he said, his serious, regarding eyes had no trace of real fear.
The King asked him, ‘What makes you think you are not in a lot of trouble?’
The boy replied, ‘Because you are a Universal King. A Universal King is brave and has faced terrible danger. Such a king would have no need to frighten me.’
‘You are troubling my sleep.’ Like bad dreams.
The little fellow bowed and crawled closer. Determined, wasn’t he?
‘King. You are generously setting up new temples, and you are to give to these establishments great gifts of land and water and parasols and oil and wax and people.’
‘Yes?’ Dangerous stuff, little fellow, for these gifts are the canals of politics. Gold and silver and obligation flow down them. And blood.
‘There is a slave girl. Her name is Fishing Cat. She was honoured to be made part of our household when she was five. She is so happy to be here, she has not thought of her village since. She does not even remember its name. But I have checked the records and I see she must have come from the villages near Mount Merit. If …’ Here the child faltered, bit his lip, became a child again. ‘If that is where you are planning a temple, then perhaps if she is sent there, that would be a good thing. She could see her family again.’
‘Is that all you want?’
‘I have been very foolish,’ said the child in the tiniest possible voice. ‘I became friends with her. It was easy for me, it was fun. I had no thought of the danger for her. It is my fault, but she is the one being punished.’
The King could not help but smile. ‘You climbed up here for a slave girl?’
The boy sompiahed, yes. ‘My guru says I must learn humility.’
The King chuckled. ‘A strange way to show humility, to wake up a king with demands.’ The boy went still and looked down.
Impossible to gauge, little fellow, how much of a danger you will be. But what a heart you have. A brave heart and a good heart, to care so much for a slave girl. ‘All right. I will order it.’
The boy flung himself face-down onto the stone. Then the little imp sat up and made sure the King remembered. ‘Her name is Fishing Cat. Mount Merit.’
The King nodded. He stood up. His chest had sagged, his belly swelled, his calves had shrivelled. He shuffled into his sandals. ‘Come along, little fellow, I will get you past the guards.’
‘Don’t punish them,’ said the boy, suddenly alarmed. ‘I am very small and quiet.’
The King had to laugh. The boy’s heart is a kingdom; it could contain everyone. He cares for guards! They would kill him at a nod from me.
‘I won’t punish them,’ promised the King.
Suryavarman quickly calculated. Little Buddhist, you have ten more years before you become a danger. By then, I will be dead. With all this sudden trouble over my wife’s brother in Champa and with the Vietnamese in the north, someone somewhere will betray me soon. And so I know who you are. You are the danger to whoever is my successor. You can be my harrow.
If you love me.
‘Can I tell you who you are?’ Suryavarman said, as they walked. ‘Your father is my first cousin. Your mother was from Mahidharapura, the same pastures from which my own family came.’ His hand on the boy’s shoulder pressed down hard. ‘So I am fond of your family, that is why I asked especially for you to be here. Really.’
He nearly laughed aloud again; the boy’s eyes were so completely unfooled.
‘That is why I said you are my father,’ whispered the boy.
‘But now I will remember you as the boy with the good heart. You know the greatest pleasure in being King? It comes when you know you have done something good.’ Suryavarman mounted his kindly, regal countenance. It was a heaving great effort.
The boy narrowed his eyes and considered. You’re not supposed to think, lad, about what the King says. You’re supposed to agree.
‘Yes,’ the boy said. ‘Yes. That must be the greatest pleasure. That would be the whole reason to be King.’
‘Yes, but bees make honey, only to lose it. Are you good with a sword, young prince?’
The boy seemed to click into place. Good heart or no, he had a man’s interest in all things military. ‘I’m better with a bow. Better with a crossbow on an elephant’s back. Swords or arrows, the thing is to have a quiet spirit when you use them.’
Oh, yes! thought Suryavarman. You will be my revenge; you will be my scythe. I pity the poor cousin who succeeds me.
‘I want to train you specially,’ said Suryavarman. ‘In the art of war.’
Everyone learned how the beardless Brahmin’s scheme had backfired.
Why exactly the King favoured his cousin’s son no one knew. A cousin’s son was there to be held hostage, ground down, watched and limited. Not raised up.
Instead, the King demanded that the case be taken up by the Son of Divakarapandita himself, who had consecrated three kings. This highest of the Varna was to go to the consecration personally and ensure the foundation was well done, and it was said, ensure that the slave girl had the right to return to her own home.
Some of the Brahmin said, see how the King listens, he is making sure they are separated.
Then why does the King show the boy favours? He gave him a gift of arrows, and sent him to train two years early. And why were the palace women – wives and nannies, cooks and drapers alike – all told to let the boy and the slave girl be friends?
The only one who seemed mutely accepting of these attentions was the Slave Prince himself.
The rumour went round the palace that on the night before the slave’s departure, the Prince had called for a meal of fish and rice to be laid on a cloth, and invited the girl Fishing Cat to share it with him.
The girl had knelt down as if to serve.
‘No, no,’ Prince Nia said.
But he could not stop her serving. She laid out a napkin, and a fingerbowl.
He reached up to try to stop her. ‘No, don’t do that.’
Cat’s sinewy wrists somehow twisted free. Out of his reach, she took the lamp and lit scented wax to sweeten the air, and drive away the insects.
‘Leave the things.’
Fishing Cat looked up with eyes that were bright like sapphires. ‘I want to do this. I won’t have this chance again.’
‘Don’t be sad. We will always be friends,’ he said. ‘I will still hear you talking inside my head. I will ask how should a king behave, and you will say, how am I to answer that, baby? And I will say, with the truth. And you will say, the King should not lie like you do. And you will remind
