jason’s stomach. ‘Hurry, dog from Manairuppu!’
Jason backed away. Again the chill of not understanding, of being lost in another world, tightened his chest. He tried to remember where he had put his knife. Parvati said, ‘Do not fight them, Jason. This is no mistake.’
The soldiers dragged them into the passage and hurried them along. Jason looked at their frowning, scowling masks and could not bring himself to believe that this was really happening. These people had fed him wine and played him music. Their nautch girls had danced for him. But now they were rushing him down the passage, down, down, spirally stone- stepping down, with Parvati behind him, into the belly of the Ponpalamai hill, and their hands hurt on his arm, and it was real. Now it was dark between the fitful tapers, and weeds dripped where the stones met, and he saw men with matted hair clinging like apes to the bars of cells on either side.
The soldiers pushed him into a stone dungeon, and Parvati followed. Two torches flared in brackets on the walls, and a charcoal brazier glowed in the centre of the floor, and iron pincers and toothed wheels and whips and saws lay on a table, and dirty red splotches streaked the gutter running out under the door.
The soldiers held him face to face with Parvati. The captain said, ‘The truth, now! Why were you sent here? Who are you? What does the King of Manairuppu really mean to do? Quick, speak!’
‘I have told your king the whole truth,’ Jason said. ‘Have you gone mad? Or is it your king’s order to treat us like this?’
‘Never you mind that,’ the captain snapped. ‘Take the woman. You--watch!’ He lifted a branding iron off the brazier and raised it to Parvati’s right cheek. The velvet bloom of her skin glowed in the red light. He said, ‘Speak, woman.’
The captain glared from Parvati to Jason. Jason’s eyes started out, and he shouted, ‘Let her go! How can I tell you anything when I have nothing to tell?’
The captain snarled, ‘Liar! Tell the truth!’ He brought the red-hot iron closer to Parvati’s cheek. Parvati looked steadily at Jason and said, ‘My lord has told you all the truth.’
The captain jabbed the brand against her cheek. Her skin sizzled, and a puff of blue-grey smoke rose to the roof.
Jason fought madly against the men and the chains holding him, mouthing threats and the name of God. Her cheek was a tangle of ugly welts and torn skin. Still she looked at him, still her eyes were on his as her knees sagged. Suddenly her head dropped and she hung limp against her chains.
Heavy drops of sweat stood out all over the captain’s forehead and upper lip. Jason bit his tongue until he had control over himself. Then he said, ‘I shall remember you.’
The captain said, ‘The dead remember nothing. Tell me the truth. Are you a magician, come to put an evil spell on his majesty? What trickery is afoot in Manairuppu?’
Jason said, ‘I have told the truth.’
The captain glanced at the wall above Jason’s head. Jason remembered seeing a small grating up there as he came in, but now, when he tried to turn, a soldier hit him on the jaw, and the captain said, ‘His hand--here!’
They seized his left hand and strapped it to the table. The captain took a pair of rusty pincers and with them caught hold of the fingernail of the little finger on Jason’s right hand. He said, ‘One at a time, until you tell the truth,’ and the sweat dripped off him in a dirty stream on to the table, and his face was grey.
Jason looked at the pincers. That was a terrible thing to do, even to think about, to pull a man’s nail out with that. ‘Aaah!’ He tried to pull his hand back, but it was over, and the first nail was gone. The agony wrenched his jaw and shoulder and wrist, down to that little finger and the blood pouring from it. Parvati had come to her senses and was smiling at him lopsidedly. Yes, smiling she was, though her right cheek could not move. He gaped at her in the awe of his love and admiration.
The captain dashed his hand across his forehead, wiped his palms on his coat, and took hold of the nail of Jason’s other little finger.
The king of Ponpalamai entered with his chamberlain and two officers. To the captain he cried, ‘What are you doing? Are you mad? Chamberlain, release the lord ambassador and the Lady Parvati at once.’
The officers unchained them, and Jason sprang forward and put his arm round Parvati’s shoulder. The king said to the captain, ‘Word has just reached me of this thing that you were doing. I can still hardly believe it, though I have seen it with my own eyes. Speak, before you lose your head.’
The captain said, as though repeating a lesson, ‘This morning we found the man, with sword drawn, outside your apartment. I thought what I should do. I decided that he might be an impostor, conspiring with the woman to take your life. I have been finding out.’
‘You had no authority to do such a thing,’ the king snarled. ‘For this you shall die--tomorrow at noon.’ He turned his back. The chamberlain and the soldiers seized the captain and began to chain him.
Jason said, ‘Let’s go back and get some salve for these wounds. Oh, my dear, it must hurt!’
‘Not yet,’ Parvati said. She turned to the king, bent her head, and joined her palms. She said, ‘Do you see my cheek, Majesty"?’
The king muttered, ‘Yes. Oh, it is terrible, terrible! He shall suffer for it tomorrow, with pincers in his entrails before he dies.’
Parvati said, ‘Your Majesty, we will be gone by then. But it is our right to see his punishment, is it not?’
The king hemmed and cleared his throat, and a new burst of sweat raised pimples on the captain’s forehead. The king said, ‘There are certain formalities and prayers which must be done before an execution, certain--‘
‘It is our right,’ Parvati said.
‘Parvati,’ Jason muttered, ‘can’t we leave it? I don’t want to see him executed--though he has deserved it.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘we cannot leave it. The king of Ponpalamai must realize that when he gambles against the king of Manairuppu he gambles for life, not for a few cowrie shells--or even for a woman’s cheek and a man’s fingernail.’
The king said, ‘But I knew nothing of this, I promise you.’ Parvati said, ‘In Manairuppu it is the custom to speak the truth, Your Majesty, as my Lord Jason has been speaking truth, and only truth, to you. We are waiting.’
The king looked unhappily at her, then suddenly gave a s
ignal. The captain screamed, ‘You promised!’ But the big soldier behind him leaned forward and garroted him. The king turned away. Parvati watched until the captain died, and Jason, awed and afraid, watched Parvati.
It was Parvati who led him back to their rooms in the upper part of the palace, her left hand in his right.
When they were there--’We have won,’ she whispered exultantly.
Jason muttered, ‘Yes, but did we have to kill the captain? I see now that he was only doing what the king ordered him to. The king is the man who ought to suffer for what he has done to us.’
Parvati said, ‘My lord, of course we had to insist that the captain die, or the king would have known that we were not really angry. Then he would know that we were pleased at having come through the test successfully. Besides, the captain had to try to beat us, which means that he had to lose--so he had to die. It is just.’
Slowly Jason forgot the captain’s strangling face. He looked at his little finger and at Parvati’s cheek. He had won, but every such victory left him a little more unsure of himself. Only Parvati knew, only Parvati mattered.
‘It is just,’ Parvati repeated to herself for the twentieth time. She edged the mare to the side of the road, where there was less mud, and hitched up her sari so that it left only her eyes and forehead showing. A young village girl was waiting beside the path there, and she did not want anyone, least of all such a young and pretty girl, to see the ruin of her cheek. Besides, the heavy green ointment smeared over it made it look almost worse than it was, if that were possible.
And her poor lover, with his aching hand! He had been brave once it was done, but he had looked very frightened for a moment just before, when he realized they were really going to do it. Was it possible that he had not known all along what was going to happen? Well, he said he had not guessed. He loved her, so perhaps he was speaking the truth. On the other hand, perhaps he was not. Why should he? She was a woman and not supposed to understand too much of men’s affairs. And yet--and yet--sometimes it was impossible to believe that he was anything but what he seemed to be--an innocent, red-faced child. Those were the times when she felt that she had to warn him against dangers and perils and treachery--as if he didn’t know, really! He must have laughed at her in secret often enough. But he loved her.
