There is another way, the Maharaja had said that day.
In fact, it turned to be two kinds of ways; and none of them made any sense to Narendra.
First, Srivijaya would try to reconcile with Kutai, thus messenger was sent to that particular Srivijayan’s former Kedatuan in the next day. Narendra knew nothing of what Sumatrabhumi had to offer to his ex-wife. The hostility between Palembang and Kutai was as worse as it was with Singhasari. For all he knew, Dewi Tara of Kutai will prefer to attack Srivijaya itself rather than helping it fighting its enemies.
The second strategy—if it can to be called as such—was totally irrational Narendra himself took hours to grasp the idea. Accurately, the Maharaja has obliged each men of Palembang to take part in the “war preparation”. To take part in the war preparation means that one should either joined the army or participated in the construction of the new Candi. In Narendra’s point of view, the first option was wrong and the second option was simply illogical. The common folks, that obviously lacked proper military training, will only become a burden in war. As for the involvement in the Candi’s construction, Narendra failed to see its correlation to the crisis Srivijaya was facing.
Yet Narendra realized that Maharaja’s words were absolute as he was sitting on his horse on top of a hill looking down to the area where people working Maharaja’s Candi. His mind was asking: What kind of man Sumatrabhumi has turned himself into?
Also, what kind of people Palembang’s common folks had turned themselves into, as he watched a dozen or so men transporting a big chunk of rock using wood sledge. To his astonishment, people’s participation to the Candi construction was high. There was no resistance when the palace assigned the work to Palembang’s men. Instead, they seemed enthusiastic.
However, it did not bother the Senapati as much as the occurrences in the rakshin—the city watch—that had just happened recently. Several hundreds of Palembang School of Buddhism graduates were signed up. Some of the rakshin leaders that had served the city for years were sacked, only to be replaced by people from the school that to Narendra’s knowledge were a Buddhist hardliners. Usually, Narendra did not opinionated politically, but he believed that the rakshin was now in Sokei-An’s control.
There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it, the words of the priest inadvertently materialized in Narendra’s mind. It was the very words of the Buddha himself, the priest had said. But Narendra found the words troubling. Who decided Srivijaya was the good and Mongol was the evil? Even, what if the Gods of Tengerism, the major religion of Mongols, was the true gods? That would explain why the Mongols became the most powerful kingdom.
His gaze turned on a little girl who strolled around the site serving water for the builders. By looking the people submissively working on the Candi, he sometimes felt a slight hopefulness since he himself did not have any confidence to win the next battle with Mongol Empire. Those Gods of Srivijaya should better be pleased by this Candi and wake up, Narendra thought, otherwise we are doomed.
Or perhaps those gods were actually never sleep and casted woes to its people because there were still people who did not have faith—just like himself. But why punished many people if the culprit were only some people. Many of Narendra’s best men killed in Indrapura were among the most pious. The Gods could only punish me, he thought.
He then judged himself to be too stupid—or too old, maybe—to think about those things and trotted away.
(Continued to Chapter IX)
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