The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure

by Adam Williams

  ‘So do the self-serving accusations from the lying Christians begin again,’ Jin Lao started, in his high falsetto.

  ‘Silence, both of you,’ growled the Mandarin. ‘Daifu,’ he addressed Airton directly, his eyes narrowed. ‘You are not being judged by this court.’ He glanced coldly at Prince Yi, then back at the doctor. ‘In fact, you shouldn’t be here at all. Not under the present statutes. Nor am I convinced that you ordered this crime. Chamberlain, you have given us supposition on that point not proof.’ He paused. ‘The case of the doctor’s servant is another matter, however, and for him punishment is due.’

  Airton found himself shouting, ‘How can you believe these lies? It is obvious that Ah Lee is innocent. He wouldn’t harm a fly.’

  The Mandarin spoke quietly. ‘Daifu, please. I do not wish to show you indignity by expelling you. I can do nothing else but punish your servant because he himself has confessed.’

  ‘Confessed?’

  The Mandarin’s face had returned to its impassive expression. ‘Yes, he signed a confession, acknowledging his own guilt. Here it is. He does not implicate any accomplice or directly say that he was under orders. It is an atrociously written document—but interestingly he does abrogate any rights he may have as a Christian to be tried in any other court of law. Surprising that a cook should know so much about the law. However, it makes things easier for me. It will prevent you protesting to your consulate, Daifu. I think that in consideration I will lessen his punishment from the usual hundred strokes for assault to fifty strokes.’ He picked up a pen and scribbled his name on the charge. ‘Fifty strokes it is, to be administered forthwith, plus a week in the stocks. Officers, let it be done. Tremble and obey.’

  ‘Well, well, what a soft heart you have,’ Airton heard the Prince say as he and the Mandarin got up to leave together. ‘You really need not worry about the reaction of these Christians, you know. Wait till you hear what I have to tell you over lunch. We must hurry. I continue my journey north this afternoon.’

  ‘Excuse me, Prince. I have a word to say to the doctor.’

  He paused only a moment by Airton to say gruffly, ‘In China we do things in our Chinese way, Daifu. I ask you to try to understand. It is important. You will still join me on the hunt, I hope.’

  ‘The hunt?’ But his head was swirling with shock.

  He was conscious of another presence by his side. Jin Lao’s rheumy eyes in the perfect parchment face gazed at him benevolently. ‘Daifu.’ He bowed, and his thin lips curled into a beatific smile. ‘I hope that you are satisfied that I did as I promised and investigated this crime.’ Airton did not answer, and Jin Lao moved on, followed by his young witness, who sauntered past the doctor, insolently looking him up and down as he passed. Airton heard a laugh and the word ‘Rat-eater’ flung back as he disappeared through the gate.

  After a moment he moved forward to where Ah Lee was still crouched on the ground guarded by the yamen runners.

  ‘My friend, my friend, what have they done to you?’ whispered Airton, when he saw the bruises on his cook’s face. ‘Are you hurt?’

  Tears welled in a black eye as Ah Lee shook his head.

  ‘Then why, why did you confess to such an impossible thing?’

  ‘They came in the night. They held a knife to Ah Sun’s throat. They said they would kill her and cut me, and I was frightened,’ he muttered. ‘They also said that they would take the missies, Helen and Jenny, and—and—’ His head fell and his body shook with sobs. ‘And I knew I would go to hell and eternal damnation fire if I lied, but if they hurt Missie Jenny and Missie Helen…’

  ‘You won’t go to hell and damnation fire, my dear friend.’

  The friendly yamen runner cleared his throat. ‘Daifu, it’s time. Don’t follow us. You don’t want to witness this punishment. It’s not for a Xiansheng like you to see—but don’t worry too much either. He’s a tough, stringy chicken, this one. He’ll be all right. I’ll see he gets back to you in one piece.’

  Sitting by the campfire in the Black Hills three weeks later, the wind gusting the sparks, Airton could not forget the pleading face of his cook as they led him away. Nor Ah Sun’s cries and laments when the twisted, beaten body was returned on a handcart from the yamen a week later. Nor the weak but still eager smile which was all Ah Lee could manage from his sick bed, to which this time he really would be confined for several days.

  Shivering, Airton reached for the kettle and recharged his mug. He knew that he should retire to his tent; rest was what he needed, peace, contemplation—but the memory of his experience in the yamen still haunted him. Not to mention the new shocks he had received today—shocks that his mind half refused to face or believe. And then there was that wider sense of unease, the chilling darkness, and the drumbeats from the forest—a growing conviction, which he was reluctant even to admit in his rational consciousness, that something lurked out there tonight, which was primordial and evil.

  It had been a day of violence. The camp had been woken before dawn with the rumble of drums and the screeching wail of horns and trumpets. The doctor had emerged from his tent to witness the exotically uniformed beaters disappearing into the mist between the trees. The Mandarin, Liu Daguang, resplendent in his red armour, a bow and a quiver of arrows on his back and a long, pennanted spear in his mailed hand, had clattered into their clearing from his separate camp, rearing his horse, laughing boisterously, a war god in his prime, chivvying, encouraging. The sleek hunters, Henry Manners and Colonel Taro, in their leather leggings and tweed capes, appeared with their horses, Lao Zhao and another muleteer standing behind as gun-bearers. There was the rattle of harness and the Mandarin’s charger was steaming and pounding the ground in front of him.

  ‘Daifu, you are not ready. Come. The omens are propitious. Nay, better, my old wounds throb, signifying we will kill today. Hurry.’

  ‘Da Ren, when can we talk?’

  ‘Talk?’ The Mandarin let off one of his high-pitched giggles. ‘Today’s not a day for talking, Daifu. Today’s a day for killing.’

  The doctor had hoped that he could stay behind in the camp with Helen Frances, and avoid the hunt. Both he and Nellie had advised her not to come to the Black Hills. She was not the healthy girl she had been—although the doctor could not account for her change into the languid, morose creature she had lately become; he had frankly been too preoccupied with his children and Ah Lee and the Boxers to worry about his assistant; he suspected that her state had something to do with affairs of the heart and her protracted engagement to Tom, and that sort of thing he was happy to leave to Nellie. But shortly before their departure from the mission, focusing suddenly on the black rings under her reddish eyes, the unhealthy pallor of her skin, he had wondered whether there might not be some physical ailment underneath it all. ‘If I didn’t know better I’d have said you looked like one of the opium addicts,’ he had joked with her, as he had examined her tongue. She had responded with a strange smile. ‘Well, maybe the fresh air will do you good,’ he had told her, ‘though I’ll not allow you any great exertions. Nor do I suspect that a decent young girl like you will want to get too close to such a dangerous thing as the hunt itself.’

  ‘I want to see the hunt,’ she had said.

  ‘Maybe you and I will wait in the camp until they bring back the trophy, and then we can join in the celebrations,’ said the doctor. And she seemed to have assented. At least, she had said nothing more. The ride to the Black Hills had been dreary. The doctor had expected that Helen Frances would have looked forward to an excursion with her old friend Henry Manners—it had been some time since they had ridden together—yet he was surprised that the two largely ignored each other, Manners riding ahead with the Japanese colonel, whom the doctor did not like. Since the Mandarin also kept to himself, absorbed in paperwork inside his sedan chair, and Helen Frances remained taciturn and silent, even though she rode beside him, the doctor felt isolated and chagrined, and increasingly frustrated that he had no chance to talk t
o the Mandarin, which had been his primary purpose for coming on this expedition in the first place.

  And now, as the Mandarin in his armour cantered round the fire, Major Lin and his soldiers wheeling behind him, Manners and Taro mounting their horses, the doctor was shocked to see Helen Frances in full riding habit also climbing on to her horse, assisted by Lao Zhao. There was no help for it. Although he hardly felt prepared, he quickly called for his own horse. In a few moments, led by the yelling Mandarin at a fast canter, the party was thundering after the beaters into the trees, the doctor holding on to his hat in the rear.

  And the hunt had been as beastly and bloody as he had expected it to be. The beaters had done their job well, and soon Manners’s and Taro’s guns and the Mandarin’s arrows were taking their toll of fleeing deer, hares and wild pig. Ever ahead they heard the baying of the dogs, tracking the main quarry, whether bear or tiger the doctor did not know. From all directions came the sound of the beaters’ drums and the harsh calls of their trumpets, driving whatever animals remained in the ring to the chosen killing ground. It was all the doctor could do to stay on his horse. He felt no inclination, as Manners and his friend were doing, to attempt to fire from the saddle at such a breakneck speed. In fact, he felt no inclination to fire at all. He wanted this to end.

  It ended in a clearing with a bear at bay. They approached to a gurgling waterfall of sounds from the hounds, murmurs and barks and whines mixed in diabolical frenzy. The beaters had ringed the glade and were pounding thunder on their drums. Polemen were dancing out of the black giant’s reach. Fangs open and lathered, yellow eyes mad as a demon’s, swaying on her back paws, roaring in her rage, the bear waved and swatted at the dogs leaping at her neck. Some of her victims lay crumpled, whining and broken on the ground. The Mandarin trotted his horse to a stop. The others gathered in a half circle around him. He raised his right arm high. One of Lin’s men blew loudly on his trumpet. The drums ceased beating. It was a signal. The polemen ran back. Huntsmen making strange whistles ran among the hounds, some of them trailing meat, and slowly the murmur died. After a few more jumps and tumbles, most of the hounds followed the lures and withdrew. The bear swayed where she stood, puzzled by the sudden silence. She roared once, twice, then dropped on her front paws, growling, the yellow eyes glaring suspiciously at the group of horsemen.

  ‘Ma Na Si Xiansheng,’ said the Mandarin lightly. ‘Whose is she to be? And with which weapon? The gun, the spear or the bow?’

  ‘I am certainly no equal to the da ren with the bow,’ said Manners, with a smile.

  ‘And an ancient bannerman trained only in the old ways of war knows little of the new-fangled sports rifle,’ said the Mandarin.

  ‘It seems we must compromise on the spear, then,’ said Manners.

  ‘It is the traditional weapon,’ said the Mandarin.

  ‘On foot or on horseback?’ asked Manners.

  ‘On foot is best,’ said the Mandarin. ‘I will go first and you will follow me to back me up. Your friend?’ He looked towards Taro, who bowed an acknowledgement of the invitation, before deliberately, insolently turning to Major Lin. Taro’s eyes danced with humour as he passed on the unspoken challenge. Major Lin flushed, but maintained his stern expression, looking straight ahead.

  ‘No, I thank you, Da Ren-sama,’ said the Japanese. ‘On consideration, I will be proud to observe the triumph of Your Excellency and Mr Manners.’

  ‘Doctor?’ said Manners, dismounted, uncloaked, his hands raised high as a huntsman pulled a studded leather jerkin over his head and sheathed his arms in huge metalled gloves. ‘No pikemanship for you today?’

  ‘Certainly not, Manners, and if you want my view I think that you are behaving like a damned fool.’

  ‘I was always that, Airton. Only today I feel safe enough. It’s not always one has a doctor immediately on hand in case of accident—and, for that matter, a nurse.’ He smiled up at Helen Frances, who looked down coldly at him. ‘Will my lady give me her favour to take into battle?’ he asked. Helen Frances turned her head away, biting her lip. ‘Obviously not,’ he said.

  ‘Ma Na Si,’ the Mandarin was shouting, ‘it is time to kill our bear.’

  Airton watched in disbelief as the two men sauntered into the glade, their spears sloped casually over their shoulders. The bear saw the movement and rose blearily on to her hind legs, the gigantic shoulders swelling as she stretched her forepaws wide and ready to receive them, her head with its fangs shaking slowly from side to side. The Mandarin and the Englishman walked deliberately towards her.

  Suddenly the Mandarin was running forward with the spear pointed. A great paw swished, the Mandarin rolled, thrusting as he did so, and the bear roared as the serrated edge of the spear sliced into her breast. The Mandarin was on his feet again, nimbly running backwards, eyes on the bear, spear at the ready. The assembled beaters shouted applause. ‘Ma Na Si!’ the doctor could hear the Mandarin roar over the noise. It was Manners’s turn. But now the bear had dropped on to her forepaws, growling, angry, in pain. As he moved a step forward, the whole mound of meat and fur and lethal claw charged. ‘Butt on the ground,’ the Mandarin shouted. ‘Quickly.’ Manners dropped to one knee, jamming the end of the spear into the grass, the point facing the charging beast.

  ‘That won’t hold her,’ the doctor heard himself moan, and he felt Helen Frances’s hand on his arm. In agony he watched the bear close.

  The Mandarin was running towards Manners’s position and with graceful fluidity knelt beside him. A second spear faced the charging bear. Airton could not bear to watch. He heard a gasp from the men around him, a sigh from Helen Frances, and opened his eyes.

  The two men were straining under the weight of the bear. She was impaled on the two poles, which bent and swayed above them as her enormous bulk twisted and writhed in her agony. Teeth and curved claws slashed down at her tormentors. Blood and froth drenched them. She was making a determined mewing sound as she herself strained for the kill. Manners and the Mandarin had to duck and sway to keep their unprotected heads out of reach. The beaters had become silent as they watched the desperate struggle of men and beast.

  There was a crack like a whiplash. The Mandarin’s spear shaft snapped. The bear’s paw swung and a backhander smashed into the da ren’s shoulder hurling him to the ground. The bulk of the bear sank lower on to Manners’s straining spear. The doctor could see his body arc with the effort of pushing up this impossible weight. He knew that soon the spear in the bear’s body would tear through the remaining muscle and flesh and the animal would plunge down on to the man and that that must be the end of him. Airton could see the Mandarin crawling groggily away, calling something he could not make out. Then he was aware of loud hoofbeats and Major Lin was riding into the glade, followed by Taro. He saw Lin hurl something towards the Mandarin, who in one movement had caught his bow and quiver and had fitted an arrow to the string. Turning elegantly, he loosed his shaft almost point-blank into the she-bear’s breast. At the same moment there was a crash of a gun and the bear’s head exploded into blood and pulp. Taro swerved his horse and fired again. The bear slumped on the spear. The struggle ceased.

  Then he heard more hoofbeats. ‘Helen Frances! Don’t,’ he cried. ‘It’s still dangerous…’ But she was galloping towards Manners, and he was following, and next thing he knew she was off her horse and Manners had stumbled to his feet and she had buried her head against his bloodstained chest.

  ‘What did I tell you about having a nurse on hand?’ said Manners smiling. Then exhaustion hit him and he stumbled to his knees, his head flopped onto her shoulder. An arm seemed to curl naturally round her back and her behind as he fell. Helen Frances, shaking, pressed her body against his. The doctor had dismounted and was hurrying forward, but the sight of the tight embrace—the extraordinary familiarity of it—embarrassed him and he held back. ‘Helen Frances? What are you doing?’ Helen Frances’s head slowly raised and Airton saw tears in her eyes behind her dislodged hair. She gazed at h
im blankly, shuddered, and then, with a start, she recognised him. The blood of the bear streaked her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry, Doctor,’ she whispered. ‘I thought … I thought…’

  ‘Never mind, girl. I understand,’ he said—although his mind was pounding with a sudden and unwelcome realisation. ‘They are lovers!’ a voice was shouting in his temple. ‘Come on, girl, we must get that jerkin up and over his head. Careful now.’

  They lowered the body to the trampled grass. Airton’s mind was rushing, but his hands went through the professional motions as he checked Manners’s pulse and heartbeat and probed gently for internal injuries. Lovers! the suspicion screamed in his mind. My God, what will Nellie say? We abetted it. Oh, Lord! Poor Tom! Helen Frances, the professional nurse again, was calmly staunching the blood from a cut to Manners’s upper arm. He groaned, but remained unconscious. The doctor’s racing mind was distracted by a sound from the other side of the great carcass, which still loomed above them, now much admired by the gathering beaters. It was the Mandarin’s booming voice. He thought of calling over to him to ask if he needed treatment as well, but instead he found himself listening.

  ‘Colonel Taro.’ A trick of the wind brought the Mandarin’s voice to him clearly, although he was hidden by the bulk of the bear; nor did the chatter of the beaters obscure the sound. ‘I am obliged to you for your kind attention to saving my life. However, I think you will find that this is my shaft already embedded in the creature’s heart.’

  It was perhaps the coldness in Taro’s reply that made Airton concentrate and listen. ‘Da Ren-sama,’ the Japanese hissed, ‘if I had known exactly the foolishness that you and the Englishman intended I would have intervened earlier. You two may kill yourselves at another time, but I remind you that we still have business to conduct, which affects your country and the empire of Japan. I cannot let you or Manners sacrifice our imperial interests in fruitless heroics with a wild animal.’