nor the Chinese had wanted to accept Protestant bodies.
Hugh Montgomery hadn't expected to be buried here himself, though. He'd spoken sometimes of the lowland kirk his family attended, and the fine view it had of the Scottish hills. Nonetheless, she sensed that he was content to lie in the exotic land where he'd spent most of his adult life. 'Good-bye, Papa,' she whispered as she laid flowers on his grave. 'In your honor, I swear to visit Scotland. I… I wish you were going with me.'
Her beautiful mother had been nominally a Christian, but in true Chinese fashion she'd also worshiped the gods she'd been raised with. To her, Troth said, 'I've had a tablet inscribed with your name and Papa's, and I shall honor it all my days. Your spirit will not hunger or thirst in the afterlife.'
She lit sandalwood incense sticks and left them to burn down by the headstones, along with an offering of oranges. Then she left the cemetery, knowing she would never see it again.
Last of all, she walked along Macao's small peninsula until it narrowed to a hundred-yard width called the Stalk of the Lotus. There she was stopped by the wall into China. Called the Barrier, it had been built to prevent Europeans from setting foot on Chinese soil. By her own choice, she was irrevocably cutting herself off from the land of her birth. She gazed at the wall for a long time before turning away.
Chapter 29
Feng-tang, China
Summer 1832
Today Kyle would be executed… again. He prayed that this time it would be real.
He'd been prepared to die under the prefect's guns, and it had been a shock to find himself still standing as the smoke drifted away. Numbly he wondered if he'd been mortally wounded, but was too injured to feel pain.
Then he looked at Wu Chong and saw the cruel satisfaction in the old man's face. Damnation, the matchlocks hadn't been loaded with bullets, only powder and wadding! The execution had been Wu Chong's vicious, sophisticated form of mental torture.
Kyle was still standing by the wall, rigid, when the plump merchant, Wang, came up to him and bobbed his head apologetically.
'Wu Chong consult soothsayer. Inauspicious time for execution of
'A beheading?'
'Very swift, painless,' Wang assured him.
Kyle would rather have been shot.
Hanging on grimly to the shreds of his dignity, he stalked back to prison surrounded by guards. Outside his cell, several of them took the opportunity to work him over with expert punches before shoving him into the damp straw.
Three weeks until the new moon.
To keep himself from going mad, he devised exercises to maintain his body. For his mind, he methodically worked his way through his Cambridge courses, starting with the Michaelmas term of his first year. Philosophy, mathematics, the classics in Latin and Greek. Surprising how much a man could remember when he had nothing better to do.
He tried to avoid memories of Troth and home, for they were far more painful than reciting bits of the
Waking up was a return to hell.
He was sure the second execution would be real. Beheading, after all, was the preferred Chinese method, and their executioners were said to be very expert.
The prospect of decapitation was peculiarly unpleasant, despite Wang's assurances that it would be painless. This time it was harder to keep his face impassive when he was taken into the courtyard. His bristling, untamed beard helped conceal any failures of control.
When forced to kneel in front of the headsman, he thought of Hoshan and the serenity he'd experienced there. His hammering heart almost drowned out the beating of the drums that marked the raising of the sword.
Cool air brushed his face as the blade sliced by to bury itself in the ground a scant inch in front of him. He half expected a second blow to fall just when he would begin to believe he'd been spared, but Wu Chong was subtler than that.
Once more Kyle was marched back to his stinking cell. It was wretchedly hot. The monsoon season had begun and water trickled down the walls constantly as the rains alternated with suffocating humidity.
Every night Kyle made another scratch on the wall and wondered how long it would be until the prefect tired of his game, and ended it once and for all.
The third execution was scheduled as a hanging in another one of Wu Chong's bows to Western custom. Kyle no longer cared, for malaria had struck. As he'd guessed at the beginning, the prison was a breeding place for pestilence, and the rude health that had protected him throughout his travels was no longer enough.
He recognized his ailment when chills started in his lower back, radiating throughout his body until he shook with cold despite the tropical heat. Dispassionately he watched his fingers turn dead white and his nails take on a bluish cast. Even milder forms of malaria could be lethal without treatment.
Chills were followed by burning fever. Desperately he rubbed his face against the wet walls, frantic for cooling as muscle tremors brought on pain so deep his bones ached. The guard who delivered his meals prodded him with a boot before leaving him to his fate.
Twelve hours after the first symptoms, the fever ebbed and he had a short period of mere misery. Having seen malaria in others, he took advantage of the time to eat his rice and drink as much water as possible. Often malaria struck in daily attacks as regular as clockwork, and he needed to maintain his strength for the next bout.
The chills returned at noon and the ghastly cycle began again: chills, dry fever, sweating, over and over. He lost count of the days because he was too ill to scratch the wall. Sometimes when shaking with cold he imagined Troth beside him, warming him with her body. Or when he panted with fever he thought he felt her cool hands on his face, until he returned to the horror of the cell.
He had to be carried out to the crude scaffold, though he managed to stand upright as the rope was put around his neck. Three times was the charm; a few miserable minutes and his suffering would be over.
But the hangman was an amateur and the execution a sham. Instead of dropping him far enough to break his neck, as a decent British hangman would have done, Kyle was left strangling at the end of the rope until he blacked out. Then they cut him down.
It was hard to be arrogant when lying on the ground spewing one's guts out, but Kyle did his best. Wrexham would have been proud. Looking disappointed that his prey wouldn't last much longer, Wu Chong waved him back to the prison.
As his daily bout of fever claimed him, the only damned thing Kyle could manage to be glad about was that Troth and his family would think he'd died quickly.
