The Pirate Empress (24 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Esen’s Madness

Number Two Daughter would not stop crying.
Silence!
Li needed all her senses to identify what was wrong. She looked behind, but no ship followed. They had not taken enough booty to make it worthwhile for the merchant junk to make chase, and yet she knew something was terribly amiss. The figurehead of Xiang Gong loomed near, and a dark shadow moved beside it.

A Mongol stood at the prow of the pirate junk with Wu in his arms, a dagger to his throat, and Li gasped in horror as her son cried out in fear. “So,” she said, mustering all of her courage. “You have found me at last.”

“And I have found the little one, too. This one should never have been born. Now drop your weapons.”

“Why should we drop our weapons? You will kill him anyway.”

“Yes, I will. But I also want you.” The warlord smiled. “You have bloomed into a very beautiful young woman, Lotus Lily. Get aboard.” He turned to Madam Choi and her family. “You others, go where you will. I have no quarrel with you.”

Madam Choi rose, rocking the boat. “I will go nowhere until I retrieve my other children.”

“Take them. I want only this boy and his mother.” Esen nodded at three girls standing by the hatchway, and Madam Choi glanced from them to the dead girl in the serpent boat. Number Two Daughter was holding her hand, and Li could tell that she knew her sister was past help; none of Madam Choi’s remedies could replace the lost blood.

Li stood to obey the mad warlord, but Madam Choi shot out an arm.

“I can’t let him take Wu,” Li said.

If Madam Choi’s black eyes could have darkened any more they would have, but she nodded, stood down, firing a scathing look at Esen.

The three girls prepared to disembark. The oldest had her hands tied behind her back. The next oldest, Number Four Daughter, was eight years old, and glared rebelliously, reminding Li of herself at that age: fearless, invulnerable and completely stupid. Muscles tense, Li sent a warning glance at Madam Choi. She had lost one child; she wasn’t about to lose another. “Esen,” Li said to distract him. “I am coming aboard now.”

The glint of a fish knife flashed in Number Four Daughter’s fist as Li climbed the rope ladder to the deck, and placed her body between Esen and the girl. With her face to the warlord Li wiggled her fingers against her spine, motioning for the girl to slip her the knife.

The cold wood of the knife’s handle closed in her sweaty fist, and she kept it hidden as she ordered the girls to leave.

“Wait! Show me your hands,” Esen commanded.

“Jump, girls!” Li shouted. The younger ones helped their manacled sister overboard, and they landed in the arms of their mother and brother.

Li took aim, but before she could act, the warlord crumpled to the deck. Wu tumbled out of his arms, the Mongol’s dagger falling with him, and raced to Li. She scooped him up—but it wasn’t she who had caused Esen to collapse in convulsions. She didn’t care who had; she wanted him dead, and flung her fish knife into the dark in the direction of his thrashing. But it stopped midflight, with a loud
ping
, striking metal.

She placed Wu onto his feet on the deck and told him to stay put.

A shield lowered, and the man behind it kicked both blades out of reach, before resting his shield against the cabin’s bulkhead. He smiled. “Lotus Lily, you are a lost cause. Remind me tomorrow to teach you how to walk like a lady.”

Li clapped a hand over her mouth nearly collapsing with joy as the impossible dawned on her. “Tao! You’re alive!”

Tao glanced at the black, moonless sky. On the horizon a grey light sat on the edge of the world. “I don’t have much time. I’ve come to warn that Jasmine still seeks you. Somehow she got wind that her plot to poison you failed.”

“But why did you stop me from killing Esen? It is he who wants me dead.”

“Esen is harmless now. He has lost his voice and his power. No one follows him. The Mongols have a new leader.”

“Altan,” Li said instantly. “But I still want his brother gone. As long as he lives he will try to murder my son.” She gestured for Wu to approach, and he came boldly to stand before Li’s former tutor. “Wu, this is Tao. He is a great teacher.”

Tao hoisted his brows mischievously, and said with a sardonic smile, “So, now I am a great teacher?”

“The tea ceremonies were necessary. I realize that now.”

“And this little one,” Tao said, dropping to one knee. “Who is
your
teacher? Who taught you how to disable your kidnapper?”

Li glanced in astonishment at her son, before sending her gaze to the thrashing Mongol. “You did that?”

Wu nodded. “When I saw you were going to surrender to that hateful barbarian, I knew I must do something.”

Esen’s eyes bulged out of his head and his lips gasped for air, unable to get enough because his own blood was drowning him. Li stooped and dislodged Wu’s wooden blade from the warlord’s throat forcing the blood to gush out of the open wound. Esen grabbed her ankle while he spewed red mucus from nose and mouth. She kicked him hard and he convulsed.

“Madam Choi,” Tao said. By now the pirate woman and her children had boarded. She stared at him, astounded that he knew her name. “I am Tao. I am sorry to introduce myself under such unpleasant circumstances, but this man is dying and needs your help. He will be of more use to us alive than dead.”

“How so?”

“Look at him. He is a broken man, eaten up by the need for revenge. When he is healed he will see that his enemy is not Lotus Lily or her son, but rather his own sibling and his lover, the fox faerie.
They
are his betrayers.”

“How can a madman be of any use to us?”

“Master Yun’s plan was always to use Esen, not to kill him.”

“And where is the great warlock now? He has abandoned us to these invaders.” Madam Choi took a step closer, and squinted at his odd appearance. “What is wrong with you?”

Tao gazed at the green dye and rat’s blood on her face, now smeared to a mud tone. “I am what you pretend to be.”

Madam Choi’s mouth fell open and did not shut as Li walked over, one hand clasped to her son’s. She touched Tao’s sleeve. It felt real. His face was not verdant or fuzzy with white mould. His hair was not frosted with silver. Nor did he limp like the hopping corpse.

“You believe it, don’t you, Li?” Tao asked. “I have been watching you for many years now. I can move with the wind. But only when the red wheel of the sun sinks below the black sea.”

“You mean you can fly?”

“Show me,” Wu piped up.

Po stepped up beside Li, shot a knowing look shoreward. “I understand now. I see why Mao Mao left the bamboo forest and why it died. It was because of you.”

Tao dropped his head in remorse. “I’m afraid so. I never meant to harm her, but I needed the life essence of the bamboo to sustain my existence—”

“So that you could spy on Li!” The voice that boomed was not Po’s, and everyone turned to look as Lieutenant He Zhu climbed over the gunwale and flashed his sabre at Tao. Below the pirate junk was a makeshift raft strung together with dead bamboo.

“Stay away from him,” Zhu warned. “He reeks of danger.”

Madam Choi scowled. “I do not care who all of you are or what you are or why you are here. My daughter, my number one daughter, Leng, is dead.”

Li squeezed her eyes shut to control all of the conflicting emotions. That was the first time she had ever heard Madam Choi call Number One Daughter by her name. They must give the dead girl her proper due, and then deal with Esen. Tao couldn’t possibly expect Madam Choi to heal the mad Mongol after the death of her favourite daughter.

Despite the shock of Zhu’s unexpected appearance, Li grabbed the wrist of his sword hand to keep him from slicing off the eunuch’s head. “Tao is not our enemy.” She turned to Madam Choi and bowed. “The choice is yours. You have no obligation to save Esen’s life. If I went with my first feelings I would leave him as he is, drowning in his own gore. But Tao says that he should live. I believe in Tao. But you must do what
you
believe. Po and I will bring Leng to her bed and prepare her for her journey to the Netherworld.”

He Zhu was hesitant to re-sheath his sabre and glared openly at Tao.

“You made it here in record time,” Tao said. “The gemstone speaks to you.”

Zhu tucked his sword arm under his mantle, and scowled. “How did you get here before me? It has taken a month to reach this place by horseback.”

Then he narrowed his eyes and turned his vision on the dying Mongol. “If I learn that you led this savage to Li, I will personally kill you.”

“How many times must I remind you, Lieutenant? You cannot kill me.” Tao softened his gaze. “Why must you fight with your senses and your will. Why can’t you believe what you see? When have I ever harmed you, Zhu? When have I ever shown Li anything but love? Do you really think I’ve come here to murder her?” He paused again, his expression compassionate. “It is likely the Mongol followed
your
trail to Li’s hiding place.”

The face of the warrior-turned-monk crumpled, and he rethought his accusation.

“No, you are not to blame, Zhu. Something about the barbarian’s arrival here is suspicious. How did he get here?” Tao went to look over the side of the junk and saw no means of transport. “I see only
your
poor excuse for a raft attached to the hull. Where is
his
?” Tao scoured the deck around the dying Mongol and discovered a gold and azure peacock feather. He looked into the sky, frowning.

His brow unwrinkled. “I would not believe it was possible... but... anything is.” He glanced down at his own form, at his burial gown and his red-slippered feet. “Just look at me. I would not have believed my undead existence possible had I not become a hopping corpse myself.”

“Then you are as vile as that foreign devil there,” Zhu fired back, and slashed a second look at Esen. “Whatever
he
has done, whatever sorcery you are about to accuse
him
of, you are no better. All the stories I have heard concerning hopping corpses say they intend nothing but evil. They thrive only by killing others.”

“And you don’t believe me when I tell you that I do not survive on the blood of humans? You have seen the barrens surrounding Lei Shen’s temple. Now look to the devastation that was once Mao Mao’s home.” Tao jabbed a finger to the brown, wasted shoreline. “Is that not proof enough? Your eyes do not lie, Zhu. I survive by absorbing the life essence of plants.”

Tao waved the gold and azure feather in his face. “But that is the least of your worries. If this feather means what I think it means, and Esen has tamed
Fenghuang
, then it is vital now that the warlord, Esen, live. Madam Choi—” Tao swung to the pirate woman. “Are you only a pirate? Or will you help this man?”

%%%

Madam Choi agreed to aid Esen on one condition: that the death of Leng, Number One Daughter, be avenged.

“I cannot condone this bargain,” Zhu said. “That one—” he indicated Esen. “—Should die. Revenge for the girl means the killing of Imperial soldiers.”

“Only if they get in my way,” Madam Choi said.

“They will surely get in your way when they learn of your attack on the merchant ship.”

“Those sailors deserve to die. They killed a young girl who stole only to fill the empty bellies of her sisters.”

Tao interrupted. “We cannot get involved in your private vendetta. He Zhu must return with me to Lei Shen’s temple. He has much to learn of his power with the gemstone.”

Madam Choi’s eyes blazed. She ignored Tao’s excuses and confronted Zhu. “You still have a debt to pay, warrior monk. Your life or the life of the merchant sailor who killed my daughter.”

Li spoke before Zhu could answer. “The merchant seamen of the
Say Leng
will be on their guard now after our raid. The Emperor’s men will have been alerted. No junk will sail without protection as long as we and the other pirates threaten these waters.”

“Good, I prefer a fair fight.” Madam Choi turned to the men in succession, and then shot a glance at Esen. “Do we have a bargain?” she asked Tao. “You leave me the warrior monk and I will save the life of this worthless one. As for you—” She directed her next words to Zhu. “You serve under my captaincy this one time and I will absolve you of the death of my husband.”

Tao hesitated, nodded, while He Zhu stared at the ferocious chief of the sea gypsies. “Agreed,” Zhu said. “But when the girl’s death is avenged I will leave your service.”

The warlord’s pulse was weak and he was no longer convulsing. Bubbles of blood gurgled from the wound in his throat. Number Two Daughter went below to retrieve what medical gear was needed and Madam Choi drained his throat of blood with a reed pipe. She administered a salve, and then sewed the gaping slit closed with hemp thread. With a clean cloth, she wrapped the stitches to protect them from infection. Finally, she drugged him.