Chapter 8

My Land

To his credit, Sabal's extended trip through Nepal and India was vastly shortened. And he recruited enough holy men and women that Pagan had chased out of the country who immediately found their way to that island in the middle of a Kyrati lake where Jalendu sat. The Buddhists and Hindus (and more than a couple Christians, I was surprised to discover) didn't seek to recreate a completed version of the Temple (I had already been given files on architects from Bhutan and India that I planned on commissioning to rebuild a new temple over the old one) but an environment that was workable for Bhadra's enthronement.

Farther north, I had decided that the Royal Fortress and the Royal Palace would not be reserved for me or my family. I really didn't need something so ostentatious. The Royal Palace, I christened the new Parliament building (Tshogdu was it's common Tibetan name, and Sansada was it's Nepali name, but I couldn't not call it Parliament. Apparently "Congress" was normal for an American Citizen like me, but the name was quite charged on this site of the Himalayas). The Royal Fortress was for the rest of the government offices: Bureaus of Labor, Agriculture, Tourism, and Infrastructure, the Office of the Army, the Courts of Justice, the Finance Bureau, etc. etc.

Setting up a government was hard. Thankfully Kyrat was small, and "setting up a government" involved mainly finding people who had this job before Pagan showed up, or deputizing a local who was taking care of the job anyway.

Mr. Chiffon was one of the exiles who returned to Kyrat with all of those painted and robed holy people. He was his usual eccentric self, and I gave him the assignment: make me a coronation outfit. One that honors Kyrat's legacy and culture, "But keep it classy. Demure."

"Demure?" he said, "That I can do."

I have to admit that I expected I would need to at least edit his design several times. But I didn't. He sources materials from both the Pacchim Valley and the northern Uttar half. I wasn't quite sure about the purple coloring, but he insisted that it was a union of red (Royal) and blue (Golden Path), and more importantly, the color of royalty. On my robe's lapel I wore a pin with the Ghale crest flanked by a tiger and an elephant, and a pair of crossed khukri's for the Golden Path. As an American it felt weird that the GP was to be represented politically even as the leader of a now (theoretically at least) united country. But Mr. Chiffon quickly reminded me that the Taiwanese flag explicitly referenced the KMT, and Panama's flag was an explicit reference to peace between two political factions. Maybe we'd change it later, but I took that inspiration and had Mr. Chiffon change the design of the Kyrati flag with a pair of crossed khukris to replace the AK-47s. Symbols of war and the GP aside, the khukri was at least a symbol of the Himalayas and a symbol of Kyrat.

I looked in the mirror. I was a symbol of Kyrat now. I looked Kyrati, that was for sure. When I turned around, I saw Mr. Chiffon and Tara.

"How do I look?" I asked her.

Tara was in a traditional Uttar outfit: a tightly wrapped kira skirt and a golden-colored tdego jacket over it. I found my mother's collection of gzi cat's-eye necklaces and offered her the biggest one. To use a cliché, she cleans up nice. Her hair was let down. A single braid framed the left side of her face and a pair of red and blue beads clinked quietly as she moved, "Shockingly hot."

I tried imagining that it wasn't because I was now King of Kyrat. It was one thing when we were hooking up after drug-fueled blood fests in the Arena. But now I was supposed to be Royalty. Wasn't I?

"Thanks?"

"She's right," Mr. Chiffon said, "You look exquisite."

"Well..." I turned back to the mirror, "I guess that's as good as it's gonna get."

There was a knock at the door, "Ya'll around?"

"Come in, Hurk." I said.

"Ya'll ready? I'm gettin' the green light from Sabal."

"Yeah, we're ready." I said. The four of us left the Ghale homestead and walked out to the helicopter. We climbed in as Hurk took off into the blue, chopping through the air, over the snow-capped peaks and down towards Jalendu Temple.

Every Kyrati in the country must have been here. I'm positive most of the Royal Remnant was there in the crowd just to watch instead of taking over all of the empty outposts, towers, and cities. They were here. Hurk, dressed in a jacket and tie, his hair slicked back like he was attending his sister's wedding in downtown San Diego, landed the chopper at the east end of the Temple island. The four of us exited and were immediately led by a young monk to our spots at the front of the ceremonial audience.

I took a look around the lake. The crowd was massive. In every direction. In front of me and my entourage of Hurk, Tara, and Mr. Chiffon was Sabal and a small group of Buddhist monks and Hindu sadhus. I recognized them as former Golden Path warriors. Sabal looked a bit odd. He was wearing colorful pants and a green shirt and one of those popular white felt hats. Apparently Mr. Chiffon was interested in having him wear the Warrior chic that he had me murder a bunch of animals for (I kept a note to ask him why he needed that elephant hide to be burned while still on the crazed elephant). He wanted someone to wear it. He spent all that time working on it. But to Sabal's credit, he took his new vow of non-violence extremely seriously. And insisted that he wasn't going to wear garments made from animal skins. I later assured Mr. Chiffon that I would find someone to wear it. Maybe we wouldn't use these kinds of rare materials, but I suppose the uniform of the new Kyrati Army would need redesigning. I couldn't imagine another Kyrati designer up to the task.

Sabal greeted us, "The ceremony will start in a few minutes, my King."

I nodded my approval. Sabal moved on and walked away with his monks and mystics who all nodded to me with reverence in return. Some of them saw Tara standing next to me and blushed.

Tara smiled, repressing a laugh, "Don't worry," she said, noticing that I saw.

Then the monks blasted horns at the four corners of Jalendu Island. The sound, made from the femurs of dead Lamas, rang through the countryside, echoing off the sides of the mountains and trees. They probably heard it in Banapur.

When it was over, they took a pause and blasted them again. In between the blasts, it was so quiet, the people so expectant, that he swore he could hear the people on the other side of the lake crying tears of joy.

Then the sadhus stepped forward on the stairs towards what was left of the Temple. Four of them carried Bhadra on a palanquin. As Tarun Matara, she was not allowed to touch the ground. First because the goddess might leave her. Secondly, because she might trip and fall and if she got cut or scraped or if a single drop of blood left her body, then the goddess would definitely leave her. So she stayed obediently on the palanquin. I'm sure it gave all of her believers mild anxiety that she spent so much time and so long unthroned and unprotected by the watchful eyes of holy men.

The Sadhus themselves were dressed, well "dressed," like yogis: they wore very little except loin cloths. Their bodies were covered in ash and colored powder. The first had a white chalk-mark above his head. One line and one dot. The second had two horizontal lines with a dot above and a dot below. The third had three lines and a triangular placement of the dots. The fourth had two full lines, and two bent lines, with the four dots on his forehead meeting the four ordinal directions. Bhadra had on a robe that was far too big for her, even at this late age of Tarun Matara enthronement (I assumed it served a secondary purpose of cushioning any accidental falls). It was bright red silk, with golden marks representing immortality and impermanence, two symbols in an eternal dance that I had yet to figure out.

The Sadhus chanted as they walked, bringing her up to the throne where a dozen Buddhist monks waited. The ground was covered with red cloth. Monks had spent a ludicrous amount of time smoothing the cloth (and sweeping the ground underneath as well) to make sure it was absolutely wrinkle and crease free. Upon arriving there, the Sadhus gently placed the palanquin down then quickly bowed with their heads and hands pointed towards Bhadra at the center of the palanquin. Bhadra stood and walked casually to the throne, which was really just a raised wooden platform, painted in the classical Himalayan style with the eight lucky signs drawn and painted colorfully around it.

Bhadra was the oldest Tarun Matara ever historically seated (Kyra counts neither as a Queen nor a Tarun Matara in any reasonable history book). Normally a Sadhu would hold the girl's hand (around age four or five) and lead her to the throne, where he would pass her hand to a Buddhist monk. Around the 1300s, the Buddhist faction of Kyrati society wanted in on Tarun Matara selection and after some… nastiness, this was the compromise ceremony that resulted. Some changes here and there, but basically unchanged since 1356. When the Chiefs of Utkarsh wanted the right to conquer Chiyul, they had to achieve the legitimacy and authority of the Tarun Matara. When my ancestors wanted to become the Kings of Kyrat, each one had to consult the Tarun Matara, essentially a little girl, for the right to ascend (or take) the throne. When the British wanted access to Kyrat, who did they have to ask for permission? Yes, the King, obviously, but they were pretty perplexed at being told they should consult with a little girl before he would grant them any kind of access.

Bhadra wasn't a little girl. She was the last of the old Tarun Matara's at the mercy of monks and Sadhus. And she was the first of the new, a woman who embodied both Kyrat's semi-mythical past, and the progress and hope for the future.

She shot me a look as the top monk set a crown with five Dakinis on her head. If the ceremony allowed for her to deliver a speech, she'd give it here. She even told me what she'd say,

I am honored to embody this tradition of our great nation and people. I am happy to personify the hopes and dreams of our ancestors, and all of our fallen brothers and sisters. I am also saddened, that we cling so tightly to the mistakes of the past, just because they are bound to the heart of our culture that we hold so dear. The tradition of Tarun Matara is one of our great cultural treasures, a link to our past that has given Kyratis all around the world hope for the future, but it has also served as a golden chain to the girls who are embodied by the goddess, and the women whom she leaves behind. I will be the last Tarun Matara located and determined by men. From now on, the Tarun Matara will be located by Sannyasini and crowned and educated by Gelongma…

She was a bright kid. Who had a bright future.

Her time as Tarun Matara was not a particularly easy one since she had such a short time to get a lot of things done. The Sadhus (naturally) pushed back against her insistence that the next Tarun Matara would be determined by a committee of female Hindu monastics. This involved reconstructing the Sleeping Sisters (my bad) with an entirely female crew. That took a long time. Well over a decade until it was completely finished. That said, I was happy to grant it to a Female Monastic Community, at Bhadra's insistence. Well before the last stones were put in place, it was functioning as a nunnery for Hindu women who felt spiritual calling.

It was this committee that Bhadra then worked with after the goddess had "left" her to locate and enthrone her successor. After that was done, I basically issued Bhadra a blank check to go wherever she wanted in the world. Access wasn't an issue. Anywhere in the world was going to be excited to claim the former goddess of Kyrat as an alumnus.

Turns out she was enticed by a boarding school in the United Kingdom. I had the Kyrati ambassador haggle a bit over the price tag before writing the check and sending her on her way. We corresponded, and I have to say, I started to feel like a doting uncle watching her grow up from afar. When she returned to Kyrat for annual visits, she was still adored. Turns out being a symbol of freedom for so many people surpassed the Tarun Matara's post-goddess traditional role of being an obscure woman with no education and no knowledge about how to operate in normal society. People in Kyrat were overjoyed to see her.

She stayed in England for some time. She applied and was accepted to study in Oxford all on her own. Sans Royal support, which was on budgetary fight I didn't even need to swat away. She went on to study law and international relations. And well, got ready to come back for a much longer and brighter career in Kyrat than most Kyrati women were used to thinking about.