Noble House

by James Clavell

  Oh how I worked, Orlanda thought grimly, remembering all her tears. But now I know. Now I can do instinctively what I forced myself to learn. “Come on, let me show you the forward part of the ship.” She got up, conscious of the captain’s eyes, and led the way confidently.

  As they walked she slipped her arm momentarily in Linc’s, then took the railing of the gangway and went below. The stateroom was big, with comfortable chaises and sofas and deep chairs fixed to the deck. The cocktail cabinet was well stocked. “The galley’s forward in the fo’c’sle with the crew quarters,” she said. “They’re cramped but good for Hong Kong.” A small corridor led forward. Four cabins, two with a double bunk, two with bunks one over the other. Neat and shipshape and inviting. “Aft’s Quillan’s master stateroom and the master suite. It’s luxurious.” She smiled thoughtfully. “He enjoys the best.”

  “Yes,” Bartlett said. He kissed her and she responded, fully responded. His desire made her limp and liquid and she let herself go into his desire, matching his passion, certain that he would stop and that she would not have to stop him.

  The game had been planned that way.

  She felt his strength. At once her loins pressed closer, moving slightly. His hands roved her and hers responded. It was glorious in his arms, better than she had ever known with Quillan who was always teacher, always in control, always unsharable. They were on the bunk when Bartlett backed off. Her body cried out for his, but still she exulted.

  “Let’s go back on deck,” she heard him say, his voice throaty.

  Gornt crossed the fine stateroom and went into the master suite and locked the door behind him. The girl was sweetly asleep in the huge bed under the light blanket. He stood at the foot of the bed, enjoying the sight of her before he touched her. She came out of sleep slowly. “Ayeeyah, I slept so well, Honored Sir. Your bed is so inviting,” she said in Shanghainese with a smile and a yawn and stretched gloriously as a kitten would stretch. “Did you eat well?”

  “Excellently,” he replied in the same language. “Was yours equally fine?”

  “Oh yes, delicious!” she said politely. “Boat Steward Cho brought the same dishes you had. I particularly liked the octopus with black bean and garlic sauce.” She sat up in the bed and leaned against the silk pillows, quite naked. “Should I get dressed and come on deck now?”

  “No, Little Kitten, not yet.” Gornt sat on the bed and reached out and touched her breasts and felt a little shiver run through her. Her Chinese hostess name was Beauty of the Snow and he had hired her for the evening from the Happy Hostess Night Club. He had considered bringing Mona Leung, his present girlfriend instead, but she would be far too independent to remain below happily and only come on deck at his whim.

  He had chosen Beauty of the Snow very carefully. Her beauty was extraordinary, in face and body and the texture of her skin. She was eighteen, and had been in Hong Kong barely a month. A friend in Taiwan had told him about her rarity and said that she was about to join the Happy Hostess Night Club from the sister club in Taiwan. Two weeks ago he had gone there and made an arrangement that had proved profitable to both of them. Tonight when Orlanda had told him she was dining with Bartlett and he had invited them aboard, at once he had called the Happy Hostess and bought Beauty of the Snow out of the club for the night and hurried her aboard.

  “I’m playing a game on a friend tonight,” he had told her. “I want you to stay here in this cabin, in this place, until I bring you on deck. It may be an hour or two but you are to stay here, quiet as a mouse, until I fetch you.”

  “Ayeeyah, in this floating palace, I am prepared to stay a week without charge. Just my food and more of the champagne … though pillowing would be extra. May I sleep in the bed if I wish?”

  “Certainly, but please shower first.”

  “A shower? Bless all gods! Hot and cold water? That will be paradise—this water shortage is very unhygienic.”

  Gornt had brought her tonight to taunt Orlanda if he decided he wanted to taunt her. Beauty of the Snow was much younger, prettier, and he knew that the sight of her wearing one of the elegant robes that once Orlanda had worn would send her into a spasm. All through dinner, he had chortled to himself, wondering when he should produce her for maximum effect: to excite Bartlett and to remind Orlanda that she was already old by Hong Kong standards, and that without his active help she would never get Bartlett, not the way she wanted.

  Do I want her married to Bartlett? he asked himself, bemused.

  No. And yet, if Orlanda were Bartlett’s wife he would always be in my power because she is and ever will be. So far she hasn’t forgotten that. So far she’s been obedient and filial. And frightened.

  He laughed. Oh revenge will be sweet when I lower the boom on you, my dear. As I will, one day. Oh yes, my dear, I haven’t forgotten the snickers of all those smug bastards—Pug, Plumm, Havergill or Ian bloody Dunross—when they heard that you couldn’t wait to leap into bed with a stud half my age.

  Should I tell you now that you’re my mui jai?

  When Orlanda was thirteen her Shanghainese mother had come to see him. “Times are very hard, Lord, our debts to the company are huge and your patience and kindness overwhelm us.”

  “Times are bad for everyone,” he had told her.

  “Unfortunately, since last week, my husband’s department no longer exists. At the end of the month he is to leave, after seventeen years of service, and we cannot pay our debts to you.”

  “Eduardo Ramos is a good man and will easily find a new and better position.”

  “Yin ksiao shih ta,” she had said: We lose much because of a small thing.

  “Joss,” he had said, hoping the trap was sprung and all the seeds he had sown would, at long last, bear fruit.

  “Joss,” she had agreed. “But there is Orlanda.”

  “What about Orlanda?”

  “Perhaps she could be a mui jai.” A mui jai was a daughter given by a debtor to a creditor forever, in settlement for debts that could not otherwise be paid—to be brought up as the creditor wished, or used or given away as the creditor wished. It was an ancient Chinese custom, and quite legal.

  Gornt remembered the glow he had felt. The negotiations had taken several weeks. Gornt agreed to cancel Ramos’s debts—the debts that Gornt had so carefully encouraged, agreed to reinstate Ramos, giving the man a modest guaranteed pension and help in setting up in Portugal, and to pay for Orlanda’s schooling in America. In return the Ramoses guaranteed to provide Orlanda to him, virgin and suitably enamored, on or before her eighteenth birthday. There would be no refusal. “This, by all the gods, will be a perpetual secret between us. I think, too, it would be equally better to keep it secret from her, Lord, forever. But we know and she will know where her rice bowl lies.”

  Gornt beamed. The good years were worth all the patience and planning and the little money involved. Everyone gained, he told himself, and there is enjoyment yet to come.

  Yes, he thought and concentrated on Beauty of the Snow. “Life is very good,” he said, fondling her.

  “I am happy you’re happy, Honored Sir. I am happy too. Your shower was a gift of the gods. I washed my hair, everything.” She smiled. “If you don’t want me to play the prank yet on your friends, would you care to pillow?”

  “Yes,” he said, delighted as always by the forthrightness of a Chinese pillow partner. His father had explained it early: “You give them money, they give you their youth, the Clouds and the Rain and entertain you. In Asia it’s a fair and honorable exchange. The more their youth, the more the laughter and gratification, the more you must pay. That’s the bargain, but don’t expect romance or real tears—that’s not part of their commitment. Just temporary entertainment and pillowing. Don’t abuse the fairness!”

  Happily Gornt took off his clothes and lay beside her. She ran her hands over his chest, the hair dark, muscles sleek, and began. Soon she was making the small noises of passion, encouraging him. And though she had been told by the mam
a-san that this quai loh was different and there was no need to pretend, instinctively she was remembering the first rule of being a pillow partner to strangers: “Never let your body become involved with a customer for then you cannot perform with taste or daring. Never forget, when with a quai loh, you must always pretend to enjoy him greatly, always pretend to achieve the Clouds and the Rain, otherwise he’ll consider that somehow it’s an affront to his masculinity. Quai loh are uncivilized and will never understand that the yin cannot be bought and that your gift of coupling is for the customer’s enjoyment solely.”

  When Gornt was finished and his heart had slowed, Beauty of the Snow got out of bed and went to the bathroom and showered again, singing happily. In euphoria he rested and put his hands under his head. Soon she came back with a towel. “Thank you,” he said and dried himself and she slid in beside him once more.

  “Oh I feel so clean and marvelous. Shall we pillow again?”

  “Not now, Beauty of the Snow. Now you can rest and I will let my mind wander. You have settled the yang very favorably. I will inform the mama-san.”

  “Thank you,” she said politely. “I would like you as my special customer.”

  He nodded, pleasured by her and her warmth and sensuousness. When would it be best for her to come on deck? he asked himself again, quite confident that Bartlett and Orlanda would be there now and not in bed as a civilized person would be.

  A chuckle went through him.

  There was a porthole beside the bed and he could see the lights of Kowloon in the distance, Kowloon and the dockyard of Kowloon. The engines throbbed sweetly, and in a moment he got out of the bed and went to the cupboard. In it were some very expensive nightdresses and under-things and multicolored robes and rich lounging housecoats that he had bought for Orlanda. It amused him to keep them for others to wear.

  “Make yourself very pretty and put this on.” He gave her a yellow silk, floor-length chong-sam that had been one of Orlanda’s favorites. “Wear nothing underneath.”

  “Yes, certainly. Oh, how beautiful it is!”

  He began to dress. “If my prank works you may keep it, as a bonus,” he said.

  “Oh! Oh, then everything will be as you wish,” she said fervently, her open avarice making him laugh.

  “We’re going to drop my passengers Hong Kong side first.” He pointed out of the porthole. “You see that big freighter, the one tied up at the wharf with the Hammer and Sickle flag?”

  “Ah yes, Lord. The ship of ill-omen? I see it now!”

  “When we are broadside please come on deck.”

  “I understand. What should I say?”

  “Nothing. Just smile sweetly at the man and the woman, then at me and come below again and wait for me here.”

  Beauty of the Snow laughed. “Is that all?”

  “Yes, just be sweet and beautiful and smile—particularly at the woman.”

  “Ah! Am I to like her or hate her?” she asked at once.

  “Neither,” he said, impressed with her shrewdness, ecstatically aware that they would both loathe each other on sight.

  In the privacy of his cabin aboard the Sovetsky Ivanov, Captain Gregor Suslev finished encoding the urgent message, then sipped some vodka, rechecking the cable. “Ivanov to Center. Arthur reports the files may be counterfeit. His friend will supply me with copies tonight. Delighted to report Arthur’s friend also intercepted the carrier information. Recommend he be given an immediate bonus. I have had extra copies sent by mail to Bangkok for the pouch, also London and Berlin for safety.”

  Satisfied, he put the code books back into the safe and locked it, then picked up the phone. “Send me the duty signalman. And the first officer.” He unbolted the cabin door then went back and stared out the porthole at the carrier across the harbor, then saw the passing pleasure cruiser. He recognized the Sea Witch. Idly he picked up his binoculars and focused. He saw Gornt on the aft deck, a girl and another man with his back toward him sitting around a table. His high-powered lenses raked the ship and his envy soared. That bastard knows how to live, he thought. What a beauty! If only I could have one such as her on the Caspian, berthed at Baku!

  Not so much to pray for, he told himself, watching the Sea Witch pass, not after so much service, so profitable to the cause. Many commissars do—senior ones.

  Again his glasses centered the group. Another girl came up from below, an Asian beauty, and then there was a polite knock on his door.

  “Evening, Comrade Captain,” the signalman said. He accepted the message and signed for it.

  “Send it at once.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The first officer arrived. Vassili Boradinov was a tough, good-looking man in his thirties, captain, KGB, graduate of the espionage department of Vladivostok University with a master mariner’s ticket. “Yes, Comrade Captain?”

  Suslev handed him a decoded cable from the pile on his desk. It read: “First Officer Vassili Boradinov will assume Dimitri Metkin’s duties as commissar of the Ivanov but Captain Suslev will be in complete command on all levels until alternate arrangements are made.”

  “Congratulations,” he said.

  Boradinov beamed. “Yes sir. Thank you. What do you want me to do?”

  Suslev held up the key to the safe. “If I fail to contact you or return by midnight tomorrow, open the safe. Instructions are in the package marked ‘Emergency One.’ They will tell you how to proceed. Next…” He handed him a sealed envelope. “This gives two phone numbers where I can be reached. Open it only in an emergency.”

  “Very well.” Sweat beaded the younger man’s face.

  “No need to worry. You’re perfectly capable of taking command.”

  “I hope that will not be necessary.”

  Gregor Suslev laughed. “So do I, my young friend. Please sit down.” He poured two vodkas. “You deserve the promotion.”

  “Thank you.” Boradinov hesitated. “What happened to Metkin?”

  “The first thing is he made a stupid and unnecessary mistake. Next, he was betrayed. Or he betrayed himself. Or the god-cursed SI tailed him and caught him. Or the CIA pegged him. Whatever happened, the poor fool should never have exceeded his authority and put himself into such danger. Stupid to risk himself, to say nothing of our whole security. Stupid!”

  The first officer shifted nervously in his chair. “What’s our plan?”

  “To deny everything. And to do nothing for the moment. We’re due to sail on Tuesday at midnight; we keep to that plan.”

  Boradinov looked out of the porthole at the carrier, his face tight. “Pity. That material could have jumped us forward a quantum.”

  “What material?” Suslev asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “Didn’t you know, sir? Before Dimitri left, the poor fellow whispered he’d heard that this time we were to get some incredible information—a copy of the guidance system and a copy of their armament manifest, including atomics—that’s why he was going himself. It was too important to trust to an ordinary courier. I must tell you I volunteered to go in his place.”

  Suslev covered his shock that Metkin had confided in anyone. “Where did he hear that?”

  The other man shrugged. “He didn’t say. I presume the American sailor told him when Dimitri took the call at the phone box to arrange the drop.” He wiped a bead of sweat away. “They’ll break him, won’t they?”

  “Oh yes,” Suslev said thinly, wanting his subordinate suitably indoctrinated. “They can break anyone. That’s why we have to be prepared.” He fingered the slight bulge of the poison capsule in the point of his lapel and Boradinov shuddered. “Better to have it quickly.”

  “Bastards! They must have been tipped to capture him before he did it. Terrible. They’re all animals.”

  “Did … did Dimitri say anything else? Before he left?”

  “No, just that he hoped we’d all get a few weeks’ leave—he wanted to visit his family in his beloved Crimea.”

  Satisfied that he was covered, Suslev s
hrugged. “A great pity. I liked him very much.”

  “Yes. Such a shame when he was due to retire so soon. He was a good man even though he made such a mistake. What will they do to him?”

  Suslev considered showing Boradinov one of the other decoded cables on his desk that said in part: “… Advise Arthur that, following his request for a Priority One on the traitor Metkin, an immediate intercept was ordered for Bombay.” No need to give away that information, he thought. The less Boradinov knows the better. “He’ll just vanish—until we catch a bigger fish of theirs to use as an exchange. The KGB looks after their own,” he added piously, not believing it, knowing that the younger man did not believe it either, but the saying of it was obligatory and policy.

  They’d have to exchange me, he thought, very satisfied. Yes, and very quickly. I know too many secrets. They’re my only protection. If it wasn’t for what I know they’d order a Priority One on me as fast as they did on Metkin. So would I if I was them. Would I have bit my lapel as that stupid turd should have done?

  A shudder went through him. I don’t know.

  He sipped his vodka. It tasted very good to him. I don’t want to die. This life is too good.

  “You’re going ashore again, Comrade Captain?”

  “Yes.” Suslev concentrated. He handed the younger man a note he had typed and signed. “You’re in command now. Here’s your authority—post it on the bridge.”

  “Thank you. Tomorr—” Boradinov stopped as the ship’s intercom came on and the urgent voice said rapidly: “This’s the bridge! There’re two police cars converging on the main gangway filled with police …” Both Suslev and Boradinov blanched. “… about a dozen of them. What should we do? Stop them, repel them, what do we do?”