The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure (87 page)

She heard the whisper through her shock. Her first unconscious reaction was one of anger at the fright Mary had caused her, but she calmed herself. ‘Good girl,' she said encouragingly. ‘Go quietly to Mother Liu's floor and wait for me there. I won't be long.'

After she had got out to the courtyard, she relaxed. She moved quickly down the path into the next courtyard. The willows were rustling in the slight breeze. She paused to look into Major Lin's pavilion, her home for the last two years. The windows were dark. Major Lin was not there. She passed into the last courtyard, along the avenue of lanterns, over the ornamental bridge, until she could see the shape of the gatehouse. The night-watchman's light was shining faintly. Plucking up her courage, she tapped on his window. ‘Lao Chen,' she called, in as firm a voice as she could muster. ‘Lao Chen.'

‘Who is it?' came a sleepy reply. A coarse, heavy-browed face peered out at her, and smiled when its owner recognised her. ‘Fan Jiejie,' he greeted her. ‘What are you doing here at this time of night?'

‘I've come with a message from Mother Liu,' she said. ‘You're to expect visitors. Secret ones. Some time after midnight.'

‘Not another midnight call,' he said wearily. ‘I suppose I'm to make myself scarce like the last time?'

She had not been expecting this, but she immediately saw the opportunity. ‘That's right,' she said. ‘You can go home early. I'm to stay here by the gate to let them in.'

‘All these secret goings-on,' he muttered. ‘This could be the lodge for a Brotherhood, the way things have been happening here lately. What's it all about, then? Let me see, only two—no, three nights ago, it was the same thing. But then it was Mother Liu herself who came down and relieved me.' His brows furrowed with suspicion. ‘Here, why's she sent you and not come herself to tell me? Or sent her son?'

‘I can't tell you that, Lao Chen. They're both closeted in the house discussing something with that bandit, Iron Man Wang. I don't know what it's about—but she asked me to show you this.' From her sash she untied a string of jade beads, which earlier she had removed from Mother Liu's room. She had expected that she would have to show some evidence to prove her story.

‘All right, I recognise them. Iron Man Wang, is it? Well, it must be serious. Don't think I want to know what's going on, after all. Give me a moment to get my things. Can't imagine what my wife will say when I wake her up two nights in one week.'

He grumbled off, and she sat down to wait on his straw bed. The hours went by.

With sinking heart, she began to fear that Ma Na Si might have been wrong, and Major Lin was not coming after all. She could not imagine what they would do.

*   *   *

Henry was pacing the gallery when Airton stepped out of his room. ‘It's half past two,' he said coldly.

‘Is it?' replied Henry, in the same tone.

‘I don't think your Major Lin is coming,' said the doctor.

Henry continued to pace.

‘Well, what are we going to do? What's your plan?' Airton pushed him.

‘We'll give it until three.' Henry sighed.

‘Then what?'

‘We'll leave on our own.'

‘I see. So we just walk out of here. Children. Women. One of them extremely sick—that's thanks to you by the way. We walk out past Iron Man Wang and his men, and then what? Assuming we get there, do we overpower the guards at the city gates?'

‘We go through the back-streets to the Millwards' compound. That should be deserted now. We hide there and somehow get a message to the
yamen
. Maybe we send Fan Yimei. Sorry, Doctor, that's the best plan I can think of.'

‘Brilliant,' said Airton.

‘Would you rather we stayed here?'

‘I'm aware that is not an option, again thanks to you and your bargain with the Mandarin. Or should I say my bargain with the Mandarin? Well, it's all gone very, very wrong, hasn't it?'

‘The best-laid plans…' murmured Henry.

‘Aye, “of mice and men”. You disgust me, Manners, you and your cynical manipulation of our lives.'

‘I'll remind you that we still have our lives,' said Henry softly. ‘Don't give up now, Doctor.'

Airton turned abruptly and reentered his room. ‘Nellie, dear, you'd better pack,' he addressed his wife, loudly enough for Henry to hear. ‘Mr Manners has a plan.'

Henry continued to pace.

*   *   *

She was intending to leave when she heard the thump on the gate. Nervously, she lifted the spyhole. She saw horses and gleaming leather in the lantern light. Her heart thumped with relief.

As anticipated, Major Lin was there with some of his men, but he was also accompanied by a white-haired old man. She recognised him immediately. All the girls feared him. They knew of his perverted tastes and were not fooled by the smiling eyes in his deceptively saintlike face. This was the Mandarin's chamberlain, whom she had seen many times in the brothel. He was also, she realised with a sinking feeling, a long-standing friend of Mother Liu. Immediately she began to revise in her mind the story she had to tell. There could be no hiding the fact that Mother Liu was a captive upstairs—but that might be explained, she thought, if she told them that the foreigners had become suspicious of her and had acted foolishly out of excessive caution. It would be fatal, she realised, if this man were to discover the extent of what had happened, especially that Ren Ren had been killed. Chamberlain Jin might refuse to obey whatever instructions the Mandarin had given him.

He and Major Lin were initially suspicious when they saw that it was she and not Mother Liu who greeted them at the gate. They interrogated her closely, but accepted her story. Chamberlain Lin was amused, in fact, by her version of Mother Liu's humiliation. ‘Bound and gagged?' He laughed, maliciously. ‘And tied to a bed? Oh, I look forward to seeing this.'

She led the chamberlain, Major Lin and two of his men down the pathway through the still courtyards. All of the men, even the soldiers, were wearing cotton shoes, but the wood creaked as they climbed the dark stairs. Major Lin was holding his sword, and the soldiers their bayonets. If any of Iron Man's men had the ill-fortune to encounter them on their progress through the house, they intended their dispatch to be quiet. Warily, they crept along the lighted passage on the third floor, but there was no sound from any of the rooms except a few rumbling snores.

Fan Yimei lifted the hanging that hid the last flight to Mother Liu's private quarters, and they filed upwards.

They found the foreign party apparently already marshalled to leave. Gathered in the gallery, Nellie and Mary were supporting a drooping Helen Frances, who appeared half asleep, the doctor was in the act of picking up his medical bag and a small portmanteau, and Henry was taking the lantern off the wall.

‘Thank God. Thank God,' exclaimed the doctor, when he saw Fan Yimei, followed in quick succession by Chamberlain Jin, and a soldier. The others were still on the stairs. ‘They've come after all. We're saved.'

Then Major Lin stepped into the lamplight.

The nodding Helen Frances lifted her head at that moment and saw him. He was smiling. A crooked, wolfish smile. Her eyes widened with terror, her body shook uncontrollably, and she made little moaning sounds. Frantically, she tried to twist out of Nellie and Mary's grasp, but she had no power over her legs. She slumped to her knees, body shuddering, back arching.

‘Edward, do something,' cried Nellie. ‘I can't control her. She's having a fit.'

Hurriedly Airton groped in his medical bag for a syringe. George and Jenny, frozen where they were standing, stared in amazement. Henry, his face ugly with rage, made a rush towards the major, controlling himself only at the last minute. His eyes blazing with hatred, his fists clenched, he stood stock still in front of his enemy, who contemplated him calmly, his lips still curled in the cruel, lopsided smile.

‘What an interesting effect you have on these foreigners, Major Lin,' was the chamberlain's languid observation. ‘I would have expected them to be pleased to see you in their circumstances. But it appears to be rather the contrary. What could you have done to make them dislike you so?'

Major Lin had noticed Mary. He pointed a gloved finger. ‘Who's she?' he barked.

Dr Airton looked up worriedly from where he was kneeling beside Helen Frances. She was sobbing on the floor, supported by Nellie. It would take a little while for the morphine to have an effect. ‘Major, this young girl is a friend,' he said carefully. ‘She's a victim of kidnapping who is now under my protection. I intend that we take her with us.'

‘That is impossible,' said Major Lin curtly. ‘She is not covered by my orders.'

Dr Airton rose to his full height. ‘I insist,' he said, in the firmest voice he could muster. The effect was rather muted by the frantic appeal in his eyes, and his quivering lips.

Major Lin ignored him. He turned to give an order to one of his soldiers.

‘None of us will leave without her,' said Airton shrilly. ‘I insist she comes, Major Lin.'

Major Lin turned his sardonic expression back on him. ‘You are in no position to insist on anything,' he said scornfully.

‘Oh, Major, why wrangle?' said Chamberlain Jin. ‘What's one more or less? This is wasting valuable time, but before I go I must pay my respects to Mother Liu. Indeed, I have been looking forward to that ever since your young lady told me about her embarrassing predicament.'

Major Lin lifted his chin in a curt order to his concubine. ‘Go on. Take him to her. Quickly.'

Henry and the doctor exchanged a worried glance. ‘I would not advise that,' Henry tried. ‘Mother Liu is resting and has left strict instructions not to be disturbed.'

Chamberlain Jin smiled as he moved past him. ‘Oh, Ma Na Si Xiansheng, please. I know exactly the sort of rest you have prepared for Mother Liu. Please don't worry. I won't disturb her in any way. That would spoil an otherwise excellent joke.'

They watched as he followed Fan Yimei into the chamber, and were relieved when he stepped out again a moment later without their prisoner.

‘I owe you my thanks, Ma Na Si. I had never expected to be so entertained during what I imagined would be a desperate getaway. Such an angry look she gave me! “The wounded tigress glares at the hunters who would take away her cubs.” By the way, where is her cub? You haven't tied up Ren Ren as well, have you? What a pity. That would have been perfection. Never mind. I am rather relieved that he is not here. No doubt he is out burning villages and slaughtering peasants with his Boxer friends as he likes to do. Such an angry young man. Oh, how comical she looked in her rage! She was furious when I paid out the taels owed her for your accommodation and left them on the table. And she couldn't even haggle. Such fury in a woman's eyes!'

‘Chamberlain,' snapped Major Lin, ‘we must leave if we are to reach the railway before daylight.'

‘Of course. Of course,' smiled Jin Lao. ‘But are the foreigners ready? This young woman appears to be sleeping. They seem remarkably reluctant to make their escape.'

Major Lin gave an order, and the larger of his two soldiers lifted Helen Frances over his shoulder. Neither Airton nor his wife protested. In her unconscious state this seemed as good a way to move Helen Frances as any other. Nellie gathered her children to her, and the party, frightened but relieved finally to be leaving this terrible hiding-place with its horrific memories, followed the soldiers down the stairs, and onwards through the sleeping house.

Fortune for the moment was with them. They encountered no obstacles on their way.

*   *   *

Outside the gates, among the troopers' horses, the familiar hay cart awaited them.

They clattered through the quiet streets. At the city gates there was the usual altercation with the guards, but this time they appeared cowed by the presence of Chamberlain Jin, whom they saw uncomfortably, and unaccountably, mounted on one of Lin's horses.

The fugitives huddled under the hay, thinking of the similar journey they had experienced only days before. So many tragedies had befallen them since, and none knew what the future would hold. They had escaped the city, but uncertainty lay ahead. They had been freed from their cage in the Palace of Heavenly Pleasure, but the wider countryside they could sense around them was filled with unimaginable perils. What escape could there be when the whole country raged with rebellion? Where might they find protection when every hand was raised against the detested foreigner? They knew that they were making for the railway camp. That was what Major Lin had told them. That was enough to think about for now.

The convoy hurried through the night.

They arrived at the railway camp as a dull morning dawned over the misty fields.

*   *   *

Su Liping woke with a start. Blearily she focused on her surroundings. She had a headache and she was disoriented. She badly needed a piss. She saw Iron Man spreadeagled on his back. Idly she wondered why Fan Yimei was not there with him. The stealing bitch, she thought, good riddance, and winced as she felt a throb of pain in her head.

The piss-pot in the room was full. She lurched down the corridor to the closet, and squatted on the hole. Her head felt terrible and she was nauseous.

Why was Fan Yimei not there? No girl left a client. That was Mother Liu's cardinal rule.

And what had she been doing with Mother Liu so late at night? Usually Fan Yimei never left Major Lin's pavilion. It was odd, she mused.

Then, with a shock, she remembered what that new girl, Phoenix, had told her. Mother Liu was ill and not to be disturbed. It was inconceivable that she would have asked for Fan Yimei when she was having one of her vapours. If she had wanted anyone, she would have come for Su Liping.