With an effort she pulled herself to her feet. Su Liping appeared with two of the cooks, straining under the weight of a tub full of soap-sudded water. ‘Where shall we take this, Mother?’ asked Su Liping nervously.
‘Follow me,’ she muttered, somehow overcoming the sense of dislocation and dizziness caused by her fall. She led them into the room Ren Ren used as his office. Taking down one of the crude pornographic paintings that he had hung around the walls, she touched a hidden spring, and the panel moved aside. A few steps led them into a cellar, where sacks of flour and pots of rice wine were stacked in disorderly heaps on the flagstone floor. It was the storeroom of the noodle shop. ‘This way,’ she called, pointing to another set of steps, which led up to a ragged leather curtain covering another doorway. The cooks and Su Liping strained behind her with the tub. The noise from behind the curtain was deafening. Mother Liu in her frenzy ripped it from its rails.
They stared in disbelief.
It might have been a scene from the opera, Monkey in the Peach Orchard, where the child acrobats playing Sun Wukong’s anthropoid followers wreaked havoc in heaven. The little noodle shop was a tumble of struggling bodies, upturned tables and benches. The Millward children, like eels avoiding capture, were here, there and everywhere, dodging the leaps of the townsfolk who were trying to secure them, jumping over the heaps of struggling bodies that had fallen in the attempt. In the centre of the shop the tall figure of Septimus was wrestling with three burly porters, one of whom was hanging on his back with his arms around his neck, trying to pull him down. Laetitia was pinioned on the ground, flailing with a ladle in one hand, tugging with the other at the pigtail of the young, bare-chested man who sat astride her. Mother Liu was relieved to see that the firebombing with the crosses had apparently been only partially successful. Smoking rush torches lay everywhere on the ground, obviously having failed to catch light. A few flames licked up one wall of the shop, however, where a torch had fortuitously ignited a spilt barrel of gaoliang wine. Two of the waitress-cum-singsong girls who serviced the rougher clientele below stairs were bravely but ineffectually flapping at the small blaze with a tablecloth, at the same time kicking off the attentions of two of the smaller Millward children who were trying to bite their ankles. With more concern Mother Liu noticed that the struggle with Septimus was moving ever closer to the bank of open charcoal stoves, which were used to cook the noodles. If they were overturned there would be a disaster. There would be no controlling the conflagration then.
But with superhuman effort the panting cooks had brought the big tub up the stairs. They now excelled themselves by lifting the heavy wooden barrel with its dripping soapsuds to shoulder height, and with a shout hurled it forcefully, if unscientifically, upwards into the air above the struggling mass. Then they bolted, with a scared look behind them at Mother Liu, back the way they had come. Discretion was clearly the better part of valour when the prospect of incineration was concerned, even if this involved the possibility of incurring the wrath of Mother Liu.
Their missile, however, achieved its effect spectacularly. The tub seemed for a frozen instant to hang in midair. In the next, there was an explosion of water and suds, which descended like a cloud over the combatants, drenching one and all; it also incidentally extinguished with a hiss the little blue lick of fire climbing up the wall. Then, most decisively of all, the tub itself descended, directly onto the head of Septimus Millward. Mother Liu caught an instant of recognition in the magnified blue eyes behind the spectacles, as the doomed missionary felt the weight of the instrument of retribution falling on him from on high. It poleaxed him, then shattered into its component hoops, its fragments clattering down to cover his prone body.
There was a despairing cry of ‘Septimus!’ from Laetitia, and a wail from the children, and that was effectively the end of resistance. It did not take long for the children to be secured, one by one, and to be held squirming in the arms of their captors. Mother Liu herself collared a tiny bespectacled girl, who was trying to hide behind the stove; she pulled her out by the ear, pinched her neck viciously, and thrust her towards a burly muleteer, who picked her up and held her kicking under his arm.
When Jin Lao and the yamen runners arrived, Mrs Millward and her children were corralled within a square of tables; Laetitia cradled the still unconscious body of Septimus on her lap, trying vainly to stop the flow of blood from the cut in his crown.
The townsfolk, who had been chattering and celebrating their victory, fell silent and moved aside to allow the venerable official and his guards to pass.
‘Well, well, Mother Liu, how you have been inconvenienced.’ Jin Lao smiled.
‘I hope that you will take these incendiaries and punish them with the full weight of the law. Look what damage they have done to our shop.’
‘Yes, indeed. Ren Ren won’t be pleased, will he? That women and children could be so violent! What is the world coming to?’
He was interrupted by an impassioned outburst from Laetitia who, seeing the presence of authority, began to plead in her broken Chinese.
‘Can anybody tell me what this barbarous woman is saying?’ said Jin Lao. ‘If she is attempting to speak in a civilised tongue it is none that I can understand.’
A babble of voices greeted him from the onlookers, each with their own interpretation of what the mad foreigners had been saying.
‘I see that I am in a roomful of scholars,’ he said. ‘You,’ he pointed at a big, bearded man, who wore the leather apron of a tanner. ‘Do you understand what this woman is saying?’
‘She says her son’s here, sir. Kidnapped upstairs in the brothel.’
‘Does she?’ said Jin Lao. ‘I recall we executed some felons for murdering one of her children last year. Has she lost another?’
‘Same one, sir,’ said the man. ‘Says he wasn’t murdered after all. Kidnapped and brought to the brothel, sir. Of course it’s stuff and nonsense. They’re all mad, as anyone can see—but that’s what she’s saying.’
‘I see. Well, if that’s the motive for the vandalism then I suppose that the matter should be investigated. Are you keeping a foreign boy in your establishment, Mother Liu?’
‘Of course not, Jin Lao, sir,’ said Mother Liu sweetly.
‘I would be surprised if you were,’ said Jin Lao, ‘especially a dead one, or a ghost. That would be very untidy,’ he said pointedly. ‘I will have to come and inspect your house, of course.’
Mother Liu’s eyes flashed angrily. ‘Surely that will not be necessary? You can’t believe such malicious invention.’
‘Whether I believe it or not, the law must take its course,’ said Jin Lao. ‘I will come to inspect your house tomorrow afternoon. Does that give you enough time … to prepare?’ He smiled again.
This time Mother Liu also smiled. ‘Plenty of time, Jin Lao. I am sure that you will find everything perfectly in order—by then.’
‘I would expect nothing less,’ said Jin Lao.
The Millward family, their hands bound, were shuffled out by the guards. Two of the townsfolk were deputed to carry the groaning Septimus on a stretcher. His head had been bandaged and a quick inspection by a local physician had confirmed that his wound was not serious. Jin Lao gave orders that they should be taken back to their compound, which would be guarded until such time as the Mandarin had decided what action needed to be taken.
Mother Liu, with a patience that she did not feel, eventually persuaded the curious crowd to leave the teashop with promises of free meals when the establishment was reopened. She satisfied herself that the damage was not extensive. Another hour was spent appeasing the angry customers in the brothel. The venerable twins were particularly irate. Standing in the courtyard in their birthday suits had not done anything for their dignity, and one had stubbed his toe in the stampede down the stairs. A promise of another game of Cat and Mouse Sharing a Hole, this time on the house and with a rather chagrined Su Liping, who was more attractive in every way than the sturdy Xiao Gen,
finally placated them. It was nearly dark before she had finished—and she still had to deal with the foreign boy. She found herself cursing Ren Ren as she plodded slowly up the stairs to her private floor. Where was he when she needed him? And when had she ever needed him as much as today?
Her head throbbed. She wondered if she was getting too old for this sort of life. What she needed was a cup of tea, and maybe a pipe. Well, there would be time for that. She could handle the boy. It would not be the first time that the well at the bottom of the garden had been used for such a purpose. Somehow she would manage by herself. She had in the past. She only needed some excuse to lull his suspicions. A client waiting in one of the pavilions? A promise of freedom, perhaps? She would loosen the bricks on the side of the well; a hard push. Nobody would notice.
At the top of the stairs she had to pause to catch her breath. She hobbled slowly down the corridor, pausing again by Hiram’s door. Wearily, she reached for the cover of the spyhole, and started when this slight pressure pushed the door wide open. Her heart thumping, she surveyed the empty room, and the broken chain.
The boy was gone.
* * *
‘Are you all right, Hiram?’ asked Henry. Now that dusk had fallen and he was satisfied that there would be no pursuit, he had slowed his mare to a walking pace and they were threading their way through the lanes that wound towards the river and the railway camp. He was steadying Hiram on the pommel of his saddle. Perched behind him on the cruppers of the horse, her arms clinging around his waist and with a long cloak draped over her shoulders, was Fan Yimei.
‘I’m fine, sir, I guess,’ Hiram replied. The boy was subdued but otherwise—on the surface at least—appeared none the worse for his ordeal.
‘Stout fellow. I’ll make you a promise. Word of a British army officer, and you know how dependable that is. You’ll never have to go back to that place. Do you hear me? That’s a promise. My promise, which means it’s as solid as a tablet set in stone. Never, ever, ever. And neither will you.’ He nodded over his shoulder at Fan Yimei.
‘I do not understand the words you say when you speak in your own language,’ she answered, ‘but after what you did today I am for ever in your debt. I am your slave.’
‘Nobody’s anybody’s slave, Fan Yimei. We had a bargain, remember? And, besides, slavery’s not allowed where I come from. Abolished by Act of Parliament in 1833!’
He sensed that a more serious response was needed and pulled the horse to a stop. He felt for her cold hands and cupped them in his own. ‘Listen. You, no less than Hiram, have been living in a nightmare, but now it’s over. It may take time for you to realise that, but you’re free. You’ll never have to go back, not to Major Lin, or Ren Ren, or Mother Liu. And you don’t owe anyone anything either. Certainly not me. Anyway, what did I do?’ He laughed, kicking the horse on again. ‘I said I wanted a diversion and I got one, out of the blue, but it was all thanks to this boy’s father here. Never dreamed it would be so easy. I don’t think anyone even noticed us. All those naked people in the yard so intent on preserving their dignity! The porter was so distracted by all that flesh on view that we just walked past him. He wouldn’t have recognised us anyway under our cloaks. Probably thought we were honest burghers of the town creeping out before our wives found out … I haven’t had so much fun for years! And I didn’t even have to break any heads! Mind you,’ he said ruefully, ‘I would have liked to give Ren Ren a thrashing. That would have been a duty to society.’
‘Please do not joke, Ma Na Si Xiansheng. I still fear Ren Ren. Even now when I am out of his power. And Major Lin, he too will be angry. You say you can make me disappear, but it is for you I fear when they come to seek their revenge.’
‘Nobody will even suspect me. When I next go back to the Palace of Heavenly Pleasure, Major Lin can have my shoulder to cry on. I’ll be all sympathy for his loss, his bosom friend as ever before. Anyway, he’s still got business to do with me on the Mandarin’s orders. He can’t touch me—even if he did suspect.
‘And don’t worry for yourself. You’ll be perfectly safe at the railway camp until the train comes to take you to Tientsin. Once you’re there, I’ll set you up with some people I know, and you can begin a new life as a respectable matron. Well, not too respectable, I hope. You’re too pretty for that fate!’
‘It is a dream, Ma Na Si Xiansheng. Like this ride. I had forgotten what the stars looked like in the open sky, and the smell of the countryside.’
‘You’re smelling night soil at the moment, my darling. It stinks.’
‘No, it is fragrant. You cannot appreciate how beautiful are all sights and sounds and smells to one who has been released from a prison. This morning I was dead, a lump of earth, nothing in a void of nothing. Now it is as if the goddess Nu Wa has come again to breathe life into dead clay, creating stars and sun and moon again as she did at the beginning of the world. And for this new life I have you to thank, Ma Na Si Xiansheng. Even if I wake up tomorrow, and I find myself back in my prison, I have you to thank forever for giving me this dream.’
‘It’s not a dream, my dear. And you’re not going back there. Not ever again.’
‘Mr Manners?’
‘Yes, Hiram.’
‘Will I have to go back to my parents?’
‘I wouldn’t recommend it in the short term. I imagine, after your father’s escapade today, he’ll be something of a marked man with the authorities. You’d be better to stay with me for a while at the railway camp until the heat dies down. I can get a message to him, though.’
‘I don’t ever want to see my parents again,’ said Hiram, in a small voice.
‘I suppose that being free means you don’t have to,’ said Henry, after they had ridden some time in silence. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing to some lights that winked on a hill to their right. ‘That’s the Airtons’ place. The mission and hospital. I’ll take you there one day if you like. Airton’s got children. They’re a bit younger than you, but they’ve horses and animals, and books. You’ve a whole life to catch up on, young man.’
‘Is that where the doctor with the whiskers lives, Ma Na Si Xiansheng?’
‘Of course, you knew him, didn’t you? You told me that he was once kind to you.’
Fan Yimei looked up at the lights. She did not reply. She was thinking that there was another person who also lived up there among those lights. Ma Na Si had told her that the red-haired girl worked in the hospital. She thought that she might have been jealous—if she had only believed in her heart that she really was free.
* * *
Airton looked exhausted and there was a spot of blood on his cuff. Gratefully he accepted the cup of tea from his wife. Frank Delamere was sitting uncomfortably on the sofa, still in his travelling clothes; his usually florid complexion was white with dust, which had also greyed his black moustaches. The little porcelain cup in his big hands looked singularly out of place, as was his rough presence altogether in the neat sitting room. His round eyes blinked in anticipation of the worst.
‘Well, he’ll live,’ said the doctor. ‘You did a good job bandaging him up. He didn’t lose as much blood as might have been expected. And he’s got a tough constitution. Luckily the bullets didn’t cut any arteries although his left arm is shattered and one of his legs broken. I was more worried about the wound in his groin. What did it by the way? It was a nasty, ragged cut.’
‘Some sort of pike,’ muttered Frank.
‘Well, again, he was lucky—but only by half an inch or so, or he wouldn’t have survived the journey.’
‘That boy’s a damned hero,’ said Frank. ‘A damned hero.’
‘He’s not over it yet. There was some infection, but I believe I’ve cauterised it in time. He’ll be fevered for a couple of days—I’m afraid he’s raving a bit now. But he’s a strong lad. He’ll get through.’
‘Thank God for that.’ Frank’s eyes had moistened. ‘I really thought…’
‘It was a close call,’ said Airton. He noti
ced the shaking teacup in Frank’s paw. ‘Here, man, what are you doing with that? Nellie, give him some whisky.’
‘Do you know? I wouldn’t mind…’ said Frank.
‘Give him the bottle, and pour a tot for me while you’re about it. Now, Delamere, are you in a fit state yourself? Can you tell us what happened, man?’
‘We were ambushed,’ said Frank. ‘By Boxers.’
‘Boxers? Are you sure of that? They weren’t just bandits? Like before?’
‘Boxers. Bandits. What’s the difference?’ said Frank. ‘There were hundreds of them, lining the trees where the northern road skirts the forest under the Black Hills. They knew we were coming. I’m damned sure of that. Lu’s gone into town already, determined this time to find out who the informer really is.’
‘So Lu’s all right? I was wondering when I didn’t see him with you.’
‘He got a sword slash on the shins. Nothing serious. Not like Tom. Or Lao Pang, one of the muleteers. He was killed, poor fellow, in the first volley.’
‘I saw from Tom’s wound that they had guns. A rifle bullet at that, not a musket ball. That’s new, surely?’
‘They had a few guns. Luckily they didn’t know how to fire them effectively or we’d all be dead. The whole thing was very rum. A lot of them were wearing uniforms. Yellow tunics and orange headgear. That’s why I called them Boxers.’
‘You’d better start at the beginning. Pour yourself another glass.’
‘Nothing much to tell. Trip went well. Old Ding did his stuff for us in Tsitsihar. Bought all we brought and more, and paid us over the odds when we got the processes going for him. Good little cove, that Ding. So, of course, we travelled carefully, off the road when we could. Can’t be too careful when you’ve got a strongbox full of silver pieces on your wagon. It all seemed to be going well. There were a couple of weeks when we didn’t see anybody—just endless miles of salt flats and plain. Very dreary, though Tom got in a bit of hunting. He’s a hero, that boy, a damned hero.’
The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure Page 43