Deadly injustice

SIXTEEN

‘ Did you notice that whenever the old lady talked of Jianxu, she referred to her merely as “the girl?”’

We were walking back through the bustling centre of town, where the streets were full of traders. A cry of warning came from behind us and Lin pulled me to one side. We pressed up against the wall of a food shop whilst a large sedan chair passed us carried by two sweating Chinee slaves. I glimpsed the white, oval face of a pretty girl peering through the side window. I flashed a smile through my red beard and the face disappeared. But not before I saw a look of curiosity pass over the deadpan visage, followed by a smile. Then the sedan was gone. Lin gave me one of his looks.

‘Forget her. In such an opulent conveyance, the chances are she is the courtesan of some wealthy man. Besides, she will not be to your taste.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘Because I know what you have told me about courtesans in your world. How the pleasures of the flesh are all they cater for. In this world, the courtesan is trained in music, painting, calligraphy and poetry. An admirer could expect to pass months in leisurely mutual seduction, when he would not even expect to touch her body. He would shower her with gifts, hold parties and admire her skills at calligraphy while his lust would be brought to such a pitch, he could barely control it. But control it he must until the moment arrived when he was allowed to slake his desires.’ He looked disapprovingly at me. ‘You would die of boredom before a day was passed in this way.’

I sighed, putting the white-faced vision out of my mind.

‘You are right, Chu-Tsai. I have still to come to terms with your people’s pace of doing things. It would seem that Chinee lust is to be long drawn out too. And the answer to your original question is, yes, I noticed how Madam Gao spoke of Jianxu as though she was simply a possession — a servant without a name. And strangely enough she spoke of her son in the same terms too. She never gave him a name. It was as though he almost didn’t exist.’

‘I remember Gurbesu said the same of Jianxu. The son was her husband, yet she never referred to him by his name. It was Cangbi, by the way. It is recorded in the documents attached to the case. Perhaps we are seeing more than there is to see. It may be his illness and death were too much for both women to bear, and that is why they cannot speak his name.’

We had just entered the square where the theatre and temple stood side by side, and we stopped for a moment looking at the scene. I shook my head.

‘No. I got the impression that Cangbi was merely a nuisance and yet a means to an end. A nuisance for his mother, who saw him as a heavy weight around her neck. And a means to an end for both women. A way of tying Jianxu closer to here for Gao, and a way of gaining access to the family’s wealth for Jianxu herself. He had no other value in himself as a person for them.’

Lin seemed a little shocked by my assessment.

‘That would make them both very hard and manipulative people. I can believe that of Madam Gao. But surely Jianxu — at twenty — has more sentiment in her soul.’

I patted Lin’s arm.

‘You are an incurable romantic, Chu-Tsai. Don’t forget Gurbesu was worried that she appeared a little cold and unemotional when she was interviewed. Maybe we should both speak to Jianxu and make our own minds up.’

Lin agreed.

‘Yes, there is the matter of the kitchen, and the sequence of events leading up to Geng eating the soup. It doesn’t quite all fit together yet.’

I could see he was pondering some small factual detail as he was fond of doing, but I was vexed about the sudden appearance of a new suspect.

‘And now there is the matter of the unidentified beggar, who was perhaps left alone in the kitchen. He could have spiked the soup too.’

‘Who do you think he might have been? A business rival of Geng’s?’

‘Or one of the old lady’s debtors. We need to find out who he was.’

‘And talking of debtors, we need to find out the whereabouts of the doctor.’

Lin’s reference to the elusive Doctor Sun reminded me what Tadeusz had told me that morning. He reckoned he had heard a rumour about the doctor being in one of the villages up in the hills where the Hwang-Ho River came from. He assured me he could track him down if he could borrow my horse. Our party was getting smaller by the day with Alberoni gone — God knew where — and now Pyka seeking to go. I hoped the latter would not be going on such a wild goose chase as the priest and his search for Prester John.

I missed Father Alberoni, and yearned to ask him if he knew what had really happened with my father’s death. I had harboured the thought that my mother had killed her husband for so long, it was difficult to discard it. But Lin’s talk of Jianxu and emotions had made me think again. My mother — Rosamund — had been a passionate woman, and I could imagine her stabbing Agostino in a rage. But I could not now square the idea of a poisoning with her impetuous nature. Minor tampering with emetics certainly, but not deliberate murder. Poisoning required cold calculation and patience — qualities my mother lacked to any degree. But if my mother hadn’t poisoned my father, who had? I suddenly realized Lin had touched my arm. Dragging myself back to the present, I raised a questioning eyebrow. He whispered in my ear.

‘Don’t look now, but the prefect is coming this way. He was in the Temple of the Earth-Goddess, and as soon as he saw us turned in our direction.’

I could guess why Li Wen-Tao had been in the temple, and imagined that his purse would be all the heavier for speaking with the old priestess there. Our little scam must be proving very lucrative. I leaned down to whisper back to Lin, he being shorter than me.

‘Let me speak alone with him.’

Lin nodded.

‘Gladly. He makes me feel uneasy every time he looks at me.’

Without a look back across the square, Lin turned and went, leaving me to deal with the prefect. He huffed and puffed towards me, having to catch his breath before he could speak. Casting a meaningful glance at the retreating back of Lin Chu-Tsai, he finally found his voice.

‘I am glad to see Master Lin depart — we have some private business to transact, you and I. Besides, there are bad rumours circulating about him in the town.’

I was surprised. Who could know anything about Lin other than that he was a high official at Kubilai’s court? That was self-evident from his bearing and his robes.

‘What sort of rumours?’

Li pulled a face, expressing disgust at what he was about to say, though I could see he was relishing passing on the rumour.

‘It is said he is a sodomite and dallies with one of the actors in the theatrical troupe. Of course I can believe it of their sort. Most actors are nothing more than thieves and prostitutes. But it ill becomes an official of the Khan’s court to be so inclined.’

I thought of Tien-jan Hsiu, and what I had seen — or thought I had — in T’ai-Yuan-Fu. The pretty youth had embraced him and stayed in Lin’s rooms long after I had left, and the lights had been lowered intimately. But then that had been in another town. No one here could have known of that, except for other actors, and someone in our little group. Who on earth could have spread such a rumour? And why? It sounded like something Ko Su-Tsung would do, but he was hundreds of miles away in Khan-balik. But then maybe he wasn’t. He had been likened to a spider in the centre of a web. Did he have an agent here? I would have to speak to Lin, but in the meantime I tried to play down the idea.

‘It is impossible that such a thing could have happened. I know Lin Chu-Tsai well, and he is of an unstained character.’

Li grunted, suggesting he was unconvinced. I diverted his thinking by asking about our scam.

‘Now, how much have you for me in your purse. You have just been to the temple, have you not?’

Li puffed out his fat cheeks.

‘That is the main reason I wanted to talk to you alone. I want to renegotiate our arrangement. It seems to me I do all the work, and you take all the money.’

I smiled coldly.

‘Only my fair share. You are paying in instalments for my original idea. However, I am prepared to negotiate. You will find me a generous and accommodating man. Look, meet me in the theatre shortly after dusk tonight. It is empty then, and no one will disturb us.’

Li licked his lips, obviously wondering if he could trust me. But then we were both involved in something illegal, so what could I do that would endanger him? He agreed, and hurried away across the square. I returned to the house, unsure if I would tell Lin about the rumours or not.

As it turned out, I didn’t have time.

I was bothered by Wenbo’s introduction of the beggar into the story. This person had never appeared in the official documents. I was also mindful of the play we had seen in T’ai-Yuan-Fu — The Mo-Ho-Lo Doll. In it, a crucial piece of missing information was the identity of the unknown man who had told the murderer of the victim’s illness. This had led to the murderer administering poison, thinking the illness would cover his killing. It was only when the doll-maker had been identified that the truth came out. I was concerned that the unidentified beggar might equally prove the key to this murder case.

Not being able to let matters lie, I hunted out Tadeusz as soon as I got back, catching him before he had disappeared to seek out the doctor. I asked him to put off that search for the time being, and use his connections with the guild members in Pianfu to see if they could identify the beggar. Wenbo had said he was dressed in a distinctive off-white, loose robe that he used to envelop himself in, wrapping the end around his head. Tadeusz said he would try and find out who it might have been.

‘Though I am not confident of achieving a result, Nick. On my wanderings round the city, I am aware there are many beggars in the streets. Some are simply poor and without work, but others have no eyes, or are mutilated in some other way. I have seen beggars without legs, who propel themselves around on little carts. The fact that this is a very prosperous city does not seem to diminish the numbers of the destitute.’

‘I would guess, Tadeusz, that the prosperity of the city is the very reason these poor souls have gravitated here. To scrape an existence from the generosity of the rich and well-fed.’

I was reminded again how I, in my own way, lived off the beneficence of Kubilai, picking up scraps from his table almost. These beggars were at the very bottom of that heap. I put my arm over Tadeusz’s shoulder, and walked with him across the courtyard.

‘Do what you can, and let me know whatever you find out.’

It was early afternoon when I received a curious message from Tadeusz. I had been thinking of the rumour about Lin and how to broach it with him. And I was also planning how I was to deal with the prefect when I met up with him. All that brain work had made me feel tired, and I had resorted to a mind-refreshing doze in the courtyard. I would need to be at my most alert later, after all. I was soon dreaming of white-faced handmaidens singing to me and plying me with grapes, when I felt a tugging at my sleeve. Was it a courtesan, or a nimble and willowy acrobat ready to indulge my every whim?

‘My darling,’ I murmured, reaching out, only to hear a snort of childish laughter. I opened my eyes, and sat abruptly up. Beside me stood a filthy urchin, wiping the snot from his nose with a grubby sleeve that, from its shininess, I deduced had been long used for the purpose. He had a broad and lascivious grin on his dirty face. I soon wiped that off by grabbing the front of his tattered shirt and pulling him close. I shoved my face into his, putting on my best demonic look.

‘What are you doing here, snotface?’

I don’t think he understood my words, but he knew their meaning. He gulped, and wriggled out of my grasp. But before I could cuff him, he waved a scrap of paper at me. I went to take it, but he snatched it away, and held out his hand, palm upwards. I growled, but he stood his ground, and only let me take the paper after I had placed a small coin in his sticky hand. The business completed, he bolted for the street door, stopping only to stick his tongue out as a last defiant gesture at the foreign demon. I laughed at his cheek, and unfolded the piece of paper.

It was a message that said simply ‘Come to the bathhouse in physicians’ square’, and was signed ‘Pyka’. Though there were few words, I could still sense the urgency of the message. Knowing I had time before my meeting with Li, I left immediately to seek out the place. However, I could not for the life of me think why he had not returned to the house to report to me. I mean to say, what was he doing luxuriating in a bathhouse, if there was something urgent to discuss? It was not somewhere I would like to be seen in all that often for fear of seeming effeminate.

I knew where the square given over to doctors and astrologers was located — we had passed through it when we first arrived. But when I got there, it was not immediately obvious which of the many fine buildings was the place where people came to bathe. I traversed the square once, and finally decided to stop someone and ask. One of the words I had learned from the gaoler, while Gurbesu had been talking to Jianxu, had been the word for washing. I just hoped he hadn’t been having a joke with me and had taught me the word for fornication instead. I might get a strange reaction if so. I chose an innocuous-looking elderly man in a bei-zi robe, on the assumption that he, rather than a peasant, would use a bathhouse. Striding over to him, I tried my word.

‘ Shi-dzaw?’

He screwed his eyes up, and looked puzzled. At least I had not uttered a profanity, I thought. I tried again.

‘ Shi-dzaw?’

This time he realized what, with my awful accent, I was trying to say. He smiled, and rubbed his hands over his body in a way suggesting he was scrubbing himself clean. I nodded, and he repeated the word back to me. It came out in a much more mellifluous way, and he pointed to a large building at the top of the square. It looked like a palace to me, and I had discounted it as a simple bathhouse. I gave him my thanks, and made my way across the bustling square to my goal. Once inside the building, I could easily tell its purpose. Though the baths were not visible from the entrance hall, the place echoed with conversation and the splashing of water. I made for an archway to my right, only to be shooed away by a female attendant. Glimpsing the unmistakeable shape of bare womanly flesh through the arch, I realized I had chosen the section devoted to females. Thinking that perhaps this communal bathing thing was not such a ridiculous idea, I raised my hand in acknowledgement of the attendant’s reprimand, and crossed the hall to the other archway.

At this door into the men’s section stood a stocky, hairy and definitely male individual wearing just a loincloth. He sized me up and indicated I should go inside and remove my clothes. I had no way of telling anyone that I was just looking for Tadeusz, so I stripped off and left my clothes in a niche in the wall. Feeling a bit conspicuous with my red hair and height, I strolled past large tubs of what was clearly cold water with naked men vigorously rubbing themselves. Lin had told me once that Chins reckoned cold water was good for the health, and that from childhood they bathed in it regularly. I could only imagine it was conducive to freezing your balls off. As I could not see Pyka in any of the cold tubs, I moved on. At the end of the men’s section I could see steam emanating from a separate room. As this looked more promising, and I had not yet found Pyka, I strode towards the room. Inside was a single tub filled with hot water, and in it sat Pyka. He was vigorously scrubbing his skin, and the water splashed over the rim of the tub, causing rivers to run across the floor. As his skin was bright red, it looked to me as if he had been scrubbing for some time. Either that or the hot water had boiled him like a piece of meat. I walked over, and stood before him. He didn’t even notice me and continued his frenzied ablutions. I leaned on the rim of the tub, and with the palm of my hand splashed some water at his face. Startled, he stopped his scrubbing and took me in.

‘Nick. Thank you for coming. I’m… cleansing myself.’

‘So I see.’

He still looked agitated, and I gripped the side of the tub. There was room for more than one in it, and perhaps if I joined him, he might relax. Besides, I had not washed for a week or so.

‘Oh well.’

Sighing, I hoisted myself up and into the tub. The water splashed over the rim like a waterfall, but it was still warm and felt not at all bad. I lay back with my arms encircling the rim. Tadeusz looked at me for a moment, then started to rub his body again. I reached out and stopped his feverish activity.

‘Tadeusz. Tell me what this is all about. Why are you and I here?’

He looked at me, his eyes full of pain.

‘It’s the beggar.’