A HAZARD OF HEARTS

by Frances Burke

  Again he held up his hand. ‘Wait, friends. We’re all reasonable folk. We do not return blow for blow, harm for harm. A life has been taken. Very well. But we are not monsters to demand a life in revenge. Let us simply remove the killer from our society. Let us –’

  ‘Run her out of town,’ someone shouted.

  ‘Yes. Yes. Run her out of town.’

  The mob halted, then took up the refrain. ‘Out of town. Out of town.’ They surged forward.

  The women got to her first. ‘We’ll fix her before she goes. Child-killer!’

  Old Susan, feebly protesting, was hustled to the rear, while Mollie O’Bannion ran forward and spat in Elly’s face. Others held her down as several more brandished shears with which they attacked her braids. Elly screamed and struggled madly but couldn’t break free. The shears clashed, one blade carelessly gashing her forehead as it tore at the silken strands now falling about her neck. She ceased to scream, her horror too great for expression. She felt blood drip down over her ear, heard the hissing breath of her tormentors, smelt their rank sweat. She closed her eyes against the faces, the awful faces.

  At last they finished. The women fell back and Elly was dragged to her feet, then shoved and jostled along the crooked street, Harwood at her side, guard and guardian, protecting her from physical attack. How kind. She swallowed hysterical laughter. Accuser, judge and jury, but unwilling to be branded executioner. She stumbled along in a daze.

  They passed the hotel where the mongrel slept under the boarded verandah, where less than a month ago she had slaved to save these people and their dear ones. Past Bessie Flaxman’s cabin, where Bessie lay obediently resting a leg that she would never use fully again. Past the pathway to her own cabin. Here Elly halted but was roughly forced on again. Then the realisation came to her. They truly meant to run her out of town, without preparation, without food or water, or even a hat to keep off the fierce sun. But they couldn’t! They wouldn’t do it to an animal.

  Looking ahead she saw the street straggle to an end, vanishing into the encroaching bush. It was so vast, so impenetrable, unbroken miles of trees and undergrowth, save for the stony track winding away towards a limitless horizon. Heat, dust and incredible loneliness. That’s what lay ahead of her. A desolate road to oblivion.

  She stopped suddenly so that Harwood cannoned into her.

  ‘Listen to me,’ she began.

  In answer, he gave her a push, strong enough to make her trip. She fell hard, grazing her hands on the stones, twisting her ankle under her. As she picked herself up she heard her skirt tear at the waist. Slowly she brushed away the clinging dirt, tested her weight on her ankle. It twinged but it was bearable. Then she raised her chin and faced her tormentor.

  ‘Keep moving. And don’t think you can sneak back after dark,’ he warned. ‘There’ll be nothing left of your home by then. We’ll burn it down.’ He forced her on.

  About half a mile down the track he called a halt.

  By now the crowd had dwindled to ten men plus a couple of the more energetic women, still buoyed by mob excitement and a hope of more drama to come.

  Harwood pulled Elly around to face him. ‘This is far enough.’

  She returned his look calmly, forcing down her despair. For her the mob had faded away. They were only pack animals, vicious when led. This man was the enemy.

  ‘You’re sending me to my death. I can’t survive without provisions or a horse. You know how far it is to the nearest township.’

  For a moment the pale eyes lit, and she saw in them real hatred, for the things she’d said about him, for seeing through him. Then he smiled, saying softly, ‘We are always in God’s hands. Let it be your comfort – while you live.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  The mission squatted on a hillside a mile from the village, its bareness contrasting with the stepped green paddy fields and farmlets of a lush river valley noted for its abundant harvests. The mud brick walls of the dispensary, chapel and living quarters which supported themselves in lopsided fashion around an unpaved courtyard appeared to be slowly crumbling into the earth. Shutters dating back to the early Ming Dynasty hung awry, letting in the winter winds and, in summer, the monsoonal rains. Roof tiles were chipped or lost altogether. Any attempt to grow trees in the hard-packed earth had failed, while a row of empty flower pots only added to the starkness.

  Nature’s one concession within the walls was a persimmon tree, sheltered by the eastern gate. It had survived against all odds and in summer became a miracle of glossy green leaves and golden globes of fruit. The rest of the mission remained, botanically speaking, a desert in a sea of plenty. With its air of brave isolation, it was shunned by most villagers until someone needed the Red Hair doctor, while the few converts wisely kept a low profile. Imperial edicts forbidding Christian worship remained in force and all rights of foreign trade and residence were confined to the seaport of Shanghai, many miles down the Yangtse River.

  Pearl knew this as well as her foster parents, Ada and Morris Carter, representatives of the London Missionary Society. These stalwart medical pioneers in the Land of Sinim had, for five years, run a clinic and dispensary. When added to the evangelical work and everyday chores this left little time for gardening or repairs, at which the doctor and his wife were particularly inept; and somehow, little prospered under the hands of hired workers. Yet the Carters maintained their cheerful determination and persevered with God’s work.

  Like her foster parents, Pearl accepted the inherent risks of running the mission. However, unlike the Carters, Pearl was a fatalist. She didn’t expect the current peace to last. Sold into slavery at five years old by her natural mother, used as everything from pot-scourer to bed-warmer, then bought and fostered by a largely incomprehensible white couple who introduced her to the first comfort and consideration she’d ever known, Pearl kept her own counsel. Circumstances had made her pragmatic. She accepted the kindness, the new God and the training in nursing skills, while squirreling away small valuables and practicing self-defence techniques against the day when the axe would inevitably fall.

  It fell one cold January day while she worked in the dispensary making up a wound poultice for a patient. Her glossy black braid hung down over the collar of her warm padded jacket, thumping her lightly as she pounded her pestle, and for perhaps the thousandth time she called down a blessing on the foreigners who cared for her. She had rice in her belly, a sleeping mattress of her own, and no expectation of blows and curses if she failed to please. In return, she worked carefully and meticulously, while holding in her heart an inarticulate love for the woman who tried to mother her.

  Her own family had been lost to her so long ago she never thought about them. The one exception was Li Po, her older brother. Him she remembered – a boy carelessly affectionate towards an unwanted girl child, saving her titbits from his meals, helping her small stumbling feet across ditches in the paddy fields, until the day he left for the great distant city of Nanking, never to return.

  She stopped work to inspect the mash of yarrow leaves in the mortar, then spun around as, without warning, the window shutters banged back and a man sprang into the room, shouting and brandishing a sword. His coarse short hair held by a bandanna and his loose jerkin and breeches belted with a sash proclaimed the stranger.

  Pearl froze, her usual technique when under attack.

  ‘Death to all Manchu pigs. The assailant rolled his eyes and swung the sword high.

  ‘I’m not Manchu.’ All the same, Pearl dropped the pestle and scuttled under the work bench. Her accent was quite different from his. Maybe he had not understood.

  The sword stayed high while the man hesitated.

  Pearl peeped out at him. ‘Look, my feet are not bound. I am a servant.’ She thrust out a small, sturdy foot in its leather slipper.

  ‘Come out.’

  She sidled from beneath the bench, keeping her distance.

  Not liking the man’s expression, she put a convincing whine in her voice t
hen dragged her jacket away from her neck to expose the brand on her upper arm. ‘See? I bear the slave mark. I am but a lowly cockroach in the house of the yi.’

  He nodded and, lowering the sword, looked around. His fierce expression changed to one of disgust. Clearly there were no valuables here to be scavenged.

  ‘Where is the gold? Show me it.’

  ‘What gold? We have nothing of value, except salves and potions for the sick.’ Pearl spread her arms wide, wondering whether she could keep the man here while she alerted the mission. Was he a one-man invasion, or were there other raiders with him?

  Then in the yard outside she heard the outcry, screams and shouts and the clash of weapons. It rose to a clamour that seemed to rock the walls. Voices chanted above the hubbub, broken now and then by a horrible wailing. It drew a mental picture of terror that made Pearl’s skin crawl.

  ‘What’s happening? Who are you?’ She lunged for the door but was caught by her braid and dragged back.

  The man said, ‘I am a Triad brother of the Tai Ping, the Great Peace. We bring death to the Manchu usurpers and peace to our land under the new Heavenly Emperor.’ He spoke as if by rote, not with conviction.

  ‘Peace? That doesn’t sound like peace. Why are you attacking the mission?’

  ‘We sweep the land clear before us. We make way for the true Emperor.’

  Pearl wasn’t listening. In a sudden brief lull in the uproar she heard a familiar woman’s voice. She tore at his fingers. ‘Let me go. I must know what’s happening.’ Twisting unexpectedly, she freed herself and sprang towards the door, then stood transfixed.

  In the courtyard bodies lay in pools of blood on the hard-packed earth. More bodies were crammed in the gateway, slain as they fled, one figure even hanging over the high wall, legs dangling disconsolately like those of the rag doll her foster mother had given her to try and resurrect a childhood that had never existed. Two or three attackers busily looted their victims, while the rest chased after the mission workers fleeing downhill towards the village.

  ‘My mother!’ Pearl put a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream. She’d seen the pile of petticoats flung in a heap across the hospital step a few feet away, the arms out-thrown as if in supplication. But where the head had been only a bleeding stump remained. Ada Carter had died trying to protect her patient. Straddling her was a giant of a man, his boots carelessly planted on his victim’s skirt to reveal an immodest amount of stockinged leg. He had dropped his bloodied blade to tear the small gold hoop earrings from the severed head.

  Pearl’s mind went blank. All her senses failed her. The courtyard disappeared, the distant screams faded, the smell of blood and fear no longer existed. For one blinding instant she was pure pain. A great crimson sea rolled in, swamping her, and on a tide of insane rage she surged forward, stooped to grasp the fallen sword with both hands then swung it high to arc down on the arm holding that grotesque trophy. Arm and head fell to the ground. The giant spun to face her, his expression one of total astonishment. Blood pumped from the hole in his shoulder, hosing the soil and the corpse of his victim. Then something hit Pearl on the side of the head and thrust her into oblivion.

  ~*~

  She woke to darkness and pain down the left side of her face and neck, and the smell of cook-fires. Frosted stars hung overhead and a cold wind stirred her hair. Voices came from shadows clumped around the fires, giving her another clue. Many men and many fires. This was a camp. She was surrounded by the rebel army, a prisoner. Why had they taken her but slain the others... her mother... her mother... Acid tears burned her eyes. She brushed them aside, fiercely, then discovered her wrists were bound together with a thong.

  A voice, not familiar, but not wholly strange, either, said, ‘Rise up, woman, and come to the fire.’

  Stiff and bruised, Pearl got slowly to her feet. The movement caused the wound on the side of her head to start seeping and she felt warmth trickle down her neck as she walked into the firelight. A tripod sat over the flames where a man squatted stirring a bubbling pot and Pearl recognised her attacker, the Triad who had wanted to cut her down. When he rose he seemed even taller than she remembered. She had to tip back her head to meet his eyes.

  ‘You, servant woman, are now my slave. I am a leader of fifty men. You will give me honour.’

  Pearl said nothing. It had always been safer to maintain silence and be watchful.

  Perhaps the man took this for defiance, for he stepped forward and slapped her face. Head ringing like a temple gong, Pearl fell to her knees, her hands rising to her wound as she felt the blood trickle increase to a flow.

  ‘Get up, slave. Serve the meal.’ The Triad plucked a knife from his sash, and Pearl flinched, before meeting his gaze. He laughed as he cut the thong around her wrists. ‘Disobey and I will slit your nostrils.’ He turned aside, ignoring her.

  Dragging herself upright, Pearl crossed to the fire. A wooden bowl and spoon lay there, and she served the savoury stew of what smelt like chicken and root vegetable, taking it to where her captor lolled on a pile of bedding, presenting it subserviently. ‘Your meal, honoured master.’ Her tone was conciliatory. He could not see her eyes beneath lowered lids.

  He grunted, dismissing her. Others came to the pot to help themselves, some glancing at their leader’s new acquisition, most simply interested in the food. Pearl crouched in the darkness beyond the circle of firelight, waiting for the scourings of the pot, if anything was left after the others had eaten.

  However her thoughts were not on food. The picture of her mother’s dead face, hanging by the hair from that animal’s fingers, would not leave her mind. The pain in her heart was so great, far worse than her torn scalp. It was living agony, like the gnawing teeth of a trapped animal, gouging into her flesh, destroying her.

  In the darkest hour of the windy night she drew within herself, into that stillness of the spirit that no-one else can touch, and there silently she swore a great oath:

  ‘By the spirits of my ancestors whom I have not known, by all the Gods of heaven and earth, and by Jesus Christ, Son of the Most High God, I swear I will escape this slavery and avenge my parents’ deaths. I swear this by... by my mother’s Book of Holy Writings, and may I die in torment if I do not fulfil this oath.’ She touched a finger to the bloody ooze at her temple, then drew it across her lips. A life for a life, if necessary.

  The heart pain eased a little, allowing her to think. The man who had cut down her mother could not have lived long, with his life-blood pumping from him like a river in spate. But he was only one. These others, these Tai Pings or Triads, this army of butchers were just as responsible. She knew her foster father must be dead, along with the mission workers. Why leave any witnesses to the slaughter? And she guessed the village would by now be a funeral pyre, with the animals and grain taken to feed the murderous hordes rolling across the countryside.

  Where were they headed? They must have a destination in mind, if they really planned to replace the Son of Heaven who ruled the world, the important part of it, China. Peking itself? Was it not many hundreds of li to the north? Her foster father had said so. Although, whether his words could be relied upon was a difficulty, since he had not succeeded in explaining to Pearl’s satisfaction how there could be two Sons of Heaven, one seated at the right hand of God the Father and the other upon the silken cushions of the Imperial throne. It was very confusing.

  Her new master summoned her and she obeyed, her eyes glinting balefully. Her moment would come.

  ~*~

  Pearl slipped easily back into the attitudes and responses of a slave. As long as she swiftly obeyed orders and hid her true feelings, she was treated well enough, although kept busy foraging for twigs and dung for the fires and for edibles for the pot. After she’d scoured this at night, laid out her master’s bedding, prepared his opium pipe, she was free to creep away to attend to her own toilette, with the proviso that she stay within call to assuage any bodily urges her master might still have after a long day�
��s march, or an even more tiring day of killing.

  Several more villages had fallen victim since the mission had been overrun. The other members of the Triad company clearly feared their leader too much to interfere with his spoil but they watched her. And since Pearl had discovered the enormous size of the army, of which her master’s group was an infinitesimal part, she’d given up any immediate plans for escape. Surrounded by some eighty thousand men, women and children, smothered in dust as she plodded along tied to the ox cart, she was lucky to see the sun and guess at her direction.

  From the first day she had been made to wear her braid tied up under a beaded cap, while her slight seventeen-year-old figure remained hidden under padded jacket and pants, so that everyone except the Triad’s men knew her as a young boy. When she dared to query the cap she was told, ‘These Tai Ping have strange ways. They are of the Hakka tribe in Kwangtung who wear their hair long and bound in a turban. Any man found with queue and shaven forehead is taken for a Manchu and sent to his ancestors.’

  ‘Why must I be a man?’ At the time Pearl was combing her master’s short locks and massaging his neck. He humoured her.

  ‘Because the leader, Hung Hsiu-ch’uan, has a new religion which permits him to smash the old gods yet forbids rape of females. The women and children of the camp live separately and march with us under guard. To stay with me, you must act as a man slave.’ He shrugged. ‘We are Triad. We march with the Tai Ping to overthrow the Manchu, but we do not follow their ways.’

  Pearl said softly, ‘Does Hung Hsiu-ch’uan say there shall be no violence practiced against the Red-Hair yi or innocent villagers?’

  He twisted about and caught her arm, bending it back painfully. Her face was inches from his, her gaze steady. ‘You grow bold, slave. I do as I will. And when the Imperial troops attack once more you will be glad these weaklings have the Triad beside them to make real war. The Emperor’s men take delight in delivering prisoners to the death of a thousand slices.’ He then forced her down on the mattress and took her, careless of his watching men.