CHAPTER 3

A Confession in the Moonlight

Kla took Moo Hring by the arm. “Come, let us talk!”

“Let the crowd clear out a bit, first,” Moo Hring suggested. She turned to Det. “May I remain for a moment?”

“Of course, Khun!” the actor replied with deep respect. Outside, the crowd’s boos for Serey as he slunk away could still be heard.

“So it passes!” Det remarked solemnly. Then, turning to the gatekeeper and the lamp-trimmers: “Sweep the floor. Lock up. But do not extinguish all the lamps, as we shall return after our meal to rehearse for tomorrow’s new piece.” With a final bow to Moo Hring, the dancers left.

Pin approached Moo Hring. “Will you not be dining, Khun?”

“I? No,” Moo Hring replied simply. The gatekeeper bowed and retired.

“And why not?” Kla asked, turning to her.

“Because…” Moo Hring started with a flash of her usual pride. Then, seeing that Pin was out of earshot, her expression softened. “Because I have no money!”

“What!” Kla gestured toward the stage. “The bag of coins you just threw?”

“My allowance for the month,” Moo Hring sighed. “It lived for exactly one day.”

“But to live for an entire month then…?”

“Nothing remains.”

“To throw that bag—what foolishness!”

“But what a gesture!” Moo Hring laughed, though there was a hint of weariness in it.

Behind the small buffet table, the snack-seller, Mali, cleared her throat. Moo Hring and Kla turned as she approached them, looking timid.

“Khun…” she started, her voice barely a whisper. “To know that you are fasting… it breaks my heart.” She gestured toward the remains of the buffet. “I have everything here… please, take!”

Moo Hring removed her scabbard, her pride momentarily subdued by the girl’s sincerity. “My dear child, though my pride as a daughter of the borderlands forbids me from accepting the slightest treat, I fear that a refusal would cause you to grieve. I shall accept then…” She walked to the table and looked at the spread. “Oh, very little! A single grape…” When the girl tried to give her the bunch, Moo Hring carefully plucked a single fruit. “Just one! And this cup of water…” Mali moved to pour wine, but Moo Hring stopped her. “No, just clear water. And… half of a sweet bun.” She broke a small cake in two and handed the other half back.

“But it is stupid!” Kla muttered.

“Oh, something more!” the girl pleaded.

“Yes,” Moo Hring said softly. “Your hand to kiss.” She took the girl’s hand and kissed it with the same reverence she would show a prince.

“Thank you, Khun,” Mali replied with a deep bow. “Goodnight.” She turned and left the area.

“I am listening,” Moo Hring said, turning to Kla. She settled on a bench, arranging her modest meal. “Dinner!” She pointed to the bun. “Drink!” She gestured to the water. “And dessert!” She held up the single grape. “The table is set. And I had a hunger that was truly terrible! Now, you were saying?”

“I was saying,” Kla replied, sitting beside her, “that those fops with their warlike airs will ruin you. Consult people of sense. Find out what effect your brief attack on the fat actor produced.”

“Enormous, surely,” Moo Hring said, finishing her cake.

“The High Minister…”

“He was here?” Moo Hring’s eyes brightened.

“He must have found it…”

“Rather original, I should think.”

“And yet…”

“He is a writer himself. It cannot displease him to see a rival interrupted.”

“You make too many enemies,” Kla warned.

“How many, approximately, have I made tonight?” Moo Hring asked, attacking her grape.

“Forty-eight. Without the women.”

“Go on, count them!”

“Serey, the merchant, the Governor, Sorasakdidecha, Baro, the entire Academy…”

“Enough!” Moo Hring laughed. “You delight me!”

“But where will this lead you?” Kla asked, his voice full of concern. “What is your system?”

“I was wandering in a maze. Too many paths. So… I chose.”

“And what did you choose?”

“To be, in all things, the most simple.”

“Which means?”

“I have decided to be admirable. In all things. For everyone!”

Kla shook his head. “Fine! But tell me—the reason for your hatred of Serey? The true reason.”

Moo Hring stood, her meal forgotten. “That fat barrel! He is so bloated his fingers cannot reach his own navel, and yet he fancies himself a danger to women! He stares with bulbous frog-eyes while he stammers his lines. I have hated him ever since he got one of my maids with child… And now pretends he doesn’t even know of her.”

“Which one? As the Head of the Household for Lord Okya, you manage scores.”

“Despite it all, the pretty young thing is still buyoant with his vain words. She will learn soon enough…”

“She is still in love then? Why do you sound maudlin yourself? What? Is it possible? That you…?”

“That I love?” Moo Hring gave a bitter, hollow laugh. “I love.”

“And may one know who? You have never said… Not Serey, surely!”

“That slug! Who I love?” Moo Hring gestured to her face. “Think, my friend. This nose, which precedes me by a quarter of an hour wherever I go, forbids me the dream of being loved even by an ugly man. So, who do I love? It is forced! I love the most beautiful being that exists!”

“The most beautiful?”

“In all the world! The most brilliant… the most golden-spirited.”

“Gods! Who is this man?”

“A mortal danger without meaning to be, exquisite without thinking of it. A trap of nature, a rose in which love sits in ambush! To know his smile is to know perfection. He creates grace out of nothing. A celestial dancer rising from the lotus. He could not match the way he mounts a palanquin or walks the streets!”

Kla’s eyes widened. “I see. It is clear.”

“Transparent,” Moo Hring whispered.

“Preah Ponhea Chan? The Prince? The cousin to the Khmer King? The kin of Lord Okya?”

“Yes… My Lord.”

“Well! But that is for the best! You love him? Tell him! You have covered yourself in glory today!”

Moo Hring turned to him, serious. “Look at me, my friend, and tell me what hope this protrusion could ever leave me! Oh, I have no illusions. Sometimes, in the evening’s blue, I let myself soften. I enter a garden where the air is full of perfume; with my poor devil of a nose, I breathe in the spring. I see a single white lotus in the temple font, reaching its pale petals toward the silver moon, and I think that I too would love to be that light, to walk with small steps, with a man’s arm to hold mine. I get excited, I forget… and then I suddenly see the giant shadow of my profile on the wall!”

“My friend!” Kla’s voice went thick with emotion.

“My friend, I have terrible hours,” Moo Hring confessed. “To feel oneself so… unusual… alone…”

Kla took her hand. “You are weeping?”

“No! Never that!” Moo Hring snapped, pulling away. “It would be too ugly if a tear ran down this nose! I will not allow the divine beauty of tears to be associated with such coarse plainness. Tears are the most sublime things in the world, and I would not want a single one of mine to become a target for mockery!”

“Do not be sad,” Kla urged. “Love is but a game of chance!”

“No! I love a prince; do I look like a queen? I adore a hero; do I have the aspect of a goddess?”

“But your courage! Your wit! That man who just offered you his food… His eyes did not hate you, did they?”

“True,” Moo Hring admitted, a small smile returning.

“And the Prince himself! He followed your duel, pale with worry!”

“Pale?”

“His heart and mind are already struck! Dare, speak to him!”

“So that he may laugh in my face? No! That is the only thing in the world I fear.”

Pin, the gatekeeper, appeared at the edge of the crowd, leading a man. “Madame, someone is asking for you…”

Moo Hring turned and gasped. “Gods! His tutor!”

The Hundred at the Gate

The elderly tutor, [Aajaan](#) Vicheaseth, approached with a deep bow. “From my unwise charge, I am sent to know where one might see you in secret.”

Moo Hring’s breath hitched. “See me?”

“To see you,” the tutor repeated. “He has things to say to you.”

“Things?”

“Important things!”

Moo Hring swayed. “Ah, Gods!”

“He will go tomorrow, at the first light of dawn, to hear the morning prayers at the Old Palace Temple. After leaving… where might he enter to talk for a moment?”

“Where…?” Moo Hring stammered, looking around wildly. “I… but… Ah, Gods!”

“Speak quickly,” the tutor urged.

“I am thinking!”

“Where?”

“At… at Bun’s! The baker’s shop!”

“And where is that?”

“In the street—Ah, Gods!—Coming from the South gate, towards the Palace, follow Chom Suda Sadej Street, until the turn left to Sra Kaew Baray.”

“He will be there. Seven Mong Chao,” the tutor said, bowing once more, as he departed.

“I shall be there!” Moo Hring called after him.

Moo Hring collapsed into Kla’s arms. “A rendezvous! From him!”

“Well! You are no longer sad?”

“No! For whatever reason, he knows I exist!”

“And now, you will be calm?”

“Now?” Moo Hring pulled herself away, her energy returning with an explosive force. “Now I shall be frantic and fulminating! I need an entire army to defeat! I have ten hearts; I have twenty arms! It is not enough to strike down dwarfs…” She shouted at the top of her lungs: “I need giants!”

On the stage, the shadows of the dancers were moving, whispering as they began a new routine. The flautists played a soft, rhythmic air.

“Hey! Silence down there!” a voice called from the stage. “We are dancing!”

Moo Hring laughed, her spirit soaring. “We are leaving!”

At that moment, the drapes at the back of the theatre swung open. Sak and Seng entered, supporting a completely intoxicated Chai between them.

“Moo Hring!” Sak called out.

“What is this?”

“An enormous prize we bring you!”

“Chai!” Moo Hring recognised her friend. “What has happened to you?”

“He was looking for you,” Sak explained.

“He cannot go home!” Seng added.

“Why?”

Chai pulled on his crumpled tunic, his voice slurred and thick. “Someone left a word for me with the brewer… a half-dozen roughs against me… because of my song… great danger… They wait at the Victory Gate… I must pass it to reach my house… Let me sleep… under your roof!”

“A half-dozen, you say?” A terrible joy ignited in Moo Hring’s eyes. “Give me a hundred and I might break a sweat! You shall sleep in your own bed tonight!”

“But—” Chai stammered, terrified.

Moo Hring seized the lighted lantern from Pin’s hand and thrust it into Chai’s grasp. “Take this! And march! I swear to you, I shall be your shield tonight!” She turned to the officers and nobles who had gathered. “Follow at a distance, if you wish to be witnesses!”

“But there are so many of them!” Sak cried.

“Tonight,” Moo Hring declared, “I need no less than a full army! And I have only these few!”

The dancers, hearing the commotion, had come down from the stage in their various costumes, shepherds, kings, and servants.

“Why protect a common drunkard?” Kla grumbled.

Moo Hring clapped him on the shoulder. “Because this ‘drunkard,’ this cask of rice wine, did something truly beautiful one day. After leaving a ceremony, he saw the man he loved take the holy water at the temple gate. He, who shuns water like the plague, ran to the font and drank it all, just because his fingers had touched it!”

“How sweet!” one actress cried.

“Is it not, my dear?” Moo Hring agreed.

“But why are there a hundred against one poor poet?” another asked.

“March!” Moo Hring commanded. “And you, gentlemen, when you see me charge, do not help me, no matter the danger!”

“I want to see this!” a dancer cried, jumping from the stage.

“Come, then!”

The actors grabbed torches from the stage and distributed them. The procession took on the air of a grand nocturnal festival. “Bravo! The officers, the women in their finery!”

Moo Hring took her place at the head of the group. “And twenty paces ahead… me! Alone, under the flower that glory itself has pinned to this sash! Proud as a conqueror of old! Is it understood? No helping me! Ready? One, two, three! Pin, go around the rogues and open the doors!”

The great doors swung wide to reveal the city of Vimaya under the moonlight. The shadows of the wooden houses stretched across the muddy streets, and the silver light glinted off the tiled roofs of the temples. On both sides of the gate, the small Barays trembled like a magical mirror under the mist.

“Ah! The city waits, nocturnal and mysterious! The moonlight flows over the blue slopes of the roofs; an exquisite frame is prepared for this scene! There, under the vapours, the river… you are going to see what you are going to see!”

“To the Victory Gate!” the crowd roared as they poured out into the night.

Flour and Verses

Bun’s snack shop in Chom Suda Sadej Street was a beehive of activity in the grey light of dawn. The air was thick with the scent of toasted coconut, palm sugar, and steaming jasmine rice. Cooks and apprentices moved in a rhythmic dance between the charcoal braziers and the heavy stone mortars.

Bun himself, his apron dusted with flour, sat at a small, flour-covered table in the corner, a stylus in his hand and a scroll of khoi paper before him. He was lost in the meter of a new verse.

“Look at the copper pans!” a cook cried, bringing a tray of steaming rice cakes. “They catch the silver of the dawn!”

“Quiet!” Bun said without looking up. “I am trying to balance this line. The bread must wait—or rather, the oven must find its own rhythm. You, there! Stretch that coconut milk sauce; it is too thick.”

“By how much, Master?” the cook asked.

“By three measures of verse,” Bun replied distractedly.

“What?”

“The hound retreats! The hunter waits!” another apprentice shouted.

Bun stood up and walked among the pans. “My dear, stay back, lest the smoke of these fires redden your eyes!” He pointed to a tray of bread. “You have placed the scores on these buns incorrectly. The gap should be in the middle—it needs to look like a clean break in a verse!” He turned to Korn, who was finishing a large display of sweets. “On this palace of rice crust, we must place a roof of gold leaf. And you, my son,” he said to a young apprentice skewering pieces of grilled meat, “try to match the pieces of chicken and pork. Think of it like a line of poetry—long syllables and short ones, alternating for the best flavour!”

The apprentice approached shyly with a tray. “Master, while I was tending the oven, I made this for you. I thought it might please you.” He uncovered the tray to reveal a magnificent bird, a Suphannahong, crafted entirely from golden pastry.

“A swan!” Bun gasped, his eyes shining.

“Made of rice-flour and honey,” the boy said.

“And the feathers,” Bun noted, “are they made of spun sugar?”

“They are, Master.”

Bun pressed a coin into the boy’s hand. “Go, drink to my health! And quickly—my wife comes! Hide the coin!”

Lamai entered, her face set in a stern expression. She carried a stack of Khoi paper cut in small squares. “It is a waste of time,” she said, placing them on the counter. “All this poetry and flour… it is ridiculous.”

“The wraps?” Bun asked, looking at them. “Thank you, my dear.” Then his eyes widened. “Heavens! My manuscripts! The verses of my friends! You have torn them… to make wraps for snacks! You are like the demons tearing at the sacred scrolls!”

“I have the right to use what the poor scribblers leave here as payment,” Lamai replied sharply. “Their lines are never equal, but their hunger always is!”

“Ant!” Bun cried. “Do not insult the divine cicadas of the morning!”

“Before you started with these people, you did not call me an ant,” Lamai said. “With verses, you do this! What do you do with the prose, then?”

Two children entered the shop, looking at the display.

“What do you wish, little ones?” Bun asked.

“Three sweet meat pies,” the elder child said.

Bun served them, his hands trembling. “Here… golden and warm…”

“Could you wrap them for us, please?” the younger child asked.

Bun sighed and took a wrap. He read the lines inscribed on it: ‘As the sun sets over the river…’ “No! Not this one!” He set it aside and took another. ‘The bloom of the lotus…’ “Not this one either!”

“Well!” Lamai snapped. “What are you waiting for?”

“Here, here!” Bun took a third bag, his voice full of resignation. “A sonnet to the moon… it is hard, but take it!”

As the children reached the door, Bun called them back. “Pst! Children! Give me back the moon. For that one bag, I shall give you six more pies instead of three.” The children eagerly made the trade and ran out. Bun carefully smoothed the paper and began to read. “The moon… and a spot of grease! Ah, the moon, stained!”

Suddenly, the door swung open, and Moo Hring entered.

A Banquet for Scholars

“What time is it?” Moo Hring asked, her voice tight. She stood by the counter, her hand white-knuckled on the hilt of her knife.

Bun bowed low. “Six o’morning, Khun.”

“One hour!” Moo Hring struck the table, the silver coins of her inheritance rattling. Beside her, Bun was still in a lunging position, reliving the duel. “The duel in verse! At the envoy, I thrust! Oh, to write such a ballade!”

“Six and five minutes,” Bun added, checking the sundial on the opposite building.

Lamai entered, her eyes immediately finding the blood on Moo Hring’s sash. “What have you done to your hand, Khun? Another scratch for a secret?”

“No danger,” Moo Hring replied, her stylus hovering over a piece of silk. “A scratch from the moonlight, nothing more.” She looked at the door. “I am expecting someone. If things go well, we shall need the room.”

A tall sergeant, Thit, entered with a booming greeting for Lamai. Moo Hring didn’t look up, her stylus moving frantically across the silk. I love you… your eyes… your lips… “No need to sign it,” she whispered. “The delivery is the signature.”

The door swung open as a wave of hungry scholars poured into the shop, their threadbare robes trailing flour as they converged on the trays of sweets. “Master Bun! O Celestial Patron of the Palate!” they cried in a flour-dusted chorus, their voices overlapping as they traded rumors of the previous night’s violence. They spoke of the Victory Gate, of a score of men found bleeding on the stones, of a full mob armed with clubs put to flight by a single, phantom blade.

“I thought it was seven,” Moo Hring remarked without looking up. She folded the silk with trembling fingers.

Bun gathered the poets around a steaming tray. “Listen! A new recipe for the [Khanom](#) [Mo Kaeng](#),” he announced, striking a pose.

“Duck eggs and palm sugar, gold in the heat, Stirred with the coconut, dark and sweet. Strain through the muslin, fine as a veil, Lest the smoothness of spirit should fail. Bake till the crown shows a shimmering glow— The finest of treasures the markets can know!”

“Exquisite!” the poets cried, devouring the custard before the last rhyme had faded.

Moo Hring walked over to Bun, her face a mask of iron. “They devour your life while you give them your soul, Bun. I like your heart, but watch your purse.” She turned to Thit, the sergeant, who was whispering to Lamai. “And you, Captain… Bun is my friend. I would not want to see his house… shadowed by a rogue.”

Thit swallowed hard, his hand dropping from his moustache.

“Clear the room, Bun,” Moo Hring commanded. “The hour is striking.”

Bun led the poets toward the back. “To the storage! More verses! And take the cakes with you!” They followed him like a trail of ants, leaving the shop suddenly, eerily silent.