Heart and Soul (26 page)

He knew from other visits to Chinese provinces that most of the sampans were worked by women and that not only did whole families live in them, but often pigs, chickens and other livestock, also. He’d seen, in a stop at a Chinese port, little children running all over the hull of those craft, balancing well no matter what the boat happened to be doing. He wondered if Lady Jade had once been like that, and let his hand, in its glove, fall upon the scales of her neck.

It had seemed very odd to do this—to climb atop a dragon who happened to be a beautiful young woman. But at the same time, he could find no other way to get out of Cape Town fast enough, and so he must make do as he could.

From the air, Hong Kong didn’t look more than four miles wide, with six great hills, and one particularly tall peak towering in the middle. The whole island was so small that Nigel could imagine walking all around it in a day.

He knew, from reading about it, that much of the best land on which the finest buildings now stood had been reclaimed from the sea. Great wharves, shipyards and dry docks had been constructed and harbor fortifications built.

Opposite the island of Hong Kong, across a narrow channel, was the peninsula of Kowloon, which also belonged to the British. There, Nigel could see a great carpetship port at which he had once stopped and which he thought had originally been built by Americans.

As Jade circled, he could see the city, which the British had christened Victoria, though it never got called that—but rather was called Hong Kong, after the harbor and the colony. It lay on a bay on the northern side of the island, and rose in terraces up the slopes of the hills, almost to the top of the tallest peak. Warehouses crowded with the exporting establishments near the docks. John Malmsey, the family friend Nigel hoped to visit, worked in one of those. But the shopping districts of the city—thronged with as many natives in their flat straw hats as with English misses and their chaperones—extended past that. And then, above it, were the residential homes, many of them looking much like miniature palaces.

Flanking the European settlement, there were Chinese quarters with narrow streets and—even from the air—a profusion of natives thronging them. Nigel wanted to go to those quarters and explore them. He wondered if he would get to. He would like to meet with Lady Jade, of course, during the days he stayed in Hong Kong.

And Lady Jade, as though reading his mind, started to steer toward the area of town where the Englishmen lived—without, of course, actually ever going low enough to be seen or noticed. It was very early morning, but who could be sure that no one would look up and see them? So she flew around the less inhabited areas of the isle, bringing him as close as possible to the area in which the Englishmen lived.

As she set down amid the foliage of a small park, and lifted a front paw to serve as a step for him to climb down, Nigel had a moment of panicked doubt. Would John Malmsey still live in Hong Kong? It had been years since he remembered his parents mentioning him.

And how could Nigel contrive to approach him, indeed to stay at his house, without explaining the circumstances of his voyage? He would have to tell him that he was here in the service of Her Majesty. He would have to tell him that was why he was using an alias.

And if, as he assumed, the Chinese magicians that Jade wished to consult needed to see him to adjust the magics to him, how could he contrive to slip out of the Malmsey establishment to visit with a Chinese girl without giving rise to a lot of talk? Some of which, he very much feared, would eventually make its way back to his mother. Or worse, to the Secret Service.

If Jade knew about these magics that changed appearance, wouldn’t the wicked minister, Zhang, know as well? And if he did, wouldn’t he realize that it was likely that Nigel would have used them? In fact, Nigel remembered, vaguely and not with absolute certainty, that in the distant past, spies disguised by magical means had been sent to China to steal the secret of silk. Those spies, doubtless, had used a similar potion or spell.

He climbed down from the dragon while thinking this, and no sooner had he stepped off than the dragon seemed to stretch and shrink and spasm. It was the sort of movement that felt as though it should be accompanied by a twang—like the plucking of a cord or the twisting of a bit of metal. But there was no sound beyond a very wet and organic noise of flesh and bone—something like a very large hand slapping another.

Where the dragon had been, there stood Lady Jade—tall and slim and completely naked.

He averted his eyes while handing her the parcel he had kept under his overcoat. This she took, and, after an indefinable time and lots of noise of fabric—and, once, an exclamation as though something didn’t fit or didn’t tie properly—she said, softly, “You may look now.”

When he did, he found she was again in Hettie’s muslin dress, looking both incredibly exotic and demure. “Won’t you call attention in that attire?” he asked. “In the native quarters?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.” The question seemed to amuse her. “You see, I’ve never been in Hong Kong, but if what I’ve heard about it is true, then I should not. The two peoples mingle so perfectly here, and in such a way that they will not at all find it strange that I am wearing English clothes. Given that it’s fairly modest—” She gave him a sudden anxious look. “It is fairly modest, is it not?”

He looked at the dress, which revealed nothing and covered everything that could possibly be covered. Even if it molded her flesh exquisitely. “Yes,” he said. “Very modest.”

“Well, then, they will think I’m the maid in some British establishment, or perhaps some charity pupil at one of the schools. I don’t think it need signify.” She shrugged. “And meanwhile, I will try to locate the Fox Clan establishment, and report to you what I find as soon as I find it.”

“I…” Nigel hesitated. “I should be staying with John Malmsey. I’m not absolutely sure where he lives, though he once sent my parents a magical dispatch that showed a tall white house that looked like a palace.”

She smiled, a little. “Yes, but in Hong Kong…at least according to what I’ve seen from the air…”

“Precisely,” Nigel said. “I will need to ask someone. But do not worry. I’m sure someone will be able to direct me.”

“And quite likely me also,” Jade said.

“Yes, but when you need to get back in contact with me…You will need to get back in contact with me, is that correct?”

“Oh, yes,” Jade said. “The magics must be adjusted to the person. Besides…” She hesitated. “The Fox Clan is as cautious as you were when…when talking about the ruby. You see, they are the only weres in China that suffer the same reputation as weres in the rest of the world. They are considered untrustworthy and vicious and as likely to betray you as not.”

Nigel felt a certain alarm at the idea that they were about to trust people with such a reputation.

Oh, he had learned that not all weres were bad, except perhaps insofar as their position in society made them so. His friend Peter had certainly turned against everyone because he’d lost his family and his home because of his being a were. If everyone suspected him his whole life, Nigel might—the idea occurred to him that it might be much the same with the Fox Clan.

Tentatively, he asked Jade, “Do you…agree with that view of them?”

She shook her head, then shrugged. “I know very few. My father always said that the Fox Clan were those of his vassals most likely to change allegiance when the moment offered or when they thought it would be to their advantage. On the other hand, I’ve always wondered if they did so because that was how they were expected to behave. You know, if you know your allies and those you depend on do not trust you, what can you do but be untrustworthy?” She shook her head. “On the other hand, I know my sister-in-law, Third Lady, is never like that. Of all of my brother’s wives, she is the one I would trust with his life. Or mine. She seems to love him genuinely. And to suffer for his sake. His condition…” She bit her lower lip and stopped, as if afraid she might say too much. “Well, because of Precious Lotus, I will trust the foxes, and hope they do not deceive me.”

Nigel nodded. It seemed reasonable to him as well, and he hoped he, too, could trust the foxes, at least in this one instance.

“Very well,” he said. “But how will we meet?”

She bowed to him. “I will find you when I need you. Your name is Enoch?” she said.

He hesitated. The ruby had vouched for her. “Nigel,” he said. “Nigel Oldhall.”

It seemed as though he had passed some test he wasn’t sure of taking. She bowed slightly to him and said, “And you’ll be at the home of Mr. John Malmsey? Well, I am not sure that I can find the Fox Clan quickly or easily. I’ve never, you understand, been away from my family alone. So I will now go in search of them, and when I find them, I will come to you or send you word.” She hesitated as if something occurred to her. “Do not worry. If anything should go wrong, I will know, and I will be there. If…if Zhang comes within sight of the island, I will know.” She extended her small, warm hands to him. “Trust me.”

And Nigel, who for so long had carried the weight of the ruby on his own—Nigel, who fell asleep and woke feeling as though he held the fate of the universe in his hands—did trust her. He held her hands and lightly squeezed them.

Then he turned away from the park and toward the English section of Hong Kong. He wondered if anyone had seen them parting in human form and what a pretty romance they would make of it. It didn’t matter. Better see them like that than see them as dragon and human.

He started down English Hong Kong’s paved streets, in search of anyone at all of whom he could ask where John Malmsey’s residence might be. And he felt, for some reason, very lonely.

A MOST UNREASONABLE BEHAVIOR

Hettie Perigord thought that her parents knew very
well what had happened with that dragon, and where the dragon might have come from. She couldn’t believe her staid and conforming parents would behave like that, with such reckless abandon and disregard for their safety—and hers.

“Papa, what was that, and where has the man gone?” she asked as she came into the house and found her father reading his paper by the window of the parlor.

Her father looked up from the paper as though not quite sure what she had said.

“Where has the man gone?” she repeated. “The man who has been lodging here? The carpetship magician? And that very odd Chinese girl for whom you borrowed one of my gowns?”

Mr. Perigord lowered his paper slightly and peered at his wayward daughter with a narrowed eye. “Hettie, leave alone what doesn’t concern you,” he said. “There are things that are better for a young lady not to enmesh herself in.”

Hettie stomped her foot, in a fit of annoyance at this treatment. “I’m not a young girl,” she said. “Or at least, I am not
that
young.”

“Indeed,” her father said, a humorous tone in his voice, as he reached for his meerschaum pipe and started filling it with his favorite tobacco. “You are old enough, my dear, that you should know calling you young is not an insult and you shouldn’t resent it.”

Hettie, who didn’t think of it as an insult so much as of a putting-off maneuver—a way of keeping her away from anything that might be interesting, as well as away from anything that might injure her—stood there and stared at her father. How had she never noticed how fast his hair was receding, and how much he looked like a stranger?

She remembered being very young and looking up at her far-traveling father as though he were, in himself, some sort of magician—a being whose dictates obeyed a far higher command, a being who loved her and protected her like no one else. She had thought, by virtue of being a carpetship first mate, he knew everything and everyone.