A Deadly Injustice

TWENTY

If you don’t want others to know what you have done, it’s better not to have done it anyway.

The following morning Tadeusz and I rode out of Pianfu for the nameless village in the hills where the good Doctor Sun was skulking. It was barely light, with the autumn sun just creeping across the sweep of the flat plain to our right. The air was crisp and cold, presaging a hard winter to come. Already heavy, dark clouds hung over the mountains ahead of us. It could mean snow was on the way. I shivered, eager to finish this mess of a murder case and be gone before we were trapped by snowdrifts. I had experienced that once in the land of Rus, where the very breath from your body would freeze and turn to icicles as it escaped your lips. I did not want that sort of experience again.

My companion was understandably tense, and maintained a silence as we rode along. He was no doubt thinking of Lin’s proposal that he should continue to report to Ko, but send him misleading information. He was still scared about losing his family for a second time, I could tell. But his course was now set. As was ours today. We had debated the way ahead last night, and it had resulted in Tadeusz and me rising early to be on our way. The decision not to arrest Wenbo first had taken some time.

‘Wenbo can be taken tomorrow morning. There is no point rushing over to the Geng property now. It is very late, and he and the old lady will be safely in their beds.’

Lin was certain that nothing needed to be done precipitately. And I agreed, especially as our evidence was flimsy at present. It was based on the changes in a playscript made by a dead man. Actors had bad reputations generally, and it would take nothing at all for Li Wen-Tao to undermine our case in such circumstances. No actual link had been established between Old Geng’s death, and the murder of P’ing-Yang Nu. Li could argue that internal rivalry might have been the cause of the actor’s death. It was only the fact that the playscript had been found at Geng’s house that made the link. And the only person who could establish that was the man who had found it there. I voiced my concerns over the thief, Ho.

‘It is quite possible that Ho will not even bear witness to the book being at Geng’s house. It fell into his hands by theft, after all.’

Lin pulled a face.

‘And even if he did speak up, Li could silence him with a threat to imprison him. Li still does not want his original verdict overturned.’

I reassured him on that matter, though.

‘Don’t worry about Li. I have made… erm… arrangements which will prevent the prefect from crossing us.’

Lin looked questioningly into my eyes, not sure what I was referring to. I waved a dismissive hand.

‘You don’t want to know. Let us just say it came at a cost.’

While Lin tried to digest my enigmatic pronunciations, Tadeusz intervened in the debate.

‘What about the doctor? Is it possible he could give us the evidence we need? If we can verify that the poison that killed Old Geng came from him, and that he sold it to Wenbo, then we are home and dry.’

‘If he sold it to the boy. We don’t yet know that, and we don’t know if this beggar that was present had anything to do with the killing. Let’s not forget him.’

Gurbesu, who had been silent throughout the debate, laid out our approach for us.

‘Forget about taking Wenbo for the moment. He is going nowhere, because he is infatuated with Jianxu. I could tell that from what she said when I spoke to her. She made a joke of it, because she has no interest in him. She sees him as a boy, though he is the same age as she is. Go and apprehend the doctor, and see what emerges from that.’

That had been our decision.

As we plunged into the rocky defile that was the entrance to the village where we hoped to find Sun, Tadeusz leaned across in the saddle. He took my arm, a look of deep pain on his ruined face.

‘You don’t think my wife or children are still alive, do you, Nick?’

I looked him in the eyes, and told him what I thought, not what he wanted to hear. I was no good at platitudes, anyway.

‘Truthfully? No. You know more than anyone in the West how savage the Mongols were twenty or thirty years ago. We even called them Tartars, as though they were demons out of Hell. And their reputation was well earned. They would wipe out a whole village, even a whole town to make a point to the rest of us. We learned that resistance was futile, because it only brought bloody revenge. Of course, Kubilai has changed all that, adopting some of the ways of the cultured Chinee that Lin is so proud of. But make no mistake. In their soul, the Mongols are still nomadic warriors, whose only way to grow and progress is by conquest. It is something the Song emperor will find out soon enough.’

I was referring, of course, to the ongoing war Kubilai waged with the remnants of the Chinee empire that he had taken by force in the north. The Song people were stubbornly holding out in the city of Siang-Yang-Fu that sat on the banks of a tributary of the great Yang-tse river. The river was the final barrier between Kubilai and the decadent empire in the south. And the doorway to the Song was the besieged city. It had held out so far. But one day it would fall, and the inhabitants would regret their intransigence. I turned in my saddle to face Tadeusz.

‘I am sorry, but I think your family are long dead.’

The silversmith scrubbed his face with his free hand, masking his renewed sense of loss.

‘I know you are right. I just wish…’

He did not finish what he was about to say because a skinny demon sprung out of the bushes at the roadside, and grabbed the reins of his horse. The nag I was seated on reared up in fear, and I had difficulty controlling it for a moment. I was still better on the deck of a bucking ship than on the back of a plunging horse. Despite all my years away from the sea in Cathay. When I finally had it settled, I saw that Tadeusz was actually conversing with our attacker. He was twisting round to speak to me.

‘The old man is the village elder I spoke to. He says that Doctor Sun has returned. With the body of the farmer he went to heal. It would seem our good doctor’s skills have not improved at all. The funeral rites will take place tomorrow, but the dead man’s brother is on the rampage. He wants the hide of the doctor and he–‘ Tadeusz pointed at the village elder – ‘is fearful that Sun is about to abscond. If we want him, we had better take him right away.’

I spurred on my horse and followed Tadeusz into the village, leaving the old man to follow in our wake. Tadeusz led me through the village to a grubby shack on the other side. Riding through, I thought it was not the neatest settlement I had ever encountered. But by comparison with the doctor’s hovel ahead of us, the other huts were positive palaces. As we dismounted, a lanky man in a blue robe that had seen better days came to the door of the hut. I should have said doorway, because the opening was not graced with any means of shutting out the world other than a piece of sacking. One look at us must have convinced the man that we were either relatives of the man he had just failed to cure, or representatives of a legal system he had spent his life evading. He ducked back behind the sacking with a low moan emanating from his throat. On terra firma again, I pushed past Tadeusz, and ripped the sacking away. The doctor, if it was indeed he, was trying to squeeze through a gap in the timbers in the rear of the one-room hut. His robe had snagged on a splinter, though, and he was stuck. He moaned louder, and yanked at the cloth, creating another tear to join the many that afflicted the once opulent blue gown. He began to wriggle through the split in the wall, but it was too late. The satchel over his shoulder had now jammed in the gap, and I grabbed him by his long, plaited hair.

‘Doctor Sun, I think you will be safer with me than with the brother of your last patient. Come.’

I dragged him by his hair back through the hole in the wall and out of the hut through the open doorway. Then I slung him across my saddle. Tadeusz and I remounted, just as a burly, bandy-legged peasant came bowling down the dusty street towards us. He cried out on seeing the doctor. He must have been the bereaved brother of Sun’s latest victim. But he was too late to use the large club he held, with which, no doubt, he had planned to teach the doctor something about broken bones. We rode off with the doctor unceremoniously draped over my horse before he could begin his lesson.

Once free of the village and any possible pursuit, the doctor begged to be allowed to remount my horse in the more usual fashion.

‘My stomach aches from being bounced up and down on this nag, and my bag is digging into my shoulder,’ he moaned.

I reined in the steed, and he slid unceremoniously to the ground in a heap. Sitting on the packed earth of the roadway, he began to rifle through the contents of his satchel. One by one he produced small packets and pots from the pouch and stood them on the roadside. He muttered their names as he did so, first finding some twigs and roots.

‘Ahhh. It is safe – my guishi, rougui, jiang.’

Then out came some leaves.

‘Renshen, dang gui, ma-huang.’ He looked up at me. ‘I can treat fifty-two ailments using these and others. My methods involve the Four Natures of yin and yang – cold, cool, warm and hot. It is important to have an internal balance, you see. Then there are the Five Tastes. These are pungent, sweet, sour, bitter, salty – each with its own functions. Sweet-tasting herbs help harmonize bodily systems, and drain dampness. Do you have any ailments that require treatment?’

I quietly cursed letting him off my horse, and indicated he should remount. But he held up his hand.

‘Just a moment. There is one more item.’

He thrust his hand into his satchel, and felt anxiously around. But his final trawl in the bag was not as successful as before. He produced a broken clay pot and groaned as he examined the interior.

‘My precious zhusha compound! It is almost all gone.’

He clutched his head, and rocked back and forth on the ground like a lost child. I circled him on my horse, and kicked his head with my boot.

‘Get up now, or I will have you over the horse’s back for the whole journey to Pianfu.’

Doctor Sun scrabbled around in the earth for his medicines and crammed them back into his satchel. He then stared fearfully up at me.

‘Pianfu? Who are you? Why are you taking me to Pianfu? I don’t want to go back there.’

He turned on his heels, and marched off back along the track. Tadeusz made as if to cut him off, but I held up my hand to stop him. Instead, I just called after Sun.

‘Go that way if you like. But it will only take you back to the arms of the dead man’s brother. And they looked like pretty hefty arms to me.’

Sun stopped in his tracks and cast a furtive glance around him. As we had stopped in the rocky gorge that led to the village, there was no escape route to either side. It was sheer, and the rocks were crumbling. With a deep sigh, the doctor turned and walked reluctantly back to me. He stuck out an arm and I lifted his skinny frame with ease on to the horse’s back behind me. We continued our journey with Sun clutching me around the waist and lecturing me on immortality.

‘Waidan, or outer alchemy, necessitates a belief in natural elements being able to change into others. I can perform it using an elixir made up of substances found outside the body, and the preparation involves observing rules about seclusion and purification. Once prepared, the elixir is ingested and brings about physical changes in the body, separate from the soul. I…’

I interrupted him before he drove me mad.

‘If you don’t keep quiet, I will bring about physical changes in your body that you will not find pleasant.’

The rest of our journey was accomplished in blessed silence.

It was early afternoon before we reached Pianfu again. Riding two-up had slowed us down, and anyway I preferred to enter the city as dusk fell. I did not want anyone associated with the prefect to see us. Doctor Sun was our man, and until I had a chance to question him properly, I did not want Li interfering. So rather than ride through the centre of the city, Tadeusz and I skirted round the edge of the place. That made us even later, and it was almost dark as we dismounted. Po Ku took care of the horses, and I dragged the doctor into the courtyard. Lin and Gurbesu emerged from their respective quarters, having heard our arrival. Sun immediately threw himself on the ground at the feet of his fellow Chinee.

‘Master, I beg you to save me from these demons. Look at them. One has only half a face, and the other has fire coming out of his head.’

Lin merely stared down with curiosity at the grovelling supplicant.

‘The men you describe are my esteemed companions, and agents of the Great Khan. He would not take kindly to your description of them. And nor do I.’ He looked up at me. ‘Investigator Zuliani, take this person to my rooms. We will interrogate him there. Bring the bastinado cane.’

Sun had no way of knowing both my and Lin’s dislike of torture, and whimpered at the very threat of corporal punishment.

‘Please master, don’t beat me. I will tell you all you want to know.’

‘I know you will. And it will be very painful as you do so.’

I laughed inwardly at Lin’s ferocious demeanour, knowing it to be feigned. Playing along, I grabbed Sun by his arm and frogmarched him to Lin’s quarters. Tadeusz, meanwhile, plucked from the ground a stick Po Ku used to beat the dust from the matting in Lin’s rooms, and waved it menacingly. Gurbesu ambled back to her room, leaving the boys to their silly games.

Inside the gloomy room, lit only by one lamp that cast large and scary shadows on the walls, Sun fell once again to his knees. He clutched his satchel to him, like some child with a favourite doll, and began to tremble uncontrollably. Lin saw how scared he was and I could tell he was about to relent on his hard man act. He would have reassured the man that we had no intention to do him any harm. But that would have lost us our advantage, and so I thrust myself forward, pushing my face into his.

‘Tell us about Old Geng. We know he died from aconite poisoning. Was it you who killed him?

Sun gasped, and grasped my wrists in a vice-like grip.

‘Please sir, no sir. Yes, I knew Geng Biao. He was one of my patients. But I did not kill him.’

I stared into his eyes, offering him a chance.

‘Hmmm. Not deliberately, perhaps. Though I have heard your skills at healing are not the best in the world. Many have died who should have lived because of your feeble efforts. But we are not interested in them and your unfortunate record of medical care. I want to know about the deliberate murder of Geng.’

‘Sir. I admit I sometimes fail to help those who come to me. It is unfortunate as you say, but I am often confronted with the hopeless cases of people who should have come to me sooner. Can I help it if they expire before my medicines can take effect? If their lungs have been stricken with influenza, even menthol, which is pungent and cool, may not be sufficient to purge the cold. But Geng’s death is another matter altogether. I swear he did not die by my hand. All I did was sell some aconite to be used as a medicine. How can I help it if it was administered in too large a dose?’

‘Who did you sell it to?’

Sun looked almost too scared to say. But when he saw Tadeusz swish the heavy stick through the air, he broke down. With a cry, he gave us the truth.

‘I sold it to his son, Wenbo. He bought three times what he needed for one dose. I told him it was dangerous. It was he who must have killed his father with it.’