Shanghai (46 page)

He gave her the red kerchief and she clutched it to her breast. Then he gave her all the money he carried, although he wondered if currency was of any value in a war zone. He questioned her about Nanking. About exits and entrances. About refugee routes. About where she should meet up with him and her husband. They agreed on a place. She asked, “When?”

Richard didn't know what to say, then it occurred to him. “Watch the Manchu banners in the field. When they head toward the city you go to that place to meet us. Once the Manchus are in the city it's all but over.”

But the siege wore on and on. Dogs and cats were the first obvious victims in the ancient capital. They simply disappeared. Then the plants and grass were gone. Eventually even the weeds disappeared from the park lands. Stomachs distended. Envy caused fights to break out everywhere. And finally the most unwelcome, although most common, of guests came to visit the terrorized, weakened citizenry of Nanking—cholera.

And yet the city did not fall. The walls were punctured during the day and repaired at night. Fires roared through the city from incendiary bombardments but were put out by organized, although depleted, teams of Taipingers.

A strange, unofficially sanctioned kind of trade began between those under siege and those doing the sieging. At first it was just the trading of creature comforts from the homes of the Nanking residents for food from the soldiers. Then began a brisk trade in antiquities for food. Finally, anything of any value in the city was traded for food. It was under this rubric that the History Teller's troupe was traded to the Manchu Commander for two fat sows.

—

“Welcome,” the Manchu Commander said to the History Teller as he openly admired her beauty.

“Are you a follower of the arts, Commander?”

“If they are your arts, I am sure that I am a follower.”

“Then shall we perform this evening?”

“Indeed.”

The troupe performed that night, literally for their dinner—and every other night the Commander felt like being entertained by a troupe of Peking Opera performers.

* * *

IN THE FOURTH MONTH of the siege, rumour spread through the city that the Heavenly King had left with his son, and finally the inevitable revolt of the dispossessed and exhausted brought the city to the brink of surrender.

Maxi pleaded, through his interpreter, that to open the gates was to allow in destruction. “The Manchus
will be let loose to avenge themselves on you. The British already have what they want. They've broken our prohibition on opium. All that remains is the slaughter. You open the gates and that is what will happen.”

Three days later, the front gates of Nanking, China's ancient capital, were flung open and a committee of twelve officials, all dressed in white silk robes, strode out in the time-honoured fashion, to surrender the city. The Manchus beheaded them and raced toward the open gate.

From the hills, Maxi's wife saw the Manchu banners begin to move, and she knew the end was near. She picked up the toddler and held her other daughter's hand as they made their way carefully to the meeting place she had agreed upon with Richard.

Richard raced into the city with the first wave of Manchus. There were screams everywhere. Limbs literally littered the streets, and old men were nailed to the doors of their ancestral homes. The Manchus were drunk on revenge. For over a decade they had fought the rebels and lost. Now was their time to get back at those who had shamed them.

But the Taipingers were not finished. They fought for every street, every alley, every building of the capital of the Heavenly Kingdom. They held back the Manchus for four full days and nights—then they could hold out no longer.

Maxi's Hakka wife waited at the assigned meeting place, with their little girl and her daughter, for a day and a night. The frozen dawn of the second day presented her with stern choices. What little food she'd managed to buy with Richard's money was quickly running out, and she didn't know when or where she could find more. As well, Manchu soldiers—drunken Manchu
soldiers—had begun to frequent the hill. They dragged girls there. Raped them. Then slit their throats.

By noon of that second day Maxi's wife was forced to make a choice. She had very little food. Soldiers were everywhere. This place wasn't safe—and her daughter cried all the time.

She took one last glance at Nanking below them, then tied the red kerchief on the toddler's head and laid her gently on a bed of ferns as far back in the stand of trees as she could go. Then she took her traumatized daughter by the hand and began down the far side of the hill. They got only half a mile before the taunting calls of three Manchu soldiers stopped them—once and for all.

—

Richard saw the last line of the Taiping defence sunder and run—and he knew the end had finally come. He looked desperately for the high ground of the city. Finally he spotted silk overhead lines and ran furiously, following them until they brought him to an open clearing in a park in the north end of the city. And there, sure enough, Maxi was organizing a group of wounded men for one final stand. He held a flaming bamboo torch in his hand.

“It's no use, Maxi. The Manchus are in total control of the city. If you fight on it will be suicide.”

“If we don't fight it's suicide, brother mine.”

“There is an alternative.”

“What? To run?”

“No. To see your family. To protect them. You've given years of your life to this cause. Now at least offer something to your family.”

Maxi opened his mouth, but no words came. He slowly dropped the burning torch. It gave off an angry hiss as it hit the wet pavement—within inches of an access point to the large oil reservoir hidden below. Richard put his hand on his brother's shoulder and said, “Now it's time for me to save you, brother mine.”

—

Two hours later, Richard found the History Teller helping the actor who played the Serving Man redesign his makeup. They were deep in discussion about the performance they had just given. The History Teller noticed Richard and stepped aside to address him.

“The Manchus let you into their camp, Mr. Hordoon?”

“I'm a resourceful man.”

“So it would seem.”

“I need your help. Actually, my brother and his family need your help.”

The History Teller allowed her breath out slowly, then turned away from Richard. Finally she asked, “Where is your brother?”

“Getting his family from their hiding place.”

The History Teller lowered her lovely head and tried to still her heart, but she did not speak. For all her time in Nanking she'd been careful, after that first night, not to get too close to the red-haired
Fan Kuei,
and now here was his brother asking her to hide Maxi and his family.

“They need your help.”

“So you've said. What would you like me to do to help your brother and his family?”

She listened closely as Richard outlined his plan. Unbeknownst to Richard and the History Teller,
however, someone else was listening as well. Someone with extraordinarily acute hearing and a cobra carved into his back.

—

Maxi raced to the assigned meeting place but found no one. Following tracks he eventually came upon a clearing in the woods—jackals had eaten away what little flesh had been left on his wife's and her daughter's bodies. But where was his daughter?

He retraced his steps and searched the area carefully. Nothing. He sank to his knees in the middle of the clearing, then something, something out of place, caught his eye. A spot of red amidst the greenery in the copse of trees. He stood and walked cautiously toward the patch of colour.

He found his little girl playing quietly with two sticks while lying on her back on the bed of ferns.

She touched the red kerchief on her forehead, then looked at her father—but she did not smile.

* * *

THE SACKING, PILLAGING, AND RAPING of Nanking took almost a week. Well before it was over, the British had left Nanking behind and headed back to their bases in Hong Kong and Macao. Eventually sated, the Manchus reorganized their troops and headed out into the countryside to rid the rest of China of the “scourge of the Taipingers.”

One morning, unceremoniously, the History Teller was called to the Manchu Commander's tent.

“Sir?”

“It is time for you and your troupe to go.”

“Go where?” she asked.

The Manchu just laughed. “Go wherever you can. But watch your pretty head, History Teller. There are bandits everywhere, and roving bands of Manchu bannermen who are hunting down the last of the Taipingers. Both the Heavenly King and his son are still at large. And of course the red-haired
Fan Kuei
general. Until they are all caught and executed, the rebels are dangerous. There are bounties on all of their heads. Should you see them, you might consider what that kind of money could do for your little company of players.” The Manchu Commander turned to leave, then stooped to lace his boot. As he did he mentioned, “Stay away from the river. Any boat that does not belong to the Manchus will be boarded, and the people onboard put to the sword.”

“Really?”

“A word to the wise.”

“Why do you tell me all this?”

An odd smile crossed the man's hard features. “Because I enjoyed your performances. They touched me.” He stood. “But be careful, History Teller, or your beautiful head will end up on the end of a pike. What kind of history could you tell from that vantage point? Not much, I'd guess.”

The History Teller gathered her people, and—along with Maxi and his daughter—they started the dangerous journey back to Shanghai.

* * *

THAT VERY NIGHT the Chosen Three met with the Carver in the deepest section of the Warrens beneath the Chinese section of Shanghai. The Confucian already
looked twice his age, and something was definitely wrong with the Fisherman, the uncle of the Assassin. The young Carver had taken over from his ancient father but carried himself with the dignity that all representatives of the Carvers managed to display.

Jiang was unsettled by the distant stare of the Fisherman. “What draws your eye so far away, old friend?” she asked.

“Just my age,” he said unconvincingly.

“We all age, Fisherman, but some of us have bad dreams as we near our end. Do you call out in your sleep these days?”

The Fisherman had no idea how Jiang knew that, and he was appalled that his privacy had been so breached.

“Are they dreams of your son whom the Assassin dispatched?”

The Fisherman slowly nodded. His whole life had collapsed since the passing of his gentle son. The birds refused to fish for him. His wife had contracted the palsy and died amidst howls of pain. Now he was alone in his bed—alone with the nightly pleading of his beautiful boy:
Help me, Father, help me
.

The Confucian stepped forward and put a hand on the Fisherman's shoulder. “We have all sacrificed for the future of our people. For the Seventy Pagodas.”

Again the Fisherman nodded, although he kept his eyes down.

“The Three of us carry a heavy burden,” the Confucian continued, “and that burden takes many forms. My grandmother—”

“We are not here to bemoan our present state,” shot back Jiang, viciously. “We have a duty to carry out, and at this time a momentous decision to make. My people tell me that the Heavenly King is trying to contact the
red-haired
Fan Kuei,
and that the people in the countryside are so enraged by the treatment they have received at the hands of the Manchus that if those two were able to unite, the rebellion could well start again.”

“Do we want that?” asked the Fisherman.

“That's why we're here, to decide if defeating the Taipingers will complete the prophecy of the White Birds on Water, or if supporting the Taipingers will complete the prophecy.”

“What does it matter what we think? We have no control over the Heavenly King or the red-haired
Fan Kuei
.”

“Not over the Heavenly King, true. But over the red-haired
Fan Kuei
—yes, we have something to say about his life and death.” The others looked at Jiang as if she were speaking in riddles. She sighed and said, “The red-haired
Fan Kuei
is being kept safe by my daughter, the History Teller, hidden by makeup and costume in her troupe.”

“And my nephew the Assassin is in the same troupe?”

“The very same,” Jiang said. “So you see, gentlemen, we have a choice. The Heavenly King is nothing without the red-haired
Fan Kuei
. If the
Fan Kuei
lives, he will no doubt rejoin the Heavenly King, and the rebellion will swell once more. However, if our Assassin rids the world of the red-haired
Fan Kuei
…” Jiang allowed her voice to trail off as the others felt the weight of their choice in the still air of the deepest cavern of the Warrens.

But the Carver wasn't listening. He was staring at the Narwhal Tusk—at the still-closed second window of the Ivory Compact.

* * *

THE HISTORY TELLER'S TROUPE made its way slowly eastward, performing when they could to raise
enough money to feed themselves. Several nights they slept in the open air without having eaten that day. But despite that, they rehearsed a new, centre section of
Journey to the West
, adding a scene for a new comic actor and his unsmiling little girl. They rehearsed that section so often that some of the actors stayed in makeup and wigs almost all the time—especially the new comic actor playing the Lost Peasant, an actor that only the History Teller knew was the red-haired
Fan Kuei
general who had led the defence of Nanking for the Taipingers.

—

After a long nighttime rehearsal, the History Teller sent the company back to their beds, then said, “But not you.”

Maxi stopped in his tracks.

“You have made some progress with this role, but you have a much longer road to travel before you have any mastery of it.”