Sea of Honey Page 3

Another man came and told him that he had dreamed that he had stolen all of his neighbour’s goods. The king told him, ‘If you have dreamed it, then you must do it!’

So nobody was ever punished, and thieves and robbers had a wonderful time. Of course the court officials were horrified, and it was decided by them that the king must die. Thus, the king was murdered in an uprising fermented by the king’s own officials. When Ayu Bebed heard that her real husband died, she committed suicide, as she no longer desired life. She was re-united with him in heaven, and they renewed their marriage vows.

That same man, Mpu Kepakisan, who had warned Gaja Mada of his impending death, then begat a new king for Bali; by a nymph who came down from heaven to lie with him. When she had given birth to a son, she flew back again to heaven. Kepakisan laid the child on a leaf and covered it over, and abandoned it. The new-born baby was found by a wild deer, which suckled it and then reared him. When he was a grown man he also became a priest, and he also had four children by a nymph. Three of his sons became kings in Java, and his daughter ruled in Sumbawa. At this time the Balinese royal line died out, and the Javanese line begins.

Now Kepakisan had three grandsons, and they were the King of Samplangan, the King of Tarokan, and I Dalem Ketut. The King of Tarokan had a stallion whom he held most prec­ious in all the world, and one day the horse fell ill, and the king made a vow that if he recovered he could have the daughter of his brother as a wife. The king did not rega­rd the horse as a beast, but as a human. When the horse recovered, the king upheld his promise to the beast, and stole the girl away and brought her to Tarokan. The marr­iage ceremony took place, and the girl was locked in the stable with the horse for their honeymoon. The poor girl died from shock. When her father found out his daughter’s fate, he was horrified at his brother’s monstrous crime and declared war on him. He assembled his army and set out for Tarokan. When the King of Tarokan saw his brother approaching with a vast army, he fled taking twenty-four of his most trusted retainers with him. They fled from village to village, until he came to a place called Suk­awana, where he hid himself deep in the forest. And then a terrible thunderstorm came up and killed twelve of his followers. But still Gusti Ng­urah Mambil, the patih of Samplangan, pursued him. Then a fierce ba­ttle took place in which all of his remaining men were killed, but the raja, his wife and children succeeded in hiding themselves. The king was a hunted and lonely man, until the mountain village of Sukawana took pity on him and befriended him and took him in. The people of the village of Sukawana called him Djero Made (younger person). And when he died he was cremated a Sudra, by his own wish.

After the death of the King of Samplangan, the yo­ungest of the three brothers I Dalem Ketut, who was an adventurer, leading a disorderly life, of gambling in low company, was fetched from his usual place the wan­tilan (for a cock-fight was in progress). He was brou­ght to Gelgel where he was crowned king. I Dalem Ket­ut had two sons, named Pemacun Bakung and Seganing.

Pemacun Bakung, King of Gelgel, had a beautiful wife, and her name was Ni Gusti Sameantiga. One day, when one of the nine patihs, a man called Gust Ngurah T’Labah, came from Badung to pay his respects to the Ki­ng of Gelgel, he saw the king’s wife and he at once fell in love with her. T’Labah was a very handsome young man and he found favour with the queen, and she became infa­tuated with him and sent him a ring to remember her by. His visits to Gelgel became more and more frequent, and at last he succeeded in having a private meeting with her, away from prying eyes. Nobody suspected anything, least of all the king; but at last Gusti Ngurah Pandê heard of it, and he devised a plan for exposing T’Labah’ s treachery to the king. It was at a time when a great assembly of patihs arrived, all dressed in incredible finery and elegance. Pandê arrived dressed exquisitely, his fingers adorned with rings, bracelets on his arms and ankles.

The king at once noticed his brilliance, and began to admire the stones in the rings and bracele­ts. Pandê replied to his king, ‘My lord, these are as nothing, for they are merely heirlooms, they cannot com­pare, all put together, with the single precious ring on Gusti T’Labah’s finger!’

The king called T’Labah to him and examined carefully his wondrous ring. Then he said, ‘How amazing! This ring is exactly like the ring that I once gave to my wife!’ The Queen was sent for and ques­tioned, but she made no reply, and nothing more was said about it to her by the king. But Pemacun had immediate­ly understood that it was she who had given the ring to T’Labah, and he understood that she had betrayed him.

When the assembly was over the king called Gusti Pa­ndê to him and said, ‘I am grateful to you, for making me aware of what is happening in such a tactful way, and to show my gratitude, I promise to share my kingdom with you, if you succeed in removing Gusti T’Labah.’

This is what Pandê had been hoping for, and he eagerly did what the king requested. Pandê had a slave named Capung, from Kamasan, and he persuaded him to go to Badung to kill T’Labah. He provided him with funds to the value of sixteen ringgits and fifty cents, and he also gave Capung a weapon for the murder; a kris named Pelang Soka.

The slave set off, armed with two kris, one provided by his lord Gusti Ngurah Pandê, and his own. When he arrived in Badung, the very first thing that his eyes fell upon was a fisherman, bound to a post, in the cock-fighting place. Capung found out that the fisherman was being punished because he had not provided T’Labah with enough fish. And the poor man had been sitting there two days before Capung had arrived in Badung, without anything to eat. Capung went and bought food for him, and kept him company. At the end of a month this generosity had used up all of Capung’s money, but he had made a grateful friend. And then he asked the fisherman if he was willing to die for him. The man out of gratitude promised to do whatever Capung asked. Then he was set free, and they went together and approached the entrance of the palace. Capung gave the fisherman his own kris, but kept Pelang Soka himself.

Towards evening, a few people came out of the puri and seeing the two men sitting there asked them who they were. Capung said, ‘We have come with a petition from Akeantimbul.’

‘Please sit down’ said the people, ‘for Gusti T’Labah is just coming out.’

Directly T’Labah came out and Capung leaped upon him uttering these words, ‘Pelang Soka will kill you, it cannot fail!’ T’Labah had already drawn his own kris, and as Capung swiftly disappeared, the crowd killed the fisherman in retaliat­ion, believing he was responsible for the patih’s death.

When Capung reached Gelgel and told his lord Pandê what had happened, he was rewarded with three wives and a high position at court. When he was firmly ensconced in his new position, Capung showed his true nature and became overbearing and tyrannical, and he allowed himself a great many liberties. At cremations, when gifts were brought for the king or Pandê, he insisted on everything passing through his hands, and he kept back half of eve­rything for himself. The complaints of the people came at last to the ears of Pandê’s son Biasama, and he devi­sed a scheme for getting rid of Capung.

A cock-fight was being arranged in the house temple of the palace of Gelgel, and Pandê told his son to bring him his fighting knives and his betel-box. Biasama purposely did not bring them, and he told the palace guard not to admit anyone who knocked at the gate, and if any one should try to climb over the wall they should kill him at once with their spears. When Pandê’s cock was about to fight he called for his knives. Biasama prete­nded that he had forgotten his father’s request, and he sugges­ted that Capung be sent to the puri to fetch it from Pande’s bedro­om; for they were kept at the head of the bed. He smiled at Ca­pung and said that no one was as trustworthy as he.

Eagerly Capung set forth, but he found the gates of the pa­lace shut fast. He knocked and knocked in vain, and he became very angry at getting no answer, so he began to climb over the wall, muttering and cursing all the while. When the watchmen saw him they immediately killed him with their spears. The ne­ws of the death of an intruder climbing the puri wall quickly reached Pandê, and he at once jumped up from the cock-fight and rushed to the palace, where he found Capung dead, lying in a pool of blood, at the foot of the wall.

As a mark of great honour, Capung was cremated that same day, which is a privilege reserved for Brahmans and princes. Capung’s wives however, soon learned by whose orders their husband had been killed. And they sat weeping and howling in the market place, telling their tale to anyone who would listen. When Biasama heard this, he had them killed as well; excepting one, who made her escape to Badung, where she told how Biasama had murdered Capung and his wives.

And this story came to the ears of Gusti Klantca, the son of the murdered T’Labah. He heard that it was Capung that had killed his father at Pandê’s instigation. In a great rage he summonsed all his chief vassals, and he proceeded to march with a large army to Gelgel, where he asked the king’s permission to fight a duel with Pandê. The patih was quickly summonsed to the presence of the king. The king explained to Klantca that Pandê had planned everything without his knowledge, and he told Pandê that he must swear to it. Pandê however refused to do what the king had ordered, and he insulted the king by stepping forward and striking the king in the face with his dress, as a mark of the utmost contempt. Then he raised himself erect and swept from the assembly of nobles without taking leave. This lack of respect infuriated the king, who at once called togeth­er all his ministers and soldiers, and he issued a command that the insolent Pandê must be strangled.

Pandê fled to his own puri, and barricaded it against any intruders. Within the palace compound there was only three hundred of his people. He had many more loyal to him, but they were stranded on the opposite shore of the river, and they could not cross over and come to their lord’s aid; for the river was swollen in flood. The two hundred soldiers were given white garments; the garments of death, and then they understood what was required of them by their lord. When Gusti Pandê saw his puri surrounded by the king’s soldiers, he stormed out with his men at the south gate, and it so terrified Pemacun’s men that they fled in disorder. When Pandê’s men saw him standing alone and unafraid, they ran off and left the two leaders to fight each other in battle. A bloody fight ensued, and Pandê killed Panarungan with his kris, Pelang Soka, but later that day he himself was struck down by that very same kris and died.

Pandê’s son Biasama, with two hundred men, attacked the king’s palace; and a great multitude perished. His uncle Gusti Sideman, tried to calm him down. He promised his maddened nephew that he would deal with the king, but Biasama refused to listen to him. Recklessly he burst into the puri and was killed by the king’s bodyguard. Pandê’s other two sons were also killed; one while trying to creep through a hole into the king’s bedroom, and the other while running amok through the palace.

Pandê’s followers on the other side of the river were trying in vain to come to his aid, and they stood there weeping and lamenting, for they loved their lord, Gusti Pandê.

King Pemacun’s men had been given orders to destroy the entire family of Biasama, but his pregnant wife Ayu Penida had fled to her grandfather, who was a hermit at Mount Bukit Bulu, near Ka­rangasem. When the king’s men came to take her the old man hid her safely away in his house-temple, among the jali and jaba; which are two kinds of grain very similar to oats. Then the old man went and sat in the bale. When the soldiers asked him if he had seen Ayu Penida, he answered them truthfully, ‘All the time that I have been sitting here, I have not seen another living soul!’ Nevertheless the soldiers searched everywhere and they left no place unturned. When they came to the house-temple and heard a wild dove cooing, they thought that no one could be there, because of the presence of the dove, so they went away. Her heart full of gratitude Gusti Ayu swore that from henceforth neither she nor her descendants would ever eat jali or jaba, or the flesh of a dove.

She fled for her life and hid deep in the forest, where she made for herself a simple house of bamboo. At the full moon of the fourth month, she gave birth to a son, and she called him Purnama Kapat, in honour of the full moon and the month in whi­ch he was born. When the child was three months old, a priest came to her door requesting some food. She asked him to hold the child while she prepared it, and then she went out side to fetch some cool water for the old man. When she came back inside the house with the water, the old man was nowhere to be seen.

Her heart lurched for the safety of her child, but he was soun­dly sleeping. The old man had left behind his mitre and his kris named Pelang Soka. And when her son was grown, she went with him to Selat, a village famous for its music and dancing, situated on the slopes of Gunung Agung. Her son married a girl of that village, and he had two sons.

Some time later King Pemacun went hunting at Batuan, and he was invited by his patih Gusti Ngurah Lepang, to stay and eat with him. The wife of Gusti Ngurah was very beautiful, her skin was so translucent that when she drank water one could see the liquid filtering down her graceful throat inside her body. When the king saw her he was enraptured, and he ungraciously demanded her from his loyal patih. Reluctantly the patih gave over his wife and infant son (who was a babe in arms, merely three months old) to the covetous king. The king took them with him and returned to Gelgel. The king was completely besotted with her beauty, and he showered her with lavish presents, to win her love.

Some years passed and Gusti Nengah, her son, had no idea that the king was not his real father. He enquired of his mother why his father did not treat him as his younger brothers and sisters, and always referred to him as ‘my wound’; for the king never called Gusti Nengah by name. His mother thought it was time to tell her son of his true father, and the circumstance, which brought them both to the palace at Gelgel. Gusti Nengah went to Batuan and bitterly reproached his father for having given up his wife to the king. In vain Gusti Ngurah Lepang tried to calm his son, then he called eighteen hundred men to his puri that night, and gave them white garments.

They spent the night at prayer in the temple. At daybreak he assembled his men and proceeded to march on Gelgel. But the king had already been warned, for someone had run all the way to Gelgel, to tell the king. The king summonsed thousands of his men together to protect the puri. The only place he left undefended was the armoury, so Gusti Nengah when he arrived hid all of his men in that place. However it was a trap, for as soon as they were inside; it was set alight, and all the powder kegs ignited; and a deafening explosion was heard. It burned alive those unfortunate men trapped inside. Then the king in a great rage sent his army against Batuan, and exterminated the entire family of Gusti Ngurah Batu Lepang.

After a time, the king got a dreadful disease. His fingers, hands and nose fell off by rotting away slowly. This was seen as divine punishment for all his wicked deeds, for he was responsible for the murder of his patihs; T’Labah, Pande, and Batu Lepang. His brother Dewa Seganing then became King of Gelgel. He was called to heaven without dying, and he left two sons; Batu Renggong and Seganing Putra. Batu Renggong became King of Gelgel. He was a very handsome man, but of a terrifying aspect; for he had a fiery red complexion.

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