Creation (82 page)

But the chamberlain put me at my ease. “You are
almost
unchanged,” he said as we embraced.

“You are the same!” Actually, Varshakara was indeed exactly the way he had been when we first met so many years before at Varanasi. Ever a master of treachery, he had made with consummate ease the transition from the service of the murdered father to that of the killer-son. The chin whiskers were now bright-red to make up for the red teeth, which were gone.

We spoke of Cathay. He was eager for every scrap of news and, fortunately, I had more than scraps to feed this predator.

“You must make me a report,” he said finally. “We are
very
interested in reopening the silk road. As we told your companion—who is still at Champa, by the way.”

I was not surprised to learn that the chamberlain had already opened negotiations with the Key marquis. I wondered, uneasily, what my Cathayan colleague had had to say about me. After all, I had abandoned him. But Varshakara said nothing more on the subject.

Then there was a sound of thunder all about us: drums were heralding the approach of Ajatashatru. We went outside, and I stared with some awe at what must have been the largest elephant on earth ... a white elephant that ambled toward us like some slow-moving bejeweled mountain. On top of the elephant was a pavilion of silver set with diamonds. Inside this glittering structure was a huge shimmering golden figure.

“Ajatashatru!” Every voice acclaimed the king. Blessings were screamed at him. Musicians made a terrible racket. Petitioners fell prostrate in the dirt.

When the elephant halted, a ladder was placed beside it. Two professional acrobats scurried to the top of the ladder. Then they tugged the king to his feet and helped him, slowly, to descend.

Ajatashatru was now the fattest man I had ever seen. In fact, he was so heavy that his legs could not support the weight of the swollen body. As a result, he either walked, as he did now, with an arm on the shoulders of each acrobat, or he leaned on a pair of thick ivory staffs. As he shuffled slowly forward, head, neck and shoulders all merged into a single thickness, he looked like a gross golden spider.

My eyes were upon the ground as Ajatashatru approached. I had hoped that he might stop and acknowledge me, but without a word he slid past me. Fixedly, I stared at the scarlet rug. Like the Great King, Ajatashatru never put his foot on uncovered earth.

Several hours later Varshakara came to me and smiled ingratiatingly. For some reason, I missed the bloody tusks; wondered whether or not he had been forced to give up chewing those mentally deranging betelnut quids; recently a person knowledgeable in such matters told me that one can hold the quid between the inside of the cheek and the toothless gums—and enjoy mental derangement.

Varshakara led me into the presence. Ajatashatru was sprawled upon an enormous divan, surrounded by a thousand silk-covered pillows. Within close reach were a dozen small tables covered with dishes of food and flagons of wine; also, within close reach, were a dozen very pretty pre-pubescent girls and boys. With age, my father-in-law’s sexual tastes had undergone no change. But then, I have found that whatever men are in youth they will be in age, if to no good effect.

A boy of eight or nine was lovingly wiping the king’s face with a linen napkin. Ajatashatru’s body was agleam with sweat. He could not walk across a room without suffering from exhaustion. Although I assumed his life must be nearly over, the face was unchanged. If anything, because of the fat, my father-in-law looked far younger than I did. I have noticed that in those countries where the heat is intense and bodies mature early and age swiftly, men and women deliberately make themselves fat in order to retain if not the beauty of adolescence, the charm of the infantile.

Ajatashatru beamed. “Dearest!” The huge baby’s face stared at me eagerly, as if I were something to put in its mouth. Then he flung wide arms from which the silk-encased fat hung like Sardis bed bolsters. “Come to me!”

I came to him. As I leaned forward to kiss the nearest hand, I stumbled and fell onto the divan. The children giggled. I was terrified. At Susa—at any court—one would be put to death on the spot for such an approach to the sovereign. But I was forgiven.

The king grabbed me under the arms and half lifted, half dragged me across the divan as if I were a doll. Obviously, the fat arms were still powerful. As I fell against the vast bosom that reeked of a hundred conflicting perfumes, carmined lips kissed my face in exactly the same eager way that a child lavishes love on a doll—which a moment later it will break.

“My darling! Without you, life has been a burden, without joy! How many a night have we wept ourselves to sleep, wondering why it was that our dearest, most darling son-in-law deserted us. Oh, naughty! Naughty!”

With that, Ajatashatru picked me up and dropped me down beside him. I fell back into a pile of cushions. Next to him, I felt like a fragile bowl beside an elephant. There was no etiquette that I knew of for such a situation. I looked as respectful and as attentive as I could, sprawled beside what must easily have been the largest king on earth.

“Darling Darius!” I should mention that he persistently called me Darius during our interview. Needless to say, I did not correct him. Like so many absolute monarchs, he was not very good at remembering names. In Persia, the Great King never appears in public without a chamberlain who will whisper into his ear the names of those who approach him.

“How my poor child has hungered for the sight of you! Has been famished for news of you! Has thirsted to know your whereabouts!” The verbs that Ajatashatru employed gave a clue to what was on his mind. Immediately the children began to offer him food and drink. He was the only man I have ever known who could speak clearly with a full mouth. But then, he seldom stopped either eating or talking.

When I was at last allowed to speak, I told him of my many failed attempts to return to Magadha. As I spoke, he gargled wine noisily in his throat. When I told him of my captivity in Cathay, he listened intently. Between puffs of fat, the dark eyes were as brilliant as ever. When I had finished my recital—interrupted at regular intervals by exclamations of delight, amazement, affection—Ajatashatru finished off a tumbler of wine and said, “You will describe the silk road to Varshakara.”

“Yes, Lord King.”

“In detail.”

“Yes, Lord King.”

“Make a map.”

“I shall, with joy.”

“You
are
my darling, aren’t you?” He hugged me. “You’ll show me the way to Cathay, won’t you?”

“
You
,
Lord King, will go to Cathay?”

“Why not? Next year is going to be very, very dull. The naughty Licchavis will have been defeated, and Pardyota—remember him? The king of Avanti? He has been wicked. But I don’t think it’ll take us more than a month or two to conquer Avanti. You’ll stay and watch me teach him a lesson. You’ll enjoy it. That’s a promise. Because I am a very, very good teacher.”

“I know, Lord King. I saw the ruins of Vaishali.”

“Oh, I am pleased!” The eyes glowed. “Did you see the impalements alongside the road?”

“Yes! They were superb, Lord King. In fact, I’ve never seen so many captives put to death all at once.”

“Neither have I. Naturally, everyone tells me that I have set some sort of record, but you know how insincere people can be. Even so, I honestly believe that no king ever impaled so many naughty men as I did that day. It was thrilling. You’ve never heard so much howling. Particularly when we castrated them
after
they were impaled. I thought I’d go deaf. My hearing is extremely sensitive. What were we talking about?”

“Cathay, Lord King.”

“Yes. Yes. I’ll want to go there myself, with the main army. You can act as guide.”

When I told him that, with luck, it would take his army no less than three years to get to the border of the Middle Kingdom, he began to lose interest. He shuddered when I described the steaming jungles, the high mountain passes, the discomforts and fevers of that long journey.

“If what you say is true, I shan’t go myself. That’s obvious. But I shall send out an army. After all, I’m universal monarch, am I not?”

“Yes. Yes, Lord King!”

“And since Cathay is a part of the universe, they’ll know immediately that I now possess ... what do they call it?”

“The mandate of heaven.”

“Yes. They’ll realize that I’ve had it for ever so long now. All in all, I’d be wiser to go west, don’t you think? The distances aren’t so great. And there are no jungles to worry about. And all those charming cities to stay at. And, of course, Persia is very much a part of my universe. Isn’t it, dearest?”

“Oh, yes, Lord King.” I was growing more and more uneasy. Although Ajatashatru’s army was no threat to the satrapy of Bactria, much less to the Persian empire, I could see myself kept like a monkey on a leash as the king slowly made his way into Persia—and certain defeat.

Although I did my best to deflect him from a Persian adventure, Ajatashatru was euphoric at the thought of what he kept calling “
my
universe.” He blamed the republicans for having kept him from “traveling to the rising sun, to the setting sun, to the north star. Oh, I know how much there is to my universe, and how little time there is for me to visit all my peoples, but I must make the effort. I owe it to ... uh, heaven.” He had grasped rather quickly the Cathayan religio-political system. He was certainly enchanted by the notion that hegemony is the true begetter of the mandate. Since he was confident that he already possessed the first, he was now ready to receive the other “just as soon as I take a few trips to see all my good yellow peoples and blue-eyed peoples, too. Imagine owning millions of people with eyes like my grandsons! Enchanting boys, by the way. If only for them, we are in your debt, Darius.”

Then, in the course of an elaborate and seemingly endless meal, we were interrupted by bad news. The army of Avanti had crossed into Magadha. Varshakara looked very grave, Ajatashatru looked very annoyed. “Oh, the wicked, wicked man! Such a bad king! Now we shall have to kill him. Very soon. My darling!” The king kissed my face rather as if it were a plate. Then he gave me a tremendous shove, and I fell off the divan. “Go to your charming wife. Wait for us in Shravasti. We’ll be in residence before the rains start. Meanwhile, we shall turn the kingdom of Avanti into a desert. That is a promise. I am god on earth. The equal of Brahma. I am the universal monarch. Do give my love to ... to ... uh, my daughter.” He had forgotten Ambalika’s name. “And kiss your two enchanting blue-eyed boys for me. I am a doting grandfather. Go away.”

My last meeting with Ambalika was surprisingly cheerful. We sat side by side in the swing at the center of Prince Jeta’s inner courtyard—one of the few places where we could not be overheard. I told her that I had seen the king. “He’s going to war against Avanti!”

“He won’t have an easy victory,” said Ambalika.

“Do you think the war could last for more than a season?”

“It could go on for years, like the nonsense with those tiresome Licchavians.”

“Then I don’t suppose he’ll want to invade Persia this year.”

“Did he say he wanted to
invade
Persia?”

I nodded. I was noncommittal.

“Well ...” Ambalika was thoughtful. We swung up and down, over the flowering shrubs. “If he were younger, I think he might succeed. Don’t you?”

“Persia is the most powerful empire on earth.” I thought that that was a reasonably neutral remark.

“But my father is the greatest general on earth. Or was. Well, we’ll never know now. The war with Avanti will drag on and on, and Father will die from indigestion, and you ... what will you do?”

“Go back to Susa.”

“With your caravan?”

I nodded. I did not tell her that I meant to slip out of the city that evening, without the caravan. Yet I think that she must have suspected that I had something like that in mind because suddenly she said, “I want to marry again.”

“Who?”

“My half-brother. He’s fond of me. He’s very good with my sons. He’ll make me his first wife, and we’ll live here in Shravasti. He’s viceroy, you know. I don’t think you’ve met him. Anyway, I shall have to marry him fairly soon because Prince Jeta’s going to die any day now and when he does this house goes to his nephew, a poisonous creature, and we’ll be homeless.”

“But you’re already married,” I reminded her.

“I know. But I can be a widow, can’t I?”

“Shall I kill myself? Or will the king do that for you?”

“Neither.” Ambalika gave me a charming smile. “Come inside. I’ve something to show you.”

We went to her bedroom. She opened an ivory chest and withdrew a papyrus document. Since I have difficulty reading Indian script, she read for me an account of the lamentable death of Cyrus Spitama at Susa in the “something-or-other year of the reign of the Great King Xerxes. Now, you figure out the date—which should be six months from now. Then fill in the top and the bottom with some Persian writing, saying that this letter comes from the chancellery. You know, all very official.”

I also knew the Indian religion. “You can’t remarry. That’s the law.”

Ambalika had thought of everything. “I’ve talked to the high priest. He’ll say that you and I were never properly married. The Brahmans can always find an error in the ceremony if they want to. They want to. So I shall then marry my brother, very quietly.”

“And we shall never meet again?”

“I should hope not!” Ambalika’s cheerful ruthlessness was chillingly reminiscent of her father. “Anyway, you won’t want to come back here. You’ll be too old, for one thing.”

“My sons ...”

“They are,” she said, very evenly, “where they are meant to be.”

So it was that I wrote out a description of my own death to which I forged the signature of the first clerk of the chancellery at Susa. Then, an hour before sunset, I left the house. I did not see my sons or Prince Jeta. What coins I had I folded into a cloth belt that I wrapped about my middle. In the general market I bought an old cloak, sandals, a staff. A few minutes before the west gate was shut for the night, I left the city.