The Jewel Trader Of Pegu by Jeffrey Hantover Read Free Book Online

pieces, rolled them in rice chaff and grass, and fed them to the elephants in front of the rebellious ruler, whose doom soon followed. I have seen thieves begging in the market who, undeterred by searing brands on chest and cheeks for their first offense, have lost both hands for their second.
    But I find hard to believe this act of barbarity, even for these infidels in time of war. Under the last king, who all say was a great warrior and a devout man—much the opposite of his pitiless successor—
    the kingdom had an army of four thousand fighting elephants. Now Win says the number is less than a thousand, and this bodes ill for the kingdom’s future.

    My time here is governed more by seasonal winds than even our desire for profit. I can only do our business and pray for the best.
    Tell Uncle to pray for his faithful nephew and this benighted king.
    This evening I rearranged things in the chest where I keep the heavy dark pants and jacket not fit for this climate. I found my yellow hat had turned moldy and rotten in the thick, humid air. I looked at it with a stranger’s eyes: it wasn’t my hat anymore. It looked much too small to ever have fit. It seemed a costume kept by a troupe of traveling players—something an actor wears to play a role. I had Khaing throw it out with the fish bones and coconut husks.
    Your cousin,
    Abraham

----
    12 November 1598
    Dear Joseph,
    This letter will be brief. I am wearied by what my eyes witnessed today. If I do not share my grief, I am afraid my heart will burst with sadness.
    The king commanded the citizens of the city and the foreigners to witness the public execution in the central square of a dozen lords whom he accused of conspiring with the king of Ava. They and their wives and children—there must have been close to one hundred poor souls—were led from the Prome Gate through the city streets to their death. The lords, stripped bare from the waist up, their clothes in tatters, rode backward on sway-backed nags.
    They wore straw crowns hung with mussel shells and strings of onions. What all that meant I do not know, but no one could be blind to the humiliation intended—as if the death that awaited them was not enough. Their wives, hands bound behind them by rough rope, and their children, some so young they could barely walk, shuffled and stumbled and were dragged in pitiful parade through the dirt on either side of their husbands and fathers. Their wailing rent my heart. Attendants and old retainers followed their masters through the crowd, raising dreadful cries and lamentations to their deaf gods. Many of these souls, slave and freemen, struck their foreheads and cheeks with rocks until blood bathed their faces. Even the royal guards were moved to tears by this cascading woe and wailing. When they reached the place of death, the soldiers pulled the lords from their horses and threw them to the ground, their wives crying and fainting. One lord, who did not stumble and stood like a nobleman to all eyes, heathen and European, bent over his fallen wife to console her with words, for he could not touch her, as his hands too were bound behind him. I do not know which “Lord” he cried out to—whether his god or king—but Win said his words were—
Lord, my Lord, remember who thou art and not who I am
. I did not understand at the time the meaning of his words, but I felt the power of his feelings, the nobility of his bearing. An old attendant broke through the crowd and poured water from a pouch into his mouth. He did not swallow, though his lips were dry and cracked.
    Instead, he bent over his fallen wife and spit water into her mouth.
    The chambers of my heart moaned for him. No kiss could have borne better witness to his love. I felt shamed by this infidel. He bore for his wife more love than I ever did for mine. More love than I fear I can ever feel.
    The women and children were hung by their feet until they choked on their own blood. The men were impaled like sheep