Coromandel! (28 page)

He hurried out. At the royal curtain he whispered to the chamberlain that he must see the king at once, and privately. The chamberlain muttered, ‘He is alone now. I will tell him.’

In a moment the chamberlain returned, and Jason entered the presence. Quickly he made his obeisance and rose to his feet and said, ‘Your Majesty . . .’ He told the king what Simon had seen.

The king glanced at the chamberlain with a frown and squeaked agitatedly, ‘Why has no word of this man’s coming reached me?’

The chamberlain said, ‘Majesty, it is possible that the pearlers are mistaken. They drink much palm toddy sometimes--don’t they, Lord Jason?’

‘Sometimes,’ Jason said, ‘but Simon--‘

The king interrupted with a wave of his hat. ‘Chamberlain, cause thorough inquiries to be made. Have the pearler Simon brought here and questioned. Ask the Brahmins to investigate. We shall find out the truth, Jason. Have no fear.’ He put on his hat and frowned ferociously.

The chamberlain bowed to the floor, and the interview was over. Jason walked slowly back, worrying, the palms of his hands wet, and his head aching with the thunderous heaviness of the air.

All the next day he paced up and down his room, waiting for the king’s summons. Every time he turned at the west end he saw himself in the mirror, until, in the late afternoon, he suddenly whipped out his scimitar and jabbed the hilt against the glass and shattered it. Parvati’s flute wailed on. The thin, pure notes had no tune in them, started nowhere, wandered far, arrived nowhere. He cried, ‘Be quiet, Parvati!’ The fluting stopped.

Sugriva hurried in. ‘Lord, the Portuguese woman is here to see you.’

Jason snapped, ‘Who? Send them away.’ But the curtain opened, and Mistress Catherine d’Alvarez walked slowly forward, with Sugriva fluttering like a hen at her side.

Jason said, ‘I have nothing to say to you. Please go home.’ Parvati opened the inner curtain and stood watching, one hand raised to the curtain, and her hip curved. The blind girl knew she was there and smiled at her. Parvati smiled back and made
namusti
with her hands.

Jason snapped, ‘Go home! I will not marry you.’

Catherine said, ‘It is not about that. My father has had a heart attack because of something we have found out. I have come to tell you. A foreigner, a European, has come secretly to Manairuppu.’

Jason started and said, ‘How did you know?’

She said patiently, ‘My father has spies. This stranger is probably Swedish or Dutch. He is hidden here.’

Jason turned on Parvati and said, ‘I told you! The priests are shielding him. But why?’ Parvati did not answer.

Catherine said, ‘It is not only the priests. The man is hidden here, I said. Here, in the palace.’

Jason cried urgently, ‘That’s impossible! The king would have to know!’ But of course the king need not know. It was a big palace. Someone could be betraying him. But who, and why?

Catherine said, ‘Parvati knows where the stranger is, but she must do what she is told. She is the wife of Shiva.’

Jason shouted, ‘It’s a lie! She would not deceive me. You are trying to turn me against her! You only waste your time in trying, because I don’t love you and I won’t marry you, whatever happens.’

Catherine said, ‘Very well. I have told you. I can do no more about that. But I can tell you why you must marry me.’

She put her hand on Jason’s arm. The grip of her thin fingers strengthened. She said, ‘You know I can’t see well. Because of that I can hear and feel better than most people. Do you know why you are unhappy? Because you’ve forgotten your map. Do you know what Vishnuprodhan’s business is? He’s a money-lender--a bad, cruel one. Do you know who’s more in debt to him than anyone else? Simon and the pearlers.’

Her voice fell on his eardrums in cool, trembling waves, and her fingers tightened and relaxed in time with each break of phrase. He struggled against her, and against believing what she said, but there was no escape.

‘The king here is hugging himself because he is about to outwit the other three kings
and you
. Parvati loves you, but she must do what she must--what is written on her forehead. There is only one thing you can do. Ride now to the three kings and tell them not to do whatever was arranged. I don’t know what it is. Give all your money to the pearlers so that they can buy themselves free of Vishnuprodhan and start again. Then marry me, and we will go together to find the treasure on your map. Isn’t that the only way for him to be happy, Parvati? Isn’t it?’ She insisted now, and her voice was firm.

Parvati’s huge eyes shimmered under a curtain of tears. She gazed at the Portuguese girl and whispered, ‘Yes. I love him, though. I do.’

‘I know.’ Catherine moved slowly--she always moved slowly and with grace--and kissed Parvati’s cheek.

Jason tightened his lips in bitter anger and said, ‘You are out of your minds, both of you. Now go.’

Catherine said, ‘Here are precious stones worth fifty thousand pieces of eight--for my dowry. Take them and pay off all the pearlers’ debts to Vishnuprodhan with them.’ She pressed a heavy leather bag into his hands.

Jason’s temper broke. He shouted, ‘Very well! I will marry you for fifty thousand pieces of eight. After that I will never see you or speak to you again! Is that what you want?’

The girl said calmly, ‘Yes. Now I have bought my map. One day you will tell me how much you paid for yours. Don’t forget to send that money at once to the moneylender. Make him sign a receipt, and then you send it to Simon by a safe hand.’

Sugriva sidled in and said, ‘Lord--the lord chamberlain wishes to speak with you. He has the black man with him.’ Jason said, ‘Oh, God’s blood, who? Simon? I suppose they’d better come in.’

The chamberlain entered, and, at his heels, Simon. Simon kept his eyes fixed on his bare feet. The chamberlain looked curiously at Catherine and said, ‘It is a private matter, Lord Jason.’

Jason snapped, ‘You may speak. The Portuguese also have heard about the stranger.’

The chamberlain said smoothly, ‘That is odd, because we have proved there is no such person. Not only have the priests and the city guards and the watchmen denied that any foreigner has come here, but this fellow has admitted lying to you. You, speak!’

Simon muttered, ‘It was a lie, Lord Jason. We saw no foreigner. No ship came to our cove.’ He kept his eyes on the floor, and his black toes wriggled in an agony of discomfort. Jason said, ‘But why should you lie to me?’

Simon muttered, ‘We wanted you to get into trouble here, so you would come back to us--live with us again.’

Jason said, ‘You ran all the way down the sand after me just to tell me a lie?’

An even lower mutter: ‘Yes.’

Jason gazed in stunned, cold astonishment at the pearler. Suddenly he remembered the dungeon at Ponpalamai and ran his thumb over the smooth nailless tip of his little finger. He said, ‘They tortured you!’

‘No,’ Simon answered in a very small voice; his bare skin bore no marks of lash or iron.

Jason grabbed the cross on Simon’s necklace and held it up in front of his face, so close that Simon had to squint to see it. He said, ‘Do you swear on this cross that what you told me was a lie?’

Simon’s dark eyes turned beseechingly from side to side; the tip of his red tongue rolled round his lips. He whispered, ‘Yes.’ Jason said, ‘Swear it, then. Take hold of the cross and swear it.’

Beside him Parvati moved slightly. She stood against the curtain with the flat golden sunlight on her, her head up, her arms bent and each finger separately bent, her knees slightly bent and her feet flat and turned outwards, her jacket fallen apart and her breasts exposed in perfect rounds.

Simon’s eyes were fixed helplessly on Parvati. Blindly he groped for the cross, took it in his hand, and said, ‘I swear it.’ He blundered out of the room. Parvati’s fingers relaxed, her arms drooped slowly to her sides, her thighs came together.

Jason said, ‘And that mad Catherine wanted me to pay off their debts!’

After another day or two all work stopped, the temple conches wailed at midnight, and the people’s eyes shone wild as tigers’. This was Dussehra. Processions were born, like rivers, in little streams and quiet places. They grew larger, moved faster, filled the streets from house to house, shouted and babbled, surged into other torrents, tossed to and fro, fought, roared aloud, died down. Behind them, like the dead rats and bleached twigs stranded by a flood, they left blood in the streets and corpses on the dung-heaps.

Hurrying back to the palace in the middle of an afternoon, from an errand in the city, Jason and Parvati came upon one of these riots. They waited in the shelter of a side-street for the fighting to move on. Jason glanced at the sun and said with nervous anger, ‘I shall be late for the king’s council. Damnation take the fools! Why do they fight?’

Parvati asked a woman standing on tiptoe beside her. The woman said, ‘A man of the Right-Hand faction was beating a drum and carrying an antelope skin on his shoulder. And his companion was waving a red flag the while.’

Parvati said, ‘Insolence!’

Jason cried, ‘Why shouldn’t he?’

Parvati said, ‘Here in Manairuppu all those things are the privilege of the Left-Hand faction. In Ponpalamai, where the king is of the Right Hand, that evil sect claims the privilege.’ Jason said, ‘But what is the difference between them?’ Parvati said, ‘I have told you: there is no difference, except that they are not the same. A man is born into a faction, according to his caste and his father’s trade.’

Jason thought he would scream. But the sense of helplessness and ignorance overcame his anger, and he said, ‘Please find a way to the palace. This is a very important council. We’re going to make the final arrangements for the reception of the three kings tomorrow.’

In the street ahead two thousand people milled and screamed together. Heavy clubs whirled down, men bit and stabbed, monkeys jabbered on the rooftops. The king’s cavalrymen rode into the fight with no show of impartiality, for the king was of the Left Hand.

Parvati said, ‘We can go round by the back of the temple.’ She turned away, and Jason hurried at her side, down lanes and across private courtyards, until they reached the palace. In the apartment he quickly washed himself, arranged his clothes, and shouted for his best sword. As Sugriva fastened the yellow silk sash round his waist he steadied himself. There was no need to get excited. He had won, and tomorrow would seal his triumph. He was excited now only because the fervour of the people had infected him. But the goddess Durga was not his goddess, and he had no cause to be so nervous.

He took both Parvati’s hands and said, ‘In a week, my darling, we will be married.’ He kissed her longingly and strode slowly through the palace to the king’s council chamber.

The king, the chamberlain, and the general commanding the Manairuppu garrison were already there. Jason made his obeisance and began to apologize for coming late. The king silenced him with a wave and said, ‘Lord Jason, the time has come for us to complete those last little details which matter so much.’ He chuckled and slapped his thigh.

Jason murmured, ‘Yes, Your Majesty. Nothing should be spared to do the three kings honour.’

The king and the others laughed delightedly. The king shook his head and said, ‘I could never really believe that you would so befuddle those apes of Ponpalamai, Krishnapatti, and Tiruvadi--but now I know how it was done. Well, it is certain that you succeeded. They are on their way now, and will arrive at the open space by the jetty at about noon tomorrow. Many of their soldiers will be drunk, for they are black-faced scoundrels and we have sent out--how much?’

‘Two hundred jars of toddy, in total;’ the chamberlain said, consulting a scrap of thin paper.

‘They will be goats for the slaughter,’ the king said, twirling his cap. ‘And all due to you, Jason!’

Jason’s knees began to tremble. The king’s navel swung round and round in a slow, numbing circle. Jason stuttered, ‘Wh-what do you mean, s-sire? What slaughter?’

The king burst into a high, cackling laugh, and a tear rolled down either cheek. ‘Wonderful!’ he cried. ‘It would deceive anybody.’ He turned to the general. ‘You are ready?’

The general said, ‘Not yet, Majesty, but we will be by nightfall. The soldiers will be hidden as you ordered, all round the square.’

The king said, ‘Good, good! Now, Jason, the signal to attack will be the firing of the first gun from the foreigner’s ship.’

‘What ship? What foreigner? What guns?’ Jason cried.

‘Ah, that is a little surprise for
you
.’ The king looked at Jason with a cheerful smile. ‘While you were away on your embassy I arranged for outside help in this affair. Now, now, don’t be alarmed. I fear you will not be in quite as strong a position in Manairuppu as you had hoped, because the Hollanders’ ship is very powerful--but I assure you that you will continue to sit high in my council. In fact, I have so high an opinion of your skill that you shall carry out all negotiations with the Hollanders on my behalf. I hereby appoint you to be my deputy chamberlain. Give him a seal later, will you? The Holland captain will open fire with his big guns as soon as he is in position, which will be an hour after noon. The tide serves--‘

Jason cried, ‘Your Majesty, what are you saying? What--‘

But the general interrupted. ‘I am not happy about the three kings themselves. Their personal guards will be with them, and--‘

‘I will deal with them,’ the king said. ‘Poison.’

‘Their tasters?’

‘A tasteless poison.’

Now the rising, choking horror could not be stayed. Jason sprang forward, shouting so that the sentences met in his mouth and for a moment could not be understood. He cried, ‘Lord, you must not--I swear before God--knew nothing--mad, mad--the Dutch!’

The king’s frown changed to a look of bewilderment. Jason tightened his fists and forced himself to speak more slowly. He said, ‘What is the sense in this? You will only change the Portuguese for the Dutch! What is the sense in making enemies of the three kingdoms when they and you together, but only together, can stand against any foreigners? The Dutch! They will be worse than the Portuguese, because they are strong, while the Portuguese are weak. I have seen them in the Narrow Seas, and I know! In a week or a month you will be worse off than you were before.’