Oontab [Episode 9]

Bantaik

It was now 18 fortnights since the Prince became a hunter man.

Grerrededa was only 8 fortnights to being crowned King of Gardutkar. He satisfied all set requirements and performed the duties that the gods through Bantaik the Spokesman had organized, for him to be fully made ready for his Kingship.

“Fonjam!”

The muscular man passed by Kanaka’s cold stare and stepped into the throne room settling in a squat position beside the Prince. “Yes, my prince?”

Greda smiled.

His best friend had chosen to serve him in the palace. He would not have allowed it for his best friend to become his servant, if they had not reasoned it together, that he would need him close to his affairs when he became king. He was his right hand man. “You are relieved of your duties for today. Go ahead to the quarters and rest.” It was a long hunt, and Fonjam had done most of the work chasing after the enormous rats that hid in the bushes. Fonjam nodded, saying, “Yes, my prince”, then he backed away and turned, walking out of the palace. He almost bumped into Mama Yuttputt.

He knelt down on one knee and bowed his head to greet her even though she was a servant in the palace too. She waved an arm and dismissed him, “Thank you, my son, stand up, stand up”, with the warmest smile in that atmosphere.

Mama Yuttput was as good as the owner of the palace, since she was there before most of them were even born, let alone when they were chosen to serve in the palace.

She went ahead to the kitchen, passing by a slumbering Kanaka seated on a small seat at the palace backyard. It was a long day, and as the day came to a close, Kanaka had drifted off on the seat at the backyard and had the nightmare, and this time, Rotyuk grabbed hold of his feet and scraped some more flesh off, then he fell back into the nothing, screaming the same way he had always screamed, as the sound faded into reality.

Bantaik, the Spokesman bolted into the palace gleefully to come and greet the household. He spun round in circles for a moment, then put his staff in front of him and followed. When he passed the masquerade trees close to the palace entrance, he did a clumsy dance on one foot, making scrambled sounds with his mouth and turning them into songs. He entered the palace, bursting in like an idiot as the servants on guard bobbed their heads and gave way for him to enter.

He opened his mouth with empty spaces for teeth and checkered teeth where there were teeth and spat blessings in their faces in his otherworldly tongues, then he spun around pulling out a long whip and as his spin slowed, he cracked the whip to announce his arrival. When the King came out to usher the Spokesman into the throne room, he twisted and shook his bottom excitedly and laughed out loud, cracking his whip again.

“Live forever my King!” His sanity returned as he hailed.

“Bantaik, you are welcome to my home. And I must say, you are such a show off!”

“If loyalty to you demands that I be announce your goodness, then it is be justified my King!”

“Ah! You do not change one bit; visiting when no one expects. What good news have you brought me once again my friend?”

“The same! You are be prosperous, my King! You will be rule your people with goodness and justice until you be go to your forefathers! Our land will be never barren! It will be produce food like never before! Your land will be grow and if there are be any lands beyond this, they will be hear tales about this land! Live forever my King!”

There was a shout of confirmation from outside the palace. The female servants began to chatter and women who had gone to the stream to bathe and fetch water were passing by and stopped to watch the excitement in the palace. This was one of the few times the servants felt it right to freely express their joy in the palace. Kanaka had been awakened by the first crack of the whip, and he knew the difference between a mad man and a sane man so it did not excite him that Bantaik was in the palace telling the people what message he was heralding from the gods.

“Where is be Prince?!” Bantaik demanded.

Greda stepped out into the throne room smiling and Bantaik shouted in his native tongues as everyone around and inside the palace responded with shouts as well.

“You will be King, my son! You will be King! You will be reign with your father in this land forever!” And more blessings.

Kanaka was just entering the palace. Sapas, who was peeping in through the crowd at the entrance had fallen in landing on her hands because she had been roughed up and pushed by the small crowd.

Suddenly, Bantaik halted his blessings and stared wide-eyed at the air in front of him.

Nobody knew what Bantaik had seen in the tense moment, but it was ignored and the focus went quickly back to the good tidings. When Bantaik recovered, he repeated the blessings again, starting with the King, then to his wife who had also come out, and then to the Prince, then he took his leave quickly, half-walking, half-running, out of the palace.

The King came out of the throne room and addressed his household, “Now, it is my turn to bless you, my household.” Then he extended his blessings to the guards, the fetchers, the cooks, the ladies outside the palace watching the drama, and to the people of Gardutkar, and then he went back inside.

Sooner than he had expected, he would have to go back.

Sapas | Kanaka

“Kanaka?”

“Yes?”

“At the palace today, did you see what happened?”

“What exactly?”

“The way Bantaik froze… I mean… was it not strange? It seemed to me like he was not at liberty to say something on his mind…”

Kanaka sighed and looked at Sapas without saying a word.

“I felt something… I was in the crowd at the entrance, and in all the excitement, I was pushed in through the front entrance, and it seemed as if…” she could not say how she had felt.

“As if…?”

She was contemplating if it was worth telling. Maybe she was the only one who had noticed it; maybe it was really nothing serious. Kanaka, from the expression on his face, had no idea what she was saying. She pushed on, “Kanaka, I’m telling you, the moment I landed on the floor with my hands, I felt a shock in my head, and that was when he stopped halfway in his words…”

Kanaka’s expression changed, but she could not even assume what he was thinking or feeling.

He spoke like he was not sure of what he was saying, letting his words drag like his attention was split between the conversation and something else, “W… Err… You mussst… You must have fallen quite hard –“

“I’m telling you! I know what I saw! It did not feel like shock from falling down.” She begged to be believed not noticing Kanaka clutch at his scarred arm in bewilderment.

Kanaka did not answer.

“Maybe I should have told someone el –“

“Shhh! Wait…”

“What?!”

She now saw him trying to twist his arm as much as he could to make the scar visible. He did not say a word, until,

“What’s wrong with your arm?” Sapas was getting worried.

“Sapas, I –“ Kanaka’s voice was drenched with fear, “I think I felt that shock you are talking about.”

She used the back of her hand to scratch her itching eyes, “H-how?”

“If you say that you felt a shock a soon as you landed, I think…” He could not believe what he was about to say just yet, “…since I had entered the palace at that exact time, there might be a connection between Bantaik’s reaction and what you felt.”

Sapas could not understand.

“Do you believe in coincidences?”

“Yes. Are you saying this is one? It looks supernatural to me.”

“I don’t know, it is hard to tell. I have never seen the gods work extraordinary things myself, but I do not believe in coincidences. I believe the gods plan everything that happens, to the smallest detail.”

“Well, that is true. But why are you saying all this?”

“Sapas?”

“Yes?”

Kanaka stood up, paced around for a few seconds and twisted his scarred arm again to look at it briefly, a little agitated.

“Bantaik has my scar, every detail of it.”

And then he told her about the nightmare.

Sapas

The day had come, but Mama Yuttputt wished that that day would only come slower than it did. Sapas had asked about her father and the truth came to her, but this truth was still in little bits that had to be pieced together, else, the fabric of her whole world would begin fray. They both sat in the tent lit with a dim lantern and talked, mother to angry daughter.

“Ah! Ah! Ah! Mama, this is too much for me to swallow now! Ah! Me?!” Sapas whisper-wailed the question to her mother.

“Mm-hmm...” Mama Yuttputt found herself responding without opening her mouth, saddened that the news had hit Sapas quite more harshly than expected.

“You mean my father was… K…King Fanoba… that king who the people killed at the time of the war? The betrayer?”

Sapas couldn’t believe what she was asking.

And Mama did not respond this time.

Sapas continued, “And…and… Rotyuk was my half brother?! Which means…” she swallowed, a cold numbing feeling of darkness passing over her in the moment,
“Which means, Kanaka is – “

“…Your half brother too; King Fanoba had many concubines. I wa… I was… deceived like the others when he promised he would marry us. But I took it seriously that the gods forbade a King marrying many wives, but that was only after he had had his way with me, and you were born.”

Sapas was breathing hard. A memory which had hidden itself from her reared its head clearly into her mind. Rotyuk had called the little boy at the palace ‘brother’ and treated him like one, and was very fond of him, but she had not even imagined that they were brothers by blood because Rotyuk had not told her that they were really brothers. And she had not asked because…

Did he need to?

He was her friend.

He was my friend.

Maybe he didn’t know.

He knew.

I should have asked.

“I knew the mother of Rotyuk…and well, err… Kanaka. The King, King Fanoba, had loved her much and secretly taken care of her even though he could not marry her. But she was killed during the war and the child was missing. Kanaka must be the missing child if Rotyuk told you he was his brother. The war turned – “

“Rotyuk didn’t tell me. Mama but why haven’t you told me all this since I was a child?”

Sapas burst out demanding, grumbling and shaking her hands as though they hurt, almost crying. It was already late into the night and all the other servants were asleep in their rooms at the servants’ quarters. They earnestly avoided talking too loudly, considering the topic of their discussion was not to be heard.

“My dear Sapas, I have told you now, and if I had told you before, you would still react the same way. I just felt it was not yet time. Moreover, what would you do now that you know?”

“Eh-eh! Mama, I don’t like this! I am not a child! You don’t understand! And I have been involved in this entanglement since I met Rotyuk, so what was the harm?! Ehn?! Mama, I told you… I told you about what Rotyuk did to protect the child… Rotyuk was my friend – “

“A royal blooded woman cannot do anything except she is married to another royal blood, and there is no other royal blood but the one in Gardutkar because we are the only ones alive out here. The bottomless pit is all around us! As long as a woman is born, there is no place for her with Kings unless she is married to one!

Even when the King dies, she is a normal woman again!” Mama Yuttputt interrupted Sapas, giving her a short orientation on the women of Gardutkar.

“Mama, what if I had slept with Rotyuk not knowing he was my brother?! You know how much I loved him! It is a thing of curses, Mama!” She yelled loud enough to wake the other servants. There was a movement in the trees. Mama Yuttputt signaled Sapas to keep her voice down and they both sat in silence to know if someone was eavesdropping. Nothing happened. It was the wind. That night, neither woman could sleep; the older one nor the younger. In these last few minutes of Sapas’ life so far, she had been forced to live with a new reality, the only one that had fit perfectly into hers.

The boy who had been sent away had found his way home, and it had something to do with Rotyuk’s death. Nightmares will always be nightmares.

To be continued...

- Telsum Bini