Coromandel! (20 page)

Jason said, ‘If I can. But I’m not going to be given a robe of honour. I’m going to be killed.’ Then the leader shouted more angrily, and Simon fell back.

One of the bearers drew the curtains. Jason shouted, ‘I don’t want them drawn. It’s hot in here.’

The man in the pink coat said politely, ‘It is better to keep them drawn. Don d’Alvarez has spies everywhere.’

The curtains stayed drawn. Jason collected himself and began to think. How could he escape? What were they going to do to him? Why the palanquin? He was a rat in a revolving, jolting cage. But why hadn’t they killed him there at the pearlers’ cove? The dust seeped in through the curtains and made him cough. He became very thirsty, and then the noises of the city grew loud and passed by like waves in a dark sea, swelling up--sharp slap of a word against the curtain, echo from the wall--then all fading behind in the swirl of many voices.
Tap-rap-tap
--an old, blind man with a stick. Incense--women; he thought of Devadassi. The
yelp-yijf-yiff
of a dog hit by a stone. Cows; why in the name of God did they have cows in the palace? He felt seasick.

The motion stopped with a final jerk and sway, and the bearers lowered the palanquin to the ground. The man in the pink coat drew back the curtain and said, ‘Please to get out now.’ They were in a courtyard like the one beyond the high tower where Devadassi lived, but smaller. Jason said, ‘Where am I?’

‘This is the king’s palace.’

Then it was part of that same building where he had met the princess. He could not see the great tower, but that was not surprising in this enclosed little courtyard. He said, ‘I am hungry and thirsty. Can’t I eat before I see the king?’

The man in the pink coat said, ‘It is arranged. You will have a night’s rest, too. Your audience is not until tomorrow. Please follow me.’

He led into the building through an open stone archway. Almost at once the passage opened into another courtyard, still smaller than the first. Here the usual white bulls rested in the hot shade, and a group of naked-chested soldiers squatted at cards in a corner, their spears standing in a row behind them, and there were three women whispering beside a pillar. At his guide’s heels Jason crossed the open space, entered a door on the far side, and climbed two narrow flights of steps.

The man in the pink coat stopped beside a thick yellow curtain blocking a doorway on the left. He said, ‘This is the apartment where the king houses his most honoured guests.’ He swept back the curtain and called, ‘Sugriva!’

A small dark man hurried out of an inner room and stood, smiling uncertainly, in front of them. He brought a savoury smell of cooking with him, and Jason’s mouth began to water. The guide said, ‘This man is your cook, and he has other servants to command. Sugriva, this is your master. Obey him.’

Sugriva bent and touched the inside of Jason’s calf with his hand. The man in the pink coat moved about the two rooms, pointing out to Jason the richness of the hangings, the thick--ness of the cushions, the cool northern exposure, the fine view from the pillared verandah. Finally he turned and said, ‘And to show you the depth of the king’s interest in your embassy, I must tell you that your companion tonight will be the most accomplished
devadassi
in the kingdom.’ He raised his hands two or three times quickly towards his face and slipped out of the room.

Jason stood stock-still, trying to work out the full meaning of what he had heard. These people spoke so quickly. But surely he’d heard the words for ‘embassy’--which he knew because that was how Drayton had translated his purpose here--and ‘companion’ and ‘tonight’ and ‘Devadassi.’ Were they sending him on an embassy tonight to the princess? That didn’t make sense. Did they think he was an ambassador? That was possible, considering the extraordinary way they were treating him. But if so, whose ambassador was he supposed to be? And who was to be his companion, and what were they going to do together?

He might ask Sugriva. But what would a servant know? Besides he was hungry. He’d eat first. He called, ‘Sugriva, I’m hungry.’

The servant’s voice answered from the verandah, where smoke rose from a clay fireplace built on the open stones. ‘Food is ready, lord.’

When he had eaten he lay down on the mat on the floor and went to sleep.

He awoke to see Sugriva scattering rose petals about the room. All the verandah lay in blue shade, and someone had been sprinkling water on the stones, both inside and outside, to lay the dust and lessen the heat. He felt fresh and jumpy and as strong as a lion, and wished he knew what was going to happen next. But it was exciting, better than dancing, better than pearling. He said, ‘Sugriva, why are you scattering rose petals on the floor?’

Sugriva said shyly, ‘She is a very beautiful woman, lord. You are in great honour.’

Jason sat up. He said, ‘Who is? What do you mean?’

Sugriva said, ‘It will be Parvati, lord. There is only one best.’

Jason stood up. Parvati was a woman’s name. He said, ‘A woman called Parvati is coming here? What for?’

‘For your pleasure, lord. But the king is paying her. I must go to market--with your lordship’s permission.’ He went out.

The curtain swung to behind him, swaying for a moment like a woman’s skirt, until it hung still. Jason began to pace up and down the floor.

A whore, the king was sending him! She would be subtle and fierce, dark, debased, acrobatically lustful. He’d have something to tell Grant after this. But he was never going to see Grant again.

He’d better have nothing to do with her. She’d give him the Italian sickness, which so many people in London had. When she arrived he would thank her and send her away.

God’s blood, he hadn’t lain with a woman for six months now, and seeing so many naked breasts had made him wish he had a pair himself.

What would the princess think if she knew he had lain with a strumpet here in her own capital city?

But how could she ever know if he didn’t talk about it? The girl might talk. Damnation take the king and the man in the pink coat!

He hurried out on to the verandah, peered down into the street, listened to the sounds of the people, glanced at the sun. She might come at any moment. A smoky haze hung along the western horizon, and he could see no hills, only the silver curves of the river among fields and trees.

She would wriggle in, already half undressed, with jewels on her bosom and a ruby in her navel. She would wait for him to give some sign of passion. No, she would sway into him, reeking of woman’s scent, and fasten hot lips on him. He practised receiving such an assault. Oh, blood and death, it was going to be impossible to resist her if she came at him like that. She was faceless, beautiful, lascivious, diabolically skilled. She was hotter than the whispered yarns in the forecastle at night, when the sailors talked of bouts in Hispaniola and Barbary and among the blonde Swedes. He could feel her liquid lips, her clinging arms.

How could he ever think himself worthy of the princess if he could not control himself before a whore? He had broken the ties of home and family, he had turned aside from comfort and luxury, now he must conquer lust. There was no Coromandel for a stay-at-home, no princess for a lecher.

His eyes fell on the row of large pots on the verandah. Growing in the pots was a fat-leafed, spiky plant with big creamy flowers. He whipped out his knife, cut off several of the leaves, and stuffed them inside his shirt and down the back of his breeches. Aaah! They hurt, and he had to move carefully now and could not sit down. If the girl tried to embrace him he would scream with the pain. He put his finger in the water jug and found it cold. He lifted the jug and emptied the water over his head. Good, good! Now he was shivering, standing, drenched, in a puddle of water on the clean floor.

He imagined a lusty brown woman coming wheedling at him out of her clothes. Good, good! The prickles hurt so much he could think of nothing but how to stand still. And his teeth were chattering.

Behind him the curtain moved with a stiff whisper. He said ‘Sugriva?’ and turned expectantly. The Princess Devadassi stood just inside the curtain, calm, unsmiling, lovelier than an April cloud on the edge of the Plain. Jason fell on his knees and whispered, ‘Oh, Princess, thank God you’ve come, thank God!’

She joined her palms before her face in the universal gesture of greeting, and said, ‘I am your servant.’ Her flute hung from a silver cord about her waist.

Jason took her hand and kissed it, and this time she did not jerk it away as she had the first time, in the temple. She said, ‘The chamberlain told me you understood Tamil now. Is it true?’ She spoke very slowly and distinctly.

‘Yes, Princess. I have been living with the pearlers down the coast.’

‘Ah, that is where you have been. Why are you all wet?’

‘I--ah--I felt hot,’ Jason said.

She said, ‘You should change your clothes.’

He said, ‘I don’t have any others.’

She laughed and said, ‘No. Then lie back here. You’ll dry out soon. This is the time for music, and then your servant shall bring us wine and food. What shall I play for you?’ Dazed by her smile, Jason sat down limply on the cushions. He jumped up with a yell. She said, ‘What is the matter, lord?’

Jason said, ‘I will leave you for a short time now.’

She was standing close to him, peering at his chest. She said, ‘There are yucca needles sticking through your shirt. Are you some kind of yogi? Do you like to have them there?’

Jason mumbled, ‘Yes. I always wear them. But not now. They were in the pots. I will leave you.’

She said, ‘You have some in those things too.’ She pointed at his breeches. Jason nodded unhappily. She said, ‘Take everything off, and I will get the prickles out.’

Jason said, ‘No! I can do it myself. It’s quite easy.’ He backed off towards the inner room, holding his arms out at full length.

She walked after him with a puzzled smile. ‘How can you get them out yourself? I sat on a prickly flower once, and another girl had to get them all out of me. Let me see.’

God’s blood! These places had no doors, and the more he kept pushing his hands at her, palms out, the closer she came.

Cursing monotonously, and crimson to the ears, he hauled off his clothes. She was a princess! This was a different continent, that was all. Things you thought mad weren’t necessarily so. Custom of the country. Beautiful princess--strange custom. Suppose the strumpet arrived in the middle of this?

She walked round him, pulling the little needles out of his belly and buttocks. Then she pulled them from the shirt and breeches. Then she said, ‘There! I don’t think there are any more.’

Jason hauled up his breeches as fast as he could, fastened them, with his back turned to her, and put on his shirt. He thought of what had just happened to him and smiled. The smile widened, his belly contracted, and he began to laugh. He tried to stop it--surely he should not laugh in the face of the princess he loved, who had only been trying to help him after the custom of her country?--but he couldn’t help himself. He would never be able to tell anyone, so he had to do all the laughing for them, the people he couldn’t tell, as well as for himself. He laughed so hard that it hurt, while the princess squatted on the floor beside the piled cushions, the flute in her hand, and looked at him curiously.

At last she said, ‘What is the matter? Why do you laugh?’

He sat down carefully; but she had done her work well, and he could sit in comfort. He said, ‘It was funny. I’m sorry.’ It was difficult to tell her he had been laughing at himself, not at her.

She shrugged and said, ‘Shall I play?’ She blew a little trill. ‘Or shall I sing? Or shall I read to you?’

‘Can you read?’ Jason said, his interest quickening.

She said, pouting, ‘Of course I can. Oh, I suppose you would not know. We are the only women allowed to learn to read, and there are forty of us, and
I
am the best.’

‘Only the king’s daughters allowed to read?
Forty?
’ Jason gasped.

She said, ‘I don’t know what you mean, king’s daughters. We are devadassis, wives of Shiva, and
I
, Parvati, I am the best--at music, with men, at dancing, at everything. That is why the king sent me to you. But I am glad, too. I liked you from the time I first saw you. We don’t like everyone we have to lie with, you know.’

Jason said, ‘What is a devadassi? What do you do? You are married?’ His mouth felt dry, and his eyes were beginning to tingle. It felt very like the beginning of the laughter just now, but he did not think there was going to be laughter this time.

She ticked off on her fingers. ‘We dance before the god in the shrine, morning and evening. We sing in the temple. We take men for what they will pay, and give half to the priests for the god. We walk with the king and other important people when they are calling on each other. We are wives of the god. Our god is Shiva.’

‘H-how did you become a--devadassi?’ Jason faltered. ‘D-did you want to?’

‘Oh, no. Our parents give us to the god when we are babies. I have never seen my mother or father. At the proper age the god marries us.
We
will never become widows!’ She tossed her head proudly.

The light dimmed in Jason’s eyes, and the sounds of people talking in the street below hushed to a murmur. He leaned towards her, his hands out, not knowing what he was going to do. He had humiliated himself for her, both now and in his dreams. She was a whore! It was like Emily in London, only an irretrievable step farther. He had fallen in love with this girl before he knew what she was.

She said with a touch of irritation, ‘You’re just like the other men, after all. You don’t want to hear me read.’ She crouched on the cushions, and suddenly her arms wound out and coiled about his neck, and her skirt slipped loose, and her eyes glowed large an inch from his.

Jason sprang up and away from her in a single jump to the middle of the floor. He gasped. ‘Don’t touch me!’

She lay back on one elbow and said, ‘I won’t, unless you want me to. The chamberlain has told me who you are and why the king wants to see you. I think I know who robbed you that time I found you outside the temple.’