The Chinese Vase

by Steve Turnbull

  The boy took off like lightning dancing across the walkway. Qi hesitated but a moment, then set off after him.

  vi

  It was late evening when Qi, with Fanning tagging along, reached the Cold Heart: a traditional Irish pub run by one Jacob O’Donnell, relocated to one of the slums of Delhi. More precisely, O’Donnell claimed it was traditional; Qi had never even travelled as far as Persia, let alone Europe, so she took his word.

  She pushed through crowd of sailors and nodded to the ones she knew. The crew of the Jackanape did not seem to be here. The air was thick with smoke from cigarettes and pipes and filled with the noise of a hundred conversations, from clandestine whispers to raucous laughs. And the smell. Not something one could even begin to describe.

  There was a break in the crowd as she moved forward and she spotted the rest of her crew seated round a table towards the rear. Qi tried to squeeze past Ichiro’s muscled back. He stood and bowed to her; Terry and Remy grabbed their drinks as he knocked the table. Qi was still unable to get past. Laying her hand on his arm so he looked up at her, she gestured for him to move and he stepped to the side.

  Ding, on a bench seat against the wall, pushed up against Terry Montgomery. The moustachioed Australian managed to find some room against the dandy Frenchman. Qi sat, her leg pressing against Ding’s, her perch precarious on the end of the unpadded wooden bench.

  Fanning leaned back against the wall next to her and pulled out his pipe. In that position, the non-male appearance of his chest was even more obvious. Qi stared for a moment then shook her head. She saw Otto, Remy, and Terry staring as Fanning struck a match and took a pull on the pipe, which smoked satisfactorily.

  “This is Fanning,” she said by way of explanation. “He helped me earlier today.”

  Three sets of eyes, set into confused frowns, focused on her at the word he. She shrugged; a discussion of Fanning’s apparent gender did not seem polite with him standing there.

  She was still holding the box with the smuggled item. It was not something she could hide. Ichiro broke the silence in the only way he could; he reached out with his coal-grimed fingers and touched the box lightly, then turned his hand so the palm was uppermost and put his head on one side with a querying expression.

  Captain Qi sighed. She took Ichiro’s hand, hers only a fraction the size of his, and folded his fingers in her palm. She shook her head.

  “Problem, Captain?” asked Ding.

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Kuan-Yin Sun?”

  She nodded. “We just need to find another buyer.”

  Terry Montgomery took a drink from his pint mug. “Why don’t you just sell through him, Captain?”

  “He is a criminal, Herr Montgomery,” said Otto. “We should not do business with him.”

  Montgomery responded in a quiet but insistent voice. “And we’re smugglers, Mr von Krone. And, in case you were unaware, that makes us criminals.”

  “He is more bad.”

  Qi put the palm of her hand down flat on the table and the bickering ceased. “I am the one who is smuggling. If anyone is a criminal, it’s me and me alone. You do not know anything about it.”

  “I dislike to bring up the subject, Capitaine, but our wages are due.”

  “You’ll get your share from the sale of the cargo tomorrow, Monsieur Darras.”

  “But it will not be enough if you cannot dispose of all of the cargo.” He nodded at the box.

  “You’ll get everything you’re due.”

  * * * * *

  Ding walked beside Qi as they headed back to the ship through dark streets lit by the occasional electric streetlamp. The air was dense with heat and moisture. Qi glanced back and saw Fanning still following a few paces behind like an obedient dog. An obedient dog smoking a pipe. Qi stopped in a puddle of light and turned. Fanning could only be seen as an outline.

  “Something I can do for you, Fanning?”

  “No, ma’am,” he replied. “But maybe there’s something we can do for each other, if I might be so bold as to suggest a course of action.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “I have a yearning for travel, Captain. I am a long way from home.” Fanning stood comfortably, feet apart, relaxed as if he had not a care in the world.

  “If I pay my crew I will have no money for fuel. If I do not pay them I will not have a crew. The Beauty isn’t going anywhere, so I don’t think I can help you.”

  Fanning took a step forward. In the light, his features looked even more feminine than usual. “And if I were to provide you with an alternative purchaser for your little trinket? Would that gain me passage aboard your fine vessel?”

  “If you were willing to work, then I believe the answer to that would be yes.”

  “Then let us find somewhere where we can talk privately.”

  vii

  The captain and Fanning headed back to the ship. Ding watched them moving away, passing in and out of the glowing yellow pools from the streetlights. The night was not quiet; here near the docks there was always something happening. A heavy steam tractor puffed by pulling a train of three trucks, on its way to the air-dock. A street walker called to him hopefully from the other side of the street. He shook his head, that was not a comfort he needed, and she drifted away into the night.

  It was possible for a person to walk the streets alone and be unmolested among the pick-pockets, street gangs and others who made their living in the dark—if they knew their business. Ding leaned back against the wall and pulled a clay pipe from inside his jacket, along with a tobacco pouch and matches. Smoking was the one pleasure he allowed himself, and then only when he wasn’t looking out for Qi.

  He had been first mate aboard the Beauty for all of Qi’s captaincy, and her father’s before that. Fifteen years, perhaps, since they began their life of semi-piracy on behalf of the Tiandihui clan. They had never stolen from another ship, and had killed only when there was no other choice. He was content enough with their record.

  He held the leather pouch open with one hand and dipped the pipe inside, gently packing the moist tobacco into the bowl until it was almost full. This was a good night to let the fumes fill his mind and relax him. With the pouch back in his pocket, he placed the pipe in his mouth and struck a match.

  The flaring light illuminated the outlines of a man’s face; he stood a short distance away, looking back at Ding.

  The first mate did not react, but raised the match to the bowl and sucked the air through, dragging the flame down onto the weed. The flame flared back at each puff, lighting the face that still watched him. The tobacco smouldered. Ding shook the match to extinguish the light and flung it to the ground.

  “Can I help you, Kuan-Yin Sun?” he said in Mandarin.

  “Your captain has forgotten herself, Dingbang Hsieh.”

  Ding levered himself from the wall and stood facing the shadow. He gave a bow that was just the right side of respectful but made it clear he did not think the recipient deserved the honour. “She was never your servant, Sun.”

  “She inherited the vessel, she inherits the debt.”

  “She is a spirit of the air. She will not be contained.”

  Kuan-Yin Sun stepped forward, bringing his wide frame into the light, while in the dark behind him three hulking bodyguards made their presence known.

  “We have known each other a long time, Dingbang,” he said. “I don’t need to tell you what the family will do to her if she fails to keep up the payments.”

  Ding was well aware how much the ‘family’ cared for people. Anyone who broke the rules met their ancestors too early. Sun watched him as if he could read the thoughts that played through his mind.

  “You need to persuade her, Dingbang,” he continued. “She will listen to you. You have her father’s authority.”

  “Only her father had that.”

  There was the sudden sound of heavy feet, iron boot-nails clicking on flagstones. More than one set of feet, more tha
n one person not afraid of the dark, heading in their direction. Both of them glanced towards the sound. Two uniformed police and another in the garb of a customs agent marched through the light of a lamp, heading in their direction.

  Sun backed into the shadow once more. “Listen to my words, Dingbang Hsieh. Captain Qi cannot fly, and she cannot sell the goods she has. I own this city. Prevail upon her, my friend; make her see sense and she will once more be able to fly in the ship that she loves so much.”

  And he was gone, as the thudding of boots on stone grew closer.

  The British were not afraid to be seen in the light and stopped in front of Ding. He bowed his head with the respect one gives to an unfriendly dog when one is unsure of its intentions.

  “You’re the mate from the Frozen Beauty.”

  Ding did not acknowledge the recognition, but he did not deny it. Constable Templeton and he were acquainted.

  “Who was that you were talking to?”

  “He is a Chinaman like myself.”

  “It was Kuan-Yin Sun.”

  Ding took a long pull at his pipe and allowed the smoke to tickle his throat before letting it out gently.

  “What did he want?”

  “He wanted to know when my captain intended to take the ship out again.”

  “Did he now?”

  Templeton glanced in the direction Sun had headed. “I wonder what he’s up to.”

  Ding found it convenient to ignore rhetorical statements, particularly those that came from people with authority. Templeton returned his attention to Ding.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “My captain is an air spirit.”

  Templeton hesitated and then harrumphed. Ding suspected he had not a single whit of poetry in his heart. Possibly he had no heart at all.

  “All right, well, you better get along.”

  Ding had met many men like Templeton, not just British but of all nations: men who felt they must control, because if they did not, then somehow they were the victim. They were easy to deal with; one simply did as they wanted. As long as they were in sight.

  Ding nodded his head once more and headed off in the direction of the air-dock while Templeton and his associates turned away to follow Sun’s trail. Sun would be long gone by now, and they would never find where he had gone. Of that much Ding was certain.

  viii

  The sun had barely broached the horizon and all the city streets were still in shadow. The air was the coolest it would be for this day, and almost refreshing—save for the stink of the effluent that ran through the open sewers.

  Fanning led the way through the back streets, between buildings that seemed to fold in over Qi and her. Balconies protruded in haphazard patterns; women and children leaned out over the railings and called across to neighbours.

  Behind Fanning walked the captain. They had come to an agreement: if Fanning could get a buyer for the package, Qi would let Fanning take passage on the Beauty—as long as she was willing to work. It was a good deal as far as Fanning was concerned. She was tired of Delhi, and the lack of any enquiry as to her gender status, even in private, showed the captain to be a person of good manners.

  They had talked until the early hours when Ding had come in and related his encounters.

  As the sky had turned pink with the dawn they had made their way through the shadows of the air-docks. The captain had taken a complicated route with the intention of evading both criminals and customs.

  Fanning retraced the steps she had taken the previous day when pawning the woman’s jewellery. As they travelled, the buildings around them changed from tenements to warehouses and factories. They passed over a river flowing through the city and under the tube railway elevated on brickwork arches that spanned the flowing water. On each bank, at opposite ends of the span, stood the pumping stations pushing pressurised air into the tubes.

  They reached the far side of the river and climbed the slope into a pleasanter region of the city. The roads became wider and cleaner, with sewer pipes below the surface. The buildings were more solid, more ornate; their glass-filled windows were wider.

  At this time of the morning there were few people on the streets, and those were involved in commerce of one sort or another. They did not judge her looks any more than Qi’s Chinese features because they themselves were just as varied.

  The door to the pawn shop was locked tight when they arrived, but Fanning was not put off. They circled round to the end of the shops, passed down an alley wide enough for a cart, and made their way to the rear of the building.

  A young Chinese woman was brushing dust from the red-tiled steps onto the bricks which had been laid in a herringbone pattern at the rear. Low walls separated each of the shops’ yards, and there were double-width doors for loading at the back of each building. Three shops down, a large cart stood close against the building and boxes of fruit were being taken inside.

  The girl ceased brushing and eyed them suspiciously.

  Fanning approached her and gave her a smile guaranteed to win the heart of any woman. “Is your master in, pretty one?”

  She paused a moment to regard Fanning’s features, then turned her head towards the darkness beyond and shouted some words in Mandarin. Fanning glanced at Qi, who shrugged.

  There was a wait. The girl continued to study Fanning, but hers wasn’t the face of someone enamoured: more the look of someone trying to recall a word for a crossword clue. Fanning took a step back as a robed figure emerged from the darkness beyond the door.

  In the daylight, Fanning saw that the robe she had assumed was black was a very dark green, and of cotton rather than silk. The shop-owner took in Fanning, his eyes sliding across her features without comment and then moving to Qi in her aviator’s clothes. His eyes returned to Fanning.

  “Is this Mrs Devonshire?”

  “You might say this is another Mrs Devonshire, sir.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I do not think I am in business for this Mrs Devonshire.”

  “You have not seen what she has to offer.” Fanning gestured to Qi, who stepped forward and lifted the box.

  The man took a step back as if he’d been threatened with a knife and raised his hand to defend himself. “I am not in business for Captain Qi.”

  “You have not even seen what she has to offer.”

  “It does not matter. I do not wish to buy,” he said quickly. “I would not want it even if it were free.”

  “Someone been talking to you?” asked Fanning.

  The Chinaman made no comment.

  “Someone been threatening you?”

  At that moment a police whistle shrieked. As one they turned. Across the low walls Fanning saw the policeman blowing hard on his whistle to summon assistance.

  Fanning looked back at the building but both the Chinaman and the girl were gone, having disappeared into the black interior.

  “Let’s go!” shouted Fanning and took off down the back alley. Qi was taller; she took more time to get into motion but Fanning could hear her footsteps as she loped along behind.

  Fanning placed her feet as carefully as she could manage, as they charged down the cobbled path. Cobblestones could be so treacherous. She glanced ahead. Faces peered out from the shops and upper windows but no one shouted. The whistle sounded intermittently from behind them; the policeman was undoubtedly in pursuit, trying to blow the whistle while he ran.

  Fanning spotted a tiny alley to the right and took it. The more corners they could put between themselves and the police, the better. The alley passed under the building and then out again. It emptied into some kind of scrap-metal yard where their way was barred by a tall gate with a padlock. Fanning threw herself at it and made it halfway up. She climbed fast, fell over the top and landed on the other side.

  Qi couldn’t climb holding the box, and behind her the policeman had reached the far end of the alley.

  “Throw it,” shouted Fanning. Qi hesitated for only a moment, judged the distance, and tossed t
he box. Without further hesitation she began to climb. Fanning watched the box arc over the gate and grabbed it with a smooth swinging motion.

  Once the box was safe, Fanning leapt away through the maze of piled and rusting metal. She heard the soft thud of Qi’s feet landing and the shrill blasts of the policeman’s whistle muffled by the covered alley. Moments later they reached the edge of the river. They slowed and Fanning looked both ways. The bridge they had used before was closest, but she turned away from it and headed in the other direction with Captain Qi at her side.

  ix

  Sunlight broke into a million shards across the surface of the river. Boats crisscrossed its surface: sailing ships large and small, fishing boats, family boats, steamers, and ferry boats. And in the heart of the river sat the unbalanced monstrosity of HMS Kilimanjaro—a ship that was obsolete before she was completed: A water-borne vessel with a Faraday device at her heart. The warship, bristling with artillery, floated as high in the water as one of the ferry boats that steamed past her a dozen times a day. Her stacks churned out smoke and steam all day and night. If her Faraday device failed for even the shortest time she would sink into the mud of the river, never to be recovered.

  At first glance the Kilimanjaro looked like an ordinary Royal Navy battleship, only much bigger, with a complement of nearly two thousand men. But this was a ship that could navigate any river that was wide enough with almost no regard to its depth. She had been commissioned to support British foreign policy: when the Servants of the Crown didn’t like the way a small government was behaving they would send in the gunboats. But, by the time the Kilimanjaro had been completed, the Royal Navy was almost exclusively air- and void-borne. So here she stayed, watching over the capital of India, a slumbering monster that could fire on any opponent within twenty miles. No one knew, save perhaps her crew, whether she was capable of movement along the river any more.

  Fanning led the way along the riverside as the sun steadily mounted in the sky and the heat became almost intolerable.