Coromandel! (24 page)

Simon cried, ‘We do, Lord Jason. How can we not trust you? You are our star.’

From the passage the chamberlain’s voice called, ‘The king will see Lord Jason now.’

Jason said, ‘I have to go. Good-bye, Simon. Go back to the cove and wait. You will hear from me.’ He hurried out, the look of awed happiness on Simon’s face imprinted on his mind.

During the long night Jason had rehearsed what he was going to say. Now he hated himself for what he had said to Simon, and as soon as he began to speak to the king he knew that his words carried the force of that bitterness in them, and he saw that the king and the chamberlain were listening to him with a close, almost nervous attention.

First he recounted what he knew of the powers and privileges of the Portuguese--the tribute paid to them, their monopoly of the pearl buying, their share of all the kingdom’s seaward trade, their position above the king’s law. Then he said, ‘And what do they give you in return for this?’

The king said, ‘Why, they prevent the kings of Tiruvadi, Krishnapatti, and Ponpalamai from having any seaward trade at all.’ He rubbed his hands cheerfully.

Jason paused a moment before he spoke again. This was the crux of his whole case. He said, ‘But, my lord, that is of no advantage to you! Suppose now that you made an alliance with the three kings. Would you then need the help of the Portuguese?’

The chamberlain began to say something, but the king shushed him with a peremptory wave. The king’s little eyes were gleaming like jewels, and he had taken off his hat and now held it expectantly poised on the tip of his forefinger.

Jason expounded further. Let an agreement be made among the four kingdoms to forget their old enmities. Let them form an alliance. Let the Portuguese and all other foreigners be told that they could trade as they wished but would be granted no other privileges. Let the other three kings help in enlarging the port of Manairuppu, for it would also be their port. Let the king of Manairuppu pass to them some of the extra money the port would make. Let the goods of the four kingdoms flow freely to the outside world, at whatever price they would fetch. Let the goods of the outside world flow freely in, at whatever cost the four kingdoms could afford.

Jason finished and stood, breathing deeply, in front of the cushion-throne. The king said slowly, ‘And what about your people--the English?’

Jason said, ‘The same for us. Some Englishmen will say that I am a traitor for suggesting this, but it’s not true. After a few years everyone will be better off, including the English.’

The king said, ‘Then you are not an envoy of Master Drayton’s? Oh, I see, I see.’ He clapped his hat on his head and stood up. He said, ‘Never have I met such guile combined with so much youthfulness! Lord Jason, you are worthy of the highest honours and will receive them. With you at our right hand we cannot help but prevail.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Excellent, excellent! And the English! Ha ha!’ He sat back and roared with laughter, his belly wobbling like a brown syllabub.

When he recovered he said, ‘And you shall be my ambassador to the three kings, eh? No one else could make them believe. Let me see.’ The cap twirled, the only point of movement in the room. ‘Let me see. You shall have my seal. The Brahmins of the temple shall write a letter. Now’--he bit his lower lip--’the timing. I have it. The Dussehra Puja! Let the three kings send their armies to arrive here on the second or third day of the Puja.’

‘Why should they send their armies?’ Jason said.

‘Oh, to show Don Manoel that we four kings are indeed in agreement. To provide a sufficient force to overawe Don Manoel’s guards. Something like that,’ the king said with a wink. ‘That ought to be enough to convince those black-faced monkeys. What else should we think about?’

Jason said, ‘I must know what you are willing to offer. I must be able to show them how much better off they will be under this plan than they are now. Each king should be allowed to have an officer of his court here in the port, for instance, to satisfy him that your taxes are not being charged on his goods.’

‘Certainly.’ The king waved his cap.

Jason thought hard. Parvati’s ‘Impossible!’ had prepared him for long arguments. He had expected to spend a month making the king see reason, but the king was agreeing to everything, and before he himself had had time to work out the small details. He said, ‘I can’t think of anything else now. But there will be other things, of course.’

‘Certainly,’ said the king with another large wink. ‘Lord Jason, I shall leave it entirely to you. Promise them anything--anything within reason, that is; otherwise they will become suspicious. But who am I to teach you?’

Jason thought: Now for it. He said, ‘If I can succeed in persuading the three kings to join with you in this alliance, will you help me to marry Parvati?’

The king peered at him in surprise, seemed to think for a few moments, and then answered, ‘I will do what I can. It is the priests who decide, you know, not I. But I can promise to do my best.’

Jason said, ‘May I take Parvati with me on the embassy?’ The king looked at the chamberlain, then back at Jason, and shook his head admiringly. He said, ‘It is unnatural, your skill--and that innocent face! Certainly, take Parvati, and several of her sisters as well, if you wish. There will be many important courtiers and advisers to be persuaded. Bend your neck, my son.’

Jason bowed his head, and the king placed a heavy gold chain round his neck, saying, ‘That is for you, a mark of my respect. When you are ready to go on your embassy, come to me for my seal ring. Oh, ha ha ha ha!’

As Jason left the room the king was laughing, and the laughter rang in his ears all the way back to his apartment.

There was something damnably strange about the king’s manner today. ‘Black-faced monkeys,’ he had called the three kings; but in the same breath he had cheerfully agreed to give them whatever they asked for. Well, perhaps it wasn’t necessary for allies to respect each other. But still. . .

God’s blood, what did it matter? They were all mad as hatters in this place at the best of times. What mattered was that he, Jason, had done what he set out to do. He had made the impossible easy. During the Dussehra the alliance would be cemented, and the next day Parvati would be his wife!

He rushed through the curtain, seized Parvati by the waist, and danced her round the room. ‘I’ve done it!’ he shouted. ‘The king has agreed. We’re going on an embassy to Ponpalamai, Tiruvadi, and Krishnapatti!’

Parvati said, ‘But he couldn’t have agreed.’

Jason cried, ‘He has, I tell you! He has! And if I succeed in forming the alliance he is going to make the priests let you go so that you can marry me!’

She said, as once before, ‘Tell me everything that he said, and you said, and the chamberlain said--every word.’

He told her. When he finished she looked at him for a long time in silence and then began to cry, sitting beside him, holding to his hand and letting the tears spoil her painted, lovely eyes.

Jason rode on with a high heart and made the little grey stallion canter through the mud in the path, so that clots of mud flew up behind and the stallion’s hoofs came with a
plock
out of the earth at every pace. Ponpalamai gleamed in the sun ahead, and sixty miles of road lay behind, and Parvati cantered at his side. The servants tittuped along several yards back, on small country ponies, leading and driving the pack horses which carried the stores and spare clothes. Every day the rain fell, and they had forded wide rivers and waded for miles through flooded fields, and so they were all covered from head to foot in black mud.

The hair tingled on the back of Jason’s neck as he gazed at the city on its hill, just as it had when from the masthead of the
Phoebe
he had spied the low land of Coromandel--but now there was something else as well as discovery. In Ponpalamai he was looking for what he knew as much as for what was strange. He belonged here now; he had a place here as clearly as he had had a place on the farm in Pennel or in the starboard watch of the
Phoebe
. But his place in India was more important than either of those, and he knew all about India, as he knew all about farming and dancing and London and seamanship. He saw a dome and a spire and a spike dominating the city--and knew that was a temple, and knew there would be devadassis and an idol and Brahmins. The people pressed out of the city and passed on either side of his horse, and he looked down and knew them--beggars, fakirs, soldiers, farmers, merchants. He had met all these in Manairuppu, and a king. He had conquered there. He would conquer here.

This was the first of the three kingdoms of his embassy. The success of the whole embassy depended on how this king received him and his proposals, because from here the word would go ahead to Krishnapatti and Tiruvadi. Krishnapatti would not keep out of an alliance already shared by Manairuppu and Ponpalamai. And Tiruvadi would follow that lead.

Jason smiled at Parvati and asked, ‘Tired?’ She answered, ‘No,’ and drew her sari more closely across her face. They had entered the outskirts of the town, and the crowds were staring at her.

Jason began to sing,
‘Greensleeves was all my joy.’
And Parvati said, ‘Go slowly, lord. Look.’ Jason glanced up and saw a line of colour and steel stretching across the street ahead of them.

Parvati said, ‘The escort, come to do you honour. Very slowly, lord. It is the custom. Also, this may be our last chance to talk together before you face the king.’

Her eyes smiled at him, but the pink and silver sari hid her mouth and lower face. She said, ‘You are ready to withstand all their wiles?’

‘I am ready,’ Jason said, ‘though I have nothing to hide. Parvati, this is the third or fourth time you have spoken to me like this, as though in warning. What is in your mind? If you know something that I do not, you must tell me. Why did you cry that first time, when I came back from the king and told you of the plan? You have never answered me.’

She laid her hand gently on his left arm. Their horses walked at a snail’s pace down the narrow street, and the line of soldiers loomed minutely nearer. She said, ‘Because I love you, Jason. They are Vishnu-
bhaktas
here. We are Shiva-
bhaktas
. This is the town of the
yoni
, as Manairuppu is the town of the
lingam
. That is why we have a saying: “In Manairuppu women lose their secrets, in Ponpalamai men lose their strength.” See!’ She nodded at the great temple ahead. Jason looked more closely at it and saw that he had been mistaken in his first distant impression. On top of the spire, instead of a spike, there was a golden trident. He saw then, with a sudden chill, that the men watching from the doorways wore the same mark of a trident painted on their foreheads, the curved sides in white, the straight centre cut in red. He did not know everything, after all. Perhaps he knew nothing.

Parvati said, ‘They have strong wine here. And they are of the Right-Hand faction.’

Jason said impatiently, ‘Vishnu-bhakta, Shiva-bhakta, Right Hand, Left Hand, Brahmin, Pariah! How many more ways do you divide yourselves?’

She said, ‘Portuguese, English, Popish, Christian, Wiltshire, London, lords and strumpets--what else have you not told me about?’

Jason said, ‘That’s all different. Anyway, I have nothing to hide.’

Parvati dropped her eyes and muttered, ‘That is why, if I did have any suspicion, I would not tell you. If you fail, our king will have you executed.’

‘That fat little man!’ Jason exclaimed. The king was a nice enough figure of fun, twirling his little cap around on his finger. Parvati said, ‘Yes. He is not a cruel man, but he may have to.

He might have promised--the priests, perhaps--‘

Jason stopped his horse and pretended to adjust his stirrup. He said, ‘But how will it help me not to tell me what I ought to know? Quick. We must get on.’

‘Oh, my lord, there is gossip, talk, rumours. I don’t tell you of them, because then you might doubt. You have no doubt, so no one can help believing you. Hold your horse steady until the salutes are over.’

A band of musicians began playing; six men rushed forward, throwing firecrackers; and a small brass cannon exploded with a roar. Jason swore aloud and struggled for control of his horse. The captain of the escort trotted forward to greet him. The houses were white and blue; the captain wore a violet coat and a steel cap, and his rearing, neighing horse was red; the sky was low and dark violet; and new rain began to fall, slanting like spears across the heavy green of the trees in the market-place beyond.

The captain said, ‘From the King, the Great King, the Keeper of the Vulture, the Sower of the Lake, Lord of Ponpalamai, to the Lord Ambassador of Manairuppu, greeting!’

Jason’s stallion calmed down as Jason patted his neck. Jason took a deep breath and said, ‘Take me to the king, your master.’ The escort took station before and behind. Jason huddled into his cloak and looked straight ahead. Parvati fell back among the servants.

The stallion moved quietly under him, the rippling power of its thews held now in check. He had a jewelled scabbard and a pearl-encrusted scimitar. The furniture of his stallion glittered with onyx and amethyst. He commanded men, gold filled his purse, and behind him in the rain rode the most beautiful woman on earth, and she loved him. Power was a physical thing he could master and ride, as he rode this stallion. His power would grow, because he was Jason Savage. With it he would dredge the river, build the roads, make men wise in the council of the port. He would be lord of the pearlers, master of the king’s wealth, friend of the foreign shipmasters. He looked back and sought Parvati’s eyes, because none of it would matter without her. Or would it? Her eyes would tell him. But she was too far behind for him to interpret any message she had for him, and a steel helmet came between them. Jason turned again and rode on towards the palace of the king of Ponpalamai.

Was he winning? Had he made the king understand? Perhaps. He had a rope of diamonds greater than the meridian of the earthquator round his obsidian, and he hadn’t asked for it. All given freely with much admiration--most wonderful place in the world. Ponponpattavadi. But he
must
be winning. The king sat at his left and pressed his knee from time to time. Kings did not do that for nothing--nor rubies spill out from an alabaster box; and hadn’t he always wanted a grain of mustard seed? He’d got it now, or perhaps it was pepper, as they said. And there were rubies in silver jugs, not spilling--sparkling, swaying, swirling on the floor. Aha, they’d nearly made a booby out of him that time. It was not rubies, nor wine, but the dancing girls, red skirts shimmering and the muscles in their thighs springing tight. The wine was in a cup in his hand. The thing to do was pour the red wine into their ruby navels, just the right size.