Already it was so dark that the Rock was invisible, revealing its presence only as a huge, black shadow eclipsing the early stars. Then, out of that darkness, there came the slow beating of a muffled drum; and presently a calm, dispassionate voice:
“This is the story of a king who murdered his father and was killed by his brother. In the blood-stained history of mankind, that is nothing new. But this king left an abiding monument; and a legend which has endured for centuries…”
Rajasinghe stole a glance at Vannevar Morgan, sitting there in the darkness on his right. Though he could see the engineer’s features only in silhouette, he could tell that his visitor was already caught in the spell of the narration. On his left his other two guests – old friends from his diplomatic days – were equally entranced. As he had assured Morgan, they had not recognised “Dr. Smith”; or if they had indeed done so, they had politely accepted the fiction.
“His name was Kalidasa, and he was born a hundred years after Christ, in Ranapura, City of Gold – for centuries the capital of the Taprobanean kings. But there was a shadow across his birth…”
The music became louder, as flutes and strings joined the throbbing drum, to trace out a haunting, regal melody in the night air. A point of light began to burn on the face of the Rock; then, abruptly, it expanded – and suddenly it seemed that a magic window had opened into the past, to reveal a world more vivid and colourful than life itself.
The dramatisation, thought Morgan, was excellent; he was glad that, for once, he had let courtesy override his impulse to work. He saw the joy of King Paravana when his favourite concubine presented him with his first-born son – and understood how that joy was both augmented and diminished when, only twenty-four hours later, the Queen herself produced a better claimant to the throne. Though first in time, Kalidasa would not be first in precedence; and so the stage was set for tragedy.
“Yet in the early years of their boyhood Kalidasa and his half-brother Malgara were the closest of friends. They grew up together quite unconscious of their rival destinies, and the intrigues that festered around them. The first cause of trouble had nothing to do with the accident of birth; it was only a well-intentioned, innocent gift.”
“To the court of King Paravana came envoys bearing tribute from many lands – silk from Cathay, gold from Hindustan, burnished armour from Imperial Rome. And one day a simple hunter from the jungle ventured into the great city, bearing a gift which he hoped would please the Royal family…”
All around him, Morgan heard a chorus of involuntary “Oohs” and “Aahs” from his unseen companions. Although he had never been very fond of animals, he had to admit that the tiny, snow-white monkey that nestled so trustingly in the arms of young Prince Kalidasa was very endearing. Out of the wrinkled little face two huge eyes stared across the centuries – and across the mysterious, yet not wholly unbridgeable, gulf between man and beast.
“According to the Chronicles, nothing like it had ever been seen before; its hair was white as milk, its eyes pink as rubies. Some thought it a good omen others an evil one, because white is the colour of death and of mourning. And their fears, alas, were well founded.”
“Prince Kalidasa loved his little pet, and called it Hanuman after the valiant monkey-god of the Ramayana. The King’s jeweller constructed a small golden cart, in which Hanuman would sit solemnly while he was drawn through the court, to the amusement and delight of all who watched.”
“For his part, Hanuman loved Kalidasa, and would allow no-one else to handle him. He was especially jealous of Prince Malgara – almost as if he sensed the rivalry to come. And then, one unlucky day, he bit the heir to the throne.”
“The bite was trifling – its consequences immense. A few days later Hanuman was poisoned – doubtless by order of the Queen. That was the end of Kalidasa’s childhood; thereafter, it is said, he never loved or trusted another human being. And his friendship towards Malgara turned to bitter enmity.”
“Nor was this the only trouble that stemmed from the death of one small monkey. By command of the King, a special tomb was built for Hanuman, in the shape of the traditional bell-shaped shrine or dagoba. Now this was an extraordinary thing to do, for it aroused the instant hostility of the monks. Dagobas were reserved for relics of the Buddha, and this act appeared to be one of deliberate sacrilege.”
“Indeed, that may well have been its intention, for King Paravana had now come under the sway of a Hindu Swami, and was turning against the Buddhist faith. Although Prince Kalidasa was too young to be involved in this conflict, much of the monks’ hatred was now directed against him. So began a feud that in the years to come was to tear the kingdom apart.”
“Like many of the other tales recorded in the ancient chronicles of Taprobane, for almost two thousand years there was no proof that the story of Hanuman and young Prince Kalidasa was anything but a charming legend. Then, in 2015, a team of Harvard archaeologists discovered the foundations of a small shrine in the grounds of the old Ranapura Palace. The shrine appeared to have been deliberately destroyed, for all the brickwork of the superstructure had vanished.
“The usual relic chamber set in the foundations was empty, obviously robbed of its contents centuries ago. But the students had tools of which the old-time treasure-hunters never dreamed; their neutrino survey disclosed a second relic chamber, much deeper. The upper one was only a decoy, and it had served its purpose well. The lower chamber still held the burden of love and hate it had carried down the centuries – to its resting-place today, in the Ranapura Museum.”
Morgan had always considered himself, with justification, reasonably hard-headed and unsentimental, not prone to gusts of emotion. Yet now, to his considerable embarrassment -he hoped that his companions wouldn’t notice – he felt his eyes brim with sudden tears. How ridiculous, he told himself angrily, that some saccharine music and a maudlin narration could have such an impact on a sensible man! He would never have believed that the sight of a child’s toy could have set him weeping.
And then he knew, in a sudden lightning flash of memory that brought back a moment more than forty years in the past, why he had been so deeply moved. He saw again his beloved kite, dipping and weaving above the Sydney park where he had spent much of his childhood. He could feel the warmth of the sun, the gentle wind on his bare back – the treacherous wind that suddenly failed, so that the kite plunged earthwards. It became snagged in the branches of the giant oak that was supposed to be older than the country itself and, foolishly, he had tugged at the string, trying to pull it free. It was his first lesson in the strength of materials, and one that he was never to forget.
The string had broken, just at the point of capture, and the kite had rolled crazily away into the summer sky, slowly losing altitude. He had rushed down to the water’s edge, hoping that it would fall on land; but the wind would not listen to the prayers of a little boy.
For a long time he had stood weeping as he watched the shattered fragments, like some dismasted sailboat, drift across the great harbour and out towards the open sea, until they were lost from sight. That had been the first of those trivial tragedies that shape a man’s childhood, whether he remembers them or not.
Yet what Morgan had lost then was only an inanimate toy; his tears were of frustration rather than grief. Prince Kalidasa had much deeper cause for anguish. Inside the little golden cart, which still looked as if it had come straight from the craftsman’s workshop, was a bundle of tiny white bones.
Morgan missed some of the history that followed; when he had cleared his eyes a dozen years had passed, a complex family quarrel was in progress, and he was not quite sure who was murdering whom. After the armies had ceased to clash and the last dagger had fallen, Crown Prince Malgara and the Queen Mother had fled to India, and Kalidasa had seized the throne, imprisoning his father in the process.
That the usurper had refrained from executing Paravana was not due to any filial devotion but to his belief that the old king still possessed some secret treasure, which he was saving for Malgara. As long as Kalidasa believed this, Paravana knew that he was safe; but at last he grew tired of the deception.