A Deadly Injustice

EIGHT

Govern a family as you would cook a small fish – very gently.

The girl was unaware that she was, albeit obliquely, in the thoughts of someone so highly positioned at the court of Kubilai Khan, so many li away. It was enough that she now knew the Investigator of Crimes was in Pianfu. Wenbo had come scurrying along the unlucky road that very morning. He bore the news that a delegation had arrived the previous afternoon, led by a most important official dressed in a red pao robe. He was accompanied by foreigners – a small monkey of a man with a burned face, a tall, black-garbed, ugly man who must be a Western priest, and a woman who looked as though she came from the Kungurat. Then the boy looked at Jianxu with a mixture of fear and awe on his face.

‘And the official had his own personal demon with him.’

Jianxu could barely restrain her laughter. She didn’t believe in ghouls and demons – not completely anyway. Wenbo saw her look of scorn, and frowned.

‘It’s true. He had hair and a beard made of fire, and a big nose just like Zhong Kui.’

Even Jianxu shivered a little at the mention of the demon hunter of lesser demons. But then, what did she have to fear from Zhong Kui? He would find her innocent of any crime, wouldn’t he? She had sent the boy away, and huddled all day in the corner of her little cell puzzling over the meaning of what Wenbo had told her. With the onset of the cold of the night, she slept fitfully.

But in the cold light of day, on a frosty morning that heralded an early beginning of winter, she felt more confident. There were no such things as demons, and that stupid boy was just teasing. Stretching her stiff limbs, she scooped up the cold rice the gaoler had left on the shelf inside the cell door, and forced herself to eat. Her stomach rebelled, and she had a griping feeling of anxiety at the impending arrival of the investigator. But she swallowed and kept the meagre allowance of food down. She would face the investigator with confidence and convince him of her innocence. Moving to stand at the grille set in her cell door, she began her vigil.

I must say that I rose at a leisurely pace that morning. A pace dictated by the cold outside the house we occupied, and the warmth of the bed I shared with Gurbesu. I had awoken to her coiled around me, her bare breasts pressed into my naked back. She was asleep, and snored lightly in a most pleasant way, her hot breath coming at regular intervals to warm my spine. I stretched an arm out of the coverings to reach for the cup of wine I had left by the bed the night before. But in the night it must have been knocked over, for it was on its side and its remaining contents were spilled on the tiled floor. I cursed quietly and began to ease my body out of Gurbesu’s clutches.

When we had been brought to the house where we were to stay last night, prominently stacked in the courtyard at the centre of the large and well-appointed building were several barrels. I could see that I had been right. The winery where I had waved my badge of office and demanded their wares knew exactly where we were staying. The barrels of wine had been delivered while we were still in conference with the prefect, and Gurbesu had supervised their storage. The reason she had not been at the prefect’s house, apparently, was that Li had protested at a woman being present at the interview. Before Lin could object on her behalf, she had stormed out, and demanded to be shown where we were staying. When we finally turned up, she muttered darkly about the place of a woman and how she had tidied up in preparation for the arrival of her betters. I knew better than to try and placate her in this sort of mood, only feeling sorry for Li, who had made an implacable enemy.

With nothing else to do that evening, it was not long before I had cracked open one of the wine barrels and tested the contents. The wine was a little delicate for my palate, it being more used to the robust, raw power of a good Rhenish. But I decided it would most definitely do. We had little to do other than settle in, and I had soon retired to one of the inner rooms with Gurbesu. I had already been the worse for wear, but not so much that I could not play my part in the bedchamber. The trouble was that suddenly I couldn’t get Cat out of my mind.

I had left Caterina Dolfin behind six years ago when I got into that trouble in Venice, and only later gathered that she must have been pregnant with my child at the time. It had been Gurbesu who had read the signs when I described how strange Cat had been before I fled the Signori de Notte – the strong-arm men of the Doge. Of course, I had no way of knowing if it was true that she had been pregnant, but over the last few months I had begun to build an image of a sturdy little red-headed boy. He was perhaps five years old now, and was walking and talking. And probably already charming the girls like his father could. The thoughts drove me mad, as I wasn’t going to be there to see him grow up. I had only my imagination to depend on. On the other hand, I have to admit I would probably be a terrible father, indulging the boy and turning him into an unholy terror. Just like I had been as a child, except my relationship with my father hadn’t been one of doting parent and indulged child. Far from it – Agostino Zuliani had been a bastard.

Still sitting on the side of the low pallet that was our bed in the Pianfu house, I turned to pick up my discarded clothes. I knocked over the silver cup I had just righted, and it made a clattering sound on the tiles. Gurbesu stirred, and reached out for me. I wasn’t there, because I was hopping on one leg already, trying to pull on my Mongol-style breeches. I cursed again, and Gurbesu opened her big, brown eyes, casting a lazy look in my direction.

‘What’s got you all riled, Nick?’

‘The ghost of my damn father, breathing down my neck again. And these breeches. I always seem to get both legs in the same side.’

After a struggle, I finally got both my legs into separate legs of the breeches, and not both into one. Last night’s wine consumption had clearly left my brain somewhat fuddled. I hoped my undershirt would not be as recalcitrant. I could not bear it if Gurbesu laughed at me in my present agitated state. I did get entangled in a sleeve that was inside out, but to give her her due, Gurbesu simply tilted her head up cupping her chin on her palms. Her supporting arms barely hid the heavy downward pull of her full breasts. She sighed, reaching up to pull the sleeve the right way out, freeing my captive arm.

‘This must mean you are thinking about your own child again. And Kat-Erina.’

She had a funny way of saying my lost love’s name that always got me going.

‘No I am not. What makes you think that?’

‘Because you only think of your father when you are thinking of being a father. And why are you so angry at your father, anyway?’

‘Because he was a bastard. He hated me and my mother. But he got his comeuppance in the end.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘My mother killed him.’

Jianxu’s vigil eventually paid off. Long after the sun was high in the sky and had thawed the earth, she saw two people walking down the unlucky road towards her cell. Their outlines were unfamiliar to her, even though she couldn’t quite make them out at first. She knew the gait of her gaoler, an old man with bandy legs, and the scurrying lope of Wenbo. No one else came to her cell. These two people were upright, and strode boldly along. She could see that one wore red, and assumed that was the Investigator of Crimes, who had come all the way from Tatu. But as they got nearer, she realized that the one in red was a woman. She was dressed in a close-fitting jacket with a skirt that trailed on the ground lifting the dust. The taller figure was that of a man, and he was dressed like a Mongol overlord in a gaudy long jacket trimmed with fur. From beneath it poked out blue breeches, and his feet were clad in thick leather boots. But it was his face that was most astonishing.

It seemed Wenbo had been right. Despite his clothing, the man was clearly not a Mongol for his skin was of a different colour, being pale under the tan of someone who led an outdoor life. And his long, sharp nose was bigger than a Chin’s nose. But it was his hair that defined him. His ginger beard covered the lower half of his face, and, as the wind picked up, the hair on his head flew around him like flames. Truly, the demon-queller lived, and was coming to Jianxu’s door. She backed away slightly, unsure what to expect, at the same time disappointed that the investigator had not come himself, but had sent only his tame demon.

I had agreed that morning with Lin that I would speak to the girl and that he would talk further with Li Wen-Tao, the prefect. He had found out from the papers that Jianxu was educated and spoke passable Mongol. If her knowledge of the language was no worse than mine, we would get along fine. Lin suggested I take Gurbesu with me, as Jianxu may feel more at ease with another woman present. I said I had intended to do that anyway.

‘Gurbesu can wheedle information out of women in private that I couldn’t get out of them with torture.’

Lin smiled in that funny way of his.

‘I thought you didn’t approve of torture.’

‘I don’t, that’s why I use Gurbesu. Or sometimes the good friar. It’s amazing what people will say to a priest thinking he will not divulge their secrets. Though I can’t think of any use for Alberoni at the moment. Which is just as well, as he seems to be preoccupied with thoughts of his own. He wanted to speak to me the other day, but then shied away from telling me what it was he wanted. Oh well, I suppose he will tell me eventually. Anyway, Tadeusz does have his orders. He has suggested that he goes round the workshops and talks to the traders – other silversmiths and the like – and sees what is known about the murder case. We have official documents coming out of our ar-’ I held back on the coarse expression, knowing how it pained Lin. Instead I indicated the pile of papers at his elbow. ‘Out of our ears. But we don’t know the gossip. Gossip will tell us far more than all these reams of court paperwork put together.’

Lin nodded, and stood up, straightening his long sleeves so they hung once more over his fingers.

‘Let’s get on, then. The sooner we know everything the better equipped we will be to extricate ourselves from this mess.’

I was puzzled for a moment as to what Lin meant, until I realized that he was referring to having been sent by Ko Su-Tsung to investigate a case that had already been judged by Li, the prefect, and his Mongol overlord. I shrugged my shoulders.

‘I am still not worrying about that. Let’s see what’s what, and then decide how we can avoid the pit gaping at our feet.’

Lin patted my arm.

‘I wish I had your confidence, Nick. But good luck, anyway.’ He led me to the door. ‘Oh, by the way, I hear that the acting troupe is arriving here tomorrow, and Guan the playwright is with them. At least we will be able to see some entertainment to take our minds off the matter.’

I thought there was a gleam in Lin’s eyes at the thought of the players being in Pianfu. Maybe he was imagining the supple charms of Natural Elegance. I certainly wasn’t. I went to get Gurbesu, and we started down the road that we were told led to the prison where Jianxu was held.

As we approached it, I could see the prison was a depressing place, as I guess they are supposed to be the world over. It was a long, low building at the end of a dirty, packed-earth road on the furthest edge of town. There were half a dozen doors arranged along the side facing the road, and we could smell the odour of unwashed bodies and human despair as we got close. A grille was set at head height in each door, but the only one that showed evidence of a prisoner in residence was the end one. A pale, round face looked out of the interior gloom, only pulling back when we got close enough to begin to discern its features. Before she had stepped back, I had seen that they were those of a young, attractive woman.

As I knew Jianxu was a woman of only twenty years of age, despite already being a widow, I assumed the pale face had been hers. As we got closer, a short, bandy-legged Chinee appeared from behind the cells, and scurried over. He bowed low, grinning like some tame but fearful monkey. Knowing he would not speak a Latin tongue, or Turkish or even Mongol, I confined our conversation to the name of the person we were coming to see.

‘Jianxu.’

He hissed, and displayed his versatility by bowing and scurrying over to the end door at the same time. He motioned us over and bowed yet again, muttering something in his Chinee tongue. I looked pointedly at the bunch of keys hanging from his belt. In my most communicative way I nodded, and turned my gaze on the cell door. Bandy legs nodded eagerly back and grinned. Obviously my language skills were not working well. Then Gurbesu nudged me in the back and whispered in my ear.

‘He wants an emolument, you idiot.’

I frowned, and then enlightenment came.

‘Oh, a bribe, you mean.’

I produced a small coin from the purse at my waist, waving it in the air. Amazingly, my ability to communicate suddenly improved. The gaoler grabbed the coin, and inserted a large key in the lock of the cell door. Peering through the grille to make sure the prisoner was not going to rush out, he pushed the door inwards. Before he went in himself, he grabbed a large plank that stood against the outside wall of the cell block. It was split in half, hinged, and had a hole in the middle of it. I realized what it was, having seen petty thieves in Xanadu being punished using it. It was a cangue, which the Chinee called mu jia, and was a sort of large, flat collar that prevented the wearer from escaping simply by its bulk. Sometimes, it was used as a means of punishment in itself. The offender wearing it could not reach round to feed himself, and so starved unless others fed him. The gaoler was clearly proposing to put it on Jianxu to prevent her fleeing. I grabbed his arm, and wrenched the device from his grasp.

‘You will not put that on her. I am the Investigator of Crimes, appointed by the Great Khan himself, and I will say what happens here.’

I spoke in Mongol, and didn’t think he understood a word. But he heard the tone of my voice, and could see the anger and authority in my eyes. Hissing apologies, he backed off, and retreated to a leafless tree that was the only thing that alleviated the drab monotony of the approach to the prison. He sat cross-legged under it and stared back at me. He was not going to desert his post, even if it was Zhong Kui who had chased him off. I tried to outstare him, until a pleasant, light voice spoke from inside the opened cell door.

‘Then you are the Investigator of Crimes himself, and not the tame demon of the red robed one.’

I laughed, and looked round. A willowy girl, dressed in a drab shift that did not hide her shapely figure, stood in the doorway of the cell. Her face was pale and drawn, but she faced me boldly, not overawed by my presence. Jianxu was a very attractive young woman indeed.

‘Oh, I am both of those things in one body. The Khan’s investigator, yes. But also the tame servant of Lin Chu-Tsai, Senior Clerk to the Chief Justice of the Mongol Empire.’

Gurbesu nudged me aside, and spoke to Jianxu herself.

‘Oh, he does like to boast. Just like a man.’ She gave me a look, and I realized I was probably scaring the girl. Gurbesu carried on smoothly. ‘You were right the first time – he’s Lin’s tame monkey really.’

Jianxu’s face remained impassive for a moment, but then she giggled briefly. She was probably amused for the first time since she was accused and judged to be the murderer of Geng Biao. I knew it was time to retreat and leave Gurbesu to do what she did best.