Temple of a Thousand Faces (14 page)

Voices drifted to him. Khmer voices. Po Rame raised his spear and stepped to his right, away from the Khmers. He walked along the wall, pretending to investigate, creating a bigger gap in the city’s defenses. His back was to the Khmers, and he felt a moment of acute vulnerability. But he didn’t turn. The Khmers would be climbing the wall by now, and he had to give them more time to escape.

Po Rame counted to fifty, then turned around, gazing into the darkness. Amid the croaks of countless frogs he heard faint splashes. But he didn’t look toward the moat. Instead he gazed at the prison building, pretended to notice something, and climbed down the wall.

As silent as an animal that spends its life being hunted, Po Rame made his way to the building. The bodies of six Chams mingled with those of several Khmers. Po Rame listened for approaching footsteps, heard none, and inspected the dead. No witnesses could be left alive, as an injured man could still raise an alarm. Beneath the prison’s entrance, Po Rame rolled a Cham over and was surprised to see the man’s eyes flutter.

“Call…call for help,” the guard said, his voice barely audible.

Po Rame inspected his wound, which was a jagged thing, a cut above his collarbone. “You were to guard them,” Po Rame replied. “You failed in your duty.”

“There is…still time.”

“Tell the Gods I wish them well.”

“The Gods?”

A blade appeared almost magically in Po Rame’s hand. He slit the man’s throat in one motion, then watched as the guard tried to breathe. The man clutched at Po Rame’s arms, and he enjoyed feeling the other’s desperate strength, which flowed like a swollen river at first but quickly began to weaken, soon becoming a mere trickle of life. Po Rame grabbed the man’s head and lifted it upward,
forcing their eyes to meet. As cicadas called out in the canopy above, Po Rame studied how death overcame the other. Terror never seemed to consume the guard, as it did so many. He was simply there one moment and gone the next.

Po Rame regretted killing him so swiftly, but he’d had no choice. He set the man’s head on the ground, checked the other dead, and then moved away from the building, blending into the night. By the time the escape was discovered, the Khmers would be far from Angkor, on their way to discovering Jayavar’s whereabouts. If Po Rame could uncover the prince’s location, he was certain that Indravarman would continue to reward him. Not that Po Rame coveted wealth or women or power in a traditional sense. What he coveted was the opportunity to do what he had just done, to steal a life, and to sense that life as it passed through him, leaving a part of its essence within him, giving him power and knowledge.

Po Rame had been weak until he killed his first man. As a young slave, he had feared the strong, feared the Gods. But when he found the courage to fight back against those who assailed him, to kill his master in the dead of night, strength seemed to flow into him, strength stolen, he believed, from his former tormentor. Ever since that day Po Rame had been addicted to killing. Taking life made him feel invincible, made him a man to be feared and respected. And that was why, more than anything else, Po Rame wanted to kill Jayavar. To kill the Khmer prince, whom some might now consider a king, would be better than the conquest of a civilization.

Indravarman wanted to rule far and wide. But Po Rame had no such ambitions. He longed only to feel Jayavar’s blood on his hands, a man he’d never met, but who might have led a kingdom. To kill Jayavar would be to fill himself with a power and a peace that he had never known.

Po Rame had always believed in the Hindu Gods, in their battles and their deeds. They had fought, struggled, and now were worshipped. He hoped that one day he’d be seen in such a light—because as much as they were loved, the Gods were also feared. If enough people feared Po Rame, if they knew of his reputation and cowered as he passed by, then he would live forever.

hmers were accustomed to the swiftness with which the weather changed from wet to dry. After months of daily rains and overcast skies, winds seemed to blow out the moisture, to reveal the land so that the sun could once again beat down. The sandstone temples warmed in the light. Mud turned to dust. Rivers shrank. Mosquitoes dwindled in number.

Though in some ways the heat was a welcome relief, the only means Khmers had to stay cool was to bathe often. Slaves and servants, high priests and warriors took dips in the moat or in one of the many bathing pools within the city. On particularly hot days, Khmers sought out the waters every few hours, lounging in the shallows, swimming where possible. The shorelines were filled with Chinese traders who took fewer baths and were much more modest about nudity. While Khmers swam naked and sometimes found pleasure in one another’s bodies within the waters, the Chinese sat in the shade and stared. The foreigners, who were present in large numbers, wore silk tunics and maintained many
of their own customs. They cremated their dead, used lavatory paper, and slept in beds. Because Chinese goods were in high demand, the foreigners were generally well respected. Many of the most successful traders took up residence with Khmer women, who advised them on local customs.

Voisanne was used to the Chinese staring at her naked body when she bathed and she thought nothing of it as she made her way down the steps leading into the moat. Thida was beside her. The two women had spent more time together in recent days. They had continued to live in the Royal Palace alongside five thousand other concubines who were on constant call for Indravarman’s demands. Though most of the other women never saw the Cham king, he often sought out Thida’s company, which put him in close proximity to Voisanne.

The moat was filled with many of the royal concubines, and Voisanne nodded to several as she waded into deeper water. She didn’t like to be near their Cham guard. He pretended not to speak Khmer, but Voisanne suspected differently. She had watched his face while she and Thida chatted, and once her suspicions were aroused, she told Thida within his earshot that she thought he was handsome. He had been kinder to her from that moment forward, and later, in secret, she’d advised Thida to watch her tongue.

Voisanne waded to a clump of floating lotus flowers. The sacred flowers with pink petals and yellow stamens sprouted upward from wide green leaves that rested on the water’s surface. Voisanne remembered her father telling her how the spreading leaves of lotus flowers symbolized the expansion of the soul. He’d also explained how the lotus flower is untouched by water, as a pure being is untouched by sin.

“I was his lotus,” she said softly, continuing to study the flowers.

Thida moved beside her, only her shoulders and head above water. “Whose?”

“My father’s. He said that I was his little lotus. That I always bloomed.”

“You do.”

Voisanne reached for Thida’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “Maybe when I was a girl. But as a woman…I don’t feel as if I’m in bloom. Not now at least.”

Cries erupted from the distant shore. A group of Khmers had gathered close together, cheering as they watched a cockfight. Bets would have been wagered and boasts exchanged. Though Voisanne had never liked such spectacles, she was glad that her countrymen were enjoying themselves, even if just for a moment.

“Do you fear your Cham?” Thida asked.

Voisanne thought about Asal. He had never made any move to harm her, nor did she think that he ever would. “He’s cruel,” she lied, unsure whether she could trust Thida.

“How?”

“He takes…what he wants.”

“And you don’t fight him?”

“I tried once. But it made things worse.”

On the opposite side of the moat, two Cham warriors atop a large war elephant maneuvered their beast toward the group of Khmers, breaking them up. The roosters continued to fight until their owners scooped them up and stuffed them into bamboo baskets. The Chams yelled something at the Khmers, then turned the elephant so that it began to lumber across the immense causeway that spanned the moat toward Angkor Wat. Khmer priests and pilgrims scurried away.

“Is nothing sacred to them?” Voisanne asked. “They kill. They enslave. They pollute our very existence.”

Thida made no reply. She bit her bottom lip as if trying not to cry.

Voisanne turned to focus on her new friend. “Is Indravarman hurting you?”

“He…uses me, but no, he’s never hit me.”

“And yet?”

“And yet he frightens me. His temper is so great.”

“How do you know that? What has he done?”

Thida shook her head, then splashed some water on her face. “When people fail him, they suffer terribly. If I failed him, I’d share their fate.”

Voisanne wondered how she would endure if she belonged to Indravarman. “Can you avoid him? There are so many concubines. Why not try to hide among them?”

“His men find me.”

“Try harder.”

“But then I risk failing him. And that would mean a beating.”

“I’d rather have a beating…than a certain encounter with him. And maybe if he beats you he’ll find you undesirable.”

A tear dropped from Thida’s right eye. “No. I have to please him. I’m afraid of not pleasing him.”

Voisanne tried to put herself into Thida’s position, to imagine her terror. “The Buddhists believe that suffering is a part of life,” she said. “I don’t agree with them, because I don’t want to suffer. But maybe…if you accept your suffering, accept it for now, you’ll be able to escape it.”

“What do you mean?”

“If that snake trusts you, he’ll let down his guard. And when that happens, you can escape.”

“Me?”

“We…we can escape together.”

Thida shook her head. “But where would we go? What would we do?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about escape until just now. Until just now, I’ve wanted to die.”

“What changed?”

Voisanne looked again at the lotus flowers, envisioning her father as he compared them to the expansion of the soul, and to her. “Because my father wouldn’t want me dead. Because I want to bloom again…for him. For everyone I loved.”

“And you’re not afraid?”

“I have nothing to lose, so how can I be afraid?”

A
long walk to the northwest of Angkor Wat, Phimeanakas Temple still shone like the sun, though it was more than a hundred years old. The three-leveled temple had steep stairs leading up each side. The stairs were flanked by statues of lions, while the corner of each level held a massive stone elephant. On the upper level, the central tower, which was square at the bottom and tapered at the top, was covered in gold. The sparkling gold seemed to give life to Phimeanakas, which was visible from great distances.

The grounds near Phimeanakas had been cleared of the giant trees that would otherwise have obscured the temple. A sandstone courtyard was warm against Indravarman’s feet as he studied his opponent, Asal. Both men held shields and wooden practice swords. Indravarman liked to spar with his officers, and Asal gave him a better fight than any other man. More than a hundred other Cham warriors and officers were gathered around the combatants, heads bowed but eyes staring up. Beyond this group, war elephants and horses were held in check by slaves. Several Cham philosophers with whom Indravarman liked to debate stood at the periphery of the group.

The fight would begin only when the king was ready, and for now he was content to study the temple. He wondered how the Khmers had mined such a vast amount of gold and if he should have it removed, melted down, and brought to his homeland. The gold on Phimeanakas alone represented an almost infinite wealth—money that could have been spent expanding the Khmer army and bringing ruin to the kingdom’s enemies. Instead the Khmers had decorated a temple.

Indravarman wasn’t sure what to think of the golden tower. As a Hindu, he was pleased that the Gods were so honored, but he also believed that the Khmers had been weakened by their wealth. A people once bent on conquest had grown soft with their own success, creating mountains and heavens as if they had become the very Gods they wished to commemorate.

From the corner of his eye, Indravarman also studied Asal, who seemed as still as the golden tower. Many warriors would have spent time adjusting their armor or wiping their sweating brows. But Asal did nothing of the sort. He simply stood, facing Indravarman, his sword extended and his shield held high.