The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure (78 page)

‘Colourful-looking lot, aren't they, Mr Cabot?' he said. ‘Sad to be born a heathen, don't you think? You know, I never had much time for China's famous five thousand years of civilisation. Hasn't seemed to have brought them very far, to my way of thinking.'

‘They're certainly not behaving in a very civilised way today,' Tom muttered, between panting breaths. ‘You know, I think it's time for another song.'

‘“Ilkley Moor” wouldn't be very appropriate now, sir.'

‘No, something more rousing,' said Tom. ‘Something to show them what we're made of.' He gathered his breath, and called over the procession to Septimus, ‘Millward! Do you know “Onward Christian Soldiers”?'

‘I certainly do,' called back Septimus. He lifted his lion-maned head and began to sing. His family, dutifully trained, joined in, and so, one by one, did the others. Even Fielding mouthed the words. The Christian clarion call to arms evoked by the thin voices rose above the drums and the horns, and there was a murmur in the crowd. Major Lin turned sideways on his horse, looked behind him and frowned, but he could do nothing about it. The chamberlain leaned his head out of his carriage. His long-nailed fingers hanging on the side of the palanquin began unconsciously to tap the rhythm of the tune. He smiled, thinking of the spectacle to come. A voice in the crowd shouted out, ‘Exterminate the foreigners! Save the Ch'ing!' but it was only one voice. The bulk of the crowd remained silent, watching, wondering.

The small band of pilgrims marched singing to their martyrdom.

*   *   *

They had slept late into the morning. The children were still sleeping when Nellie and Airton rose. He looked at his watch. It was well after noon.

‘Let them sleep on, Edward, they're exhausted, poor little things,' said Nellie.

They did their toilet. There was a wooden pail full of water and a ladle in one corner of the room, next to an ample chamber pot. When they were dressed, they sat on the bed. There seemed little else to do. ‘I'm a mite hungry,' said Nellie. ‘Do you think we could ask that awful woman to make us some food?' but there was no need, for outside the door in the otherwise empty corridor the doctor found a tray on a stool. There was a pot of tea in a warmer, cups and little wooden receptacles containing cold sweetmeats and some
mantou
. ‘Room service?' said Nellie.

‘Aye,' said the doctor glumly, and poured some tea.

‘No sign of the lovers?' asked Nellie.

‘No,' said the doctor.

‘Well. I suppose all we can do is wait for something to happen, then,' said Nellie. ‘Somebody must have something planned for us.'

‘Aye,' said the doctor, his mind elsewhere.

Someone knocked on the door. It was Henry. He had a grim expression on his face. ‘Doctor, I think you had better come and see this,' he said. ‘But, Mrs Airton, you might like to stay in your room.'

‘Whatever it is,' said Nellie, ‘I'm coming with my husband.'

‘So be it,' said Henry. ‘But it won't be pleasant.'

They followed him into the gallery. They could hear the murmur ing, roaring sound of a crowd. Helen Frances was standing on a bench that allowed her a view out of the high window. Her face was ashen, and she wore the same grim expression as Henry.

‘I'll help you up,' she said to Nellie, reaching out a hand. The four stood on the bench and looked below. They could see the curling roofs of the temple directly opposite them, and the grey tiles of the city stretching to the distance in all directions. They also had a very good view of the square, which was filled with excited people. The centre of the square was empty, a bare ring of sand, in the middle of which stood a large man, stripped to the waist and leaning on a sword. He was exchanging pleasantries with the crowd. ‘Oh, my God,' cried Airton. ‘It's to be an execution. Oh, Manners, it's not … it's not … Is it?' Henry did not reply. As they watched there was a movement in the crowd and they saw the Mandarin, accompanied by a bearlike man in shaggy furs, with whom he was conversing, laughing at something his companion was saying, and following them were a raggle-taggle parade of officials and others who looked like thugs. This official party made their way casually to chairs that had been arranged for them at one side of the square. ‘Iron Man Wang,' said Henry, ‘and his ruffians. Well, I wouldn't have expected anything else.'

Nothing seemed to happen for a while. The Mandarin and his companions were smoking their long pipes. The hairy man next to him was drinking from a gourd. The crowd became restless. A group dressed in Boxer uniform took up the by now familiar chant, ‘Exterminate the foreigners! Save the Ch'ing,' but like the sporadic bursts of song which erupt in a football crowd and die down again, the chant sputtered out. Egged on by the throng, the man with the sword began to twirl it round his head, performing some sort of martial-arts dance. There were cheers. Then he, too, stopped, and gradually the crowd became silent, waiting.

As they also waited, frozen, on their bench in the gallery.

Then they heard the slow beating of a drum, and braying horns. The crowd stirred, and craned their heads expectantly. Another sound rose faintly above the drums. Singing! ‘Oh, Edward,' breathed Nellie, ‘it's “Jerusalem, the Golden”. I can't bear it.'

They watched. A troop of bannermen marched into the square and took their places along the edges of the crowd. Major Lin followed them. He was dismounted now, and was walking beside the thin, white-haired figure of Chamberlain Jin, who bowed to the Mandarin, before taking a position, slightly in front of the others at the far end of the square. More bannermen entered. And then they saw Septimus Millward, his arm round his son's shoulders. One by one, they recognised the others, Tom hobbling on his crutches at the rear. The hymn came to an end. Septimus, ignoring the crowd, stood tall in the sand, stretching out his arms—he could not raise them very high because of the
cangue
. Then he opened his prayer book. The others knelt in a ring around him and began to pray.

The white-haired official had unrolled a scroll. He read the charges in a high, incantatory voice, ending with the resounding, ‘Tremble and obey.' The Mandarin, who had put down his pipe, nodded, and after a moment, gestured with his hand. The big man with the sword bowed deeply. There was an intake of breath from the crowd.

Two men, the executioners' assistants, ran over the sand towards the condemned foreigners. Arbitrarily they selected Burton Fielding, who was nearest. He began to struggle and cry out as they unlocked his heavy
cangue
. The crowd murmured with satisfaction. Septimus Millward paused from reading his prayer book, and said something loudly to his whimpering compatriot. Whatever it was it seemed to have an effect, for Fielding suddenly relaxed, and he was unresisting as they dragged him to the centre of the square. Septimus went back to his reading. None of the others raised their heads to look, concentrating on their prayers—but the doctor and the others in the gallery saw. They were powerless to look away. Fielding was forced into a kneeling position, his hands were pulled behind his back, and with one blow his head was knocked off his body.

Henry put an arm round Helen Frances, who leaned on his chest, crying quietly. Dr Airton and Nellie stared stone-faced, petrified in their shock and disbelief.

Herr Fischer was the next to be chosen. Unlike Fielding he did not struggle when they came to remove his
cangue
. He bowed curtly to Septimus, and then to Bowers, shrugged off the pulling hands of the executioners and walked stiffly of his own accord to where the man with the now bloodstained blade stood. He sank to his knees, crossed himself, then pushed his own hands abruptly behind his back. This time there was silence from the crowd when the neat grey-haired head rolled in the sand.

Tom was ready when they came back for the next victim. In the interval of Fischer's beheading he had taken the opportunity to shake hands with Bowers, and kissed Sister Caterina gently on the forehead. Before the two assistants even reached him he was pushing his own way with his crutches towards the executioner. There was a murmur from the crowd: it might have been admiration for his courage. There was a hush when he flamboyantly threw aside his crutches, and dropped to his knees. In the silence, even as far away as the gallery, they could hear him whistling.

‘“Jolly Boating Weather”,' said Henry quietly. ‘Out of tune, but that's Tom. Brave man. Brave man.'

‘Oh, Henry, I can't look,' said Helen Frances.

‘Don't,' he said.

The sword blade fell.

For variety, they chose a woman next. Sister Caterina seemed nervous, glancing from side to side at the crowd, covering her breasts with her hands—but she walked steadily enough. She appeared confused when she reached the executioner, staring with fascination at the stained blade and the pools of blood in the sand. The executioner was gentle with her and told her to kneel. She did so, crossing herself. One assistant pulled back her arms, the other pulled her hair forward, leaving her neck clear—but the blade was getting blunt now and it took two strokes to cut off her head.

‘Oh, Caterina,' whispered Nellie, and now she, too, began to weep, softly like Helen Frances. Airton stared rigidly, his hands clutching the windowsill. He had cut himself on the sharp edge and was bleeding, but did not notice.

There was a long pause as a stone was brought in to sharpen the blade. The executioner rubbed his sweating body with a towel, and drank greedily from a pot of wine, which was brought out to him from the dumpling shop. There was a buzz of excited conversation among the crowd. The now smaller group round Millward continued to pray. The heads of Fielding, Fischer, Tom and Caterina lay in the sand where they had fallen. Flies were already buzzing round them.

Eventually they came for Bowers. He marched to his execution like a guardsman, and it was quickly over. His head rested next to Fischer's. They might have been conversing together in a macabre sort of way. Now only the Millwards were left.

Laetitia had wrapped her arms round her two smallest children, Lettie and Hannah. They would not leave their mother and the assistants allowed them to come with her to the centre of the square. Before they knelt down together, Laetitia gently removed the girls' pebble spectacles, and then her own. The executioner swiped off the children's heads and after that their mother's. It was neatly done.

Hiram was next. He kissed his father's cheek, then walked towards the executioner, head held high. Not for long. His elder sister, Mildred, followed. She, like Sister Caterina before her, seemed shy about exposing her budding breasts. She whimpered a little when she saw her mother's and her brother's heads lying in the sand, but she was dispatched quickly, and her own head soon joined theirs.

That left four more Millward children and their father.

The executioner was visibly tiring now. Perhaps it had been the wine he had drunk in the interval between the beheadings. So he allowed his assistants to dispatch the children while he took a rest, taking the opportunity to drink more wine as he did so. The crowd, which had remained rather mute through the last decapitations, did not seem to care. Isaiah, Miriam, Thomas and Martha, who had stopped praying once their mother had been taken away, were clutching their father's legs in their terror. The assistants patiently unclasped their little hands, and pulled them struggling after them. They did not decapitate them. They slit their throats with butchers' knives. It was quicker that way.

Neither Nellie nor Helen Frances observed this last performance. After Laetitia's death they had witnessed enough, and now they were sitting on the bench, Helen Frances shaking in Nellie's arms, Nellie staring wide-eyed at the wall. Only the doctor and Henry remained at their observation post, the doctor rigidly locked in a position from which he had hardly moved during the last hour. Henry would occasionally glance towards him. He was concerned about him.

Only Septimus remained alive. Once his children had been removed from his protection, such as it was, he had closed his prayer book and stonily watched their dispatch. Now he turned towards the Mandarin, pointing his finger, the Old Testament prophet, no doubt summoning the wrath of the Lord to fall upon the Mandarin's head and on those who had sponsored this dreadful crime. Airton could not make out the words, but they seemed to have little effect. The hairy man next to the Mandarin, who Henry said was Iron Man Wang, laughed uproariously and toasted Septimus with his bottle. The Mandarin, from what the doctor could see, merely looked bored. He gestured with his hand to the executioner to hurry.

Septimus turned on his heels and walked towards the executioner, easily pushing the two assistants out of the way as he did so. He stood for a moment looking directly into the executioner's eyes. The man gazed back impudently for a moment, then turned away his head. Septimus reached out his hand and patted him gently on the shoulder. Then he knelt down of his own volition, allowing the rather cowed assistants to take off his
cangue
. He dropped his head in a final prayer. Only then did he allow one of the assistants to pull back his arms. The other reached gingerly for his blond pigtail, baring the neck. The executioner hesitated, then struck, but Septimus's obstinate head appeared to remain firmly fixed to his body. It took four more heavy blows before the flesh, muscle and gristle parted, and Septimus's head rolled in a leisurely fashion to join his family.

It was over.

Or nearly so. The doctor remained rooted to his spot, ignoring Henry's hand on his shoulder. He saw the Mandarin get off his chair and walk towards the slain, observing the bodies dispassionately, like a hardened general inspecting the aftermath of a battle. Then he raised his head and seemed to gaze directly at the window where the doctor stood. The Mandarin's expression was impenetrable, but he seemed to be trying to communicate something to the doctor, if only to let him know that he knew he was there, and that he had witnessed this. He turned abruptly on his heels and walked away.