4.
Cheng was frustrated by Anderson stringing him along about seeing Kei-Ying, a promise which he hadn"t yet made good on. Trying to get permission was like trying to see something with his gla.s.s eye - and he didn"t want to risk arrest by returning to Xamian Island. Nor did he want to get Anderson into trouble. In the end, he settled for waiting outside a brothel he had seen the Scotsman frequent. It was payday for the British soldiers, and this meant that those who engaged the services of the wh.o.r.es would be with them tonight.
He steeled himself with half a bottle of rice wine, and leant against a wall across the street. He could simply have waited in the brothel"s entrance hall, but the day he could resist a woman would be the day he died, and he didn"t want to miss Anderson for the sake of a roll in bed.
Eventually the pug-nosed Scot appeared looking a little flushed, but grinning like a dope fiend. Cheng hurried across.
"Anderson..." He didn"t look at the Scotsman; he couldn"t bear to. "I need to be able to talk to Wong-sifu."
"What about?"
"Does that matter?" Cheng knew it did, of course. The Europeans wouldn"t want people conspiring against them in their own cells. Nor would they be likely to believe he wasn"t doing so.
"That depends on what ye need to talk about."
"An internal Guangzhou militia matter." He could feel Anderson"s eyes on the back of his head. He could hear the man"s suspicions as if he was shouting them from the roof top. "All right. An internal Black Flag matter," he said.
He turned to Anderson. "Something is happening among the Black Flag. Something bad. Maybe even a threat to your people."
The sergeant major looked at him inscrutably. "Is that why ye"re suddenly so generous with your supplies, and wanting nae a thing in return? Perhaps ye ken something about where those cartridges are going to go, and ye dinnae like it?"
"I don"t know anything!" The anger Cheng felt at the accusation was fuelled by guilt. "I just suspect things. Worry about them."
Anderson kept a poker face. "Aye, well ye"re worrying me right enough as well. Maybe ye should have a chat, but to Captain Logan or the major."
"Logan wouldn"t understand."
"Probably not, knowing him. But if he brings it to the major"s attention, the major is more likely to be the one to grant ye your request to visit Master Wong."
Cheng gritted his teeth, trying to refuse, or at least not accede to, Anderson"s demand. His fellow Chinese were too important to betray, but was betraying a betrayer really betraying his people? Wong would know, because he had the wisdom that Cheng knew he could never possess. Wong could make a decision like this. Wong, Cheng knew, in answer to this question, would say "Yes".
All right," he said at last.
The relaxed mood Anderson had bought for himself in the White Tigers" parlour had evaporated quickly, but he didn"t mind. It was just one of those things that happened to a professional.
He wasn"t sure that taking Cheng to the major was the right thing to do, but he knew that not doing it, and then discovering there was a split among the local rabble-rousers, would be a big mistake.
He took Cheng to the major"s office, knocked and was admitted.
"This is Cheng. He"s one of the Black Flag, the militia, and the owner of that poor excuse for a slop house where you were supposedly beaten up this week."
Chesterton sat back and regarded the newcomer silently.
Cheng"s jaw dropped. This was the man who had been attacked in the Hidden Panda right enough, but he had aged a dozen years since then.
"What can I do for you, Mr Cheng?" the major asked. "Has Captain Logan perhaps been attacked today?"
"No, sir," Cheng said stiffly.
Anderson could see in his eyes that he was already regretting starting this. He might start changing his story at any moment to get out of it. The sergeant major leant forward so that only Cheng could hear him. "Don"t be put off by the major. He really did get a b.u.mp on the head this week. He"s probably sick of the ache by now."
Cheng nodded, and continued. "There"s a man, he dresses like an abbot and used to be one. He"s taking over the local chapters of the Black Flag, but what he"s doing with them is nothing to do with the Black Flag"s aims. I think he is the warlord behind the attacks on random towns and villages."
"What makes you think that?"
"He told me, when he wanted me to follow him."
"And what did you say?"
"I said "Yes, sir" because anyone who refuses him is killed.
Then I packed my bags and wanted to leave."
"And?"
"Jiang, who holds the same rank as myself in the Black Flag... I don"t think he lied when he promised obedience. He and this abbot talked for a lot longer. And then he challenged the man Wong-sifu had entrusted with looking after the surgery, almost as soon as Wong-sifu was in your hands."
Once Cheng"s story was told, Chesterton sent him to the mess with Anderson to get something to eat. He didn"t know whether he could trust his story, or Jiang"s, or neither. The men were inscrutable Chinese, after all. To save face they"d tell you whatever you wanted to hear and think their lies were doing you a favour. Trusting any of them blindly was not an option.
Chesterton also thought that mistrusting Cheng"s information out of hand would be equally foolish. The Chinese had a long history of factional fighting, and there was no reason why there couldn"t be such a split in the Black Flag, or even in the semi-autonomous militias he was supposed to co-operate with. It was going to be a long night, but at least he would have something better to think about than his missing past.
He summoned Captain Logan, who came running from his quarters still b.u.t.toning his tunic. Chesterton quickly recounted Cheng"s story, and Logan considered it. "A rum sort of tale," he opined. "If there really is a schism in the Black Flag, and especially if a group has gone rogue, I think perhaps Mr Wong ought to be told. Kei-Ying, I mean."
"You do? Why?"
It wasn"t a challenge, but Chesterton was genuinely curious. Any thought might help him to make the right decision.
"It could explain a lot. It certainly explains this chap Jiang"s accusation against Kei-Ying, if it was part of some sort of internal power struggle."
"So it was just a pack of lies." It wouldn"t surprise Chesterton if this were the case. What a tangled web we weave, eh, Logan? All right. We"ll see how our prisoner reacts to this."
Ko was too tired to work. The figures on the paper vibrated and danced under his gaze, when they were in focus at all. If he was to calculate the answers the abbot wanted, he needed to be fresh. It would maybe be better to rest first and blaze through the work in the morning.
He couldn"t sleep either. He lay on a thin blanket in one of the monks" bedchambers in a distant corner of the former monastery, and still saw the calculations dancing before his eyes, glowing slightly against the darkness of the ceiling. It was irritating, being caught between one state and the other.
When he tried to work he wanted only to sleep, and vice versa. If someone could induce such a state in other men at will, he thought, it would make a fine torture for criminals.
Eventually, driven by the occasional restless twitch in his calves, he decided that perhaps working through a sequence of t"ai chi moves in the open air would help. He had trained to be a martial monk when he was a child, and found that such a pattern smoothed out the balance of his energy and helped him sleep afterwards.
He hadn"t stuck with the training long because other interests had caught his attention, and he had found an apt.i.tude for calculating the motions of the stars and planets. His father had apprenticed him to an astrologer, with the intent that this would prove more satisfying for the young Ko and more profitable for himself.
So far his father had been proved right, and Ko was one of the most respected men in the little town. Until this group of Black Flag troops had come. He wasn"t sure how holding the town was supposed to hurt the Chings in the government, but politics had never been Ko"s strong suit.
Ko knew there were guards who would try to stop him going outside the building, but he also knew, from his time training in the monastery, that there was a trap door through which he would be able to get up on to the roof, and then he could climb down a pillar to an exercise court.
First he had to go through the kitchen. A small serving hatch in a wall near his room led straight to this part of the building and, although he wasn"t a teenager any more, at forty he was the youngest of the astrologers, and he had little difficulty in climbing through the hatch.
He padded through the deserted kitchen and up some steps, and reached what used to be a store room. He was not alone. One of the two aides to the abbot - the muscle-bound one - was sitting on a stool, alone in the dark.
To the astrologer"s eyes, the monk would be asleep in a matter of moments. Ko held his breath, desperately hoping not to do anything that might disturb him and wake him up.
He watched carefully, waiting for the moment when Zhao"s attention was well and truly gone. Slowly, the monk"s eyes became unfocused, his eyelids drooping slightly. They didn"t close all the way. As Zhao"s consciousness faded, Ko discerned the beginning of a faint sulphurous glow emanating from his dilated pupils.
In a few seconds Zhao"s breathing was shallow and steady, and he was beginning to snore, but his eyes projected beams of light. Then he got up and walked to the centre of the room.
Ko had never seen anything like it. He certainly never expected to see such a thing again.
The doors at the end of the room swung open, and Gao and the abbot entered. Both of them were projecting beams of fiery light from their eyes. They moved to the centre of the room and stood next to Zhao. The three monks were a few feet apart from each other, facing a spot in between them.
The beams of light met there, in the centre of the group, and instead of projecting on to the walls they stopped there and began to swirl. The light churned inwards, forming an amorphous cloud. The air began to taste strange, and there was a faint discordant sound. It was like a whimpered song, lamenting lost souls.
Ko watched in horror, and suddenly had one of those moments when a man realises that the silhouetted candlestick he is looking at is actually a pair of faces. He no longer saw light streaming from the trio"s eyes - and their mouths - to create a bizarre ma.s.s of light. Instead, he couldn"t help but see tendrils of glowing fire from the h.e.l.lish thing in the centre insinuating their way into the heads of the three monks.
Kei-Ying sniffed suspiciously at a mug of British army tea. It smelt ridiculously overdone and over sweetened. Calling it tea was, Kei-Ying thought, like calling a man-eating lion a cat.
He, Cheng, Anderson, Logan and Major Chesterton were sitting around a table in an otherwise deserted mess hall.
The room was as large as Po Chi Lam"s training hall, but was filled with simple tables and benches. A long counter separated it from the kitchen, but not from the smell of dull, stolid, flavourless food.
Kei-Ying took in the tale that Cheng had told. "I think we should contact the other Tigers."
"The Tigers?" Cheng grinned. "Yes, they"ll get you out of this barbarian hole in no time."
The three British men glared at him.
"No offence," he added.
Kei-Ying ignored him. "If a Black Flag group has gone rogue under this warlord and started raiding and killing indiscrim-inately, it"s going to come to the Tigers" attention anyway. In fact, it will almost certainly have done so already. If they"re going to find themselves fighting against the Black Flag, they ought to know why."
"The Ten Tigers of Kwantung?" Logan asked. He sounded impressed in a patronising sort of way.
"Eight Tigers," Kei-Ying corrected him. "Dr Leung Jon was murdered at dinner recently and my sifu, sifu, Luk Ah Choi, died a few years ago." Luk Ah Choi, died a few years ago."
"How would you propose to contact them?" Chesterton asked.
"I can write letters to them. Cheng can arrange for messengers to find them." He looked questioningly at Chesterton.
"Does this mean I"m released?"
"Partly," Chesterton said. "I"d like to keep you here until we have more proof, but we won"t lock your cell door and you can use our facilities to write your letters."
Kei-Ying grimaced inwardly. He wouldn"t be free in time to stop Jiang"s duel with the Doctor, and he felt shame at having dropped the old man into such trouble.
"I suppose I have no choice."
Ko started to back away, feeling backwards with his foot to find the steps. He wanted to look away from the bizarre sight in front of him, but daren"t. It was fascinating in a horrible way - and he didn"t want to risk one of the monks noticing him while his back was turned.
He started to put his foot down, but he hadn"t judged the width of the step correctly. The foot caught briefly on the edge of the top step and slid off it on to the next one with a thud. The light in the room snapped off immediately.
Ko fled, but behind him he could hear footsteps in pursuit.
He dashed downstairs and through several empty rooms.
At a side door he knocked over a dozing guard, totally by chance rather than with any martial skill. He knew he had to get as far away from here as he could. Not just away from the monastery, but away from the town.
He leapt off the edge of one terrace, then another. This was a fishing town, so there would be boats on the river.