The Concubine's Daughter (55 page)

Ruby lifted her arms above her head and turned slowly. The white scars were everywhere—on her back, her buttocks, her legs, marking every part of her body. Quickly, she picked up the silk as though to cover her shame.

“My father was a wealthy Parsee merchant in Bombay, my mother a French tutor who schooled his younger children. He made her pregnant, and his memsahib had her beaten and driven from her house. I was born in the gutters of Bombay. So you see, I am also of mixed blood. In India, I am a
chi-chi
… a half-caste, an untouchable.

“I loved a boy once,” Ruby whispered. “He worked here in the garden. At first we loved at a distance, more with looks and thoughts than with words. He would come to my window at night. For the first time someone cared for me without condition, and I tasted happiness. We left through the gardener’s gate and took the ferry to Hong Kong. I worked in a bar and he sold newspapers not far away. We found a rented sleeping place and shared it together. I carried his child, and the bar would not let me stay. We were often hungry.

“I had his son in our bed. It was a fine boy, but when he cried they told us we had to leave. I was caught and taken back to the Golden One. She marked me so that no man would desire me, to be sure that I would not leave again, or if I did, I would be easier to find. They took the boy and my baby away and I have never seen or heard of them again. I thought many times of ending my life, but she had use for me and I have stayed.”

Siu-Sing looked with deep compassion at the little pipe-maker who had so willingly become her friend. Delicately, she pulled the drift of silk away to touch the scars on Ruby’s shoulders with infinite tenderness.

“She spared my arms and belly,” said Ruby bitterly. “You cannot hide the arms when making a pipe, or the belly when dancing. Such scars are unsightly for those she entertains.”

“She is a monster, but you are wrong,” Siu-Sing said firmly. “She could not spoil your loveliness.”

Ruby smiled sadly. “That is as may be. My life within these walls has been bearable but without hope … until now. But you are different—you do not belong here, and I will help you to escape.”

Ruby shed no tears, looking into Siu-Sing’s eyes with the spark of a spirit that had once been strong. “I have acquaintances in the district of Wan Chai on Hong Kong Island, people who would pay you well and ask no questions. They know much about the
gwai-lo
soldiers and sailors who spend their money there. Also the rich foreigners who seek the company of women. When we are ready, we will find them.”

They began to plot their escape. “It must not be hurried,” Siu-Sing said. “Ah-Jin is teaching me the language of my father and other things I must know. I will take all the knowledge that I can from her and from those that teach me their special skills. But I will not become the whore of any taipan.”

When she was not being taught to speak English, to move and dance like a courtesan, and to observe all the finer points of both Chinese and English etiquette, Sing was learning the refinements of eroticism from each of the Silver Sisters. The pipe-makers were all virgins, girls of around her own age, spectacularly beautiful and highly skilled in the arts of pleasing men and each other. Originally from many nations, each was given the name of a jewel, with Ruby the head pipe-maker overseeing them all. Each Sister had her own small room, decorated in the way of her culture and with a shrine of her own making to worship the gods of her people.

According to the custom for apprentice pipe-makers, Sing shared a room for a month with each of the Sisters: Amber from Japan, famous for her magic feet, tiny as a child’s but with toes of steel, who taught Sing to massage the body of a man with feet more soothing than the most experienced hands. Sing learned to step lightly as a bird upon a dragon’s
back—to find and isolate the muscle and sinew, to tell from each breath the delicate boundaries of pleasure and pain.

Sapphire, from Siam, taught her the secrets of blending fragrant oils to stimulate or subdue the senses. Emerald, from Africa, was a teller of fortunes and a weaver of spells, able to divine a man’s needs and expectations at a glance.

Jade was the only pure Chinese among them. Hers were the arts of hidden energy, the ancient techniques of acupressure. Pearl, from Arabia, had perfected the pleasures of the bath; Coral, from the Philippines, could use her mouth and tongue with astonishing skill. Crystal, a white Russian, was mistress of the erotic arts that were taught to the women of the tsars; and Turquoise, from Tibet, studied the dark stars and could see into a man’s soul.

The Sisters welcomed Topaz and shared their most intimate secrets, but Siu-Sing was more interested in their stories of distant lands, eager to learn all she could about the wide world that awaited her.

Siu-Sing enjoyed the lessons in pipe-making, relishing the challenge of its need for precision. She learned to combine just the right amount of hemp and the root of the grass-cloth plant with tiny beads of opium no bigger than the eggs of a fat salmon. She would chop the mixture finely with a knife of tiger bone, then heat it in a small copper pan and add it to tobacco. Her knowledge of herbal medicine made such formulations second nature.

At the Tavern of Cascading Jewels, each dragon, or client, had his own water pipe that was left in the pipe-maker’s care, some studded with gems, others chased with gold and silver or carved from ivory, while some preferred the simple pig-bone pipe of the workingman. The Sister would sit by the side of the sleeping dragon, ready with black Swatow tea and cool towels to clear his head when the passage to paradise was completed.

T
he years of apprenticeship
were nearing their end when Siu-Sing was summoned alone to the Golden One’s lavish apartment.

Tamiko-san was seated at a dressing table, closely inspecting her face in the mirror. She turned as Siu-Sing entered, returning her bow with a brief nod of the head. The
mama-san
, whom Siu-Sing had never seen without the intricate mask of her makeup or one of her magnificent wigs, was shorter and thinner than she had guessed.

The Golden One turned from the mirror with an approving smile. “You have been chosen, as I had hoped, by the one I wish you to please. He has watched you in the Palace of Lights and found you interesting beyond all others. That you are a virgin was his only remaining concern, and that he has been assured of. He has honored you as his chosen pipe-maker, but I have told him you are not yet ready to become more than this to him. You will be available as soon as I consider your training to be complete, perhaps in a month or two. Meanwhile, he will grow impatient, which is my intention. During that time you will make his pipe and ensure his dreams are only accompanied by you.”

Siu-Sing was not invited to reply, but listened dutifully to every word. To be traded without her consent strengthened her resolve to escape.

“There is a private lodge within the grounds that was designed as my personal retreat, but he has paid me well to use it. You will take up residence there and await his pleasure.

“There are simple rules you must remember. Never question him.
What he wishes you to know, he will tell you. Your duties as his pipe-maker do not include his bed. Do whatever is in your power to make him desire you—charm him, enchant him—but resist his embrace until you belong to him. Do you understand?”

Siu-Sing bowed, then asked, “And what, Gracious Mother, will I be when he holds my
sung-tip
? His servant? Will I be mistress, concubine, or
tai-tai
? Am I to bear his children, and if I do, where will I stand in his household?”

The Golden One looked at her gravely. “This will be for him to decide and will depend upon your skills. If you use all you have learned here wisely, you can be everything to him. He is no longer young, and should not be difficult to entice. You are not like the others, Topaz; your spirit resides on a different and I think a higher plane to theirs. I see in you all the signs of an adept. I also am an adept, and have shown you due respect by not questioning you. So I will break the rule of confidentiality to tell you this. He is one of Hong Kong’s richest and most feared taipans, born of a famous Hakka clan of landowners. Their fortunes were made in the distant hills of Yunan from the humble tea bush; from this he has built a legitimate international empire.”

The Golden One reached for a gold box on the small table beside her, lifting its lid to select a thin black cigarette with a gold tip, tapping it on the lid. “He owns much of the Golden Hill and a great deal of land in the New Territories, including the garrison lines at Fanling, which he leases to the British Defense Forces. This gives him great powers of negotiation between the British rulers of Hong Kong and the Chinese government in Peking.”

She sat back in the chair, fitting the cigarette into a long slim holder of white jade with studied attention. “Such a man has many secrets, important friends in the highest of places, and this brings the most dangerous of enemies. His name is Jack ‘Teagarden’ Ching, known to the business society as J. T. He does not choose pleasures lightly, nor is he easily pleased. If you are all that he hopes for, my time will not have been wasted and your future will know no bounds. If you disappoint him, he will return you to me. If you dare to betray him, you also betray me… .
I must warn you. He is neither a patient man nor a particularly gentle one, but he is honorable and fair … until his face is questioned or his trust betrayed.” Tamiko-san said more with a shake of her head than words could have done.

The cigarette was lit from a heavy gold table lighter, its curling smoke seductively perfumed. Tamiko-san allowed a trickle of smoke to escape her nostrils. “Balkan Sobranie, a rare blend of Russian and Turkish tobacco … his favorite. The box and the lighter are of solid gold, one of his many gifts of appreciation. He is most generous to those who please him. His tastes in all things are rare and exotic; this is why he has chosen you. If you make yourself indispensable to him at all times—make him feel like the master of the universe he believes himself to be—you will be richly rewarded by his gratitude.”

The jade holder balanced perfectly between her fingers, the Golden One ended the conversation with a final word. “The Silver Sisters are prone to two dangerous habits that I cannot cure them of: the evil of gossip and little green devil of envy. It may be said that the taipan Ching is dragon head of the Yellow Dragon triad. You must know this as a falsehood owed to idle chatter from empty heads he found no interest in. You must never raise this subject anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances whatsoever. If you do … I cannot save you.”

Jack Teagarden Ching enjoyed the boundless privileges of great power and immense wealth. While he was widely acknowledged as a pillar of Hong Kong society, only three trusted lieutenants knew that he had inherited the title and responsibilities of overlord to the Yellow Dragon triad. The affairs of the society were largely left to the Incense Master, responsible for ritual and ceremony; the White Paper Fan, in charge of secretarial affairs; and the Red Pole, the most senior general in charge of the Yellow Dragon army—an underground force several thousand strong deployed throughout the world.