The Concubine's Daughter (40 page)

He bent to kiss her forehead, his arms reluctant to let her go. “You are the head of this household, not I. It shall be exactly as you wish. Find what staff you will when you feel they are needed and not a moment before. Until then we shall manage splendidly.” He released her, his hands still resting on her shoulders.

“Let us put this unhappiness behind us … promise me that now you will rest.” His voice was comforting, but Li could see the shadow behind his smile.

For the next week, they settled into simple contentment, only to be startled by a telephone call from Indie Da Silva on New Year’s Eve. Some
larn-jai
had started a fire in the Macao shipyard, and Indie had been wounded by a knife thrust. Though Indie made little of this, saying that the injury was slight and that the fire was under control, Ben knew that his partner would make little of it even if faced with certain death. Li urged him to go and see for himself. Leaving her in the care of the Fish, he took the pinnace and headed for Macao at full throttle.

It was a hot night and Li lay unable to sleep after the Fish had gone to bed, her fears renewed by the emergency. Although he had said nothing of it, she knew that Ben had been concerned enough to hire a security guard to patrol the walls at night with a pair of Alsatians. The windows
of her bedroom were thrown wide to catch any breeze off the sea. The security grills were kept locked, so there had been no need to check them. A thin moon dusted the gardens but shed little light through shifting veils of gossamer cloud.

She neither saw nor heard the barefoot intruder rising like a shadow beside her bed. A hand clamped hard over her mouth, hard, cruel, and tasting of sour sweat. She could not see the face that loomed over her as the hand put its iron pressure on the points of her jaw, forcing it open and preventing any sound from escaping her.

“
Kung Hai Fat Choy
—Happy New Year, Beautiful One … or is it the little Crabapple? Which is it to be, the sweet or the sour?”

Instinctively, Li’s hand slid beneath the pillow to raise the hair knife in a flashing arch. She felt the razor sharp tip of its curved blade slice into solid flesh before her wrist was clamped in a grip that robbed it of all strength.

“The claw of the bear … I was warned but did not listen,” the voice mused with a growl, as her hand was twisted until the hook of steel dropped from her fingers. A thumb wiped away the blood welling from the gash in his flesh. As if in the blackest of dreams, she noticed the nail was thick as horn, rimmed with grime, grown long and uncut.

“But this is not the claw of a black bear … it is the scratch of an alley cat.” With the ball of his thumb, he smeared blood deliberately, almost playfully, across her forehead and slowly down her cheek, his voice mocking her. “I am not afraid of fox fairies. I have danced with all demons and know their music well.” The power shifted to a point in her throat that blocked the flow of her chi, draining all movement yet leaving her fully conscious. A filthy rag was crammed into her mouth, another tied tightly around her jaw to keep it in place. Her wrists and ankles were securely bound.

The bloodied thumb pressed down on a point in the center of her forehead, releasing the inner force that had paralyzed her. The figure straightened, turning its head to reflect the pallid light. Li was jolted into a gasp of horror by the face looking down at her—a hideous melding
of scar tissue that stretched from one mangled eye to the grizzled nub of an ear, and down the shining cheekbone to contort half the mouth. Crude surgery had lifted the upper lip in a permanent leer to expose crooked teeth. The puckered skin extended down the thick neck, over one shoulder, and across the naked chest. Blood flowed freely from the flesh wound slashed across his chest. It was the face in the photograph she had seen behind Ben’s desk.

She turned away from his burning eyes, but the powerful hand clamped her jaw, forcing her to look at him, his face now inches from hers. “I want you awake and to see me and hear me … I will look into the eyes of the famous Lee Sheeah, the Beautiful One, while she is still a pleasure to gaze upon.”

He stroked her hair gently from her forehead, strand by strand. “You see me, little
tai-tai
? I am Chiang-Wah. This was once the proud face of a
dai-lo
, high in the ranks of the Yellow Dragon brotherhood, wearer of the golden sash.”

The terrible wounds had caused a sibilance in his speech, saliva spitting with each tortured word forced from deep within. “The
gwai-lo
who spreads your legs did this to me. Now I have no face to show and all pride has fallen from me, but I have come as I said I would, to take that which is Di-Fo-Lo’s greatest prize. I gave a warning, but he did not believe me. He should have sent you away with the
gwai-paw
teacher, far away where I could not find you.”

Chiang-Wah bent ever closer, his mouth twisted in a sneer of triumph. The roughened touch of his thumb continued to trace the contours of her face … across the flickering lids of her eyes, the bridge of her nose, to her lips where they lingered, probing their softness. “The dragon head is weak. He does not honor the oath of his father. It is left to me, Chiang-Wah the Fierce, to fulfill the word of the Yellow Dragon and restore the honor of the brotherhood.”

He leaned closer, his breath foul to her laboring nostrils. His thumb moved slowly down, over the contours of her throat to her breast, pinching the dormant nipple with such force her head was jerked from the pillow.
“That you chose a foreign devil before a man of your own people … You think yourself a
tai-tai
… but I see you as farmer’s slut, not fit for feeding silkworms.”

His hand dived suddenly to her crotch, his fingers ramming inside her with a force that made her body arch with pain. “Well, I will show you how one of your countrymen takes his pleasure, and you may be the judge.” Li-Xia fought for oblivion as Chiang-Wah violated her. All sense of time, of place, of feeling seemed transferred to another body than her own. Only when he gave a strangled cry and was quiet for a moment did she return to herself and find him looming over her. She was beyond all fear but for her unborn child.

“Tell Di-Fo-Lo that I have found more pleasure in Red Lantern Street for less than the silver dollar he paid you.” He sensed her terror and spoke almost soothingly. “I have been careful not to dig too deep. We must not harm the child: I want it safely born. To take a life before it is begun would be of no value.”

Chiang-Wah produced a small porcelain snuff bottle, the kind easily found in the market. It was pretty, delicately painted with tiny chrysanthemums. “Now I will take from him that which he has taken from me … my face. I will spare you an eye as I have been spared, so that you may see each day the face that Di-Fo-Lo has given you. So that you can see your child, and the look in its eyes each time it sees its pretty mother. I will take from him your beauty, so that he may live with you in endless agony and ugliness, as I have lived in mine. All his money and his power cannot change things. Let us see if he will bed you then. You will suffer until the day you die, and he will live with the joss that he did this to you.”

He held the tiny bottle over her face, tilting it gradually. “If your child is born, I will not harm it, boy or girl … until it is three years old and is received into the bosom of its ancestors. Then I will find it, and kill it as I would kill a rat. The blood oath of the Yellow Dragon as sworn in the name of Kuan-Kung by the true dragon head, Titan Ching, will be ended.

“He knows we have unfinished business, the baby-eater and I. Death
would be a pleasure to him after he sees what I have done; he will pray for its relief.”

The Fish would never know what drew her to Li’s room that evening. She had felt more than heard sounds that were not part of the night. She always slept lightly; even the swoop of an owl could wake her. She tapped gently on the door, her ear pressed to it. “Are you all right,
siu-jeh
?” she whispered, then heard a sound she could not recognize—faint as the titter of mice. When she opened the door, it struck her like a blow, a smell so strange she could not be sure of it—the elusive stench of rancid vinegar… .

Through the heavy curtains of her agony, Li knew that the Fish was at her side; she heard the old woman’s stifled cries as the rag was taken from her face and pulled from her mouth. Li turned her face away into shadow as she spoke through the mists of her unspeakable torment. “Do not switch on the light.” Her words were barely audible. “You must be strong for me. My child is coming. Do whatever you must to save it; I am beyond suffering.”

The Fish was quick to fetch hot water and towels, the mixture of herbs that dulled her senses. Li used the last of her strength to bring about the birth of her child. When the infant was delivered and wrapped, Li reached blindly for the Fish’s hand and held it tightly. She did not ask to see her baby, only to know whether it was alive and whole, and if it was a girl.

“It is a beautiful girl, mistress. She is small but perfect in every way. She already has some hair the color of her father’s and eyes that shine like pearls.” Li’s grip tightened, words forced from the failing reserves of her life-force. “You must take her away, far from here. Di-Fo-Lo cannot save her from those sworn to destroy him, and he will die trying. He does not understand the danger I have brought into his life. Take her to your
huang-hah
, to the lake where the gods once delivered you. Find your cousin the barefoot doctor. Take her to his house where she can grow strong in peace.”

Li was silent for a moment, seized and held on the rack of pain. When she spoke again, her voice was no more than a rattling breath. The Fish bent closer to hear her.

“She must learn to read and write; this is more precious than gold. Promise me this.”

The Fish struggled to keep her words steady and sure, but all the strength within her could not hold back her tears.

“I promise this child will learn the ways of a scholar. She will be loved and respected, and I will move heaven and earth to keep her safe.”

Li squeezed her hand. “Do not cry for me, dear Auntie. This was written on the talisman of the rainbird; you were told of it but dared not say. I think I always knew that my place on the mountaintop would be brief.”

She raised a hand, drawing on the last of her strength. “On the dresser, in the box of shells, there are precious things. Most precious are my diary and the journal of Pai-Ling. In their pages are the thousand pieces of gold as I have found them. It will tell her of my journey and perhaps guide her steps.” With a trembling hand, Li removed the golden guinea from her neck.

“Give her this, the first of her thousand pieces. Tell her I shall be with her always; she only has to close her eyes and call my name. There are jewels and other things that are precious to me. Take them and give them to her when she has lived for ten years, and when she is ready, take her to her father’s house.”

The sedative had dulled the suffering that engulfed her so completely, yet she found a window in her mind still open, a light that led her through all pain toward an August moon. “You must go now, in the sampan at the jetty. Take her before Master Ben returns.”

Li entered a domain without pain or fear or sorrow, in which she heard the muffled cry of her child and, moments later, the closing of the door. Gathering the last of her strength, she rose from the bed as in the most mysterious of dreams. A bloodred curtain slowly ascended; in a trance she passed out onto the marble terrace, cool beneath her feet. The moon blazed like a beacon, suddenly draped in a fleece of cloud fringed with silver. She moved toward the balustrade, aware that even at
night the scent of chrysanthemums and marigolds lay heavy on the air. The sea winds struck like fire upon the mask that was her face.

A voice broke through her reverie, real and vicious as a lash. “The sea is cold, little Miss Li; it conquers any fire. It opens its arms to welcome you.” Beside her, no more than a step away, the dark shape of Ah-Ho loomed against the sky.

The patch of cloud thinned enough to show the glitter of jewels as she slowly trickled a string of sapphires from one hand to the other. “I did not think old dog bones deserved such a rich reward for her treachery.” She held up the necklace in front of Li, dangling it for a moment like a plaything. Even through her haze Li could glimpse the unmistakable flash of canary yellow. Then the thin cloud cover drifted like a sail across the beaming face of the moon, and again Ah-Ho was cloaked in shadow.