Starbook (7 page)

The king loved to watch over sleeping beings. Often he wandered the kingdom at night, watching over his sleeping subjects. He went to the quarters of his guardsmen and watched them sleep in their turn. He loved watching sleeping mothers and their children. He derived much strength from being the protector of those who slept, so defenceless, in his realm. The good and the bad all slept in the same way, under the mercy of immense forces, under the mercy of the ultimate mysteries. Sleeping women in their huts. Sleeping farmers. Sleeping wizards and witches, sleeping magicians, sleeping musicians, sleeping thieves, sleeping traitors, spies, servants, palm-wine tappers, sleeping hunters and fishermen, sleeping children, sleeping babies breathing deeply half the vital air in the world, sleeping men on the verge of death breathing out wisps of the last miracles of life, sleeping women on the edge of death breathing in dreams of their children's futures full of tragedies and gains, sleeping herbalists, sleeping dogs in the village square, sleeping horses that snort suddenly and rear, sleeping lions that can be watched from afar, sleeping flies and sleeping insects, forests sleeping in the dark and breathing out pure energies that balance the earth, sleeping flowers tender and soft, sleeping clouds that wander aloft. The king loved them all. But he loved none more than his sleeping son, who was dying beneath his helpless gaze.

At dawn the king sent abroad for the greatest herbalists that the world had spawned. They arrived in great numbers, with great personalities, with contradictory notions; and they treated the prince with many potions, subjected him to diverse incantations, baths, massages, midnight exposures to special spirits evoked in the sacred forest, but nothing they did helped him get better.

The herbalists changed his diet, altered his sleeping position, drew out sinister objects that had been mysteriously projected into his body – nails, the black tooth of an ageing dog, the claw of a vulture; they twisted the poor prince into contortions, they bent and knotted him, to force out the evil spirits lodged in him; and they prescribed a course of spirit-flogging, which was roundly rejected by the king.

The herbalists made the prince walk backwards in precisely delineated circles, to perplex the evil occupants in him; and they bared him to the harsh rays of the noonday sun and the dim rays of the invisible nocturnal planets, to puzzle and punish his elusive occupants. The herbalists even found their way into his dreams and attempted to do battle with the shadow forms that lurked in the prince's mind; but all they succeeded in doing was making his nightmares worse, and exacerbating his illness, till it became so bad that the prince couldn't even speak.

Some muttered in the court that the prince was being murdered by superstition.

The prince hovered between life and death for many moons. The people of the kingdom heard that their beloved prince was dying and they came in their multitudes to the palace. The women swarmed there in their hundreds. They brought their children with them. They left their farms, their marketplaces, their homes, and they came and sat in silence outside the palace, and kept vigil. They brought lamps which they kept alight all night, and all day, as if the light of the lamps somehow sustained the life of their much-loved prince.

The women brought a splendid variety of food and they made aromatic dishes of great delicacy and had them sent to the palace for the delectation of the prince. And all night, in sundry tongues, in sweet passionate murmurs, they prayed to the gods for the life of the prince. It was reported that the days of their prayers scented the kingdom lightly with the fragrance of roses, and that never did a gentler breeze blow in the land, nor was there such a subdued air over the rivers and forests and mountains of the kingdom.

Men came too, from great distances; they came to pay homage and to show their support for the king in the dark hours of the prince's illness. Famous warriors had set aside their weapons for a brief season, calling a short truce in their wars so as to join in vigil outside the palace. Their rough and brooding mood was made tender by the subdued air of the women murmuring in prayer and entreaty. Nimble dancers, celebrated wrestlers, notorious robbers, legendary criminals, priests of obscure religions, diviners of the forests, shepherds, farmers, hunters, acrobats, magicians, and wandering bards who were called griots, all travelled great and small distances to the palace. They all delegated their important engagements and those that could brought their work with them. The hunters brought gifts of fabulous game they had caught in the abundant forests. The priests led prayers and offered sacrifices for the purification of the land. The dancers performed their mighty dances which were reputed to have powers of healing, powers of regeneration, powers of realigning the broken axis of the world. The wondrous drummers beat out astonishing rhythms on their talking drums, their healing drums, their wailing drums, and their drums of reinvigoration, rhythms that shook the land and retuned the nerves and altered the heartbeat of the kingdom, rhythms that communicated to the spirits and summoned the ancestors in the farthest reaches of the invisible realms of dreams and higher deeds where they reside and where they watch their descendants through a veil thinner than the morning mist and yet farther than remote stars. The celebrated wrestlers staged wrestling contests on the fields outside the village gates; and the children and assembled lamenters watched the ritual contest between the hero of the kingdom's soul and the dreaded illness that threatened to snatch it away

In silence the assembled ones watched the epic contest between the champion of the prince's life and the champion of death. They were formidable adversaries, and the battle swayed back and forth, sometimes the champion of death appearing to have the upper hand, almost strangling and breaking the back of the champion of the prince's life. And suddenly the audience would cry out, and wail, and shout encouragements, and the champion of the prince's life would recover, and the audience would sigh loudly in relief. This wrestling match went on, day after day, with no clear winner in sight. It followed the course of the prince's illness, ebbing and flowing, rising and falling with what dribbled out about the condition of the prince. On days when he was in a coma the champion of death strode the field alone, boastful and arrogant, cocksure and proud, defiant and challenging all comers, and daring the beaten horizontal form of the champion of the prince's life to rise up and continue the fight. And the audience booed and hissed and threw ritual objects at the vile figure of the champion of death as he bestrode the stage with his terrifying mien, his huge ugly mask. When the news came through that the prince had stirred from his coma, the champion of the prince's life, with minute movements, in ritual slowness, as if transformed and energised by sleep, rose dramatically from the earth. With courage and unsuspected cunning he resumed a new and ferocious battle with the champion of death, to the rousing and cheering of the reinvig-orated audience, whose spirits were swept aloft by the electrifying rhythms of the fortifying drums.

During a lull in the wrestling match the acrobats came on and performed extraordinary feats of juggling, tumbling, balancing, and walking on ropes in the air. They delighted the crowds with their agility and their dignity. The somersaulters amazed with wonderful turns and twists of their bodies, and they performed their feats with a sad and sober air, a ritual air, for it was all meant to empower the spirit of the prince as he fought for life in his dreams. And after the acrobats came the wandering griots.

One after another, in the sombre darkness that fell over the village, these mysterious story-tellers held the crowds and took their minds on fabulous journeys through forests and through the ages, in songs and with powerful dances, with incantations and bewildering impersonations. The audiences gasped as the griots, in their renderings, turned into golden tigers before their eyes, or changed into monsters, or spoke with seven voices echoing out of deep resonating chests. Suddenly the griots changed into giant birds and flew among the women, spreading silent panic, frozen horror, while still narrating their electrifying epics. The griots held the crowds in states of terrifying enchantment as they unfolded and embodied tales of miracles and battles with demons and tales of journeys that tribal heroes made to bring back the secret of immortality.

The notorious robbers and the legendary criminals that came to the great vigil prowled among the audiences with their acolytes and for once used their skills to make sure no crimes were committed and no thefts took place as they all kept vigil for the prince. It seemed the mere presence of these famed figures of crime was enough to deter wrongdoing, much more so than the presence of innumerable soldiers or legally empowered protectors of the realm. No one noticed this, of course, except the people; and no one really asks the opinion of the people, for if they did they might learn that there was a special role for criminals in the land, a role to do with the prevention of crime, as like knows like. And the reputation of the criminals did much to give the vigil a unique air of safety and authenticity, such as the king and the guards alone could not have commanded.

The magicians charmed the children, and delighted the women, as they made objects disappear, swallowed swords to the hilt, made birds fly out of perfect white eggs and caused water to spout out of dry stones held in their hands. The magicians too, in making dead birds suddenly spring to life, in turning wood into cats that leapt into dark freedom, in chanting swords to transform into long stalks with luminous roses, also performed ritual enrichments which charged the air of the palace with a special strength of healing.

The priests led the vast motley gathering in strange prayers and stranger rites; and the magnetic force of the crowd kept on working its attraction throughout the kingdom. Spirits appeared at night among the yellow lanterns and conversed in odd languages with women and men, who understood perfectly well what they said. Spirits spoke to the children and told them stories so vivid that they never forgot them all their lives, stories they would pass on to their children, and which are still being whispered to this day under moonlit skies, in sundry villages, where one credulous child still listens with wide open eyes to tales that the spirits told their ancestors long ago during the vigil for a famous prince. And spirits wandered through the palace, listening to rumours, conspiracies, gossip, plots, lies, confessions and secrets; listening and saying nothing, knowing what was to come; listening, and passing through, like spies for the future.

All manner of men, women, children, spirits, ancestors, beasts and insects converged, from many lands and realms, and camped outside the palace. They had all been drawn there, moved by the gentle spirit of the prince, which they had heard about in the murmured rumours of the world. They had converged, and kept on converging; they chanted, sang, prayed, and dwelt in long silences, holding up their lanterns for the prince, encouraging him to get better, so that the land could be whole again.

The elders were astonished and frightened by the effect that the prince's illness had on the people. They were the guardians of tradition and of history; and in all their years, with all their combined memories, they had never witnessed or known or heard of a more extraordinary display of affection for a prince. The king, of course, can command such adoration, if he is a good and wise king; but a prince is another matter. Besides, they were puzzled at how the prince had managed to become so famous.

The elders thought that they were the controllers and manipulators of fame and reputation. They thought they were the guardians at the gates through which a person's name and deeds are trumpeted to the world. They had not done any such trumpeting for the prince because they were looking forward to reducing his powers when he became king. He seemed such a weak and fragile figure, a perfect candidate, in fact, for royal demotion, for control, for intimidation by tradition. Then the elders intended to make themselves more powerful. Then, eventually, they might get rid of the future king altogether, and the land would forevermore be ruled by them, the council of elders.

All these, of course, were vague whispered notions, dreams, hopes, concealed and hinted at so indirectly, in such convoluted proverbs, that only the most subtle of elders could detect this intangible current of thinking. Visibly, the elders were the very models of loyalty, and the loudest and most passionate defenders of the existing order. It would constitute treason to think otherwise, even for a moment. It was in such an atmosphere that the elders found themselves amazed and trapped by the great love the people bore the prince, people who had never known him, never seen him, and perhaps never would. There is a kind of expressed love which is easy to subvert. When a figure is loved for their deeds, their conquests, their heroism, their goodness, their love of the people, these are easy enough to destroy. Rumours, whispers, lies, distortions, facts revealed, can undo such reputations, such bonds. But there is a kind of love which is felt for apparently no reason, purely because of affinity and kinship, purely because a people can't do otherwise; a love inspired, it seems, by the gods, which it is impossible to fight, distort, destroy or weaken. In fact, the attempts to destroy such loves only strengthen them. And to do nothing allows them to continue to grow at their natural pace, inexorably, till this love becomes a wide and silent adoration.

The elders found themselves confounded by such a magical love. And it left them helpless and rendered them powerless. They were marginalised by it. Suddenly they found they had nothing to do. They felt acutely how primarily useless they were. They found themselves spectators in a grand love story between the people and their prince. They realised how unknown, and how unloved, they were. And, strangely, they resented it. This resentment was new to them. It was a sign that their ancient institution, their place in the scheme of things, was insecure. They felt a new age dawning, and they were not in that new age. The prince's illness was in fact killing them off. They were dying with the prince, with the great tide of love the people felt for him. It did not take the elders long to realise that something had to be done.