Noble House

by James Clavell

5:45 A.M.:

  The two racehorses came out of the turn into the final stretch going very fast. It was false dawn, the sky still dark to the west, and the Happy Valley Racecourse was spotted with people at the morning workout.

  Dunross was up on Buccaneer, the big bay gelding, and he was neck and neck with Noble Star, ridden by his chief jockey, Tom Leung. Noble Star was on the rails and both horses were going well with plenty in reserve. Then Dunross saw the winning post ahead and he had that sudden urge to jam in his heels and best the other horse. The other jockey sensed the challenge and looked across at him. But both riders knew they were there just to exercise and not to race, there to confuse the opposition, so Dunross bottled his almost blinding desire.

  Both horses had their ears down now. Their flanks were wet with sweat. Both felt the bit in between their teeth. And now, well into the stretch, they pounded toward the winning post excitedly, the inner training sand track not as fast as the encircling grass, making them work harder. Both riders stood high in the stirrups, leaning forward, reins tight.

  Noble Star was carrying less weight. She began to pull away. Dunross automatically used his heels and cursed Buccaneer. The pace quickened. The gap began to close. His exhilaration soared. This gallop was barely half a lap so he thought he would be safe. No opposing trainer could get an accurate timing on them so he kicked harder and the race was on. Both horses knew. Their strides lengthened. Noble Star had her nose ahead and then, feeling Buccaneer coming up fast, she took the bit, laid to and charged forward on her own account and drew away and beat Dunross by half a length.

  Now the riders slackened speed and, standing easily, continued around the lovely course—a patch of green surrounded by massed buildings and tiers of high rises that dotted the mountainsides. When Dunross had cantered up the final stretch again, he broke off the exercising, reined in beside where the winner’s circle would normally be and dismounted. He slapped the filly affectionately on the neck, threw the reins to a stable hand. The man swung into the saddle and continued her exercise.

  Dunross eased his shoulders, his heart beating nicely, the taste of blood in his mouth. He felt very good, his stretched muscles aching pleasantly. He had ridden all of his life. Horse racing was still officially all amateur in Hong Kong. When he was young he had raced two seasons and he would have continued, but he had been warned off the course by his father, then tai-pan and chief steward, and again by Alastair Struan when he took over both jobs, and ordered to quit racing on pain of instant dismissal. So he had stopped racing though he continued to exercise the Struan stable at his whim. And he raced in the dawn when the mood was on him.

  It was the getting up when most of the world slept, to gallop in half light—the exercise and excitement, the speed, and the danger that cleared his head.

  Dunross spat the sweet sick taste of not winning out of his mouth. That’s better, he thought. I could have taken Noble Star today, but I’d’ve done it in the turn, not in the stretch.

  Other horses were exercising on the sand track, more joining the circuit or leaving it. Knots of owners and trainers and jockeys were conferring, ma-foos—stable hands—walking horses in their blankets. He saw Butterscotch Lass, Richard Kwang’s great mare, canter past, a white star on her forehead, neat fetlocks, her jockey riding her tightly, looking very good. Over on the far side Pilot Fish, Gornt’s prize stallion, broke into a controlled gallop, chasing another of the Struan string, Impatience, a new, young, untried filly, recently acquired in the first balloting of this season. Dunross watched her critically and thought she lacked stamina. Give her a season or two and then we’ll see, he thought. Then Pilot Fish ripped past her and she skittered in momentary fright, then charged in pursuit until her jockey pulled her in, teaching her to gallop at his whim and not at hers.

  “So, tai-pan!” his trainer said. He was a leather-faced, iron-hard Russian émigré in his late sixties with graying hair and this was his third season with Struan’s.

  “So, Alexi?”

  “So the devil got into you and you gave him your heel and did you see Noble Star surge ahead?”

  “She’s a trier. Noble Star’s a trier, everyone knows that,” Dunross replied calmly.

  “Yes, but I’d’ve preferred only you and I to be reminded of it today and not”—the small man jerked a calloused thumb at the onlookers and grinned—“… and not every vïblyadok in Asia.”

  Dunross grinned back. “You notice too much.”

  “I’m paid to notice too much.”

  Alexi Travkin could outride, outdrink, outwork and outstay a man half his age. He was a loner among the other trainers. Over the years he had told various stories about his past—like most of those who had been caught in the great turmoils of Russia and her revolutions, China and her revolutions, and now drifted the byways of Asia seeking a peace they could never find.

  Alexi Ivanovitch Travkin had come out of Russia to Harbin in Manchuria in 1919, then worked his way south to the International Settlement of Shanghai. There he began to ride winners. Because he was very good and knew more about horses than most men know about themselves, he soon became a trainer. When the exodus happened again in ’49 he fled south, this time to Hong Kong where he stayed a few years then drifted south again to Australia and the circuits there. But Asia beckoned him so he returned. Dunross was trainerless at that time and offered him the stable of the Noble House.

  “I’ll take it, tai-pan,” he had said at once.

  “We haven’t discussed money,” Dunross had said.

  “You’re a gentleman, so am I. You’ll pay me the best for face—and because I’m the best.”

  “Are you?”

  “Why else do you offer me the post? You don’t like to lose either.”

  Last season had been good for both of them. The first not so good. Both knew this coming season would be the real test.

  Noble Star was walking past, settling down nicely.

  “What about Saturday?” Dunross asked.

  “She’ll be trying.”

  “And Butterscotch Lass?”

  “She’ll be trying. So will Pilot Fish. So will all the others—in all eight races. This’s a very special meeting. We’ll have to watch our entries very carefully.”

  Dunross nodded. He caught sight of Gornt talking with Sir Dunstan Barre by the winner’s circle. “I’ll be very peed off if I lose to Pilot Fish.”

  Alexi laughed. Then added wryly, “In that case perhaps you’d better ride Noble Star yourself, tai-pan. Then you can shove Pilot Fish into the rails in the turn if he looks like a threat, or put the whip across his jockey’s eyes. Eh?” The old man looked up at him. “Isn’t that what you’d’ve done with Noble Star today if it’d been a race?”

  Dunross smiled back. “As it wasn’t a race you’ll never know—will you?”

  A ma-foo came up and saluted Travkin, handing him a note. “Message, sir. Mr. Choi’d like you to look at Chardistan’s bindings when you’ve a moment.”

  “I’ll be there shortly. Tell him to put extra bran in Buccaneer’s feed today and tomorrow.” Travkin glanced back at Dunross, who was watching Noble Star closely. He frowned. “You’re not considering riding Saturday?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “I wouldn’t advise it.”

  Dunross laughed. “I know. See you tomorrow, Alexi. Tomorrow I’ll work Impatience.” He clapped him in friendly style and left.

  Alexi Travkin stared after him; his eyes strayed to the horses that were in his charge, and their opposition that he could see. He knew this Saturday would be vicious and that Noble Star would have to be guarded. He smiled to himself, pleased to be in a game where the stakes were very high.

  He opened the note that was in his hand. It was short and in Russian: “Greetings from Kurgan, Highness. I have news of Nestorova…” Alexi gasped. The color drained from his face. By the blood of Christ, he wanted to shout. No one in Asia knows my home was in Kurgan, in the flatlands on the banks of the River Tobol, nor that my fa
ther was Prince of Kurgan and Tobol, nor that my darling Nestorova, my child-wife of a thousand lifetimes ago, swallowed up in the revolution while I was with my regiment … I swear to God I’ve never mentioned her name to anyone, not even to myself….

  In shock he reread the note. Is this more of their devilment, the Soviets—the enemy of all the Russians? Or is it a friend? Oh Christ Jesus let it be a friend.

  After “Nestorova” the note had ended, “Please meet me at the Green Dragon Restaurant, in the alley just off 189 Nathan Road, the back room at three this afternoon.” There was no signature.

  Across the paddock, near the winning post, Richard Kwang was walking toward his trainer when he saw his sixth cousin, Smiler Ching, chairman of the huge Ching Prosperity Bank, in the stands, his binoculars trained on Pilot Fish.

  “Hello, Sixth Cousin,” he said affably in Cantonese, “have you eaten rice today?”

  The sly old man was instantly on guard. “You won’t get any money out of me,” he said coarsely, his lips sliding back from protruding teeth that gave him a perpetual smiling grimace.

  “Why not?” Richard Kwang said equally rudely. “I’ve got 17 fornicating millions on loan to you an—”

  “Yes but that’s on ninety-day call and well invested. We’ve always paid the 40 percent interest,” the old man snarled.

  “You miserable old dog bone, I helped you when you needed money! Now it’s time to repay!”

  “Repay what? What?” Smiler Ching spat. “I’ve repaid you a fortune over the years. I’ve taken the risks and you’ve reaped the profit. This whole disaster couldn’t happen at a worse time! I’ve every copper cash out—every one! I’m not like some bankers. My money’s always put to good use.”

  The good use was narcotics, so legend went. Of course Richard Kwang had never asked, and no one knew for certain, but everyone believed that Smiler Ching’s bank was secretly one of the main clearinghouses for the trade, the vast majority of which emanated from Bangkok. “Listen, Cousin, think of the family,” Richard Kwang began. “It’s only a temporary problem. The fornicating foreign devils are attacking us. When that happens civilized people have to stick together!”

  “I agree. But you’re the cause of the run on the Ho-Pak. You are. It’s on you—not on my bank. You’ve offended the fornicators somehow! They’re after you—don’t you read the papers? Yes, and you’ve got all your cash out on some very bad deals so I hear. You, Cousin, you’ve put your own head into the cangue. Get money out of that evil son of a Malayan whore half-caste partner of yours. He’s got billions—or out of Tightfist….” The old man suddenly cackled. “I’ll give you 10 for every 1 that old fornicator loans you!”

  “If I go down the toilet the Ching Prosperity Bank won’t be far behind.”

  “Don’t threaten me!” the old man said angrily. His lips had a flick of saliva permanently in the corners and then they worked over his teeth once and fell apart again in his grimace. “If you go down it won’t be my fault—why wish your rotten joss on family? I’ve done nothing to hurt you—why try and pass your bad joss on to me? If today … ayeeyah, if today your bad joss spills over and those dog bone depositors start a run on me I won’t last the day!”

  Richard Kwang momentarily felt better that the Ching empire was equally threatened. Good, very good. I could use all his business—particularly the Bangkok connection. Then he saw the big clock over the totalizator and groaned. It was just past six now and at ten, banks would open and the stock market would open and though arrangements had been made with Blacs, the Victoria and the Bombay and Eastern Bank of Kowloon to pledge securities that should cover everything and to spare, he was still nervous. And enraged. He had had to make some very tough deals that he had no wish to honor. “Come on, Cousin, just 50 million for ten days—I’ll extend the 17 million for two years and add another 20 in thirty days.”

  “50 million for three days at 10 percent interest a day, your present loan to be collateral and I’ll also take deed to your property in Central as further collateral!”

  “Go fornicate in your mother’s ear! That property’s worth four times that.”

  Smiler Ching shrugged and turned his binoculars back on Pilot Fish. “Is the big black going to beat Butterscotch Lass too?”

  Richard Kwang looked at Gornt’s horse sourly. “Not unless my weevil-mouthed trainer and jockey join together to pull her or dope her!”

  “Filthy thieves! You can’t trust one of them! My horse’s never come in the money once. Never. Not even third. Disgusting!”

  “50 million for one week—2 percent a day?”

  “5. Plus the Central pro—”

  “Never!”

  “I’ll take a 50 percent share of the property.”

  “6 percent,” Richard Kwang said.

  Smiler Ching estimated his risk. And his potential profit. The profit was huge if. If the Ho-Pak didn’t fail. But even if it did, the loan would be well covered by the property. Yes, the profit would be huge, provided there wasn’t a real run on himself. Perhaps I could gamble and pledge some future shipments and raise the 50 million.

  “15 percent and that’s final,” he said knowing that he would withdraw or change by noon once he saw how the market was, and the run was—and he would continue to sell Ho-Pak short to great profit. “And also you can throw in Butterscotch Lass.”

  Richard Kwang swore obscenely and they bargained back and forth then agreed that the 50 million was on call at two o’clock. In cash. He would also pledge Smiler Ching 39 percent of the Central property as added collateral, and a quarter share in his mare. Butterscotch Lass was the clincher.

  “What about Saturday?”

  “Eh?” Richard Kwang said, loathing the grimace and buckteeth.

  “Our horse’s in the fifth race, heya? Listen, Sixth Cousin, perhaps we’d better make an accommodation with Pilot Fish’s jockey. We pull our horse—she’ll be favorite—and back Pilot Fish and Noble Star for safety!”

  “Good idea. We’ll decide Saturday morning.”

  “Better to eliminate Golden Lady too, eh?”

  “John Chen’s trainer suggested that.”

  “Eeeee, that fool, to get himself kidnapped. I’ll expect you to give me the real information on who’s going to win. I want the winner too!” Smiler hawked and spat.

  “All gods defecate, don’t we all! Those filthy trainers and jockeys! Disgusting the way they puppet us owners. Who pays their salaries, heya?”

  “The Turf Club, the owners, but most the punters who aren’t in the know. I hear you were at the Old Vic last night for foreign devil food.”

  Richard Kwang beamed. His dinner with Venus Poon had been an enormous success. She had worn the new knee-length Christian Dior he had bought for her, black clinging silk and gossamer underneath. When he had seen her get out of his Rolls and come up the steps of the Old Vic his heart had turned over and his Secret Sack had jiggled.

  She had been all smiles at the effect her entrance had on the entire foyer, her chunky gold bracelets glittering, and had insisted on walking up the grand staircase instead of using the elevator. His chest had been tight with suppressed glee and terror. They had walked through the formal, well-groomed diners, European and Chinese, many in evening dress—husbands and wives, tourists and locals, men at business dinners, lovers and would-be lovers of all ages and nationalities. He was wearing a new, Savile Row dark suit of the most expensive lightweight cashmere wool. As they moved toward the choice table that had cost him a red—100 dollars—he had waved to many friends, and groaned inwardly four times as he saw four of his Chinese intimates with their wives, bouffant and overjeweled. The wives had stared at him glassily.

  Richard Kwang shuddered. Wives really are dragons and all the same, he thought. Oh oh oh! And your lies sound false to them even before you’ve spoken them. He had not gone home yet to face Mai-ling who would have already been told by at least three very good friends about Venus Poon. He would let her rant and scream and weep and tear her hair
for a while to release her devil wind and would say that enemies had filled her head with bile—how can she listen to such evil women?—and then he would meekly tell her about the full-length mink that he had ordered three weeks ago, that he was to collect today in time for her to wear to the races Saturday. Then there would be peace in the house—until the next time.

  He chortled at his acumen in ordering the mink. That he had ordered it for Venus Poon and had, this morning, just an hour ago in the warmth of her embrace, promised it to her tonight so she would wear it to the races on Saturday did not bother him at all. It’s much too good for the strumpet anyway, he was thinking. That coat cost 40,000 HK. I’ll get her another one. Ah, perhaps I could find a secondhand one….

  He saw Smiler Ching leering at him. “What?”

  “Venus Poon, heya?”

  “I’m thinking of going into film production and making her a star,” he said grandly, proud of the cover story he had invented as part of his excuse to his wife.

  Smiler Ching was impressed. “Eeee, but that’s a risky business, heya?”

  “Yes, but there are ways to … to insure your risk.” He winked knowingly.

  “Ayeeyah, you mean a nudie film? Oh! Let me know when you set the production, I might take a point or two. Venus Poon naked! Ayeeyah, all Asia’d pay to see that! What’s she like at the pillow?”

  “Perfect! Now that I’ve educated her. She was a virgin when I fir—”

  “What joss!” Smiler Ching said, then added, “How many times did you scale the Ramparts?”

  “Last night? Three times—each time stronger than before!” Richard Kwang leaned forward. “Her Flower Heart’s the best I’ve ever seen. Yes. And her triangle! Lovely silken hair and her inner lips pink and delicate. Eeeee, and her Jade Gate … her Jade Gate’s really heart-shaped and her ‘one square inch’ is a perfect oval, pink, fragrant, and the Pearl on the Step also pink….” Richard Kwang felt himself beginning to sweat as he remembered how she had spread herself on the sofa and handed him a big magnifying glass. “Here,” she had said proudly. “Examine the goddess your bald-headed monk’s about to worship.” And he had. Meticulously.