‘It is sacrilege!’ repeated Selang Aro.
‘It is justice … And fourthly’ – unexpectedly the Rajah turned, and pointed to Richard Marriott – ‘this Tuan is a man of honour in Makassang. He has earned the respect of all, and he has earned my thanks. If he visits the Shwe Dagon, or if he has any dealings with you or your priests, he is to be treated as if he were of my own blood.’
There was a sharp intake of breath from all who stood in the audience chamber; clearly, the Rajah’s words had conferred an unheard-of distinction upon Richard. The latter, resplendent in his uniform, the gold earring gleaming in his ear, preserved an impassive face under this public gaze; but his eyes sought Sunara’s, and found that she herself was looking at him, and that in her look was more than a shadow of those things which were in everyone else’s – admiration, respect, a readiness to pay tribute to a newcomer who had earned it.
But Selang Aro was not of the same mind. ‘I do not know this Tuan,’ he said, with sour emphasis on the title. ‘Is he some visitor to Makassang?’
‘He is indeed a visitor,’ returned the Rajah, ‘and many of your friends have met him already. It was he and his ship who defeated Black Harris, two nights ago. His name is Captain Richard Marriott.’
Selang Aro’s pale face came round to Richard again. ‘So … I did not know that your Highness made such arrangements with foreign intruders.’
The Rajah’s eyes snapped. ‘I have told you that Captain Marriott is a man of honour in Makassang. Be pleased to remember it!’
‘How long are we to be thus blessed?’
The offensive question was addressed directly to Richard, and he answered it with appropriate curtness. ‘I will stay as long as may be suitable.’
The Rajah, rising to mark the end of the audience, was looking at Richard with an attention almost affectionate. ‘Ihave hopes,’ he said, ‘that Captain Marriott may stay with us a very long time indeed.’
3
‘Where is the money, then?’ asked Nick Garrett, ill-humouredly. ‘None of us have seen the colour of it yet. Are we to take it on trust?’
‘It is safe in my room at the palace,’ answered Richard. ‘Have no fear of that.’
‘Has he paid all of it?’
‘Every last rix dollar. In gold.’
‘It should be here on board,’ said Garrett, with the same evil grace. ‘We earned it as well as you, didn’t we? We should have our share of it.’
‘When we leave Makassang,’ said Richard curtly, ‘I will share it out.’
The two of them were standing on the quarter-deck of the Lucinda D, under a burning afternoon sun which had melted the pitch between the planking into a slow, bubbling ferment. The brigantine still swung to her anchor a few hundred feet from the Steps of Heaven, as she had done for the past week; but the cable was now heavy with weed, the sails brailed up, the wheel lashed; and what few of the crew were on deck lounged about in the shade, as idle and unready as the ship herself. It was the first visit that Richard Marriott had paid to his command since the night of the attack on the Mystic: her air of disuse might have shocked or angered him to steady cursing, even a few days earlier, but now it did not seem to matter greatly.
For his thoughts were already turned ashore; and not the least of the reasons for this was the contrast between the luxury of his apartments at the Sun Palace, and the hard-lying which was his lot on board – the tarry, smelly air which stifled a man between decks, the crude makeshifts of ship-board life. Who, in his senses, would sleep in a pine plank bunk, or eat greasy crackerhash twice a day, when he could lie between silken sheets, and have his choice of the most delicate dishes, the rarest wines and spices? And if this meant that he himself was becoming softer, then let it be so … Only a fool would leave this paradise before he had to.
As if reading his thoughts, Nick Garrett – a hulking, sunburnt figure, bare-footed, naked to the waist – put the question straightly: ‘When are we leaving, then? What are the plans?’
‘There is no hurry,’ Richard answered. ‘We are well enough off here.’
‘You may be well off,’ said Garrett roughly. ‘But there is nothing for a man to do in Makassang. We should take our reward, and get back to Batavia or Singapore or Hong Kong, and have the spending of it where the spending is good.’ He waved his arm round, his expression bitterly discontented. ‘What use is this place? There’s not a tavern within a thousand miles! Not a sporting house, either! The women are too proud for sailors, or else their husbands have knives ready to stick in your guts. We should get back where we are welcome, where a man can hammer on a table, and plank his money down, and buy a bottle of blackstrap or a willing girl!’
‘We are welcome here.’
‘You may be,’ said Nick Garrett again. ‘But the men don’t like the place, and I don’t like it either.’ He looked at Richard more closely. ‘It’s time you spoke out. Are you planning something, up at the palace?’
‘All I plan is to live ashore for a space.’
‘Are you too good for us now?’
Richard smiled. ‘I was always too good for you.’
But Garrett was already thinking along another tack. ‘If we have to stay here, we should be using the time properly. If the old man has a hundred thousand rix dollars to give away, then he must have thousands more, lying hid somewhere. We should ferret them out. And jewels too … I remember the talk about the state treasure?’ His eyes narrowed suspiciously as they came round to Richard again. ‘Are you making plans about that, maybe? Are you staying ashore to spy on it?’
Richard shook his head. ‘We have made enough money here, without any spying or plotting.’
‘Now by God!’ burst out Nick Garrett furiously. ‘You cannot be so changed! If we stay here, we should take all that they have, every last dollar of it. We would be damned fools to do otherwise!’
‘We have done our work, and we have been handsomely paid for it. The Rajah is a friend. He has come to trust me. Why should I rob him?’
‘For the same reason that you rob anyone else! Because he has money for the taking! And if he trusts you, so much the worse for him.’
‘I do not choose to treat him so.’
Nick scowled villainously, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I cannot make you see sense. But I will not stay here to rot, either. How long before we leave?’
‘A week, at least.’
‘A week? Why a week?’
‘I want to see all the island. And there is a big banquet that I am bidden to, to celebrate the victory.’
‘Banquet!’ said Garrett contemptuously. ‘By God, you will be the Lord Mayor, next! When is this banquet?’
‘In four days’ time.’
‘In four days’ time I shall be ripe for the madhouse …’ Garrett’s anger was mounting again. ‘I tell you, I cannot stay here, idle, when they have all that treasure ashore! And I cannot stay, when we have money to spend as we choose, away from this Godforsaken hole. We should either rob them, or leave them, or both.’
‘We will do neither,’ said Richard. ‘And we shall leave when I am ready.’
‘I’ll not wait for Doomsday,’ said Nick Garrett. His eyes shifted again, becoming brooding and suspicious. Then suddenly he slapped his thigh, with a crack sharp enough to wake an echo ashore. ‘By God,’ he exclaimed, ‘I have it! No wonder you are content to moon about, like some landsman living on a pension. It is the girl!’
ii
Of course it was the girl, and Richard Marriott knew it, and did not care a jot for it either. Already he was drugged by love, already rapturous hope ebbed and flowed like a crazy tide, driving out all thoughts save those which centred on Sunara. It was not the comfort of the palace which was keeping him in Makassang; it was Sunara’s ravishing beauty, which delighted him by day and tormented him in nightly dreams; it was her gentle form and voice, her softness after the hard life at sea; it was her breasts which he had not seen again, for which his eyes still searched even as he talked with her.
/> He did not know if she returned his tempestuous feelings, or any part of them; he could not even guess if she were aware of his urgency. Her small person, for all its sinuous loveliness, radiated a perfect detachment, a coolness which was royal as well as feminine. And they were never alone; there were always servants at hand, or her maids of honour, or a bodyguard, or her father, or Amin Sang (who Richard suspected was a suitor), or any one of the hundred souls who thronged the Sun Palace by day and by night. He could only take all chances of spending time with her; and when he achieved this, he could only summon forgotten graces to charm her, refurbishing the habits of a vanished drawing-room world which now seemed far short of what she deserved.
He had learned no more than that she could be jealous – or that she could feign it, perhaps to put him out of countenance. Once, on the day after the rebuking of Selang Aro, he had come upon her playing in the garden with Adam, his son, while old Manina kept brooding watch from beneath a scarlet-tipped poinsettia. Sunara had been ruffling the boy’s hair, when Richard appeared, though Adam seemed less than appreciative of an honour which his father would have given his soul for. He was staring, wide-eyed, at one of the palace peacocks, which was spreading its tail feathers like some barbaric banner, and paying no attention at all to the slim brown hand which gently stroked and smoothed the top of his head.
Sunara looked up, as Richard approached and made his bow. Her hand dropped quickly, but there was no confusion in her manner as she said: ‘He is very like you, Captain Marriott.’
‘Is he indeed?’ asked Richard, surprised. ‘Your Highness must have a more discerning eye than mine. I had thought rather that he favoured–’
He floundered, and his voice tailed off in confusion. This was the very last subject, and the very last person, whom he wished to bring into the conversation.
But the Princess took him up without hesitation; she might have planned to do so. As Adam wandered towards the fascination of the peacocks, and Manina followed to safeguard his progress, Sunara rose gracefully from the lawn on which she had been sitting, and took a scarf from one of her attendant maids of honour. Then she asked: ‘You consider that your son is more like his mother?’
‘Yes, your Highness.’
‘Only you can know the truth of that … I would not, for the world, intrude on your private grief, Captain, but – was your wife an English lady?’
‘I – I believe so, your Highness.’
‘You believe so?’ Sunara’s beautiful face was a study in puzzlement. ‘Surely you can remember?’
‘I mean, your Highness,’ began Richard, while under his breath he summoned, in cursing, all the devils in hell, ‘that she was born in the border country, between England and Scotland. She had forbears from both these parts.’
‘She was noble, like yourself?’
Richard managed a nervous smile. ‘I am not noble, your Highness.’
Sunara frowned. ‘My father tells me that your birth, in England, is of the highest … Your wife was noble, in this border country?’
Visions of Biddy Booker, undoubtedly bred without benefit of clergy in some noisome Dublin slum, rose to plague Richard’s composure. He drew out a silk kerchief, and dabbed it to his brow.
‘She was of suitable birth, your Highness.’
Sunara nodded to herself. ‘I am sure of it … Lucinda is a beautiful name … Was she very beautiful?’
‘Lucinda, your Highness?’ Richard was floundering again, more deeply. ‘I do not understand.’
‘The name of your ship is the same as the name of your wife, surely?’
‘No, your Highness,’ answered Richard woodenly.
‘Indeed.’ The Princess’s voice was suddenly cold. ‘I was sure that your ship was named after your wife.’
‘No, your Highness.’
‘But is not that a custom in England?’
‘Sometimes, your Highness. Not in this case.’
‘You mean–’ Sunara’s face showed such astonishment that it was all Richard could do, not to fall on his knees and beg her forgiveness, ‘–you mean that you christened your ship for someone else?’
‘For an old acquaintance, your Highness.’
‘An old acquaintance?’
‘A former acquaintance.’
‘Also from this border country?’
‘No. From the south.’
Her eyebrows went up, in heartbreaking disdain. ‘You seem to be a great traveller, Captain Marriott.’
‘A man is bound to know more than one woman,’ he said sulkily, at a loss how to retrieve the moment.
‘Yes, indeed.’ She signed to her maids of honour, and they came forward, ready to escort her within the palace. ‘Perhaps you should command a fleet,’ she said, and left him without a word of farewell.
He saw no more of her that day.
But there was never another occasion such as that one; and perhaps she had only been tormenting him, or placing him at a distance, for reasons of feminine strategy, for thereafter she had asked no more questions about women, but, relenting, became a companion after his own heart. They had spent much time together, though little of it at the palace; he was eager to see her country, and she seemed as eager to show it to him. Together they traversed every part of the island of Makassang that was within a day’s reach of the Sun Palace.
Often they rode together, on horses drawn from the vast palace stables; splendid horses, of mixed Arabian blood, which stepped proudly and galloped like the wind. They had a favourite ride of some two hours, which they took almost daily, to the village of Kutar on the southern coast, a fishing village which was a safe harbour against the rolling Java Sea, crowded with prahus of every shape and size, and canopied sampans with strangely painted fins on the stern, and ancient sailing junks of oiled teak, burnt to the colour of the brown earth by the fierce suns of a hundred years. The two of them would dismount, and look down on the busy harbour, and stare at the ocean – or rather, she would watch the sea and he would watch her, until she became aware of it, and decided that it was time to ride on, or to pick wild orchids, or to look for seashells.
Once they went down to Prahang, her father’s capital, and wandered on foot through the bazaars, teeming with Malays, and Chinese, and Negroes, and merchants of every description crying their wares – silks, mango fruits, betel nut, glutinous sweetmeats, little cakes of rice and oil, children’s toys of carved yellow-wood, jewellery for the necks of women – or of princesses. Twenty of the palace servants went ahead of them, commanding a way for her by name, pushing aside the throng with bamboo staves which fell indiscriminately on head and back and shoulder and rump. But their blows were always light, and taken with a smile or a mock display of pain; it was clear that Sunara was much loved, and would have come to no harm if she had walked the bazaars without a single companion.
She was surprised when Richard commented on this. ‘How else should it be?’ she asked, looking up at him. ‘This is my father’s own town. He is not a tyrant. He could walk here, as I walk here, without fear of anything except the press of a great crowd, or perhaps a beggar too importunate.’
‘But he has enemies, and they might be your enemies too, being his daughter.’
‘No enemy would dare strike at him here. These are his own people.’
‘He is fortunate to have such loyalty.’
Sunara nodded. She was examining some nankeen cloth, of a luminous yellow sheen, and stroking it with her gentle hand, while the old woman crouched behind the market stall smiled a toothless, almost confederate smile. ‘He has earned it because he has moved with the times, as even tyrants must … As a young man, when he first came to the throne, my father was greatly feared, perhaps because of the past – for his father had been greatly feared all his life. His father, in the early days, would have a slave strangled for spilling wine at table … But that was seventy and eighty years ago. It is different now, and the people know it. My father rules firmly, of course, and he can punish evil or treachery as cruelly
as my grandfather; but he is a loving and compassionate man, also.’
‘And that is why the people smile at you?’
‘In part, yes. Also, they smile at me for the reason that you smile at me.’
Richard laughed. ‘Now what is that, I wonder?’
‘If you do not know, it would be most unbecoming for me to enlighten you … They smile at you, too.’ And as Richard, preoccupied with another thought, said nothing, she went on: ‘Did you not know that you are a great hero in Makassang? And especially in these parts of it? They believe that you took the Mystic single-handed, and saved my father’s life.’ She waved her arm round about them, as if showing Richard his admirers – and it was true that those standing near them, or stretching on tiptoe to catch sight of them, were smiling and bowing, and that they looked at Richard with an unalloyed respect. ‘You see how they stare at you? You hear the excited note in the voices? If they were indifferent, it would be a murmur. If they thought ill of you, it would be silence – the most ominous silence in the world. But in fact, it is hero music!’
‘You make me self-conscious,’ said Richard. ‘I did nothing single-handed.’
‘It is enough that they think you did. Bazaar talk still holds sway here. For these people, you can do no wrong now. They admire strength, strength and bravery. So does my father. And in his old age, he can admire it without jealousy and without suspicion. He does not see you as an enemy. That is why he has made so much of you.’
‘And you?’
‘I?’ She was surprised – or appeared to be; it was perhaps the first time that he had approached, in words, such an area of intimacy, and she looked up again, and then swiftly down, as if she were not at all ready for this encroachment. ‘I do not understand your question.’
‘I mean, Princess,’ he said awkwardly, ‘that I have been very conscious of your kindness and – and friendship, during the last few days. You mentioned that your father admired strength–’ He seemed to have manoeuvred himself into a corner from which he could not escape without a direct and foolish question. ‘What I meant to ask was–’