The Gift of the Capuchin Thief
A story from the seven kingdoms
If the little capuchin monkey hadn’t stolen four-year-old Bhadra’s gold coin, Apelles might never have learned to read the Holy Words.
His little sister’s outraged shriek brought the youth skidding around the corner of the verandah in time to see the fuzzy black and white creature leap from her shoulder to the porch rail, gold glimmering in its small paw. It peered back at them, its old-man face serious. Then it dashed toward the far corner, Bhadra running after it as fast as her short legs could carry her.
“Bad monkey!” she cried. “My coin!”
She pulled up at the end of the porch and the capuchin leaped from the rail down into the alley beyond. Apelles, coming fast behind his sister, slammed into the rail and made a futile grab for the beast. He leaned out and watched it dash down the alley, away from the lake and toward the center of town.
He looked down at his sister who gazed up at him with dark eyes full of tears, her lip quivering. Sighing, he crouched down to eye level.
“I’ll get you another coin,” he said. “I’ve got more.”
Bhadra shook her head sending her black braid whipping into Apelles’ face. “No, ‘Pelles. My coin. The monkey stole it!”
“But he’s gone now!”
Bhadra turned and hoisted her arms onto the porch rail, peering down the alley. She pointed and looked back at her brother.
“He’s there, ‘Pelles!”
Apelles stood and leaned back over the rail. Sure enough, the monkey sat a little way down the lane in the shade of an acacia tree, inspecting its stolen treasure.
“Please ‘Pelles—please get it?”
Apelles groaned.
“Fine. I’ll try,” he said at last, then grinned as Bhadra’s face lit like the lake after a storm. He shook his head and hefted himself onto the verandah rail. Before he leaped into the alley he looked back at his sister once more. “You owe me.”
His sister clapped her hands and smiled as he landed with a thud in the lane. The monkey took one look at him and made a beeline toward the gate at the lane’s end that led toward town. It stuck to the path, and within sight, but Apelles had to run to keep it in view. Down the alley, fumbling through the gate while the monkey leaped over it, around the corner, out onto the great stone thoroughfare that ran from the lake to the temple in the town’s center. Street vendors and merchants clogged the way, yet still the capuchin stuck to the street, though now it leaped up and over carts, leaving Apelles to shoulder his way around the obstacles. The boy’s breath came fast, and his tunic was drenched with sweat that poured down his back. The humid air and the heavy smells of fruit, spices, charcoal cookfires, and bodies crammed his nose. Still, he couldn’t give up because there was the dratted beast, perched on a wagon full of papayas and mangoes, biting the gold coin. When Apelles came near, it chittered, made a final leap, and streaked between the temple gates and into the wide stone court.
Apelles skidded to a halt, breathing hard. He shoved his sweaty hair from his forehead and stared after the little capuchin thief who scampered across the wide stones of the temple courtyard, unhindered by the gray-robed sapiens, the priests who paced the edges of the square reciting the Holy Words in low monotones. The monkey paused again and looked back at Apelles, grinned, and took off toward the corner of the temple.
The great white stone cube of the temple rose above three broad steps directly across the courtyard from Apelles. The sun glared off the stone and cast the gaping doorway into deep shadow. He wondered with longing if the Singer Sapien was there; more likely, though, High Priest Maher looked out from the door. Apelles’ sweat suddenly felt cold, and he shivered. He didn’t want to follow the monkey who now rounded the left corner of the temple. Maybe he’d slip home, home to his quiet cool house with the shaded verandah that overlooked the wide lake and the atrium garden hidden within the outer rooms of the house. Home was as far from this temple as one could get without leaving the city. He could go and take a coin from his own stash to give to Bhadra. She’d never know the difference…
But he saw again the light of joy that flashed across his sister’s face when he said he’d rescue her coin, and he knew he couldn’t deceive her. He took as deep a breath as he could and stepped into the temple court. The heat of the stone radiated up while the sun beat down, and still he felt cold. He should have bathed before he came, and then he’d be slightly clean, not in danger of defiling the High Priest’s realm. No, he reminded himself, the Holy One’s realm. It was hard to separate the two. He stepped to the edge of the courtyard and waited until there was a gap between the sapiens, then he fell into line with them, dropping into their rhythmic pace.
The voice of the sapien behind him faltered and he heard a dry cough. He kept walking.
“Child,” he heard the sapien say, “what are you doing?”
Apelles looked around and was caught by the faded brown eyes in a solemn face.
“I—I—” he stuttered. He didn’t want to tell the man he meant to sneak behind the temple to try to take gold back from a monkey. The temple was much too holy a place for such menial ventures.
“Fall back by me,” the sapien said. “It will cause less disruption.”
Apelles nodded and stepped back beside the man.
“You have interrupted my recitation,” the sapien said. “I shall have to make an extra lap to complete it.”
“Forgive me, Sapien,” Apelles bowed slightly. He grasped at the first holy-sounding excuse that came to mind. “It’s just I’m curious about your liturgy. I have not been able to learn many of the words on worship days, and I thought if I joined your walk I could hear more.” He winced. Why did he think it was okay to lie to a sapien, but not his sister?
“You have an odd way of trying to learn,” the old sapien said without a blink. “But walk by me and listen. I suppose there is no harm in one round.”
He half-closed his eyes and started to chant again. Apelles bit his lip and focused on the nearing temple corner. How would he slip away without causing more disruption?
As the corner of the temple rose up before him, Apelles burst out, “I have to go!”
The old sapien paused his recitation again and opened his eyes, contemplating the youth.
“You will need to learn forbearance if you are going to learn the liturgies,” he said calmly. “But if you are so desperate that you cannot make a circuit of the court, we have facilities behind the temple.”
“No—I—” Apelles gave up explaining, grasped this unexpected means of escape, and dashed into the shadows beside the temple, leaving the sapien to continue his rounds.
He pulled up, blinded in the sudden shift from white brilliance to the deep shade cast by giant kapok trees and coconut palms. At first he thought he’d lost the monkey completely, but there it was, rounding the back corner of the temple. Apelles dashed after it, and came around in time to see the little beast slip into the dark doorway of a gray stone hut that leaned against the back of the temple.
He followed cautiously, casting a quick glance around the area. Everything sat in deep shade, the ground bare, and the buildings stark and gray—there was none of the glamor of the outer court and front of the temple. It seemed empty, but then he heard the murmur of a deep voice and the answering chitter of the capuchin. Apelles approached the doorway and peered around the frame.
Before him, face illumined by a clay lamp, sat the singer he knew from worship days—the Singer Sapien who chanted the recitations in a voice so pure it always made Apelles’ heart ache. He was a strange man, tall and robed in pure white, skin the color of charcoal. He sat on a stool at a low table filled with scrolls and spoke to the monkey in a language Apelles couldn’t understand. The gold coin flashed in his hand and Apelles’ awe veered to indignation.
“That’s my sister’s coin!” he cried, stepping into the small room. “That monkey stole it! Please, give it back!”
The sapien turned to him, dark eyes glimmering. He smiled. “Ah, you are General Lukashim’s son, are you not?”
Apelles was impressed the man knew him, but refused to be sidetracked. “Yes, so you should know you’ll be in big trouble if you don’t give me that money.”
The monkey grinned at him, but the man merely nodded.
“My friend brings me surprising gifts. I’m never sure what will come from them.”
“Your friend is a thief. That coin is not a gift.”
The sapien turned it over in his long fingers. “No,” he said. “But you are.”
Apelles’ breath caught, but he stepped forward, determined to be firm. His eye fell on the scrolls and he saw they were covered with words and alarm deepened to dread. “Are you reading? Are those the Holy Words? Only the High Priest may read those!”
The man smiled softly. “I am permitted to read, Lukashim’s son. By the grace of the Holy One I am able to keep learning.”
He peered at Apelles through the gloom, turning the coin again. The capuchin watched it, fascinated, and Apelles shifted, still unsettled. Finally the man spoke.
“Do you know how to read?”
Apelles stepped back, shaking his head vigorously. “Of course not! I would never! I mean, I read short lines, and I will learn more when I must, but not the Holy Words. I am not clean like the High Priest, or even the sapiens.”
The Singer sighed. “This is not the right order of things,” he said. “If only more knew.” He looked at Apelles another moment, the coin still turning in his long, dark fingers.
“I will make a deal with you, Lukashim’s son,” he said at last. “Let me teach you to read, and in exchange I will return your sister’s coin.”
“Why would I agree to something that may cause the Holy One to reject me?” Apelles grimaced at the quiver in his voice.
“Because I sense you want to know how the Holy One has let me read these words even though I am not the High Priest.”
“You are a sapien—sometimes it is permitted by the Holy One. I am the son of a general! And I didn’t even cleanse myself before I came….”
Apelles’ words trailed off, and he glanced at the parchment covered with all of those unknown words. They seemed to glint like the gold coin in the lamp light. He looked back at the Singer who watched him, his dark, liquid eyes soft. The light flickered, bending the shadows around the room.
“Come,” the Singer Sapien said at last. He set the coin on the table and pulled a parchment from the scrolls beside him. The capuchin edged up to the coin and batted it lightly.
Apelles hesitated.
“Come.” The sapien beckoned. “I will read you something.”
Apelles edged forward. Surely he wouldn’t be harmed by listening to a sapien read--and this was the Singer. The man lifted the parchment and spoke in his deep, resonant voice:
“‘The Holy One has rewarded me according
to my righteousness,
according to the cleanness of
my hands in his sight.’”
He paused and peered at Apelles. “Do you know this?”
“You sang it last worship day,” Apelles said. He remembered the burden of those words, and how clearly the Holy Flame had burned; how he’d felt all the specks of dirt inside himself, even while the Singer’s voice filled him with longing to be pure and accepted by the Holy One.
The Singer smiled approvingly. “Very good.”
“But you sang the Holy Words from memory then. If you read them, won’t they lose their power?”
“Spoken words do hold great power, Lukashim’s son,” the sapien said, “but without their full context they can be dangerous. I read them to know the whole. They are part of an ancient song. Listen to this; it is from further on in the same song:
‘It is the Holy One who arms me with strength
and makes my way perfect.
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
he enables me to stand on the heights.’”
The words rushed through Apelles like a clean wind. The flame of the Singer’s clay lamp surged, and the gold coin flashed as the capuchin spun it, chittering excitedly. The boy sank to his knees beside the low table and without thought reached out to draw the parchment closer, hoping he might be able to figure out the meaning of the lines of script. As he touched the paper, a shock ran through him and the words on the paper flared.
“But that is different!” he exclaimed, shaking his tingling fingers. “I thought I had to cleanse myself, but this sounds like the Holy One will make my way right first. Why didn’t you sing this part?”
“Ah.” The Singer’s face fell into shadow as the light receded. “That is more complicated.”
He shifted on his stool and metal clinked. Apelles glanced down and saw that a metal band circled the man’s ankle, chain attached. He followed the chain to where it was fastened to an iron ring driven into the wall. The boy drew back and stared at the Singer.
“What did you do? Are you a criminal?”
“I am as much a criminal as we all are without the help of the Holy One,” the man said. He smiled sadly and shook his head. “No. My deed was singing in the wrong place at the wrong time. When I was a young man I strayed too far from my homeland, and certain—traders—heard my song and made the most of my lone state. They sold me to the High Priest, and I now sing the parts of songs that he requires. He lets me read the source material so I can memorize the words in your tongue. He thinks I do not comprehend them, and believes this is why the Holy One permits me to read.”
Apelles’ mind was full and he shook his tingling fingers again, hoping that might help clear his thoughts. The fact that this gifted Singer was a slave kept by the High Priest of the Holy One staggered him. The realization that this slave had revealed true, freeing words to him and High Priest Maher had withheld them from him and his city overwhelmed him more.
The Singer held out his hand, his palm pale. “Now that you know this, Lukashim’s son, may I still teach you to read? You see, it is true—I do not understand some of the words in your tongue, and I need your help. I want to learn more because every word brings me freedom.”
Apelles stared at the words on the parchment. They still seemed to live and move in the flickering light of the lamp, and his heart hurt more than the tingling in his fingers; it was a longing he had no words for.
A shoe scuffed the ground outside the hut. In one fluid motion, the Singer slipped the parchment away from Apelles and pushed it and the pile of scrolls to the far corner of his table. Apelles stood quickly and the Singer stood also, snatching the coin from the capuchin who squawked and stretched a paw after it.
“Here,” the man said, and he thrust the coin into Apelles’ hand.
“Sumbdala,” a low, cracked voice called, and the doorway filled with the form of the old sapien who had escorted Apelles around the outer courtyard. He balanced a tray and cup while he maneuvered through the door, his eyes fixed on them. “I managed to add grilled fish to the flatbread, and the water is clean,” he said. Then he raised his dim eyes and halted, staring at Apelles. His brows rose. “You! Why are you here? You should have been long gone. What will the High Priest say?”
All the weight Apelles had felt in the outer court pressed back on him, but the ache within him became a spark that pushed against it. The coin warmed his tingling fingers, and he bowed to the sapien.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I misled you, O Sapien. I did not need to use the facilities you kindly pointed out. I was trying to get my sister’s coin back from this little monkey. He led me here and the Singer helped me get it back. See?”
He held the coin out and the old sapien bent over it, tisking gently and shaking his head. At last he set the tray on the table and looked at the Singer.
“I warned you about feeding that little beast, Sumbdala,” he said. “He’s getting too comfortable, and now he’s stealing. What will the Hight Priest say?”
Sumbdala bent his dark head, and Apelles looked between the two men, his throat tight. The capuchin sat back on his haunches and grinned, then leaped from the table and squeezed out the door behind the old sapien.
“What will the High Priest do to the Singer?” Apelles asked.
Sumbdala lifted his head and put a hand out to the youth. “Do not fear for me, Lukashim’s son. But if you are able, keep an eye on my little friend.” His dark eyes held Apelles’s gaze. “You have seen his tricks. If he steals something again, you know where he will bring it.”
Apelles swallowed and nodded. “If he does, I will come for him.”
The old sapien coughed. “Lukashim’s son, is it? All the more reason to get you away quietly. We don’t want the general’s son disrupting temple duties. Come, child.”
He grasped Apelles’ elbow, his grip firm, and pulled him out the door. Apelles had only a moment to look back at Sumbdala who stood, pale palms held outward to him in a farewell blessing. The old sapien trotted the boy almost rapidly across the yard, and Apelles noticed the sun had dropped low, sending slanting lines through the kapok trees. The sapien pulled him away from the corner of the temple toward the trees.
“Where are we going?” Apelles asked, alarmed. He tried to pull his elbow from the sapien’s grip.
The sapien panted and clutched harder. “Hush, boy! The back entrance. You don’t think I’d let you go through the courtyard now, do you? I should never have let you come in without checking if you were rightly cleansed. You may return worship day.”
“Will the Singer be all right?”
“Don’t worry about him. Any punishment he gets is his own fault. But,” the sapien paused his stride and peered at Apelles, “to tell true, Sumbdala is too valuable to our High Priest to receive any punishment that might hinder his voice.”
Apelles’ head whirled. Too many things had happened too quickly, and he couldn’t think except for one phrase that pulsed through his mind in repetition: “‘It is the Holy One who arms me with strength, It is the Holy One who arms me with strength…’”
They moved through the trees and a rough stone wall rose before them with a slatted wooden gate set within an arch. Above it, on top of the wall, sat the capuchin. It gazed down on them with bright eyes.
“Shoo, troublemaker!” the sapien said, waving one hand while he lifted the latch and opened the gate. Then, “Go home, Lukashim’s son, and tend to your own work.”
In a moment Apelles found himself on the opposite side of the gate, now closed again. He stood in a back alley that smelled of sewage and rotten vegetation. The capuchin leaped to his shoulder, then to the ground, and dashed along the wall toward the front portion of the temple grounds. Apelles pinched his nose and ran after. When he hit the main road, he took off toward home, weaving between the late vendors; the monkey disappeared.
Apelles slipped onto his home’s wide verandah that faced the lake just as the sun sank under the waves far to the east. He cut through the open front corridor to the atrium garden in the middle of the house and took a deep breath of jasmine and honeysuckle. Glancing about he spotted Bhadra’s shining head over by the garden pool. He whistled softly and jogged over to her.
The little girl sat on the stone edge of the pool, dabbling her fingers in the water to tease a great goldfish, but at Apelles’ whistle she sprang up with a soft cry.
“‘Pelles!” she sang out. “Where were you? I’m hungry!”
“Is it dinnertime?”
“Mother said wait for you,” Bhadra pouted.
“Well, we can go in now,” Apelles said. “But have you forgotten why I left?”
He held out the coin to her and she squealed and grabbed it.
“Tuck it away,” Apelles said, glancing about the garden. “The capuchin may come back, and it was hard to catch him. I found him with the Singer at the temple.”
Bhadra’s eyes widened. “But the Singer is nice. Why would the bad monkey go to him?”
Apelles shook his head. He didn’t know how to answer, and now he could only think of the Singer—Sumbdala—and the way the monkey had played by him, the life-giving words the man read from the scroll, and the awful chain around his ankle.
That night he watched his father over dinner, pondering why the old sapien didn’t want the High Priest to know the general’s son had been with the Singer enslaved behind the temple. Should he tell his father about it? The general seemed preoccupied, though, and immediately after dinner headed to his study on the other side of the atrium, behind the pool. His mother herded Bhadra off to bed, and Captain Ventahj arrived soon after from the soldiers’ camp. Apelles ushered him to the general’s study, pulling the door mostly closed behind the man after he entered.
The atrium garden was enveloped in thick, warm, scented darkness now, and Apelles wandered the pathways until he settled beside the pool. He could hear the rumble of his father’s voice, and see the seam of light that fell through the thin opening of the study door. Apelles was again lost in thought about his afternoon encounter when he heard his father’s voice more clearly.
“It was wise to bring the word in writing, Ventahj. More and more we have been able to accomplish much because few can read them. But we must not let the High Priest know you and I are fluent.”
Apelles sat stone still, staring at the crack of light. Was there no end to this day’s mysteries? His father could read fluently?
There was a murmur from the captain, and General Lukashim chuckled. “I will let my son know there is no danger in reading when he can keep the secret. But I will probably send him to the King of the North to study. There he will not be judged unfaithful, and he can study freely, including the Holy Words.”
Apelles leaned forward, trying to understand. Not only could his father read well, he did not believe the written Holy Words were only for the High Priest…and he planned for Apelles to learn someday. His father didn’t think he was able to keep a secret, and yet Apelles’ secret from that afternoon still burned in his chest. He could be silent; and he would learn to read the Holy Words.
A soft chitter drew Apelles attention to the trellis beside him. The capuchin sat on it looking down at him, beady eyes glinting in the light from the study door. Apelles pondered the little beast, then rose.
“Wait here,” he said to the monkey.
He headed across the garden to the door of his own room. Slipping inside, he crossed to a little chest he kept on his desk. The dark polished wood shimmered in the light of a small lamp his mother had set there for him. He pulled a tiny key from a shelf above his head and unlatched the chest, revealing two neat stacks of gold coins. They glowed like fire in the lamplight. He picked one up and turned it over, thinking of the long, dextrous fingers of Sumbdala. Then he clenched it in his hand, closed the lid, and locked it again. He headed back to the trellis where the capuchin sat playing with a fragrant jasmine blossom. When Apelles held up the coin, the beast dropped the flower and leaned forward, eyes fixed on the gold.
“Listen,” Apelles said, waving the coin in front of the monkey’s nose. “I need you to take this to Sumbdala. Go around the back of the temple—let no one see you!”
He held the coin closer to the capuchin and when it reached out and grabbed it, he let go. The little furry animal leaped down from the trellis and dashed along the path to the corridor leading to the outer verandah. It paused at the entrance, looked back at Apelles, chittered, then disappeared into the darkness.