Robbie Taggart

by Michael Phillips

  “Why is that?”

  “Because it is a special bird in my culture, endowed with all that is noble and lovely, powerful and mysterious. Like the phoenix, you have touched our lives, Robbie Taggart, in a special way. I do not think it will be very much the same here after you have flown away.”

  “Sure it will,” said Robbie lightly, mastering his own sadness. “And who’s to say the phoenix would not return?”

  “I think not, Feng-huang,” she answered. “You must always be moving on—it is who you are, I think. The wind sweeps you from a place you have enjoyed, but it carries you to new, perhaps more wonderful places. You are sad, but you are happy too. You are, I think, what they call in your culture a rover. Maybe someday the time may come when to go away will bring more sadness than you can bear, and it will bring you no more joy to wander. But I do not think that day is yet. I pray that time will only come to you when the joy in staying surpasses any other joys you have known along the way.”

  When she had finished they stood silently. There was suddenly so much Robbie wished he could say to her. But he realized the time had passed for all that. He was leaving. The decision had been made. And no matter how much bravado he tried to present, he would not be coming back. He did not fit in here. And as much as it made him ache inside to think he would never see Hsi-chen again, he knew he did not fit with her, either.

  Joy and sadness—he had known the conflicting emotions all his life. But even he did not realize in this moment that the sadness indeed was outweighing the anticipated happiness of being footloose again and free. It was becoming harder and harder to “move on,” to say his goodbyes.

  “I must be going,” he said at length. “I only wish I had a gift for you.”

  “You have been a gift . . . and I will cherish that as long as I live. Tsai chien, goodbye, Feng-huang.”

  “I never say final goodbyes,” said Robbie, taking her hand and kissing it lightly. “There is a saying in my country that I prefer, ‘Happy to meet, sorry to part; happy to meet again!’”

  He slung the strap of the rucksack over his shoulder, turned, and walked swiftly away. But before he had gone ten steps, Hsi-chen called out to him,

  “God be with you, Robbie!”

  He continued walking turning only briefly back with a smile and a wave. He tried to say something in return, but to speak now would be dangerous, for there were tears in his eyes and a strange tugging at his throat. An unfamiliar heaviness tugged at his heart and legs, but he kept walking. Soon I will light upon a new place, he told himself. I’ll forget all about Wukiang and what I am leaving behind there—or so he tried to tell himself many times before he reached the bridge over the K’uan-chiang.

  42

  The Lieutenant and the Warlord

  Pien Yi-tuo sat on his horse proudly as he hurried through the city streets. He enjoyed the feeling of prestige and distinction of being able to look down on the dirty peasants that crowded about him. He relished being in a position to sneer at the coolies who broke their backs in service to the foreign devils. Pien served a worthy master, a great man from an old and honorable Shanghai family. Well, perhaps it was not such an honorable family, but it was old. And who needed honor when you had wealth and power?

  At least Pien’s master was able to recognize a talented servant, and rewarded him accordingly. There were few others in his master’s private little domain who rode such a fine horse or were given such high responsibility. Pien was proud of his position of service to the master.

  Suddenly a cart crossing the road in front of him jerked to a stop. The old man pulling the cart had stumbled and fallen, and might well have been run over by the continued motion of his own cart had not the press of people impaired it. He was a slight man, probably in his late sixties, and hardly seemed able to the task of managing such a heavy vehicle.

  Pien’s horse reared, and except for the fact that his horsemanship matched the quality of his mount, he would no doubt have been thrown into the street himself.

  “Get out of the road, you imbecile!” shouted Pien.

  “I will try, honorable sir,” said the old man as he struggled back to his feet.

  “My horse was nearly injured!”

  “Your humble servant is most sorry, sir.” The old man grabbed the cart handles and limped away, favoring his right leg where a large bruise was already beginning to form.

  “Bah!” growled Pien, urging his horse forward again. “Worthless coolie!”

  He soon turned down a narrow side street. The crowd immediately thinned and the loud din of voices quieted. Pien, however, would have preferred to remain on the noisy main thoroughfare. Here there were not as many to be impressed with his equipage and to send up looks of fearful envy to him from the street. But more than that, he got all the quiet he needed in his master’s quarters in the hilly country in the outlands. It was not often they came to Shanghai during the summer.

  Within five minutes Pien had reached his destination. He reigned his mount to a stop before an ornate iron gate. He struck the small gong by the gate for the attendant—it was locked from the inside as a necessary precaution. Within moments an elderly Chinese man shuffled forward and peered out through the bars.

  “Open up you buffoon!” barked Pien. “Or is your eyesight so bad you cannot even recognize your master’s lieutenant?”

  “A thousand pardons, Master Pien!” replied the old man, in a tone not nearly as subservient as he would have reserved for the master himself.

  The man unlatched the gate, opening it while bowing decorously. Pien dismounted and, handing the reins to the servant, stepped brusquely past him into a small garden no less lovely because Pien stalked through it as if it were a grimy battlefield. Dwarf cherry trees lined a gravel path that led to the main building of the house, itself much larger as one drew near than it appeared from the tiny gate in the wall that surrounded garden and house alike. He opened the front door and was immediately greeted by another servant, whom he told to inform his master that he had arrived.

  After another brief pause, this second servant returned to usher Pien through a small maze of corridors, and finally through a bamboo curtain into an elaborately furnished and darkened room. Pien nodded his head in approval of this finely appointed city-dwelling which he had not seen until now, especially in contrast with the more rustic one in the country. But then one could easily become soft and flabby if one languished too long in such finery, and that would never do for him—or for his master. Ancient porcelain, silk, and velvet were acceptable for a few days, but not to grow accustomed to.

  Pien made his way with great reserve and dignity up the center of the tiled floor toward an enclosure that was separated from the rest of the room with a beaded partition, almost as if it were the throne room of a grand palace—indeed, not an altogether inappropriate comparison.

  The servant leading him parted the beads, and Pien stepped into the enclosure, bowing deeply even as the servant departed.

  “My lord,” he said, with respect as deep as his bow.

  “Pien Yi-tuo,” said a man seated on a plush divan against the far wall of the enclosure, “I have grown weary waiting for your return.” The man shifted in his seat and reached toward a bowl of fruit that sat on a low table before him. Even beneath the heavily embroidered silk robe he wore, his imposing muscular bulk was clearly evident.

  “The delay was unavoidable, my lord,” replied Pien. “I beg your forgiveness if I have caused you undue grief, Master Wang.”

  Wang K’ung-wu nodded his head and chortled deep within his fleshy throat. It was the kind of laugh that could have been taken a thousand ways—to an enemy it would have struck fear, to a friend benevolence, if such a man as Wang had any true friends. To Pien it signified a bit of both, but to Wang himself it simply meant that this servant was becoming a little too vaunted with his own importance to think, much less say, that his absence could cause anything even close to grief. It was not healthy—either to the master or the servant
—to have a lieutenant who became too confident of his own importance.

  Wang rubbed his manchu beard, which partially hid a deep scar that ran along the right side of his face, and wondered if the time had not come to bring Pien Yi-tuo down a few pegs. But first to the business at hand.

  “I sent you to gather a report on the situation in Wukiang many days ago,” said Wang. “Perhaps you lost your way, or found other interests besides the doing of my bidding.”

  “Oh no, my lord,” replied Pien with due humility. “I felt it prudent to tarry until I had a complete report for you.”

  Wang snorted his doubt of the veracity of his lieutenant’s excuse. Then plucking a peach from the bowl, he brought it to his long crooked nose, sniffing the ripe fruit like a true connoisseur.

  “So . . . what is this report you bring?” Wang’s tone made it clear that it had better be to the master’s liking.

  “All things were arranged as you ordered,” said Pien. “Your men remained only on the outskirts, using eyes and ears rather than any show of force. But—”

  Pien stopped short and took a sharp breath, for as he spoke the last word Wang cocked an eyebrow toward his underling. It was a glance that spoke volumes without need of words. I accept no lame excuses, said the large man’s eyes. What you say next is at your own peril.

  Pien took up his tale again, in a voice noticeably more strained. “The missionary did a most unexpected thing.”

  “What do you mean?” bellowed Wang.

  “From what we had learned of the man,” continued Pien, “he is an independent sort, calling upon the courts on behalf of his converts only in extreme cases, and never calling in the assistance of his own country. It was logical to assume—”

  “Assume! Why, you idiot! Never assume anything. Have I taught you nothing? Now go on with your cursed tale!”

  Pien cleared his throat, making a thin, high-pitched sound as he tried to gather his courage to continue. “The missionary confronted one of our men. We never imagined he would do such a thing.”

  “That is your problem—you have no imagination.” Wang leaned forward with a menacing look in his eye. “Now come to the point—and quickly! Or I will cut out your tongue, for all the good it is to you.”

  Pien shrank back visibly, and would probably have fled had he not firmly believed a worse fate would await him for that.

  “He told our man,” answered the intimidated lieutenant, “that he had composed a letter to the British legate in Hangchow to the effect that the district of Christ’s China Mission was being harangued by local bandits, and that the mission requested the peacekeeping presence of a Royal gunboat on the coast.”

  “Do not tell me you believed him!”

  “Your man,”—Pien pointedly emphasized the words to hopefully remind his master that he was himself merely a humble message bearer—“felt the missionary was in dead earnest.”

  “What did the fool do?”

  “He withdrew, my lord.”

  Wang cursed loudly, threatening and ordering every manner of instant death to the cowering idiot when he got his hands on him. Then, calming and stroking his beard as if for its soothing effect, he turned his attentions once more to the groveling coward before him.

  “And the woman?”

  “With my own eyes, I beheld a face I had not seen for thirteen years,” replied Pien. “But no matter how many years pass, it is not a face a man would soon forget . . .”

  Wang stirred portentously on the divan, and Pien hurried on, deciding his master was in no mood for flowery speeches. “It was indeed the face of the daughter of Tien Chih-lin!”

  His final words fell not with the triumph with which he had hoped to deliver them, but instead rather timorously, as he unconsciously stepped back from his volatile master.

  At the sound of that name, Wang’s terrible presence faltered, and the peach he still held nearly slipped from his grasp. But his composure slackened only a moment. Immediately he regained the foreboding look of evil intent, which so accurately reflected his inner nature. Pien, preoccupied with his own possible peril, did not even notice his master’s momentary lapse.

  “Tien’s daughter . . .” he said slowly, rubbing his beard. “Then the stories we heard are true! And you are certain?”

  “Would I be so foolish to bring this report if I were other than certain? And how could I not be? I also was there thirteen years ago, and was she not the pearl of Shanghai in her youth? Is her family not in the council of the Empress dowager herself? A man does not so easily forget.”

  “What! Am I a spineless fool who pines away thirteen years after a woman?” cried Wang. “Is that what you insinuate, you worthless dog!”

  “No, no, my lord,” Pien said hastily. “I meant no such thing. Ha! Women are nothing—dirt beneath a man’s foot. Especially a man such as yourself. I only said that such fairness is not soon forgotten by any man—especially one weak of mind like your servant.”

  “No,” said Wang slowly, in as pensive a tone as Pien had ever heard from his lips, “a man does not forget.”

  “This is good news I bring, yes?” asked Pien, with an ingratiating grin showing a mouth only half full of teeth.

  “You resurrect a ghost and call it good?” returned Wang grimly.

  Pien’s grin faded.

  “But there is more,” Pien went on with forced hopefulness in his voice. “I saw also the daughter of fair Shan-fei.”

  “Ah, yes, the daughter?” repeated Wang.

  “Grown to a woman and even more beautiful than her mother. A woman whose loveliness surpasses anything I have laid eyes on.”

  “Why do you tell me this?”

  “You are a man. Is it not a thing you would want to know?”

  Wang turned the peach over slowly and deliberately in his hand. Then he raised it to his lips and took a thoughtful bite into its soft, juicy flesh. The lovely Shan-fei, whom he had lost, not once but twice, had a daughter even more beautiful than she. It was only fitting—divine providence no doubt—that since he had been denied the mother in her youth, he ought to have the mother’s seed while it was yet merely a bud.

  But this was more than mere providence. It was divine justice! He deserved Shan-fei’s daughter!

  Wang leaned back in the divan, fingering the end of his beard as these thoughts tumbled through his mind.

  He remembered the first time he had seen Shan-fei. They were young then. Of course it was unseemly to look upon a potential bridal candidate, but he hadn’t cared. His own family was not without a certain amount of power as well—not the same kind as Tien’s, but power gave a man privileges even among an old and venerable family like the Tien’s. Yet his father’s marriage offer was turned down, and that lovely jewel married another—one beneath her station, Wang had always thought. Before the refusal Wang had boasted to his friends of his good fortune. And when he found himself rejected, the loss of face was a bitter pill to swallow. But that did not trouble him as much as losing Shan-fei herself. As much as a man like Wang was capable of, he had thought that he loved her.

  Ten years later when she was suddenly widowed, she was just as beautiful, and Wang wanted her no less. He would never admit to having pined away for her during those years, though he had never married. There had of course been a steady retinue of concubines among his servants. But when he finally produced heirs to carry on his ancestral name, he wanted them to be of a worthy lineage—not children of servants and slaves, but from a family like Tien’s.

  In the ten years of her marriage, however, he had not exactly engaged in the sorts of enterprises that invited offers from the fine families of Shanghai. Nevertheless, he viewed Shan-fei’s suddenly renewed freedom as a gift from heaven. And now the hard, proud Tien was gone to his grave. He would only have her in-laws, her dead husband’s parents, to deal with. Surely they would not be stupid enough to reject him. Moreover, Shan-fei was a widow now, and one who had borne no sons to carry on her husband’s life stream. She would have to accept
a marriage beneath her former status, for she was not the young flower she had once been. Despite all this, Wang had to pay an exorbitant price for her—only to lose her once more. And on the eve of their wedding! To be spurned twice—the gall of the remembrance stung his memory like burning acid!

  He would admit it to no man, but yes, the great Wang K’ung Wu had continued to rage inside for his lost love, though it was not but a smoldering fire. But whether he burned for love or revenge it would be hard to say. No doubt both. Yes he had loved her. But she had made him lose face twice, and the last was the most degrading of all.

  All these years he had thought her dead, having committed suicide rather than marry him. Everyone thought she had done just that, she and her daughter. Though the bodies had never been found, the fact had been universally accepted.

  But the rumor he had heard just two months ago had proved true! Pien’s own eyes confirmed it.

  She was alive! And by the gods, he would not lose her a third time!

  “They remain there—at this mission?” he asked at length. The word mission was uttered with deep revulsion and hatred for any who would stand in his way. “They have not tried to escape?”

  “No, my lord,” answered Pien. “The men have been watchful and have seen no signs of such.”

  “That is supposed to appease me?” sneered Wang. “The incompetent clods!”

  “I do not think the women will readily leave,” added Pien. “The report is that she is married to the missionary.”

  “As long as the young girl is free . . .”

  When Wang had first received news of the possibility that the daughter of the great Tien lived, he had entertained rash thoughts of sweeping through the village with his horde of bandits and carrying off both women. He had done no less on other occasions. But his rationality soon regained control of his instincts. One could not deal thus with subjects of the British crown. At least not without considering all the possible implications. He would rather find another way if possible. One had to use subtlety.