Being captured, she was brought to the
Lord of the Golden Palace. The tongue she spoke was strange to
all the fighting men, but it was wondrous to see how swiftly she
learnt theirs and spoke it with a sweet ripple such as is in the
throat of a bird.
She was beautiful exceedingly, with a colour of pale gold upon
her and lengths of silk-spun hair, and eyes like those of a
jungle-deer, and water might run beneath the arch of her foot
without wetting it, and her breasts were like the cloudy pillows
where the sun couches at setting. Now, at Pagan, the name they
called her was Dwaymenau, but her true name, known only to
herself, was Sundari, and she knew not the Law of the Blessed
Buddha but was a heathen accursed. In the strong hollow of her
hand she held the heart of the King, so that on the birth of her
son she had risen from a mere concubine to be the second Queen
and a power to whom all bowed. The First Queen, Maya, languished
in her palace, her pale beauty wasting daily, deserted and
lonely, for she had been the light of the King's eyes until the
coming of the Indian woman, and she loved her lord with a great
love and was a noble woman brought up in honour and all things
becoming a queen.
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