Temple of a Thousand Faces (52 page)

The clamor continued as Indravarman thrust his fist into the air, climbed on his horse, and headed in Po Rame’s direction. Po Rame untied his own mount from the nearby tree, straddled it, and then rode out to meet the king. Indravarman uttered not a word but motioned for Po Rame to follow him.

The two men galloped across the field, soon heading down a wide road. Chams and Khmers scattered to let them pass, bowing low when they were no longer in danger of being trampled.
Dust rose from the hooves of Indravarman’s mount, and Po Rame squinted, wondering why the king seemed to be in such a hurry.

Wheeling to his right, Indravarman guided his mount onto a wide trail that led into the jungle. Many Khmer homes built of bamboo and thatch dotted the area, all supported by stilts. Very few kings, Po Rame realized, would dare to ride without an escort into the land of their enemy, but Indravarman seemed not to give his vulnerability a second thought.

They followed the trail as it climbed toward the top of a ridge. Once at the summit, Po Rame looked to the east and saw that one of the Khmers’ vast canals ran parallel to the rise of earth. Indravarman slowed his mount, leapt off, and tied it to a shrub. He had secured his battle-axe and shield to the stallion and now removed both weapons. Po Rame did the same, glad that he didn’t sweat nearly as much as the king, who shone with perspiration.

Indravarman eyed the canal, which was so wide that the strongest archer would not be able to shoot an arrow across it. “Why can we not build structures such as this?” Indravarman asked, his open hand gesturing toward the length of the waterway. “The Khmers bring water from the Great Lake to feed their crops, to clean their people. They subjugate nature to their needs while creating monuments for the Gods. We fish and make war and try to appease the same Gods, but our efforts are feeble compared to those of our enemies.”

“Yet we defeated the dung eaters, Lord King,” Po Rame offered. “What was theirs is now ours.”

“Is knowledge a possession, Po Rame? Because they have done what we have not. And I don’t think that by conquering them we gain control of their wisdom.”

“I think—”

“When Jayavar is dead and his bones are scattered, I shall have a tower built on this spot to commemorate our conquest. This tower shall have the grace, strength, and permanence of their temples. Yet Chams will make it. And in a thousand years, our people will come to this place and remember the sweetness of victory.”

Po Rame bowed slightly, thinking about the coming battle, hoping that Asal would fight for the Khmers. If he did, he could be found. And Po Rame would cripple him in the exact manner that his king had ordered.

The prospect of downing his old adversary prompted Po Rame to cluck his tongue in anticipation. Asal would beg for a quick death, a warrior’s death, but he’d receive no mercy. On the contrary, Indravarman would demand that Asal’s suffering be increased and prolonged.

“Tell me of your man’s report,” Indravarman said, turning to Po Rame.

“The Khmers march to attack our base at the Great Lake. The rats intend to overwhelm our men and then capture the boats that we have stationed there. The traitor told them about the reinforcements who have sailed from our homeland. The Khmers plan to take the boats that they have captured from us, put on the armor of our dead men, sail out under a false banner, and pretending to be Chams, they will surprise our new arrivals.” Po Rame paused, wishing that his spy had overheard the entire conversation instead of select snippets. Unforgivable, he thought, to place yourself too far away to hear everything.

“And that’s it?” Indravarman asked, his face tightening. “He knows nothing more? How will Jayavar destroy our forces out on the lake, even with the element of surprise? His men will be weakened from their battle on the shore.”

“I don’t know, Lord King. The traitor suggested something,
and the false king seemed interested, but my man couldn’t hear what was said.”

“A fool.”

“Yes, Lord King. I should have—”

“Still, his information is useful. If Jayavar puts all of his men into our boats and sails into deep waters, he’ll be vulnerable.” Indravarman smiled, unconsciously lifting his war axe. “We’ll simply let him sail to us. But we’ll have warned our approaching countrymen and will be waiting with our entire fleet. And we shall surround and annihilate him.”

“And our force on the shore?”

Indravarman chopped the air with his axe. “Will be sacrificed. We won’t warn them, won’t bolster their ranks. If Jayavar senses that we know of his plan, he’ll change tactics. And I need him in those boats, Po Rame. In those boats he will be weakest. Men can run from a battle on land. They can hide and regroup. But on that endless expanse of water, there will be no place to hide. Once and for all, I shall destroy every Khmer who dares to stand against me.”

Nodding, Po Rame envisioned how the battle would unfold. Indravarman would have his best men waiting for Jayavar. Every resource at the king’s disposal would be thrown into the fray. Victory would be theirs, and the lake would turn red with Khmer blood. Po Rame’s only concern was that the fight would be over too quickly. Destruction, he thought, should be savored, not hurried.

“The Khmer lover,” he said, “marches with his new countrymen.”

“How do you know this?”

“My man heard—”

“How does this man of yours hear one thing and not another? How can he please me one moment and infuriate me the next?”

“I’m sorry, King of Kings, for his failings. He has already been punished. But he promised me that the traitor will march.”

Indravarman cursed, chopping the air once again with his axe. It was a weapon that most men would struggle to lift, but he treated it as if it were made of thatch. “Asal is a threat,” he said.

“Do you still want my blade in the traitor’s back?”

“Of course.”

“And if my wound downs him, King of Kings, may I take his life after you’re finished with him?”

Indravarman’s jaw clenched, but he made no immediate reply. “Cripple him, Po Rame, and find his woman for me. Do those things, and you can take his life.”

Po Rame bowed low. “Consider them—”

“Now leave me.”

The assassin nodded, then climbed back on his horse. As he rode back to Angkor, he thought about what might go through Asal’s mind as he died. As broken as he would be, relief might flow within him when the end came. But Po Rame wanted him to fear the end, to weep in terror and sorrow as darkness closed in on him.

His woman is the key, Po Rame thought. Let him know of her fate and he’ll die a thousand deaths. And each time he dies, I’ll be there to steal another part of his soul. I’ll plunder his strength, his boldness, and even his love. For a God must understand love. I don’t understand it, but love makes men behave like fools, makes them risk everything for a woman. So love must be powerful. And whatever is powerful must be mine.

T
he Khmer army marched all day without rest, finally stopping at a wide and lazy river that fed into the Great Lake. After an elaborate perimeter of lookouts had been established, the majority
of warriors, women, and children waded into the river, washing sweat and grime from their weary bodies. Farther downstream, horses were led into the water, where they drank and cooled off.

Near the contingent of Siamese, Voisanne, Chaya, and Asal stood waist deep in a bend of the slow-moving river. Asal’s guard watched from the shoreline. Though his wrists were still bound, Asal had otherwise been treated well during the march and didn’t seem to mind how his skin was chafing against the ropes. Voisanne had tended to his injured fingers on several occasions after asking an older woman how to treat them.

Voisanne felt conflicted as she washed herself. She was thrilled to have escaped Angkor with the two people she cared about most in the world, yet was saddened by the death of Thida and worried about the future. If the Khmers lost the coming battle, anything could happen to them. Voisanne had been tempted to stay behind with Asal and Chaya, back at the Khmer encampment, but King Jayavar had asked Asal to march with them, thinking that his knowledge of Cham tactics might prove useful.

For most of her life, Voisanne had looked to her father for advice, but now that he was gone, she needed to move forward on her own. Of course, she sought out Asal’s opinions, but she didn’t want to besiege him with questions and needs, so she often turned inward, relying on her own past experiences. Foremost on her mind was Chaya. Was it right to bring her little sister along with the army, or should she have stayed behind? It was well known that poison was available if the Chams were victorious, but Voisanne couldn’t imagine encouraging her little sister to end her own life. If the Chams won, she thought, she’d cut Asal’s bonds, and the three of them would try to escape into the jungle. Yet they would be hunted and likely captured, and the notion of what Chaya might endure made Voisanne beseech the Gods for
mercy. She prayed so much that day that prayer had become almost involuntary, as natural as breathing.

Chaya laughed at something Asal said, and Voisanne shifted her gaze to him. She remembered how they had first made love near the stream, how he’d moved with boundless urgency and desire. It was as if he had wanted her for a hundred lifetimes and yet had been chained down, unable to touch her, to show her how he felt. When finally given the freedom to act, he’d been overwhelmed. He had consumed her, and for a time she’d been carried to such a place that the world below faded away into nothingness.

As Voisanne watched him laugh with Chaya, her desire to touch him again grew. She wanted to be alone with him, for her passion to become his. Yet now it was she who felt chained down, because privacy was impossible, and soon they might all be dead. Her breathing quickened as she wondered how she could ensure their safety. When the fighting started, she would have to free him and find him a weapon. If King Jayavar punished her, so be it, because she had seen Asal fight and knew that they would be infinitely better protected if he was armed.

I must find a knife, she thought. A small knife with which to cut him free.

Chaya led Asal to shore, then picked up a smooth stone and tried to skip it. Her stone plunged into the water and Asal laughed, causing Chaya to curse and Voisanne to smile. Chaya tried again but fared no better.

“Let me show you,” he said, leaning down to pick up a stone. Since his hands were still bound in front of him, his throw was awkward, but his stone still skipped three times across the flat water.

Chaya frowned. “But that’s just how I did it.”

“You have to flick your wrist.”

“I know how to do it. My stones aren’t as good as yours. Why
don’t you find me a good stone instead of telling me about flicking wrists?”

“Am I to be your servant?”

“Yes, so move quickly, you lumbering elephant,” she teased, “or I shall give you a whipping you’ll never forget.”

Voisanne smiled again, surprised at how quickly Asal and Chaya seemed to have forged a bond. He was acting like an elder brother to her, and clearly she wanted such an influence, because as he searched for a stone, she chided him about moving too slowly. He increased the speed of his search, handing her stones that she tossed away with exaggerated disdain.

Smiling, Voisanne watched their antics, then found a flat, round stone as long as her thumb. She whistled, saw Asal and Chaya turn to her, and then lowered her body and flicked her wrist as Asal had done. Her stone skipped six or seven times before settling into the water.

“That’s not fair!” Chaya said, laughing. “You cheated.”

“I did no such thing.”

“You two have been working on this. That’s what you did all those days back in Angkor before you found me. You studied skipping! And now you conspire to make me feel like a fool.”

“But that needs no conspiracy,” Voisanne replied, happy to see her sister laugh. “It’s easy enough to do alone.”

Chaya tried to suppress a giggle, failed, and then rushed straight at Voisanne, grabbing her hands. The sisters struggled for a moment before Voisanne slipped on a rock and tumbled into the river with a splash. Chaya clapped triumphantly. Asal told her how Voisanne had pushed him into the moat when they were on the boat together, and how he was pleased to be avenged.

Voisanne sat in the water and watched them laugh, aware that her little sister and a Cham warrior now made up her entire family. “I love you both,” she said, still watching them. “For a long
time, I felt as if the Gods had abandoned me, that they didn’t care about me. But I was wrong. They do care. So pray to them, both of you. Pray that this fight goes our way.”

E
arly that evening, after the Khmer army had marched farther to the southwest, Jayavar and Ajadevi sat atop a ridge that provided mostly unobstructed views in all directions. The army was camped along the ridge with sentries posted at every fifty paces. Because of their proximity to Angkor, Jayavar had forbidden any fires. This order created taxing conditions within the camp, for no one could cook and, worse, there was no smoke to keep the mosquitoes away.

As Ajadevi chewed a piece of dried fish, she rubbed oil from a neem tree on Jayavar’s skin. The oil repelled the flying pests, though its effects didn’t last long. On top of the ridge, curses and claps rang out as people tried to deal with the insects.

Ajadevi and Jayavar possessed a silk mosquito net but had opted not to use it since so many of their countrymen suffered. Even her renowned patience was tested by the constant buzzing and biting. Trying to relax, to focus on what lay to the south, she breathed deeply.

“What do you see?” Jayavar asked, then bit into a strip of dried fish.

She shrugged. “A million little devils. They’re all I can sense.”

“They know good blood when they find it. And surely yours must be as sweet as any.”

“My blood is old. Old and tainted.”

“Nonsense.”

She swatted at a persistent mosquito and shifted on the boulder they shared. Frustrated that she couldn’t interpret the signs around her, she shook her head, wishing that fires could be lit.