by V. E. Ulett
Miriam’s heart raced. Lure Captain Thorpe and his ship into a trap? She might be able to warn him off before he fell into it. Through the open doorway of the hut, Miriam caught glimpses of the leering faces and sweating bodies of the Dragon’s men. This was her reality, those rough men. What would she do to escape it, could she act the betrayer to those who’d been kindest to her?
The diminutive Chinese woman pushed up out of her chair to stand on the low table, leaning over Miriam. “Second, there must be retribution for you coming here without My leave. Someone must be punished. You shall prove your intentions to serve Me by selecting a girl from among my captives to satisfy the lusts of my men.”
“No.” Miriam answered instantly. “I won’t do it.”
The Chinese woman stumbled down off the table and struck Miriam twice, slap slap, much more fiercely than Mai had done. She wore large rings on her baby hands, which hurt amazingly. Miriam’s vision cleared but she kept her head bowed.
The woman swayed on tiny feet before her, and the shrill voice demanded, “Do you know who I am? What I am?”
“The Boat People spoke of a dragon,” Miriam said.
“Did I say you could speak?” She dealt Miriam another pair of raps. “The Golden Dragon. You know my name. There is nothing and no one that is traded, sold, ransomed, outraged, or murdered in these Seas that does not pass through Me. Hence the Golden. Say it!”
“Golden Dragon,” Miriam said. “You are the Golden Dragon.”
“And you are the British spy.”
“I’m a merchant’s daughter from Iran.” Miriam had appropriated her mother’s history, and she meant to stick to it.
This time the Golden Dragon balled a little fist and hit Miriam in the breast. Miriam drew back, hugging her chest, her mouth open in shock.
“You are what I say you are! How dare you say no to Me!” The Golden Dragon sucked in a breath, swaying on feet Miriam took to be deformed they were so small. The woman murmured to herself, “Little Dragon was taken in. I gave her the power, and she refused it. They should take who can! A pretty face and white teeth alone will never be My heir.”
The Dragon gave Miriam a malevolent glare with eyes so dark the pupils were hard to distinguish, like an animal’s. “Weak, foolish girl! You should have accepted my conditions. What I offer, you must accept! Over there.”
She pointed to a corner of the hut. Miriam moved with relief to be out of direct sight of the guards. That area of the hut was furnished with two rush chairs, one missing the woven seat, and a sideboard or chest of drawers. Atop the sideboard was an array of edged weapons, and evil looking instruments that chilled Miriam to her soul. In a carved sandalwood box open on the sideboard was a jadeite or stone—
“Take off your boots!” The Golden Dragon ordered. “Start with the one with the knife! You cannot fool the Dragon, Missy. I can see you think yourself clever.”
The Golden Dragon’s arm shot out to strike her, but Miriam sat down on the whole chair and tugged at the boot. She could easily unbalance the Dragon, on her limiting little knobs of feet. Slip the knife out, and straight into the throat. During practice with Captain Thorpe her hands never shook this much, and there weren’t four guards eager to pounce on her within shouting distance. The boot and her knife were snatched from Miriam’s shaking hands before they were off her foot.
“You are going to tell me who sent you and why. How to signal that airship and all about those British dogs, the greatest pirates in the world.” The Golden Dragon waved a bejeweled hand at her. “Off with the rest of it!”
“No.”
Miriam was hauled to her feet by the preternaturally strong Dragon. A very ill breath said in her face, “Strip, or I shall have my men tear the clothes from your body. They will enjoy that.”
With trembling hands and a quivering lower lip she couldn’t control, Miriam removed her jacket, gown, scarves, trowsers, and small clothes.
“How much clothing does one scrawny girl need?” The Dragon complained halfway through Miriam’s disrobing.
Miriam stood shivering, trying to cover her nakedness with her arms, one boot her only remaining clothing. The Dragon took no notice of it.
“Sit down there. I’m going to lash you to the chair. It’s easier that way.”
Indicating the bottomless chair with a jerk of her head, the Dragon took up a long length of twisted cord. Fear rooted her to the spot, Miriam couldn’t move to the chair.
The Dragon jumped on her. “Do you know what I do with a girl who won’t cooperate? I put her in the stocks without a stitch on and let the guards have her.”
Miriam sobbed and sat as well as she could with her legs apart, balanced on the chair frame. The Golden Dragon made a quick job of tying Miriam by wrists and ankles to the chair.
“Let’s start, shall we?” The Dragon took up a parang from the sideboard, and returned waiving it in Miriam’s face. “Who sent you, British whore?”
“My...my father is a merchant in Iran, a wealthy man. If it is ransom you want—”
Miriam teetered on her chair when the Dragon struck her with the wood handle of the knife.
“I won’t spoil your beauty, I never do. You will fetch a high price for me, after I get what I want.”
The Dragon stood considering the implements on the sideboard. It felt a horrible long time for Miriam waiting there, straining against the cords binding her. A million thoughts raced through her mind, terror only just kept below the surface.
When the Dragon turned round with the jadeite phallus huge in her tiny hand, Miriam blurted out, “I’ll tell you everything!”
“Yes, you will.”
The Golden Dragon came swiftly up to Miriam and whacked her in the chest. Miriam fell backward, her head rebounding against the dirt floor. She cried out, shaking, strapped to a bottomless chair. The Dragon loomed closer. Not like this! Her first time must not be an act of brutality, of dominance and power. Why had she been reticent with that good man Maximus Thorpe, and missed the chance for tenderness and love? Miriam heard voices in her head repeating the same phrases. This was what happened to women who did not obey, who dared leave home without the protection of a man. She screamed, loud and long, a full-throated cry of frustration and rage.
Miriam refused to look away as the Golden Dragon stooped down, aiming that stone monstrosity at her. She jerked hard sideways in the chair when the Dragon’s head came level with her raised knees, and felt the satisfying connection of her boot with the Dragon’s skull. Surprised shouts, scuffling, and a commotion came from outside the thatched walls. A tawny colored blur flew past Miriam’s feet, and landed with a thud against the back wall of the hut.
There was a whoosh as from a deflating balloon, and Miriam turned her head toward the sound. Against the wall of the hut, Thrax was on top of the Golden Dragon. Thrax’s eyes cut over to Miriam and its lips raised in salute, the grip of its fangs never loosening from the Dragon’s neck. The Hell-Cat emitted a woof like the barking of a tiger.
Miriam screamed, this time in horror, fright, and triumph. She closed her eyes for a second upon it all, then opened them, avoiding the sight of Thrax and the Golden Dragon. Was she going to lie there naked and wait for the surviving men to regain their courage and walk in? Miriam thrashed side to side on the dirt floor until one of the flimsy chair arms gave way, and she was able to free one hand. She untied the rattan cords and rose shakily to her feet, stumbled over and slumped against the sideboard.
The sgian dubh and her second boot were heaped together and Miriam stooped to put them on. She had to brave the sight of Thrax tearing the throat out of the Golden Dragon, because her clothes were carried away by the Hell-Cat’s rush and lay in a heap at the back of the hut. Thrax growled at her as she neared on tiptoe. Tiger-like when it rescued her from the Dragon, the Hell-Cat was now the size of a lesser cousin, a panther or mountain lion.
“Ugh!” Miriam couldn’t help an exclamation of disgust, for Thrax began to purr, spewing blood sideways from
its jaws. “I shall not interfere with you,” she hastened to assure it, “not in the least.”
The bodice of her gown was heavy with gouts of blood, but Miriam donned it and the other splattered garments as fast as she could. Fully dressed, she stepped back to the sideboard, and selected a belt with a parang in a wooden sheath and strapped it round her waist. She’d just taken a vicious straight blade kris in her hand when a guard poked his head into the hut. The man screamed, making Miriam jump. His eyes rolled up in his head, and he staggered away shrieking.
“Thrax! Thrax, do you hear me there?” Miriam tried to put the note of command in her voice she’d heard the Navy men use. “I go in search of the ladies, and when I come away I expect you to leave off this business and attend me.” Miriam turned away from Thrax.
The gore and savagery of the Golden Dragon’s life had been visited on her in the manner of her death. Miriam slipped out the back of the hut, gripping the intricately patterned kris and feeling primed to use it if she encountered any guards.
Behind the ring of huts Miriam discovered paths leading to the privies. She skirted their reek and followed the sound of singing. It amazed her that somehow, after what happened, there could still be lullabies and a woman’s sweet voice in the world.
Miriam stepped inside one of the huts and found a collection of women, a few sitting against the thatched walls while others reclined on pallets. None of them looked her way or took particular notice of her entrance. An old ayah or servant woman squatting on a three-legged stool turned her head with an interested stare, when Miriam passed by kris in hand.
The woman who was singing stood out from the rest. She had golden hair and a pert upturned nose, features Miriam remembered from a miniature portrait.
“Anna Lovell? Parlez-vous francais?”
“How do you know my name?”
The woman’s eyes were unfocused, and then with a visible effort she concentrated on Miriam’s face.
“No,” the woman said, “I don’t know you. You are just another victim of the Dragon.”
Anna Lovell waved her hand at the women draped round the hut. They didn’t pay Miriam and Anna the least heed, though French was a language seldom heard near the South China Sea.
Miriam eased down beside Anna, putting her back to a thatched wall, so that she faced the way she’d entered. At once Miriam felt someone watching her, and noticed for the first time a woman tied up on the opposite side of the hut. The sight frightened Miriam anew, and she’d barely ceased shuddering from her last experience.
“I am not a victim,” Miriam said, through gritted teeth. “Anna, do not cry out. The Golden Dragon is no more. Dead, she...it’s dead. And now we are leaving here, all of us.”
Anna put her face in her hands and sobbed. Even this didn’t draw the attention of the women round them.
“What is wrong with them?” Miriam said. She knew only a fraction of the torture these women might have endured, but Miriam couldn’t understand their incredible languor. All except for the fierce looking person hog tied like a beast.
Wiping tears and mucus from her face, Anna said, “Opium. The Dragon, the guards, give them opium in the morning. Keeps them quiet.”
Miriam absorbed the shock of this additional violation. She found Anna surprisingly alert, but didn’t want to take notice of it and distress her. “Anna, can you help me with them? We are all leaving, every one.”
To encourage her Miriam stood, gave Anna her hand, and hauled her to her feet. Miriam hefted the kris in her hand.
“Oh no, Mademoiselle!” Anna Lovell cried, when Miriam made toward the woman bound across the hut. “Not the Hottentot! She is a mad woman, she used to be a guard here. She will kill us all if you let her loose.”
Miriam had a flash of comprehension that made her feel ill. Do you know what I do with a girl who won’t cooperate?
“You would be mad too,” Miriam said. “If you were the one being tortured to terrify the rest.”
Those words were braver than Miriam felt as she went across the hut, to the woman tied by wrists and ankles with rattan cord that looped also round her neck. She was covered in smuts, wearing a ragged pair of the petticoat bloomers common among the Chinese, and a tunic ripped off one shoulder so the fact she was missing a breast was exposed. An old wound, well healed, but fearful nonetheless. As Miriam neared she could smell her, the woman’s legs were stained with blood and filth.
Wobbling slightly, Miriam knelt in front of the woman.
“Salaam alay-kum,” the black woman said, when they faced one another.
Miriam was so astonished she plopped down hard on her butt. “Walay kum-salaam.” And to you, peace.
“Give me sacred kris, khun,” the woman said. “Set me free, and you have no need to fear guards.”
“I was worried about them,” Miriam said. “I shall certainly release you.”
Miriam purposefully sheathed the kris, and pulling out the parang she cut the cord binding the woman. They rose unsteadily together, Miriam trying to hold the other woman’s eye.
“The Golden Dragon is dead,” Miriam said.
“You kill her, khun? Those your screams earlier?”
“Yes.” Miriam wouldn’t be humble and lower her gaze, when facing a ferocious creature it was best not to look away. “That was before, now the Dragon’s dead, and I’m taking these women away. Are there more in the other huts?”
“Huts full of plunder, this one only with human cargo. This side of island, other side is men’s prison.”
God have mercy, Miriam thought. “How—” she stammered, “how many guards are there here?”
“Six.”
Thrax may have accounted for one or more of the four who escorted Miriam in, but that left more than enough to recapture these drugged souls. With a thudding heart she removed the belt with kris and parang from round her waist. Miriam knew she was no warrior, she heard Anna Lovell cry out as she handed the weapons over to a woman that was one.
“Come back here immediately after,” Miriam said. The woman took the belt from her with an expression like the one she’d seen on Maximus Thorpe’s face before battle. “I will rouse these poor creatures, and be ready to leave as soon as you return.”
“You wear it wrong,” the woman said, adjusting the belt over one shoulder so that it covered her missing breast.
She was not much taller than Miriam, but every ounce of the woman seemed made of muscle and coiled power. She drew the kris and flexed her fingers round the curved bone hilt, adjusting her grip.
Before the black woman left the hut, looking like one of the furies of hell, she paused for a moment near Anna Lovell. “Ask her why she not drunk on opium like the rest,” she called over her shoulder to Miriam. What sounded like a growl escaped her, Anna recoiled, and the woman strode out of the hut.
“You will never see her more,” Anna Lovell said in a critical tone, coming up to Miriam. “And God help you if she returns to her old ways and unites with the guards against us.”
“I doubt that will happen,” Miriam said.
Inwardly Miriam thought, Basmallah! In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, let it not be true that she’d armed an enemy.
Chapter Fourteen
The black woman returned with her sword arm red to the elbow. She went over to a bucket near the old ayah and washed the blood matter-of-factly from her arm and the kris. Miriam, by a miracle, had all the ladies standing and clutching a long length of twisted cord.
“No more guards to worry you, khun.” The black woman placed her palms together and made a bow, her weapons clean and slung across her body once more.
Miriam bowed in acknowledgement, hiding the sick feeling she had at heart for ordering the deaths of fellow men. “Do you know this island? I need to find a headland, to signal for a ship.” She would not call her by name, nor say my ship, but how her hopes turned upon Nonesuch and her people. “Not in the direction of any other settlement on the island,” Miriam added, to be clear
.
“If this lot handle a short swim,” the woman said, “we go across to Dragon’s Claw. Next spit of land over.”
She’d heard all she cared to of dragons, but Miriam nodded her head. “You lead us.”
She held up the end of the line that she was tied to. In front of her Miriam had placed Anna Lovell, who stood giving her back to Miriam’s conversation with the Hottentot.
Anna tensed visibly as the black woman withdrew the kris from its carved wood and metal sheath, looped to her belt, and offered it to Miriam.
“No, you keep it, you...know best how to use it. I have a weapon.” Miriam thought of Thrax, but she raised her trowser leg to show the dagger in her boot.
A flash of white teeth in a brief smile lit the woman’s face. “I never laugh at you, Khun, after what you did to the Dragon.” A shake of her head and an introspective look told Miriam she’d seen the Golden Dragon’s torn body. “Call out if you see or hear anyone, and I be with you.”
The woman stalked off to the front of the column, tied the cord about her waist and cried, “Ho!”
The line of women, a dozen strong, some tied to and others clutching the line keeping them together, moved out through the back entrance of the hut. The only one left was the old ayah still sitting on the three-legged stool. When Miriam was abreast of her, she called a halt.
“Can you walk?” Miriam asked.
“Watch me.”
The old woman pushed to her feet and Miriam placed her in line before her.
“Now we are thirteen,” Anna grumbled, turning round, “an unfavorable number.”
“Shut it, Missy,” the old woman said in Malay. “I had enough of your shit.”
“She says don’t be superstitious.” Miriam translated for Anna Lovell, and the line moved off.
Passing by the largest hut, the group of women gave it a wide berth. Besides the horrid recollections of what happened there to all of them, there was a funky smell emanating from the place and a tremendous noise of busy flies.
