going, leaving me here to languish in a cell at K’ing’s discretion. The Guv went so far as to lay a hand upon my shoulder, a rarity, indeed. No doubt he sensed my trepidation.
“I shall be back in a few hours, lad. See that they feed you properly or they shall answer to me for it.”
Then off he went. Feed me properly, indeed. As if I could eat anything. As if my heart was not in my throat. Barker by all rights should be convalescing from his injuries. Instead, he was about to have the fight of his life, of both our lives. I realized now what K’ing’s men must have been working on so secretly: it was the place in which Barker would fight. That meant that despite his protests to the contrary, K’ing already knew that Barker would choose trial by combat. It also meant that he had had days to find a worthy opponent.
I was imprisoned now in an area of London that for all intents and purposes functioned under the laws of China. If things went according to the uncrowned king of Limehouse, there would be another body floating in Limehouse Reach, where a year before Quong had been found. Possibly three more.
The Thames. It is a serpent that coils through London, and around my life. I had nearly jumped into it once, to kill myself. I had been blown into it once and rescued by Barker, and now my employer was being drawn in again because of me. The outcome of the fight would determine whether my corpse would rest there, yet. We fought not against princes, principalities, and powers, I thought. We fought against Fate itself.
27
Barker was gone, and I was left alone with one of the most powerful men in London. He sat in the chair and eyed me appraisingly. I stood and bowed in the English manner, a stiff incline of the head, trying not to show him I was afraid.
“I am your prisoner.”
“No, sir,” he corrected. “You are a guest in my humble home. Allow me to see to your comfort.”
“Ah, but a guest may leave at any time,” I pointed out.
“That is so, but then, who shall see to Miss Winter’s needs? She is my real prisoner.”
“I would like to see her, sir.”
K’ing clapped his hands and a guard appeared to lead me through K’ing’s “humble home.” It was more like an underground mansion. All the rooms were low-ceilinged but so varied that I was certain this could not be the basement of any one building. More probably, these rooms, connected by tunnels, took up much of an entire street of buildings. Most of the rooms were furnished in a manner that was spare but sumptuous. One contained little more than a chair but had an ornate Oriental rug that must have measured twenty by forty feet. Another room contained a series of piers and bridges in carved teak with a subterranean river running through it.
Finally, we came to a door that was locked. The guard unlatched it and ushered me in. In a chair at the far end sat Bok Fu Ying.
She rose quickly when I entered the room, but I could tell she’d been crying. I waited, watching over my shoulder as the guard left the room and locked the door behind us. The room was large and contained a bed, a low table with pillows around it, and a pair of wooden chairs. One would think Bok Fu Ying was a guest save for one thing: guest rooms do not have locks on the outside.
I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and presented it to her. She obviously had no such article in her suit of red silk.
“They took my sword,” she sniffed. “They had pistols. Where is Sir?”
I told her as gently as possible what had occurred and that Barker was back in Newington preparing for the fight at this very moment.
“This is all your fault,” she said when I finished.
It was in my mind to defend myself, if verbally this time. I could have said that if she had only told me who she was, we would not have fought, which was the incident that precipitated this entire ordeal. I could have blamed Barker for teaching me things that were forbidden and then not warning me against doing them in Limehouse. I could have claimed that a clash between K’ing and my employer was inevitable and this lost text merely the catalyst. I could have done all these things and passed the blame to another. But sometimes, one must admit one’s own mistakes.
“Yes,” I told her. “This is all my fault.”
She burst into tears again, and, somehow, I had my good arm around her and she was crying against my shoulder. Her silky hair smelled of what I suspected was jasmine, and every paroxysm reverberated through me. The grave reserve was gone because her guardian’s life was in danger.
“Regardless of the outcome,” I assured her, “you shall be free to go. I assume K’ing will hold to his bargain. If Barker should…well, fail, you will be well looked after by his lawyers.”
“And you? What about you?”
“Oh, my life is forfeit, I’m afraid. K’ing can do with me as he wills. Not that it was much of a life, mind you.”
“Do not talk like that,” she said in a low voice.
“My life has been one long series of mistakes,” I went on. “You have merely arrived in time for the latest.”
“Sir speaks highly of you. He has great faith in you. He says you are ‘coming along.’ That is a compliment for him.”
I directed her to one of the chairs and sat in the other. “I find it amazing that Barker has been informing you of my progress for an entire year, while he has not so much as mentioned your existence to me before last week.”
“It is the Chinese way, Mr. Llewelyn. Tell only what is necessary. Be careful in whom you confide.”
“Fide sed cui vide,” I said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“He has an old wooden shield on the wall of our office with a crest and motto in faded gold. It means ‘Trust, but be careful in whom.’ I can only assume it means that he trusts you, but he doesn’t trust me.”
“You have earned his trust,” Bok Fu Ying said. “You saved his life, remember? Sir says your main problem is impatience. It is the weakness of the Western world. You came to my door because you would not wait for him to reveal who I was.”
“I’m not-” I began, but we heard the sound of the key in the lock.
We both jumped to our feet, but it was only the guard bringing tea and cakes. Miss Winter had a headache and refused the tea. The tension had upset her. I sat and watched over her while she slept on the bed until our evening meal arrived. She talked little while we ate. We were both preoccupied with what would happen at midnight.
Finally, shortly after ten, a guard came and led her away. I demanded to know where he was taking her, but the man spoke no English. At eleven thirty, another came and led me through the tunnel and up into the street again. There was no need now for me to be guarded at gunpoint and the fellow led the way through a crowd of men. Dozens of them, all Chinese, moved toward a warehouse near the river. At some point we all converged, squeezing through a narrow doorway into a building full of benches built around a sunken ring. The seats were quickly filling, but as a guest I was seated ringside. As I came into the circle of risers, I noticed all the wood was new. This ring was what K’ing had hired his carpenters to build, and they must have started close to a week before. It confirmed my suspicion that K’ing must have known all along that Barker would choose trial by combat, despite his show of surprise.
I sat and looked around. Immediately across from me, an arm went up. It was Jimmy Woo, looking beside himself with excitement. I looked away, in any direction but at him. I didn’t trust the fellow. He was playing each side against the other and had proven himself unworthy of our trust.
To the left, I saw Ho glowering at me, arms crossed, and in a particularly foul mood. I avoided his gaze, looking for someone neutral and eventually found him, Dr. Quong, looking down into the ring. Then Barker came out in his trousers and gauntlets, looking calm, waiting for his adversary to arrive. Finally, he came and when he did, I felt my stomach tighten.
The Chinese were chanting his name as he came into the ring. He was called Manchu Jack, and he was
