the water into his field, bringing shovelfuls of earth from three points of the compass in turn to form an altar for his offerings and prayers.
This spot was under the protection of the Goddess. The earth of his field, blest by her, was of sufficient power to break any spell that might, for all he knew, be inherent in Bengek’s gift. Taking his knife from its sheath he began digging out the earth at the foot of the mound. It was soft and muddy and easy to dig out. When the hole was large enough he bedded the plates into it and closed the earth round them and smoothed it down.
“O Goddess,” he said, “I offer you these precious plates. Make them pure of evil influences and bless my field so that its soil shall be fertile and the ears full and heavy.”
The tjrorot sounded its hollow wooden note in the distance. Pak set off home to fetch his plough. He had left home a poor man yesterday. It was as a rich man he returned. Richer than Wajan, Sarna’s father. His secret lay big and warm in his heart, like a steadily glowing fire.
The Puri
A FLOCK of white pigeons rose from the ground and circled high above the puri of the lord of Badung. The silver bells on their feet gave out a whirring tinkle of metallic sound, like the voice of a white cloud at noon. The gray pigeons in their red cages cooed as they tripped to and fro. A large kasuar, which had been searching the grass for food, extended its long neck, thrusting it this way and that as though it had too tight a collar. Muna, the slave-girl, laughed and let her hands fall for a moment. Bernis, the most beautiful of the lord’s wives, bent back her head and looked up into the sky. She shook out her hair. “Well?” she asked, without taking her absorbed and dreaming eyes from the flock of pigeons up in the sky. Muna began zealously combing her mistress’s long hair again. She drew it back strand by strand; it was sleek and fragrant and shone with coconut oil.
“Then she was clever enough to arrange matters so that she was bound to encounter him,” Muna went on quickly. “She put herself right in his path as he went to his cocks. He did not so much as glance at her. She said: ‘Greetings, my lord and master,’ turning her eyes away. ‘Greeting, Tumun,’ he said, and walked on. She ran after him and pulled at his sarong. ‘My lord and master has had no sirih from me for a long time,’ she said. My mistress ought to have seen how the lord behaved then! He paid no attention at all—he looked straight through her, like this”—Muna copied the lord’s contemptuous look and squinted with the effort—“he paid no more attention to her than if she had been a dead dung-beetle in his path. He simply went on and left her standing there—the vain, silly creature. All the women laughed her to scorn.”
“What a shameless woman,” Bernis said, “to make herself cheap. You can tell that she is a beggar’s daughter.”
Muna had ended her task. “I have heard,” she said, “that she was a whore at Kesiman and had to go about with her breasts covered until the Anak Agung Bima brought her into his palace.” She drew a palm-leaf basket towards her, in which were white cambodia flowers, tinged with pink. Taking here and there a single hair she wound it about a petal to hold it fast. It looked as though the flowers were scattered carelessly over her black hair. “My mistress is the most beautiful of all. She will bear a strong and fine son and the lord will raise her up to be the first of his wives,” she chanted.
“Hold your tongue and don’t talk nonsense,” Bernis broke in. Muna went dumb with fright and cowered down with the instinctive movement of one who was used to being beaten.
“Go,” said Bernis. “Leave me alone, I cannot endure your chatter.” Muna took the comb and basket and vanished down the steps. Bernis laid her head in her hands, for she wished to give rein to her sadness. She had been wedded to the young lord Alit for twelve months and still she had not had a child. In her last month, too, her hopes had been dashed and it was long since her lord had visited her. It was a strange thing that all his twenty-two wives were childless. And yet the courtyards and all the other dwellings of the puri swarmed with children; all the court officials, the servants, the slaves and all the numerous retinue of the palace—they all had children. Only the dwellings of the lord’s wives were silent; only in them there was no sound of small feet. Bernis caressed her own skin to sooth its longings. She held her breasts in her hands to still the ache of an unfamiliar pain. Then she let her hands fall and restlessly pulled her sarong tighter. “Muna,” she called out. Apparently Muna had been watching her from a distance, for the next moment she was once more on the steps of the portico. “What is my mistress’s wish?” she asked with a virtuous expression. Bernis drew the girl towards her and put her arm round her. “You are growing up,” she said cajolingly. “It will soon be time to look out for a husband for you. Have you been looking about yourself yet?” Muna giggled and looked coy. “Is it the gardener, Rodia? Or the keeper of the white cocks? Yes, it is he, I know. He has a moustache and looks like a noble. He blows out his nostrils like a horse whenever he catches sight of you.” Muna hid her face in her mistress’s lap and murmured shyly into this secret recess. “Who is it?” Bernis asked, lifting up the girl’s head with her hands on her hair.
“Meru, the sculptor,” Muna whispered with lowered eyes. Bernis reflected on this. “Your taste is not bad,” she said slowly. “He has no eyes for me—he has too many girls,” Muna whispered. She had the face of a little monkey and the prettiest and nimblest of hands.
“You are too young. Wait a year,” Bernis said chillingly. There was silence for a time. Muna took Bernis’s hand and played with it.
“With whom did the lord spend last night?” her mistress asked abruptly. Muna’s mouth twisted in a droll grimace, but she did not reply at once. She left her mistress on tenterhooks.
“With Ida Bagus Rai, the pedanda of Taman Sari,” she said at last while her eyes danced with amusement. Bernis did not appear to see the joke.
“The pedanda is a nice man and a very holy one,” she said with a sigh of relief. “And Raka’s father,” Muna threw in quickly. Bernis looked at her reflectively to see what lay behind this. “It is taking a liberty to gossip about the lord’s friends,” she said loftily.
Muna pouted and said no more. The pigeons wheeled and alighted with a rustle of wings in one of the eastern courtyards. Bernis watched them absent-mindedly. All this part of the puri had been built by Chinese and was roofed with Chinese tiles. The back wall of the portico where they were sitting was lined with large greenglazed tiles, the same as those which adorned the wall round the palace. Bernis’s dwelling was one of the most splendid of all. It stood on a tiny square island enclosed by runnels of water and flowerbeds. The lord honored the most beautiful of his wives in every possible way, and gave her the position that became noble birth. But he had not chosen his first wife, who had to be of his own caste. Muna tried to read the expression on her mistress’s face. “There are men who are fonder of the old lontar books than of women,” she said meaningly. Bernis was not angry; she merely sighed. Boredom descended upon her, like a gray bird with widespread wings.
“What can we do to pass the time?” she asked idly.
Weave, Muna suggested. Go to the pond and look at the waterfowl. Turn out the chests and try on all the sarongs. Fetch palm-leaves and plait dishes for the offerings. Sleep until it was time to dress and watch the dancing in the chief court. Bernis shook her head. Muna pushed the gilded stand towards her on which were all the ingredients for making sirih—the silver casket of sirih-leaves, lime in a little wooden box, a box of beaten silver containing tobacco, chopped betel-nut on a pisang leaf. Bernis pushed the tray away again. For some reason the lord did not like his wives to chew and make their teeth brown, as other women did. And so Bernis denied herself this consolation, in which even the poorest of women
