The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure

by Adam Williams

  ‘They’ve become invincible, you see, Da Ren.’ Tang Dexin was giggling. ‘Can’t kill a god. Not with one of those foreign toys. You see, there’s no need to buy guns any more. Shall I show you? I think I should show you.’ He reached inside his fur and pulled out a small pistol. ‘Why don’t you take a shot at Iron Man Wang now? See what it will do. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt him. That’s the point. Oh, don’t you want to try? Then let me.’

  ‘Sit down, Tang Lao, if you wish to live.’

  But Tang Dexin, a wild smile on his face, had risen cheerfully to his feet and was stumbling towards the approaching group, the pistol outstretched. ‘Iron Man, my lord Guandi, we must still demonstrate your invulnerability to the da ren. I would be so honoured.’

  It happened very quickly. The Boxer priest stopped and seemed to sniff the air; then he pointed his finger at Tang Dexin, who cowered backwards. As he did so, as if by involuntary action, the gun fired, twice. The Mandarin saw that it was still pointed directly at Iron Man Wang, and at almost point-blank range, but the bandit did not flinch, and continued to stride forward in his new godly gait. But as he did so, he lifted his axe to his shoulders, and swung with both arms. Tang Dexin’s head bounced off his body, and the fur cloak subsided slowly to the ground. There was a shout of triumph from the Boxers.

  ‘Guandi! Guandi.’

  The little boy who tended the Boxer priest ran forward, and picked up the white pigtailed head before it had fully rolled. He gave it to the priest who held it high. Iron Man Wang leaned on his axe. The Boxers shouted their slogans, rattling their spears, waving their banners. Some of the other newly made gods inspected the head dispassionately. One of them, a sour-faced, pockmarked youth, who was familiar to the Mandarin although he could not place where he had seen him, took the head, his own face twisting into an evil smile—it seemed of triumph—then he dropped the head on his foot and kicked it high over the crowd of Boxers, where it was caught with shouts and hurled from hand to hand.

  ‘Exterminate the foreigners! Save the Ch’ing.’ The chant had become an insistent chorus, as loud as the drums.

  ‘Da Ren!’ He somehow heard the voice shouting into his ear. ‘Your horse! Quickly!’

  Automatically he felt for the bridle and swung himself into the saddle, his eyes not leaving the knot of men. The blind priest’s sightless eyes bored into him. The young, sour-faced Boxer captain grinned. Iron Man leaned balefully on his axe. ‘Tao Tai, you may leave,’ he said, ‘but you will be ready for me when it is time to kill the foreigners.’

  The Mandarin swung his horse and followed Major Lin and the troop at a gallop out of the glade. Suddenly and inconsequentially, he remembered where he had last seen that sour-faced young man. He had been the witness in the trial of the doctor’s cook.

  * * *

  Finally the doctor went to his tent. The drums were still beating far away in the forest. He lay fully clothed on his camp-bed, and dozed fretfully, but his mind was churning and deep sleep would not come. In a half-dream he rehearsed over and over again a conversation with Nellie, somehow set in Ah Lee’s kitchen, with the cook and Ah Sun in the background plucking chickens and scattering feathers; he was trying hard to explain to her why Henry Manners was to become their new son-in-law and marry Jenny once the doctor had bought a battleship and a field gun, and meanwhile Helen Frances must be kept on her pills … but Nellie was being typically obdurate, showing not the slightest sympathy for his difficult position …

  He started awake. There was the sound of hoofs and the panting of horses outside the tent. He recognised the Mandarin’s voice and Manners’s reply. Blearily he raised his pocket watch to the night lantern and peered at the dial. It was four o’clock in the morning. What were they doing at this time of the night? As quietly as he could he crept to the tent flap and peered outside. The Mandarin was on his horse, a blanket draped over his shoulders, and Manners, wearing nothing more than long johns (he must have been roused from his bed), was standing beside him. They had obviously just concluded whatever conversation they had been having. Manners stretched out his hand. The Mandarin, seeming preoccupied, considered for a while, then reached out with his own and briefly returned the Englishman’s handshake. Then immediately he turned his horse away and moved out of the clearing at a slow walk.

  The doctor expected Manners to return to his own tent, but instead he walked to where Colonel Taro had pitched his. He paused a long moment there. The doctor waited for him to wake the Japanese and tell him whatever news he had heard, but Manners seemed to reconsider, yawned, stretched—then slowly made his way towards his own tent. To do so he had to pass Helen Frances’s. Again he stopped. The doctor, watching, felt a flutter of fear in his stomach. Manners stood by the tent door irresolutely. He turned to go. Then sharply he called out Helen Frances’s name—once only—and waited. There was a long, long silence, and Airton at last began to breathe again; she had not heard him in her deep sleep. Then he saw the door flap move and a haggard, tear-streaked face framed in red hair appeared, shining wraithlike in the starlight. Two white arms snaked out, drawing Manners into their embrace, and the two disappeared into the darkness of the tent.

  The doctor slumped on his washing stool and put his head into his hands.

  * * *

  ‘I thought you’d died,’ she said, after their lovemaking, feeling his head in the familiar position on her breast. ‘I thought that the bear had killed you.’

  ‘Can you forgive me,’ he said, nuzzling her, ‘for trying to show off to you?’

  ‘You weren’t doing it for me. I saw the glint in your eyes when you were talking to the Mandarin. You’ll always be selfish and follow your own way. And I’ll love you anyway. See what you’ve made me. Do you care?’

  Henry sighed, and rolled away so that he was lying on his back.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ she said softly. ‘It’s been so long since you touched me.’

  He slipped his hands under her arms in a tight embrace. ‘You have to believe in me,’ he said urgently, his eyes staring into hers. ‘It’s not as it seems…’

  ‘Yes, I know. You’ve said that before. If only I really knew … But I don’t care, Henry, what your secrets are. It doesn’t matter. Really. I’ll be leaving soon anyway. I can’t hide things here much longer. I think that Nellie woman suspects already.’

  ‘Nobody suspects us,’ Henry murmured, kissing her. ‘Trust me.’

  ‘Trust you?’ She pushed him away, then leaned over him, a strange smile on her face. ‘Trust you?’ She laughed shortly—a hard, bitter laugh. She shook her head. ‘It’s Tom I feel sorry for. That’s obviously over, isn’t it? Anyway, I don’t deserve him. I thought I’d make for Shanghai. I’m told people can disappear there—among the opium dens.’

  ‘Oh, God, Helen Frances, you’re not telling me you still…?’

  ‘You think I just gave up up when I left? Oh, no, Henry. Why do you think I work in the hospital? In the opium ward? Don’t worry. I enjoy my … habit. It’s about the only thing I have left that reminds me of you.’

  ‘What have I done to you?’ whispered Henry.

  ‘Used me,’ she said, kissing him. ‘But I told you, it doesn’t matter. That’s you. And me, for that matter. I’m to blame as much as you are. More so.’ She smiled down at Henry, who was breathing heavily, his mouth twisting as though unsure what to do or say. She used one hand gently to straighten his hair, the other to stroke his chest. ‘You could take me away with you,’ she said, in a small voice. ‘I’d settle for the half-decent thing not the whole.’

  ‘I—I can’t leave now,’ he muttered. He gazed at her wildly. ‘I can’t.’

  She laughed and flopped on to her back, stretching her arms.

  ‘Of course you can’t,’ she said. ‘Railways,’ she added. ‘So important. The doctor thinks they’ll bring the Chinese to Jesus. Is that what you’re doing as well? Bringing Chinese to Jesus?’

  ‘Helen Frances, dearest, I promise you … I’ll think of something …
Please don’t…’

  But she put a finger first to his lips, then she covered his mouth with her own, and then she lowered herself on to him and told him to love her again.

  * * *

  Far away in Tsitsihar, in the last cold darkness before morning, Frank Delamere, Lu Jincai and Tom Cabot were checking the loading of the silver chests on to their wagons while Mr Ding fussed beside them offering well-meant but largely unhelpful suggestions.

  At about the same time in the Black Hills, dawn trailed pink clouds over the clearings where the huntsmen were rousing, in a camp where only one man, Colonel Taro, still slept peacefully that night.

  An equally florid sky irradiated the larger sleepless clearing where chastened companies of Boxers were seated round their fires, eating gruel and peering at the innocuous-looking trees from which, a few hours previously, they had witnessed the descent of the gods. Iron Man Wang, looking little like a god this morning, was seated with his new captains under a rough wooden shelter examining a map and growling orders through a leg of mutton he held in his large hairy hand. Behind him the Boxer priest slept on a mat, attended by his boy, his sightless eyes open to the sky.

  It was already raining four miles to the east, where Ren Ren, now a Boxer captain, was riding proudly through the forest, bearing orders in his satchel from Iron Man Wang to the Black Sticks elders, bringing them the news of the change of leadership in their society, and calling on them to attend their new grand master. Ren Ren did not mind getting wet. He was thinking how he would surprise his mother with the news of his new status. He liked to surprise.

  And it was also raining in Shishan, where Fan Yimei was looking out of her window towards the main house in which the foreign boy was imprisoned. Now that she was alone—with both Lin and Ma Na Si away—she had had leisure to kneel at her small shrine and pray for a plan to rescue him. Saving Hiram had become the only meaningful purpose in her useless life. She thanked the Merciful Lady Guanyin for giving her this opportunity to redeem her sins and failures. She had failed with Shen Ping, but Providence had given her another chance. She knew that Ma Na Si would help her now that she had given herself to him. He had promised, and he was a man who could be trusted. Now all she needed was a plan.

  And outside the city walls, in the mission, two children whimpered and tossed through their nightmares while their mother slept in a chair between their cots. In the hospital, Ah Sun was spooning congee into her injured husband’s mouth to his great embarrassment. In another, more dilapidated mission in the west of the city, the Millward family were on their knees in prayer.

  Black clouds rolled over northeast China, presaging a storm.

  And hundreds of miles to the south, grey mists hung over the capital city, swirling round the green and black roofs of the Legations where Sir Claude MacDonald and the other ministers slept.

  The great sprawl of the Forbidden City still slumbered in the dark of the morning, although the lanterns on the watchtowers were paling as light penetrated through the heavy cloud. Lamps burned bright, however, in the Dowager Empress’s state rooms, where the old lady, cowled in a cloak to keep away the cold, was reading a document presented to her by Prince Tuan and some of the other senior courtiers. Her chief eunuch and adviser, Li Lien-ying, stooped attentively by her side.

  ‘So let it be,’ she said, lowering her spectacles and reaching for the brush and the vermilion ink. ‘“Exterminate the foreigners and save the Ch’ing.”’

  Part Two

  Eleven

  We march for our Emperor; we will drive the foreign devils from Tientsin into the sea.

  Dr Airton was fussing, as he always did when one of the nuns was about to make an expedition to an outlying village. Some years previously when Sisters Elena and Caterina had first announced their intention to carry on Father Adolphus’s pastoral work, he had conjured up all sorts of dangers and had offered to accompany them on their visits. Nellie had had to remind him of how inappropriate this would be. ‘You don’t want to make our dear Roman colleagues think that you’re scheming to steal their flock and turn them into Presbyterians,’ she had told him, before rounding on him for being foolish. ‘Besides, Elena and Caterina were wandering alone around the Chinese countryside for months before you arrived in Shishan. Whatever makes you think they need your protection? They’re doughty Italian peasants, my dear, and they’d probably end up looking after you.’

  And, indeed, he had to admit that the nuns had never come to harm, even though some of the Catholic villages were a days’ journey away, nestled on the slopes of bandit-infested mountains. Father Adolphus had been an indefatigable traveller within the parish he had created. Not only was his saintliness revered, but the old priest had also possessed Jesuitical skills of organisation and diplomacy. And he had won the respect of even the non-Christians who lived side by side with his converts in these remote hamlets. The doctor had heard many stories of how the white-bearded old man on his donkey had averted this dispute over a well, or practised the wisdom of Solomon over that family quarrel, or mediated on a generations-old land feud to the satisfaction of all parties.

  Father Adolphus had established small churches in some ten or more different villages, claiming between them as many as a thousand converted souls. He had chosen as his pastors worthy men who were liked in their communities, but it was rarely they who managed to keep the hotheads at bay after Father Adolphus’s death, or stem the resentments that naturally arose each year when the Christians refused to pay the traditional dues to the local temple. If harmony was maintained, it was due to the memory and example of the good old man. The doctor therefore recognised the importance of the nuns visiting regularly. Not only were they the link with the wider Christian community outside: they also provided continuity with the saintly Adolphus, and this had a settling effect on Christian and non-Christian alike. So, whatever his fears for their personal safety, he knew that he could hardly forbid them to go.

  He realised, too, that the recent incidents in some villages where non-Christians had apparently burned Christian property could not be ignored. These incidents, Boxer-inspired or not, were serious enough for the local militia under Major Lin to be called to investigate—although no malefactor, as far as he knew, had yet been punished. In these troubled times it was even more important for the nuns to keep in communication with their parishioners.

  ‘But it’s still my right to fuss,’ he said to a laughing Sister Elena, who was loading a pack mule by lantern-light in the dark hour before dawn. She had exchanged her nun’s coif for a simple peasant scarf, and her plump figure was even more shapeless than usual under the heavy padded jacket and trousers. It was the nuns’ custom, when journeying beyond the confines of Shishan, to dress in the sensible travelling clothes of the Chinese.

  ‘Now, I repeat, have you packed enough food for the journey?’ asked Dr Airton.

  ‘And I repeat yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Mamma mia! You are like my grandmother. Carissimo Dottore, you will see. On my return, I am as fat as this mule with eatings. You will have to give me medicines for swollen tummy.’

  ‘Very well,’ grunted the doctor. ‘I suppose you know what you’re doing. You’ve been to this village before?’

  ‘Many times. Many times,’ said Sister Elena, straining to tighten a rope. ‘Listen. I am going to be among friends. You need have no fears. They love me in Bashu. And Caterina, when she goes to Bashu, they love her too. They say welcome, welcome, and give us foods, and strong wines too. You have nothing to worry.’

  ‘I daresay. I daresay—but I don’t know why you refuse to take a groom with you.’

  ‘For why do I want a mafu? I am a sister of the poor. Not a lady in fine clothes, fa-la-la. Oh, Doctor,’ she grasped Airton’s hands, ‘do not worry so. The Lord Jesus will protect me, and the good Father Adolphus who is always watching from Heaven.’

  For once she was being serious. The doctor looked down at the crabapple cheeks and the warm brown eyes intent on his own, and noticed the care ma
rks on her rough skin, the crow’s feet and the lines that crossed her forehead. Sister Elena looked older than her twenty-eight years. ‘Doctor,’ she said, ‘it is for you that I worry. Caterina and I, we notice you are changed since you come down from the Black Hills. For why, Doctor? For why are you so alarmed? It cannot just be these fantastical Boxers. Is it … Miss Delamere?’

  Airton tried to pull away his hands. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘It is the way that you are looking at her. When you think that nobody is noticing. Your eyes—they have pain,’ she said simply.

  ‘What nonsense.’

  ‘No, Doctor, we see it, Caterina and I. And you are right to worry about Miss Delamere … Miss Delamere is not well. Listen to a simple peasant girl. Her soul, it is troubled, and maybe there is more.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Women they see things, and you, Dottore, I think you also see, although maybe you prefer not to see. But she is a fine lady, Doctor, full of love and life.’ Her hands tightened her grip. ‘You will help her, Dr Airton, through this dark time? Sister Caterina, she tells me, say nothing. But I think that you know something is wrong, very wrong, and you will do what is right.’

  ‘I don’t know what you—what you are talking about,’ muttered Airton, his whiskers quivering slightly.

  Sister Elena’s shrewd eyes held his for a moment longer. Then she smiled, and in a quick movement leaned forward and pecked the doctor on the cheek. ‘Thank you, Doctor. Grazie. You are a good man.’ And she released his hands. ‘Oh, you make me late,’ she complained, glancing at the pink clouds appearing above the roofs, ‘and I have to ride far today if I am to reach Bashu by sunset. Goodbye, Doctor, I will see you in four days, maybe five. Lao Zhang, please open the gate. I am ready.’

  Airton cleared his throat. ‘Goodbye, my dear.’ His cheeks had reddened and there was a moistness in his eye. ‘Look after yourself,’ he called. And he watched her clatter out of the compound.