Laksamana: The Rise and Fall of the Kingdom of a Thousand Peoples

Prologue

"Have you ever heard of this story, ayahanda?", inquired a young girl to her father, waving her legs from the precarious branch of a tree. The morning wind was music to the tree, whose branches' solemn danced atop a barren, green hill.

"An oracle I am not, how would I know anakanda? Of something you have not yet said?", the old man answered. He was chopping down timber into firewood since the break of dawn. Wiping sweat dripping off his face, he rested his axe next to the pile of wood he collected and took a rest on a tree stump. He had with him his flintlock and his keris, a prized dagger enshrined within a simple hardwood sheath, both of which he proudly kept by his waist. Its bent golden hilt, shaped like a rooster's head, curved inwards towards his body.

The girl leapt down and her headdress bobbed forwards. The elaborate, slanted headband was a mellow shade of turqoise with gold thread inlay. Its gentle lick curved upwards, like a soft wave crashing from the sea. It was fitted by her grandmother, who was proud of her work, but it was a little too large for the little girl's head.

Her father, kneeling down to her level, smiled in amusement. He both admired and envied the child's radiating youth and innocence. He gently removed the headdress from her head, and set it aside on the ground.

"It's the story of Tok Tuah!", she eagerly said, no longer able contain her excitement.

"Now that is a man whose name I have not heard in a long while", his father remembered, quietly looking down from the tall hill they were on, down towards the rough waters of the sky blue strait. Ships of all shapes and sizes floated solitarily in the far horizon, with Sumatera hidden in clouds and mists behind them, while some dropped anchor near the coast and tied themselves down to the sprawling wooden decks of a city's harbour. This enormous seaside fortress resting by the water was the capital of a vast and mighty empire. A kingdom by the name of Melaka.

His daughter rushed to his embrace, her small and nimble feet brushing naked on the grass. "Tok Ngah told me this story last night when I was falling asleep by bonda's lap". He leapt onto his tired father, embracing him. "It was a wonderful story, ayahanda! There was fighting, and bravery, and treachery, and adventure. There was love too! If only you were there to hear it".

"What could you possibly know about love?", he entertained the young girl, whose smile shone bright under the cloudless sun.

"Well, I only heard of it from Tok Ngah...", the girl shyly looked away. He held her tightly in between his arms, listening to her.

"Tell me, my daughter. Tell me this story of Hang Tuah".