A Deadly Injustice (12 page)

‘You will have to excuse me, but
we
think differently.'

It was his turn to emphasize that little word, and claim the high ground. Not for the first time I wondered why educated men should think themselves so much better than any others at knowing the truth. In my experience truth was something even the lowest had intimate knowledge of. It's just that they didn't have the power to express it. Guan, however, was ploughing on.

‘The downtrodden in China think that Mongol justice is no justice whatsoever. And Jianxu's predicament is a shining example of that. I know everything about the case because I spoke to her at length while preparing the petition.'

At last it fitted together. The reason why Jianxu's story had come out so pat when Gurbesu questioned her was now apparent. She had been tutored, even though inadvertently, by this writer of plays. Every word she spoke was akin to a line in a
kung-an
crime play.

‘And you will write of her innocence?'

Guan nodded vigorously.

‘Naturally. I will present the case next week in the form of a play. I have nearly finished writing it. It only remains to work out an ending.' He looked a little wistful. ‘I had expected for the petition to fail and the execution to have taken place already.'

I could see what he was hinting at, and it reached to the true heart of the man. He was not concerned for Jianxu as a person, but as a symbol of injustice as he – a young, and hot-headed youth – saw it. It would have made a more powerful play, and a better ending, if Jianxu had been beheaded. Then the wrong would have been all the greater and her ghost could have called for justice. I smiled coldly.

‘What a shame for you that we were despatched to investigate and she was spared.'

Guan did at least have enough shame to blush and look away from my glare. For once, the playwright was lost for words. All he could manage in the end was a defiant stare, and then he turned to leave.

After he had gone, Lin gave me a worried look.

‘If we do not sort this matter out before he finishes that play, it will make it almost impossible to be seen to come to an impartial conclusion. If we find Jianxu innocent, Ko will say the play has affected our decision. If we find her guilty, Ko will spread the rumour that we came to that conclusion for political reasons. We can't win.'

‘Then we will just have to solve the case within the week.'

I tried to sound confident, but I wasn't. Guan had just made our work that much more difficult. So I told Lin what the prefect had told me. Not about thieves, for that was something I was going to keep from him, but about Geng's apparent lack of money.

‘Li told me that Geng claimed to be nearly broke because Taitemir's household had not paid him for goods supplied. Now, I don't think that was the reason he was killed, but it is interesting that Li also told me he was borrowing money from someone.'

‘Not lending it? I was told he was a moneylender.'

‘Not according to Li, though the prefect passed it off as a tall tale Geng let out to protect him from robbers, who might otherwise think he was rich pickings. But if he was borrowing money, who was it from? And did that have anything to do with his murder?'

Lin began to make notes in that elegant Chinee script of his. I waited patiently, knowing he was not to be hurried. Finally he laid his writing implement down.

‘We must dig deeper. This case does not begin and end with Jianxu and Old Geng. We have much to learn from the other members of both families. Tomorrow we will go together and talk to Madam Gao, and the boy, Geng Wenbo. I think we have to go further back into the past.'

‘I agree. Oh, by the way, does the presence of Guan mean the travelling players are here also? I should like to see another play, especially if Tien-jan Hsiu is in it. Will you be seeing the boy?'

Lin blushed a little, but retained his composure.

‘I am not sure if he wants to see me. But, yes, you are correct. The players are here, and I believe they will be presenting a play in the town square tonight. Shall we go?'

Of course I agreed to go. I was getting a taste for these entertainments, and as so much of it was pantomime and acrobatics, it was easy to follow. Which is why Lin and I, accompanied by Pyka and Gurbesu, found ourselves walking amongst the throng of people making their way to the central square of the town. Banners were draped across buildings along the way, and Lin translated one of them for us.

‘On the stage tonight at the Pianfu Theatre, the great actor Yi-shih Hsiu is now performing.'

‘Hsiu? Is he related to Natural Elegance?'

Lin smiled at my question.

‘Not that you would know from his name, which simply means Fashionable Elegance. But they could be related – most of these travelling troupes are.'

We emerged into a large square, which had a permanent stage set at one end next to a building I knew from its shape to be a temple. I checked that out with Lin, though.

‘Is that the Temple of the Earth-Goddess?'

‘Yes. And it houses temples and shrines to other gods too.'

‘Including the god of lost items?'

Lin looked puzzled at my enquiry, but nodded.

‘Yes, that too. You will see opposite the entrance two small statues of young children. That is the form of the god you refer to. There will no doubt be an old priest or priestess who acts as its intermediary. Now, can we get to our seats?'

I raised my hands in submission, but still had time as we passed to cast a quick look into the temple. I could just make out the statues Lin had described, but there was no priest. We made our way to an elevated platform facing the stage, which was obviously intended for important officials such as ourselves. As we ascended the stairs I saw Li Wen-Tao amongst the blue-robed old men already there. We nodded at each other, as Lin explained.

‘This is the
shen-lou
. It means god's tower, and I suppose is entirely appropriate seeing those who are seated in it.'

He gave a little grin and we sat down too. The play soon began and developed into what Lin had described as a ‘strip-and-fight thriller'. It was an old tale called ‘The Three Princes at Tiger Palace', and involved lots of acrobatics from young men who were stripped to the waist. I could see out the corner of my eye that Gurbesu was on the edge of her seat. And I envied the youths their physiques – wine-drinking was not good for my waistline.

As the story progressed I saw that Lin was getting more and more agitated. Eventually, I leaned across and whispered in his ear.

‘What's going on, Chu-Tsai?'

He turned his head slightly without taking his eyes off the stage.

‘Some of the lines – I have not heard them before in this play. Just now one of the princes said, “When frost fell, men knew how a virtuous woman suffered,” and earlier, the same prince said, “The greater the position, the shorter the memory.” Often lines are changed in these plays. The words of plays are not set in stone. But . . .'

‘It sounds like the lines are meant for us to hear, you think?'

He nodded.

‘Let us wait until the end and we will see.'

When the play had finished, we all went backstage to congratulate the troupe. Natural Elegance saw Lin and quickly slipped through the crowd of well-wishers to speak to him. He still had his female make-up on, but close up you could not mistake him for a woman. I wondered how I had been deceived before. Words tumbled out of his mouth as he sought Lin's approval.

‘Did you see the technique of my empty exit?'

I looked at Lin questioningly. He explained what the boy meant.

‘An empty exit –
hsu-hsia
– is when the actor turns upstage to be out of the action, even though he is still visible to the audience.'

I nodded in understanding, though all this pretence was beyond me.

‘Tell him I liked the use of the offstage voices when the princes were fighting. Even if I didn't quite understand what they were saying.'

The boy laughed, clearly understanding my Mongol.

‘There was no one offstage. I can throw my voice.'

I was glad of his confirmation. It was exactly as I had hoped. My plans were beginning to fall into place.

ELEVEN

To understand your parents' love you must raise children yourself
.

L
ying beside the warm body of Gurbesu that night, I found I could not sleep. It looked as though, with Guan's play due to be performed soon, we needed to dig out the truth of Old Geng's murder more quickly than I had anticipated. Some of the lines from the play that evening were still rattling around in my head. One of them – ‘a pinch of arsenic, or an inch of steel' – whispered in my ear by Lin, had particularly struck home. Not that it necessarily had anything to do with Jianxu's case, though it may well have done. No, it reminded me once again of my parents.

I was nine at the time, and the ongoing war between my mother and father was coming to a head. Being the selfish little brat I was then, I assumed it was all about me. Rosamund, my mother, was English and the daughter of a knight who had sojourned in Venice on his way to Outremer. He had stayed overlong because his wife had contracted a fever. It was unusual for a crusader to be travelling with his wife and child, but they had come nevertheless. Now my grandmother was paying the price of her obstinate insistence on travelling. She was bedridden and delirious. In the end, the crusader knight had to depart on one of the ships taking men-at-arms to Cyprus, the launching-off point for Outremer. Two days later, his wife died. He never got to know about it because he was drowned in the Nile when the ship he was on got sunk in a minor skirmish. His chain mail dragged him to the bottom of the river. The dark-haired girl Rosamund – my mother – was only fourteen and suddenly an orphan. But there were already the signs of the startling beauty she was to become, and Agostino Zuliani took her in. He was twenty years her senior, but it didn't stop him marrying her when she was sixteen. I was the first child to survive any length of time, and by the time I was nine, I was aware of the feuding between my parents. Agostino had other children by his first marriage, but for my mother I was an only child, and therefore precious. Father accused her of making me soft through not exposing me to the harsh realities of the world. They were both hot-tempered, but father was a strong and cruel man, who used his strength to bully his way to dominance in the marriage. My mother got her revenge in secretive ways, sometimes spreading rumours about her husband's impotence – which was not true – and sometimes lacing his food with mild emetics. I knew this because she delighted in telling me. It was a secret we shared that united us against the tyrant who was my father.

At my side, Gurbesu stirred, and gazed sleepily up at me. I could feel the heat of her body, but I was not excited. The past bore down on me too heavily. She muttered a query.

‘What's the matter, Nick?'

I stroked her thigh.

‘Nothing, my sweet. I am just thinking about tomorrow.'

‘Do you need some somnifera? I can make it up?'

I knew somnifera, her mixture of opium, hemlock and mandragora soaked into a sponge. It rendered you happily unconscious, but left you with a heavy head the following day. I couldn't afford that, as I needed my mind to be clear.

‘No. You go back to sleep. I will be fine.'

She rolled over, pressing her buttocks against my thigh, and was soon snoring gently. The line from the play came back to me – ‘a pinch of arsenic, or an inch of steel.' You see, I could not rid my mind of the persistent thought that my mother had gone one step further than emetics, and actually poisoned my father. Soon after a particularly bad row concerning how, in Agostino's eyes, Rosamund molly-coddled me, I had told her that I would willingly stick a dagger into my father. An inch of steel, you see. She was shocked by my vehemence, but convinced me it would not be necessary. I still recall her words to me on that night. She said that evil acts always result in evil ends. The next day Agostino Zuliani fell sick. Being poisoned by arsenic resulted in a painful and slow death. I still believe she killed him first so that I didn't do it.

The following morning, Lin and I went in search of Madam Gao and Geng Wenbo. Tadeusz's job was to find out what he could about the source of the poison – a subject that had not been pursued yet, if we were to believe the documents related to the case. It had been surprising that amidst all the piles of paperwork there had not been one line explaining where the poison had come from, even though the detailed examination of the body had been exemplary.

When I had read the report concerning the examination of Geng's dead body, and seen who had written it, I was not surprised at its meticulousness. It had been written by Masudi al-Din. I remembered him well from my time in Xanadu, picturing again his slight frame and bright, glittering brown eyes. It had been a coincidence that he had been in Pianfu at the time of Geng's death, and was due to the fact he was travelling back to his home in Yazd in Persia. He was a physician with an interest in how and why people died. I could see him still, tugging on his straggly beard, and then cutting open a body with relish, seeking all the clues that led to an explanation of that strange companion we all must meet – Death. He was an Arab who used Turkish to communicate with the Mongol world, so I found following his notes easy. It read thus: