They buried Private Suwondo before midnight, torches lit against a sky gone starless with cloud, and Ardhana himself spoke the words of passage over the grave despite having a dozen more pressing matters clawing at his attention. It was, Rama thought, watching the king's composed grief, exactly the kind of small dignity that separated Ardhana from a man who merely wore a crown.
"He fought bravely at Girah Post," Ardhana said, "and again at the northern wall, and in the end he gave more of himself than any soldier should be asked to give, in service of a war none of us fully understand yet. Swarnabhumi will remember him as a man, not as whatever wore his face at the end."
Their daughter stood between her parents through the whole ceremony, quiet and solemn, and when the last handful of earth had been turned she slipped free of Sekar's hand and knelt at the grave's edge long enough to press her small palm flat against the disturbed soil.
