Part 10 (2/2)

Footman spoke. 'Sire, is it your wish to rest awhile?'

The Warlord's Son nodded, not taking his eyes off me.

Footman barked at my father. 'Tea! The best you have in your pit of roaches, or the crows will dine on your eyeb.a.l.l.s tonight!'

My father leapt to his feet and pulled me with him behind the table. My father told me to polish the best tea bowls, while he loaded fresh charcoal onto the brazier. I had never seen a Warlord's Son before. 'But which one is he?' I asked.

My father slapped me with the back of his hand. 'It's none of your concern.' He glanced over his shoulder nervously at the men, who were laughing at me. My ear began to throb. 'The striking gentleman, in the beautiful robes,' muttered my father, loud enough to be overheard.

The Warlord's Son I guessed he was twenty removed his hat and sleeked back his hair. Footman took one look at our best bowls and rolled his eyeb.a.l.l.s. 'How dare you even think it?' A baggage carrier unpacked some silver bowls, decorated with golden dragons with emerald scales and ruby eyes. Another servant unfolded a table. A third spread a perfectly white cloth. I thought I was dreaming.

'The girl may serve the tea,' said the Warlord's Son.

I felt his eyes touch my body as I poured the tea. n.o.body spoke. I didn't spill a drop.

I looked to my father for approval, or at least for rea.s.surance. He was too busy worrying about his own skin. I didn't understand.

The men spoke in crisp, s.h.i.+ny Mandarin. Their magnificent, strange words paraded past. Words about somebody called Sun Yatsen, somebody called Russia, somebody else called Europe. Firepower, taxes, appointments. What world had these men come from?

My father took my shawl off and told me to tie back my hair and wash my face. He made me serve some more tea. He was picking his teeth with a splintered chopstick, and watching the men carefully from the shadows.

Silence thickened the air. The mist had closed in. The mountainside was dark with white. The afternoon became so sluggish that it stopped altogether.

The Warlord's Son stretched his legs and arched his back. He picked at his teeth with a bejewelled toothpick. 'After drinking tea as bitter as that, I want sherbet. You, rat-in-the-shadows, you may serve me a bowl of lemon sherbet.'

My father fell to his knees and spoke to the dirt. 'We have no such sherbet, Lord.'

He looked round at his men. 'How tiresome! Then tangerine sherbet will have to suffice.'

'We have no sherbet at all, Lord. I'm very sorry.'

'Sorry? I can't eat your ”sorry”. You wreck my palate with your brew of nettles and foxs.h.i.+t: What kind of stomach do you think I have? A cow's?'

His look told his entourage to laugh, which they did.

'Oh well. There's nothing for it. I'll have to eat your daughter for dessert.'

A poison thorn slid in, bent, and snapped.

My father looked up. The Khaki Man coughed.

'What's that cough supposed to mean? My father told me to come on this accursed pilgrimage. He didn't say I couldn't have any fun.'

Footman inspected my father like s.h.i.+t on his boot. 'Get your upstairs room as ready as you can for His Lords.h.i.+p'

My father made a gurgling noise. 'Sir... Lord. I I mean-'

The Warlord's Son imitated the buzzing of a horsefly. 'These wormholes! Can you believe it? Give him one of the bowls. They were a wedding present from my ogre-in-law, I never liked them. As a dowry. More than a fair exchange for sluicing out a peasant girl's c.u.n.t. They're from Siam. She'd better be a virgin for workmans.h.i.+p like that!'

'She is, Lord. Untouched. I promise it. But I've had some genuine marriage proposals, from suitors in high places...'

Footman unsheathed his sword, and looked at his master. The Warlord's Son thought for a while. 'Suitors in high places? Carpenters' c.o.c.ks. Very well, give him two bowls. But no more haggling, Mr Wormhole. You've tried your luck enough for one morning.'

'My Lord's reputation for generosity is just! No wonder all who hear of My Lord's grace weep with love at the very mention-'

'Oh, shut up.'

My father looked round at me. 'You heard His Lords.h.i.+p, girl! Ready yourself!'

I could smell their sweat. Something unspeakable was going to happen. I knew where babies came from. My aunts down in the Village had told me about why my bad blood leaked out every month. But...

Lord Buddha was watching me from his shrine beside the Tree. I asked him for it not to hurt as much as I feared.

'Up.' Footman jabbed towards the stairs with his sword. 'Up!'

The silences after his last gasp were sung together by a blackbird. I lay there, my eyes unable to close. His were unable to open. I listed the places where I hurt, and how much. My loins felt ripped. Something inside had torn. There were seven places on my body where he had sunk his fangs into my skin and bitten. He'd dug his nails into my neck, and twisted my head to one side, and clawed my face. I hadn't made a noise. He had made all the noise for both of us. Had it hurt him?

I could feel him shrinking inside me, at last. He finally stirred to pick his nose. He pulled himself out of me, and a few seconds later something slid out of me and down my thighs. I looked. Gummy blood and something white was staining our only sheet. He wiped himself on my dress, and looked down at me critically. 'Dear me,' he said, 'we're no G.o.ddess of Beauty, are we?'

He got dressed. He dug his big toe into my navel, and looked down at me from the dimness. A spoonful of saliva splashed onto the bridge of my nose. 'Skinned little bunny.'

A spider spun the dimness between the rafters.

'Mr Wormhole,' I heard him say as he descended the creaking stairs. 'You should be paying me. For breaking in your foal.'

A flutter of laughter.

If I were a man, I would have flown down the stairs and shoved a dagger into his back. That afternoon, without a word to me, my father went to sell the bowls.

In the misty dusk an old woman came. She laboured slowly up the stairs to where I lay, wondering how I could defend myself if the Warlord's Son called again on his way down. 'Don't worry,' she said. 'The Tree will protect you. The Tree will tell you when to run, and when to hide.' I knew she was a spirit because I only heard her words after her lips had finished moving, because the lamplight shone through her, and because she had no feet. I knew she was a good spirit because she sat on the chest at the end of the bed and sang a lullaby about a coracle, a cat, and the river running round.

Ten or twenty days later, my father returned, penniless. I asked him about the money, and he threatened to whip me. When we wintered with my cousins I was told the whole story: he'd gone to Leshan and spent half my dowry on opium and brothels. The other half he had spent on a scabby horse that died before he got back to the Village.

I was airing my bedding from the upstairs room's window-ledge when I heard their voices. A boy and a girl had arrived without me noticing my hearing is drawing in. Through a spyhole in the planking I watch them for some moments. Her face is made-up like the daughter of a merchant, or else a wh.o.r.e. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s are budding, and the boy has that look men get when they want something. And not a chaperon in sight! She was leaning against her hands, against the skin of my Tree on the hidden side, where a hollow will cup a young girl's body perfectly. Above it, a bunch of violets grow every spring, but she cannot see it.

The boy swallows hard. 'I swear I will love you for ever. Truly.'

He rests his hands on her hips, but she swats them away. 'Did you bring your radio to give me?' The girl has a voice used to getting its way.

'I brought you my life to give you.'

'Did you bring your radio? The little silver one that can pick up Hong Kong?'

<script>