The Pirate Empress (62 page)

“I thought you did not care.”

“Then why are you jealous?”

“I am not jealous.” He frowned into the dark. “He would not admit to any relationship with you.”

“He is no friend of mine, nor lover,” she said. “I despise him. He is an enemy of the water people, and led you to us. He well deserves my anger. But what did he do to deserve
yours
?”

“He openly defied me and set a trio of pirate girls free.”

Li shut her eyes. Her sisters, Madam Choi’s daughters; Quan had put himself at risk to save the girls.

%%%

His flesh was scorched, the welt bubbling. All of Master Yun’s training was needed now if he was to survive. Quan had been an apt pupil, but he had left Master Yun for the battlefield before he had achieved full mastery. He kept his eyes shut, allowed his muscles to slacken, and forced his breathing to slow until it stopped. The agony of his baking death faded, his hands and feet went cold. He was at the edge of consciousness. His muscles began to shrink.

It was midday. The men were busy at their tasks. Only occasionally did a sailor look up to wipe the sweat from his eyes. Most dared not, for fear of sharing Quan’s fate.

“He’s dead,” a sailor announced.

“Shut up,” another ordered. “Or you will be too.”

Then a familiar voice made him open his eyes. “If that is so, then soon the green-headed vultures of Feng Du will come to feed on his corpse. I suggest you take him down.”

Quan knew that voice. Li stood below him. Her long black hair flowed sleek as a magpie’s wing against the white silk of her gown. Fong knew how to costume his women. Her suntanned skin glistened with seaspray, the golden-yellow hue of new gingerroot. Her presence commanded awe and the sailors were dumbstruck, and they knew better than to speak to the fugitive wife of the Supreme Lord Admiral. They returned to their work, singing to kill their awkwardness. Then all went silent. The admiral had exited his quarters and was approaching the mizzenmast. He scowled at Li and ordered her back inside. Her eyes turned up one last time to catch Quan’s, and her gaze was dark and furious.

He shut his eyes. His breathing softened, his heartbeat slowed, his muscles retracted, and he mimicked a dead fish. Fong motioned for one of his men to climb the mast. He signalled again and the sailor slapped Quan across the face. The man put a hand to Quan’s throat. His heart had ceased to beat.

%%%

Lao’s peculiar lineage was manifesting itself quickly. He played noisily in a corner with some wooden toys carved for him by the ship’s crew. His favourite was a small wooden sword not unlike the blade Po had made for Wu. The thought of Po brought a painful catch to Li’s throat, but she could not afford the privilege of grief.

“Sister,” Lin said above the din of the boy’s play. “Is it true that our brother is dead?”

Li bowed her head, shushing the boy, but he refused to quieten. “I’m sorry, Lin. I saw it with my own eyes. Po was knifed by the admiral’s man.” Father of her son or not, at that moment she could have stabbed Quan with her own weapon. “We are leaving as soon as I can figure out how,” Li said. She glanced down at the unruly child miming a duel as he thrust and parried. “Lao will come with us. A warship is no place for a child.”

“But Fong will follow us!”

Lao jabbed her with his wooden blade, making her shriek. “Stop it, Lao. I am not your enemy.” Li hoisted the boy, and passed him to Lin. “I will get you safely back to your sisters.”

Lin shut her eyes as though holding back tears, and held Lao close to her cheek, cooing to him as his shrill objections began to escalate. She rocked him and jiggled him until his screams turned into chuckles, and then she giggled at his chuckles and at the upturned nose and strong hands that gripped her in a hug. Why did this girl have a closer bond to her son than she did herself? Why did she feel so distant? Li knew better than to speak as though the boy had no ears, but she must. “Don’t you want to leave? Don’t tell me you have feelings for that monster?”

Lin flushed. She was sixteen years old; the same age Li was when she first came to the Waterworld.

“Supreme Lord Admiral Fong is your husband,” Lin whispered. She wrung her hands over her pink satin tunic. For the first time, Li realized that Fong had treated the girl fairly, and had showered her with luxuries in exchange for her services. In her hair was a jade and ivory pin carved into the delicate shapes of almond blossoms.

“A pretty trinket for a nurse,” Li said crudely, unable to hide her scorn.

Lin’s hand clamped onto the pin and she flushed even deeper, and Li realized with remorse that this sea gypsy, her stepsister, had lived a pirate’s life her entire existence, looting ships to stave off hunger, not to adorn herself with jewels. “You’ve never owned anything so pretty, have you?”

Lin shook her head.

“He hasn’t struck you?”

Again, Lin shook her head. Li examined her own arm that was still bandaged, but no longer sore. She could not leave Lin with Fong; she did not trust him. He would take it out on her when Li was gone, and Li fully meant to be gone. “What about your sisters? Who will look after them?”

No
, Li thought, as Lin gazed at her imploringly.
I can’t. I can’t stay here and be mother to three girls and the White Tiger’s spawn, when my own boy is still in danger
. Li’s head was beginning to ache with these new revelations. Her heart felt sliced in two. How had all of this responsibility fallen upon her? Why was Po dead? Damn him. Damn Quan for joining Fong against the pirates. But the image of him hanging there…his flesh torn, exposed to the cruel wind and sun. The rain had left his wounds weeping…and he had not had water for a whole day. Was he dead? Was he truly dead? She didn’t understand it. He had hidden her jade circlet from the eyes of the Imperial seamen.

Fong did not join her all day. When it came time for the evening meal, he bade her eat with Lao. Instead, he requested the company of Lin on the upper deck where they feasted in the open air. When nightfall came and the half-cup of the moon appeared in the sky, he sent her to the forward cabin, which he had converted into the boy’s quarters, and asked for her sister instead. Li could hear them as Lin was taken to his bed. She had no right to object and truly she was grateful that it wasn’t she he wanted. But her sister? And yet, if Lin was willing…and it seemed that she was. Li shut her eyes and ears to Fong’s snorting and growling as he threw himself on Lin and stabbed her with his jade spear. Li winced remembering the horror of it, but the sounds that came from her sister were not of pain, but of pleasure, and so Li remained silent in her cold, wooden cot.

So, this was her punishment. Fong intended to humiliate her by refusing to take her to his bed, though he had forced her to relive their wedding night. Men were such fools and their thinking so twisted, but she had decided that Lin was no longer her problem.

Fong’s snoring resonated against the bulkheads, Lin’s soft, even breathing matching his in rhythm. A bank of cloud cloaked the moon that hung outside the porthole above her head, and Lao moaned, sighed, and Li checked to see that he still slept. “Forgive me,” she whispered. “But my sister will make a better mother to you. If I take you, he will follow me, and he will kill me. And I can’t afford to be killed. Not just yet. Lin will take care of you.” Li tucked the wool blanket under his chin and looked up.

A gentle patting of rain began. She tore off the plain bedclothes she wore and donned her pirate’s garb.

She climbed onto her cot, and hoisted herself through the porthole. No land, no islands in sight. She could not take a rowboat without someone hearing or seeing her, but it was much too far to swim. Fong’s arrogance gave her freedom because not once did it occur to him that she had any possibility of escape. Sky above and sea below, where could she flee?

The rain showered down from the heavens. The rails and ropes were slippery. Most of the men were inside and only a few remained in the wet as watchmen. Li looked down into the roiling sea. White peaks foamed from black water and she glanced up and saw the solitary figure of Quan, still hanging from the yardarm, most certainly dead. A stab of pain pierced her. Why had they not removed the body and cast it into the sea? What good could possibly come from this, a wasting carcass, rotting in the rain? Against her will, she tasted salt rolling down her cheek mixed with rain. She couldn’t leave him like this. She swung to the rigging, scaled the mizzenmast. He may have betrayed her, but she had no desire to imagine his corpse torn to shreds by carrion birds. How could she face Wu if this was the story she had to relate of his father’s demise?

Li realized now that she had no knife. Fong had made certain that no implements, weapons, or even cutlery were available to her. How could she perform his burial at sea if she couldn’t release him from his hanging tomb?
She clawed her way across the beam until she sat on the yardarm from which he was suspended.

“You!” Someone shouted at her. “Get down from there!” Two sailors came running from out of the shadows, and now more pounded down the decks.

“Jump Li!”

The voice that ordered her to flee startled her.

“Quan! I thought you were dead!”

“Jump now before they shoot you!”

“But what about you!”

“Do you have a knife?”

“No.”

“Then why are you here? Jump. Jump for your life!”

A shot rang out, tearing the bamboo sail over their heads. Now the entire warship was awake and the booming voice of Fong screamed, “Lotus Lily, you liar. Get away from that traitor and face your death!”

Fong was robed in his nightshirt and looked foolishly unadmiral-like, his naked legs spindly, with the fabric flapping at his knees. His black and white streaked hair was tousled from his adventures in bed with Lin, and Lin herself, who stood beside him, stared up in shock and horror. Before Li knew what was happening, Quan had swung himself up, slipped his hands out of the noose and flung both her and himself off the yardarm and into the raging sea. Musketfire followed, but Li was too busy choking on seawater to give it much thought. She struggled to locate Quan and saw him surface at the stern of the ship. What was his plan? How had he garnered the strength? He was near death just a few minutes ago. Wasn’t he?

He was gesturing her to swim to him. He planned to climb up the port hull, and was clinging to the ropes that swung there. What was the point? If they returned they would surely be executed, even if they weren’t spotted first. Alas, they were spotted. Musketfire peppered them. They had only one chance.

“Quan!” she shouted swimming close to him. “Grab my arm!”

He grabbed her wrist with his raw hands and hauled her with inexplicable strength against his chest. His teeth chattered as did hers. “I can’t die without telling you. I love you.”

“Shut up, Quan,” she said. “I don’t want to hear that. You aren’t going to die. Not yet.”

There was no point in calling upon the Ghostfire to shield them. Its shimmering would only render their location visible. She had called upon the gods only once before, and for the life of her she did not remember how she had done it. But her days of disbelieving were past. She shut her eyes and pulled Quan away from the warship. “We’re going to dive!”

“We’ll drown.”

Li dived and Quan followed. The last breath in her body strained for release. Bubbles exploded from her mouth and her nostrils, and her lungs filled with water; her heart burst like a stampede of elephants and her muscles screamed.
O mystic god of the deep, where are you?
Maybe she had just killed both herself and Quan.
Show yourself. Save us!
The current clawed at her tunic and her hair. It was dark, and the cold pierced her to her very bones. And still she clung to Quan by sheer force of will. Her hand, stiff as a corpse’s hooked onto his like the claw of a crab. Her mind swooned, while strange sensations assailed her. Shadowy hallucinations chilled her like nightcreepers in a moonless jungle. A bright light, no two bright lights, burned in the darkest depths of the sea. Li gasped as she saw the lights blink like a pair of whale’s eyes: so large and so red. Demon eyes.

She turned to Quan, but his face was frozen in shock and it wasn’t clear what he could see—if he saw anything at all. She waved her arms and legs frantically, calling upon the powers of Heaven to send her reprieve. Her muscles surged. She shot through the water, dragging Quan in tow.
Xiang Gong!
I can’t save us on my own.

The floor of the sea began to rise. A dark body, the size of a whale rippled across her vision, sending columns of glowing bubbles in an ascending spiralling stream. But this was neither whale nor god. A head like a hornless rhinoceros attached to a dark green mass, scaled and ridge-backed, cut the water, gold-clawed feet propelling it forward. The sea began to thrum, the cold began to freeze and Li opened her mouth to scream, when a force with the power of a tsunami thrust her to the surface.

Li gulped, locked stares with Quan, before laughing with glee at his sudden oath. Each of them straddled a blue and scaly hump, their hands gripping the curvature of a yellow globe. Nine yellow heads with long necks arced like dolphins thrust up and down propelling them to safety.

“
Gods and vipers!
What horror is this?” Quan hollered from beside her.