Tai-Pan (24 page)

“The only stern you’ll show is yors in four day when you be tossed into debtors’ prison, where you belong,” Gorth said thickly.

“All the way to Hong Kong, Gorth. But there’s nae point in having a race with you. As a seaman you’re na fit to row a boat.”

“I be better’n you, by God.”

“If it were na for your father, you’d be the laughingstock of Asia.”

“By God, you son of—”

“Hold yor tongue!” Brock barked. He knew Struan would be delighted to be called son of a bitch publicly by Gorth, for then he could challenge him to a duel. “Why bait the lad, eh?”

“Na baiting him, Tyler. Just stating a fact. You better teach him some manners as well as seamanship.”

Brock held himself in check. Gorth was no match for Struan yet. Yet. In a year or two, when he be more cunning, that be different. But not now, by God. An’ it baint the English way to kick yor enemy in the gut when he be lying on his back, helpless. Like godrotting Struan. “Friendly wager. A hundred guineas says my boy can beat thee. First to touch the flagpole at Hong Kong.”

“Twenty thousand guineas. His money, not yours,” Struan said, his eyes taunting Gorth.

“How you going to pay, Tai-Pan?” Gorth said contemptuously, and Brock boiled at his son’s stupidity.

“He doan mean that other’n as a joke, Dirk,” Brock said quickly. “Twenty thousand it is.”

“Aye, a joke it is. If you say so, Tyler.” Struan was outwardly cold but inwardly jubilant. They had swallowed the bait! Now Gorth and Brock would hurry to Hong Kong—twenty thousand guineas was a tidy fortune, but nothing against forty lacs safe in 
China Cloud.
 Brock was safely out of the way. A dangerous game though. Gorth nearly went too far and then blood would have been spilled. Too easy to kill Gorth.

He put out his hand to Cooper. “I’m holding you to the thirty days.” They shook. Then Struan glanced at Gorth. “The flagpole at Hong Kong! Good voyage, Tyler!” and he hared for his lorcha, which had already cast off and was being nosed into midstream.

He leaped onto the gunnel and turned back and waved mockingly. Then he disappeared belowdecks.

“Excuse us’n, eh, Mr. Cooper?” Brock said, taking Gorth by the arm. “We be in touch!”

He shoved Gorth toward their lorcha. On the poop deck he pushed him violently against the gunnel. “You cursed halfwit poxwobbled scupper rat! You want yor godrotting troat cut from godrotting ear to ear? You call a man son of a bitch in these waters, you got to fight. You call him that, he’s the right to kill thee!” He backhanded Gorth across the face, and blood trickled from Gorth’s mouth. “I tell thee fifty times to watch that devil. If I watch he, by God, thee better!”

“I can kill him, Da’, I know I can!”

“I tell thee fifty times, act perlite to him. He be waiting to cut thee up, fool. An’ he can. You baint fighting that devil but once! Understand?”

“Yes.” Gorth felt the blood in his mouth, and the taste increased his rage.

“Next time I let thee get deaded, fool. An’ another thing. Never challenge a man like him on a gamblin’ debt. Nor kick him in the groin when he be beat an’ helpless. That not be the code!”

“Pox on the code!”

Brock backhanded him again. “The Brocks live by the code. Open. Man t’man. Go again’ it, and thee be out of Brock and Sons!”

Gorth wiped the blood off his mouth.

“Doan hit me again, Da’!”

Brock felt the violent edge to his son’s voice, and his face tightened.

“Doan do it, Da’. By the Lord Jesus Christ, I’ll hit you back,” Gorth said, his weight on both legs, fists like granite. “You hit me a last time. You hit me again and I won’t stop. By the Lord Jesus, you hit me a last time!”

The veins in Brock’s throat were black and throbbing as he squared up to his son, no longer a son but an enemy. No, not an enemy. Only a son who was no longer a youth. A son who had challenged his father as all sons challenge all fathers. Brock knew and Gorth knew that if they fought, blood would be spilled and there would be a casting out. Neither wanted a casting out, but if it came, both father and son knew they would be blood enemies.

Brock hated Gorth for making him feel his age. And loved him for standing up to him when he knew, beyond doubt, that he was more cunning in the art of death fighting than Gorth would ever be.

“Thee best get to Hong Kong.”

Gorth unclenched his fists with an effort. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “But thee’d best settle with that bastard right smartly, if thee’ve a mind—or next time I do it my own way.” He glared at the bosun. “What the hell’re you scum waiting for? Get under way!”

He wiped the blood off his chin and spat overboard. But his heart was still pumping heavily and he was sorry that there had not been a third blow. I were ready, by God, an’ I could’ve beat him—like I can beat that green-eyed son of a bitch. I know I can.

“Which course should we follow, Da’?” he asked, for there were many different ways to go. The approaches to Canton on the river were a maze of islands large and small, and multitudinous waterways.

“Thee got thyself into this mess. Chart thy own course.” Brock walked to the port gunnel. He felt very old and very tired. He was remembering his own father who was an ironworker, and how as a boy he had had to take the beatings and guidance and watch his temper and do what he was told until the day he was fifteen and the blood filled his eyes. And when his sight had cleared, he saw that he was standing over his father’s inert body.

Lord above, he thought, that were near. I be glad I doan have to fight him proper. I doan want to lose my son.

“Doan thee take after Dirk Struan, Gorth,” he said, his voice not unkind.

Gorth said nothing. Brock rubbed the socket of his eye and replaced the patch. He watched Struan’s lorcha. It was already in midstream, Struan nowhere in sight. The sampan shoved the bow around, then scuttled neatly to the other side. A tangle of Struan’s men leaned on the ropes and chanteyed the sails aloft. The sampan poled back toward Vargas’ lorcha.

Baint like Dirk to leave so fast, Brock reflected. Baint right at all. He glanced back at the wharf and saw that Vargas and all Struan’s clerks were still there, the lorcha still tied up. Now, that baint like Dirk. To leave afore his clerks. Dirk be strange about things like that. Yus.

Struan was hiding in the cabin of the sampan. As the boat nosed around the bow of the Vargas’ lorcha, Struan rammed the coolie hat low on his head and pulled the padded Chinese jacket tighter around him. The sampan owner and his family did not appear to notice him. They had been well paid not to hear or to see.

The plan he had made with Mauss was the safest under the circumstances. He had told Mauss to hurry to 
China Cloud,
 which lay at anchor off Whampoa Island thirteen miles away; to take the shorter northern passage there and then order Captain Orlov to cram on all sail and rush downstream to the end of the island; to change course there and cut around it and head back upstream by the south channel toward Canton again; he had warned that it was of paramount importance that this maneuver not be observed by Brock. Struan, meanwhile, would wait for the bullion lorcha and then take the long route and sneak by devious waterways to the south side of the island where they would rendezvous. By the Marble Pagoda. The pagoda was two hundred feet high and easily seen.

“But why, Tai-Pan?” Mauss had said. “It’s dangerous. Why all the risk, 
hein
?”

“Just be there, Wolfgang,” he had said.

When the sampan reached the wharf, Struan picked up some panniers that he had had prepared, and hurried through the throng to the garden gate. No one paid any attention to him. Once inside, he tossed the panniers aside, raced to the dining-room window and peered carefully through the curtains.

His lorcha was well away. Brock was in midchannel, gaining way, the sails billowing as the breeze caught them. Gorth stood on the poop and Struan could faintly hear his obscenities. Brock was at the port gunnel, staring downstream. Vargas had just finished checking the clerks and was walking back toward the garden.

Struan ducked out of the dining room and ran quickly upstairs. From the landing he saw Vargas come into the foyer, make a final check and leave. Struan heard the key turn in the door. He relaxed, and climbed a narrow staircase to the loft. He eased his way past old packing cases and walked cautiously toward the front of the building.

“Hello, Tai-Pan,” May-may said. She was dressed in her verminous Hoklo trousers and padded jacket, but she had not dirtied her face. She was kneeling on a cushion behind some packing cases. Ah Gip got up and bowed and then squatted down again near the small bundle of clothes and cooking utensils. May-may indicated another cushion that was opposite her, and the backgammon board that was set up. “We play, same stakes, heya?”

“Just a moment, lassie.”

There was a skylight in the loft and another in the front wall. Struan could scan the whole square clearly and safely. People were still milling and cursing and making last-minute changes. “Did you notice me?”

“Oh, yes, very,” she said. “But we watch from top of you. Down level perhaps no one saw. Wat for did Brock hit his son, heya?”

“I did na know he did.”

“Yes. Two times. Wat for such blows! We laughed till we choke. The son almost hit back. I hope they fight-kill each other—then no money to pay back. I still think you fantastical crazy na just to pay pirate to assassination him.” She sat on the cushion, then knelt again with an oath.

“What’s the matter?”

“My bum, she is still sore.”

“
It
 is still sore,” he said.

“She. That was joke. Ayee yah, this time I beat you to hell and make back all my dolla.” She added innocently, “How much I owe? Fourteen tousand?”

“You remember very well.”

He sat down and picked up the dice cup. “Four games. Then sleep. We’ve a long night ahead.” He threw the dice and she cursed.

“What joss you have! Double six, double six, a pox on double six!” She threw the dice and equaled him and slammed the cup down and whooped, “Good dear sweet double six!”

“Keep your voice down, or we will na play.”

“We’re safe, Tai-Pan. Throw. My joss is good today!”

“Let’s hope it’s very good,” he said. “And tomorrow.”

“Ayee yah tomorrow, Tai-Pan! Today. Today is what counts.” She threw again. Another double six. “Dear sweet dice, I adore you.” Then she frowned. “What for does ‘adore’ mean?”

“Love.”

“And ‘love’?”

Struan’s eyes crinkled and he shook a finger at her. “I’m na going to get into that argument again.” Once he had tried to explain what love meant. But there was no Chinese word for the European concept of love.

The grandfather clock began to sound eleven. Struan shifted wearily at his post beside the wall skylight. May-may was curled up asleep, Ah Gip slumped against a mildewed packing case. A few hours ago he had dropped off to sleep for a moment, but his dreams were bizarre and mixed with reality. He had been aboard 
China Cloud,
 lying crushed under a weight of bullion. Jin-qua had come into the room and eased the bullion off him, and had taken it all in exchange for a coffin and twenty golden guineas, and then he was no longer on his ship but ashore in the Great House on the knoll. Winifred brought him three eggs and he was eating breakfast and May-may had said, behind him, “God’s blood, how can you eat the unborn children of a hen?” He had turned around and seen that she was wearing no clothes and she was achingly beautiful. Winifred had said, “Was Mother as beautiful without clothes on?” and he had replied, “Yes, but in a different way,” and he had awakened suddenly.

Dreaming of his family had saddened him. I’ll have to go home soon, he had thought. I dinna ken even where they’re buried.

He stretched and watched the movement on the river, and thought about Ronalda and May-may. They’re different, very different—were different. I loved them both equally. Ronalda would have enjoyed London and a fine mansion there and taking the waters in the season at Brighton or Bath. She’d have been a perfect hostess for all the dinners and balls. But now I’m alone.

Will I take May-may home with me? Perhaps. As Tai-tai? Impossible. Because that would cast me out from those I must use.

He stopped musing and concentrated on the square. It was deserted. Just before nightfall the bannermen had left. Now there was only the dull moonlight and blurred shadows, and this emptiness felt eerie and cruel to Struan.

He wanted to sleep. You canna sleep now, he told himself. Aye, but I’m tired.

He stood and stretched, and settled himself once more. The chimes rang the quarter-hour and then the half, and he decided to wake May-may and Ah Gip in a quarter of an hour. There’s nae hurry, he thought. He did not allow himself to speculate about what would happen if the lorcha from Jin-qua did not arrive. His fingers were touching the four half coins in his pocket and he wondered again about Jin-qua. What favors and when?

He partially understood Jin-qua’s motives now. Ti-sen’s disgrace had clarified them. Obviously there would be war. Obviously the British would win it. Obviously trade would begin again. But never under the Eight Regulations. So the Co-hong would lose its monopoly and it would be every man for himself. Hence the thirty-year trade span: Jin-qua simply had been cementing his business relationship for the next three decades. That was the Chinese way, he thought: na to worry about immediate profit, but profit over years and years.

Aye, but what’s really in Jin-qua’s mind? Why buy land in Hong Kong? Why train a son in “barbarian” ways and to what calculated end? And what will the four favors be? And now that you’ve agreed and promised, how are you going to implement them? How can you ensure that Robb and Culum fulfill the bargain?

Struan began to contemplate that. He mulled a dozen possibilities before arriving at an answer. He hated what he knew he had to do. Then, having decided, he turned his thoughts to other problems.

What to do about Brock? And Gorth? For a moment on the wharf he had been ready to go after Gorth. One more word, and he would have had to challenge him openly. Honor would have forced—and allowed—him to humble Gorth. By a knife in the gut. Or by the lash.