Deadly injustice

ELEVEN

Lying beside the warm body of Gurbesu that night, I found I could not sleep. It looked as though, with Guan’s play due to be performed soon, we needed to dig out the truth of Old Geng’s murder more quickly than I had anticipated. Some of the lines from the play that evening were still rattling around in my head. One of them — ‘a pinch of arsenic, or an inch of steel’ — whispered in my ear by Lin, had particularly struck home. Not that it necessarily had anything to do with Jianxu’s case, though it may well have done. No, it reminded me once again of my parents.

I was nine at the time, and the ongoing war between my mother and father was coming to a head. Being the selfish little brat I was then, I assumed it was all about me. Rosamund, my mother, was English and the daughter of a knight who had sojourned in Venice on his way to Outremer. He had stayed overlong because his wife had contracted a fever. It was unusual for a crusader to be travelling with his wife and child, but they had come nevertheless. Now my grandmother was paying the price of her obstinate insistence on travelling. She was bedridden and delirious. In the end, the crusader knight had to depart on one of the ships taking men-at-arms to Cyprus, the launching-off point for Outremer. Two days later, his wife died. He never got to know about it because he was drowned in the Nile when the ship he was on got sunk in a minor skirmish. His chain mail dragged him to the bottom of the river. The dark-haired girl Rosamund — my mother — was only fourteen and suddenly an orphan. But there were already the signs of the startling beauty she was to become, and Agostino Zuliani took her in. He was twenty years her senior, but it didn’t stop him marrying her when she was sixteen. I was the first child to survive any length of time, and by the time I was nine, I was aware of the feuding between my parents. Agostino had other children by his first marriage, but for my mother I was an only child, and therefore precious. Father accused her of making me soft through not exposing me to the harsh realities of the world. They were both hot-tempered, but father was a strong and cruel man, who used his strength to bully his way to dominance in the marriage. My mother got her revenge in secretive ways, sometimes spreading rumours about her husband’s impotence — which was not true — and sometimes lacing his food with mild emetics. I knew this because she delighted in telling me. It was a secret we shared that united us against the tyrant who was my father.

At my side, Gurbesu stirred, and gazed sleepily up at me. I could feel the heat of her body, but I was not excited. The past bore down on me too heavily. She muttered a query.

‘What’s the matter, Nick?’

I stroked her thigh.

‘Nothing, my sweet. I am just thinking about tomorrow.’

‘Do you need some somnifera? I can make it up?’

I knew somnifera, her mixture of opium, hemlock and mandragora soaked into a sponge. It rendered you happily unconscious, but left you with a heavy head the following day. I couldn’t afford that, as I needed my mind to be clear.

‘No. You go back to sleep. I will be fine.’

She rolled over, pressing her buttocks against my thigh, and was soon snoring gently. The line from the play came back to me — ‘a pinch of arsenic, or an inch of steel.’ You see, I could not rid my mind of the persistent thought that my mother had gone one step further than emetics, and actually poisoned my father. Soon after a particularly bad row concerning how, in Agostino’s eyes, Rosamund molly-coddled me, I had told her that I would willingly stick a dagger into my father. An inch of steel, you see. She was shocked by my vehemence, but convinced me it would not be necessary. I still recall her words to me on that night. She said that evil acts always result in evil ends. The next day Agostino Zuliani fell sick. Being poisoned by arsenic resulted in a painful and slow death. I still believe she killed him first so that I didn’t do it.

The following morning, Lin and I went in search of Madam Gao and Geng Wenbo. Tadeusz’s job was to find out what he could about the source of the poison — a subject that had not been pursued yet, if we were to believe the documents related to the case. It had been surprising that amidst all the piles of paperwork there had not been one line explaining where the poison had come from, even though the detailed examination of the body had been exemplary.

When I had read the report concerning the examination of Geng’s dead body, and seen who had written it, I was not surprised at its meticulousness. It had been written by Masudi al-Din. I remembered him well from my time in Xanadu, picturing again his slight frame and bright, glittering brown eyes. It had been a coincidence that he had been in Pianfu at the time of Geng’s death, and was due to the fact he was travelling back to his home in Yazd in Persia. He was a physician with an interest in how and why people died. I could see him still, tugging on his straggly beard, and then cutting open a body with relish, seeking all the clues that led to an explanation of that strange companion we all must meet — Death. He was an Arab who used Turkish to communicate with the Mongol world, so I found following his notes easy. It read thus: Aconite poisoning is verifiable by the symptoms. There is a sensation of burning, tingling, and numbness in the mouth, and of burning in the abdomen. Death usually supervenes before a numbing effect on the intestine can be observed. After about an hour, there is severe vomiting. Much motor weakness and cutaneous sensations similar to those above described soon follow. The pulse and respiration steadily fail, death occurring from asphyxia. All these symptoms were described to me by the victim’s son, Geng Wenbo, and by the young woman attending, Jianxu. I cut open the stomach and examined the contents, but could find no plant material present. I deduced that the cause of death was ingestion of aconite extracted from the plant, monkshood. It had not been eaten in its raw state, nor had the plant’s sap accidentally found its way onto the victim’s skin. Internal tingling would not have resulted from this form of contamination. Whether the ingestion of aconite had been accidental or deliberate, and self-administered or by another party, I leave to the prefect to decide.

As ever, Masudi al-Din had been concise and objective. It was not for him to ascribe motive, merely to record cause and effect. He had also pointed out that aconite was used in very small doses to good effect by Chinee practitioners as a treatment for Yang deficiency, or coldness, and for a number of pains. It would, therefore, be in the armoury of every doctor in Kubilai’s empire.

The administering of the poison was to be a subject high on our list of questions to ask those present in the house at the death of Old Geng. But our first port of call, out of courtesy, was the home of Li Wen-Tao. The prefect at first suggested he call the old lady and the boy to the prison to be interrogated by Lin and me. But I said that was not a good idea, as they would both be afraid of being tortured. Li Wen-Tao had looked astonished, suggesting that is exactly why he made the proposal.

‘Do you not want to frighten and whip the truth out of them?’

‘No, I would rather see them in their own home. They are not suspects, after all. Simply witnesses at this point.’

The prefect cast a look of appeal at Lin, presumably thinking his fellow Chinee would understand and countermand my wishes. Lin merely inclined his head.

‘Master Zuliani is the Chief Investigator. I am simply here to record what we learn.’

Li sighed and gave us directions to the Geng household.

The house was run-down and shabby at first sight. But when Lin and I stepped through the courtyard doors there were signs that someone had attempted to keep the place tidy. An old lady came hobbling over, her tiny feet encased in beautifully embroidered slippers. I knew from being at Kubilai’s court that only the elite and the rich bound the feet of their children to produce this effect. Madam Gao was not from a poor, peasant family therefore. She approached Lin, and bowed low before him, dressed as he was in his red robe, a symbol of his status. I was once again clad in Mongol jacket and breeches. Even as the old lady deferred to Lin, her eyes flickered over me uncertainly. She couldn’t place me in the pecking order, and therefore concentrated on the known quantity that was the official in red. Even so, she would not ignore me, as that in itself could have been a dangerous move on her part.

Lin eased her confusion with some words spoken in Chinee. I was beginning to understand some words now, and knew he was introducing me as the Khan’s investigator. She smiled nervously and bowed to me. Indicating that we should follow her, she went inside. A servant was called and a not unpleasant hot brew called tea was served. An awkward three-way conversation then developed, with Lin asking questions of Madam Gao in Chinee, and then translating for me. When I wanted to ask a question, I had to do it through Lin as intermediary. It made for a slow, and for me, frustrating interview. It went something like this, starting with Lin’s opening question.

‘The broth that your daughter-in-law made was intended for you, I believe.’

Gao pulled a face, the wrinkles on her brow turning into deep furrows.

‘Aiii, yes. To think if I had drunk it, I would now be dead. It does not bear thinking about.’

‘Then you think the poison was intended for you?’

‘I cannot say for certain. But what I am very sure of is that, if it was intended for me, then Jianxu still has to be innocent. Why should she want to kill me? I have looked after her since taking her in as a child. Her father could not afford his studies and her mother had died. He left Jianxu with me, and in return she served me as any proper daughter of my own blood would have. She even married my son.’

She began sniffling at this point, and Lin explained she was upset by having brought up the death of her son, Jianxu’s husband. I listened to his explanation of Jianxu’s history, and wanted clarification.

‘Then she didn’t just marry into the Gao family. She was adopted by Madam Gao first. Ask her who she thinks put the poison into the soup, if it wasn’t Jianxu.’

On being asked by Lin, the old lady looked cautiously over her shoulder before replying.

‘Who else could it have been but that lazy son of Geng’s? He didn’t want me to marry his father, because then he might lose the money from Old Geng’s business. It was him. He tried to kill me, and in his usual ham-fisted way ended up killing his own father.’

After Lin had translated this outburst for me, he asked me if there was anything else I wanted to ask the old woman. I said there wasn’t at present, and Lin dismissed her. He told her to send Wenbo to us. She shuffled off, muttering under her breath. I sipped at the bowl of tea, but it had gone cold and didn’t taste so good any more. I yearned for a good robust red wine. Just as we thought that the boy wasn’t going to turn up, we heard raised voices from another part of the house. Lin smiled.

‘That is Madam Gao telling Wenbo to get out of bed and speak to the investigator before she sets the demon on him. I think that’s you, Zhong Kui.’

I pulled a face that I imagined resembled the drawings I had seen of the demon in question. And just at that moment a skinny lad entered the room. Seeing me, he whimpered and almost fled. Lin waved his hand imperiously, and coaxed the boy to come and sit. Close up, I could see he was older than I had thought at first. He was twenty at least, though still somewhat gangly and awkward, which contributed to the impression he was much younger. He stared wide-eyed at Lin, hardly daring to look at me. Lin spoke sternly to him.

‘You worked for your father?’

The youth nodded.

‘If you had dealings with the staff at Taitemir the Mongol’s palace, then you can speak their language?’

Another nod. At this rate, I reckoned we didn’t need to tax Wenbo’s language skills. We would get all we wanted from him with a nod and a shake of the head. But Lin ploughed on.

‘Then you will speak directly in that language with the investigator.’

He pointed at me, and Geng Wenbo reluctantly turned his gaze my way. I started with a question designed to unbalance him, and elicit an unconsidered response.

‘Did you kill your father deliberately, or was it an accident?’

Wenbo gaped open-mouthed at me.

‘Accident? How could it have been an accident?’

‘Then you meant to do it.’

The youth’s voice went up a pitch.

‘Noooo, you are twisting my words. I didn’t do it. Nor did Jianxu. You should ask her — ’ he hooked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the absent Madam Gao, — ‘why she let my father eat the broth. I didn’t kill him. He was my father.’

‘And he was going to marry Madam Gao. Your hold on your father’s business would then have been precarious, especially as he thought you were incompetent.’

‘Who told you that? That old bitch? Yes, she had designs on my father. But that didn’t matter, because I was going to marry Jianxu. Did she tell you that as well?’