Dragon Dance Read online

  The Chinese raised the stick and said something which sounded like an order.

  “I think he wants us to drop the daggers,” Brad said.

  “Are you saying we should?” Simon stared at him incredulously. “Give in to one man, with a stick?”

  “It’s not a stick,” Brad said.

  He reached out and took the dagger from Simon and tossed it, along with his own, to the floor.

  “It’s a gun.”

  3

  SIMON AWOKE CRAMPED AND STIFF. He tried to turn over and found that although the upper part of his body responded, something was holding his feet. He took in noises: creaking timbers, sounds of wind and sea, a nearer clanking sound. The clanking began when he tried to move and stopped when he did.

  Brad said: “You awake, Si?”

  He reached down and touched the chains which hobbled his ankles, and remembered the previous night.

  “I’m awake.”

  Early morning light through a square porthole showed him his surroundings. It was a cabin about six feet by twelve, bare except for the heap of charcoal which took up half the floor area and reached almost to the deck above. Fuel for the galley, presumably.

  Brad said: “The door’s bolted on the other side. Not that we’d be likely to get far with these leg irons.”

  Simon examined his ankles. The fetters were steel, of better quality than he had seen this side of the fireball. One was clamped round each ankle, and a very short chain connected them. He now remembered one of the Chinese snapping them shut and locking them with an impressive-looking key.

  He asked: “Where did that other one come from? I thought we’d checked out.”

  “He must have been lying low in one of the cabins.”

  “And that gun . . . I know the Chinese invented gunpowder, but I thought they only used it for fireworks.”

  “No. The Chinese armies that fought Genghiz Khan in the thirteenth century had quite advanced weapons—grenades, bombs, rocket-powered arrows, even flamethrowers. And what they called the fire-spurting lance. In other words, guns.”

  Simon was not too interested in Genghiz Khan. “What happens now?”

  “Well, they could have chopped us on the spot and tossed us overboard. I think they may be curious about us.”

  “Would you say that’s good?”

  “Better than the ocean.”

  “I suppose so,” Simon said. “You know what? I’m hungry again. Very hungry.”

  “Too bad,” Brad said. “That’s the trouble with Chinese food.”

  • • •

  Day was well advanced when the cabin door was unbolted and thrown open. A Chinese with a dagger gestured towards Brad. Simon got up, too, but was waved back.

  Brad said: “Looks like I have the call for first breakfast.”

  “Don’t eat all the ham and eggs.”

  “I don’t guarantee that. But I’ll save you a coffee.”

  The door was slammed and bolted behind him, and footsteps shuffled away. Simon’s wisecracking mood was replaced by an emptiness unrelated to hunger. He was fettered, on a junk in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, at the mercy of a bunch of Chinese about whom he knew nothing except that they were engaged in the slave trade. Even Brad’s notion that they had been spared death because their captors were curious took on a less cheering aspect as he considered it. Curiosity could involve a determination to find things out, by any necessary means. He recalled tales of Chinese torture. Comic book stuff, he told himself—but what was a situation in which you were chained and on a Chinese junk except comic book stuff?

  It was a long time before the cabin door opened again. The same Chinese indicated he should come out, and then pushed him in the direction he was to go. He had to climb stairs to the upper deck—not easy in leg irons. When he faltered, the Chinese pricked him sharply with the dagger.

  He was taken to a cabin in the middle of the upper gangway. An announcement was made at the door, in respectful tones, and he was pushed inside.

  It was a different world. There were paintings and decorated silks on the walls, patterned rugs on the floor, silk-shaded hanging lamps in the corners of the room. A sofa bed was heaped with cushions, and at the far end a Chinese sat cross-legged on a luxurious divan, smoking an odd-looking pipe. It was the man with the gun. He had a long face and drooping moustache, and wore a crimson robe. When he lifted his hand to dismiss the guard, Simon noticed manicured fingernails.

  As the door closed, the man spoke a few words, in a calm quiet voice. Getting no response, he spoke again. This time, though still not understanding it, Simon recognized the language as something like Chumash, the Indians’ tongue.

  The Chinese beckoned Simon to approach. He hobbled across the cabin, and another gesture directed him to kneel. Standing in front of him, the Chinese produced a gleaming bronze disk, attached to a black silk cord, from a pocket in his robe. A flick of his fingers set the disk spinning.

  Simon looked at it and then looked away. A perfumed hand pulled his head back. The disk still spun. He looked through and past it, visualizing other scenes: a Saturday afternoon’s cricket and the sun bursting through after rain, his dog Tarka doing her begging act for chocolate, a winter evening and the smell of roasted chestnuts . . .

  Abruptly the disk’s spinning was halted. The Chinese put it away and tugged a silken rope, sounding a bell somewhere outside. The guard returned and prodded Simon to the door. He was pushed down the gangway to a narrow deck section which ran alongside the stern castle, and further aft to a small quarterdeck where the anchor lay with its coiled chain in a shallow well.

  Simon was close by the bulwark rail, beyond which the swell of water stretched to a hazy horizon. He suddenly wondered about Brad, aware that it would take only a quick heave from the guard behind him to send unwanted goods over into the ocean’s depths. Had that happened to Brad? He didn’t have much chance, fettered and facing an armed opponent, but it would be better to go out fighting.

  He turned to face the guard. The man made a small jab with his dagger, and Simon backed off. If he retreated a bit, then threw himself at him . . . The dagger jerked again, and he retreated another step, and a second. As he tensed muscles, his heel touched something. Glancing round, he saw an open hatch; then lost balance as the guard shoved him. He dropped several feet before he landed, winding himself.

  Brad’s voice said: “Welcome back.”

  • • •

  Groggily, Simon got to his feet.

  “I take it you also flunked the test,” Brad said.

  Simon rubbed his right knee, which had taken the main impact. “What test?”

  “Didn’t he try hypnosis on you, too?”

  “Oh, that. Sure.”

  “But yours was obviously a shorter session. Maybe my bad reaction put him off. I have a feeling hypnosis could be something they take for granted—it probably ties in with the trance business. It doesn’t tie in with what I thought I knew about ancient China, but neither does trancing. I think we really puzzle him.”

  “So what do you think he’s going to do with us?”

  “As I say, we puzzle him. We’re unusual specimens. Wrong physical appearance, wrong response to hypnosis. If I were him, I’d keep us for study, later.”

  “Later? Do you mean, in China?”

  “Could be. And we’re only interesting while we’re alive, which means we should get fed and watered. On the other hand, if I have to cross the Pacific on a junk sharing twelve square feet of cabin space with you, I’m going to wind up bored to death or out of my skull.”

  “I see what you mean,” Simon said. “And vice versa.”

  • • •

  A few hours later, food and water were lowered in pans on the ends of ropes. The food wasn’t exciting—rice with something unidentifiable mixed in—but it satisfied hunger. The next day passed as monotonously. On the third morning, though, a ladder was tossed down, and they climbed it awkwardly into bright sunshine. One of the crew—perhaps the sam
e one—escorted them to the captain’s cabin.

  This time he wore a green robe, embroidered with little red dragons. He spoke in Chinese. When he got no reply, he pointed at Simon and spoke again.

  “I think he wants you to say something,” Brad said.

  “What?”

  “Maybe he just wants to hear what our language sounds like. Say anything.”

  Simon’s mind was a blank. As the Chinese spoke again, more sharply, he suddenly thought of English lessons in school and launched desperately into John of Gaunt’s speech from Richard II. “This land of such dear souls,” he wound up idiotically, “this dear dear land.”

  “Spoken like a true Brit,” Brad said. The Chinese was gazing at them with a look of bafflement. “But I wonder . . .”

  He too started reciting. It took Simon a couple of moments to realize he was doing so in Latin, reeling off one of the Christian litanies they had been obliged to learn during their stay in the Bishop’s palace. The Chinese listened closely, then raised a hand.

  “Lo ma ni?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Brad said, in Latin. “We come as friends and ambassadors from the Roman people. . . .”

  The readiness of the lie impressed Simon, but it was wasted. A wave of the hand cut Brad short. The hand pointed to a lamp, and a word was spoken. The Chinese looked at them expectantly.

  “He knows about Romans,” Brad said, “but he doesn’t speak Latin. So we’re to learn Chinese.”

  He repeated the word, and the Chinese nodded approval. He then picked up a small bell, rang it, and said something else.

  “Now, did that mean ‘the bell’ or ‘the sound of ringing’?” Brad asked. “Well, we’ll find out in time. And we’ve plenty of that.”

  • • •

  During the first session, which lasted over an hour, the Chinese identified himself as Shih Chung-tu. They were called for another lesson the next morning, and thereafter at daily intervals. After a week, Brad was able to conduct a halting conversation. That day they weren’t sent back to the hold.

  Brad explained: “He thinks it’s okay to give us the freedom of the ship. He pointed out we’re a long way from land. And, of course, we’re hobbled.”

  “Did you get any idea what he’s going to do with us?”

  “When we get to China? Well, we intrigue him. By not being susceptible to hypnosis, for one thing, and for another being Roman but at the wrong edge of the Chinese world. That seems to have surprised him as much as finding a pagoda in California did us. I think he feels a bit like someone on a horse-rustling expedition who picks up a couple of zebras. Or giraffes, more likely.”

  “So what do you think his plans might be for his giraffes?”

  Brad nodded. “Lots of possibilities. Put them on public show. Hand them over to a zoologist for a little scientific investigation. Keep them for private display, the way English ladies kept blackamoors in the eighteenth century. Sell them, maybe. If we’re potentially of value, it’s better, from our point of view, than just being nuisances.”

  “Did he ask how we came to be where he found us?”

  “Yes. I pretended I didn’t understand that bit.”

  “I don’t suppose it would do any harm to say we fled across the great water after the rebellion against the Roman emperor, and then kept on travelling. It’s roughly true.”

  “The sensible giraffe doesn’t start explaining its neck.”

  “Perhaps not.” Simon paused. “Do you think the wind’s getting up?”

  “Yes. And the sky’s looking dirty. That was a shorter session, and he went forward afterwards. He may think it’s the moment for calling up extra hands. By the way, I think I’ve worked out how we came to miss him at the beginning.”

  “How?”

  “If they can apply that trance sleep to one another, they can probably slip into it themselves. As the captain, he wouldn’t want to be out for too long, but short spells would break up the monotony and conserve energy. It was our bad luck he set his mental alarm for that particular time.” He pointed along the deck. “I was right about the extra hands.”

  Chung-tu was standing beside the hold containing the bulk of the crew. He produced a small gong and striker from inside his robe. The ringing, twice repeated, was carried to them on the freshening wind. Soon a head appeared from the hatch, followed by others. Within a minute, the deck was boiling with Chinese.

  • • •

  The storm blew up fast and lasted through that day and the following night. The resuscitated crew worked with noisy cheerfulness as the junk rolled before a northeasterly gale. The vessel showed its seaworthiness; although things became uncomfortable, Simon never felt the situation was getting out of hand.

  In the middle of the next day, with sea and wind moderating, a large meal was served; and afterwards all but three—a different three, Simon thought, but could not be sure—retired to the hold.

  Next morning the Chinese lessons were resumed, and as the days passed their grasp of the language improved. Brad reached the point where he could ask fairly complex questions and understand most of what Chung-tu said in reply.

  The technique for putting people into deep trance, he said, had been known for hundreds of years. Apart from its value on long voyages, it had other advantages—in the healing of certain sicknesses, for instance. It was part of the Laws of Bei-Kun—of the lower part. The higher part was sacred, known only to the priests of Bei-Kun.

  Brad asked about the Indians. They were highly prized, Chung-tu told them, as personal attendants by the gentry of the Celestial Kingdom. They would not be required to labour in the fields like peasants, but would live lives of comparative ease. It was their high value which justified such an expedition as this, across the greatest of oceans.

  But another question from Brad drew what was plainly a rebuke. Simon asked him about it later.

  “I goofed,” Brad said. “I said I supposed if they were so valuable this would be a very profitable trip. He didn’t like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “He said he was a humble servant of the Son of Heaven, concerned only to do the Son of Heaven’s will. I was implying he was acting as a merchant, and the Chinese gentry despise merchants.”

  “But he stands to get something out of it, surely?”

  “Of course he does. Honours, land—probably bags of gold, too. It’s the sort of arrangement Elizabeth the First had with men like Raleigh. He gives the slaves to the Emperor and gets presents, and the Emperor passes the slaves on to courtiers in the same way. It’s not really trade, or you can pretend it isn’t.”

  “How do they know how much to give?”

  “By the way the Emperor holds his fan.”

  Simon looked baffled.

  “Not literally. But the Chinese are a subtle lot. He would have a hundred ways of indicating he wasn’t satisfied—apart from the simple ones like taking people off his party list. Or calling up the Lord High Executioner.”

  “Anyway, it doesn’t sound too bad a life as far as the Indians are concerned.”

  “No, but slavery’s slavery, whether they tie you with a rope or a golden tassel.” Brad frowned. “I wish I could understand the Bei-Kun business.”

  “Wouldn’t he explain?”

  “My Chinese isn’t up to it. Obviously it’s some sort of religion. The ancient Chinese were divided for a long time between Confucianism and Buddhism, with Confucianism finally winning out. Maybe Bei-Kun was a new prophet in this world. But how does it fit with the fireball?”

  “I don’t know,” Simon said. “You worry about it. This giraffe’s more concerned with what happens when we get to China.”

  • • •

  The tedious days grew into monotonous weeks. Three more times the crew was awakened to deal with bad weather, subsequently returning to hibernation. Simon found himself envying them. For a period of over a week, they had no summons to Chung-tu’s cabin: he guessed the captain had grown bored with the lessons and opted for trance.

/>   Then one morning an excited cry from one of the crew brought the other two to the port bow. Brad and Simon hobbled after them to find them hanging over the rail. The sea was calm to a misty horizon, but there was something just discernible: a promontory of land.

  “China?” Simon asked.

  “More likely one of the islands between Japan and Formosa.”

  The spit of land eventually fell away to stern, and they sailed on into broad empty waters. But a few days later, after the daily fix of position had been made, Chung-tu sounded his gong, and the rest of the crew came hurrying up on deck.

  Soon they were swarming the length and breadth of the ship, scrubbing and cleaning, polishing and painting. Some swung dizzily from ropes attached to the tops of the masts, painting the sails’ bamboo battens gold. When they had finished, the junk looked like a different vessel. Chung-tu made a leisurely inspection and then took his gong to the hold where the Indians lay.

  Sounds from within indicated a return to consciousness. Normal at first, they were soon punctuated by cries of grief and misery. Then, on orders from Chung-tu, figures started to appear on deck. They moved slowly and clumsily, like people emerging from a drugged sleep. Some were being carried by others. Sleeping still, Simon thought, until the unmistakable smell of corruption told him this was not sleep, but death.

  On a further command, the bearers took their dead companions to the side of the junk and slid them into the sea. There was no ceremony. Simon remembered the funeral of a young Indian who had been killed on a hunting expedition, which had gone on for hours with chanting and sobbing, and the shamans dancing.

  “I’ve counted fifteen so far,” Simon said, as a brave who had sat close by him at the feast was dropped overboard. “What do you think went wrong?”

  “Hibernation must be very close to death. I suppose some were physically weaker or more frightened, or something. I don’t know. But it puts things in a different perspective, doesn’t it? It seemed reasonably civilized, as slaving goes. Not like our African slave ships with their holds crammed with poor suffering wretches. It’s just as ruthless, though. Look at Chung-tu; there’s no surprise on his face. The number of deaths is probably average for a voyage like this.”