The Cloud Leopard's Daughter

by Deborah Challinor

  *

  The Katipo left Cebu immediately. The tide was in flood and the wind was on-shore, neither ideal for setting sail, so Rian paid an extortionate fee for a tug to tow the schooner out through the channel past Mactan Island, until she could sail under her own power up through the islands and traverse the San Bernadino Strait out into the Pacific Ocean. At no time did they sight the mystery ship, which was terribly frustrating. Was she ahead of them and sailing for China? Had she harboured somewhere else in the Philippine Islands, or had she turned back for New Zealand or Australia? With a possible twelve-hour lead on them, she could be anywhere. Rian, however, convinced that the ship was crewed by Chinese, believed it was bound for China, and nothing would change his mind. Of course, China’s eastern seaboard was immense and she could be heading for any number of ports.

  ‘Hong Kong,’ Rian said when Hawk tried to discuss the matter of their destination with him.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they’re going to bargain with her.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  And Rian had snapped, ‘Wouldn’t you cut a deal? Use your head, man. They’ll give Amber back if we agree not to look for Bao.’

  ‘I will use my head if you use yours, instead of letting your heart rule your actions.’

  ‘Bollocks. I never let my heart rule my actions.’

  Hawk gave a snort of disbelief. ‘You do not know who is crewing that ship, you do not know where it is heading, and you do not know if Amber is aboard. Also, they do not know that we know Bao is in Hong Kong, therefore they will not assume that we will head there.’

  That brought Rian up short. Then he said, ‘They must realise there’s a good chance we will, Hong Kong being a Crown colony where we can appeal to the British authorities. And you don’t know the answer to any of those questions, either.’

  ‘You are right, I do not.’

  ‘Then shut up and let me get on with it. She’s my daughter, not yours.’

  They stood together on the deck in silence, the wind lifting their hair and the sunlight bouncing off the crystal blue sea so that they had to squint. Not far from the Katipo a pod of half a dozen dolphins breached, hurling themselves high into the air and landing with almighty great splashes. Tiring of this after several minutes they swam in closer and settled down to ride the Katipo’s bow waves.

  ‘I’m sorry, Hawk,’ Rian said. ‘I didn’t mean that. I know you care about Amber as much as Kitty and I do. And Tahi, too, I suppose.’

  ‘You suppose? You could perhaps talk to him. The boy feels bad enough without thinking that you believe it is his fault.’

  ‘But I don’t.’

  ‘Then tell him.’

  Sighing, Rian went in search of Tahi, who’d found himself a quiet spot on deck and was repairing a small tear in an auxiliary sail. Rian watched him quietly for a moment. Usually he was very handy with a needle and a sailmaker’s palm, but not today. Today he’d forgotten to grease the twine with beeswax and his stitches were uneven and the tension all wrong. Realising at last that he was being observed he glanced up, his face a study in nervous misery, looking as though he expected to be told off.

  Rian squatted in front of him, suppressing a grunt as his knees cracked like pistols going off. ‘I wanted to say you’re not to blame for Amber being taken. You’re lucky they didn’t put enough laudanum in that wine to kill you both. Thank Christ you didn’t drink all of it.’

  Tahi looked relieved but still desperately unhappy. ‘I feel so useless. So . . . stupid.’

  ‘Yes, well.’ Rian expected he’d feel quite stupid and useless himself. ‘This vision of yours, this dragon. Who, or what, do you think it . . .’ He searched for the right word. ‘Symbolised?’

  He was aware of Tahi’s visions and although he wasn’t sure he believed in them he knew Haunui did, as did Pierre, Ropata, Gideon and Hawk, and he suspected Kitty did, too.

  ‘I thought . . . At first I thought it might be Israel.’

  ‘Israel?’ Rian was shocked. The ship rolled and he planted his hands on the deck for balance. ‘Why Israel?’

  ‘Because, well . . .’ Tahi shrugged. Rian thought he looked unexpectedly shifty. ‘But now, it being a dragon, I wonder if it meant a Chinese. It’s a Chinese crew on that ship, isn’t it?’

  Rian nodded. ‘I think it’s Wong Kai’s men.’

  ‘Which means if we forget about Bao, they’ll return Amber.’

  It wasn’t a question, Rian noted, but a statement of fact. He’d done well to work it out. ‘Something like that, I expect.’

  A shadow fell across the deck: they both glanced up to see Israel standing a few feet away. Rian hoped he hadn’t heard what Tahi had just said about him.

  ‘Well, I vote we forget about Bao,’ Israel said. ‘We can’t look for them both.’

  ‘Forget about her? No!’ Tahi protested. ‘Amber wouldn’t want us to – I know that for a fact. I don’t want us to. And what about Wong Fu?’

  ‘He’d understand, wouldn’t he, especially when we tell him Amber’s your wife now.’ Israel nodded at Rian. ‘And with her being your daughter.’

  Rian said, ‘Bao is Fu’s daughter, and we made him a promise.’

  Tahi looked up at Israel through narrowed eyes, and Rian felt a distinct and uncharacteristic crackle of animosity pass between the two young men.

  ‘Bao’s your friend, too,’ Tahi said sharply. ‘And we don’t abandon our friends.’

  ‘’Course she’s my friend,’ Israel agreed. ‘All I’m saying is maybe there aren’t enough of us to look for them both. So who’s more important?’

  ‘Christ, boy,’ Rian said, ‘what a terrible bloody question to ask.’

  Israel stared down at him. ‘You don’t think Amber is?’

  Rian didn’t answer.

  ‘Because I do,’ Israel said.

  Rian looked at Tahi, who exclaimed angrily, ‘It is a terrible question, and a stupid one. We have to find both of them.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Rian said, and after a moment patted Tahi’s shoulder. ‘Good lad.’

  *

  It took nine days of good, swift sailing for the Katipo to reach Hong Kong. By the time she did, everyone’s nerves were in complete tatters, as they’d not seen even a glimpse of the ship they assumed Amber was aboard. Rian, earlier so determinedly confident, was beginning to doubt himself, wondering if the ship had in fact weighed anchor in some secluded little Philippine bay, or simply turned back for the Antipodes. But why would her captain do that? Surely, if he had Amber, he’d use her as a bargaining agent?

  And if he didn’t have Amber, who did?

  Despite her fear and tension, Kitty couldn’t help feeling a little thrill of enchantment as the Katipo sailed slowly into Victoria Harbour. The sun had not long risen, the morning air was warm and heavy with moisture and cloud sat low over Mount Victoria, wreathing the jade green peak in a pale, shifting gauze of mist. They’d come in through the West Lamma Channel, between Lantau and Hong Kong islands, so that Kowloon, part of the Chinese mainland, now jutted into the harbour to their left and the long sweep of Hong Kong’s shoreline extended to their right.

  The way the island’s city of Victoria sat at the base of Mount Victoria always amused her. It looked, to her, as though the houses and emporiums and the great mercantile establishments, the warehouses, the shacks and the endless clutter of Chinese stores and markets had once been tidily arrayed up the steep slope of the mountain, but some giant of a housewife had flapped the lot like a tablecloth and they’d all landed in a heap along the shoreline, leaving only the grand English mansions farther up the mountain to benefit from the ocean’s cooling breezes.

  The city was an ant’s nest, a population of more than a hundred and twenty-four thousand crammed into a space at the foot of Mount Victoria not much more than four miles long. Most inhabitants were Chinese – mainly Cantonese and Hakka – some of whom travelled regularly between Hong Kong and the mainland, and others of whom were merely passing
through on their way to goldfields around the world, jammed like sacks of rice in the stinking holds of ill-maintained ships. The British colonial government – masters of Hong Kong after the island was ceded to Britain after the First Opium War – turned a deliberately blind eye. The Chinese occupied one end of the city, though in separate enclaves as the two clans didn’t mix, and the remainder of the population, foreign merchants, occupied the other. Kitty much preferred visiting the Chinese precincts as they were more colourful and goods were much cheaper.

  In the main the foreign merchants were British and American, bankers and importers and exporters, perhaps the most notorious being the firm Jardine Matheson and Company, famous for smuggling opium into China. But to be fair, they were only one of a good handful of European companies who’d made absolute fortunes from the misery of others. They’d also built churches in Hong Kong; and schools; the polo, cricket and jockey clubs; the racecourse at Happy Valley; beautiful botanical gardens; and the elite Hong Kong Club, to which Rian had never been invited.

  The many wharves and the waterfront were crammed with vessels, predominantly tea clippers but also a good smattering of other European cargo ships, both sail and steam-powered, numerous ocean-going and coastal junks, and countless smaller sampans nipping about like backswimmers. Kitty was in awe of the big junks with their soaring prows and sterns, and flared orange sails like dragon’s wings. They looked quite delicate but she knew the sturdiest could run with the sharpest of gales and withstand all but the most vicious of storms.

  Rian, as usual, was on deck peering through his spyglass. ‘There she is!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Third wharf along. The red and yellow flag.’

  Sick with disappointment because she’d thought he meant Amber, Kitty snatched the spyglass off him and raised it to her eye, seeing quite clearly through the glass the ship that had been following them tied up among a line of other ships at a wharf near the Central Marketplace.

  ‘Hawk!’ Rian bellowed, seeing a gap. ‘Furl the sails and get ready to warp in. There’s a berth at Pedder’s Wharf. Israel and Ropata, take the boat and hurry up!’

  In Hong Kong you didn’t wait for permission from the harbour master to dock: it was so busy and crowded that if you did wait you could be sitting out in the harbour for ever. You just found a spot and zipped in.

  Ropata and Israel ran to lower the ship’s boat over the side. If some other captain had also spotted the berth the victors would be the crew who reached the wharf first. Ropata rode down in the boat, his teeth rattling in his head as it hit the water, then Israel half-climbed, half-jumped down after him and they took off, rowing for all they were worth.

  There was another ship’s boat heading for the wharf. Israel and Ropata doubled their efforts and got there first by two boat lengths. The defeated crewmen swore foully: Ropata grinned and Israel raised two fingers. They climbed up to the platform and wound the rope attached to the Katipo around a bollard, then Ropata rowed back out to the ship with the loose end. The boat was hauled back up, secured, then the rope fed through the capstan near the bow. Gideon removed his shirt, windmilled his arms to get the blood moving, spat on his hands and put his back into winding the handle on the capstan. Nothing happened for some moments except for the sound of his bare feet squeaking against the deck as he scrabbled for purchase, but then the Katipo’s slow up and down bob subsided and she began to move towards the wharf. Sweat popped out on Gideon’s furrowed black brow, his teeth showed white in a grimace of toil and his huge muscles bulged, the sinews in his neck and shoulders standing out like ropes. But as the ship picked up a little speed she gained a momentum of her own and it seemed that he would not, after all, explode from his efforts.

  The last part of the Katipo’s mooring was completed in a flurry of rope-tossing, easing in and tying up, then Rian was on the wharf and rounding everyone up.

  ‘Simon, you stay here with Kitty. Everyone else come with me.’

  No one needed to ask where they were going.

  ‘You’re not leaving me behind!’ Kitty exclaimed.

  ‘I am. It might be dangerous.’

  ‘Oh, bollocks to danger.’

  ‘You’re not coming, Kitty. And someone has to watch the ship.’

  ‘I bloody well am coming. Simon can stay here by himself.’

  ‘I said no!’ Rian almost shouted. ‘Just behave, will you?’

  Kitty felt her face redden. ‘Don’t treat me as though I were five years old!’

  ‘Then stop acting like it.’

  The crew looked everywhere but at her and Rian.

  ‘She’s my daughter, Rian. I’m worried sick.’

  ‘So am I, and I don’t want to have to worry about you as well. Look, we’ll be back before you know it.’

  Kitty could see she was beaten. This time. She marched across the gangway onto the Katipo with such ill-tempered vigour that the spring in it almost launched her into the air. ‘Damn you,’ she muttered as she passed Simon, standing on the deck.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘No, not you, him.’

  She thumped down the companionway into the mess room then to her cabin, where she flopped on the bed beside Samson and Delilah, who barely stirred. It was hot in the little room but she dared not open the windows as the cats would get out and escape.

  Instead she lay on top of the bedspread, said out loud every swear word she knew, then wept.

  *

  Rian and the crew marched along the waterfront to the berth at which he’d seen the ship. Striding along the wharf itself, their boots made quite a noise on the planks as they approached.

  He stopped alongside the ship and shouted, ‘Ahoy, the vessel flying the red and yellow ensign!’

  Several heads peered over the gunwale.

  ‘Get your captain,’ Rian ordered. ‘I want to speak with him.’

  The two Chinese sailors stared down at Rian for quite a while, looked at each other, then disappeared for so long he thought they weren’t coming back. He felt inside his jacket for the security of his revolver, just in case. Finally another figure appeared, this one a man with far more bearing than the previous two. He wore a queue, and his tunic appeared to be of silk.

  ‘Good morning,’ he called down in Cantonese.

  Rian understood the greeting, but refused to make a fool of himself by trying to converse in the man’s native tongue, of which he had only a basic grasp.

  ‘Do you speak English?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you the captain of this ship?’

  The man nodded. ‘I am Lo Fang.’

  ‘Will you come down here and speak with me, please.’

  The man hesitated, then said something to someone out of sight. A moment later the gangway was lowered on chains, hitting the wharf with a resounding crash, and he descended. He was taller than Rian, which made Rian step back so he wouldn’t have to look up at him. His loose moss-green silk trousers matched his embroidered tunic, and Rian thought, I bet you didn’t sail all the way from Sydney in that pretty outfit.

  A noise from above made him lift his gaze and he saw, lined up along the gunwale, approximately two dozen of Lo Fang’s crew, the barrels of the rifles they held just – but deliberately – visible.

  ‘I’m Captain Rian Farrell of the Katipo,’ he said. ‘I believe you have my daughter aboard your ship.’

  Lo Fang, whom Rian guessed was somewhere around forty years of age, cocked his head in polite bemusement. ‘Pardon me, Captain Farrell, but I do not know your daughter.’

  ‘I think you do. She’s the one you, or your crew, drugged with laudanum and abducted from the Hotel de Oriente in Cebu ten days ago.’

  Lo Fang’s expression became concerned. ‘Kidnap is a serious business, Captain. Have you alerted the authorities?’

  Slimy bloody bastard, Rian thought. ‘I don’t need to. I know it was you who took her and I want her back.’

  Lo Fang remained silent.

  ‘
If it’s money you want I’ll pay.’

  ‘I do not have your daughter.’

  Rian noted that Lo wasn’t looking solicitous now. ‘Then let me come aboard so I can see for myself.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I’ll bring the police and they can look.’ This wasn’t a hollow threat. The Hong Kong police were well known for being as rough and ready as the characters they were paid to keep in order.

  Lo Fang shrugged in a way that made Rian want to punch him. ‘Bring whomever you wish, Captain. You still will not find your daughter.’

  Then he turned and walked back up the gangway. At the top he clicked his long, bony fingers and it rattled up behind him, closing with a bang.

  Resisting the urge to draw his revolver and shoot at every head he could see sticking up over the gunwale, Rian counted to ten instead. Killing people wouldn’t get Amber returned to him: not at this point, anyway. He turned on his heel and stalked off, followed by his grim-faced crew.

  *

  Rian sat at the mess room table with Kitty, Pierre, Haunui, Hawk, Simon and Tahi, staring into a glass of brandy. He’d been very subdued since talking to the Chinese captain that morning, and Kitty didn’t have the energy to jolly him along.

  They’d discussed trying to sneak onto Lo’s ship themselves and searching it, paying someone else to do it, and actually calling in the police as Rian had threatened (though he didn’t want them involved if possible as he distrusted all law enforcement), but no potential solution was ideal and all could result in harm to Amber. And there was also Bao; they would need to start looking for her as soon as possible.

  Mick came belting down the companionway. ‘There’s a fellow here says he’s got something to tell you. D’you want to see him?’

  ‘Concerning what?’ Rian asked.

  Mick shrugged. ‘He’s Chinese, but. I think.’