The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure

by Adam Williams

  ‘Oh, Caterina,’ whispered Nellie, and now she, too, began to weep, softly like Helen Frances. Airton stared rigidly, his hands clutching the windowsill. He had cut himself on the sharp edge and was bleeding, but did not notice.

  There was a long pause as a stone was brought in to sharpen the blade. The executioner rubbed his sweating body with a towel, and drank greedily from a pot of wine, which was brought out to him from the dumpling shop. There was a buzz of excited conversation among the crowd. The now smaller group round Millward continued to pray. The heads of Fielding, Fischer, Tom and Caterina lay in the sand where they had fallen. Flies were already buzzing round them.

  Eventually they came for Bowers. He marched to his execution like a guardsman, and it was quickly over. His head rested next to Fischer’s. They might have been conversing together in a macabre sort of way. Now only the Millwards were left.

  Laetitia had wrapped her arms round her two smallest children, Lettie and Hannah. They would not leave their mother and the assistants allowed them to come with her to the centre of the square. Before they knelt down together, Laetitia gently removed the girls’ pebble spectacles, and then her own. The executioner swiped off the children’s heads and after that their mother’s. It was neatly done.

  Hiram was next. He kissed his father’s cheek, then walked towards the executioner, head held high. Not for long. His elder sister, Mildred, followed. She, like Sister Caterina before her, seemed shy about exposing her budding breasts. She whimpered a little when she saw her mother’s and her brother’s heads lying in the sand, but she was dispatched quickly, and her own head soon joined theirs.

  That left four more Millward children and their father.

  The executioner was visibly tiring now. Perhaps it had been the wine he had drunk in the interval between the beheadings. So he allowed his assistants to dispatch the children while he took a rest, taking the opportunity to drink more wine as he did so. The crowd, which had remained rather mute through the last decapitations, did not seem to care. Isaiah, Miriam, Thomas and Martha, who had stopped praying once their mother had been taken away, were clutching their father’s legs in their terror. The assistants patiently unclasped their little hands, and pulled them struggling after them. They did not decapitate them. They slit their throats with butchers’ knives. It was quicker that way.

  Neither Nellie nor Helen Frances observed this last performance. After Laetitia’s death they had witnessed enough, and now they were sitting on the bench, Helen Frances shaking in Nellie’s arms, Nellie staring wide-eyed at the wall. Only the doctor and Henry remained at their observation post, the doctor rigidly locked in a position from which he had hardly moved during the last hour. Henry would occasionally glance towards him. He was concerned about him.

  Only Septimus remained alive. Once his children had been removed from his protection, such as it was, he had closed his prayer book and stonily watched their dispatch. Now he turned towards the Mandarin, pointing his finger, the Old Testament prophet, no doubt summoning the wrath of the Lord to fall upon the Mandarin’s head and on those who had sponsored this dreadful crime. Airton could not make out the words, but they seemed to have little effect. The hairy man next to the Mandarin, who Henry said was Iron Man Wang, laughed uproariously and toasted Septimus with his bottle. The Mandarin, from what the doctor could see, merely looked bored. He gestured with his hand to the executioner to hurry.

  Septimus turned on his heels and walked towards the executioner, easily pushing the two assistants out of the way as he did so. He stood for a moment looking directly into the executioner’s eyes. The man gazed back impudently for a moment, then turned away his head. Septimus reached out his hand and patted him gently on the shoulder. Then he knelt down of his own volition, allowing the rather cowed assistants to take off his cangue. He dropped his head in a final prayer. Only then did he allow one of the assistants to pull back his arms. The other reached gingerly for his blond pigtail, baring the neck. The executioner hesitated, then struck, but Septimus’s obstinate head appeared to remain firmly fixed to his body. It took four more heavy blows before the flesh, muscle and gristle parted, and Septimus’s head rolled in a leisurely fashion to join his family.

  It was over.

  Or nearly so. The doctor remained rooted to his spot, ignoring Henry’s hand on his shoulder. He saw the Mandarin get off his chair and walk towards the slain, observing the bodies dispassionately, like a hardened general inspecting the aftermath of a battle. Then he raised his head and seemed to gaze directly at the window where the doctor stood. The Mandarin’s expression was impenetrable, but he seemed to be trying to communicate something to the doctor, if only to let him know that he knew he was there, and that he had witnessed this. He turned abruptly on his heels and walked away.

  ‘Come down, Doctor,’ Henry was saying. ‘There’s nothing more to see.’

  After a moment the doctor turned, noticing his bloody palms as he did so. He shook his head, then turned towards Henry, grasping his sleeve. ‘I’m a Judas,’ he whispered. ‘I should have been there with them.’ His staring eyes bored into those of the younger man. ‘I should have been there.’

  ‘Come down, Doctor,’ said Henry softly. ‘Let me give you a hand.’

  They heard a cooing voice floating down the corridor and saw Mother Liu hobbling towards them. ‘Oh, there you all are,’ she simpered. ‘How lovely. Enjoying the sunshine and our pretty view. I do hope you are all comfortable and have eaten well. I have very good news for you. Yes. The Mandarin, the Mandarin himself, is coming to see you tomorrow.’

  Seventeen

  When it rained some of us wanted to return to our farms—but the troop commander executed those who tried to leave.

  The first reaction was of denial and shock. Later Helen Frances became hysterical, shaking in Henry’s arms as he tried to restrain her. She wanted to run, anywhere, to escape this claustrophobic painted room, the stifling hangings, and the memories of what she had witnessed during the afternoon. ‘Did you see it?’ she screamed. ‘His head! His head! Tom’s head!’ and ‘I’m wicked. Wicked. I want to die! I want to die!’ He had to wrest his razor away from her, and pull her back when she began to bang her head against the gilded mirror, and he had to pinion her hands so she would not scratch her face or tear his with her nails. He held her while she twitched on the bed, her eyes staring wildly, saliva and tears mingling on her cheeks, and he kissed her wet brow, and whispered to her, ‘We have to live on. We owe them that. We have to live. Don’t you see that, darling? Don’t you see?’

  But she did not respond, either to his words or his caresses. Her violent convulsions ceased when her body became exhausted, but her mind remained locked in her waking nightmare. She lay rigidly in his arms, her blank eyes fixed on the horror of heads and disconnected trunks and pools of blood in the sand. In desperation he slapped her face, to wake her, to bring her back to him, and she focused for a wild moment, clutching his arm, whispering confidentially, ‘Laetitia was a good mother. She took off the babies’ spectacles first so they wouldn’t see.’ She giggled—a mad, chilling sound like a jackal’s yelp. ‘But they cut off the babies’ heads all the same. Snip. Snip. Snip. Like trimming the roses! One, two, three…’ Her words became incoherent moans, as she rocked uncontrollably from side to side.

  Henry walked deliberately to one of the cabinets, pulling open the drawers until he found what he was looking for. He took out a long pipe, a candle, and a packet containing black paste. He rolled the paste into a ball, placing it into the receptacle on the pipe. He took it to the girl lying on the bed. She smelt the pungent odour, which calmed her. She sucked the first pipe greedily. Henry rolled another ball, and she smoked again. ‘Thank you, thank you, my darling,’ she murmured, before she slept.

  Henry sat for a long while, holding his head in his hands.

  Later she woke and reached for him, and they made love. ‘Stay with me, stay with me,’ she murmured, when he had climaxed. ‘Don’t leave me again,’
and he remained inside her, holding her, moving with her, travelling with her through the long, dark night.

  In the morning she emerged from a languorous dream. She tried to retain it for as long as she could until the images jumbled and disappeared. Lazily, she stretched out her hand for Henry but it flailed over an empty bed-sheet. ‘Darling?’ she said, opening her eyes.

  Henry, fully dressed, was sitting on the end of the bed looking at the floor. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked curtly.

  Images from yesterday flooded into her mind, chilling the warm glow and physical contentment that had permeated her limbs when she woke. She had a vivid impression of Tom kneeling in the sand, whistling defiantly. Tears came to her eyes, yet to her surprise she found that she could contemplate the memory without anguish now. It was as if she was recalling a sorrowful pageant, one that had affected her deeply but that had passed, leaving behind not pain or confusion, only a crushing sense of loss.

  ‘I feel sad,’ she answered, ‘but I remember what you told me, that we must go on living.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Henry. There was a tight, almost bitter note in his voice. ‘God help us, we must go on living, however we can, whatever it takes.’

  Helen Frances sat up in bed, the sheets falling off her. ‘Henry?’

  She saw purple-shadowed, bloodshot eyes in an unshaven face, eyes that she felt were assessing her, clinically examining the long strands of auburn hair falling over her pink breasts, her freckled arms, her round, slightly protuberant belly. She began to feel nervous, and self-conscious. ‘Henry, what is it?’ she said.

  ‘God, but you’re beautiful,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know if I can go through with this.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Henry, what’s the matter? Go through with what?’ Unconsciously she had pulled back the sheet to cover herself from his penetrating stare.

  ‘I might as well say it straight,’ said Henry. ‘I had to bargain for your lives. The Mandarin demanded a price. And he’ll probably be calling for his payment today.’

  Helen Frances tried to overcome her mounting concern. ‘Is this something to do with your secret business here?’

  ‘Partly,’ said Henry. ‘I’m alive because he needs me. I think he would genuinely like to save the doctor too. He considers Airton to be a philosophical sparring partner. A friend. Not that that would have been reason enough in itself for the Mandarin to let him live. His devious Oriental mind is incapable of altruism. To save you, and the Airtons, I had to bargain.’ He paused. ‘Actually, my dear, you were the bargain,’ he added bitterly.

  She suddenly felt a cold calm. It was as if something that she had half realised had become clear. Or as if something she had been secretly dreading had come about. Ludicrously, she remembered an infraction of the rules she had once committed at her school. She and another girl had crept into the kitchens one night and stolen a pie. For two days nothing had been said. Then, on the afternoon of the third day, she had been called to the headmistress’s study, her crime discovered, and her first feeling had been one of relief that the suspense was over. The two days that she had spent with Henry since her rescue had been a time out of time. She had even convinced herself that he really loved her. Until the executions of yesterday afternoon she had been happy, unbelievably happy—yet she had known all along that this was undeserved after all the hurt she had caused and the mistakes she had made, and that it could not last. It was even fitting that now it should be Henry, her false idol, who should be the instrument of whatever punishment life had in store for her.

  ‘What would you have me do, Henry,’ she said, ‘as part of your bargain?’

  ‘It was the only thing he would agree to. I tried everything. I begged. But there was only one condition he would accept.’

  ‘So what is this condition? I can guess, but I’d like you to say it. My lover,’ she added quietly.

  Henry sighed. ‘He said he once saw you from his palanquin. He was attracted by your red hair.’

  Helen Frances had been expecting it, but it was still a shock. She felt a chill coursing through her blood, and her temples throbbed. ‘Oh, Lord, Henry, what have you done?’ she murmured.

  ‘I’ve saved your life, and the Airtons’ lives. In the only way I could.’

  ‘By selling me into the Mandarin’s harem? Is that what you’ve agreed? Am I to spend the rest of my life as an Oriental concubine?’

  ‘No,’ said Henry. ‘You’re to spend an hour alone with him. That’s all. Mother Liu told us he will come here later today.’

  ‘Only an hour,’ she repeated. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘I thought, with opium…’

  ‘Maybe I wouldn’t notice what was happening to me. That’s delicate of you, Henry. It would be … what? Just another bad dream?’

  ‘Something like that,’ muttered Henry.

  ‘I don’t suppose I have a choice?’

  ‘Not if you and the Airtons are to live.’

  ‘I see.’ She gave a brittle laugh. ‘Then I suppose it will be my saintly duty. Do you think the nuns in my convent school will be proud of my martyrdom? Not that I have any virtue to sacrifice. You’ve already seen to that, haven’t you, Henry? What price virtue and honour in my case? You’ve made a very easy bargain, I think, in the circumstances. I congratulate you.’

  ‘There’s no fate worse than death, Helen Frances. None. Life’s what matters, not bloody middle-class sensibility. Do you think that I wouldn’t have tried any other way if it had been possible? Oh, God, Helen Frances,’ barked Henry, ‘what else was I to do? It was the only way to save your life. You’d have been in the square, decapitated along with the others if I hadn’t agreed. You’d be dead. So would Airton, Nellie, Jenny, George. This way you live.’

  ‘Oh, yes, we must go on living. That’s your great philosophy, isn’t it?’

  ‘Listen, the Mandarin may not even do anything to you. He’s an old man who’s making a philosophical point with the doctor. That’s all this is about. They argue about pragmatism. He thinks the doctor’s agreed to prostitute you to save our lives. The Mandarin’s point is proved. Everybody’s venal. That’s that. And we stay alive.’

  ‘What are you saying now, Henry? The doctor’s party to this too?’

  ‘Of course he isn’t. He doesn’t know anything about it. The Mandarin only thinks he does. What does it matter? You live, my darling, and that’s all I care about. You live. You live.’ He shook his head, clenching his fists. ‘I couldn’t lose you. You’re—you’re life to me now. I’d do anything, say anything, lie, cheat, kill, partner with the Devil to save you. This is the only way I know how. Oh, God.’ His head sank into his hands.

  ‘You know, Henry,’ said Helen Frances coldly, ‘that’s the closest I’ve ever heard you come to a protestation of love. Ironic, really, since you’re in the process of whoring me to a savage. I feel sorry for you.’

  Henry stood up, his head bowed. He paced the room, but after a few steps he turned to face her. The agony that had been showing in his face during their conversation had been replaced by a cold, supercilious calm, his mouth had settled into its usual sardonic smile, and when he spoke it was with his habitual drawl. ‘You’ve every reason to hate me for what I’m about to put you through, old girl, but as long as you’re brave enough to go through with it, I’ll be content. You may never want to see me again afterwards. I’ll be content. Life without you will be painful but I’ll get by. Or maybe I won’t. It don’t matter a toss, one way or the other. I’m only worth the next gamble I play. That’s the life I’ve chosen. Whether I win or lose, it’s all the same. But it does matter to me what happens to you. You’ve done what no other woman ever has. Got under my skin. It’s remarkable, really. I thought I was immune. Anyway, I’m going to make damned sure that you survive this.

  ‘If I thought the Mandarin was going to hurt you, I’d kill him, but he won’t hurt you. He’s a pathetic old man who’ll give you an unpleasant half-hour. He may paw you. He may even try to get inside yo
u. Well, there are worse things that can happen to a girl. What if he does fuck you? Your virtue doesn’t lie between your legs. It lies in your soul, Helen Frances, in that big heart of yours. It’s the courage with which you face life and all its unpleasantness. It’s your radiance and humour. It’s the free spirit that sparks life into everyone around you. It’s everything I love about you. That’s not something the Mandarin can touch. He won’t even get near you, not the real you.

  ‘Take opium, if you must, to get through it. The pipe’s on the table there. If you’re as strong as I think you are a few smokes won’t make you an addict again, but don’t overdo it. I feel guilty enough for having started you on the damned drug in the first place. Prepare yourself however you like—but go through with it. You’ll be saving the only life that is precious to me.

  ‘Excuse me. I’m going into the gallery outside—for a cheroot.’

  He left, banging the door behind him.

  Helen Frances dressed slowly. She finished her toilet, and sat on the stool next to the low table. The pipe lay in its own reflection on the polished mahogany. She picked it up and put it to her lips, tasting the lingering fragrance from her smoke of the night before. She closed her eyes. Her hand moved to the package of poppy paste, and her fingers distractedly picked out a pinch of the black, treacle-like substance, going through the familiar motions of rolling it into a pellet. It took a conscious effort to stop herself. She opened her eyes. For a long while, she sat, the pipe in one hand, the poppy paste in the other, staring into her own thoughts. She sighed. A tear rolled down her cheek. She replaced the pipe on the table, and put the pellet back into the package. Wearily she rose to her feet and, after stowing the pipe and paraphernalia back in the cabinet, she went out and joined Henry in the gallery. Neither spoke. Henry smoked. She put her arm round his waist, nestling her head against his side. After a while, he put his arm round her shoulder.