The Cloud Leopard's Daughter

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘Good morning, Bao,’ he said. He’d addressed her in this casual manner since she’d arrived, apparently thinking it was acceptable to dispense with formalities as, in his mind, they were betrothed. ‘Are you well today?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  He looked around, perhaps deciding where to sit. Bao scattered cushions across the futon, making it clear he wasn’t welcome there, so he squeezed his considerable backside into a chair. As he subsided a strong waft of sandalwood incense and stale garlic crossed the gap between them, confounding Bao’s olfactory passages.

  ‘Is there tea?’ he asked.

  ‘Po is bringing it.’

  Chun smoothed the front of his robe over his fat thighs. ‘I have a surprise for you, which I am sure will delight you.’

  I doubt it, Bao thought.

  Po tapped, peeped around the door as though terrified of interrupting something intimate and wheeled in a trolley containing the tea accoutrements. These included: a porcelain brewing tray; two matching, very ornate and heavy silver teapots decorated with a dragon motif that wound its spiky way around the pot in relief, the head forming the spout and the tail the handle, both balanced on silver burners to keep the water hot; two silver canisters with the same dragon pattern containing the teas; two porcelain cups (small and delicate, without handles) painted in red, orange and bright blue enamel featuring yet more dragons; an embroidered tea cloth; a tea pick; a strainer; a tea scoop in the shape of a scallop shell; and a miniature hourglass, all also in silver. Dragons were generally a motif reserved for emperors and persons of royal heritage, in theory at least, and Bao thought Chun had a cheek filling his house with such items as he was clearly neither.

  ‘Which tea would you prefer, Mr Yip?’

  ‘Green.’

  ‘And yourself, Miss Bao?’

  ‘Red, thank you.’

  Nervously, Po tested the temperature of the water in the teapots with a finger, clearly burning herself quite painfully, then decanted several scoops of tea leaves into each and turned the hourglass over. She poured the green tea first as it required less time to brew, using the tea strainer to trap the leaves and filling the room with a fresh, grassy aroma. When a minute had passed, she reached for the pot containing the red tea, but Chun beat her to it.

  ‘You may go now,’ he ordered.

  Surprised, she bowed slightly and left them, sucking her scalded finger.

  ‘Stupid girl,’ Chun muttered.

  Grunting slightly, he eased himself out of his seat, grasped the cane handle of the teapot and poured, the tip of his tongue sticking out between his moist, red lips. He spilt a lot of it across the brewing tray, but some went into Bao’s cup. She knew she should knock on the table between them to express her gratitude and respect for the fact he had poured for her, but couldn’t be bothered. She wondered if that was the surprise.

  Evidently delighted with himself for condescending to carry out such a menial task, Chun took a sip of tea and sat back. ‘So,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’ Then, ‘Are we waiting for something?’

  ‘We are.’

  Bao had no choice but to drink her tea and try not to stare at him. He really was an unattractive man. He was, she suspected, very vain about his appearance and today he was wearing an ankle-length gown of sky blue silk fastened by button and loop across the right breast and beneath the arm. He also wore a coral-coloured sleeveless waistcoat over the robe, as sumptuously embroidered as the robe itself. If he was fat and ugly but possessed of a pleasant nature she wouldn’t have minded him. She certainly still would not marry him, but she wouldn’t mind him.

  She rolled her eyes as he reached down to his groin and had a good rummage about, but then she realised he was retrieving something from the little drawstring pouch attached to his belt. He withdrew a small, carved white bottle with a coral stopper – white jade? Bao wondered – tipped a scattering of finely ground brown powder onto the back of his hand and sniffed it violently up each nostril. Then almost sneezed his head off.

  Another knock at the door.

  ‘Enter!’ Chun shouted as he wiped his streaming nose with the tea cloth.

  Two women appeared, laden with what appeared to be several cotton garment bags and assorted other containers.

  ‘Put everything over there.’ Chun indicated the futon. ‘This is the bride.’

  ‘Good morning, miss,’ the women said in unison, bowing low then placing their parcels carefully about the place.

  Bao felt a very unpleasant sense of foreboding creep from her belly up into her chest and throat.

  ‘I have had your wedding garments made,’ Chun announced. Oh God!

  ‘At great expense,’ he went on, ‘but the ensemble, I think you will find, is very beautiful. You will be pleased.’

  He said it, Bao noted, as though it were an order, not a prediction. He clicked his pudgy fingers and the women opened the first garment bag and lifted out a high-necked robe that fell to the hips in cherry-red velvet silk covered with exquisite embroidery everywhere but on the shoulders and across the upper bust and back. Apart from the red silk background the dominant colours used in the embroidery were varying shades of blue, green, orange, pink, purple and gold, all hues that harboured specific meaning, as did the animals and flowers represented. The second garment bag contained an ankle-length skirt to match the robe. The outfit was indeed very beautiful.

  ‘Very lovely,’ she said, more to please the women than anything else.

  ‘And the headdress,’ one announced, unable to keep the excitement from her voice.

  Out came a very large and ornate headdress of gilt copper, kingfisher feathers, coral and pearls, and a matching clip for the back of the hair when it was put up, both of which were jaw-droppingly beautiful. Bao leant forward for a closer look: the workmanship was outstanding. Chun smirked.

  The headdress was followed by a long pair of coral, turquoise and gold ear pendants, a heavy silk gauze veil, which Bao knew was to be worn over the face until the moment of the wedding ceremony, and a pair of gold velvet shoes.

  ‘Are you impressed?’ Chun asked.

  ‘I am,’ Bao replied. She knew that everything would fit too, as she’d been measured for a new wardrobe when she’d arrived. She hadn’t had much with her except the clothes she’d been wearing when she’d been taken from the Chinese Camp, and a couple of outfits Kai had paid for when Lo Fang Yi had stopped briefly in Sydney. ‘But I still will not marry you.’

  Chun’s self-satisfied expression rearranged itself into one of impatience, then anger. He clicked his fingers at the women again and they scuttled out.

  He said, ‘You are so sure you have a choice in the matter.’

  Again a statement, not a question.

  ‘We all have choices in life.’

  ‘Not you. Your uncle and I have a contract. If you refuse to marry me he will not become head of your tong, and Kai very much desires to become your family’s . . . what do you call it?’

  ‘Cloud Leopard.’

  ‘Yes. Very quaint.’

  ‘It is,’ Bao agreed amiably. ‘As a tong master yourself, what are you known as? I heard that people call you the Frog.’

  Chun’s eyes bulged, his throat worked and his face darkened with anger, thereby unfortunately adding to his froggy looks. ‘I have had men whipped for less.’

  ‘Then whip me.’ Bao shrugged, almost but not quite apologetically. ‘I still will not marry you.’

  Chun leant forwards and slammed a hand down on the low table between them. ‘Do you not understand! It is too late. The process has begun. The three letters and the six etiquettes are already well underway.’

  ‘Are they?’ Bao didn’t even look at him. Instead, she examined the end of her long plait for split ends.

  ‘Yes. I do not object to the marriage proposal; you do not—’

  ‘I do so!’

  ‘You do not! My family does not object, and neither, of course, does your guardian, Wong Ka
i.’

  ‘He is not my guardian. My father is my guardian.’ And he will have sent me help, she thought fiercely. He will not have left me to extricate myself from this unpleasant situation on my own. Even now someone will be looking for me.

  ‘Your father is too ill to partake. The matchmaker is overseeing the process, an astrologer has matched our birth dates propitiously, and a practitioner of suan ming has predicted a fortuitous future for us. The betrothal and gift letters have been sent and the wedding letter has been drafted.’

  ‘I have not been consulted regarding any letters.’

  ‘Why should you? You have said repeatedly that you are not interested.’

  That was true, Bao thought. He had her there.

  ‘Anyway, the betrothal gifts have already been presented to your family, and accepted.’

  Ah, the bride price. She hoped she’d cost Yip Chun Kit a lot. ‘Who accepted the gifts on behalf of my family? Kai is in Australia.’

  ‘An emissary in Hong Kong chosen by your uncle.’

  Who could that be? Bao wondered. Someone with their foot firmly in Kai’s camp and eyes assiduously trained on her, no doubt. Was he – or she – here in Chun’s compound? That was an unwelcome thought.

  ‘The wedding gifts have also been presented to your family. Foodstuffs and the like, plus jewellery for yourself, which will be held in safekeeping by Kai’s emissary until I feel the time is appropriate to grant them to you.’ Slyly he added, ‘The jewellery is beautiful and very valuable. I chose it myself. Coral and silver ear pendants, a hair ornament of gold and kingfisher feathers, a pair of heavy gold bangles embellished with pearls and coral, an amethyst and white jade necklace, and a moss jade and snow seed pearl necklace, all made by a craftsman trained by the Empress Dowager Cixi’s assistant jeweller.’

  And all to no end, Bao thought, as she couldn’t care less about jewellery.

  ‘And,’ Chun went on, ‘the wedding date itself has been chosen. We will be married two weeks from today, on Monday the twenty-sixth of October. The stars are very auspicious for that date and augur well for a long and happy life for us.’

  Bao hoped Chun wasn’t paying his astrologer much: he didn’t seem very accurate. And two weeks didn’t give her long to formulate and implement a plan of escape.

  ‘What does Tan think of all this?’

  ‘My wife? It is irrelevant what she thinks. She has always known I will take a second wife, and perhaps even a third.’

  ‘I do not believe she is very happy about it.’

  ‘It is not her place to be happy or unhappy. It is my responsibility to my father’s brothers to provide them with heirs, as one cannot produce children and the other seems able only to father daughters. For that I need wives. You are an ideal candidate as you come with such an attractive dowry.’

  ‘You mean my family’s money, which Kai will share with you when he becomes Cloud Leopard, because of course, as your wife, I cannot retain the office as tong master?’

  ‘That is correct. But I do not think you will find life here onerous.’

  No, because I will not be here. ‘Lai Wing Yan is also unhappy. She wants to be your next wife.’

  ‘I am aware of that. But a wife must bear her husband children. When she bears me a child, I may reconsider her status.’

  ‘What if she never does?’

  Chun’s fat shoulders rose then fell. ‘There are plenty more where she came from.’

  ‘What if I could not bear you a child?’

  ‘You have your dowry. I can take more wives.’

  ‘And if you were to grow tired of me?’

  ‘I am tired of you now, to be frank. You are being very recalcitrant.’

  ‘What if we were to marry, and I forced you to divorce me?’ Failing to bear him a son was out as a reason; he’d already commented on that. Bao focused on remembering the other grounds he could cite to divorce her. ‘I could commit adultery or behave in a lewd manner. I could demonstrate jealousy concerning your women.’ But Tan and Wing were both openly jealous of her, and Chun didn’t seem to mind that. ‘I could be rude to your parents, gossip publicly, commit theft, or catch a vile disease.’

  Chun laughed. ‘Then you would just have to spend your time alone in your apartment, missing your lover, gossiping to yourself and suppurating from your various sores and orifices. I would not divorce you, Bao. I would not risk you seizing the office of tong master from Kai once your father has gone. Kai tells me you are a far more capable – and dangerous – woman than you appear.’

  Yes, I am, Bao thought, and you should not forget that, Yip Chun Kit, though it would be far better for me if you did. She stood, gathered together the garments and accessories that made up her wedding costume and dumped the lot in his lap. ‘I appreciate the time and workmanship that have gone into these, but I will not be wearing them so please take them away.’

  ‘I think not, Bao. It is my wish that you become my wife, and you are not in a position to deny me.’

  But Bao had already returned to her chair by the window and was busy watching a fork-tailed sunbird darting about the branches of a plum tree.

  *

  Yesterday had been a terrible day, as far as Kitty was concerned. In her head, while at sea between Cebu and Hong Kong, she’d concocted a scenario in which they would locate and confront whomever had abducted Amber from the hotel and agree with them to not look for Bao in exchange for Amber’s return. Once they had her back, safe and sound of course, they would renege on their part of the bargain and merrily begin the search for Bao, find her unharmed, and sail with her back to New Zealand.

  The idea of Amber instead in the hands of a ruthless pirate king was sickening, literally, and every time she thought of it, which was at least once every few minutes, she felt alarmingly light-headed or had to swallow bile.

  She hadn’t slept much, and knew Rian hadn’t either, and had had to resort to a hefty dose of laudanum to finally drop off. Now, this morning, she felt as if her head were stuffed with cotton, which didn’t bode well as she, Rian, Simon and Hawk were off to try and talk to Yip Chun Kit. While they were doing that Haunui, Tahi, Pierre and Gideon would talk to ships’ crews along the waterfront in the hope of news of Lee Longwei’s whereabouts. Kitty was laden with guilt – she felt she should be looking for Amber, not Bao, who was at least not being held by an actual, and notorious, pirate – but they’d made Wong Fu a promise and she intended to keep it.

  Having got directions to Yip Chun Kit’s house as easily as Mr Ghost had predicted, they hired an ox cart and driver to take them across the city to the foothills of Mount Victoria. The cart was unsprung and extraordinarily uncomfortable, but the city of Victoria, despite its considerable population, lacked any carriages for lease. The few carriages on the island were privately owned, mainly by the British. Sedan chairs were available for public hire, and were slower than walking, but much less effort for the passenger if their destination was the summit of Mount Victoria.

  Shaken and bruised, Rian, Kitty, Hawk and Simon dismounted creakily from the cart and gave the driver instructions to wait. He nodded benignly, fed his ox a great wodge of hay from a sack beneath his seat, packed a long pipe with tobacco and lit it.

  As was customary, the front wall of Yip Chun Kit’s house sat very close to the street, with his servants occupying those apartments most likely to experience any ambient noise. The best apartments, Kitty knew, would be at the rear of the property, and would house Chun and his immediate family. It was difficult to gauge from the street the lavishness of his home but judging by the length of the front wall, the compound was substantial. A single gated portico sat off-centre in the wall, in accordance with the principles of feng shui, which vaguely irritated Kitty, who felt the door should be in the middle. It looked odd, off to one side like that. Untidy.

  Rian banged the knocker, the head of a ferocious-looking lion dog with a ring in its mouth. A flap above the knocker flipped up almost immediately and a pair of suspicious eyes peer
ed out.

  ‘Er, good morning. Is this the residence of Mr Yip Chun Kit?’

  The eyes stared unblinkingly for a moment, then an unseen mouth rattled off a long sentence in Cantonese.

  Rian looked at Simon. ‘I didn’t get any of that. Did you?’

  ‘Something about an appointment?’

  ‘No, we don’t have an appointment,’ Rian said slowly. ‘But we’d like to speak to Mr Yip. Would you tell him that Captain Rian Farrell has a business proposition for him? A very lucrative proposition.’

  ‘That is a waste of time if he cannot speak English,’ Hawk pointed out.

  ‘I think he can,’ Simon said.

  Another mistrustful stare and the flap rattled shut. They waited. A pair of sedan chairs carrying white women went past, the bearers with the long poles on their shoulders labouring and sweating under the weight of their passengers, followed by an ox and cart a few minutes later that coated them liberally with road dust.

  ‘Perhaps he’s not coming back,’ Kitty said.

  Simon wiped his face with a handkerchief then blew his nose. ‘I suspect he will.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘From his eyes.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so stupid. All we could see were his eyes.’

  ‘Yes, but they registered quite a lot of interest when Rian said his name.’

  ‘What rubbish you talk sometimes, Simon.’

  ‘Well, occasionally, but not always,’ Simon replied benignly.

  Rian took Kitty’s hand and squeezed it. ‘Just wait, mo ghrá. I think he will come back.’

  Eventually the door in the wall opened and a tall, very well-built Chinese man wearing a sour expression indicated that they should enter. ‘Mr Yip see you. Please follow.’

  ‘I told you he could speak English,’ Simon whispered to Kitty.

  ‘Is it the same man?’

  ‘If it isn’t there must be more than one fellow employed here tall enough to look through that flap in the door. See how high up it is?’

  It was true, the flap was set higher than the eye level of the average Chinese person. Yip Chun Kit must have some serious concerns about his personal safety. But then he probably would, being a hong, a tong master and quite possibly not a very nice man. What decent man would collude with someone like Wong Kai to abduct a young woman and marry her to deny her her power and steal her family’s wealth?