Tempted Tigress

by Jade Lee

  “Stop that!” she bellowed in Chinese. Except, it was the Chinese language of the north, and not at all their dialect, which she was beginning to realize was similar to Shanghainese. Had she come so far south?

  The women gasped in shock. A couple girls screamed in horror and ran. But the boys—three little boys of the hellion age—were undeterred. They roared and bellowed even louder. Then the oldest of them picked up a rock and threw it at her.

  He missed, hitting the side of the building with a frightening thud, and Anna recoiled from the impact. That was enough to give the rest of the boys encouragement. They picked up stones, sticks, even clumps of mud, and began hurling them at her.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” Anna screeched in Shanghai dialect. It had no effect. The women, emboldened by their sons, began shaking the building again in earnest. And even the little girls came back, banging on their woks hard enough to dent the metal.

  Then a clump of mud sailed true. It came right at her face. Reflexes she hadn’t used since childhood came roaring back. She ducked down, hearing it clatter behind her. She had already pushed to her feet, intending to climb down the ladder. At least inside she’d be safe from rocks.

  But the last mud ball hit just above her shoulder, splattering wet dirt all over her face and dress. The dress she wanted so to keep clean. With a muffled curse, she rose from her crouch and watched for the next missile. Fortunately, the boys weren’t strong enough to hurl heavy stones.

  She saw another rock fly at her, at just the right height and speed. She waited then reached out, snatching the stone out of the air. Then, with another curse, again in Shanghai dialect, she hurled it right back. It hit a boy flat in the belly. Not hard enough to hurt him, just sting a bit. The boy gasped in shock. The mothers and sisters too were startled enough to stop what they were doing and stare.

  The silence wouldn’t last long. Five seconds at most before the peasants realized she wasn’t a ghost but someone who would fight back. Anna didn’t give them that long. She began speaking as clearly and forcefully as possible, though in a dialect she hadn’t used for over a year. Fortunately, it came back quickly enough.

  “Shame upon you, bringing dishonor upon your fathers and husbands! Should I curse your name? By the Son of Heaven, I could bring guards here to destroy every field for tens of U. Do you dare throw mud and rocks at me? Do you not see the fine silk I wear? Do you not know—”

  “Ghost demon! She will kill us all!” screeched a young woman, who then grabbed her children—two little girls—and ran for all she was worth.

  Anna watched in satisfaction, hoping that the others would follow. But they apparently were made of sterner stuff. The women were now picking up stones. After all, Anna had just threatened both their children and their livelihoods. She quickly changed her tone.

  “I am prepared to forgive you,” she said more softly. “And my husband will reward you richly for aiding me.” She narrowed her eyes, trying to judge the crowd. She knew from her father that people always needed someone to blame. It was all a matter of shifting the blame away from oneself. She singled out the eldest boy, the one who had first thrown a rock. “He will have to work hard for my gifts. But you others… “ She straightened her spine and opened her hands in a gesture of beneficence. “If you help me, you will be richly rewarded.” She looked at the woman who wore the poorest clothing, whose frame was the most thin and weak. “You. Will you aid a lost wife to find her mandarin?”

  The woman hesitated, her fear palpable, but she was clearly tempted. A moment more, maybe a well-phrased promise, and she would help. But Anna didn’t have a moment. Two men—one with a hoe, the other wielding an old and rusty sword—topped the rise. They were led by a boy, who pointed at her. The men came forward with a roar.

  Predictably, the women turned to wait for the men to sort it out. Damn, damn, damn! There were only two ways to handle men—sex or tears. Anna wasn’t going for the first, and she’d never been great at the latter, but she would have to try.

  Rushing down the ladder as fast as her aching body could manage, Anna came out of the shed with a gasp.

  Stumbling toward the poorest woman, Anna began to sob. Well, she mimicked the motions well enough. True tears were harder to dredge up, but they would come in a moment. Meanwhile she spoke whatever nonsense came into her head. She whimpered about losing her favorite ivory fan when she and her servants had gone for a respite from the awful boat. She stuttered out that she’d gone to look for it, but mean Number-One Wife had refused to allow her even a servant to help. And then—the real tears had finally begun—she’d gotten lost and fallen down and ripped her dress. And now there was mud on it. She was so frightened she was trembling. But oh, she has the most handsome jade earrings that would look lovely on this girl who had such beautiful earlobes. And her husband had a pocket watch that he had given to her. They were the most amazing things, an invention from the West. In truth, she’d been sent to carry the mandarin the pocket watch as a gift so many years ago, but he had wanted her instead. So she had been given in marriage to the mandarin and now her husband and her father were in business together…

  One of the men’s eyes flickered in interest. He obviously understood what kind of business a mandarin and a white man would be in. How much opium was in a countryside village between the Grand Canal and Shanghai? Not enough, she’d wager. She smiled at him, and he lowered his sword. “My father,” she added in a soft tone, “always considered me his favorite. He will reward anyone who helps me.”

  The sword dropped to the ground as the man’s face split into a broad grin. “Silly women,” he laughed heartily. “Mistaking a lost woman for a ghost.”

  “But, but… “ stammered the boy. “She is—”

  “A foreign barbarian,” Anna supplied. “Yes, I am. But I am no ghost and certainly not a demon. Here… “ She extended her arm. “Touch my skin. You will see I am warm and whole just like you.”

  The boy wasn’t so bold. Or he wouldn’t have been without practically the whole village staring at him. So with a shaking hand, he slowly, awkwardly poked a finger into her arm, drawing it back with a gasp.

  “She’s soft!” he exclaimed. He poked her again, this time lingering a bit longer. “And warm!”

  The men boomed with laughter, clapping the child on the back. “Of course a woman is soft and warm. What else would she be?”

  The other children crowded around, all wanting to touch her in some way. The women eyed her curiously now, studying her hair and clothing before corralling their children. They all turned the same direction—presumably the main village—and there was talk of food. Anna’s stomach cramped in response. She began moving in the direction they pointed. But the children kept tight to her side, hampering her progress. She leaned down and picked up the smallest so that they could move faster.

  The fear was broken. She was nothing more to them now than a potential windfall and a way to break up the monotony of a hard existence. Anna breathed a sigh of relief, though she kept the tears ready and her smile wobbly.

  Then there came a shout from the distance as some of the children dashed ahead, but Anna could not make out the words. She could follow the language of one person at a time, but a dozen all speaking at once? The words degenerated into a sea of sound in which she struggled to remain afloat.

  In time, she gave up. Her thought was for food—only food. Until the sounds began to recede and the children pulled away. At first she was grateful for the room to move without tripping over little bodies. But then the girl in her arms was snatched away and all was abruptly silent.

  She looked up in confusion, her thoughts on sizzling dumplings. She saw instead three men. They were different than the peasants. Better weapons—well-oiled swords and heavy fists. Better fed—broad shoulders and thick muscles. And worst of all, better resistance to any manipulation she could find. These were hardened men who responded to two things: force or money, and she had neither.

  So she ran. She didn’t even
stop to think. She simply took off running as fast and as far as she could. But her skirts were tight, her footing unstable, and there was a child in the way.

  She swerved. She stumbled.

  And she was caught.

  From Anna Marie Thompson’s journal:

  December 16, 1881

  I found the ship. I found Father’s ship, and they were really nice to me. I’m going to be on bread and water for a month, but it was worth it.

  I escaped just tike I planned. It was so easy! And then I got a rickshaw and went to the docks. It took a long, long time to find the boat, but it helps that I can speak both English and Chinese. There’s always someone who needs help translating. Even the rickshaw runners will give me a free ride if I help them get a rich white customer.

  It took a long time to find the right ship. And then they caught me sneaking on board. A couple of the sailors were really mean. They were going to throw me overboard, but the captain stopped them. He was kind, especially when I remembered his name. I told him I was looking for my father, that I had to speak to him. That I was Frank Thompson’s daughter and I had to find him. Then he asked me into his quarters to talk, even gave me some hard biscuits to eat.

  That’s when he told me about my father. I didn’t believe him at first. Everybody ties. But he showed me his records. People lie with their mouths, but records are more honest. And this captain had a book that listed everyone on the boat and what they were paid.

  Father was paid a year ago, and then he didn’t come back. He didn’t get on the boat again. I didn’t know what to do. If he wasn’t sailing, then where was he? I started crying—big English men always help when a little girl cries.

  Except, the captain couldn’t help. He didn’t know where my father went or why. He said that a lot of bad things happen in Shanghai and that I should contact my family back in England. That was my only hope. Then he gave me a whole guinea, plus took me all the way back to the mission. I told him I could take a rickshaw. Even told him how I could get a free ride, but he insisted.

  I should have run away then. I should have just escaped to crawl back into bed so no one would notice. But he wanted the nuns to know I had slipped out. Mother Francis was very polite to him, very thankful. She even promised him I wouldn’t be punished. Ha! Like I said, everybody lies, even Mother Superiors.

  But it was still worth it. I know my father’s somewhere in Shanghai. Or at least he was. I think I’ll go find Samuel Fitzpatrick on Tuesday when Sister Christine starts leading matins. She’ll go to bed really early and fall right to sleep by seven. It’ll be easier to slip away then.

  And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

  As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

  A mighty fountain momently was forced:

  Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

  Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

  Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:

  And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

  It flung up momently the sacred river.

  —Samuel Taylor Coleridge from “Kubla Khan: or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment”

  Chapter Six

  The stench of opium filled the captain’s quarters belowdecks. Zhi-Gang curled his lip against the smell even as his tongue noted the sweet taste of the smoke in a room unused to such things. Slamming the door shut behind him, he didn’t need his glasses to see. He already knew what he would find: the captain, his wife, and their baby, all dozing in drugged sleep on the bed. Nearby, Jing-Li would be lounging across cushions, a silly grin on his smug face, a long thin opium pipe clutched in his hand.

  “Where did you get it?” Zhi-Gang hissed as he stomped forward. With each step, his friend’s dark form resolved into exactly what Zhi-Gang expected: a rich boy smoking in luxury. “Where did you find the opium?”

  Jing-Li shrugged. “Payment. Bad luck to cheat boat people. They will curse our journey.”

  Zhi-Gang abruptly reached down and hauled his childhood friend up by the collar. Nose to nose, Zhi-Gang could see a sharpness in Jing-Li’s red eyes that proved the man wasn’t nearly as far gone as he pretended. “Where did you get it?”

  “Do you have money for the captain?” Jing-Li challenged.

  Zhi-Gang didn’t answer. They both knew they had little money left. “We are on a mission! I am the Emperor’s Enforcer! I kill people who commerce in this poison. You cannot go about using it!”

  Jing-Li bared his teeth in response. Zhi-Gang dropped him back to the floor in disgust. He heard the opium pipe clatter to the floor and he whirled about to find it. There! He stomped forward, slamming his foot down on the bamboo and breaking it in two. He wanted to grind the shards against his heel, but the wood was too strong and his boot too soft. Instead, he felt a sharp’ piece stab into his skin and he drew back with a curse.

  He had to twist his foot up so he could pull the sliver out while Jing-Li watched and laughed. It was a long, carefree giggle, filled with simple goodwill, and Zhi-Gang stopped what he was doing to squint at his friend. When was the last time the man had laughed like that? When had either of them felt happy and open, able to lounge upon the floor in simple pleasure? Months? Years?

  “There is more if you want,” said Jing-Li, his voice thicker and infinitely tempting. Then with a soft curse, the man leaned forward and abruptly jerked Zhi-Gang’s foot forward. Unbalanced, Zhi-Gang half hopped, half stumbled to the bed, then waited in resigned silence as his friend pulled the sliver out of his foot.

  “Jing-Li,” Zhi-Gang pressed when the procedure was finished. “Where is the opium?”

  His friend ignored him, choosing instead to twist sideways and grab another pipe, one that had fallen beside the bed, obviously used by the captain. Some of the powder still smoked at the far end. Zhi-Gang would have snatched the pipe away and smashed it as well, but Jing-Li’s nimble fingers twirled it out of reach before he popped the end into his mouth.

  “More for me,” he said, then closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

  Zhi-Gang felt his hands clench into fists. He could demand the truth. Under normal circumstances, Zhi-Gang could beat his friend in a fight. But what would be the point? Jing-Li had been smoking for at least an hour now. Even half-blind, Zhi-Gang could pin his friend in seconds; but to what end? The opium numbed Jing-Li’s sensation to pain. Even a broken bone might not be enough to force Jing-Li to give up the location of his stash.

  Fortunately, there were less direct ways of getting what he wanted. And besides, who could blame the man for taking one night’s escape from reality? With the Emperor’s incarceration, Jing-Li had lost everything—his good friend, his money, even his family. All of that had been abandoned on this flight to the south. At least Zhi-Gang had been poor as a child. He was used to privations and the endless pressure to succeed. Not so the wealthy, titled, and pampered Jing-Li.

  With a sigh, Zhi-Gang turned his back on his friend and slipped out of the captain’s chamber. He shouldn’t have allowed Jing-Li to hide from his enemies as a servant. The Enforcer could have traveled with a friend or companion. Except that Zhi-Gang had never traveled with anyone but his servants, and often not even them. He worked alone, judged and executed the guilty alone. A companion would have been noticed by the Dowager Empress’s spies. Jing-Li would have been discovered and killed.

  So Jing-Li had become just another servant, while his friend the Enforcer continued searching for opium dealers, this time in Jiangsu. It was all perfectly normal, all perfectly hidden from their enemies. And truthfully, Zhi-Gang enjoyed the companionship. Well, he enjoyed his companion when Jing-Li was sober.

  With a vehement curse, Zhi-Gang put on his glasses and began a slow, laborious search of the boat. He would find his friend’s stash and he would destroy it. And then Jing-Li would return to the careful, intelligent scholar he once was. Away from temptation, starting in a new life outside of the Peking pleasure palaces, Jing-Li would become the man he was meant to
be.

  It took hours, but Zhi-Gang discovered the opium stash. It was in Sister Marie’s tiny private locker. He should have looked there first, but he hadn’t wanted to accept the truth. He had searched the rest of the boat, through the crew quarters and every nook and cranny imaginable. But in the end, he had surrendered to the inevitable.

  He pulled out the runner’s bag, seeing that it was only half full. Lifting it to his nose, he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He smelled the sweet stench of opium, wet hemp from the coarse fabric, and overlaying it all, Sister Marie’s unique scent. All hope that she was truly a nun died at that moment. She was a drug-runner and therefore doomed to death.

  Moving wearily through the boat, he made his way to the back and the deepest part of the river. He stood at the railing, staring into the black night, but in his mind’s eye, he saw Sister Marie. He remembered every moment of their time together, reliving her defiance, her bold sensuality, and even that time when he watched her curled tightly in sleep. She was a beauty, he realized, and the kind of woman he had searched through all of China to find.

  Then he threw the bag of opium overboard. It hit the water and began to sink to the bottom of the Grand Canal. As Zhi-Gang slowly pulled off his glasses, he visualized the fascinating Sister Marie. And he watched her drown beside her illegal bag of opium.

  “You lived here?” Jing-Li sneered. “What a pig’s bottom!”

  The two servants trailing behind them on this ox-track road nodded in agreement, but Zhi-Gang said nothing. Jing-Li was finally coming out of his post-opium stupor, which meant he would be critical and irritating for at least a day. As they were supposedly on an official government visit to the village of Huai’an in the province of Jiangsu, the man’s disdain only backed up their story. It did nothing to alleviate Zhi-Gang’s particularly black mood.

  Huai’an was a pig’s bottom of a village. Even without his glasses, Zhi-Gang could see the truth. It was muddy, shaped like a flea, and smelled of manure. The dirty-faced villagers gaped, expressions showing broken and foul teeth. Their minds were dull and their children naked. That he had been born in such a place revolted him. That he might still be here if his father hadn’t committed a heinous sin twisted his thoughts into darker and darker veins.