Temple of a Thousand Faces (47 page)

A rock held in her right hand, Voisanne stood in front of Chaya, shielding her. The men laughed as she pivoted, looking for some sort of escape. She thought of how she had been taken on her wedding day and that memory provoked an overriding sense of panic. Grunting, she threw the rock with all her might. One Cham ducked, and it struck another in the thigh. But then the men dropped their spears and closed in on her. Chaya shrieked. Voisanne beat their hands away. When their fingers seized hers she clawed, scratched, kicked, and bit. She was knocked into the stream, and for an instant water filled her lungs before she was dragged upward. Someone struck her in the belly. She couldn’t breathe. Her sister was being held by two men, one who
gripped her feet and another who had seized her arms. Voisanne gasped, trying to get up. But the men clutched her tightly, their fingernails digging into her skin. A rope was produced, her hands bound. When her breath finally returned, she screamed for help, but one Cham, older than the others, slapped her hard. She screamed again, and his second slap was even more vicious.

Silence fell. Chaya was also tied up. Both women were then thrown into the water. Voisanne crawled over the smooth rocks to her sister, putting her bound hands over Chaya’s shoulders. They wept together, shuddering in the shallows as the Chams treated their wounded comrade and plundered the dead Khmer. The Chams started to laugh, gesturing toward Chaya, their crude movements making her cry. One warrior dropped the dead Khmer, then stepped toward Chaya, reaching out to squeeze her earlobe and lift her up.

“Leave her be!” Voisanne screamed. “Leave her—”

The older Cham shouted, and the younger warrior grimaced, then pushed Chaya backward, on top of Voisanne. The men laughed as Chaya began to sob, calling out to a father who wasn’t there.

Voisanne had lived through the death of her loved ones. She had endured. But as she held her weeping sister she knew that she lacked the strength to survive a second capture and imprisonment. Death would be a far better alternative, for both of them. To die together, to be reborn together, held much more promise than a life of suffering, a life without Asal.

The killing end of a broken spear glittered in the water. Voisanne stared at it, and Chaya must have seen and interpreted that stare, for she nodded.

Still trembling, Voisanne lifted her bound hands back above her sister’s shoulders and face. She reached underwater for the spear. When her hands touched the thick shaft, she dragged the
weapon closer, shaking her head while she moved, denying what the moment meant, the action needed to do what must be done. She glanced at her sister and saw the beauty within her. Suddenly she couldn’t imagine slashing the steel across Chaya’s throat.

“No,” Voisanne whispered. But instead of dropping the weapon, she began to rub the spear point against her bonds. She did so underwater, wincing as she accidentally cut the side of her right wrist. A trail of blood uncurled within the clear water. Still she worked, sawing back and forth, desperate for freedom.

The rope parted. Though her hands were no longer bound, she kept them together, turning toward Chaya, pretending to console her while she dragged the arm-length broken spear underwater.

As the Chams continued to deal with the injured shoulder of their companion, Voisanne cut at Chaya’s bonds. She didn’t know what she would do if and when Chaya was freed, but it felt good to be doing something. Hope surged within her.

But then she moved too quickly, and the steel sliced into Chaya’s thumb. Her sister cried out.

One of the Chams stood up on the far bank. His brow furrowed. He stepped toward them, into the clear water.

A
sal knelt closer to the ground, trying to determine where the footprints had gone. He had been following them along the hardened trail, but they seemed to have abruptly disappeared. Usually he could discover a twice-torn leaf or a snapped twig that indicated the direction that had been taken, but no such markers existed. He cursed, hitting the ground with the palm of his uninjured hand. Without question he was close to Voisanne and Chaya, but so, he believed, were their pursuers.

Now that he was forced to move with patience, his aches and weariness were more pronounced. His three battered fingers throbbed. His body was sore and unresponsive. Only his eye seemed to have improved, the swelling no longer much of a problem. Yet because of his weariness, focusing on the trail was difficult, and he wondered if he was missing an obvious sign.

His horse neighed softly, as if letting him know that it was also exhausted. Asal stood up, patted its neck, and then looked back in the direction he had come, thinking that he should backtrack.

The scream startled him.

He gazed about the jungle. Again the cry came, and he recognized Voisanne’s voice. Without thought, he leapt onto his mount, and while turning it to the right, unsheathed his sword. When his horse balked at moving into some thick underbrush, he brought the hilt of his weapon down hard on its flank, prompting it to charge ahead. Branches tore at his shoulders and thighs, but he demanded more speed.

The slope of a hill fell away from the trail, and they plunged downward. A stream shimmered below. At first Asal saw only water and boulders, but then he noticed struggling figures a few hundred paces upstream. Distracted as he was, a limb almost knocked him from his mount. He recovered, kicked his horse with all his strength and held on to its mane as they dropped like a tumbling stone.

It would have been wiser for Asal to attack with surprise, but he saw that Voisanne was fighting with a man in the water and shouted her name. The Chams nearest to him turned in his direction. They stepped back, reaching for their spears even as he sent his horse careening into them. Two enemy warriors went down beneath its hooves, but then his mount stumbled and Asal was thrown over its head. He landed in the water, somehow managing
to hold on to his sword, instinctively knowing that if he dropped it he would die.

Though the breath had been hammered from his lungs by the force of the fall, he stood up. Three Chams remained uninjured, and they all had found their spears and shields. They encircled him like predators surrounding a wounded but dangerous prey. The spears were longer than Asal’s sword, and as the Chams began to thrust their weapons at him, he could only beat their attacks aside. Yet Asal had seen blood flowing from a wound on Voisanne’s hand, and the sight had filled him with rage, empowering him and his blade.

“Leave and you live,” he said in his native tongue. “Stay and you die.”

His countrymen pressed closer, stabbing and retreating, moving around him so that he was forced to defend himself from all directions. One of the men slipped on a rock, and Asal leapt toward him, his sword humming in the air, cutting through the warrior’s spear and slicing deeply into his side. The man fell, screaming. The two other Chams rushed forward as Asal pulled his blade free. One spear tip missed his neck by a handsbreadth. The other grazed the side of his hip. Asal shouted in fury, knocking down the spear shaft with his left forearm and slashing sideways with his sword. Again his blade struck home and a Cham cried out, blood spurting from a wound in his thigh.

The warrior who had barely missed skewering him in the neck had pulled back his spear and thrust it forward again. Asal twisted so that the weapon slid past him, as did the man. But suddenly Asal’s right foot became lodged between several rocks. He tried to jerk it free, yet it was held fast. The warrior regained his balance and slammed the butt of his spear into Asal’s belly. As Asal doubled over, the Cham dropped his spear and in one fluid motion pulled a hunting knife from a leather sheath and swept it
toward Asal’s face. Asal leaned away from the strike and the blade missed him, but his foot was still trapped and he fell backward. Sensing victory, the Cham stepped forward, his weapon held high.

When the warrior abruptly shuddered, Asal kicked at him, unsure what had happened. The man fell, clutching at his back. He toppled into the water, a broken spear shaft protruding between his shoulder blades. Voisanne stood behind him, her feet spread wide. The wound she’d given him was painful but not fatal, and Asal kicked his foot free and hacked down with his sword, killing the warrior. The remaining Chams, all wounded, pleaded for mercy, but he cut them down without hesitation, only dropping his blade when the stream had reddened with their blood.

Voisanne stood shaking in the center of the water. Chaya was holding her sister’s elbow and sobbing. After running to them, Asal gathered them both in his arms. He held them tight, promising that they were safe, that no one would ever hurt them again. When he saw that their wounds were superficial, a profound relief flooded through him. His legs trembled. His breaths came in quick gasps. He kissed the tops of their heads, thanking the Gods for granting him speed and strength. And he thanked Thida.

Asal held them until the water finally ran clear once again. “We should go,” he whispered, then kissed Voisanne’s hand. “Come, my lady. Let us go.”

“But your fingers. What happened to your fingers? And your face?”

A bird squawked from far above, and he glanced up. “Indravarman…captured me.”

“And you escaped?”

“I was freed. Thida freed me.”

“Where is she?”

Asal told Voisanne the full story, recalling their final words and the fire he had built around her body. “She died…with a smile,” he said. “She wanted to be reunited with her loved ones, and I think she saw them coming for her.”

Weeping, Voisanne bent her head down and leaned against him. “Do you believe that she is with them?”

“Yes. Because I was there. I saw how she smiled.”

Chaya, who had so far remained silent, eased away from them. “What were they going to do with us? Why were they—”

“It’s all right,” Voisanne replied, reaching out to her.

“But those men…They wanted to hurt us. They were going to hurt us and I don’t—”

“They can no longer hurt you,” Asal said. “So you needn’t worry about them.”

She shook her head. “We have to leave here. Right now. I can’t stay here. Not in this place.”

Asal picked up his sword. “We shall leave in a moment. But first, if it’s agreeable to you, I’d like a word with your sister.” Chaya’s eyes squeezed shut and she seemed to gather herself. She nodded. Asal thanked her and led Voisanne to the muddied shore.

“What?” Voisanne whispered, wiping tears from her eyes.

At first he didn’t speak but simply smiled at her. Though his fingers still ached and his hip bled from where the spear point had grazed him, he was filled with joy. “When Indravarman had me,” he said, his voice softer than the gurgle of the stream, “all I thought of was you. In the end, when the pain was the worst, I saw you, I heard you, and I felt you.”

“I’m so sorry. I wanted to go back for you. I almost—”

“Shh,” he said, touching his good forefinger against her lips. “There’s no need for that, my lady. No need at all. I asked you to go ahead. You did what we all knew must be done. And a part of you was with me. A part of you lingered.”

“I won’t leave you again. Not in this life or the next.”

His smile returned. “I never thought I’d love a woman…as I love you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t think life could be so beautiful.”

She kissed him, and would have kissed him again, but he collected himself enough to break slightly away from her, to whisper that Indravarman must have sent men after him and that they should flee. She asked about Thida again, nodding at his words, praying while he spoke. When she continued to pray, he turned from her, walked back into the water, and carried Chaya to the horse. He lifted her upon it, then helped Voisanne climb up behind her.

Using a short lead rope, Asal guided the horse to the north, following the stream. A snake glided across its glistening waters. He looked upward, glimpsed the sky, and thought of Thida, hoping that whatever world she now inhabited was as beautiful as this one. Bowing, he thanked her again.

Behind him the siblings began to talk, and he smiled when he heard vigor flow back into Chaya’s voice. Knowing that they might be pursued, he was tempted to ask them to whisper but, for the moment, he remained silent.

N
ear the southern end of the Khmer encampment, Jayavar led Ajadevi along the river’s edge, greeting his people when they bowed or knelt as he passed, raising their spirits with words of encouragement. Now that battle was imminent, and because there was a strong chance of a Cham spy or assassin hidden within their midst, two trusted bodyguards walked about five paces behind the king and queen. These men carried swords and unusually large shields. The bodyguards were present at Ajadevi’s
insistence. Jayavar felt that they made him look vulnerable to his people and that it would be difficult for them to draw inspiration from someone who appeared fearful. But Ajadevi had managed to convince him that the threat of assassination was too great to ignore. Without Jayavar, the Khmer cause would be lost.

The floor of the valley slanted to the south and the river rushed forward, cascading over boulders. Mist glistened in the air, giving sustenance to moss that grew along the shoreline, most notably on tree trunks and fallen branches. A space had been cleared near the water where crates of provisions had been stacked. Older Khmer men inspected wares, took notes, and tried to salvage a damaged cart. Farther away from the river, several war elephants were tied to trees.

The trail, which Hindu priests had created generations before, began to narrow. Jayavar pressed ahead. He stepped around chest-high ferns, his left hand leading Ajadevi forward, his right on his sword hilt. A smooth boulder bisected the trail and he paused, motioning for his bodyguards to remain still. They nodded, spread apart, and studied their surroundings.

Jayavar guided Ajadevi to the other side of the boulder. They took a few more paces, then moved toward the river, stepping from the trail onto a patch of sand that dropped into the water. Minnows darted about mossy rocks. A blue-winged butterfly fluttered above its reflection. In the distance, the beat of the swordsmith’s hammer rang out against an unseen anvil. Jayavar thought of Bona, and decided to seek him out later in the day, to resume teaching him how to use a bow and arrow. Through his smiles and eagerness, the boy brought a welcome sense of peace into Jayavar, a feeling that the world still held promise.