Casca 18: The Cursed (11 page)

Tian
assured Casca that he would take immediate steps to ensure that fifty of the handsomest young women in the city would be quickly installed in these chambers and that each day five of these would be available for attendance upon his person.

For his own private use Casca selected a small suite of rooms designed for one of the captains of the palace guard. He hastened to assure the startled
Tian that for formal occasions he would continue to use the huge chambers set aside for the Hsia. But his endless lifetimes in the cramped quarters of professional soldiers had ill accustomed him to such luxury, despite the several occasions when he had enjoyed similar positions of pomp and power.

"For brief periods of time," he reminded himself aloud as he looked around at all his present
splendor. "And this too shall pass ... I wonder when."

Liang
Yongming stood in the doorway of Casca's, bed chamber. She explained to him that the five concubines rotated their duties on each of the baron's visits, so that, at any hour of the day or night, his every wish could be provided for. One girl supervised the kitchen and slept there, another was in charge of the bathhouse. Two girls would sleep in the outer apartment ready to run messages or otherwise do his bidding. And one girl would sleep with him in the inner chamber.

Casca looked Liang up and down, from her brilliant black hair to her exquisitely tiny slipper clad feet.

"And whose turn is it to sleep in here?"

"Mine, Lord.
Or whichever other you might prefer."

"I prefer you."

A tiny smile lit her eyes. She bowed and tripped lightly from the room to tell the others of her good fortune and dispose them about their other duties.

When she returned Casca was lying on the satin sheets of the huge bed. Liang allowed her cheongsam to fall to the floor, slipped off her slippers, and slid into the bed beside him. She lay quite still, waiting for Casca to let her know what he wanted of her.

He put one thick arm around her shoulders and she came to him, her tiny nipples turning hard as they brushed the hairs on his chest.

The first rays of the sun lit upon Casca's eyes as one of the girls from the outer apartment entered bearing a tray, which she placed on the table beside the bed. Liang quickly slipped from the bed to squat on the floor and pour the tea.

Casca watched the sky lightening. From the faint sounds reaching his chamber he could tell that people were astir throughout the palace. Good.

While he sipped his tea Casca's eyes roved over Liang's slight body, marveling at its smooth hairlessness. There was only the scant bush on the little mound between her legs. His eyes ran down her legs to her feet and he recoiled.

Alarm showed in Liang's eyes. "What is it, Lord? What displeases you?"

Casca tried to cover his revulsion. He forced his attention away from her hideously deformed feet and concentrated on the girl's tiny breasts, marvelous little mounds of muscle that rose only slightly above the curve of her chest.

He moved his attention to her lovely eyes.
"You please me greatly, little one. I merely had an old unpleasant thought," he lied. "An ugly old memory flashed into my mind. But it is gone now."

Fortunately it would not cross Liang's mind that her feet were involved. Had not the baron told her often that she had the most beautiful feet he had ever seen? And she knew that the baron had known countless women. Casca put out his arm and she curled herself into it. Looking into her eyes, he smiled tenderly, thinking that it would not be too hard to keep his eyes above her knees.

Liang happily nipped his ear with her small, white teeth. As she nibbled at his earlobe Casca took the opportunity to study her feet while she could not see his face.

Oh, my God. I had quite forgotten how horrible this absurdity can be
. Casca remembered vividly his first experience of the only institutionalized perversion that he had found in the land of Chin. Baby Chinese girls had their feet bound soon after birth, and their feet stayed about the same size and appeared exquisitely tiny in shoes. But when seen naked the feet had grown to a monstrous shape, a great curving instep, the span of a normal foot, that bridged the space of barely three inches from heel to toe.

Fei
Jiyan, his whore in Hong Kong, had been born in the street and orphaned early so that her feet had never been bound, perhaps one of the reasons she was condemned to whoredom in the cheapest of back street shacks.

And
Ju Songzhen, whom he had enjoyed in Shou Chang, was of the Hakka people, who despised and abhorred the custom of foot binding. The Hakka were always on the move, and their women were proud of their ability to walk long distances carrying huge loads, and to fight beside their men when need be.

In the best and most settled and prosperous times, the Hakka women worked beside their men in the fields. Where else would a woman want to be? The children worked, too. Where else could they want to be? The whole family would take turns to walk behind the
plow and to pull it if they were too poor to own an ox. They were a barefoot people who walked everywhere, planted from cane baskets, gathered their crops by hand, winnowed the chaff in the wind, drew their water from a pool, and made bricks with mud and straw.

And when their men were fighting, which was much of the time, or working overseas, these women did all of the heavy work, and they developed strong, beautiful feet.

Liang's feet, Casca thought, were truly hideous.

The binding had ensured that her toes were only a few inches from her heels. But the foot had grown anyway, rising in a great ugly lump of instep that curved in an arch from the heel to the toes. The effect was entirely horrible.

Casca was still eating his breakfast of rice soup when
Tian Yuanlong came into the room to ask for orders and to tell him that the Pao, Li Peng, was also waiting to see him.

Over cups of steaming tea the three men discussed the most pressing problems of the city, especially the unsanitary condition of the streets. Casca ordered that every man in the village who lacked land or employment be put to work immediately to clean up the streets and to dig a large excavation on some wasteland beyond the city walls where all of the city's rubbish would be buried.

"But, who will pay these men for so much work?" Tian asked.

"For the moment I will," Casca replied without hesitation. "Later, when an economical routine has been established, I shall set a tax to be levied upon all those who own property or do business within the city walls."

The Pao was mightily pleased at this news. All his efforts toward cleaning the streets had been frustrated by lack of money and the persistent refusal of the city elders to tax themselves for the purpose. He assured Casca that the streets would be clean by that very evening, and that all of the garbage would be buried by the next day. He hurried away to get the work started.

Casca called for the captain of the palace guard, liked him at a glance, and promoted him to colonel of the city. Huang Chu accompanied Casca on a tour of the palace
defenses and Casca specified the changes that he wanted made. When they came back to the audience chamber the Pao was waiting for more orders, having instructed his deputies to start cleaning up the city.

Casca rode with him to the prison where he had all the prisoners paraded. There were not many of them. Chinese society depended upon family and social pressures to keep people within the law, and most serious infractions were punished with either death or mutilation. The prisons usually held only those awaiting trial, or being otherwise detained. Long term imprisonment was not used as a punishment.

The turnkey told him that some of the present prisoners were rapists, murderers, or thieves, but that most of the others had been imprisoned for evading taxes, resisting orders of the emperor, or for indulging in some form of revolutionary activity. However, in the wake of the Hakka civil war, the execution of the previous Hsia, and the subsequent death from old age of his scribe, some of the records had been lost while others were illegible; and with the older prisoners it was now impossible to tell which prisoner had been sentenced for what crime.

Seven of the prisoners were in pathetic condition, their bodies atrophied and distorted from long confinement. Another three had festering hands, the wrists rubbed through to the bone by their heavy iron manacles.

Casca spoke briefly to Li Peng and then addressed the prisoners. "Hear me. I am Count Cas Ca Sho, Hsia of this county. I intend to rule justly, decently, and, I trust, wisely."

From the corner of his eye he saw that the orders he had given Li Peng were already being carried out. He motioned to Peng, and the seven near dead and the men with the festering arms were picked up bodily and carried to where ten swordsmen stood waiting.

At a nod from Casca the long, curved swords flashed in the sun and seven heads and three arms fell to the ground, followed by all ten bodies. The men who had lost their arms were already unconscious when their bleeding stumps were cauterized with a flaming torch.

Casca cleared his throat. "As you see, my justice is swift and severe. Each of you will now receive a bath, some clean clothes, and enough money to keep you for one week. Those of you who have not found employment at the end of the week shall report to the
Pao and he will put you to work cleaning the city.

"Those of you who repeat your past mistakes and come back here shall be treated as these ten have been."

A murmur of relief ran through the crowd of prisoners and Casca grinned to himself. Maybe not the wisdom of Solomon, but it seems to have served the purpose. He gestured dismissal and the prisoners were led away to be bathed and fed and outfitted and then paid off as he had promised. Now it was time for him to prepare to meet the baron. He had been informed of his coming this very night and he was bringing guests of import with him.

Casca and Baron Ying were seated at a low table in Casca's palace studying maps of Kwangtung Province when
Tian Yuanlong entered the room to announce the arrival of visitors.

Three Chinese men entered the chamber, all dressed in double breasted European suits with shirts and ties. A middle aged man led the way; the two younger men who followed him wore their hair cut short. They were the first two Chinese Casca had ever seen without pigtails.

They were brought up short by the sight of Ying in his baronial robes talking to a foreign devil who was also wearing the robes of a Chinese of high rank.

In some confusion, the three visitors bowed, and Ying and Casca bowed in greeting.

"Cas Ca Sho," said the baron, "allow me to introduce some of the very best and most dedicated of our allies. This is Mr. Song, whose business is selling the Bible."

The middle aged Chinese bowed.

"Mr. Song is estimated to be the richest man in the world, and he is making quite a portion of his immense fortune available to the movement. And this is Dr. Sun Yat sen, who has studied in Hong Kong."

The ascetic looking Sun bowed.

"And this is David Sen Yung, who has just returned from Hong Kong where he has been studying to become a teacher. Gentlemen, I would like you to meet the honorable Count Cas Ca Sho, a barbarian whom I very much respect and who has joined cause with us."

Each of the Chinese advanced in turn and shook hands, Sen
Yung saying in confident but badly spoken English: "I am very pleased to meet you, honorable barbarian." But Casca saw that his eyes remained wary toward him.

Casca clapped his hands and Liang
Yongming appeared with the tea tray and squatted at the table by the five men. As she poured tea and handed around small cakes the baron suddenly turned to Casca.

"What do you know of the Marquis of Queensberry?"

"Nothing good," Casca mumbled through a mouthful of delicious rice cake.

David Sen
Yung sat bolt upright, his eyes wide in amazement. Ying, too, stared at Casca. Sun smiled, while Mr. Song merely looked at Casca carefully.

Sen
Yung opened his mouth to protest, then stopped and looked to the baron. Ying gestured his approval and the young Chinese spoke with considerable force. "Surely you cannot know anything but good of the father of the noble art of self defense?"

'The dubious art of the closed fist?"
Casca shrugged. "It was practiced in ancient Rome, and before that in Greece. They used weighted gloves so that most boxers died in the ring, whereas with Queensberry's rules they survive for many fights, and still die from the blows they take. But they die outside the ring, and so it is held more respectable.

"Queensberry has merely codified it so that gentlemen, and gentlewomen, can more conveniently wager upon the outcome of two dumb beasts
belaboring each other toward unconsciousness and eventual stupidity and death. And, for self defense, the closed fist is but a clumsy thing alongside K'ung Fu Yzu's art of the open hand."

Sun
Yat sen looked in confusion from Casca to Ying and back to Casca. "But," he protested, "Confucius is an archaic thinker. As is the way of the open hand an outdated system of self defense. We are upon the threshold of the twentieth century. It is time to discard all this time worn nonsense that keeps us in backwardness."

Sen
Yung spoke: "Would you believe me, sir, that there are people in my country who, when ill, prefer to submit to the superstitious practice of acupuncture needles rather than utilize the sophisticated medicines of men of modern knowledge such as Dr. Sun Yat Sen?"

Casca smiled. "I believe I am one."

Sen Yung's mouth dropped open and the baron, laughing, hastened to intervene.

"David is the very prototype of the new Chinese man. He is obsessed with such ideas as the telegraph and flying balloons. He dreams of flying machines. Any machines, eh David?"

"So long as those machines are controlled by Chinese," Sen Yung responded primly.

"Indeed. David is an ardent revolutionary. He is a member of a sect which is at the core of the movement. They espouse everything that is modern or from the West"

"Other than domination by the West," interposed Sen Yung.

"Exactly.
His sect practices boxing as a rite."

Great fucking balls of Mars!
Casca exploded inwardly.
What the fuck have I got myself into?

"It is time," said the baron, "for us to put all our cards on the table, as you English say." He smiled to Casca, letting him know that his true story was not to be one of the cards.

"We are running very short of time. And we do not have very many choices. The peasants will erupt any day. If we do not join them they will probably lose, and the power of the British and the other colonial powers will be increased."

"China is in the position of a sub colony," Sun
Yat Sen interposed. "A country not simply oppressed or protected by one state, but subject to the encroachments of all the great powers combined."

"Your military sage, Sun Tzu, would suggest that you find a
way to divide that combination " Casca declared.

Yat
Sen looked at him in puzzlement. "You are a very curious Englishman, Count Cas Ca. You deride Queensberry and extol Chinese thinkers."

Casca shrugged. "Just observation of what works best, Doctor."

"It is surely clear," Yat Sen seemed to be making an effort to be patient "that your Lord Palmerston and General Chinese Gordon are better military strategists than Sun Tzu?"

"I doubt that," Casca replied easily. "1 would recommend that you study Sun Tzu's The Art of War."

"War is not my business," Sun Yat Sen replied. "I am a philosopher. When it comes to war, that is the province of men such as Baron Ying, and, I presume, yourself. I am only concerned with moving my country toward revolutionary change."

"Perhaps" Mr. Song spoke for the first time "
honorable Cas Ca Sho has a point. Let us consider this another time."

The baron took over the discussion again.
"We know from our experiences with the Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion; that a defeat will be followed by disastrous reprisals and the exaction of even more cessions of territory and sovereignty.

"On the other hand, if the peasants should win without our assistance, they may succeed in pushing the colonial powers into the China Sea, but, I fear, they will throw with them all that
is good in our present system. All that we have learned over thousands of years about governing ourselves."

"I have heard from Wong Sam Ark," said Mr. Song.

"Aha." The baron sounded pleased. "What says the Master?"

"Wong," Mr. Song explained for Casca's benefit, "is Supreme Grand Master of the Worldwide Order of Chinese Freemasons." To Ying he added: "He counsels that we wait.''

"Wait?" The baron was on his feet, slapping his hands in impatience. "Wait for what?"

"For developments."
Song shrugged.

Over the succeeding weeks Casca was to get to know several more of the leaders of the odd assortment of revolutionaries who were plotting to free China from the colonial yoke: Nominal Christians like Mr. Song, Freemasons, Socialists, Warlords, and peasants. He developed a particular fondness for the cranks who proudly referred to themselves as Boxers. The more he saw of them, the better Casca liked these intense young men, but the less he understood them.

Their primary objective was the expulsion from China of all Europeans; and of every vestige of European influence except for machines, cannon, muskets, locomotives, surgery, dentistry, optometry, motor cars, hot air balloons, the telephone, sewing machines, fountain pens, the English language, the Bible; and the thinking of Thomas Paine, Karl Marx, and, especially, the Marquis of Queensberry.

They also wanted to scrap the teachings of K'ung Fu Tzu and Lao Tze, and the medical science that dated back to the time of Huang Ti, the Yellow Emperor, who had lived four thousand years before Casca was born.