The King's Last Song

by Geoff Ryman

  "I'm messing with you to find out what he did. If he is a bad man, maybe I need to change my opinion."

  "He was Angka."

  "I know. But he changed sides."

  "He killed someone. He killed one of my men, and then ran off to the police and they protected his hide.” Rith's eyes glare at William with righteousness.

  "If he is a murderer, that is a terrible thing."

  "You should have seen it."

  "But you still need to get the Book back, and the General, and there's no point fighting a war now. Do you doubt Map is smart? Do you doubt he is tough? Do you really think he took the Book? Perhaps working together you could find it and your general."

  Rith's face is murderous. “What's it to you?"

  "I don't like to see Cambodians fight."

  Rith can't stop his face tightening into a smile. “You shouldn't live in Cambodia then."

  "Aren't you sick of it? Map will never be sick of it; it's all he knows. But you, you are younger. You are smarter; you have this office; you have this TV; you have the army to give you training. Do you know what those police are, who they are? Peasants like me who get eaten by mosquitoes and who catch frogs for supper. It is up to you to bridge the gap."

  "Why is it up to me?"

  William gestures at all the electronics and the polished desk. “Because you are a more important man than he is."

  "You can't flatter me,” says Rith, but his hand rests on his forehead. “Okay, okay, I will think about what you say. Will you now get out of my Colonel's office?"

  "How else are we to finally stop the war?” William asks. “We're still fighting it."

  "Okay, okay."

  "Map says the war is still going on, and he's right. He's crazy, but he's right."

  "He's drunk more like. Crazy for sure.” Rith draws in a breath. “Look. I will say this once. What am I to do when I see the police protecting a murderer? You're right. This is Cambodia. Police, law, puh, it means nothing if you are connected. It's how things are. But I don't have to like it, and I don't have to treat a murderer like he is my older brother!"

  But, thinks William, you shouldn't try to arrest him for something he didn't do. He expresses gratitude and respect and then leaves.

  William walks as softly as possible down the army arcade. Map, Map, his feet seem to whisper, I hope I have done the right thing for you. Who did you kill?

  Was it the other Veasna?

  * * * *

  The hatch is left open to let in cool air and the last of the natural light.

  Luc translates, scribbling. The old man looks relaxed, sitting with a newspaper and a rifle across his lap.

  I'm not even Scheherazade, thinks Luc. Scheherazade just had to keep talking. I have to keep translating. What happens when I run out of text?

  Luc looks up. “What's the modern Khmer word for the front of a boat?"

  The old man arches an eyebrow. “Khaengh muk kaphal."

  Luc shakes his head. Sanskrit and Old Khmer often shared words. “Doesn't sound like that's it."

  "What's it for?” the old man asked.

  "He is describing a battle on the Lake. The battle that saved Angkor."

  The old man sits up “Really? Where?” He crouches forward and takes the notebook from Luc. “Could be khaengh kruy kaphal if it's the back of the boat."

  "It could be anything."

  "Yup, eu-uy,” says the old man.

  "I'll just leave it with a question mark.” Luc reaches for the notebook and writes the Sanskrit word next to his translation. To help those who follow.

  The notebook is full of notations. After the first ten leaves, each packet seems out of order. Luc has to assume that no one will be able to refer to the Kraing Meas itself, so the notes say things like: second packet translated, leaf two...

  The old man pauses, appraising him. “Give it to me to read when you are finished. I want to read it."

  The old man goes back to his newspaper. Luc writes Khmer quickly and simply, the pencil scratching continually, like a loom heard on a transistor radio. The old man says, “You write like my old schoolmaster. You write"—his tone goes from affectionate to bitter—"like all those intellectuals."

  "The Angka Loeu?"

  "Yeah. Angka Loeu. They wrote like you, like they were running to catch a train. Like the words were leaving the station without them."

  Luc agrees. “That's how it feels."

  The old man half-smiles but his eyes are stony. “Your whole lives are a train that is leaving without you."

  You, thought Luc, are a very considerable man.

  Keep talking.

  "The sunset is the train that I'm trying to keep up with now,” Luc says. “I want to keep working."

  Silence. Luc is coming to the end of the notebook. “I need paper."

  The old man holds out his hand for the notebook. “I want to read.” He starts to read about the battle. His eyes widen. His hand drops, still holding the notebook. “This is about being Khmer."

  Luc shifts forward on his haunches. “What does it mean to be Khmer?"

  The old man replies, “We are a people who are perpetually in struggle. We are always about to disappear. But we don't."

  "That does sound like the Book."

  The old man sniffs. “Some of this is wrong. You say things and I can see the barang peeping out.” He turns around and shouts for one of the boys. “Sam! Samrin!” Ah, thinks, Luc, at last, the boy's name.

  Head through hatch. “Yes, Grandfather?"

  The old man passes Samrin money. “Go to the bookshop in the old market and then the one in the Central Market. Buy four more pencils and ten notebooks from different shops, don't buy them all at once. Go on! Take the skiff. And don't talk to anyone. Just be quiet and polite. I want people to forget you were ever in the shop. Go! Go now!"

  The old man turns back to Luc. “I'll correct it.” He reaches out for the pencil.

  Luc inclines his head and passes it to him. “Can I see what you change? It will help me learn."

  He shuffles forward and lies next to the old man, leaning over his shoulder. No gun, no knife. Luc could almost—only almost—turn and run.

  Except he wants the translation to be correct.

  The old man laughs. “Look at this here. Maych baan jee-a? That's a colloquial question. From a king?"

  Luc smiles, groans with embarrassment, and nods. “Hait ay bann!"

  The old man smiles back. “I will have to be your Kru,” he says.

  As he reads, his eyes mist over. “He loved his wife,” he says, the notebook pages crinkling as he turned them. “Hmm. He wanted a new beginning too."

  He looks askance at Luc as if to say: get my meaning?

  "Like Angka?"

  The old man whispers. “Yes. Only he did good things. The Angka were jerks, that was the trouble."

  They read the notebook together. The old man shifts to make room for Luc. “What's this Madhyadri?"

  "The Bayon. That's what it was called then."

  "Ah, yes, it's all there carved on the walls, just like he says. Yes!” The old man looks pleased. “Boys in fruit trees, turtle hunting, a woman giving birth, it's there on the walls. And here in his book."

  "Why did Angka destroy so much?"

  The old man keeps reading; his answer was ready. “They killed all their best people. They gave control to boys and peasants, running things for the first time ever.” The old man looks up. “We thought we could change people by forcing them to have the right experiences. You don't change them, you just break them."

  "You thought you would move them to the country and they would learn to live like country people."

  "Yes.” The old man reads on. After a while he says, “There is no one else I can talk to like this."

  The old man makes marks in the notebook in the clear handwriting of a schoolmaster. He finds plainer, more direct local expressions for objects and emotions. He makes it into a book for country people.

  It g
ets late. They close the hatch and light a lamp. Even the walls start to sweat.

  "Gah! This makes no sense. How do you fall from a boat into a water lotus of fangs and drowning? Lotus is a good word about holy, peaceful things."

  "Ah, now that I'm sure of. The word for lotus flower in both Old Khmer and Sanskrit is padma, the same word.” The notebook shows the original Sanskrit next to the translation.

  "You're sure?"

  "The people of Angkor had hundreds of words for lotus, words for every part of the plant, and lots of different words for different colored flowers, but yes, I'm sure."

  The old man peers over his spectacles. “Hmm. You're sure it can't mean different bad things too?"

  Something tickles inside Luc's head. One of the great hells was called mahapadma in Old Khmer. Padma was also the name of a hell?

  "Hmm. Perhaps. Change it to hell instead of lotus and I'll check it later."

  Later? As in going to a reference library? When would that be? The pause between them goes on slightly too long.

  They hear a noise. “Ssh!” says the old man. Luc's heart catches in fear. Fear? Almost as if he doesn't want to be rescued.

  A boat grinds its way towards them and shushes to a halt. The old man stiffens and then relaxes. He rolls forward onto his knees and blows out the lamp. The boy opens the hatch and swings inside the hull. He drags the hatch back over him and only then clicks on a flashlight, holding out pencils and notebooks.

  The old man commands, “Okay, you write in this new book here, I'll keep correcting.” The hatch slams shut and the lamp flares back into life.

  Luc carefully unwraps another packet. This one seems to be about Jayavarman being a slave. In Champa. This will change our view of him, Luc thinks. He picks up the leaf and realizes: the last time this was touched was a thousand years ago.

  The old man reads as the wick in the lamp glows white and the air in the hull heats up again. From time to time he wipes the sweat out of the hollows of his eyes. The General wakes up. He groans, rolls away and covers his eyes. The old man keeps reading, calmly and methodically, sitting bespectacled and cross-legged. His sweat drips once onto the notebook and after that, he holds the book up.

  Arn, Luc makes himself think. Arn's name means Reader or Reading and he often comes to my house so we can read together. We can hear laughter from outside, club music, birds and traffic, all from a Phnom Penh in which nothing is dangerous or unhappy.

  The old man finishes the first notebook. He folds his spectacles, and goes still and quiet, trying not to show emotion. After a time he sighs and says, “He wrote it for us, for his people in the future."

  Luc thinks: I've got to him.

  The old man asks, “How much have we got done?"

  Everything aches: Luc's eyes, back, knees and hands. “Six packets, thirty leaves out of 155."

  "You want to keep working?” the old man asks.

  "Yes, okay."

  "I'm staying here from now on,” says the old man, as if in passing.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  April 1165

  In the late afternoons, after napping, the women of the palace gathered for instruction.

  Queen Jayarajadevi had once so enjoyed this part of her day. Recently, it had become a trial.

  The servant women waited under a white awning that kept out the sun. They greeted Jaya with a sound like many bells. Rajadharma, they called her, Queen of the Holy Path.

  Jayarajadevi Kansri took pleasure in her women, looking so healthy and fulfilled. One could tell at a glance that this was a well-governed land of happy people.

  For how much longer? There had been terrible news in a letter from the King. He had written from faraway Champa, where he was building an alliance.

  Yashovarman had fallen. The Servant now ruled.

  Something rustled, coughed, and shifted its way across the floor.

  Queen Jaya's heart sank. Here he came, late again, today of all days, when there was so much to discuss. The King's second-born son, Rajapativarman.

  "Apologies, Aunty.” Rajapati had a full male voice, deep and mellifluous. From the voice alone, one expected a handsome prince of legend.

  Prince Rajapati walked on all fours, a long sausage body with tiny hands and legs that were the same size. He had to wag his spine from side to side, a movement that his brown silk clothing, with its glimmers and rustles, only emphasized. He did not have the round family face, but was hawk-like and handsome.

  Queen Jayarajadevi forced herself to confront her faults. She hated looking at him. She hated that ignorant people said that he had been sent to punish the King for a fault. The fault of marrying a slave? Not so if you counted Fishing Cat's two comely daughters. It had been a lesson for Queen Jaya to love her husband's consort. She had hoped to capstone that with love for all the King's children.

  She could not love Rajapativarman.

  He was a king's son even if his honorific did not include the title Crown Prince. So Queen Jaya waited in respectful silence as he hauled himself across the floor. Think, Kansri, how much more taxing it is for him.

  But it would be less taxing for everyone else if he came on time. And he would get less attention.

  The Prince said, “It took me longer than I thought to walk from the second hospital.” His smile was fluttering and shy like a coy girl's. And like so many coy girls, his shyness masked a fixed determination.

  His very presence at a school for women seemed to say: I am not fit for men's work, so I might as well learn along with the women. That was well and fine, but the women wanted to discuss all subjects, even those men should not hear. He could have tutors if he wanted them. It was hard not to see something aggressive about his behaviour.

  As if he had heard her thought, Rajapati said, “Sorry to be such a bore. But I come here so that I will be less alone."

  She had to say something. “And you are welcome, Prince."

  "And perhaps I'd be more welcome if I didn't keep everyone waiting.” He finally arranged his pillows and settled, as attentive as a bad conscience.

  Jayarajadevi began. “Today we have had news. Our Lord's Lord, the Universal King Yashovarman, has not only been killed in battle..."

  The ladies dutifully groaned.

  "...but his Servant has given himself the honorific of Tribuvanadityavarman and declared himself without right to be the Universal King."

  The women tutted and covered their mouths with their clean right hands.

  "Tribuvanadityavarman. It's not even a royal honorific."

  Rajapati blurted out a laugh. “I can't even say it!"

  "Protégé of the Three Suns. What's that a reference to?"

  Rajapati's voice went darker. “Being a servant, he has to be original."

  Queen Jayarajadevi wanted to work her way to truth with her women. “I wish to clarify for myself why this seizing of the throne lacks virtue."

  Rajapati sniffed in a kind of reversed laughter, and looked at her, blinking and grinning, as if the question were absurd.

  Queen Jaya continued. “I think of the behaviour of Rama, who was an avatar of Vishnu. When Rama discovered that the throne, which should have been his, had been given to Bharata, he took himself into exile voluntarily. This is how someone who follows the Path treats issues of succession. He steps aside. The King of the Eastern Buddha, Lord Jayavarman, similarly has never even considered making himself a Universal King. How can a servant lay claim to any virtue when he makes himself a king?"

  Jayarajadevi felt something pluck the air: a mistake.

  Rajapati smiled. “Like my mother made herself a consort of the King?"

  Queen Jaya's eyes boggled. “No! Nothing like you, beloved mother, who is an exemplar of all the virtues!"

  He was smiling, the little rat!

  Queen Jayarajadevi wrestled with anger. “Virtue elevates as naturally as plants grow towards the sun. Virtue never seizes like the tiger. Virtue awaits invitation."

  Rajapati leaned his head b
ack. “Tribuvanadityavarman was invited, I'm sure. By his men in the court. Perhaps they felt he had all the virtues."

  Fine. To be challenged was to be forced to think. “Your mother did not send a king to his death in order to achieve elevation."

  Rajapati smiled. “She achieved it through love."

  "Yes!"

  "Love is a worldly distraction from the Path; so is murder. Maybe ambition needs no excuse."

  The First Queen drew a breath. “Your father would never send someone to his death to be rid of him for policy, or to advance himself."

  Did Rajapati's smile mean he thought his father would do such a thing? “I am reminded again of the virtuous Lord Rama,” he said. “I'm thinking of his behaviour towards his wife Sita. In some versions—and there are so many versions, I wonder which one, if any, is true—the virtuous Rama burns his wife to death."

  Separation from Sita had made Rama doubt his wife. In the end, Sita was rejected, humiliated, unjustly cast aside by her Lord. Every woman knew the potential truth of that.

  Oh, wretched boy, you always touch the most painful parts. And you always have this slight wrench in your love for your father. Who, as it will be apparent to everyone here, I have just likened to Rama.

  Jayarajadevi stood back from her anger and took root in the genuine puzzle of his question. “Rama was a god come to earth, perhaps to learn the difficulties of being human. Men are cursed with a need to be master, even over their wives. If they feel their wives reflect badly on them or suspect their wives, they behave badly. On the other hand,” she sighed, “there are men such as your father, who is always open about his faults and tries to live up to the things he stands for."

  "Such as having three wives and at least one consort."

  Some of the women gasped, for the King had two wives and a sister-in-law.

  He was referring to Queen Jaya's unmarried sister.

  "Two wives,” corrected Queen Jayarajadevi. “The illustrious Rajendradevi and myself."

  "I made a mistake,” he said, so lightly you could almost hear the air whisper: It's an easy mistake to make.

  It's a difficult age, thought Jayarajadevi. Most boys become rebellious at fourteen, but they can be sent to army camp or off to the mountains.