They enveloped him, one seated to each side, one seated by the doorway to play a stringed instrument for his enjoyment, while the fourth began to sing, lolloping out some horribly off-key (to his Occidental ear) nonsense in a quavery, breathy voice. The one to his right plied chopsticks to feed him bites of dim sum, while the one to his left kept the tea and brandy flowing. And after each song, they would trade places, to introduce him to all their accomplishments.
"Speak English?" he asked each of them as they settled in at his side. "Speak pidgin? French? Bloody Latin?"
Sadly, three of them could not, but Wei Yen could. She was youngest of the four. It was hard for him to judge just how old she really was, but he guessed around sixteen or seventeen. Her skin was clearer, her features more delicate than the others', her mien not as artificially gay and "cherry-merry" as the other three, either.
There was more tea, more dim sum, some more appetizers fetched out, another bottle of mao tai. And then the madam was back, with her hand out for more silver, to pay for the treats supplied so far.
"You mak choose, now," the woman said, making it sound like a demand more than a request. "You wan' one guhl, two silla. Two guhl, fo' silla. Wan' keep aw fo', ten silla."
"One girl. Wei Yen," Alan replied, forking over two shillings for the girl and another six pence for the entertainment. The others bowed their way out and tripped down the main hall, toward the front of the establishment, their services already in demand.
Wei Yen beamed at him with a maidenly little smile, then took him by the hand and led him in the other direction, towards the back.
"Give bath," she promised.
A steaming wood tub sat sunk into the floor of each bath cubicle, some already full by the sounds coming from them. Lewrie took his time dawdling on his way to his, trying to peer into each one or linger long enough to listen to see if he could hear French being spoken. He shrugged, thinking Choundas either not there, or long gone by this time.
Wei Yen hung up his garments, wrinkling her pretty little nose each time and sing-songing something in Chinese, laughing softly as she did so. Lewrie preferred to think that they were jokes. When he was bare to the world, she indicated that he should get into the tub. He slid down into the extremely hot water, wincing on his way down, and found a bench to sit on by the side.
Wei Yen walked with mincing little steps to the other side of the tub and disrobed down to a very thin nankeen under-grown, which she slipped back off her shoulders as he watched, entranced.
She was a little bit of perfection. Middling shoulders, slim neck, creamy skin the color of pale ochre wheat. The silk robe she had worn had concealed the springy young bounty of her breasts that stood up firm and proud and straight-ahead fitf gether, shadowing a dark cleft he wanted to dive into. There was the slightest bit of stockiness around her rib cage, but the' waist was wasp-thin as a doll's, and her belly was so firm and flat, with a ridge of what he hoped would prove to be damned talented muscle down the center, leading to…
"Shaved?" he asked the room as she came toward him. She slid down into the tub with him gracefully, and came to his side. If she had seemed maidenly shy and tender before, it had been a theatric, for she became an unleashed tiger. She sat straddling him on the bench seat, reaching down to seize his member, which sprang awake as the Brigade of Guards in a twinkling. They slopped around in the tub, splashing water everywhere. She almost let him enter her, then slid away from him until she had him roaring in frustration.
But no. He had to leave the tub, sit on another damned stool while she soaped him from head to toes and scrubbed him clean with a sponge, sliding away from his soapy embraces and laughing all the while. Back into the tub for a cleansing soak, and then she was toweling him dry, letting him towel her dry. Then they gathered up their clothing and went up a back stairway to a private chamber.
He came to his senses just long enough to remember his condom, and then they were delightfully engaged, at long last, both making noises more usually associated with Iroquois massacres. "Father's wrong, ya know!" he said between gasps. "Bengali women have nothing on you, my dear!"
He lay utterly spent at long last, used up far further than he could ever remember, while the girl stroked him and kissed him, working him over with a small towel, and loosing her long dark hair that spread like a cloak to cover them both. She'd come unpinned somewhere in the second bout whilst teaching him an entirely novel manner, wrists and one ankle behind his neck as he sat on the edge of the bed clasping her small bottom like holding two small melons.
Her teasing fingers, and the moist warmth of the towel, strayed to his member, and it flickered with renewed interest.
"You wan' 'gin, qua?' she said with a gasp of wonder.
"Again? After that?" he chuckled. "Well, in a few, perhaps."
"No wan' 'gin, soon you go, qua," she said in a soothing whisper. " 'Nudda man, he wan', I got go. You stay, 'nudda one silla. You wan' chai, mao tail Wan' eat 'gin? Allee same at:Ua."
"I stay," Alan replied. "Mao tai, you and me both, right?" – She gave him a kiss and slid out of bed to slip on her un-dergown, open the door and call for one of the maid-servants.
While they drank and recuperated, he quizzed her as much as he was able. He learned that she had once been one of those little maids, purchased from a peasant family far to the north when the crops failed. Girl children could always be sold to support poor families. It was a prime reason to keep them, instead of putting them to death at birth: as a hedge against an uncertain future.
They were just about to partake of another spell of amour when Alan got down to his real questions, and the reason he had chosen her instead of one of the others who had no pidgin or English.
"Does a red-headed man ever come here?"
"Red? Wha' red?"
"Like this pillow tassel. Red," Alan prodded. "Dull, like ginger."
"Aw fo'n debbil red ha'," she tittered.
"Pale skin, like yours. He has a thin beard." Alan had to make a partial mask over his lower face with both hands. "Not long. Short, ginger-colored beard."
"Him debbil!" the girl shuddered.
"He comes here?" And she nodded her assent. "Did he come here tonight?"
"Him mak nudda guhl 'night," Wei Yen said, looking thankful. "Debbil, him! Mak wan' li'l guhl, no wan' olio guhl, my. Las' yea', him wan' my, no so olio. 'Night, him wan' new li'l guhl Yi."
"So he did come here tonight!" Lewrie exulted. "And is he still here? Right now?"
"Him heah. Him ba' man debbil! Hu't, my! Hu't Yi allee same!"
"What does he do?"
The girl could find no words, so she forced him onto his back and began to slap the air over his chest. "Dat!" She bit at his nipples. "Dat!" She pretended to slap and choke him. "Dat!" Teeth took hold of his shoulder and neck. "Dat!" she told him, biting lightly.
"Jesus Christ, what a monster," Lewrie agreed as she sat back up.
"Whi' lak dead, him!" Wei Yen shuddered once more. "Bear' mak sclatch. No wan' guhl, wan' bebbee. No wan' bebbee guhl him on top! Him wan'…" She slipped off to one side of the bed, knelt with her head on the pillow, arms held behind her back as though they would be tied if with Choundas, then slapped her rump.
"Wan' go ba' place, allee same guhl place."
"The pervert!" Lewrie growled. "What an utterly rotten bastard!"
" 'Otten bassah'?" Wei Yen said, sitting up once again.
"Rotten," Lewrie corrected.
"Lotten bassah," the girl parroted, then said it to herself several times, trying "pervert" on for addition to her vocabulary as well.
"Well, you're not with him now, you're with me. And I'm not a rotten bastard, or a pervert," Lewrie assured her, drawing her down to him. "Well, not much of one, anyway."
Then there came a muffled scream from down the hallway, and a series of yelps. Wei Yen stiffened in his arms, burying her face in the pillows. "It him, red ha' fo'n debbil!"
"He's still here!" Lewrie said, starting off the bed, a
lmost dragging the frightened Wei Yen with him. "Oh, what luck!"
More wails of terror and pain, hiccupy little strangling wails such as a very young girl, one even younger than Wei Yen, would make. The sound of cuffs or blows, perhaps, preceding each new outcry.
Lewrie went to the door and opened it to hear better, even as Wei Yen tried to drag him back. He saw another door open, saw Captain Jacques Sicard lumbering to the noise as the madam and one of her bully-bucks came up the stairs from the front of the bordello, their sing-song voices sounding anything but musical. Sicard was rapping on the door, whispering "Guillaume!"
Lewrie ducked back as Sicard began to remonstrate with the madam, opening a purse to pay her off for whatever damage or harm his man was causing. Another door opened, only a couple of rooms beyond his own, and a distinguished Chinese gentleman emerged, drawn to the commotion. He stopped in his tracks, though, and squinted his eyes, when he saw Lewrie, just shutting his door.
"You no go, him hu't!" Wei Yen rasped, dragging him back into the room completely and slamming the door with her behind. "Ver' ba' man, him! Wei Yen mak you contentee, no silla, you stay 'way!"
"What are they saying?" Alan asked, trying to shake the little baggage loose from her death-grip on his body and find his stockings.
"Him pay muchee silla, muchee tael cash fo' Yi," Wei Yen translated. "Olio woman Ma she say fo'n debbil go, him, no comee back. Is good!"
Doors opened. Voices rumbled in Chinese, pidgin and French as Lewrie began to dress, much against his better judgement. Wei Yen was trying her damnedest to coax him back into bed with her. But he'd had his fun, expensive as it had been, even if it had been Twigg's money. He had to be ready to shadow Choundas once he left the brothel.
With his stockings and shoes on, his breeches pulled up and buckled, he heard footsteps coming his way. Ignoring the girl's protestations, he stepped to the door and opened it just a crack, standing well back in the shadows so he could see what was happening.
The shoes sounded different. Two pair, perhaps, of hard-soled European shoes with heavy heels. And the swishing sound of a pair of slippers.
Alan saw the Chinese man, now dressed in an elegantly embroidered silk robe, with a round pillbox hat on his head adorned with one coral button on the top and a long peacock or pheasant feather. The man cut his eyes towards his companions.
And there were Sicard and Choundas, shoulder to shoulder behind the Chinese man. Sicard paced on past, but Choundas slowed down to a crawl as he passed the crack in the door. And he grinned! A brief, sardonic, mocking grin, before resuming his pace and joining his companions!
The cheeky bugger, Alan thought at first. His second thought was for a weapon. For that brief glance was as chilling as coming face to face with Old Scratch himself! There was no shame in the leering grin. No fear of discovery. Only scorn for whoever it was behind the door.
I'll wager he grinned 'cause he thinks there's a poor whore in here he's tortured before, Alan thought. Gloating at her. Or maybe he was daring whoever he took me for to come out and say or do something about it.
Or, he realized with another chill of dread, that Chinee bugger saw enough of me and recognized me. Christ! "Sorry love, duty calls. Damme her eyes. This is for you," he said, handing over two of Twigg's golden guineas. "I go follow bad man. And when we catch him…"
He made a scritch sound and the motion of cutting a throat.
Alan trotted out of the door for the end of Old Clothes Street where it opened out onto the wider main road. He looked about for a sign of Twigg or Wythy, for Will Cony, but his was the only Occidental face present. And, as he emerged, the number of Chinese in the dark street melted away into the doorways and the darkness between the few oil lamps.
He was almost out of the street when something made a quick swishing noise, and his skull exploded! There was a burst of light he could taste, something brassy-coppery, and then a pain that made him wish to scream like he never had before, except that it hurt so much to draw a deep breath that he couldn't! Without knowing how he had done it, he was face-down in the dust of the street, eyes barely able to focus on a pair of bare and horny feet at the edge of his vision. They were coming towards him. A knee appeared, as if whoever it was was preparing to kneel.
Without thinking, he lashed out with his left arm and leg, and the agony that doubled and redoubled in his head was so exquisite he found breath this time, gasping for air to let out a scream of pain as he swept whoever it was off his feet.
The man went down, overturning some baskets, spilling garbage against the dingy walls. A stout stave clattered against the bricks. Howling with more pain, Alan clawed himself onto his assailant, but the man retrieved the stave and rolled over to strike him across the top of his shoulders. Alan yelled some more, though the blows didn't hurt. Nothing could hurt as bad as his skull did in comparison!
There seemed to be other cries now, stirred up by his howl-ings, and the drumming of feet heading toward the street opening. His foe shrugged Alan off and got to his feet to flee, but Alan got both hands around one ankle and held on for dear life, getting dragged through dirt and garbage for his pains. He could smell blood. He could smell mildew, his face pressed against the back of the assailant's ankle: the salt and mildew-moldy reek of a sailor's clothing.
The man stumbled to one knee, kicked backward to free himself as Lewrie tried to scale him, nails rasping on rough duck cloth as he got a couple of fingers in the man's waistband from the rear. More blows from the stave, one on the skull again, this one bringing back the explosion of light once more.
He couldn't hold on, and dropped away. The next blow swished past his drooping pate to thock! on the wall with a horribly hard blow.
"Hold on there, ye bastard!" Alan heard a voice say, and then there was a flash of light that winked as Alan tried to look up, one small glimmer of flickering oil lamps on metal. Knife!
Ignoring his skull for his life, he scuttled back against the wall, turning over more tall wicker baskets as he tried to rise and crab his way up the rough bricks. A shadow bulked from the street entrance.
"He's got a knife, Mister Wythy, look out!" Alan screamed.
Two bodies swayed against each other. Two quick blows. Two more winks of steel, and then the foe was gone, running east down Thirteen Factory Street for the creek and the plank bridge. There was a hue and cry, the babble of Chinese voices.
"My God," Wythy sighed as he stumbled to the wall to lean on it, sinking to his knees. "My God!"
Alan lurched away from the wall to sink to his own knees by the older man as Wythy pressed both hands over his abdomen. "That bloody bastard!" He grimaced, his expression turning to a cock-eyed grin of sarcastic surprise. "Think the bastard's killed me!"
"Hoy!" Alan called, his head splitting with every breath. "Hoy the watch! A man's been stabbed here! Somebody help us!"
"Oh my God," Wythy whispered as his blood flowed like a spilled bottle of claret and steamed in the cool night air.
Alan staggered to the street entrance. Yes, sailors from a dozen nations were coming on the run. He could see Twigg and Percival, with Cony bringing up the rear.
"That way! A sailor with a knife! Somebody stop the bastard!" Alan yelled, and then his own vision began to turn into a dim tunnel, pinpointing Twigg's ugly phyz.
He sank to his knees again. "Oh, will no one catch the murdering shit?" he moaned.
"Oh… my… God," Wythy wept in reply.
Chapter 7
The Consoo House was crowded with traders, ship's captains and Europeans for the execution. The eight members of the Co Hong sat to one side, trade taking a poor second place to justice in this instance. The Chinese mandarin Viceroy for Canton sat on his inlaid throne on a pile of silk pillows, with his Banner Men soldiers behind him, and his linguist at his feet.
Lewrie had missed the trial, laid up with a concussion, but he had been told it was a brief affair. The Chinese officials had been highly upset that one of their strictures had been violat
ed. There had been more than a strong rumor that all foreign-devil ships would be ordered out of Chinese waters if more of these fights between the French and English occurred.
"Fight, Hell!" Alan had protested, but Twigg had told him to stay silent. There was too much pressure from the East India Company to let it go for what it appeared to be: a bungled attempt at robbery by a drink-addled French sailor on an English trader. Trade was too good this season. The pickings corning down from the hinterland were the best anyone had ever seen, and the prices were for once reasonable.
So Twigg had to sit silent and let his friend and partner pass over as a man in the wrong place at the wrong time, who had died trying to aid an English shipmate. It had taken Wythy a couple of days to die, from the suppuration of two deep belly wounds that were untreatable and a death sentence. Lockjaw had been added to the insufferable agonies of his last night on earth.
The surgeon had shaved Alan's head, staunched the bleeding and sewn up the pressure cut. For the moment he was forced to wear a wig until his hair grew back out.
"M'seurs," someone said in a soft voice from behind them.
Alan turned awkwardly. It still hurt to turn his head, so he pivoted on one heel.
"Guillaume Choundas, capitaine, La Poisson D'Or. A votre service" he said. "I am mos' sorry for your loss. Zat it was a French sailor who did this… words cannot express my sorry."
Twigg laid a hand on Lewrie's arm before he exploded.
Choundas was turned out in his Sunday Divisions best, a dark blue master's coat trimmed in white lace and silver buttons, short white tie-wig over his dull ginger hair, silk shirt and neck-cloth, dark red waist-coat and black breeches and stockings. On his left sleeve, he wore a wide black riband, tied in a bow. In mourning for the French sailor.
Choundas turned up the corners of his mouth in a sad smile. He had droop-cornered eyes, orbs of a pale, washed-out blue that were as icy as Greenland bergs, though, belying his evident sorrow.
"Zis pauvre homme, messieurs," Choundas went on. "Zis poor lad. what 'e did was…" A Gallic shrug. "But 'e was in drink, n'est-ce pas! A good matelot. One of mine, as you know. 'E is tres … so very young, messieurs. Surely, Brittanique gentilhommes such as you may find ze Christiani-te.. ."
The King l-4 Page 22
