A HAZARD OF HEARTS (4 page)

She stopped suddenly so that Harwood cannoned
into her.

‘Listen to me,’ she began.

In answer, he gave her a push, strong enough to
make her trip. She fell hard, grazing her hands on the stones, twisting her
ankle under her. As she picked herself up she heard her skirt tear at the waist.
Slowly she brushed away the clinging dirt, tested her weight on her ankle. It twinged
but it was bearable. Then she raised her chin and faced her tormentor.

‘Keep moving. And don’t think you can sneak back
after dark,’ he warned. ‘There’ll be nothing left of your home by then. We’ll
burn it down.’ He forced her on.

About half a mile down the track he called a
halt.

By now the crowd had dwindled to ten men plus a
couple of the more energetic women, still buoyed by mob excitement and a hope
of more drama to come.

Harwood pulled Elly around to face him. ‘This is
far enough.’

She returned his look calmly, forcing down her
despair. For her the mob had faded away. They were only pack animals, vicious
when led. This man was the enemy.

‘You’re sending me to my death. I can’t survive
without provisions or a horse. You know how far it is to the nearest township.’

For a moment the pale eyes lit, and she saw in
them real hatred, for the things she’d said about him, for seeing through him.
Then he smiled, saying softly, ‘We are always in God’s hands. Let it be your
comfort – while you live.’

The mission squatted on a hillside a mile
from the village, its bareness contrasting with the stepped green paddy fields
and farmlets of a lush river valley noted for its abundant harvests. The mud
brick walls of the dispensary, chapel and living quarters which supported themselves
in lopsided fashion around an unpaved courtyard appeared to be slowly crumbling
into the earth. Shutters dating back to the early Ming Dynasty hung awry,
letting in the winter winds and, in summer, the monsoonal rains. Roof tiles
were chipped or lost altogether. Any attempt to grow trees in the hard-packed
earth had failed, while a row of empty flower pots only added to the starkness.

Nature’s one concession within the walls was a
persimmon tree, sheltered by the eastern gate. It had survived against all odds
and in summer became a miracle of glossy green leaves and golden globes of
fruit. The rest of the mission remained, botanically speaking, a desert in a
sea of plenty. With its air of brave isolation, it was shunned by most
villagers until someone needed the Red Hair doctor, while the few converts
wisely kept a low profile. Imperial edicts forbidding Christian worship
remained in force and all rights of foreign trade and residence were confined
to the seaport of Shanghai, many miles down the Yangtse River.

Pearl knew this as well as her foster parents,
Ada and Morris Carter, representatives of the London Missionary Society. These
stalwart medical pioneers in the Land of Sinim had, for five years, run a
clinic and dispensary. When added to the evangelical work and everyday chores
this left little time for gardening or repairs, at which the doctor and his
wife were particularly inept; and somehow, little prospered under the hands of
hired workers. Yet the Carters maintained their cheerful determination and
persevered with God’s work.

Like her foster parents, Pearl accepted the
inherent risks of running the mission. However, unlike the Carters, Pearl was a
fatalist. She didn’t expect the current peace to last. Sold into slavery at
five years old by her natural mother, used as everything from pot-scourer to
bed-warmer, then bought and fostered by a largely incomprehensible white couple
who introduced her to the first comfort and consideration she’d ever known,
Pearl kept her own counsel. Circumstances had made her pragmatic. She accepted
the kindness, the new God and the training in nursing skills, while squirreling
away small valuables and practicing self-defence techniques against the day
when the axe would inevitably fall.

It fell one cold January day while she worked in
the dispensary making up a wound poultice for a patient. Her glossy black braid
hung down over the collar of her warm padded jacket, thumping her lightly as
she pounded her pestle, and for perhaps the thousandth time she called down a
blessing on the foreigners who cared for her. She had rice in her belly, a
sleeping mattress of her own, and no expectation of blows and curses if she
failed to please. In return, she worked carefully and meticulously, while
holding in her heart an inarticulate love for the woman who tried to mother
her.

Her own family had been lost to her so long ago
she never thought about them. The one exception was Li Po, her older brother. Him
she remembered – a boy carelessly affectionate towards an unwanted girl child,
saving her titbits from his meals, helping her small stumbling feet across
ditches in the paddy fields, until the day he left for the great distant city
of Nanking, never to return.

She stopped work to inspect the mash of yarrow
leaves in the mortar, then spun around as, without warning, the window shutters
banged back and a man sprang into the room, shouting and brandishing a sword. His
coarse short hair held by a bandanna and his loose jerkin and breeches belted
with a sash proclaimed the stranger.

Pearl froze, her usual technique when under
attack.

‘Death to all Manchu pigs. The assailant rolled
his eyes and swung the sword high.

‘I’m not Manchu.’ All the same, Pearl dropped
the pestle and scuttled under the work bench. Her accent was quite different
from his. Maybe he had not understood.

The sword stayed high while the man hesitated.

Pearl peeped out at him. ‘Look, my feet are not
bound. I am a servant.’ She thrust out a small, sturdy foot in its leather
slipper.

‘Come out.’

She sidled from beneath the bench, keeping her
distance.

Not liking the man’s expression, she put a
convincing whine in her voice then dragged her jacket away from her neck to
expose the brand on her upper arm. ‘See? I bear the slave mark. I am but a
lowly cockroach in the house of the yi.’

He nodded and, lowering the sword, looked
around. His fierce expression changed to one of disgust. Clearly there were no
valuables here to be scavenged.

‘Where is the gold? Show me it.’

‘What gold? We have nothing of value, except
salves and potions for the sick.’ Pearl spread her arms wide, wondering whether
she could keep the man here while she alerted the mission. Was he a one-man
invasion, or were there other raiders with him?

Then in the yard outside she heard the outcry,
screams and shouts and the clash of weapons. It rose to a clamour that seemed
to rock the walls. Voices chanted above the hubbub, broken now and then by a
horrible wailing. It drew a mental picture of terror that made Pearl’s skin
crawl.

‘What’s happening? Who are you?’ She lunged for
the door but was caught by her braid and dragged back.

The man said, ‘I am a Triad brother of the Tai
Ping, the Great Peace. We bring death to the Manchu usurpers and peace to our
land under the new Heavenly Emperor.’ He spoke as if by rote, not with
conviction.

‘Peace? That doesn’t sound like peace. Why are
you attacking the mission?’

‘We sweep the land clear before us. We make way
for the true Emperor.’

Pearl wasn’t listening. In a sudden brief lull
in the uproar she heard a familiar woman’s voice. She tore at his fingers. ‘Let
me go. I must know what’s happening.’ Twisting unexpectedly, she freed herself
and sprang towards the door, then stood transfixed.

In the courtyard bodies lay in pools of blood on
the hard-packed earth. More bodies were crammed in the gateway, slain as they
fled, one figure even hanging over the high wall, legs dangling disconsolately
like those of the rag doll her foster mother had given her to try and resurrect
a childhood that had never existed. Two or three attackers busily looted their
victims, while the rest chased after the mission workers fleeing downhill
towards the village.

‘My mother!’ Pearl put a hand to her mouth to
stifle a scream. She’d seen the pile of petticoats flung in a heap across the
hospital step a few feet away, the arms out-thrown as if in supplication. But
where the head had been only a bleeding stump remained. Ada Carter had died
trying to protect her patient. Straddling her was a giant of a man, his boots
carelessly planted on his victim’s skirt to reveal an immodest amount of
stockinged leg. He had dropped his bloodied blade to tear the small gold hoop
earrings from the severed head.

Pearl’s mind went blank. All her senses failed
her. The courtyard disappeared, the distant screams faded, the smell of blood
and fear no longer existed. For one blinding instant she was pure pain. A great
crimson sea rolled in, swamping her, and on a tide of insane rage she surged
forward, stooped to grasp the fallen sword with both hands then swung it high
to arc down on the arm holding that grotesque trophy. Arm and head fell to the
ground. The giant spun to face her, his expression one of total astonishment. Blood
pumped from the hole in his shoulder, hosing the soil and the corpse of his
victim. Then something hit Pearl on the side of the head and thrust her into
oblivion.

~*~

She woke to darkness and pain down the left
side of her face and neck, and the smell of cook-fires. Frosted stars hung
overhead and a cold wind stirred her hair. Voices came from shadows clumped
around the fires, giving her another clue. Many men and many fires. This was a
camp. She was surrounded by the rebel army, a prisoner. Why had they taken her
but slain the others... her mother... her mother... Acid tears burned her eyes.
She brushed them aside, fiercely, then discovered her wrists were bound
together with a thong.

A voice, not familiar, but not wholly strange,
either, said, ‘Rise up, woman, and come to the fire.’

Stiff and bruised, Pearl got slowly to her feet.
The movement caused the wound on the side of her head to start seeping and she
felt warmth trickle down her neck as she walked into the firelight. A tripod
sat over the flames where a man squatted stirring a bubbling pot and Pearl
recognised her attacker, the Triad who had wanted to cut her down. When he rose
he seemed even taller than she remembered. She had to tip back her head to meet
his eyes.

‘You, servant woman, are now my slave. I am a
leader of fifty men. You will give me honour.’

Pearl said nothing. It had always been safer to
maintain silence and be watchful.

Perhaps the man took this for defiance, for he
stepped forward and slapped her face. Head ringing like a temple gong, Pearl
fell to her knees, her hands rising to her wound as she felt the blood trickle
increase to a flow.

‘Get up, slave. Serve the meal.’ The Triad
plucked a knife from his sash, and Pearl flinched, before meeting his gaze. He
laughed as he cut the thong around her wrists. ‘Disobey and I will slit your
nostrils.’ He turned aside, ignoring her.

Dragging herself upright, Pearl crossed to the
fire. A wooden bowl and spoon lay there, and she served the savoury stew of
what smelt like chicken and root vegetable, taking it to where her captor
lolled on a pile of bedding, presenting it subserviently. ‘Your meal, honoured
master.’ Her tone was conciliatory. He could not see her eyes beneath lowered
lids.

He grunted, dismissing her. Others came to the
pot to help themselves, some glancing at their leader’s new acquisition, most
simply interested in the food. Pearl crouched in the darkness beyond the circle
of firelight, waiting for the scourings of the pot, if anything was left after
the others had eaten.

However her thoughts were not on food. The
picture of her mother’s dead face, hanging by the hair from that animal’s
fingers, would not leave her mind. The pain in her heart was so great, far
worse than her torn scalp. It was living agony, like the gnawing teeth of a
trapped animal, gouging into her flesh, destroying her.

In the darkest hour of the windy night she drew
within herself, into that stillness of the spirit that no-one else can touch,
and there silently she swore a great oath:

‘By the spirits of my ancestors whom I have not
known, by all the Gods of heaven and earth, and by Jesus Christ, Son of the
Most High God, I swear I will escape this slavery and avenge my parents’
deaths. I swear this by... by my mother’s Book of Holy Writings, and may I die
in torment if I do not fulfil this oath.’ She touched a finger to the bloody
ooze at her temple, then drew it across her lips. A life for a life, if
necessary.

The heart pain eased a little, allowing her to
think. The man who had cut down her mother could not have lived long, with his
life-blood pumping from him like a river in spate. But he was only one. These
others, these Tai Pings or Triads, this army of butchers were just as
responsible. She knew her foster father must be dead, along with the mission
workers. Why leave any witnesses to the slaughter? And she guessed the village
would by now be a funeral pyre, with the animals and grain taken to feed the
murderous hordes rolling across the countryside.

Where were they headed? They must have a
destination in mind, if they really planned to replace the Son of Heaven who
ruled the world, the important part of it, China. Peking itself? Was it not
many hundreds of li to the north? Her foster father had said so. Although,
whether his words could be relied upon was a difficulty, since he had not
succeeded in explaining to Pearl’s satisfaction how there could be two Sons of
Heaven, one seated at the right hand of God the Father and the other upon the
silken cushions of the Imperial throne. It was very confusing.