And my house by the river. We lived near the rice fields and the water. And we all slept together each night.’
Cap-Pi-Hau saw the house in his mind.
He saw the broad fields of rice moving in waves like the surface of the Great Lake, and long morning shadows, and the buffaloes in the mire, and rows of trees parasolling houses along the waterways.
He saw home.
He himself had been brought from the country, carried in a howdah with nine other distressed, hot, fearful children. He dimly remembered riding through the City, its streets full of people. Since then, he had not been allowed outside the royal enclosure.
Cap-Pi-Hau had only been able to hear people from over the walls. The calls of stall owners, the barking of dogs, the rumbling of ox-cart wheels and the constant birdlike chorus of chatter. For him, that was the sound of freedom. He kept trying to imagine what the people were like, because he heard them laugh.
Cap-Pi-Hau asked, ‘What did you like doing best?’
She considered. ‘I remember my brother taking the buffalo down to the reservoir, to keep cool. It would stay in the water all day, so we could too.’
Cap-Pi-Hau thrust himself up onto her lap, and suddenly she was like an older sister, tending the babe for her mother.
‘I want to stay in the water all day,’ he beamed. ‘I want to drive water buffaloes. Great big buffaloes!’ Something in the sound of that phrase, big and hearty, made him explode with giggles.
Finally she did too. ‘You are a buffalo.’
‘I’m a big big buffalo and I smell of poo!’ He became a bouncing ball of chuckles. Even she chuckled. Laughter made him fond. He tilted his head and his eyes were twinkly, hungry for something different. He writhed in her grasp. ‘What else did you do?’
She had to think. ‘My brother would catch frogs or snakes to eat. He was very brave.’
‘You hunted snakes and frogs?’ Cap-Pi-Hau was fascinated. He could see a boy like himself, skinnier maybe. They would hunt together in the reeds. He mimed slamming frogs. ‘Bam! Bam!’ he grinned. ‘Flat frog! Yum. I want to eat a flat frog.’
She joined in. ‘I want to eat mashed cricket.’
‘I want to eat … monkey ears!’
That joke wore out. He asked about her family. She had six brothers and sisters. They were the nias of a lord who lived far away from the perfect city. Their canal branched off from the meeting of the three rivers, far to the south. She could see all of that, but she could not remember the name of the place.
All of her brothers and sisters slept in a tidy row on mats. When one of them was sick, that child slept cradled by their mother. So they all pretended to be sick sometimes. One night, so many of them said they were sick that Mother turned away from them all. Then their mother got sick herself. With no one to work the fields, they had to do something to feed all the children, so Fishing Cat was sent away.
The Prince still wanted fun. ‘And you never went back, never, never, never.’ He rocked his head in time to the words. ‘I never went back either.’
Something seemed to come out of them both, like mingled breath.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked, because Cap-Pi-Hau was a nickname.
‘Nia!’ he said, delighted, and started to chuckle again. ‘I am Prince Slave!’
‘I will give you orders!’ she chuckled, something irrepressible bubbling up.
‘I will have to dust floors for you,’ he giggled.
‘I will say, you, Prince, come here and help me with this thing.’ She snapped her fingers.
‘You can call me Prince Nia.’
She chuckled. ‘You can call me Princess Nia!’
For some reason the laughter faded.
‘I hardly remember my home either,’ said Cap-Pi-Hau.
Until the day of his marriage, Cap-Pi-Hau called himself Prince Nia. When people expressed astonishment at the choice he would explain. ‘All princes are hereditary slaves.’
The day of the procession arrived.
The Sun King’s great new temple was to be consecrated.
Prince Nia stood high on the steps of an elephant platform. Ahead of him the next batch of hostage children crowded the platform, scowling at the sunlight, flicking their fly whisks.
The Prince had never stood so high off the ground. He was now level with the upper storey of the Aerial Palace. There were no walls and all the curtains were raised.
He saw servants scurrying, carrying, airing, beating – taking advantage of their mistresses’ absence to perfect the toilet of the rooms. Category girls ran with armloads of blackened flowers to throw them away. They beat cushions against each other. They shifted low bronze tables so that the floor could be wiped.
In the corners, musical instruments were carefully stood at attention, their wooden bellies gleaming. The lamp hooks screwed into the pillars were swirling bronze images of smoke or cloud-flowers. The rooms had handsome water butts of their own, with fired glazed patterns. The pillars on the upper floor were ornately carved, with images of celestial maidens, as if the rooms were already high in heaven.
He could see the lintels and the gables close up. Monsters called Makara spewed out fabulous beasts from their mouths. Gods abducted women. Brahma rode his giant goose; Krishna split a demon asura in two. Regularly recurring shapes of flames or lotus petals were embedded with glass pieces. And the roof! It was tiled with metal, armoured like a soldier’s breastplate. The metal was dull grey like a cloudy sky, smooth and streaked from rain. So many things had been kept from him!
An elephant lumbered towards them. It was old, and the howdah on its back wobbled on its loose skin.
It was not a good elephant. The howdah was functional, no carvings. The beast came close to them and coughed, and its breath smelled of dead mice.
Now the King’s elephant! Its tusks would be sheathed in gold, and the howdah would rest on a beautiful big carpet!
The children began to advance one at a time onto the elephant’s unsteady back.
And the King himself, is he blue, Nia wondered, like Vishnu? If he is the Sun Shield, is he blinding, like the sun?
Someone shoved Nia from behind, trying to push him aside. Nia thrust back and turned. It was an older, more important prince. ‘Get out of the way. I am higher rank than you.’ It was the son of the King’s nephew.
‘We all climb up and take our turn.’
At the top of the steps, a kamlaa-category slave herded them. ‘OK, come on, press in, as many as possible.’ He wore only a twist of cloth and was hot, bored, and studded with insect bites. He grabbed hold of the Prince’s shoulders and pulled him forward. Nia tossed
