Deadly injustice

EIGHTEEN

In the morning, Gurbesu touched the bruises gently.

‘How did those get there?’

I shrugged my shoulders, putting on an air of masculine hardiness.

‘Oh, they are nothing. Just the price of a scheme of mine.’

I could see that she didn’t know what I was talking about, but she wasn’t going to admit it.

‘One that didn’t work, by the look of those bruises.’

She leaned across me to reach her bag of cures and salves. I think she deliberately put her full weight on the biggest bruise on my chest. I winced, and she smiled sweetly, unwrapping a pot of something greasy. She began to apply it, and I must say I liked the process. The beating was almost worth it for receiving such compensation. I sniffed the unguent.

‘That is nice. What’s in it?’

‘Marigold mainly. Though I think this also contains some crushed plantain.’

I lay back and allowed her to ease my manly pain. As she massaged the ointment in my wounds, she taxed me on my reply to her question.

‘What do you mean by the price of a scheme? What have you been doing? I bet you got mixed up in some underhand deal again like that one you told me about once. The long… thing.’

‘The long firm.’

I laughed. Once, a long time ago when I was trapped by snow and ice in a hut along with a bunch of warlike Tartars, I had had time to think up this plan. Being a trader, I knew it was possible to obtain goods on credit. Now, if you first bought small quantities of, say, wine, and paid quickly, you would develop a reputation for reliability. The next step would be to place several large orders on credit with different suppliers of wine. Once the big orders arrived, you disappeared and sold the wine under another name elsewhere. Your creditors could go hang. Your reputation could take up to a year to establish, so I called it the long firm scam. I looked at Gurbesu accusingly.

‘It was only an idea I once had. How could you think I would ever carry it out? Besides, how could I be doing it now, when we have only been here a week?’

She pinched one of my bruises, and I winced.

‘That hurt!’

‘Good, it was meant to. I hate it when you keep things a secret from me. I bet you never did it with Kat-erina.’

I corrected her instinctively, as I always did, though it never seemed to have an effect.

‘Caterina. I kept plenty of secrets from her, or she would not have liked me as much as she did.’ I sighed. ‘But then she got her own back by keeping the biggest secret she could have from me.’

‘Carrying your baby? All women are afraid to tell their man that secret. We don’t know how you will react.’

I could not imagine any man being anything other than joyful at the thought of his lover giving him a child. But I had messed up and left Venice just when Cat had fallen pregnant. Or so I realized only after Gurbesu had explained to me why Cat had been moody and sick just before I had fled Venice to escape charges of wrongdoing. I saw that Gurbesu had swung her legs round and was getting off the bed. She knew what my silence meant. I was thinking about her rival again. But how could there be rivalry between two women who were thousands of li apart? They were destined never to meet. In fact, I had no realistic chance of seeing Cat again. Unless I could work my way to making Kubilai so indebted to me that he would release me from his service. So I had need of solving the mystery of Old Geng’s death, and pretty soon.

I watched as Gurbesu lifted a white silk shift over her head. It slid down down her dark and alluring skin hiding her rounded arse and falling to her ankles. With her nakedness hidden from me, I too eased my aching hips, where I had been enthusiastically kicked, over the side of the bed. Once dressed, I felt the effects of ointment easing my aches, and I straightened my back and stepped out into the sunlight that bathed the courtyard of our temporary accommodation. Hovering by the street door was a shady-looking figure, who seemed more at ease in the shadows than in bright daylight. He hissed at me and beckoned with a crooked finger. Curious, I strolled casually over to him, though I kept a good grip on my dagger just the same. I stopped a few yards from him, and beckoned in my turn.

‘Come forward where I can see you, man.’

I spoke in Mongol, but just in case he didn’t understand, I made my gestures clear. He was a skinny Chinee with a dowdy brown cotton robe printed with dull green flowers. It made him blend even more into the background than his dull, grey face, and limp, long black hair did. You could walk past him in the street and never notice him. I had seen many a successful assassin with the same attributes, so I stood my ground. Reluctantly, he stepped into the light and spoke in a voice as dull and nondescript as his physical nature.

‘Are you Zhong Kui?’

He gave me my demon name and spoke in Mongol too. I noticed for the first time that his eyes sparkled with intelligence. It was the only bright thing about him.

‘Yes, you could call me that.’

‘Naturally. Who else could you be with hair like that?’

He was proving a strange character, whose cleverness belied his outward appearance. I was intrigued.

‘Now you know who I am. I would like to know who I am addressing.’

He shrugged, as if his name was of no consequence.

‘I am Ho.’

He was the burglar, then, who formed part of the little scam I had devised, and that Li had taken over. I was even more curious.

‘What have you got that would be of any interest to me?’

He grinned, exposing sound and fine white teeth. They showed he took good care of himself.

‘I could tell you many things. But there is one item I hear you are anxious to lay your hands on. A play script.’

He had my complete attention. He must have been referring to the script missing from the players’ collection at the theatre. The one that could have information on Geng’s death written down by the murdered Nu.

‘Yes. I am interested in a particular script.’

‘It will cost you.’

I didn’t imagine he had brought it out of the kindness of his heart. Not a thief and a robber like Ho.

‘If it is the document I want, could you tell me how you came by it?’

He smiled more broadly.

‘That information will cost you more.’

I felt like grabbing him and squeezing the information out of him. But I knew he was too canny to have the document on him. I would have to pay for the pleasure of obtaining it, and the name of the person from whom he had stolen it. I had no doubt that was how he had come by it. He just happened to have robbed the one person who would have preferred to have kept his possessions secret. I contained my anger and agreed an outrageous amount of money with him. He once again slid back into the shadows where he looked more at home. But not before he told me how he would let me have both the script and the name I wanted.

‘Go to the temple right now, and give the priestess the money. She will be our intermediary. When you return this afternoon she will give you what you want.’

Like a shadow lost in sunlight, he was gone. I hurried back to my rooms and grabbed the satchel that held much of the paper money I had waved under the prefect’s nose in order to entice him into the scam that Ho had formed a crucial part of. The return on my investment had proved thin, but there was still plenty to buy what I wanted from the thief. I found it amusing that our go-between was to be the old priestess in the temple. Presumably Ho trusted her enough because of her part in the swindle I had set up.

‘What are you laughing at?’

Gurbesu had just finished dressing and was arranging her thick black hair in a Chinee fashion. I caressed her cheek and deliberately annoyed her for my own petty amusement.

‘Never you mind your pretty little head about it. I have great plans afoot.’

I dodged out of the room just as her ivory comb flew through the air. It hit the door frame and clattered to the floor, but I was gone. The streets were already busy, and traders were opening their shops for the day’s business. I made for the square. My business was with the old woman in the temple. Stepping over the threshold into the incense-filled gloom, I looked around for her. She was in her usual spot, seated on the floor beside the god of lost items. Spotting me she rose more agilely than a woman of her years should have a right to. But then, as other worshippers entered behind me, she adopted her normal stooping gait. She held out her claw of a hand and begged in that grating voice of hers.

‘You have an offering for me, red-haired demon?’

I dug my hand around in my satchel and pulled out a bundle of money.

‘I do indeed, mistress. Though it is not for you, but for a man who will come today and give you a gift in return for the money. It is a gift intended for me, and not for your shrine, though.’

She grimaced.

‘Then why should I do all this, if the god does not benefit?’

I could hear the obvious implication of her question. She didn’t care about the god, but about herself, and she played her part well. I added a slimmer bundle on top of the fat one I had already proffered.

‘That is to placate the god.’

She felt rather than saw the thickness of the bundle and she grinned.

‘Will you then return later today to see if the god is pleased?’

I nodded, playing out the charade.

‘Indeed I will. This very afternoon.’

‘I hope you will not be disappointed.’

‘I hope so too, or someone will be very unhappy.’

I did not say that it would be Ho if he did not come up with what he promised me. If he took my money and fled, he would be a dead man. The old priestess cackled and I left the temple. Waiting for the information I needed was going to be frustrating, so I returned to the house where I thought I could make good use of the time. As it turned out, it was more useful than I had imagined. The rumours being spread about Lin Chu-Tsai were troubling me, and, if they were driven by Ko Su-Tsung, I wanted to know who his agent was in Pianfu.

As I had made up my mind to tell Lin, I went straight to his quarters. Crossing the courtyard, I saw through the window a figure moving in his rooms. It was not Lin; it was a taller person, more awkward in his movements. I slid the door open with a bang, and a shocked Po Ku, his face pale, looked over his shoulder at me. He was sifting through Lin’s papers that lay on the low desk in the centre of the room. They were the meticulous notes that Lin had made to date of our whole investigation. The gangly servant was so surprised by my abrupt arrival that he struck one of Lin’s brushes with his palm, and set it rolling across the latest set of notes. It left a black scar over the careful Chinee script. He groaned with horror, his eyes boggling out of his head. I shouted at him.

‘What do you think you are doing?’

I was immediately convinced I had caught Ko’s spy in our camp, and if Po Ku was the spy, then he was also the perpetrator of the rumours. Stories that would ruin Lin, and by connection with him, me also. I grabbed Po Ku’s arm and spun him round so I was staring him in the face.

‘How much did Ko pay you to betray your master and spread all those evil rumours? Or does Ko have some hold over you that has made you do his bidding, and try to ruin our investigation here?’

Po Ku’s mouth flapped open and closed in fear, but no coherent words came out. I would have slapped his stupid, peasant face but a voice rang out behind me.

‘Nick, stop it now.’

It was Lin’s voice — a little high-pitched, but authoritative nevertheless. I dropped my open palm to my side, but still kept hold of his servant.

‘He was rifling through your papers in a way that made me think that he is Ko’s spy. You know Ko Su-Tsung will do anything to ruin both you and me, and then he can get closer to Kubilai.’

‘Yes, but what makes you think he has infiltrated a spy into our little band of fellows?’

I knew I would have to tell Lin now what evils Po Ku had spread about him in Pianfu.

‘I think it because that is just what Ko would do.’ I took a deep breath. ‘And because this servant of yours, while he was out shopping in the market no doubt, has been spreading rumours about you.’

‘What rumours?’

‘He has been saying that you had improper relations with that actor.’

Lin’s face fell.

‘With Tien-jan Hsiu? That I am some sort of… sodomite?’

Po Ku wrenched his arm from my grasp and fell on his knees before Lin. He had understood enough of our conversation to know that he stood accused of some bad deed, and babbled a denial in rapid Chinee. Lin lifted him up by his shoulders and calmed Po Ku. He looked over the youth’s shoulder at me.

‘This boy can hardly be an agent for Ko. Look at him.’ He turned the terrified youth to face me. Tears were streaming down his face. ‘Besides, how could Ko communicate with him while he is here with us?’

‘By letter, of course. You know how fast the Yam postal system is.’

Lin smiled.

‘But I also happen to know for a fact that Po Ku cannot read or write. So not only could he not take written orders from Ko, he couldn’t send information back about any… meetings I might have had with Tien-jan. It would also be pointless for him to examine my notes.’

I was puzzled.

‘But you asked him to collect your papers only the other day.’

‘Yes, to gather them, but not to arrange them.’ Lin stepped close and whispered in my ear. ‘It pleases him to imagine that he is my secretary. I often have to tidy the papers up afterwards.’

I realized that Po Ku was another of Lin’s lame ducks — people who he strove to help because they reminded him of himself as a poor, peasant youth sold to the Mongol court as a child. I think I had once fallen into that category of lame duck when I had turned up at Kubilai’s court. I had wheedled my way into a banquet, and into a position where I had to uncover a murderer, or be accused of the murder myself. Lin had seen me floundering with unfamiliar Mongol ways and helped me.

‘But, if it was not Po Ku who spread the rumours, who was it?’

Lin looked a little shamefaced.

‘You will not be angry, if I tell you?’

‘You mean you know? And you haven’t told me before now?’

Lin raised his hands, palms facing me in apology.

‘I had to be sure myself. And I only learned it by accident. Ko’s messenger was careless, and I saw a letter in Ko’s script being brought to this house.’

‘Who was it for?’

‘Tadeusz.’