Black Tiger (31 page)

The ladies nodded, bowing and smiling, as Princess Pim silently joined them in the exotic garden. ‘Your future sister-in-law is a great beauty,’ one said.

‘Thank you,’ Pim said, watching Salikaa and frowning pensively.

‘I am sure His Majesty the King will think so,’ the plump lady smirked, eyeing Pim sideways as she fanned herself with a palm leaf. The proud Premsakuls were not universally beloved. Pim herself was considered to be a dangerous eccentric. Her flirtation with socialism was widely known and heartily disapproved of. Yet it was rumoured that the young king had cast his eye upon this renegade.

‘The king likes pretty ladies! All princes appreciate beauty!’

Pim drew in her breath sharply. The lady looked at her in mock concern, satisfied that her barb had struck home.

‘Are you unwell, Princess?’ she enquired sympathetically.

‘It is nothing,’ Pim smiled. ‘Nothing at all.’ She plucked a sprig of pink oleander and went over to Salikaa. ‘You have such talent! Teach us to dance like you, sister-in-law!’ She tucked the sugar-pink flower in Salikaa’s hair and kissed her smooth cheek. Salikaa laughed, showing her small, white, feral teeth. She tossed her head. The oleander blossom fell to the earth.

Neither woman picked it up.

The Prince Regent had returned from the freedom of the sea, and now perched with his chosen companions in full view on the stage of the great hall. He and his band played a swing number of His Multi-talented Highness’s own composing, in the manner of his idol, Glenn Miller. He rose for the clarinet spot, centre stage, and saluted the Princess Regent, sitting among her card-playing ladies, wagging his clarinet; she raised a hand in acknowledgement. She was drained. Her face muscles ached, but still she smiled. In her sleep she would smile; she would smile in death. Smiling was what she did and who she was. Thailand’s Smile.

She had trudged miles in the heat that day, scaled a hundred steep, shallow, knee-breaking steps to a hillside monastery; she had adorned the sacred image with a wreath of jasmine, distributed food and clothing to the poor who materialised like ghostly wraiths from dusty plain and tangled jungle to gaze and gape and grovel. Throughout she smiled, bewitchingly, valiantly, unflinchingly. Throughout she remained compassionate, band-box spruce, photo-ready. She could go nowhere unaccompanied. Ahead of her, bellowing into his radio, loped Colonel Sya, whose armed patrolmen were deployed along the projected route. At her side trotted her panting ladies, carrying sunshades and tissues and cologne in their Hermes handbags of sequined straw. Behind her sweated and cursed representatives of the media, humping cameras and microphones. She was the queen bee; where she flew, they swarmed. It was a gigantic public relations exercise, a coordinated counterblast to the creeping erosion of insurgency, and the tarnished image of Thailand, Sex Capital of the World. The Princess Regent was the most visible asset of the monarchy. Wholesome, compassionate, so exquisitely photogenic. The most beautiful woman in all Thailand, in all Asia, perhaps—probably—in all the world.

Until the arrival of this newly crowned queen, this new betrothed. This vivid, triumphant, uncompromising beauty promised her relief, a longed-for respite. The Princess Regent’s eyes rested without jealousy on Salikaa.

On stage among the musicians, her ward the young monarch was seated at the drums. As usual, he made little attempt to keep the rhythm, simply thudded and bumped away monotonously; then, as if in a paroxysm of rage, attacked his timpani with a frenzy, skittering riffs, clashing cymbals with neither rhyme nor reason. These capricious, cacophonous interludes were invariably greeted by rapturous applause from the assembled courtiers.

Young King Vajah would have been handsome but for the pettish scowl which customarily darkened his countenance. His glossy black hair fell over a high forehead; his features were well modelled, his mouth full and sensuous, red-lipped but demarcated in delicate purple, and his skin the prized pale gold of honey. He knew, because everyone told him so, that he was irresistible. Brilliant. Unequalled in charm, talent, and intelligence. To have the good karma to be born a king, he knew he must be well advanced upon the path of enlightenment. Tiresome Pim Premsakul alone failed to appreciate his splendour. Perhaps everyone was right, and she was mad. Why, otherwise, when he had proposed to her, had she not fallen at his feet? ‘I could not accept such an honour,’ she’d said. How dare she! His cousin—just an ordinary little princess.

Ordinary people’s lives were a closed book to Vajah. He had never held one normal conversation. At his approach, people invariably fell flat on their faces and addressed the dust at his feet. Veneration, awe, and sentimentality formed the all-enveloping cloak that concealed sharp ambition. He knew the flattery was false; he had the intelligence to penetrate the smokescreen of sycophancy and to sense the self-interest behind it. But being universally indulged by all who surrounded him had generated self-indulgence and indolence. The first lesson, the only lesson a king needed to learn, was to be the right sort of king; the king those who wielded the true power wanted. Kings who made trouble ended up as ex-kings, or dead kings. King Vajah’s immediate family held numerous examples of both these outcomes. Vajah recognised that the essential heart of kingship was prudence.

However, the ungrateful Pim would have to be taught a lesson. His eye fell on the new beauty, Prince Toom the boffin’s surprising fiancée. He lifted his sticks and saluted her, with an ironic and lascivious grin, making sure the gesture was not lost on the ingrate, Pim. He abandoned his drums and approached her. Pim made obeisance.

‘Your brother’s a lucky man,’ he said, openly watching Salikaa, allowing raw desire to play across his features. ‘She’s red-hot. She could drive a man mad.’ He observed Pim to see if his words had piqued her jealousy, but she merely looked embarrassed. ‘I am sure
she
would not spurn a king’s advances,’ he pouted, needling.

Pim looked him straight in the eye. ‘Your Majesty would not wish to waste his time.’

He laughed delightedly. ‘Do you say that because she is your brother’s fiancée, or perhaps, after all, are you jealous?’

‘Horrible spoiled little brat!’ Salikaa exclaimed. She and Pim were getting ready for the evening’s entertainment, the lavish buffet, the next session of card games and jazz and gossip in the great hall. Salikaa leaned toward the bathroom mirror, outlined her lips with dark lipstick. They looked like glossy summer fruit ripe for the picking. She smacked them to spread the colour evenly. ‘Do you suppose he’s a virgin?’

‘Heavens, Salikaa!’ Pim stopped, startled, her hand holding the hairbrush halfway up to her head. ‘He is the king! His head is the most sacred object in the kingdom.’

‘So?’ Salikaa shrugged. ‘It’s not his head I’m thinking about. Tonight, when I dance, every man in the audience will want me. Even the spoiled brat. Virgin or no.’ Impulsively, Salikaa dropped her lipstick in the wash basin. It rattled round, smearing the blue porcelain bowl with a scarlet bruise. Salikaa threw her arms about Pim. ‘Oh, Pim, I’d like to bed every man in the world. Every single one, and none of them!’

‘You talk such rubbish, Salikaa!’

‘No! I want my image to haunt the brain of every man who sees me, even when he lies with his own woman!’

Pim stiffened. ‘Salikaa. When are you going to tell Toom the truth? That you can’t marry him, you don’t love him, he’ll never have children by you…’

Salikaa laid a long-nailed finger across Pim’s lips. She brought her face very close to Pim’s. ‘Shh!’ she warned. Her exotically painted eyes glittered dangerously. Pim backed away, shaking her head. ‘Things happen to those who get in my way, Pim,’ Salikaa warned. ‘Bad things. I love you, Pim, but I warn you, don’t try to stand in my way. I can make the man I choose happier than he has any right to expect.’

Pim stared at her in alarm.

Salikaa picked up her little sequined purse. ‘Time to go.’

They set off through the fragrant garden toward the lighted palace.

Raven sensed the tension in the air, something more than the usual anticipation of a new dance to be performed. The court ladies, twittering like an aviary of jewel-coloured hummingbirds, managed between them to locate their tango record. Giggling, they took the stage and arranged themselves in couples, a taller lady with a shorter. The young king sat between his guardians, the Prince and Princess Regent, on a red velvet sofa. All three sat bolt upright, smiling in polite anticipation. A flunky had shown Raven to a seat on the front row, to the right of the royal party. On the left of the hall he glimpsed the burly figure of Sya Dam, standing, arms folded, hooded eyes watchful. As usual, he was in uniform, but bareheaded, off duty.

The strains of the tango filled the hall, and the ladies, holding one another chastely at arms’ length, began their dance. Only Salikaa danced alone, swaying, eyes shut. Some of the dancing ladies were by nature ill-suited to the tango, being short of leg and ample of bust. Sometimes the pillowed torsos bumped awkwardly, and the young king suppressed a giggle.

Nobody saw Salikaa make her move, but suddenly she occupied centre stage. Her eyes now wide open, fixed on the king, flashing a challenge, she danced, the bright chiffon gown flickering about her long slim legs like tongues of flame. The other ladies stopped dancing and fell back, staring. All eyes were on Salikaa. Prince Toom, drawn as by a magnet to the foot of the stage, gazed up at his fiancée with adoration and apprehension. Salikaa reached out a hand to him. He sprang onto the stage, and she pressed herself against him and drew him into her dance. It was her will and her desire that dominated, and the young man, acquiescent, followed blindly, in a trance, as the flame-coloured dress swirled about him and Salikaa’s flying black locks whipped his face and stung tears to his eyes. When the tension in the hall had risen to fever pitch, the music abruptly ceased. Salikaa dropped Toom’s hand without looking at him. She slipped gracefully down from the stage, strode across the floor, still with the hot pride of the tango in her step and her bold, shameless eyes, and dropped to her knees before the young king. Her hair, disordered from the passion of the dance, tumbled over her face like a dark curtain.

There was a stunned silence. Then King Vajah reached out a hand that shook very slightly, and lifted her chin. Seeking her eyes with his own fiery gaze, he murmured throatily, ‘You are fantastic!’

Salikaa inclined her head modestly. Then she rose, her momentary humility banished by her old hauteur, and strode from the pavilion, looking neither to the right nor the left. She passed so close by Raven that her chiffon gown brushed his shin. But she acknowledged nobody. There was a rustling chorus of gasps and whispers. ‘She did not request permission to withdraw!’ squeaked the ladies. ‘And that dancing! Shameless!’

Mrs van Hooten, sitting ramrod straight just behind the Princess on an uncompromising Louis Seize chair, uttered the one penetrating monosyllable that summed up the general astonished consternation.

‘Well!’

The dancing ladies trotted to the edge of the stage and took their rehearsed bow. The royal party led polite, embarrassed applause. The king, after a moment’s hesitation, joined in. A small sigh of satisfaction rose from the court. Order appeared restored. Raven looked round for Sya Dam, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Salikaa stalked unseeing through the garden, brushing aside the barked query of the guards, into the Premsakul summer villa. The house guard and servants came running. Dismissing them with a curt nod, she walked up to the first-floor suite that had been assigned to her. She went to the window and leaned on the sill, peering out through the darkness toward the distant lights and sounds of the palace. She waited, listening. She soon heard running footsteps approaching; her sharp ears caught the swish of clothing against branches, then the noise of swift, athletic footsteps, mounting the wooden stairs two at a time—a body flung against her door, fists pounding.

‘Salikaa? Salikaa, let me in!’ The voice, high with desperation and hurt, was that of her fiancé, Prince Toom Premsakul.

Salikaa did not reply, or even turn in the direction of the sound. She continued to lean on the sill, staring out into the night. The air, though cooler, still hoarded the heat of the day; heavy with perfume and dust, it beat softly against her temples.
It is happening
, thought Salikaa.
It is all coming together. Nothing can stop me now.
She savoured her power, lightheaded with her own cunning.

Toom burst into the room. ‘How could you, Salikaa?’ he demanded. His sad eyes roved over her face, desperately seeking reassurance.

‘Toom, dear, you are out of breath. You have been hurrying, getting yourself excited. It will bring on your asthma. Sit down, please. Have some tea.’ She made as if to ring for the servant. He dropped his hand over hers to forestall this.

‘I do not want tea, Salikaa! I want to know why you made a laughingstock of me!’ She raised her eyebrows in polite query. ‘Dancing like that in front of everyone. You know how difficult my family has been about our engagement, the opposition we face…and this is how you behave! Playing into the hands of those who disapprove! I—I simply cannot understand you, Salikaa!’

Salikaa sat down on the pink silk divan and kicked up her long legs in the flame chiffon. She leaned sideways, selected a cigarette from an ebony box inlaid with silver, and lit it with the big silver table lighter, ignoring Toom’s pout of disapproval. ‘Relax, Toom, darling,’ she said, blowing smoke through her nostrils. ‘So we danced. Big deal. We showed up all those dumpy little dowagers with figures like sacks full of rotting durians, so they’ll hate our guts—so what? They hate us already. You’re a smartass little princeling, and I’m a guttersnipe, but I’m gorgeous. Nothing will ever stop them loathing us. Anyway, who gives a shit? The king liked it. His young Randiness thought our little number was just great.’

His face darkened. ‘You should not talk that way about His Majesty, Salikaa! And that is another thing. I saw the effect you had on him—everyone saw, it was so blatant! I saw the way you looked at each other. How could you do that, Salikaa? He is just a boy, and you, you are my fiancée—and he is the king, Salikaa!’