“But I’m a incarnation! I can .. .”
“Yes, Samdup, love; but you’re also a child. The Dorje Lama was an incarnation, but they killed him. Others would not have killed the Dorje Lama. Remember how they brought you back when you tried to escape with Tobchen Geshe.”
Samdup frowned and sat down again, remembering his helplessness on that occasion, how easily Thondrup Chophel had escorted him back to Dorje-la.
Chindamani turned to face Sonam again.
“Listen, ama-la,” she said.
“Listen carefully and don’t fidget. I have to escape. And I have to take the children with me.”
“Alone? You and the boys? You’d never make it out of the pass.”
“Not alone,” said Chindamani.
“They haven’t killed the Dorje Lama’s son. At least .. .” She paused.
“They hadn’t killed him when we were sent away. If I can get to him ... I have clothes and provisions already hidden for a journey.”
“And how will you get out of Dorje-la?” the old woman croaked.
She knew all about Christopher. For two days now, Chindamani had talked about little else.
“No-one will be asleep tonight. You know it’s impossible to climb down even with ropes. You haven’t got wings, you aren’t birds. Is this Ka-ris To-feh a magician? Can he fly like Padma-Sambhava?
Or perhaps he’s a lung-pa who can run hundreds of miles in a day and be away from this place before they know he’s gone?”
“No,” said Chindamani, shaking her head.
“He’s none of those things.”
“Neither am I,” muttered the nurse.
“Neither are you, for that matter. Just because the Lady Tara .. .”
“Leave the Lady Tara out of this, Sonam,” Chindamani retorted.
“I never mentioned magic and I’m not mentioning it now.”
“Well you’ll need magic if you’re to get out of this place without being seen. And more magic to get away before that Tsarong Rinpoche comes chasing after you. Rinpoche indeed! He’s no more a Rinpoche than I’m a yak’s backside.” The old dame chuckled;
she wouldn’t be put down by her ward, even if she was an incarnation of the Lady Tara.
“Ama-la, this is serious. We can’t afford to wait. Surely you must know some way out, some way even I don’t know. A secret passage through the rock, perhaps. Didn’t you mention .. .?”
“Mention? What did I mention? I mentioned nothing.” Sonam had become serious suddenly. Her little eyes would not hold still for a moment. She could not look Chindamani in the face. She knew what the girl was going to ask.
“Please think, Sonam dear,” Chindamani exhorted her.
“Years ago, when I was a little girl, you told me of a passage that had been constructed when they built Dorje-la, a secret tunnel connecting the monastery to the pass. It went down through the mountain, you said. Is it true? Is there a passage?”
The old woman seemed to shiver.
“No,” she said.
“There’s no such passage. I was telling fibs, stories for a little girl. You shouldn’t listen to everything your old ama-la tells you.”
But Chindamani knew her nurse too well to be fooled for an instant.
“Ama-la, please you’re lying now. What you told me was the truth, I can tell it in your voice. Please don’t lie to me. There isn’t time. Where is the passage? How can I get to it?”
Sonam took Chindamani’s hand in hers and began to knead it with her fingers. She was visibly frightened.
“I swore I’d never tell anyone,” she said.
“Your last body told me. I don’t know who told her.”
The little woman took a deep breath. Her pulse was racing and she was sweating.
“There’s a passage beneath the gon-kang,” she whispered. Chindamani had to lean close to hear her. Samdup came across and sat next to her. William watched from his seat next to the wall. He wished he knew what they were talking about. He could sense the fear and excitement in their voices, but he could not understand a word of what they said.
“It runs for about one hundred yards. Then there’s a flight of stairs cut through the rock, into the mountain. They’re known as the stairs of Yama, I don’t know why. They lead down to a spot below the pass, out of sight of the monastery. They were built in the days of the old kings, thousands of years ago.”
Chindamani guessed that the ‘old king’ had been Lang Darma and that the stairs had been constructed as an escape route from the gompa so that the abbot could get to safety in the event of an attack by the royal forces. That had been hundreds of years ago, when the Buddhist faith was in danger of being stamped out all over the country.
Samdup clapped his hands excitedly.
“But that’s perfect,” he exclaimed.
“Chindamani knows lots of secret ways to the gon-kang. All we have to do is to get there and we’re safe. They’ll never know which way we’ve gone.”
But the old woman shook her head furiously. She shook it so hard it looked as though her neck would snap and send it spinning off into Chindamani’s lap.
“No, my Lord, no!” she cried.
“You mustn’t go that way. I haven’t told you everything.” She paused again, as if gathering courage to say more.
“Hundreds of years ago,” she began, ‘when the first Chqje came here, he brought a great treasure from Lhasa gold and silver and precious jewels, to be made into his trance garments. You’ve seen him wear them in the Lha-kang when he enters the holy state and is ridden by the gods.”
The Chqje was the Oracle of Dorje-la. In a state of mystic trance, he could enter into communication with the spirits or the gods themselves and pass on messages to other men. The ceremonies at which he appeared took place only a few times every year, but they were by far the most exciting events in the monastery’s calendar.
His regalia was indeed impressive: the great hat, so heavy that it needed two men to support it until the Chqje rose in his trance, was a mass of rubies, emeralds, and amethysts; the Oracle throne on which he sat was studded with gems of every description, and its frame was encased in solid gold. The great mirror of divination that he wore on his chest was made of solid silver and encircled with precious stones of the finest quality.
“Have you never wondered,” the ama-la continued, ‘where those precious things are left when they are not in use? Have you never wanted to look more directly at them?”
Chindamani shook her head. The Oracle’s performances in the incense laden gloom of the Lha-khang had always filled her with a state of dread, and she had never sought closer contact with the darkly numinous world he represented.
“Only a few people know that particular secret,” the old woman whispered.
“The Chqje himself, his assistants, and the abbot. And myself, of course though none of them has ever known that I know.”
Chindamani interrupted.
“I always assumed they were left in the Chqje’s own room. Or perhaps in the old temple hall where he goes to meditate.”
Sonam shook her head.
“That’s what most people think. But they’ve been somewhere else all the time. In a small chamber just below the gon-kang.”
She looked up into Chindamani’s eyes. The girl could see the fear in the old woman’s glance, quite unmistakable now, steadying its grip on her. She felt it herself now, naked, tangible, calling her to itself.
“To get to the tunnel that leads to the stairs,” the ama-la said, ‘you have to pass through the chamber in which the Oracle treasures are kept. Do you understand? You have to go through the Chqje’s chamber.”
