Читать книгу Go Ask the River - Evelyn Eaton - Страница 21

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SHE WAS IN THE GARDEN when the screaming began, high-pitched and terrible. As she ran toward it, sound and direction changed, so that she realized it was not her mother’s voice. These inhuman awful sounds were coming from Elder Sister’s pavilion.

Hurrying servants rushed past her as she hesitated in the doorway.

“What is it? Oh, what is it?”

No one answered. Then she saw Hsueh-Tai crossing the courtyard. She ran to him.

“Elder Brother!”

He turned away. She followed and caught him by the sleeve.

“Is she hurt?” He shook his head. “Then has something happened to my father?”

He pushed her aside and ran into his mother’s room. Fanyang was coming out as he went in. Hung Tu seized her and shook her.

“What is it? Tell me!”

“Not now,” Fanyang muttered, motioning with her head. Hung Tu looked where she pointed. Three strange men were standing inside the gate, evil-looking men, armed with knives and cudgels. They lolled against the wall, looking around them curiously, grinning, spitting, watching the running maids. One of them said something lewd.

“Bandits!”

“Hush! Keep your head down. Get out of sight. Go toward the river gate. Hide behind the boathouse. I’ll come to you.”

“But… Second Lady…”

“I’m going to her now. Do what I say.”

Hung Tu obeyed, pushing her way through the confusion of frightened servants, running about aimlessly, whispering orders to each other or huddling together in corners, while the screaming went on…and on…and on…

It was fainter from the boathouse, lost in other sounds she strained to hear, short cries, outbursts of wailing, angry voices, shouting, silence…

She waited, pressed against the wall, with the bushes behind it scratching her face and arms whenever she moved, listening and hearing nothing…river noises…wind in the bamboo.

After a long time, when she was ready to come out and face whatever might be there…anything was better than this silence… Fanyang came back.

Her footsteps sounded strange on the path. She was stumbling, breathing hard and retching as she came. She rounded the corner of the boathouse and sank down on the grass, hiding her face in her sleeve. Hung Tu put an arm around her quickly and waited till the shuddering stopped.

“Now tell me.”

“They’re gone.”

But this, apparently, made nothing better.

“Were there just those three? Why didn’t someone go for help? The Governor…soldiers…”

“That’s what we were afraid of, that someone would set on them before they got back…”

“Fanyang, there is nothing in your breath. Make sense for me. Three bandits…you said they were bandits?”

“They are Pockmark Chou’s men.”

“Then they are certainly bandits of the worst kind and should be killed. How did they get through the gates?”

“They had a letter to your father. They…there is disaster to this house! They have your brother. They are holding him for ransom.”

“Hsueh-Ts’an! How…” but she could imagine how. She heard him saying “Sometimes I wonder whether we shouldn’t look into what the bandits have to offer… How old is Pockmark Chou?”

So he had ridden out to offer his services, sanguine young fool, thinking to better himself and spite his father all in one. Pockmark Chou must have been delighted. He had found the best use to make of such a prize.

“Elder Sister sent back jewels and gold, all she had, to show good faith…”

“All she had? No wonder she was screaming,” Hung Tu said sarcastically, before Fanyang’s next words sent her into horrified, shamed silence.

“They have cut off his right foot. They brought it with a message to the master. Since he wasn’t here, Elder Sister received them…a present from her son, they said, and she unwrapped it in front of us all…”

“Oh, no…”

“If we don’t send enough his left foot follows, and then his hands. And after that…”

“Where is my father?”

“With the Governor. Elder Sister sent for him, but she didn’t dare to wait in case someone saw the messengers and set on them. They said if anything should happen to them Hsueh-Ts’an would die, a slow death, making sport for those who watched. She told them to tell Pockmark Chou the House of Hsueh sent the gold and the jewels as he had sent her son’s foot, a sure warrant of the whole to follow. Elder Brother was with her. He agreed it was the best thing to be done. They left an hour ago, and Hsueh Yun has not returned yet from the Governor nor sent any word.”

“But what if we send the ransom, how can we trust Pockmark Chou to release him then? What if he continues to maim him and to ask for more…and more…?”

“Elder Brother says that there is one thing known about this Chou. He is a cruel monster, a madman, a ghoul, but he keeps his word. His whole life, his power is founded on it. When he says he will kill, he kills. When he says he will free, he frees. We must hope it is true. Elder Brother says we are lucky it is only money he wants. He might have asked for a harder thing.”

“Harder?” Hung Tu could guess what Elder Brother meant. “He might have asked my father for the gates of the city…”

“Yes. To leave them undefended, or to help him…”

“He would never do that, not even to save his son.”

“That’s what Elder Brother said Pockmark Chou would also know. He understands men. So he asks for what is possible and with it he can buy what he wants, even his way into the city, perhaps.”

“Fanyang…”

“Now you must come with me to Second Lady. She is awake and restless. She knows that something has happened. I could not come for you before because I had to restrain her. She wanted to run out and stop the screaming. She thought someone was killing a baby. ‘That’s a mother screaming,’ she said. ‘I must help her.’”

“She was right,” Hung Tu said. “How strange! What did you tell her?”

“Anything, everything. She does not listen. I held her down on the bed and tied her feet together. I gave her the p’i-pa to play.”

“But if Elder Sister hears music now from my mother’s pavilion, she will think…”

“Elder Sister is mercifully asleep. We have given her opium enough to keep her unconscious for hours. Now come.”

Hung Tu moved gladly. “It was horrible waiting here, hiding…”

“I didn’t want them to see you. I didn’t know what they were after. They might have wanted you too to take back with them, or…or…but they didn’t hurt anyone. Just took the gold and the jewels and said they’d be back. What a day…what a day!”

Fanyang trotted ahead of her shakily. They crossed the deserted courtyard to Second Lady’s pavilion, from which gay sounds were coming. Second Lady was singing “Spring in the Willow Trees.”

How can fame and profit concern a man of genius? Day and night I long for him to bring his lute again, And with every cup of wine another round of music…

She smiled as Hung Tu came in and put her finger to her lips.

Oh, when will the Tartar troops be conquered, And my husband come back from the long campaign?