Longwei’s men began to line the bulwarks to stare out at them as they glided past, some lighting long torches and holding them aloft, and the music stopped. The only sound now was the slap of small waves against the junks’ wooden hulls.
The biggest ship of the lot was a beautiful vessel, with a steep and elegant curve between a stern and prow that seemed impossibly high from sea level. She carried three masts, the sails of which were currently furled, and Rian could see that they were shaped and rigged in such a manner that when she was at full sail and standing up they would resemble wings. Her masthead was the carved and brightly-painted neck and head of a ferocious-looking dragon, its ugly, fang-filled gob open and reaching beyond the bow as if to devour everything in its path. That she was a war junk was plain to see from the row of ten portholes. Carronade, Rian wondered, or cannon? Cannon had the greater range. From her main mast fluttered a flag on which reared a red dragon on a yellow background. So, they’d found Lee Longwei.
Not daring to stand in the boat in case he ended up in the water and made a fool of himself, he called up to the men on the junk, ‘This is Captain Rian Farrell of the Katipo. We’re here to meet with Captain Lee Longwei at his request. May we come aboard?’
There was a stony silence from above, then a rope ladder was thrown down, narrowly missing Rian.
They tied the boats to the bottom of the ladder, then ascended one by one, Rian going first. As he stepped through the gap in the bulwark he was met by a young man, perhaps in his mid to late twenties, of average height for a Chinese person, wearing the plain tunic and trousers of a seaman. His forehead wasn’t shaved and he wore his hair long, hanging unbound down his back. He was handsome, too – Rian supposed: he wasn’t a particularly good judge of that sort of thing. He was a little taken aback: he’d expected some kind of monster. At the man’s shoulder stood Ip To, arms crossed, unsmiling.
The man stepped forward, his hand out. ‘I am Lee Longwei. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Captain Farrell.’
Rian’s first thought was, As if I wouldn’t, when you have my daughter. His second was to wonder where Longwei had learnt to speak English so well.
He shook the man’s hand briefly. ‘I’d like to see my daughter. Now.’
‘You will, then we will discuss business.’
‘We don’t have any business,’ Rian said. ‘The only business that you and I have is the return of my child.’
Kitty pushed forward. ‘Please may we see her?’
Longwei looked at her with what might have been real compassion, but Rian wasn’t fooled.
‘Are you Amber’s mother?’ he asked.
‘Yes, she is,’ Rian replied. ‘This is my wife, Mrs Farrell.’
Longwei cocked his head, looking first at Kitty, then Rian. ‘Amber’s skin is a different colour from yours.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, we adopted her,’ Rian snapped.
‘You adopted a child of a different race?’
‘Yes. So?’
‘Interesting.’
Scuffling broke out among the Katipo party, then Tahi shot forward, fists clenched and his face red. ‘Amber’s my wife and if you’ve hurt her, I swear I’ll kill you.’
‘I have not hurt her,’ Longwei replied calmly. ‘No one in my personal crew or in any of my squadrons has hurt her. She has been well treated here. You may ask her that yourself. Who wishes to speak with her?’
Everyone did, and said so loudly. Bao clapped her hands then spoke rapidly to Longwei in Cantonese. The conversation appeared to degenerate into an argument and there was a fair bit of voice raising and arm waving.
Then she said, ‘I have explained to Longwei how important Amber is to us all, but he will not allow everyone to see her. I believe he fears that all of us together will steal her back.’ She glanced around at the twenty or so swarthy and battle-hardened pirates standing about on the deck of the junk and rolled her eyes. ‘So he has said only four may go below to talk to her.’
‘Kitty and me,’ Rian said immediately.
Tahi said, ‘And me.’
‘And . . . you, Bao,’ Kitty said, remembering what Bao had told her in Amber’s cabin. ‘After all, you’re her best friend.’
Bao turned pink. ‘Thank you. I appreciate that.’
Longwei led them below, through a whiffy-smelling corridor, into a mess room, then through to a door to a cabin that was obviously his own. Rian, thinking the worst, was incensed.
Longwei shook his head. ‘I have been sleeping with the crew.’ He knocked on the door.
A grumpy voice shouted, ‘Oh, now what?’
Rian and Kitty exchanged a delighted grin: that was their charming daughter, all right.
‘Miss Farrell, your family are here to see you.’
Silence, then the thump of running feet and the door was wrenched open. ‘Ma! Pa! And Tahi!’ Amber launched herself at them. ‘Aaaah, and Bao! What are you doing here? Did Ma and Pa rescue you? Have you come to rescue me?’
Rubbing his lip where Amber had accidentally clouted him, Rian blinked back tears of, well, relief. She didn’t appear harmed in any way, though she did smell a bit garlicky. He glanced at Longwei, only to see the man thoughtfully eying him. He’s evaluating how much I care about her, he thought, to assess exactly what he can get me – us – to do to get her back.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked Amber.
‘I’m fine, though I’m bored and I’m sick of eating Chinese food. I’m dying for one of Pierre’s pies or a nice plate of stew,’ Amber said, her arm around Tahi’s neck.
‘You’ve been treated well?’
‘Very. What’s going on? You know, this is the fourth time I’ve been kidnapped and I’m only twenty-three. It’s ridiculous. I want to go home.’
Longwei said, ‘Not yet, I am afraid, Miss Farrell.’
‘What do you mean “not yet”?’
‘You father has agreed to do a job for me first, in exchange for your release.’
About to say, no I haven’t, Rian realised he couldn’t, not in front of Amber. ‘Can we talk?’ he asked Longwei.
‘Certainly. This way please.’
Longwei led Rian back to the mess room and they sat down at the scrubbed table. ‘Would you care for tea?’
Rian said yes, though he didn’t actually want any. They sat around waiting for the tea things to be organised, then he waited some more while Longwei went through what Rian considered to be the tedious performance of preparing and pouring it. It seemed odd to him, a cut-throat pirate bothering with such a fancy and, in his opinion, effeminate ritual, and all for a drink that tasted like something a lady might pour in her bath. He preferred good, strong black tea, like you got in the colonies.
He said so.
‘Then ask for it,’ Longwei said, ‘though black tea is called red tea in China. There are many varieties.’
‘Where did you learn to speak such good English?’
‘I attended Westminster School for Boys in London for some years. It did not suit me, or I did not suit it. And, of course, I am not a Christian.’
‘And now you’re a pirate.’
‘Yes.’
‘The most feared pirate in China?’
Longwei took a sip of his tea. ‘So they say.’
‘You don’t strike me as deserving that reputation.’
‘You have not crossed me. Yet.’
Rian sighed. ‘What is it you want me to do?’
‘The Chinese are being ravaged by enslavement to opium. It is a black blight on our nation and the British are entirely responsible for forcing it onto our shores.’
Not entirely, Rian thought. You could also blame the Turks, the Arabs, the Portuguese and other European traders, not that he was sticking up for the British because the British East India Company had been responsible for most of it. And there were plenty of corrupt Chinese here helping to distribute it. But saying so wasn’t going to achieve anything.
‘You do understand the dire extent of the si
tuation here, don’t you?’ Longwei asked.
Rian nodded.
‘Have you ever been a country trader?’
‘I have not,’ Rian answered truthfully.
‘Yes, that is what my sources tell me.’
Feeling nettled and disgruntled, Rian stared at him. Had the cheeky little bastard been poking into his affairs? ‘Did you deliberately target my daughter?’
‘No. Her capture was the fortuitous consequence of a regular raid, but I am not one to pass up an opportunity.’
Rian shook his head. It really had been a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bigger seas, a different prevailing wind, and Lo Fang’s path might not have crossed Lee Longwei’s and Amber might have arrived in Hong Kong. But would it have changed anything? She still would have been someone else’s prisoner. He sighed. ‘What do you want?’
‘I want the importation of opium into China stopped.’
‘I’m sure you do.’
‘And I want you to stop it.’
Rian felt an urge to laugh. The idea was just . . . farcical. ‘With all due respect, one man can’t stop an entire commercial venture that’s been operating for over a hundred years. Two hundred, if you count the earlier traders. It would be impossible, you must know that. And why me?’
‘I know who you are. I have spoken to the compradors. You are a wily and persuasive man and you know how the English think.’
Well, at least he hasn’t accused me of being English, Rian thought. ‘So do you. You went to school there.’
‘That does not mean I grasp the English view of life, or they mine. You can talk to the British authorities. You can make them see what they are doing to my people. Our resistance is broken after the two wars, and now we have the civil war of the Taiping Rebellion. I have heard it said that our opium inebriates number more than twenty-five million and that there are British plans to produce opium here, on home soil. That will surely be the death of us. The British already control Chinese customs and excise in Shanghai as a result of the Taiping Rebellion, and will soon manage everything that comes into, and is exported from, China. Speak to the customs authorities in Shanghai. Speak to the country traders. Speak to the British governor. This lethal trade must be stopped.’
It was a lovely speech, Rian thought, but the plan was still ludicrous. ‘I already spoke to the governor two days ago, about Amber.’
‘Speak to him again, and this time raise the issue of opium imports.’
Rian thought for a moment. ‘I was considering seeking an audience with the Empress Dowager Cixi when she visits Hong Kong shortly.’
Longwei looked more than a little disconcerted. ‘To what end?’
‘I was hoping she may have some influence over persons such as yourself, the pirate factions, I mean, and could therefore possibly help me to get my daughter back. Now, of course, I don’t need to speak to her.’
‘I doubt she would concede to speak with you, a gweilo sea captain,’ Longwei said. ‘And no, she does not have influence over the pirate factions. She certainly does not have influence over me.’ His voice became bitter. ‘I detest her.’
‘Why?’
‘She has betrayed China.’
This was interesting, Rian thought. ‘In what way’
‘You have heard of the Treaties of Tianjin?’
‘Of course.’
‘They were signed by the Xianfeng Emperor, three years before he died. By then Cixi was the Xianfeng Emperor’s favoured concubine because she was the only one of his women to have borne him a son. It is strongly rumoured she convinced the Xianfeng Emperor to sign those treaties.’
Rian hadn’t heard that. ‘Perhaps she just wanted the fighting to stop.’
‘Perhaps she is colluding with the British, and now she is the empress dowager and co-regent with the Xianfeng Emperor’s former senior consort, the Empress Dowager Ci’an, though in all affairs she wields more power than her co-regent.’
‘Yet you don’t want me to talk to her about the opium?’
‘What would be the point? The treaties have been signed. Cixi has her Summer Palace and her jewels and her silks and her precious son. Only the British can make new policies concerning China’s opium trade. The two wars have proven that. So go and speak to the British customs officials at Shanghai, and to the country traders.’
‘Look, what if I fail? It’s a distinct possibility, you know,’ Rian said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm.
Longwei’s gaze was frank and unwavering. ‘Then I am afraid you do not get your daughter back.’
Rian returned the stare, his temper rising. ‘Well, that’s bloody unreasonable, isn’t it? You ask me to do the impossible and when I fail, which I must, I lose my precious daughter?’
‘And my country continues to lose its precious assets, her people. You lose one, we lose millions.’
‘But it’s not Amber’s fault. It’s nothing to do with her. It’s nothing to do with me.’
‘Is it not?’
As Rian glared at Longwei he had a horrible feeling – almost physical, like little worms nibbling at his chest with blunt teeth – that in some way China’s misfortunes were at least to a tiny degree his fault, but he couldn’t quite work out how. ‘What will you do with her?’
‘You will never know. You will simply never see her again.’
Rian thought that was the most evil thing he’d ever heard and it stunned him. He slammed his hand onto the table, upsetting both little teacups. ‘Look, it’s your fault the bloody stuff’s coming ashore. It’s your lot smuggling it in from the country traders sitting out at sea. Why don’t you call your bloody pirate mates off? Surely that’d be the easiest thing to do?’
Longwei remained unperturbed. ‘You speak as though all Chinese pirates belong to one friendly organisation. Did all British privateers work as a united party? I have no control over pirates who do not belong to my squadrons, Captain, and members of my squadrons do not smuggle opium.’
Leaning across the tea-spattered table, Rian said in a deathly quiet voice, ‘If you harm even a single hair on my daughter’s head, I’m warning you, I’ll hunt you down and I’ll kill you. Do you hear me?’
Longwei shrugged. ‘I would expect you to say no less.’
‘Then we understand each other.’
‘I have one further question. Who is the Chinese girl with you?’
Very tempted not to answer, Rian sat with his mouth shut for almost a minute, then decided that cooperating might help Amber. ‘Her name is Wong Bao Wan. Her father’s in New Zealand. Her uncle arranged a marriage in Hong Kong for her, which she didn’t want, so we came here to collect her and return her to her father.’
‘She is very opinionated.’
Rian wondered what Bao had said to him. He stood. ‘How do I get a message to you?’
‘There is a stall at the Central Marketplace that sells only char siu pork. Leave your messages there. They will always get to me in good time.’
Chapter Nine
The Tongzhi Emperor and the Empress Dowager Cixi arrived in Hong Kong to great fanfare later that week. To Rian’s surprise he and Kitty were granted a very brief audience with her of two minutes, in a receiving line of dozens of Hong Kong’s British residents.
‘Well, we don’t need to see her now, do we?’ he said, screwing up the hand-delivered invitation.
‘Hadn’t you better tell the governor?’ Kitty suggested. ‘He probably went to a lot of trouble to get you on that receiving list.’
Muttering, Rian reluctantly smoothed out the invitation, scribbled a note on the back and gave it to the messenger, who trotted off. He was back a little over two hours later, with a sealed note from Governor Robinson. It said:
Dear Captain Farrell
Please be aware that I moved Heaven and Earth to obtain an invitation for you and your good Wife to attend the Tongzhi Emperor and Empress Dowager Cixi’s reception at Flagstaff House. I would be grateful if you could honour the effort made on your
behalf. It is essential that, as Colonial caretakers, we on a Diplomatic level in no way cause offence to the Emperor, the Empress Dowager or their Advisors.
H. Robinson (Sir)
Governor, Hong Kong
Hmm, Rian thought, no valediction. Clearly Hercules wasn’t happy. Perhaps they’d better go.
Kitty wore her best dress, her steel blue wool, which she’d mended, with her best bonnet and the forget-me-not brooch Rian had given her at Ballarat. She knew she hardly looked the height of fashion and that her costume couldn’t compare with the dazzling clothes worn by the other British women waiting to be received by the empress dowager, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t here to show off.
They waited for ages in a very crowded antechamber of the governor’s residence, Flagstaff House, for their names to be called by a footman dressed like an organ grinder’s monkey. Unfortunately, it was while they were milling about in the antechamber that Rian noticed Yip Chun Kit, also presumably waiting to be presented to the emperor and the empress dowager.
‘No, don’t look at him,’ Rian said, pulling Kitty behind a potted palm. ‘I think it might be a good idea if we left.’
Fanning her face with the black lace fan she’d bought in Cebu – it was horribly hot in here and the air almost solid with the female guests’ perfumes – Kitty replied, ‘The governor won’t be happy.’
‘Bugger the governor. I’m not having a scene with Yip. It didn’t occur to me he’d be here.’ Rian scowled. ‘Though it should have, I suppose.’
‘Is there another way out?’ Kitty asked, looking around. ‘That door over there next to the red velvet curtains, where does that go?’
‘Let’s find out.’
Rian took her hand and they weaved their way across the room, but just as they’d almost reached the far side the crowd parted and left them in full view of Yip Chun Kit, who immediately spotted them and rushed over, knocking folk out of his way, his face rapidly turning a mottled purple colour.
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