Chapter 4
Clever Monkey, Quiet Turtle
A cacophony of shouts speared through the thunderous shattering of a clay jar. Karí’s ears rang as she stared at the jagged pieces of earthenware, some of which were as big as her palm and others so tiny they would be indistinguishable from sand. Everyone surrounding her wore slack-jawed faces that more than likely mirrored her own.
Careless laughter erupted from her cousin, Bulaos. “Well, aren’t we in trouble?”
“You mean, you’re in trouble.” Karí’s older brother, Haban, shot back at Bulaos. He still gripped one of the front handles of the rattan carrier with one hand, while the other pointed an accusing finger at their cousin. “What in the names of our dead ancestors was a bird doing in that jar?”
Bulaos shrugged, rolling his eyes. “It was supposed to be a harmless prank. I didn’t expect you’d all fail to notice there was something inside it, even after you loaded it on the carrier.” The straight, fine fringes of his hair fell over amused eyes as he crossed his arms.
“Why would you let the bird out now, of all times?” Haban pressed, voice strained with frustration.
Karí and the other youths of her family had been tasked to load a boat with several of their largest jars. The datu had requested them as a place to store extra rations of rice he would buy from the rice-merchant. All they had to do was make a few trips to the river with some jars on a carrier, and deliver these to the datu’s home.
It had seemed like a simple chore, one that they could all finish easily, leaving Karí with some time to think about the story for Dalon.
“Why don’t we put this down for now?” Haban’s wife, Lala, said with a grimace. She stood beside Karí, holding one of the back handles of the carrier. At the front with Karí’s brother, was their younger cousin, Dandan. The four of them gently settled the carrier on the ground, the three remaining jars swaying a little with the motion.
The ringing in Karí’s ears had stopped, replaced by the steady gallop of her heart. How could Bulaos be laughing at breaking that jar? It was deep enough to reach her knees. A jar like that took half-a-month to prepare. He should know; he sculpted its scalloped lip.
“Oh no, your Ma is coming,” Lala whispered to Karí, face half-hidden by her long silky hair as if she could save herself from the woman’s wrath by avoiding her gaze.
Karí’s mother seethed as she approached. Her eyes roamed the ground, taking in the wrecked pieces of the jar. Her cheeks, which were normally ruddy with the physical work of paddling and molding clay, were now red for an entirely different reason. The curls escaping her bun poked out from her scalp as if straining away from her heated skin.
“What in the stuffed bamboo happened here?” She placed her hands on her stout waist and looked at each of the youths. Her eyes settled on Karí last, and apprehension sunk in Karí’s belly. “Well?”
“Ah, w-we were just transporting the jars. A-and then a bird flew out. It seems like a prank. Then the jar broke. Well, it fell first.” Karí’s heart was pounding so hard it pushed coherence out of her brain. Words hopped around in her mind, puzzle pieces that could not find their fitting place. She dared not accuse Bulaos outright of putting the bird in there. He would feel that she was deliberately trying to get him in trouble, and she didn’t want to cross him. But without that implication, she found it impossible to lay the story straight.
Her mother squinted in confusion, shook her head irritably, and turned to Lala instead. “Explain what happened.”
The young woman squirmed, playing with her hair the entire time she cleared up Karí’s answer. “Apparently, Bulaos placed a dove inside the jar earlier as a prank. We didn’t realize there was a bird in there, and we loaded it on the carrier. I’m sure Bulaos didn’t want us sending a wild bird to the datu, so he caught up to us and took the lid off. And like Karí mentioned, the bird flapped away, but the jar toppled over in its flight.”
Karí’s mother flashed Bulaos a frown. “That will come out of your allowance.” Her voice was lower now, but her eyes still gleamed with annoyance. The past few days had been stressful, and although Karí’s mother usually enjoyed the busyness that came with their trade, having one of your best goods wasted by a prank would frustrate anybody. “The rest of you, clean this up. Then bring the jar commissioned by the katalonan to the datu instead. I will speak with Grandma Ahel to let her know her own order will be late. She will be a lot more forgiving than the other commissioners.”
With that, she stalked away, shaking her head.
Bulaos only smirked, earning a dark look from Haban, made more serious by the shadow of the flop of curls hanging over his forehead. But like always, there wasn’t much they could do about Bulaos. There was hardly any trouble his admirable sculpting skills could not diminish, and he’d already proven he could live through one of the worst punishments for a crime in Lurit.
Several servants of the datu helped unload their boat at the pier of the datu’s compound. A path led directly from the riverbank to a large house. Wooden posts, each as thick as five burly men huddled together, held up a structure panelled in smooth lumber and woven bamboo. The house was wide and sprawling, and Karí could only see a fraction of the whole thing. Several nipa roofs capped it, indicating multiple wings.
This wasn’t an unfamiliar sight for Karí. When she and her family would gather clay up at the meadow farther north, they would row past the datu’s compound. It was, however, her first time seeing it up close.
Across the river, in a clearing by the banks, several traders had set up temporary lodgings. Sand-coloured tents and bright orange mats dotted the grass. Boats and rafts crowded the edge of the water. There would be more coming soon once the main caravan arrived for the festival. The more prestigious merchants, or those bringing goods requiring protection from the elements, were provided with accommodations in the guest huts and pavilions of the datu’s compound.
A servant waved for Karí and the others to follow him. She stuck close to Lala, linking their arms together, as the servant led them down a path different from the one that went straight to the datu’s house. They rounded the large structure, arriving at a roofed platform at the back where more servants were busy at work. The men and women carrying the jars from the boat walked towards the platform, and bowed before an opulent man, whom Karí realized with some surprise was Datu Hálgundî. She hadn’t expected that they’d deliver the jars straight to him.
The bright gold bands across the datu’s biceps and ankles, as well as the gold chain around his neck, should have been the most notable thing about him. Especially as they shone against the brilliant green silk of his matching tunic and loincloth.
But what hooked Karí’s gaze was the vivid red birthmark on the right side of his forehead, as if he’d gotten burned there long ago. That, and his youth. He wasn’t that much older than her brother, Haban, and it showed.
A man stood beside the datu, but Karí had never seen him before. His finely tailored indigo robe, and the silver threads trimming its edges and forming crescent-moon patterns on its surface, proclaimed him to be a man of great means. His straight, silky hair was combed back out of his face, and his moustache drooped below his chin after the fashion of those hailing from richer settlements. That he kept his head slightly bowed and his position several steps away from the datu signalled he himself was not nobility.
After the servants made their obeisance, the datu waved them inside the platform, where they began lining the jars by the railing.
Karí, Lala, Haban, Bulaos and Dandan then stepped forward, hands pressed to their cheeks, to pay their own respects to Datu Hálgundî.
“You may rise,” Datu Hálgundî said after a moment. “As always, I appreciate the service you render to me. My treasurer will forward the payment to your family by this evening. Have some refreshments before you leave.” He waved to a table inside the platform, laden with fresh fruits, boiled tubers, and a glass pitcher of mango juice.
“Thank you, my lord,” they muttered as they filed one by one up the stairs. The man standing beside the datu hardly spared them a glance.
Inside, sacks of rice formed hilly contours across the floor. Half-a-dozen servants paced across the platform, scooping different rice grains from various sacks into smaller ones. Karí suspected they were rationing the rice among the households of Lurit.
Karí grabbed a small banana from the refreshments table. She had little appetite, despite how weary her limbs were after carrying so many jars. The others were less conservative; Dandan, in particular, piled a bowl with langsat, rambutan, and cubes of green mango. But being thirteen, surely he must have felt ravenous at every waking moment, so Karí couldn’t blame him.
At the other end of the platform, Datu Hálgundî and the fancy man climbed up the stairs.
“Perhaps, the datu will consider buying a few reserves of the long-grained fragrant rice from the western coast,” the man said in a smooth, deep tone, referring to the datu in the respectful third-person. “It is a popular staple in the settlements of Managimpan and Hawili, enjoyed by all their residents, from the nobility to the household servants.”
This must be the rice trader, Merchant Tangad. Karí didn’t know what she’d expected him to be like, as his generous offering of underpriced rice loomed larger in her mind than he did as a person. And as he never seemed to mingle with the villagers in the markets, he remained on the outskirts of her mind. Seeing his splendid clothes and delicate gestures now, she surmised he deemed himself too refined for such gatherings.
“True, the scent is reminiscent of pandan,” the datu acquiesced with a polite smile. “And I’m certain a jar of the grains will satisfy my curiosity. No need for reserves, however. Let’s leave those to the good folks of Managimpan and Hawili.”
“As the datu wishes,” Merchant Tangad nodded. He smiled as if he hadn’t just attempted to entice Datu Hálgundî into buying a type of rice common enough in richer towns where even indentured servants had their share of it. A more prideful datu would have let the implication of Lurit’s humbler status goad them into spending more. It was what Datu Hálgundî’s father would have done.
“And these short, sticky red grains grow only in the northern mountain ranges. It’s the first time I could bring them to Lurit, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to do so next.”
In a soft, even voice, Datu Hálgundî said, “I do not doubt your skills in acquiring any rice grain that you wish. My villagers especially adore your medium-grain brown rice. They love to have it for every meal. I will purchase reserves for that.”
“Karí,” someone whispered, and she turned her attention back to the refreshments. Bulaos was leaning close to her. “You might want to share those bananas. I see a monkey over there.” He was sneering at what he must have considered an intelligent joke. Seemed like she wasn’t the only one who’d been watching Tangad.
Based on the collection of tales of ‘The Monkey and The Turtle,’ Lurit villagers used ‘monkey’ as a moniker for those who were clever and sophisticated, yet who turned their noses up at folks who didn’t live in the high boughs of society.
“Dear ancestors, would you shut your mouth for once?” Haban hissed under his breath. “You do know what happened the last time you insulted somebody, don’t you? Do you remember those seven months or did we all just suffer some kind of shared fever dream?”
“Relax,” Bulaos said, voice low but half-laughing. “I don’t plan to be indentured again anytime soon. Besides, I can take care of myself. I don’t know what you’re so worried about, Sir Turtle.”
Haban rolled his eyes. Turtle was the favoured character in those fables, but it didn’t sound like a compliment the way Bulaos said it.
After they finished snacking and took their leave from the datu, another servant led them back to the pier. Karí walked side-by-side with her brother this time, attuned to his shifting mood. Bulaos could be such an expert in needling that even Haban, who was usually calm and laid back, could get a little heated.
“Has anything changed here since you last visited?” Karí asked him. Haban was staring at the datu’s home as they went through the compound.
“Surprisingly not,” he answered. “I dare say, even those bushes are the same height as they were back when I had to attend Bulaos’ arbitration.”
Datu Hálgundî’s father had had a penchant for redecorating the compound to whatever the next important visitor fancied. Merchant Tangad hadn’t been their rice supplier then, but Karí could imagine the previous datu lining the balconies with his family’s ceramic heirlooms to impress the merchant. He and Tangad might actually enjoy a conversation, now that she thought about it. Both employed similar subtle flattery in their speeches.
“I think it’s nice the way it is now,” Haban added, and Karí agreed.
Karí clambered up the hut she once shared with her parents and grandmother. She now lived in Haban and Lala’s little hut at the edge of her family’s compound, after her mother had taken on three of her cousins as apprentices. Their home got much noisier and busier, and since Karí herself wasn’t much help with the pottery, she’d relocated.
But she still remembered the bound stack of bamboo sheets tucked away in Grandma Biya’s little chest of curiosities. It was a collection of tales. Her grandmother had bought it from a travelling storyteller who showed up in a caravan twenty years ago and never came back.
The afternoon sun lit up the little storage space where they kept the chest. Karí dusted off the top of the lid. Inside, she found little wooden carvings, an embroidered cotton shawl with a strange blue stain, woven bracelets and anklets, and a fertility statue. Beneath them all were the bound sheets. She slid them free from the other contents.
Karí had been itching almost all day to take a gander at this.
Heavy hands clapped her shoulders, startling her into dropping the sheets. She whipped around.
“Bulaos!” she cried. Standing behind her, wheezing with laughter, was her troublemaking cousin. “What are you doing here?” she almost snapped at him, but her wariness clouded her annoyance. If even indentured servitude couldn’t blunt Bulaos’ sharp edges, there was nothing she could do to make him change.
It took a moment for Bulaos to get his breath back. “I could ask you the same question.”
She sighed, exasperated. “I’m reading.” She reached for the sheets, but he was faster. He perused the pages, although she knew he remembered them just as well as she did. Grandma Biya had read the stories to all of them when they were little.
“It must be so nice,” he said, sending her a mockingly wistful glance. “To have nothing else to do but read children’s tales.”
Karí didn’t miss his meaning. She had half a mind to talk about the clothes she’d laundered and mended in the morning so that everyone else could work on pottery, the lunch she’d made with her father for everybody, and the large jars she’d helped transport. But she saw the thick callouses on Bulaos’ fingers, the nicks on the dried, blistering skin. Embarrassment choked her words. How could she boast about washing and cooking, when Bulaos had spent nearly a month sculpting a yawning crocodile that would wrap around one of their special orders?
She swallowed her indignation. It didn’t matter. Better for him to think she was idling, than for her to reveal she was researching ideas for a story.
“I just miss the stupid old tales, all right?” she deflected. “Now leave me in peace before I have to make dinner.”
Bulaos stared at her, his impertinent smile never wavering. “What is this? Good old obedient Karí, keeping secrets?”
“Secrets?” she cried. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Let’s just say it takes one to know one.” He finally relented and handed back the bound pages. “But don’t worry, I promise I won’t pry or interfere. I’d love to see you get in some trouble for once. You’re too... bland. You do nothing remarkable.”
“Trouble? What kind of trouble do you think I’d get into by reading stories?” But there was no use in her protests. Bulaos hopped out of the storage room and was sauntering down the hallway by the time Karí finished with her questions.
Fuming, she buried her face in her hands. She willed her breath to slow and her blood to cool. Bulaos was just riling her up. Sure, perhaps something about the way she’d talked or acted made it seem like she was hiding a secret. But she was certain he couldn’t know exactly how much she and Dalon were risking with their night-time meetings.
Like many settlements across the archipelago, there was a decree in Lurit that all amulets must be presented to the datu before being used. Using an amulet without the knowledge, approval or direction of a datu was illegal.
But that edict was put in place to prevent people from getting hurt by powerful amulets. Stories of magical artifacts calling down thunder and lightning, or granting its wearer the ability to command fire, or causing boils and tumours, were as numerous as the light-hearted gossip people told by moonlight. However, Dalon’s amulet was nothing like those. It couldn’t even transmit real thoughts — she and Dalon had tried to do it before. No, it could somehow only show fictional imaginings about people who didn’t exist and events that didn’t happen. There was nothing dangerous about that.
At least, that was what Karí had been telling herself.
Flustered, she plopped down in front of the chest. Sure, Bulaos likely kept secrets too, but that didn’t make them similar at all, did it?
A year ago, weaver Dais had shooed away Bulaos and his motley friends from her backyard after she had caught them drunkenly snatching at her mangoes. Angered and embarrassed, Bulaos had launched into a petty tirade about how her woven patterns mimicked the fur on a wild pig frolicking in muddy grass. Even after he’d sobered up, he and his friends went around Lurit snorting and making pig-faces at whoever they found wearing Dais’ clothes. Little children and other delinquents took up the teasing to the point that villagers eventually stopped wearing and buying Dais’ weavings to avoid the harassment. A caravan trader even ended a years-long contract with her.
Dais sought Datu Hálgundî’s help, charging Bulaos with insult that resulted in the loss of livelihood. Their entire family had enough savings to pay off the fine, but Aunt Paro was so mortified that she’d insisted her son ought to experience consequences as severe as his misdeeds. Instead of paying, she allowed Bulaos to be indentured to the weaver, and he would pay off his debt by working for Dais and her family.
For his part, Bulaos had acted as if the entire thing was child’s play. He’d laboured for Dais for seven months, but he’d always come home like he’d had a good time. He still went out with his friends at night. He still got drunk sometimes.
Karí shook her head and opened up the bound sheets. She wouldn’t allow herself to be distracted now, especially by Bulaos.
The stories were grouped together by type. Some were moralistic; some focused on amulets, both historically verified and imaginary; some were about family or romance. Others yet focused on warring tribes and heroic battles.
Karí paid most attention to how all the stories ended. Several possessed powerful twists, like when the heroes ended up being the very monsters they were hunting, or when objects that were supposedly amulets turned out ordinary all along, or when people didn’t receive rewards because they’d misunderstood the meaning of kindness.
However, most of the stories ended exactly like how one would expect. But did she enjoy these any less? As a child, she had loved all of them. What if she and Dalon didn’t need to change the ending at all? What if there really was no special reason that King Luyong trapped his daughter in the cave?
Karí bit her lip. No, that just made little sense. No loving father would do that. And if he was so concerned with her safety, that signalled that there was some kind of danger in his kingdom. It was possible that she could add hints of war and espionage, but that would completely shift the atmosphere of the tale. And war stories weren’t what attracted people during a festival.
“Hey, there you are,” a low, gentle voice came from the doorway. It was Haban. “Why are you hiding in here?”
“I’m not hiding.” Karí showed him the bundle of stories. “I just wanted to read for a bit.” It was then she noticed that the slant of the light streaming through the window had moved considerably. It was closer to evening now. Had she been reading and thinking that long?
“Ma mentioned she needs more of the gray clay. Want to come with me to collect some? Pa says he can handle cooking dinner alone.”
Karí glanced at the page laid out on top of the chest. Her mind had just started churning the right way, tossing ideas, asking the right questions. This was the ideal state for inspiration. But digging for clay was one of the few things she could do related to pottery. And although she hadn’t developed the intuition for how to mix and temper clay like Haban had, he never begrudged her for the little help she could provide him otherwise.
“Of course, just let me clean up here,” she said.