‘Yes, but she didn’t mean it. We are going to be married when she is freed.’
Madam Gao sneered, and Wenbo was about to retort, when Lin lifted his hand again. I would give anything to be able to stop an argument like Lin could with his calm and authority. He spoke quietly, but tellingly.
‘One more thing, Wenbo. Did you see your father in the kitchen at any time after this?’
Wenbo shook his head.
‘No, I told you. He was immersed in his accounts and bills. He didn’t emerge from his room until… Well, I heard his cries of agony, and I went in to him. I ran off to fetch Jianxu. I didn’t know what to do. But by the time we both got back to his office, he was dead.’
SIXTEEN
‘ Did you notice that whenever the old lady talked of Jianxu, she referred to her merely as “the girl?”’
We were walking back through the bustling centre of town, where the streets were full of traders. A cry of warning came from behind us and Lin pulled me to one side. We pressed up against the wall of a food shop whilst a large sedan chair passed us carried by two sweating Chinee slaves. I glimpsed the white, oval face of a pretty girl peering through the side window. I flashed a smile through my red beard and the face disappeared. But not before I saw a look of curiosity pass over the deadpan visage, followed by a smile. Then the sedan was gone. Lin gave me one of his looks.
‘Forget her. In such an opulent conveyance, the chances are she is the courtesan of some wealthy man. Besides, she will not be to your taste.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘Because I know what you have told me about courtesans in your world. How the pleasures of the flesh are all they cater for. In this world, the courtesan is trained in music, painting, calligraphy and poetry. An admirer could expect to pass months in leisurely mutual seduction, when he would not even expect to touch her body. He would shower her with gifts, hold parties and admire her skills at calligraphy while his lust would be brought to such a pitch, he could barely control it. But control it he must until the moment arrived when he was allowed to slake his desires.’ He looked disapprovingly at me. ‘You would die of boredom before a day was passed in this way.’
I sighed, putting the white-faced vision out of my mind.
‘You are right, Chu-Tsai. I have still to come to terms with your people’s pace of doing things. It would seem that Chinee lust is to be long drawn out too. And the answer to your original question is, yes, I noticed how Madam Gao spoke of Jianxu as though she was simply a possession — a servant without a name. And strangely enough she spoke of her son in the same terms too. She never gave him a name. It was as though he almost didn’t exist.’
‘I remember Gurbesu said the same of Jianxu. The son was her husband, yet she never referred to him by his name. It was Cangbi, by the way. It is recorded in the documents attached to the case. Perhaps we are seeing more than there is to see. It may be his illness and death were too much for both women to bear, and that is why they cannot speak his name.’
We had just entered the square where the theatre and temple stood side by side, and we stopped for a moment looking at the scene. I shook my head.
‘No. I got the impression that Cangbi was merely a nuisance and yet a means to an end. A nuisance for his mother, who saw him as a heavy weight around her neck. And a means to an end for both women. A way of tying Jianxu closer to here for Gao, and a way of gaining access to the family’s wealth for Jianxu herself. He had no other value in himself as a person for them.’
Lin seemed a little shocked by my assessment.
‘That would make them both very hard and manipulative people. I can believe that of Madam Gao. But surely Jianxu — at twenty — has more sentiment in her soul.’
I patted Lin’s arm.
‘You are an incurable romantic, Chu-Tsai. Don’t forget Gurbesu was worried that she appeared a little cold and unemotional when she was interviewed. Maybe we should both speak to Jianxu and make our own minds up.’
Lin agreed.
‘Yes, there is the matter of the kitchen, and the sequence of events leading up to Geng eating the soup. It doesn’t quite all fit together yet.’
I could see he was pondering some small factual detail as he was fond of doing, but I was vexed about the sudden appearance of a new suspect.
‘And now there is the matter of the unidentified beggar, who was perhaps left alone in the kitchen. He could have spiked the soup too.’
‘Who do you think he might have been? A business rival of Geng’s?’
‘Or one of the old lady’s debtors. We need to find out who he was.’
‘And talking of debtors, we need to find out the whereabouts of the doctor.’
Lin’s reference to the elusive Doctor Sun reminded me what Tadeusz had told me that morning. He reckoned he had heard a rumour about the doctor being in one of the villages up in the hills where the Hwang-Ho River came from. He assured me he could track him down if he could borrow my horse. Our party was getting smaller by the day with Alberoni gone — God knew where — and now Pyka seeking to go. I hoped the latter would not be going on such a wild goose chase as the priest and his search for Prester John.
I missed Father Alberoni, and yearned to ask him if he knew what had really happened with my father’s death. I had harboured the thought that my mother had killed her husband for so long, it was difficult to discard it. But Lin’s talk of Jianxu and emotions had made me think again. My mother — Rosamund — had been a passionate woman, and I could imagine her stabbing Agostino in a rage. But I could not now square the idea of a poisoning with her impetuous nature. Minor tampering with emetics certainly, but not deliberate murder. Poisoning required cold calculation and patience — qualities my mother lacked to any degree. But if my mother hadn’t poisoned my father, who had? I suddenly realized Lin had touched my arm. Dragging myself back to the present, I raised a questioning eyebrow. He whispered in my ear.
‘Don’t look now, but the prefect is coming this way. He was in the Temple of the Earth-Goddess, and as soon as he saw us turned in our direction.’
I could guess why Li Wen-Tao had been in the temple, and imagined that his purse would be all the heavier for speaking with the old priestess there. Our little scam must be proving very lucrative. I leaned down to whisper back to Lin, he being shorter than me.
‘Let me speak alone with him.’
Lin nodded.
‘Gladly. He makes me feel uneasy every time he looks at me.’
Without a look back across the square, Lin turned and went, leaving me to deal with the prefect. He huffed and puffed towards me, having to catch his breath before he could speak. Casting a meaningful glance at the retreating back of Lin Chu-Tsai, he finally found his voice.
‘I am glad to see Master Lin depart — we have some private business to transact, you and I. Besides, there are bad rumours circulating about him in the town.’
I was surprised. Who could know anything about Lin other than that he was a high official at Kubilai’s court? That was self-evident from his bearing and his robes.
‘What sort of rumours?’
Li pulled a face, expressing disgust at what he was about to say, though I could see he was relishing passing on the rumour.
‘It is said he is a sodomite and dallies with one of the actors in the theatrical troupe. Of course I can believe it of their sort. Most actors are nothing more than thieves and prostitutes. But it ill becomes an official of the Khan’s court to be so inclined.’
I thought of Tien-jan Hsiu, and what I had seen — or thought I had — in T’ai-Yuan-Fu. The pretty youth had embraced him and stayed in Lin’s rooms long after I had left, and the lights had been lowered intimately. But then
