The Concubine's Daughter (21 page)

She did not know who had bathed her and dressed her feet, only that
she was clean and wearing clothes too big for her that smelled fresh as a breeze off the water. There was another fragrance in this strange room; neither incense nor opium, it hung in the air with a mysterious sweetness. She lay in a wonderfully soft bed so large it could hold six others, and her head rested as on thistledown. When her eyes closed, the phantoms of her ordeal returned to mock her, but they were distant and indistinct, her terror cushioned by a sense of comfort and well-being greater than she had ever known.

She knew she must have been taken from the river by the barbarian Ah-Jeh had called Di-Fo-Lo, but could not find fear among her scattered senses. She tried to raise herself but could not move, remembering nothing but the welcome certainty of death, the knife-edged shrieks of the
sau-hai
, and the bellowing of the
gwai-lo
captain as he waded to shore with her held fast by one strong arm, while wielding a blade in the other.

Although she still saw danger, the cloud she floated upon grew softer. This time the gentle voice of Pai-Ling did not come to her. It was as though she had finally embarked on the journey that had begun in the rice shed—an old life for a new. With her eyes still closed, she yielded to the surge and gurgle of a fast ship driving hard through a lively sea.

She woke with a start of alarm as a blunt finger was pressed gently against the pulse of her throat. The foreign devil himself was bending over her. All that she had heard of him and his kind welled within her, but was tempered by a face that said nothing of hate. He did not prod and poke her to guess her weight and value. She was reassured too by the broad, friendly features of a Chinese man leaning closely over his shoulder.

The barbarian’s face was serious but not at all menacing. His eyes were not the eyes of a monster; they were kinder and less questioning than she could have hoped for. The hair that curled on his head and chin looked cleaner and neater than she had expected, and did not seem to be alive with vermin as she had been told it would be. Neither was the smell of him as odious as she had been led to believe; he smelled of fresh salt air and something sweet—opium perhaps, of the finest quality. He
lightly placed the back of his hand across her forehead. It seemed huge to her, and she shrank from its touch.

“Keep still; I will not hurt you.” He shifted his hand to her cheek, first one and then the other, then gently pulled down her lower eyelids and asked her to open her mouth and stick out her tongue. “You have no more fever. How do you feel?” She was stunned to hear his deep voice speaking confidently in her language. At first she could not answer, then whispered, “
Ho, ho
,” indicating she did not feel unwell, but, looking down at her bandaged feet, “
gurk-tong
… my feet hurt.” He nodded his understanding. “Your feet are badly injured but will soon be strong again.” The barbarian allowed a smile to light in his strange gray eyes.

“You are safe now, aboard my ship,
Golden Sky
. You have been here for three days and two nights. There is nothing for you to fear. You need only to eat something, then rest if you can. When you are well enough, you may come on deck to breathe some air.” He straightened to what seemed to Li an impossible height. Behind him, the small Chinese man stepped forward with a tray. “This is Wang, my steward; he will look after you until we arrive in Macao. Then we will get you well again and find you something to do. There is nothing to be afraid of; no one can hurt you now.”

He was quickly gone, and Wang set a tray of food beside the bed, chattering as he helped her to sit up. “Captain Devereaux is a good master,
siu-jeh
. You need have no fear of him. He does not eat babies like other
gwai-los.
He has paid and signed your
sung-tip
. You belong to him now… . You are very lucky.” He chuckled happily. “Very, very lucky,
siu-jeh
.”

The hot rice porridge was delicious, smooth as silk and spiced with hundred-year egg. A large mug of orange-colored tea was set on the tray in a special place to keep it from spilling. Wang giggled at her expression. “
Gnow-lie-cha
,” he said proudly. “Cow’s-milk tea. Master Ben only drinks
gnow-lie-cha
.” He was delighted to see her sip the hot, sweet tea and give a nod of approval. “I will play healing music for
siu-jeh
,” he said, taking a small bamboo flute from his pocket. It was the first time Li
had been properly addressed as “little miss,” and it pleased her in the strangest way.

She allowed the gentle movement of the ship to rock her in its arms, and watched the circle of light sweeping the walls and ceiling until her eyes were closed in a peaceful slumber. With no idea of how many hours she had slept, Li was roused for the second time by the looming presence of the barbarian. He filled the doorway as he spoke.

“I think it is time you breathed some fresh air… . But first, we shall look again at your feet.”

He stepped aside to allow Wang to enter with a bowl of steaming water and a tray of bottles and bandages. She saw that he carried a pipe of polished wood between his teeth, from which sweet smoke whirled about him. It told her that this room was his, that the clothes she wore had known his skin and the bed she lay in was where he slept.

“Wang is the ship’s doctor as well as an excellent cook and a clever entertainer, as you have discovered. It was he who cleaned you up and tended your feet. He will change the dressings and attend to you. If you are well enough, I will bring you topside.”

A half hour later, her feet soaked and dressed with another herbal poultice, Li was lifted in the captain’s arms and carried up a set of brass-bound steps out onto the deck. The midmorning sun hung in a sky of duck-egg blue. Li had never seen the ocean except in her imagination, from the middle of the wooden bridge, when the tide was high and the river was at its widest. The open sea stretched away to the horizon on every side. The wind whipped a thousand white horses from ink-blue waves and filled the booming sails that flew above her like the wings of heaven.

The captain set her in a deck chair and Wang tucked a blanket warmly around her. Breezes sang in the rigging at her side, and a cloud of gulls wheeled and dived upon unseen schools of fish. As the wind drove
Golden Sky
through sheets of sparkling spray, the dark green mountains of southern China came steadily closer. Nestled at their feet, spread like a child’s plaything, was the Portuguese enclave of Macao.

Macao did not have the splendid temples and palaces of Hangchow or Peking, the bustle and commerce of Shanghai or Hong Kong, or the picturesque tranquility of the river ports. Macao was said to be like an exciting woman who, deserted by her lover, cast out by her family, and rejected by her friends, had turned thoroughly bad.

Its maze of cobbled streets and alleys were lined with opium dens, fan-tan and other gambling parlors, chop houses, and brothels that never closed. Its people were a mixture of Chinese, Portuguese, Macanese, Indian, a sprinkling of Arabs, and natives of the Cameroons. Among these, connected like the backbone of a snake, a murderous fraternity of renegade Europeans vied with the triad-protected Chinese taipans and their warlords for control of the gambling and vice dens.

There was a seductive beauty in the old Portuguese-styled houses lining the inner harbor, famously known as the Praia Grande—pastel pinks, blues, and yellows of the Mediterranean set against the curling gray tiles of Chinese rooftops. Taoist and Buddhist temples and joss houses stood side by side with the Dominican church, Catholic cathedral, and Christian monastery. Overlooking the bay, the stately buildings of the East India Company dominated the boulevard leading to the governor’s palace and other grand villas and mansions of the city’s foreign embassies. On the promontory at the mouth of the Pearl and West rivers, overlooking the city and the outer bay, Ben Devereaux had built his mansion. As grand in every way as the ships he built, it dominated the headland with its size and splendor.

Golden Sky
sailed into the bay and closed with the dock of the Double Dragon Shipyard and Trading Company. Strangely—but then everything now was strange to her—Li felt no great apprehension as she was carried down the gangway in Ben’s arms, the scent of him no longer strange but close and comforting. A young Chinese man in the smart pearl-gray uniform and cap of a driver stood beside a waiting motorcar, the first she had seen, as astonishing as everything would be to her from this moment on. When the driver was ordered to help her into a backseat, he did so instantly, leaning in to make her comfortable. His face
remained blank, but the eyes that held hers for a fraction of a second showed resentment. They drove through busy streets, along the wide and crowded boulevard and up the winding coastal road to the promontory. There, great iron gates emblazoned with a pair of golden dragons opened before them, as stone lions glared down from either side.

The head amah of Sky House, Ah-Ho, looked upon the girl before her with obvious distaste. Although she could not say so, she greatly resented a homeless Chinese female being brought into her domain without her knowledge or consent. Ah-Geet, the driver, had carried the girl through the lofty foyer, along a wide hallway to a small, bright room, and laid her down on its clean-smelling bed. The driver’s face was passive but his eyes were hostile. Li could not be sure if she heard the whispered word “
cheep-see
”—whore—before he left the room.

Her heart sank on seeing a face that reminded her of Ah-Jeh’s looking down at her with evident suspicion. This woman was taller than the superintendent, with the height and girth of a man; the broad muscular face was unpowdered, the wide mouth colorless. Her tightly combed hair was wound into the gleaming bun and fixed by the wooden comb of the
sau-hai
.

Instead of a
tzow
, Ah Ho wore wide-legged black trousers and a starched white jacket with the gilded frogging of her exalted station, jade studs in the lobes of her ears, and a wide leather belt about her ample waist, dangling with a wide assortment of keys. Ben addressed her briskly but with evident tolerance; even, it appeared to Li, with a little respect.

“Ah-Ho, this child has been through bad times; she is crippled and cannot stand. Send for Dr. Yap. She will rest up in this room until she can get about.”

The amah’s reply was cold and uninviting as her icy stare.

“And when she can walk, Master, where is she to go? Do you wish me to find a place for her as a
mooi-jai
? She may not be worth much, but I know of many who would be pleased to take her.”

Di-Fo-Lo’s reply was equally stiff and unenlightening. “I have purchased her
sung-tip
. She will stay in this room until she is able to walk. Then we shall find her work to do.”

Ah-Ho paused, her eyes avoiding his. “But Master, I am not in need of another
mooi-jai
. Who is to care for her? Surely not I … or those of my kitchen?”

Ben was thoroughly aware of how little the head amah had to do, as he was of the duties of all the staff of Sky House. He was also aware of the complex hierarchy of Chinese labor and responsibility, of reward and privilege, that governed a stately residence like his. Finding servants who could be trusted to run a house well and with a minimum of theft and intrigue was a foreigner’s most advantageous acquisition anywhere in the Far East. Once attained, such service could last for a lifetime and even into future generations. He would do nothing to put this delicate balance at risk, certainly not for an unknown waif whose life he had saved on an impulse born largely of ill-disposed and thoroughly unreasonable anger.

“Let the Fish take care of her. When she is well, I will find her something to do until it is decided what is best for her.” He became suddenly irritated by the amah’s stubborn face. “By God’s teeth woman, have you no compassion? Can’t you see she is little more than a child and has been savagely beaten? Fetch the doctor and send me the Fish.”

As though she had been waiting for the mention of her name, a sprightly gray-haired woman appeared, bowing energetically as a clockwork toy. Her greeting was as bright as Ah-Ho’s had been bleak. “Good morning, Master, how are you?” Age had not conquered the Fish. Her thinning gray hair, loosely held by a clasp carved from pearl shell in the likeness of a leaping carp, framed a face that was brown as dried tobacco. Beneath lids like finely crinkled leaves, her eyes were quick and alive. Her slight, wiry frame was garbed in a loosely fitting
sam-foo
, brightly decorated with the intricate beading of a Tanka elder, fastened by ivory toggles. In the center of her forehead, held by a band of black velvet, was a ring of deep green jade; several bangles of a lighter-colored stone clinked on her thin wrists.

Li was immediately drawn to the impish brightness of this lady called the Fish. Alert and inquisitive, this was a face that had survived many seasons, perhaps fifty, perhaps sixty or even more. Ben received the dignified elder with unconcealed affection. “Ah, Fish, this girl is from a bad place on the Pearl River. She cannot walk and needs attention. I have sent for Dr. Yap. When he has examined her, you will follow his instructions and care for her. Find her something to wear and feed her well. She has had a very bad time.” Ah-Ho stood aside in silence as the Fish bowed her clear understanding. With a hostile gleam in her eyes, the head amah of Sky House bowed stiffly, then turned and left without a further word.