Tai-Pan (87 page)

“His Grace doesn’t remember. Only that it tasted very bitter and revolted him. He drank it for four days, he thinks. His Grace told me to make it quite clear that we treat her at your own risk.”

“Aye. I understand very well. Come on!” Struan dashed out of the door, Father Sebastian beside him. They followed the 
pra
ça
 for a little way and started up a silent, tree-lined avenue.

“Please, Mr. Struan, not so fast,” Father Sebastian said, out of breath.

“A fever’s due tomorrow. We’ve to hurry.” Struan crossed the Praca de Sao Paulo and headed impatiently into another street. Suddenly his instincts warned him and he stopped and darted to one side. A musket ball smashed into the wall beside him. He pulled down the terrified priest. Another shot. The ball nicked Struan’s shoulder, and he cursed himself for not bringing pistols. “Run for your life!” He pulled the monk up and shoved him across the road into the safety of a doorway. Lights were going on in the houses.

“This way!” he hissed, and rushed out. Abruptly he changed direction and another shot missed by a fraction of an inch as he reached the safety of an alley, Father Sebastian panting alongside.

“You’ve still the cinchona?” Struan asked. “Yes. For the love of God, what’s going on?”

“Highwaymen!” Struan took the frightened monk’s arm and ran through the depths of the alley and up onto the open space of the fort of Sao Paulo do Monte.

In the shadows of the fort he took a breather. “Where’s the cinchona?”

Father Sebastian held up the bag limply. The moonlight touched the livid whip sear on Struan’s chin and flickered in the eyes and seemed to make him more huge and more devilish. “Who was that? Who was firing at us?” he asked.

“Highwaymen,” Struan repeated. He knew that actually Gorth’s men—or Gorth—must have been in ambush. He wondered for a moment if Father Sebastian had been sent as a decoy. Unlikely—na by the bishop and na wi’ cinchona. Well, I’ll know soon enough, he thought. And if he is, I’ll cut a few Papist throats.

He studied the darkness warily. He slipped his knife out of his boot and eased the fighting-iron thong around his wrist. When Father Sebastian was breathing less heavily, he led the way across the crest, past the Church of Sao Antonio and down the hill a street to the outer wall of May-may’s house. A door was set into the high, thick granite wall.

He rapped harshly with the knocker. In a few moments Lim Din peered through the spy hole. The door swung open. They went into the forecourt and the door was bolted behind them.

“We’re safe now,” Struan said. “Lim Din, tea—drink plentee quick-quick!” He motioned Father Sebastian to a seat and laid the fighting iron on the table. “Catch your breath first.”

The monk took his hand off the crucifix he had been clutching and mopped his brow. “Was someone really trying to kill us?”

“It felt that way to me,” Struan said. He took off his coat and looked at his shoulder. The ball had burned the flesh.

“Let me look at that,” the monk said.

“It’s nothing.” Struan put his coat on. “Dinna worry, Father. You treat her at my risk. You’re all right?”

“Yes.” The monk’s lips were parched and his mouth tasted rancid. “First I’ll prepare the cinchona tea.”

“Good. But before we begin, swear by the cross that you’ll never talk to anyone about this house or who’s in it or what happens here.”

“That’s not necessary, surely. There’s nothing that—”

“Aye, there is! I like my privacy! If you’ll na swear, then I’ll treat her mysel’. Seems that I know as much as you about how to use cinchona. Make up your mind.”

The monk was distressed by his lack of knowledge, and longed desperately to heal in the name of God. “Very well. I swear by the cross my lips are sealed.”

“Thank you.” Struan led the way through the front door and down a corridor. Ah Sam came out of her room and bowed tentatively, pulling her green pajamas closer to her. Her hair was tousled and her face still puffed with sleep. She followed them into the kitchen with the lantern.

The cooking room was small, with a fireplace and a charcoal brazier, and adjoining the cluttered back garden. It was filled with pots and pans and teakettles. Hundreds of bunches of dried herbs and mushrooms, vegetables, entrails, sausages, hung on the smoke-grimed walls. Rattan sacks of rice littered the filth-stained floor.

Two sleep-doped cook amahs were half upright in untidy bunks, staring groggily at Struan. But when he carelessly swept a mess of pans and dirty plates off the table to make a space, they leaped out of their beds and fled out of the house.

“Tea, Mass’er?” Ah Sam asked, bewildered.

Struan shook his head. He took the sweat-stained cloth bag from the nervous monk and opened it. The bark was brown and ordinary and broken into tiny pieces. He sniffed it but it had no odor. “What now?”

“We’ll need something to cook the brew in.” Father Sebastian picked up a fairly clean pan.

“First, will you please wash your hands?” Struan pointed to a small barrel and the nearby soap.

“What?”

“First wash your hands. Please.” Struan dipped into the barrel and offered the soap. “You’ll na do anything till you’ve washed your hands.”

“Why is that necessary?”

“I dinna ken. An old Chinese superstition. Please—go on, Father, please.”

While Struan washed out the pan and put it on the table, Ah Sam watched, bright-eyed, as Father Sebastian scrubbed his hands with soap, rinsed them off, and dried them on a clean towel.

Then he closed his eyes and steepled his hands and breathed a silent prayer. “Now something to measure with,” he said, coming back to earth, and selecting a small cup at random, filled it to the brim with cinchona. He tipped the bark into the pan and then, slowly and methodically, added ten equal measures of water. He set the pan to cook on the charcoal brazier. “Ten to one to start with,” he said in a parched voice. He wiped his hands nervously on the sides of his habit. “Now I’d like to see the patient.”

Struan beckoned to Ah Sam and indicated the pan. “No touchee!”

“No touchee, Mass’er!” Ah Sam said vigorously. Now that she was over her initial shock of the sudden awakening, she was beginning to enjoy all these strange proceedings. “No touchee, Mass’er, never mind!”

Struan and the monk left the kitchen, and went into May-may’s bedroom. Ah Sam followed.

A lantern splashed pockets of light in the darkness. Yin-hsi was brushing her tousled hair in front of the mirror. She stopped and bowed hastily. Her mattress bed was on the floor to one side of May-may’s vast four-poster.

May-may was shivering feebly under the weight of blankets.

“Hello, lassie. We’ve the cinchona,” Struan said, coming close to her. “At long last. All’s well now!”

“I’m so cold, Tai-Pan,” she said helplessly. “I’m so cold. What have you done to your face?”

“Nothing, lass.”

“You’ve cut yourself.” She shivered and closed her eyes and fell back into the blizzard that was engulfing her. “It’s so cold.”

Struan turned and looked at Father Sebastian. He saw the shock on his stretched face.

“What’s amiss?”

“Nothing. Nothing.” The monk set a tiny sand-timer on a table, and kneeling beside the bed, took May-may’s wrist and began to count her heartbeats. How can a Chinese girl speak English? he asked himself. Is the other girl a second mistress? Am I in a harem of the devil? Oh God, protect me, and give me the power of Thy healing and let me be Thy instrument this night.

May-may’s pulse was so slow and soft that he had great difficulty in feeling it. With extreme gentleness he turned her face around and peered into her eyes. “Do not be afraid,” he said. “There’s nothing to afraid of. You are in God’s hands. I must look at your eyes. Don’t be afraid, you’re in His hands.”

Defenseless, and petrified, May-may did as she was told. Yin-hsi and Ah Sam stood in the background and watched apprehensively.

“What’s he doing? Who is he?” Yin-hsi whispered.

“A barbarian devil witch doctor,” Ah Sam whispered back. “He’s a monk. One of the longskirt priests of the naked God-man they nailed to a cross.”

“Oh!” Yin-hsi shuddered. “I’ve heard about them. How absolutely dreadful to do such a thing! They really are devils! Why don’t you bring Father some tea? That’s always good for anxiety.”

“Lim Din’s getting it, Second Mother,” Ah Sam whispered, swearing that not for anything would she move, for then she might miss something of great import. “I wish I could understand their dreadful tongue.”

The monk put May-may’s wrist on the coverlet, and looked up at Struan. “His Grace said the malaria caused an abortion. I must examine her.”

“Go on, then.”

When the monk moved the blankets and sheets aside, May-may tried to stop him and Yin-hsi and Ah Sam anxiously hurried to help her.

“No!” Struan snapped. “Stay-ah!” He sat beside May-may and held her hands. “It’s all right, m’ lassie. Go on,” he said to the priest.

Father Sebastian examined May-may, and then settled her comfortably again. “The hemorrhage has almost stopped. That is very good.”

He put his long fingers on the base of her skull and probed carefully.

May-may felt the fingers smooth away some of her pain. But the ice was forming in her again and her teeth began chattering. “Tai-Pan. I’m so cold. Can I have warm bottle or blankets? Please. I’m so cold.”

“Aye, lass, just a moment.” There was a hot bottle at her back. She lay under four down quilts.

“Have you a watch, Mr. Struan?” Father Sebastian asked.

“Aye.”

“Please go to the kitchen. As soon as the water boils, note the time. When it has simmered one hour . . .” Father Sebastian’s eyes mirrored his awful desperation. “Two? Half an hour? How much? Oh God, please help me in this hour of need.”

“One hour,” Struan said firmly, confidently. “We’ll set the same amount to simmer for two hours. If the first’s nae good we’ll try the second lot.”

“Yes. Yes.”

Struan checked his watch under the lantern’s light in the kitchen. He took the brew off the brazier and set it to cool in a bucket of water. The second pan was already simmering.

“How is she?” he asked as the priest came in, Ah Sam and Yin-hsi close behind.

“The chills are severe. Her heart is very weak. Can you remember how long she shivered before the heat came?”

“Four hours, perhaps five. I dinna ken.” Struan poured some of the hot liquor into a tiny teacup, and tasted it. “God’s blood, it’s horribly bitter!”

The priest took a sip, and he grimaced too. “Well. Let’s begin. I only hope she can keep it down. A teacupful every hour.” He selected a cup at random from a smoke-stained shelf, and picked up a dirty scrap of rag from the table.

“What’s that for?” Struan asked.

“I’ll have to strain the bark out of the brew. This’ll be fine. The mesh is coarse enough.”

“I’ll do it,” Struan said. He took out the silver tea strainer that he had ready and wiped it clean again with a clean handkerchief.

“Why’re you doing that?”

“The Chinese are always very careful to keep the teapot and cups clean. They say it makes the tea more wholesome.” He began to pour the foul-smelling bark tea into an immaculate porcelain teapot. He willed the strength of the liquor to be correct. “Why na the same with this, eh?”

He carried the pot and the cup into the bedroom.

May-may vomited the first cup. And the second.

In spite of her pathetic pleadings Struan forced her to drink again. May-may held it down—anything not to have to swallow another.

Still nothing happened. Except that her chills grew more severe.

An hour later Struan made her drink again. She retained this cupful, but the chills continued to worsen.

“We’ll make it two cups,” Struan said, fighting his panic. And he forced her to consume the double measure.

Hour after hour the process was repeated. Now it was dawn.

Struan looked at his watch. Six o’clock. No improvement. The rigors made May-may flutter like a twig in a fall wind.

“For the love of Christ,” Struan burst out, “it’s got to work!”

“With the love of Christ, it 
is
 working, Mr. Struan,” Father Sebastian said. He was holding May-may’s wrist. “The fever heat was due two hours ago. If it doesn’t begin, she has a chance. Her pulse is imperceptible, yes, but the cinchona 
is
 working.”

“Hold on, lassie,” Struan said, gripping May-may’s hand. “A few more hours. Hold on!”

Later there was a knock at the gate in the garden wall.

Struan walked Wearily out of the house and unbolted the door. “Hello, Horatio. Heya, Lo Chum.”

“Is she dead?”

“Nay, lad. I think she’s cured, by the grace of God.”

“You got the cinchona?”

“Aye.”

“Masterson’s at the junk. It’s time for Gorth. I’ll ask them—his seconds—to postpone until tomorrow. You’re in no state to fight anyone.”

“There’s nae need for you to worry. There’re more ways of killing a snake than stamping its godrotting head off. I’ll be there in an hour.”

“All right, Tai-Pan.” Horatio left in a hurry, Lo Chum with him.

Struan bolted the door and returned to May-may.

She was lying perfectly still in the bed.

And Father Sebastian was taking her pulse. His face was stiff with anxiety. He bent down and listened to her heartbeat. Seconds passed. He raised his head and looked searchingly at Struan. “For a moment I thought . . . but she’s all right. Her heartbeat is terribly slow, but, well, she’s young. With the grace of God . . . the fever’s dead, Mr. Struan. Peruvian cinchona will cure the fever of Happy Valley. How marvelous are the ways of God!”

Struan felt weirdly detached. “Will the fever return?” he asked.

“Perhaps. From time to time. But more cinchona will arrest it—there’s nothing to worry about now. This fever’s 
dead.
 Don’t you understand? She’s cured of malaria.”

“Will she live? You say her heart’s very weak. Will she live?”

“God willing, the chance is good. Very good. But I don’t know for certain.”

“I’ve got to go now,” Struan said, rising. “Would you please stay here till I get back?”