The Concubine's Daughter

by null

  Slowly, and with strengthening resolve, she recalled everything that had happened. She searched the shadows to find the superintendent seated in a pool of green light, engrossed in paperwork with small round spectacles perched on her nose.

  Li left the bed quietly, wrapping herself in the towel. Ah-Jeh looked up, her face bathed in the lamp’s sickly pallor. She grinned, showing her dull, uneven teeth, and set aside her pen.

  “You are awake and feeling stronger, I hope. You have slept well.”

  Knowing the danger, Li hesitated for only a moment before speaking the words of her heart. “You betrayed my trust.”

  Ah-Jeh’s eyebrows arched in surprise. She stared at Li, her eyes widened and alert.

  Before she could reply, Li spoke again, her voice lowered and her tone even.

  “You used your skills to confuse me … to take away my spirit. You did not ask for my permission to use me as you did.”

  Ah-Jeh’s eyes narrowed as Li spoke, her mouth set in its grim, unyielding line, her brows drawn into a frown.

  “I examined you as I said I would. Did you think that I would take your word as proof of your virginity? Would you admit to taking the cock of one of the larn-jai if it was forced upon you?” Elder Sister snatched the spectacles from her nose, tossing them aside.

  “You did more than examine me.”

  Ah-Jeh rose slowly from her seat, then delivered her words slowly, each as deliberate as a slap.

  “And you enjoyed every second of it … you ate it like cake and would have feasted on more.”

  She stepped out of the green glare, her eyes caught by sparks of red from the altar.

  “I showed you what pleasure can be, when I could as easily have taken you beyond the boundaries of pain. I healed you when it was my duty to skin you alive. You lapped up my generosity like a kitten laps warm milk.”

  “I am grateful for your kindness, but I ran from the Heavenly House because I am not a duck to be made plump for someone’s pot, or a piece of fruit to be eaten while it is ripe—”

  Ah-Jeh’s brittle voice slashed her words, her round face thrust forward to look closely into Li’s eyes.

  “How dare you, daughter of a whore? The sisters of sau-hai know all and are everywhere. Two of our number have dwelt beneath your father’s roof for more years than you have lived. I know the story of the fox fairy and the death of Great-Aunt … your defiance of the wives and your refusal of the lotus slippers and your alliance with Number Three, Ah-Su, from the island of Hainan. I even know what happened to your mother.”

  Li gave a visible start. She no longer feared the short, fat woman before her, and had even found a certain respect for one who had acquired such power with so little beauty. But Elder Sister’s words hit her like a kick to the belly.

  “What do you know of my mother? They would not even tell me where she rests.”

  Ah-Jeh lifted the teapot from its wicker warmer, pouring tea in silence. When she had handed Li a cup, she spoke without emotion of any kind.

  “It is not a pretty story, but every woman has the right to know her mother’s name and of her karma. They say she threw herself from a window to fall upon the tines of a harrow. She thought that you had been buried alive … and died for love of you, whom she never saw or held.”

  Li was not conscious of any change in her face, but felt tears fill her eyes and spill hotly down her cheeks.

  “As you know, her name was Pai-Ling and her family, once prosperous, was ruined by the triad tongs. Your father paid cheaply for her as a concubine. She had lotus feet but her spirit, they say, flew high as an eagle. She would be proud of you, I think.”

  Elder Sister stood and crossed to a drawer, taking out a folded sam-foo of dark red. She tossed it in Li’s lap.

  “Put these on and I will fetch you something to eat.”

  She went to the kitchen corner to fill a bowl with hot and tasty soup, setting it with another bowl piled high with rice and a pair of chopsticks, while Li drew on the trousers and buttoned the tunic.

  “Eat this food while I speak of sau-hai, so that you can choose your own path. You are very young, yet already what innocence you had has been bought and sold like turnips. This is the lot of a woman who lives long enough to receive her soul but is lost to her ancestors. You cannot change this, and neither can I.

  “For more than a thousand years, the sisterhood has taken care of its own as women without men. To be a Ten Willows weaver is to have a secure place for life—to be treated well and to have the love and respect of many friends. To live and eat as comfortably as a woman should, to want for nothing, and to acquire a modest income of your own, that your passage to the afterlife may be a dignified one—our ancestors are your ancestors. For this you sacrifice what—the selfishness of a stupid man?”

  Ah-Jeh pulled a face and pretended to spit upon the floor. “The thunder and rain eclipses all else for any man—kindness, loyalty, truth, and let us not speak of love. If it is love you are after, you will do better to chase the moon in a water jar. All the pleasure of the ivory staff belongs to him—not to you; if you are lucky, you may catch a few drops. He will ram it into every hole in your body whether you wish it or not—and you will have no voice in this. Your voice will only be heard in the agony of bearing his children and the unhappiness left when he is done with you.”

  Li watched Elder Sister pause to sip her tea. That she spoke her truth was not in question. Li looked upon her in a clearer light, feeling humbled by the passion of her words.

  “Are you one to hope for the love and care of children in your old age … for their gratitude?” Ah-Jeh continued, slowly shaking her head with a mockery of sadness. “If you bear sons and do not die raising them—perhaps you will get a crumb from their table. If you bear daughters and they are allowed to live—your heart will weep for them as Pai-Ling’s wept for you.

  “You cannot change your fortunes—that your father has betrayed you, turning your brave young dreams to ashes. He has sold you, and your future lies in the secret drawer of Ming-Chou’s great dragon desk with a hundred others. Nothing will retrieve it but a miracle. So ask these questions of yourself and be truthful: Are the seasons of the mulberry groves all that you will ask of life? To be old before your time, your beauty lost to savage suns and biting winters? Do you prefer to live with fools on a mosquito-ridden riverbank until you are cast out or buried in the Pagoda of Pity at the side of Little Pebble—or do you prefer to be cooled beneath the fans and warmed by the stoves of the mill, to live among flowers and sleep beneath a roof of tile?”

  Li listened intently while eating the delicious food put before her. She set the chopsticks aside as Ah-Jeh filled her cup.

  “I am unworthy of such valuable advice, and my gratitude is greater than my humble words can express. I beg you to hear my foolish thoughts, as foolish, I think, as the secret of my heart. You have paid me the honor of speaking to me as a woman and not a child. I must try to speak like one, and must beg for your patience… . When the man who calls himself my father dressed me as a doll, he showed me the butterfly of hope, then he burned the books I could not read. He brought me to Ten Willows, saying I was to live with a rich uncle. He lied because he was afraid I might run from him again before the money paid for me was safely in his purse.

  “He left me here and did not even say good-bye; he took with him my chance of happiness. He will never have my forgiveness, no matter what becomes of me. I do not hate him, as I do not know him—he is nothing to me, as I am nothing to him. Beneath the willows, I soon saw that the world of the mui-mui and the world of the sisterhood are greatly different, and like the others, I too dreamed of becoming a weaver.

  “But I have watched the weavers come and go, hand in hand across the bridge—from the comfort of their little houses to the safety of the mill. They are beautiful to see beneath their sunshades, like flowers that do not wither and die. Each looks like the other and they are fortunate to be content and happy with the life that they have chos
en. But I was kept imprisoned by four small walls for too long. My father tried to take away my feet, to make his purse a little fatter. I was less than a lup-sup dog and treated as one.

  “I fought to save my feet, which took me into the fields under an endless sky. I suffered much to keep them free and cannot think that they will only cross the bridge and walk the flowered paths of this compound for the rest of my life. In the mulberry groves I can walk or run as I please. If one day I choose to run farther and faster than I should, then let me pay the price of my decision.”

  Li left her seat to kneel before Elder Sister, kowtowing until her forehead touched the floor. “Ah-Jeh, do not offer me the mirror and the comb … I could not accept them. My respect for the sisterhood is too great and I have already found my limitations. Since I could stand, I have chased the butterfly of hope and happiness. Let me seek the miracle you speak of on my own feet … I shall never complain of the consequences.”

  Ah-Jeh listened to Li without showing her thoughts. When she spoke, it was with the voice of Elder Sister, superintendent of Ten Willows.

  “Then there is nothing I can do to help you. If you will not accept the mirror and the comb, you must face the punishment your attack on Ming-Chou demands.”

  The superintendent informed Ming-Chou that the girl who had turned upon him with such savagery had been captured and secured in the rings. The merchant recalled the fox fairy painfully, his annoyance fleeting. This was Ten Willows business and need go no further. He considered himself a fair master: Had he not supplied mosquito nets and built the Pagoda of Pity in a corner of his own land, a place of burial for those whose ancestors had disowned them? He had full confidence that his superintendent would see to it that the demon did nothing more to disturb the serenity of his illustrious domain.

  Ah-Jeh did not need to be told that the faster this was put to rest, the better. There were those among the mui-mui who nursed grudges of their own, and would need little reason to rebel. Even her small corner of sau-hai, a system that kept order and harmony through the strictness of its rules, could be at risk. Li must be silenced as swiftly as possible, an example that would not be forgotten.

  The scroll of proclamation was read out and hung upon the gingko tree. Ah-Jeh spread word throughout the huts of the mui-mui and the compound of the mill that the girl called Crabapple had been condemned by the laws of sau-hai to receive one hundred strokes of the cane across the soles of her feet, followed by one week of confinement in the animal pens—then to be taken to the river in a basket made for the transport of pigs, and there to be drowned at the break of day in the way of all devils and demons who would corrupt the laws of Ten Willows.

  Li was taken to the rings of punishment, her ankles thrust into the clamps. When everyone was assembled, Ah-Jeh slashed the soles of the fox fairy’s feet until the long, thin cane was too heavy to lift.

  As each cutting blow jerked her body, flames of agony licking her precious feet, Li found herself back in the rice shed, waiting for the rattle of the latch and the door to open. She thought only of her mother Pai-Ling descending on a moonbeam to the silver mists of the ginger field. A veil of white wrapped her safely in its gossamer folds, where the flames could not follow.

  She was left in the leg irons for a day and a night. Certain that the fiend inside her had turned her raving mad, no one went near her. Even the larn-jai muttered their abuse from a distance, while their dogs circled, sniffing for an opportunity. Finally, with daylight gone and a pale moon rising, Giant Yun and Little Pebble led the family mung-cha-cha silently from the darkness. They formed a circle of protection around Li, sitting upright on the ground to keep away the larn-jai and their dogs.

  Taken from the rings, Li’s lacerated feet were swollen to twice their size and she could not stand. Armed and uniformed bodyguards of Ming-Chou stood ready as she was dragged to the pigsties and the goat pens, a collar and bell around her neck and tethered by a chain. She was left for a week, to eat what the animals ate and to drink what she could from the trough. The mui-mui were ordered to pelt her with refuse, but dared not face the wrath of Little Pebble and the mung-cha-cha, or the feet of Giant Yun. Every night, by the light of their mother the moon, her feet were washed with herbs, while Pebble fed her from her own bowl and gave her clean water to drink.

  On the seventh day, the larn-jai approached Li as they would a helpless goat. They had armed themselves with willow wands to slash her into submission, but could not raise the squeals they hoped for. She resisted them with such frenzy they backed away, giggling as they poked her with sharpened sticks. Only when a vicious blow from behind had stunned her did Li-Xia fall in an explosion of blinding red that slid into instant darkness. It was struck by Ah-Gor, the elder brother of the larn-jai, the one who had straddled her in the ditch. She awoke to find that he had tied her hands tightly behind her back with grass rope as another trussed her feet. A filthy hand was shoved brutally between her legs with whoops of laughter as others tore away her clothing.

  “We shall see what the beautiful Crabapple is hiding in her hair.” Ah-Gor opened a long-bladed knife, hacking at handfuls of her hair. Another gathered them into a bunch and set it alight, tossing the flaming torch onto her half-naked body. It gave off a smell Li knew she would never forget. Even so, it took time and sweat for the larn-jai to force her bodily into the long narrow cylinder of the pig basket. The opening of the basket was quickly tied tight, as the gangling Ah-Gor squatted beside her, resting on his bony haunches, lighting the stump of a cigarette.

  He flicked the burning match at her and blew strong tobacco smoke into her face with a gust of putrid breath, speaking easily as he would to a friend. “There is no escape from the basket.” Ah-Gor grinned, flicking away the stub and climbing to his feet, scooping a dipper of water from the trough, pouring it carefully onto her bound hands and feet. “When the grass rope is wet, it grows tighter and tighter. The more you struggle, the tighter it gets.”

  Trussed in this coffin of woven reeds, she was carried down to the riverbank and deserted, bound hand and foot, the gag in her mouth. Only the fire of her festering feet told her she still lived. Left there through the freezing night, she retreated again into the moonlit mists of the ginger field—until the first cock crow echoed across the river, dogs barked, and sampans quietly sculled their way to market, the smell of cooking fires from the chop house strong on the morning air. Lamps were lit among the huts, to the clamor of the triangle. In the rising mists, the bodyguards herded the mui-mui to the riverbank in sight of the jetty. They would witness the punishment whether they wished to or not.

  Through the weave of the basket, Li saw a procession approaching, headed by two priests and their acolytes in full regalia of red and black, accompanied by the thin keening of trumpets and loud thumping of fish-head drums. The sisters of sau-hai followed, their sunshades furled beneath their arms, each with a switch of willow in her hand; and behind them the larn-jai, with a great clashing of cymbals and beating of gongs. In moments, the pleasant faces of the weavers surrounded the basket, peering down, looking with bland interest at her muddied face through the open weave, jabbing her with their sticks to see if she still lived.

  Looking past them, through eyes almost blind with pain and exhaustion, numbed of all hope, Li blinked her eyes, unsure at first if what she saw was real, or her tortured mind playing tricks: the white-tipped masts and streaming pennants of the foreign ship, twin dragons writhing through the willows like the wings of a phoenix.

  CHAPTER 8

  Sky House

  Captain Benjamin Jean-Paul Devereaux was entering figures into the cargo log when he heard the commotion. It ebbed and flowed like a turning tide underlying the voices of his deck crew as Golden Sky made ready to dock at the loading wharf of the Ten Willows silk farm. This was a lucrative new port of call for Golden Sky; he had bought his first shipment of raw silk from the merchant Ming-Chou and sold it at a handsome profit to the factories in Shantung.

  The silk farm had
seemed peaceful enough, almost enchanted, on his first journey, when he had glimpsed the vision of a young girl bathing at the edge of the river. A vision so lovely, he could not be sure he had really seen her; the overhanging willows reflected in the river shadows played many tricks when disturbed by the bow wave of Golden Sky. He found that this fleeting image had stayed with him; when he had looked again, there had been nothing but a yellow cloud of settled water and the trickery of dancing sunlight.

  Ben Devereaux would not be considered a big man on his forefathers’ island of Brittany and the rugged coast of Cornwall, but in Southern China, where a man was tall at five and a half feet, he was seen as a giant. His face was weathered by a lifetime at sea in all seasons and latitudes; his mother’s Manchu blood gave his complexion a sallow cast, finely lined as scrimshaw on a whale’s tooth. His thick bronze hair, streaked with veins of gold, was tied back with a thong of leather. His beard showed signs of the same sun-bleached gold, kept clipped but far from neat. His eyes, gray as uncertain skies, were changeable as the restless oceans he had made his own.

  The babble grew louder and more compelling as he closed the logbook with a sigh: another argument, no doubt, between his crew and the dockers, or with the passing junk crews who hated to see a foreign ship taking their business. Going on deck to stop the trouble, he found his men lining the handrails and hanging from the rigging. They were watching a chaotic gathering on the riverbank. Priests fed a bonfire with bundles of paper, as numerous black-clad women crowded around some object on the ground. They prodded and struck it with sticks, cheered on by a gang of unclean louts with emaciated dogs yelping at their feet.

  He had seen such women before, the amahs of his own house and those of his friends, but never in a group of fifty or more like this. They looked, he thought in an instant, like a flock of ravens squabbling over a corpse As the women half dragged the object toward the river’s edge just astern of Golden Sky, he saw that it was a common pig basket, woven of willow twigs and rushes, known for its strength when restraining the struggles of a full-grown boar. But why would they be trying to drown their own pig? Even to the hardened sensibilities of a lifetime at sea, much of it on China’s coast and its far-flung rivers, there was something decidedly sinister in the whole rowdy procession. Ben’s partner and sailing master, Indie Da Silva, a native of Macao, was watching from the rail and turned to him, his usual Burmese cheroot jammed between dazzling teeth made mainly of pure gold. “I was about to call you, Skipper. This is a sight not meant for our eyes.” Indie was grinning widely beneath a wide-brimmed hat of light sisal hemp.