The Journeyer (109 page)

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Authors: Gary Jennings

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I stopped her again, but only to ask, “How is it that you speak Farsi, my lady?”
“I am of the nobility of Bangala, my lord,” she said, standing very erect and looking as if I had sought to cast doubt on that. “I come from a noble merchant family of Brahman shopkeepers. Of course, being a lady, I have never stooped to clerk’s learning—of reading or writing. But I speak the trade tongue of Farsi, besides my native Bangali, and also most of the other major tongues of Greater India—Hindi, Tamil, Telugu … .”
“Thank you, Lady Tofaa. Let us now proceed.”
After having spent so long in the far eastern parts of the Khanate, I had quite forgotten how prevalent in the rest of the world was the Trade Farsi. But clearly most of the men in the room, because they dealt always with the mariners of the sea trade, also knew the tongue. For several of them inmediately spoke up, and in a vociferous clamor, but what they had to say, in effect, was this:
“The woman cavils and equivocates. It is a husband’s legal right to venture any of his wives in a game of chance, just as it is his right to sell her or put her body out to hire or divorce her utterly.”
And others, equally loudly, said in effect:
“No! The woman speaks true. The husband had forfeited himself, therefore all his husbandly rights. He was at that moment a slave himself, illegally venturing property he did not own.”
I held up a magisterial hand and the room quieted, and I leaned my chin on my hand in a pose of thinking deeply. But I really was not doing any such thing. I did not pretend, even to myself, to be a Solomon of juridical wisdom, or a Draco or a Khan Kubilai of impulsive decision. But I had spent my boyhood reading about Alexander, and I well remembered how he opened the unopenable Gordian knot. However, I would at least pretend to ponder. While I did so, I said casually to the woman:
“Lady Tofaa, I have come here in search of something your late husband was carrying. The tooth of the Buddha that he took from the Ananda temple. Are you acquainted with it?”
“Yes, Lord Justice. He wagered that away, too, I am sorry to say. But I am pleased to say that he did it before he wagered me, plainly valuing
me
more than even that sacred relic.”
“Plainly. Do you know who won the tooth?”
“Yes, my lord. The captain of a Chola pearl-fisher boat. He took it away rejoicing that it should bring good fortune to his divers. That boat sailed weeks ago.”
“Do you have any idea where it sailed to?”
“Yes, Lord Justice. Pearls are fished in only two places. Around the island of Srihalam and along the Cholamandal coast of Greater India. Since the captain was of the Chola race, he undoubtedly returned to that coast of the mainland mandal, or region, inhabited by the Cholas.”
The men in the room were muttering dourly at this seemingly irrelevant exchange, and the Sardar Shaibani sent me an imploring look. I ignored them and said to the woman:
“Then I must pursue the tooth to the Cholamandal. If you would be pleased to come with me as my interpreter, I will afterward assist you to make your way to your people’s home in your native Bangala.”
The men’s muttering got mutinous at that. The Lady Tofaa did not like it, either. She flung her head back, so she could look down her nose at me, and she said frostily, “I would remind my
Lord
Justice that I am not of a station to accept menial employment. I am a noblewoman born, and the widow of a king, and—”
“And the slave of that ugly brute yonder,” I said firmly, “if I should find in his favor in this proceeding.”
She swallowed her pomposity—actually gulped aloud—and instantly went from arrogant to servile. “My Lord Justice is as masterful a man as my late dear husband. How could a mere fragile young woman resist such a dominant man? Of course, my lord, I will accompany you and work for you.
Slave
for you.”
She was anything but fragile, and I was not complimented by being compared to the King Who Ran Away. But I turned to Yissun and said, “I have made my decision. Publish it to all here. This argument turns on the precedence of the late king’s wagers. Therefore the whole matter is moot. From the moment King Narasinha-pati abdicated his throne in Pagan, he had surrendered all his rights and properties and holdings to the new ruler, the Wang Bayan. Whatever that late king spent or squandered or lost here in Akyab was and still is the rightful property of the Wang, who is here represented by the Sardar Shaibani.”
When that was translated, everyone in the room, including Shaibani and Tofaa, gave a gasp, all of astonishment, but variously also of chagrin, relief and admiration. I went on:
“Each man in this room will be accompanied by a guard patrol back to his residence or business establishment, and all those plundered treasures will be retrieved. Any person of Akyab refusing to comply, or later found to be hoarding any such property, will be summarily executed. The emissary of the Khan of All Khans has spoken. Tremble, all men, and obey.”
As the guards herded the men out, wailing and lamenting, the Lady Tofaa fell down flat on her face, totally prone before me, which is the abject Hindu equivalent of the more sedate salaam or ko-tou, and Shaibani regarded me with a sort of awe, saying:
“Elder Brother Marco Polo, you are a real Mongol. You put this one to shame—for not himself having thought of that master stroke.”
“You can make up for it,” I said genially. “Find me a trusty ship and crew that will take me and my new interpreter immediately across the Bay of Bangala.” I turned to Yissun. “I will not drag you there, for you would be as speechless as I. So I relieve you from that duty, Yissun, and you may report back to Bayan or to your former commander at Bhamo. I shall be sorry not to have you with me, for you have been a staunch companion.”
“It is I who should be sorry for you, Marco,” he said, and pityingly shook his head. “To be on duty in Ava is a dreadful enough fate. But
India …?”
 
 
NO sooner had our vessel cast off from the Akyab dock than Tofaa Devata said to me, very primly, “Marco-wallah,” and began to lay down rules for our good behavior while we traveled together.
Since I was no longer being a Lord Justice, I had given her leave to address me less formally, and she told me that the -wallah was a Hindu suffixion which denoted both respect and friendliness. I had not given her leave, as well, to preach at me. But I listened politely and even managed not to laugh.
“Marco-wallah, you must realize that it would be a grave sin for us to lie together, and exceedingly wicked in the sight of both men and gods. No, do not look so stricken. Let me explain, and you will be less heartbroken by your unrequited yearning. You see, your judicial decision resolved that dispute back yonder in Akyab, but without deciding on the merits of the opposing arguments, so those arguments must still be taken into account in our relationship. On the one hand, if my dear late husband was still my husband at his death, then I am still sati, unless and until I remarry, so you would be committing the very worst of sins when you lay with me. If, for example, over yonder in India, we were caught in the act of surata, you would be sentenced to do surata with a fire-filled, incandescent brass statue of a woman, until you scorched and shriveled horribly to death. And then, after death, you would have to abide in the underworld called Kala, and suffer its fires and torments, for as many years as there are pores on my body. On the other hand, if I am now technically the slave of that Akyab creature who won me at dice, then your lying with me, his slave woman, would make you also legally his slave. In any event, I am of the Brahman jati—the highest of the four jati divisions of Hindu humankind—and you are of no jati at all, and therefore inferior. So, when we lay together, we would be defying and defiling the sacred jati order, and in punishment we would be thrown to those dogs trained to eat such heretics. Even if you were gallantly willing to risk that frightful death by raping me, I am still held to be an equal defiler and subject to the same grisly punishment. If it is ever known in India that you put your linga into my yoni, whether I actively engulf it or only passively spread myself for it, we are both in terrible disgrace and peril. Of course I am not a kanya, a green and unripe and flavorless virgin. Since I am a widow of some experience, not to say talent and ability and a capacious, warm, well-lubricated zankha, there would be no physical evidence of our sin. And I daresay these barbarian sailors would take no notice of what we civilized persons might do in private. So it would probably never be known in my homeland that you and I had reveled in ecstatic surata out here on the gentle ocean waters under the caressing moon. But we must desist as soon as we touch my native land, for all Hindus are most adept at scenting the least whiff of scandal, and crying shame and jeering nastily, and demanding bribes to keep silent about it, and then gossiping and tattling anyway.”
She had exhausted either her breath or the myriad aspects of the subject, so I said mildly, “Thank you for the useful instruction, Tofaa, and set your mind at ease. I will observe all the proprieties.”
“Oh.”
“Let me suggest just one thing.”
“Ah!”
“Do not call the crewmen sailors. Call them seamen or mariners.”
“Ugh.”
The Sardar Shaibani had gone to some trouble to find for us a good ship, not a flimsy Hindu-built coasting dinghi, but a substantial lateen-rigged Arab qurqur merchant vessel that could sail straight across the vast Bay of Bangala instead of having to skirt around its circumference. The crew was composed entirely of some very black, wiry, extraordinarily tiny men of a race called Malayu, but the captain was a genuine Arab, sea-wise and capable. He was taking his ship to Hormuz, away west in Persia, but had agreed (for a price) to take me and Tofaa as far as the Cholamandal. That was an open-sea, no-sight-of-land crossing of some three thousand li, about half as far as my longest voyage to date: the one from Venice to Acre. The captain warned us, before departure, that the bay could be a boat-eater. It was crossable only between the months of September and March—we were doing it in October—because only in that season were the winds right and the weather not murderously hot. However, during that season, when the bay had got itself nicely provided with a copious meal of many vessels bustling east and west across its surface, it would frequently stir up a tai-feng storm and capsize and sink and swallow them all.
But we encountered no storm and the weather stayed fine, except at night, when a dense fog often obscured the moon and stars, and wrapped us in wet gray wool. That did not slow the qurqur, since the captain could steer by his bussola needle, but it must have been miserably uncomfortable for the half-naked black crewmen who slept on the deck, because the fog collected in the rigging and dripped down a constant clammy dew. We two passengers, however, had a cabin apiece, and were snug enough, and we were given food enough, though it was not viand dining, and we were not attacked or robbed or molested by the crew. The Muslim captain naturally despised Hindus even more than Christians, and stayed aloof from our company, and he kept the seamen forever busy, so Tofaa and I were left to our own diversions. That we had none—beyond idly watching the flying fish skimming over the waves and the porkfish frolicking among the waves—did not discourage Tofaa from prattling about what diversions we must
not
succumb to.
“My strict but wise religion, Marco-wallah, holds that there is more than one sinfulness involved in lying together. So it is not just the sweet surata that you must put out of your mind, poor frustrated man. In addition to surata—the actual physical consummation—there are eight other aspects. The very least of them is as real and culpable as the most passionate and heated and sweaty and enjoyable embrace of surata. First there is smarana, which is
thinking
of doing surata. Then there is kirtana, which is speaking of doing it. Speaking to a confidant, I mean, as you might discuss with the captain your barely controllable desire for me. Then there is keli, which is flirting and dallying with the man or woman of one’s affection. Then there is prekshana, which means peeping secretly at his or her kaksha—the unmentionable parts—as for example you frequently do when I am bathing over the bucket back yonder on the afterdeck. Then there is guyabhashana, which is conversing on the subject, as you and I are so riskily doing at this moment. Then there is samkalpa, which is
intending
to do surata. Then there is adyavasaya, which is resolving to do it. Then there is kriyanishpati, which is … well … doing it. Which we must not.”
“Thank you for telling me these things, Tofaa. I shall manfully endeavor to restrain myself even from the wicked smarana.”
“Oh.”
She was right about my having frequently glimpsed her unmentionable kaksha, if that was what it was called, but I could hardly have avoided it. The wash bucket for us passengers was, as she had said, on the high afterdeck of the ship. All she had to do, for a measure of privacy while she sponged her nether parts, was to squat facing astern. But she seemed always to face the bow, and even the timorous Malayu crewmen would discover chores needing doing amidships, so they could peep upward when she opened the drapery of her sari garment and spread her thick thighs and mopped water up from the bucket to her wide-open and unclothed crotch. It bore a bush as black and thick as that on the black men’s heads, so maybe it inspired lustful smarana in them, but not in me. Anyway, though repellent itself, that thicket at least concealed whatever was within it. All I knew of that was what Tofaa insisted on telling me.
“Just in case, Marco-wallah, you should fall enamored of some pretty nach dancing girl when we get to Chola, and should wish to make conversation with her as flirtatiously and naughtily as you do with me, I will tell you the words to say. Pay attention, then. Your organ is called the linga and hers is called the yoni. When that nach girl excites you to ravening desire, that is called vyadhi, and your linga then becomes sthanu, ‘the standing stump.’ If the girl reciprocates your passion, then her yoni opens its lips for you to enter her zankha. The word
zankha
means only ‘shell,’ but I hope your nach girl’s is something better than a shell. My own zankha, for example, is more like a gullet, ever hungry, near to famishment, and salivating with anticipation. No, no, Marco-wallah, do not beseech me to let you feel with your trembling finger its eagerness to clasp and suck. No, no. We are civilized persons. It is good that we can stand close together like this, watching the sea and amiably conversing, with no compulsion to roll and thrash in surata on the deck, or in your cabin or mine. Yes, it is good that we can keep tight rein on our animal natures, even while discoursing so frankly and provocatively as we do, about your ardent linga and my yearning yoni.”
“I like that,” I said thoughtfully.
“
You do? !
”
“The words. Linga
sounds
sturdy and upright. Yoni
sounds
soft and moist. I must confess that we of the West do not give those things such nicely expressive names. I am something of a collector of languages, you see. Not in a scholarly way, only for my own use and edification. I like your teaching me all these new and exotic words.”
“Oh. Only words.”
However, I could not endure too many of hers at a time. So I went and sought out the reclusive Arab captain and asked him what he knew of the pearl fishers of the Cholamandal—whether we would be encountering them along the coast.
“Yes,” he said, and snorted. “According to the Hindus’ contemptible superstition, the oysters—the reptiles, as they call them—rise to the surface of the sea in April, when the rains begin to fall, and each reptile opens its shell and catches a raindrop. Then it settles to the sea bottom again, and there slowly hardens the raindrop into a pearl. That takes until October, so it is now that the divers are going down. You will arrive right when they are collecting the reptiles and the solidified raindrops.”
“A curious superstition,” I said. “Every educated person knows that pearls accrete around grains of sand. In fact, in Manzi, the Han may soon cease diving for the sea pearls, for they have recently learned to grow them in river mussels, by introducing into each mollusc a grain of sand.”
“Try telling that to the Hindus,” grunted the captain. “They have the
minds
of molluscs.”
It was impossible, aboard a ship, to evade Tofaa for very long. The next time she found me idling at the rail, she leaned her considerable bulk to wedge me there while she continued my education in things Hindu.
“You should also learn, Marco-wallah, how to look with knowing eyes at the nach dancing girls, and compare their beauty, so that you fall enamored only of the most beautiful. You might best do that by comparing them in your mind with what you have seen of me, for I fulfill all the standards of beauty for a Hindu woman. As it is set down: the three and the five, five, five. Which is to say, in order of specification, that three things of a woman should be deep. Her voice, her understanding and her navel. Now, of course I am not so talkative as most—giddy girls who have not yet attained to dignity and reserve—but on the occasions when I do speak, I am sure you have taken note that my voice is not shrill, and that my utterances are full of deep feminine understanding. As for my navel …” She pushed down the waistband of her sari, and lifted up the billow of dark-brown flesh there. “Regard! You could hide your heart in that profound navel, could you not?” She plucked out some matted old fluff that had already hidden there, and went on:
“Then there are five things that should be fine and delicate: a woman’s skin, her hair, her fingers, toes and joints. Surely you can find no fault with any of those attributes of mine. Then there are the five things that should be healthily bright pink: the woman’s palms and soles and tongue and nails and the corners of her eyes.” She went through quite an athletic performance: sticking out her tongue, flexing her talons, exhibiting her palms, tugging at the sooty pouches around her eyes to show me the red corner dots, and picking up each of her grimy feet to show me their leathery but rather cleaner undersides.
“Last, there are the five things that should be high-arched: the woman’s eyes, nose, ears, neck and breasts. You have seen and admired all of those except my bosom. Regard.” She unwound the top part of her sari, and bared her pillowlike dark-brown breasts, and somewhere down the deck a Malayu uttered a sort of anguished whinny. “High-arched they are indeed, and set close together, like nestling hoopoe birds, no gap between. The ideal Hindu breasts. Slide a sheet of paper in that tight cleft and it will stay there. As for putting your linga there, well, do not even consider it, but imagine the sensation of that close, soft, warm envelopment of it. And behold the nipples, like thumbs, and their halos, like saucers, and all black as night against the golden fawn skin. When examining your nach girl, Marco-wallah, be sure to look closely at her teats, and give them a wet lick with your tongue, for many women try to deceive by darkening theirs with al-kohl. Not I. These exquisite paps are natural, given me by Vishnu the Preserver. It was not casually that my noble parents named me Gift of the Gods. I budded at the age of eight, and was a woman at ten, and a married woman at twelve. Ah, just see the nipples, how they expand and writhe and stand, even though touched only by your devouring gaze. Think how they must behave when actually touched and fondled. But no, no, Marco-wallah, do not dream of touching them.”

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