Shame of Man by Piers Anthony
They proceeded through the paved streets of Shanghai, which seemed ever narrower and filthier than before. The city thronged with people, most on foot, but some being borne along by hand-drawn rickshaws. The higher-class women preferred to ride, both because it showed their status, and because their tiny bound feet were not suitable for walking any distance. There were also people and animals coming to market on big wheeled wheelbarrows; they paused to let one pass by, the farmer sitting to the right side of the wheel, an alcohol-drugged pig tied to the left side, the indefatigable servant lifting and pushing from behind, a rope over his shoulders helping to take the weight of the wide handles. They passed a public square where a condemned criminal was caged for execution: his hands were bound, and his head was through a special hole in the top. He had the choice of standing on tiptoe as long as his feet held out, to relieve the pressure, or letting his body sag so that he strangled. This was an example for the innocent: the consequence of crime. Yet bystanders seemed more interested than appalled; indeed, some were making bets on the hour of his expiration. An official with a fancy hat was posing beside the cage to have his picture taken; he would probably savor that picture of justice in practice, the law and the condemned. Hu'o had no doubt that pickpockets and thieves were working this area as usual, each one supposing that he himself would never be caught, and if he was, well, it was mere fate.
His thought returned to one aspect: the bound feet. Ann's feet had been bound in childhood, and were attractively small, though when she danced too long they pained her. The smallness was attained by preventing the bones from growing normally; the feet were actually malformed. Mi'in, still a baby when the Taiping Rebellion started, had not had her feet bound, because this was a reform the reformers had actually instituted. And the truth was, her natural feet were not only considerably sturdier, they were not ugly. Ann had designed artful slippers that made them appear almost as small as Ann's own. So there was really no need for binding the feet. But it would be mischief to say that in Empire territory; the custom was too firmly entrenched.
Ward's station of the moment was in a regular old stone and wood house, distinguished from others only by its cleaner appearance. The British had a thing about dirt: they thought it unnatural, and tried to avoid it. This turned out to be a temporary hospital station; one of Ward's oddities was his insistence that his wounded men be treated instead of merely dismissed. Hu'o had heard that this made for friction between the commander and his Chinese backers, but it did seem like a compassionate idea.
There were armed Filipino soldiers at the entrance, all wearing deep green turbans, but Wood spoke briefly to them, and they immediately allowed him and his group inside. They passed through a room where a woman was rebinding a wounded soldier, and came to a small antechamber. “Please wait while I see if the commander is available,” Wood said, and turned to go on down a hall. Then he turned back. “There is no need for concealment, here,” he said. “If the ladies prefer to be themselves, that may be best.” Then he moved away.
“We had best make a good impression,” Ann remarked. She removed her peasant skullcap and let her voluminous hair show, working it and placing combs in it, and Mi'in did the same. Hu'o let his own long queue show and saw to Skev. In moments they all looked much improved.
Wood returned. “He will see you now,” he said. “This way.” He indicated the hall.
They followed him to a chamber no larger than the other. There stood a man in a plain blue frock coat, buttoned at the top, with a plain white shirt, and a kerchief tied loosely at the neck. He had a solid black mustache and a goatee. He held a rattan walking stick. Beside him was a dog: a huge black and white mastiff. Overall, Commander Ward had a considerable presence; he was clearly a leader. Yet, oddly, he carried no weapon, despite the formidable firearms available to him.
“Commander, this is the family who knows the female spy,” Wood said deferentially. Then, to Hu'o: “This is Commander Frederick Ward.”
Hu'o was uncertain of the protocol, so merely nodded without speaking. But Mi'in smiled at the soldier of fortune.
This had the usual effect. The man focused on her immediately, and visibly softened. He was a mature American, but few men of any persuasion failed to appreciate her qualities. “How do you do,” he said. The left side of his mouth drooped as he spoke, distorting his speech somewhat and damaging the handsomeness of repose. Hu'o remembered that he had been shot through the cheek once, leaving him with a liability of expression. There was no doubt that this was the man he had heard about.
“We know Serilda by sight,” Hu'o said. “She—this is her son.” He indicated Skev.
Ward glanced at Skev, then to Hu'o, and nodded. “That explains much,” he said. “She must have volunteered for the mission.”
“We want merely to find a safe haven where we can play our music and dance, according to our training,” Hu'o said. “But we may not have it as long as the Taiping leaders wish to destroy us, and Serilda can recognize us.”
Ward smiled, lopsidedly because of his mouth droop. “Rest assured that if we catch her, she will not bother you further. But we shall have to offer her a seeming chance to approach you without revealing herself. Suppose we place you in a guarded house for a few days, and on the second night the guard falls asleep?”
So they would serve as a lure. Hu'o was not completely sanguine about the notion, but it did seem to make sense. If they caught Serilda now, they would not have to be concerned about her subsequently. He looked at Ann and Mi'in, who both shrugged, though Mi'in again seemed less than easy. By common consent they did not mention or glance at Skev, who was the most likely target. Skev, fortunately, was not paying attention; he was making friends with the big dog.
Ward looked at Wood. “I think you are right. This is our best chance to capture the spy. See to it.”
So it was done. Soon enough that evening they found themselves in a reasonably tight house elsewhere in the city, with Wood himself standing guard at the door. After dinner Mi'in took Skev out to talk with him, so as to let the boy be seen from the street; she was sure that Serilda was watching. Wood was more than willing to have their company. Mi'in was now normally dressed, and her dark slender beauty was manifest.
“She is somewhat taken with him,” Ann murmured to Hu'o. “And he with her.”
He hadn't thought of that. Mi'in had had her effect on men even in childhood, especially when she danced, but had never taken any interest in any outside the family. He had assumed she was dazzling the young soldier just to facilitate things for the family. Yet she was coming of age, and so her interest was changing. “Is that wise?”
“Probably not. But maidens will be foolish, as I am with you.”
Hu'o caught her hint: for now they were alone in the house. He took her into the bedroom. They were no longer young, each being thirty or thirty-one, but for a while they pretended that they were.
A day later it happened: Skev was gone. Hu'o knew it by Ann's scream. The boy was not in his room and not in the house.
“But no one passed the door,” Wood protested. “We guarded it in shifts all night, and I myself pretended to sleep and even to snore, while watching.”
“It is true,” Ann said. “See, I sprinkled flour lightly just inside the door, and there is no footprint in it. But he is gone.”
They searched the house again. This time Mi'in found a crevice in the wall of a closet, too small for a grown person to wriggle through,, but perhaps large enough for a child. It led outside, to the shrouded back of the building. And there, caught on a projection of the crevice, was a small strand of hair.
“It is hers,” Mi'in said. “Left here for us to find. I feared this.”
“She must have lured him out,” Ann said. “He knows she is his mother. Maybe she told him she just wanted to talk to him for a moment.”
“And I never thought to watch the back of the building,” Wood said, chagrined. “There was no door, no window; I thought it had to be the front.”
“We all thought so,” Hu'o said. “But she knew this house better than we did.”
“It can't have been long ago,” Wood said. “We may yet intercept her, if we put out the alert for a woman and a child.”
“There are tens of thousands of women and children on the streets,” Ann said morosely.
“But few who would try to cross to the Taiping side,” Wood said. “Those are the ones to check. We can ban all such crossings; that will keep them within the city. And we can search here. You can recognize the woman if you see her, even in disguise, or your son.”
“Yes,” Ann agreed, her mouth tight.
“Yes,” Hu'o said.
“We will assign men to accompany you, to capture the women you point out. That will allow you to search separately, widening the range. I wish I knew what she looked like!”
“I will go with you, to identify her,” Mi'in said.
Again Hu'o glanced at Ann, but neither protested. Three search parties were better than two. Wood was a decent young man, despite being British, and would treat Mi'in with chivalrous respect. He hoped that Mi'in would remember her common sense.
Soon Hu'o found himself with one of Commander Ward's trusted mercenaries: a Filipino who spoke no Chinese but who knew the mission. All Hu'o had to do was point out a woman, and the soldier would go after her.
Assuming he managed to spy Serilda or Skev. Hu'o had a sick doubt in his belly, but he was trying to conceal that from others. Serilda might have had hours to spirit the boy out of the city before the alarm went out, and he wasn't sure how effective that alarm would be anyway. There was not a battle line; there was merely the empire territory and the Taiping territory, with ordinary residents between them, trying to avoid getting hurt. Serilda would surely have connections to help her escape, or she could have a hiding place in the city where she could not be found among the myriad thousands of other Chinese women with children.
They went to a main avenue leading out of the city toward the Taiping sector. Ann and Mi'in would be checking two others. If Serilda had hidden for a while, and was only now departing the city, it should be along one of these roads. Most of the traffic was inward, refugees from the encroaching armies, which made it easier; few were going the other way. Still, the chances of—
Then he saw her. He had once been Serilda's lover; he knew her bearing, her walk, even after a number of years. And the boy was with her! “There!” he exclaimed, pointing her out. What amazing fortune!
The Filipino ran to intercept the pair. But almost at the same time, the woman realized that she had been discovered, and ran off the street, hauling the child along with her. She was not particularly fleet, because of her small feet, but moved well enough to be out of sight by the time they reached the place she had been.
There was an alley she had fled into. They went to it, and saw her disappearing at its other end. They ran there, but the woman and the boy were gone. They hadn't been quite fast enough; she had had time to escape into another alley or even a building.
They checked to see what door she might have entered, but all were closed tight. The citizens were not inclined to open their doors to strangers during war. So unless she had happened to have a contact here, which seemed unlikely, she must still be on the street. Hu'o peered down it without much hope—and saw her in the distance, with the child.
He cried out, and they resumed the chase. But again she was gone by the time they got there. They had to make another search, this time in an area ravaged by one of the prior battles; the houses were unoccupied, being mere husks amidst rubble.
There was too much to search. So they doubled their chances by splitting; the Filipino took the section to the left of the street, and Hu'o the section to the right. Both of them paused frequently, listening, in case the woman was trying to move again, or the boy cried out.
Hu'o's search was fruitless, as he had feared. So in due course he crossed the street to join the Filipino—and found him unconscious. He had been struck on the head with a brick. Serilda must have ambushed him!
Hu'o looked rapidly around, knowing that Serilda had to be close. Within brick-throwing range. What was her purpose? To kill him? Or merely to escape with the boy? He couldn't allow that.
So he moved rapidly, making himself a difficult target for thrown missiles, and searched all around the half-standing walls and columns. This was nominally part of the city, but a desolate landscape, with stones and bricks littering the ground throughout, and pits where cellars had been. He almost wished that more of the buildings had been knocked down, because what remained standing provided too much cover for an ambush. Yet one of the buildings was a ruined Buddhist temple, hardly more than a fa?ade, with human statues still in their frames; he was not a Buddhist, but he was sorry to see the temple in such state. Buddhists, as a rule, did not practice violence; they tried to follow their eight-forked path.
But this was no time for reflections. Where was the woman? He neither saw nor heard anyone moving in the vicinity, and it was open enough, thanks to the destruction of warfare, so that he should have been able to locate any fugitives. Where was the one who had struck down the Filipino?
Then he got smart. Serilda had Skev. Unless she had the boy bound and gagged, Skev could be reached by voice. She had surely told him that bad soldiers were after them, so he had to be quiet and obey her implicitly. But the sound of his father's voice might overrule that. “Skev!” he called.
“Father!”
It was from the husk of a building, the walls forming a chamber open to the sky. Hu'o ran to it, alert for any sound or motion. But Skev ran out to meet him.
He swept up the boy. “Are you all right?” he asked. “She didn't hurt you?”
“How could I hurt my son?” Serilda asked from close by.
Hu'o jumped, whirling to avoid attack, thrusting the boy behind him. But she was not attacking. She stood there behind a low wall, where she must have ducked down to hide. She was dressed in ragged street clothing, like a farmer's woman, so that she would not be noticed on the crowded streets, but he could see that her body remained healthy and strong. She was a spy in enemy territory; she had to be ready for anything. She had used the boy to distract him. Yet she hadn't thrown a brick at him, or a knife, as she could have in that moment. She was merely waiting. Waiting for him to understand that she could have brought him down, and had not.
“What do you want?” he asked her.
“I led you here,” she said. “When you lost me, I showed myself again, so you could follow. I did not even kill the mercenary; he will recover in due course.”
Surely true; he should have been suspicious of the easy pursuit. “What do you want?” he repeated.
“I want my boy, and I want you. To be a family, together.”
“I thought you were married.”
“I am free of that now. You were always the one I wanted.”
“You were never the one I wanted,” he replied harshly.
“Then I will take my son from you.”
“No. I have him now.”
“Do you?” She looked at Skev, who now stood between them. “Will you go with your father or your mother?” she asked him.
Skev looked at her, then at him. “With my mother,” he said.
Hu'o was astounded. “You mean Serilda? Not Ann?”
“My real mother,” the boy said, stepping toward Serilda.
“You see, he is mine,” Serilda said. “Come with me, and you will have him and me, and the others you have known will be spared, because I will not tell Taiping of you. Remain behind, and—” She shrugged.
“Unless I kill you now,” he said. He had a knife, and he could throw it before she could throw a brick.
“No!” Skev cried, running to her.
Hu'o realized that he couldn't do it. Not in front of his son, and perhaps not anyway. She was the boy's natural mother, whatever else she was not.
Then Skev tripped on a stone and stumbled toward a hole in the p
Hu'o lunged for him, but knew he was too far away. He saw his son stepping at the brink, beginning his tumble. Just out of reach, in the time available.
Then he saw Serilda leaping over the wall with the athleticism of her dancing experience. She caught the boy by the shoulder, hauling him back.
Hu'o arrived. He caught Serilda. She writhed within his grasp, turning to face him, her body tight against him, her mouth seeking his. She kissed him with startling passion.
His first impulse was to shove her away. But his second was to hold her close: as a captive. “I have you,” he said.
She did not struggle. Instead she moved her torso so that he could feel its slenderness and its softness. “You always did,” she said, trying to kiss him again.
He turned his face away. “You are a spy for the Taiping Rebellion. You will be confined.”
“I could have gutted you,” she said, drawing away just enough to show him the knife she held in her right hand. “I kissed you instead.”
He realized that she was right, again. She had caught Skev, he had caught her, but she could have kneed him or stabbed him. He had not truly overpowered her. “Why?”
“How do you kill the man you love?”
She was serious. She had been sent on a mission to execute him, and could have accomplished it, having successfully led him to this isolated spot. But she had not even tried. Still, as long as she was free, the other members of his family were in danger. “You are still a spy.”
Then he saw a figure. “Well spoken,” Wood said. The man had a pistol pointed at Serilda. Mi'in stood behind him; she must have guided him here, using her uncanny awareness. “Commander Ward will interrogate her.” Beside him was the Filipino mercenary, evidently somewhat dazed, but functional.
Serilda did not remove her eyes from Hu'o's face. “You know what they do to female captives?”