Geoff Ryman - The King’s Last Song

Nia’s loyal friends, who like him were good on the field and well behaved in the royal house, clustered around him. ‘Oh! Lucky man, the Lady Jayarajadevi is so beautiful. When are you going to have the courage to present yourself? Oh, you must be quick, such a prize as that will not go unclaimed for long.’

The Oxen caught him off guard as he washed. He was nearly naked and defenceless. Yashovarman looked scornfully down at his less bullish body. ‘You are a small slip of a thing to think that you can claim the attention of high ladies. You should know, before you get into trouble. The Lady Jayarajadevi is spoken for. She is a king’s wife, not for semi-peasant like you.’

‘Prince Nia!’ one of the Oxen laughed. ‘What title will he take, do you think. Niavarman , Slave Shield?’

They all laughed. Prince Nia stayed calm. ‘Until she marries, no one is spoken for. And I think she speaks for herself.’

‘You cannot speak for her, that is certain.’

‘Neither can you. You should know, before you get me angry, that she calls you an Ox. You are unsubtle and don’t know that women do not measure a man’s worth by the thickness of his thighs.’

‘No, but the world gives to the man who takes, and to take one must be strong.’

‘And smart. And fearless. And not easily led. Oxen are strong and bear the world’s burdens, not its prizes. Unless you want a fight now, Ox, I will finish washing myself. You should try washing some time.’

Nia had just enough love of war. The strong ox Yashovarman hesitated, and in hesitation made his ground unsteady. ‘I have warned you!’ he said, but retreated.

To his friends, the Prince sighed in disgust as they played checkers. ‘Oh! I wish everyone would cease this matchmaking. You would think the marriage had been announced.’

The friends chuckled. ‘We will not let you escape. The Lady Jayarajadevi is perfect for you. Not just her beauty. It is a matter of her character.’ And they laughed at themselves, for they were imitating old village women.

‘Uh!’ groaned the young prince. ‘Just leave it, please!’

One night the Prince woke up in his hammock, to see Divakarapandita leaning over him.

‘Teacher!’ he exclaimed in fear and alarm.

‘I was seeing how you sleep,’ said the great religious leader. ‘I wanted to see the quality of your dreams.’

The Prince scrambled to make himself decent.

‘No, no, you do not insult me sleeping innocent in your bed. You appear whole and complete with no blemish. Does your penis work, does it produce seed?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hmm. I hear that you have a copious heart and mind.’

‘I can’t judge that.’

‘I can. That is why I am here. Now that you are awake, please cover yourself, and we will walk out into the night so that we can talk.’ The other soldiers in the room lay frozen with that particular listening stillness of people who pretend to be asleep.

The Prince swung out of the hammock, twisted a garment around his middle, and joined the great Consecrator of Kings.

‘What is your view of the Gods?’ the Consecrator asked.

‘Toh! It is hardly for the likes of me to have a view on the Gods.’

‘Of the relation of the King to the Gods?’

‘Even less so.’

‘Come, come, courage, you are a favourite of the King. Let us pretend for the moment that no harm can come to you for any view you express. This interview will go better for you if you do.’

Insects buzzed about them. You couldn’t see the moon, but the high silk-cottons were silver and the light along the leaves joined up as if there were tiny creeks flowing from leaf to leaf.

Nia could not think of much to say. ‘I suppose I think that the King should pay observance to the Gods. Certainly not anger them.’ He sighed. ‘Perhaps invent fewer of them. It seems unlikely to me that one’s great aunt can suddenly become one with a god under a new name.’

‘That is about the Gods and the great aunt, not the King.’

‘I sometimes wonder if it is enough to make observances.’

‘Ah! Elaborate, young prince.’

The Slave Prince looked at the old man’s ordinary face. Despite his beautiful shawl, purple and sewn with gold thread, despite his fine white beard, despite the gold parasol with its ivory handle which he used now like a walking stick, despite all of that there was nothing special about him.

His face had gone waxy like a candle, and was spotted with age. His teeth were brown and crumbled, his back bowed, his arms stiff and shrivelled, bone-thin but with hanging withered pouches of skin along the lower edge. This was an old man, whose every glance stared ahead at his own death.

The young prince felt sorrow for him, sorrow for all things that pass.

The Prince said, ‘I know it takes a lifetime to learn how to make observance. I think it is hard work to parade on an elephant and look like something that talks to gods. Harder still to look like you will become a god when you die. Hard work, but that is not enough.’

The old man blinked. ‘It isn’t?’

‘I once had a friend. She was a slave, a gift to this house. I saw that her world was as big as our own. I saw that whatever was holy in us was also holy in her. I think we try to climb towards the Gods. We get higher and higher up to the King, and then over the King, to the Gods, and when we look at the Gods, we find … what? A cycle? Back down to the flies and the fishes. There is no top. Everything is holy.’

The old man disapproved. ‘A radical notion. What do you know of the Buddha?’

‘Almost nothing.’

‘Oh, tush!’

‘He was a teacher great enough to be treated almost like a god.’

‘And what did he teach?’

‘Virtue. I am to be a soldier, and I will be a good soldier. I will serve with honour, and courage and efficacy.’ The Slave Prince clenched his fist. ‘I have no doubt of that. But what I want, if anyone should ask, would be to be a Brahmin.’

Divakarapandita chuckled and waved a hand.

‘A Brahmin who rides an elephant and fights for his King when the time comes …’

‘Oh ho-ho!’

‘And who is not ignorant .’ The words were hot, they made his eyes sting.

Divakarapandita’s mouth hung open. ‘Ignorant?’

‘I know nothing!’ Then less heated. ‘Nobody has bothered to teach me.’

‘Do you think anybody has bothered to teach the Lady Jayarajadevi!’ The Consecrator looked appalled. ‘You have to teach yourself!’

Nia hung his head. ‘I speak heatedly from shame.’ He began to see what the interview might be about. Another round of matchmaking. Who was this Lady to have the Consecrator concern himself with her marriage?

‘So you should be ashamed.’ But the old man seemed to say it from sorrow. He touched the Prince’s arm. ‘You have no ambition to be King?’

‘Toh. All these little princes, all dreaming of being King, all making tiger faces at themselves. I want to be a holy warrior.’

The old man stopped, shuffled round to face him, took hold of both the Prince’s arms, and stared into his eyes. ‘War is never holy,’ he said. ‘War makes kings, and kings perform holy functions. But the two are separate.’

Nia felt shame again. He hung his head. ‘I feel things. But I don’t know things.’

‘Maybe there is someone who will take the time to teach you,’ said the holy man. ‘And then you might become what you want to be, a wise man.’ He drew himself up. ‘What will you do when the King dies?’

Nia felt alarm, for himself, for his whole life. ‘The King is ill?’

‘Ssh, ssh, no, but he is a man. What will you do when he dies?’

Nia thought. With his protector gone, with the Oxen fighting over kingship, there would be years of violence. He imagined Yashovarman, and found he felt disgust and alienation and fear. ‘It depends how he dies.’