Starbook (3 page)

He called to her from his hiding place, and she started, and fell. He was silent. She looked about her, and saw nothing. She got up and fetched more water from the river. As she was leaving he called her again, and she jumped. It seemed to her that the spirits of the land were addressing her. Or that she had heard the goddess of the sea. This was a sign for her that she was about to die, as a mark of special favour.

'But I have not lived yet,' she said out aloud, as if pleading for clemency.

'You will live now,' he said, enjoying this game of destiny.

'What am I to do?'

'Answer my three questions then you can live.'

She put down the bucket, and then fell on her knees.

'I am ready,' she said, with tears in her voice.

He laughed to himself in his hiding place among the wild flowers on the border of his kingdom.

'First,' he said, in his strange disguised voice, 'where does the river end?'

'In the wisdom of God,' she replied, humbly.

He was startled by the answer. He stayed silent a while. The wind blew enchantments over them. The river yielded the lights of the sky. Spirits converged at the river's edge to witness a special moment in time. Unborn children hovered over that potent space above her head. Invisible story-tellers held their breaths. Those who wander in dreams paused there, to drink in the mood of magic.

'Second,' he said, more sternly, 'where does all our suffering end?'

'In the happiness that lies beyond all things,' she replied, as if in a trance.

He caught his breath. For the first time in his life he knew that deep inside agony there is a sweetness that is beyond compare. Only those who venture into such a dark find such a light. Deep in the pain is beauty from the high mountains of the sublime. How can it be? What fruit would give bitterness and reserve such impossible richness in its core, in its seed that is tough as diamond? The world's puzzle shone around him. The river shone with gold and silver showers from the sun. Is the air so rich with the vitality that makes new life? He breathed in enchantments, and the air he breathed changed the initiated man within into something rested, settled, and forming, as an angel crystallises into a child. Dreamers all around, lingering in that ancient mood, felt the happy sunlight above their houses. Spirits were in a mood of delight. Time converged here. Such lovely moments pipe an eternal happiness all over the world, through all time, wherever it is needed, and can be reached, by the fortunate, or those who know.

He spoke like an oracle now, except not giving, but asking. He said:

'And finally, what are we all seeking?'

'The kingdom,' she replied, 'which we are in already, which we have got, and which is our home.'

The answer seemed so appropriate that he was astonished. He fell into a deep silence in which he was borne by the wind and the fragrance of mysterious flowers into a dim realm where, for a moment, he glimpsed a strange white horse with a golden horn in the middle of its forehead.

When his mind cleared he saw that the girl was rising from her prayerful position, and he felt he had to say something while the mystery still held. He noticed though that there was a mist rising from the river. It was a white mist, like a shroud, or an unusual cloud, and some of its skeins seemed to float across towards the girl, obscuring her. He was suddenly afraid. Seized with a sense of immensity he had never felt before, and having the presence of mind to break through it, he said:

'Come back here the same time tomorrow. Come alone.'

The mist around her briefly cleared, and he saw her nodding. Then before he could think what else to do or say, she got up, snatched her bucket, and disappeared into the forest.

He left his hiding place and wandered the woods in this new mood of splendour, of faint shining terror, and a joy bordering on madness. What had come over him? He was addressing love songs to the birds and the trees, wrestling playfully with spirits in the air, laughing at dreams that floated past him, making jokes at wood sprites that he saw dancing in yellow clearings. The whole sky had become a love mood wherein he saw everything more clearly. Everything made sense. Everything was simple. And in the kingdom he saw himself everywhere, with all the people in the world, all as one.

He wandered in this state, dreaming of the girl he had just seen, who was so clear to him in his mind that she seemed to accompany him. And he spoke to her, and sang, and laughed at the rich silence of her replies; and he remained spellbound by her liquid luminous eyes and her pale awkward face.

The elders found him in this state, and fearing him to be unhinged they grappled with him and were surprised that he offered no resistance. They carried him home on their shoulders to the royal palace. He re-entered the village a different person, and saw it all anew, as if he were waking up from a deep sleep that had lasted all his life.

In the palace the first thing he noticed were the slaves. Then he became aware of the numerous servants. Then he saw the many wives of his father. Then he saw his father. It was strange. He thought: who are all these people?

'Are you well, my son?' his father asked.

He stared at the imposing, fleshy, big and powerful face of his father, the king. He stared into the big, wise and sensuous eyes, at once alert and lazy, at once dangerous and complacent. The king did not smile. He never remembered his father as ever having smiled. Laughing, yes; but never smiling. He smiled at his father. The elders who were present nodded sagely at this interesting development. Then they were baffled when he put his arms round his father's neck and held him in a deep unrequited embrace.

'I only asked you if you are well, my son,' the king said, embarrassed. 'There is no need for all this demonstration. Remember who you are. You are a prince, and the future king. Now control yourself.'

He didn't. He stayed hugging his father, breathing in the strong essences and smells of his body, smells rich and potent with the personality of the king, his power, his strength, his unyielding force, his compact radiance, his awesome build, the herbs and potions of his personal and spiritual fortification. The son held on to the father as on to a great tree, a mighty legend. The son held on even when the father threw up his hands in royal exasperation. Then the father, the king, began to laugh. It was a wonderful laughter, and it rocked the kingdom.

And all the elders began laughing too, and they held hands and spontaneously formed a circle and they danced, singing praise-songs around the son and his father, the prince and the king. And still the son held on to the might of the man, to the splendour of the father, feeling the king's great laughter shaking his tender frame and reordering forces within him that were misaligned, and filling him with energies, with wisdom, with unknown powers, with the spiritual strength of kingship, and with a love he could not express to his son but which was there in the embarrassment of laughter.

Then suddenly the son disengaged from the father, and said:

'Father, I am not well. I saw a maiden today who touched my heart. I don't know who she is or where she comes from. I am not well and I am too well because of her.'

Then abruptly he left the presence of the king. Silence fell over the elders. The king was perplexed by what his son had said, and his odd behaviour. He sensed something sinister. He feared that enemies had bewitched his son, or cast a spell on him, or twisted his mind with the vision of woman. He feared bewitchment more than wars. Armies can fight armies; but how do you fight bewitchment?

'My son has been bewitched,' he said out loud. 'Keep an eye on him. Follow his movements. And find out who this maiden is that has clouded the mind of the prince.'

The elders bowed. Instructions were given, and put into motion. The forest became the home of spies.

A
n intuition made him take a convoluted route that confused the spies watching him from behind every tree. The next day he returned to his hiding place in the far boundary of the kingdom and waited for the maiden to appear. He arrived long before the appointed time. He hadn't slept all night, or so he thought.

He felt he hadn't slept because he spent all night wandering through the world looking for a maiden who bore his heart in her womb. His heart grew in her like a child. She was pregnant with his heart for a long time, for a year, for ten years, for a generation, for a hundred and two years. His heart grew bigger and bigger in her, and she grew bigger and bigger to accommodate the growth of his heart in her womb. He never knew when she would give birth to his heart and he lost her and searched for her the world over and couldn't find her. His father, the king, told him that the world in which he searched for her was his heart, and that she was the mother of the world, and that his search was over when it began but he didn't know it. He was nonetheless unconsoled and was still searching when he awoke into a sleepless state that left him unrested and bewildered.

The birds played, the flowers breathed out their fragrances, the river ran on into the heart of God, the sky was clear and sent down fine spangles of diamonds, and dreams floated past, and the forest sang, and the spirits danced in the air, and the future hovered over him, and the sun passed the shadows it cast at the appointed hour, and still the maiden didn't appear.

He waited till strange women came to the river and fetched water and laughed and played and went away. He waited till the noonday sun changed its colour and its flashing swords cut down on the earth and water. He slept while he waited and many voices spoke around him and wizards danced above him and sorcerers chanted over his sleeping form. When he awoke it was evening. And she still hadn't appeared.

He went home with a heavy heart and didn't notice the trees in the forest or the cats that eyed him or the spies that watched him. It was only when he got to the village that he saw a group of men and women that he had never seen before. They were from a different land. They were fetching wood and they were downcast and the men looked brave and the women looked unhappy. So he went among them and asked who they were. The leader among them, a burly man, with a warrior's mien, said:

'We are men and women captured in war. We are slaves of your kingdom. We do your dirty work till our people can pay our ransom.'

'What are slaves?' the young prince asked.

'The lowest of the low,' the warrior replied.

'What does that mean?'

'Mean, sir? It means we are nothing. We have no freedom. We do whatever you tell us to do. You can kill us whenever you want. Our people don't know where we are. We are here by force. We don't want to be here. We want to be in our villages, with our own families, and our people.'

'So why don't you just go?' the prince asked, amazed.

'Because they will kill us if we try. We are slaves, sir. Captured people.'

'What are you doing?'

'We are digging latrines.'

'How long have you been here?'

'Not long for a free man, but too long for a slave.'

The prince was about to ask another question when the elders descended on him and led him away. He protested.

'Your highness, you can't talk to those people.'

'Why not?'

'They are animals.'

'Animals? They are not animals. They are human beings,' the prince said, astonished.

'They are slaves, your highness, and a prince cannot talk with slaves.'

'Why not?'

'Because it is forbidden.'

'By who?'

'The laws of the kingdom.'

'The laws? Who made the laws?'

'The Wise Ones.'

'Which Wise Ones?'

'From long ago.'

'Then they must have been fools, or monsters.'

'Your highness, they were your ancestors.'

'I am ashamed to have such ancestors.'

The elders were silent and took his remarks as further proof that he was either deranged or bewitched, as the wise king had said.

He left the elders and went straight to his father and made an unusual request. His father, the king, heard him out without blinking. When he had finished, the king stared at his son for a long time. Then he laughed. It was not the same laughter as the last time. It was a troubled laughter.

He summoned the elders. When they were gathered the king asked his son to repeat his request. The prince, calm, innocent and sad with love, said:

'If I am to be future king I want to know what good and what evils we have done as a people.'

There was a deep silence among the elders. Then they began to murmur in great perplexity. Their murmurings turned into discussions and then into arguments. They argued among themselves about what were evils and what were good. They argued furiously. The prince watched them in amazement. He heard mention of tortures, floggings, murders, wars, rapes, burning of villages, outcasts, banishments. Then he thought he hadn't heard them right. Some elders said they were not evils but necessities, matters of justified war, acts of defence needed to protect the kingdom. The king became impatient.

'Are you going to answer my son, or what?' he bellowed.

There was another silence. The elders stared at the prince. The prince stared at them. Then, quite suddenly, the king began laughing again; and the elders, taking their cue, relieved, laughed as well.

What a fearful laughter it was, this peculiar laughter of the custodians and the elders. It was a laughter the prince had never heard or seen before. It was a laughter threaded with dark energies. It almost made him ill. The king, noticing that his son had turned pale, stopped laughing. Then gradually silence descended upon the elders.

'You have not replied to my request,' the young prince said, eventually.

The senior among the elders stepped forward, prostrated himself majestically, and said:

'We as a people have only done good. We have done no evil. The bad things it appears we have done were for good reasons. We are a good people, with a clean conscience. You should be assured, your highness, that as a future king your hands and the hands of your ancestors are clean.'

'What about the slaves?'

'Dear prince,' said the senior custodian, 'there are no slaves in the kingdom.'

'What?'

'It is best for a prince not to know the good or the necessary evil done in the realm. That is our job. Yours, in time, is to rule with good hands.'

'How can my hands be clean if there is wickedness done in my name?'

'Done in the name of the kingdom, dear prince. Your hands will always be clean.'

The custodian smiled benignly.

'So there are no slaves in the kingdom?'

'Yes.'

'Yes there are or yes there are none?'

'No.'

The prince was exasperated. He turned to the king, his father. The king was grim and mute. He offered no support. He merely listened. He watched his son.

Suddenly the prince bolted from the chamber and was gone before the custodians and elders could react. Not long afterwards a commotion was heard in the palace corridors. Guards and soldiers made loud noises. There was much shouting, and a clashing of weapons. Then voices bellowing. The prince reappeared in the hall of custodians, leading seven of the slaves he had spoken to earlier.

'You can't bring slaves in here!' the elders shouted, almost as one.

'What slaves?' the prince replied. 'These are men captured in war.'

'And some are criminals, sold by their own people,' said the senior of the custodians. 'Some are murderers, running away from justice. And some are dogs in disguise, animals and beasts to their own kind. We make them work. We do them no harm. They feed, they can marry, and they can earn their freedom. They are not slaves.'

'I want them freed!' cried the prince.

'Don't get involved in these matters, your highness. Keep your hands clean. Don't enquire too much into affairs of the kingdom. Things are more complicated than they seem. There are no chains on these people. They are almost free. We have an ancient understanding between villages and kingdoms. These threads are too entangled to unravel in a day.'

The prince was silent. The custodian gave a sign for the slaves to be removed. Soldiers came in and led them away.

'What else is there that I must not know?'

'Many things.'

'Like what?'

The head custodian paused. He turned helplessly to the king. The king nodded.

'Outcasts. The burial of kings with their servants and wives. Low castes who work in the dark, never seen, never allowed to marry above ...'

On and on the custodian went, pouring out the practices of the land from time immemorial, the good and the bad. But first the bad, for that was the theme of the day. It was a worrying list. It included peculiar things like days when no animal, insect, bird or living thing is killed. Days of laughter. Nights of story-telling. The special day of the spirits. The day of the long-haired babies. The festivities for the lower caste, when all the villages stage dances and rituals for them and bring gifts and food, and perform for all outcasts, beggars and rejects. Then there were the leprous left out in the hills. The night of the dead, when ancestors are honoured. The flogging of thieves. The exile of adulterers. The banishment of cowards, traitors, murderers. The rigorously reasoned laws. The list went on, for hours, till the young prince began to hallucinate. Then he fell down in exhaustion and overwrought emotion.

That night the king went to the prince's bedroom and watched him sleeping. The king sat and stared at his son for hours as he slept. At dawn the king left. He was silent most of the next day. Silent and thoughtful.