Casca 18: The Cursed Read online

  As an undercover spy, Casca was quite outside the protection of the treaties. If captured he would certainly be executed after being suitably tortured for information. Any Chinese who assisted him in any way risked the same treatment.

  As Casca dozed he confirmed in his mind the plan that he was already working toward. He could not hope to remain undiscovered in any one place for more than a few days. Just his physical bulk astounded even the largest Chinese and aroused widespread comment amongst people who generally only came up to his elbow and were so lightly built that he could carry one under each arm and another one, or even two, on his back.

  And just the color of his eyes was sufficient to betray him. Not only were there no blue eyed Chinese, they did not even know of blue eyes, so that he was an object of wonder anywhere he was seen. And the wonder led to comment, discussion, and even alarm.

  If he were to survive he had to carry out the assignment very quickly and make his way back to Hong Kong as fast as possible.

  Casca had not been slow to provide the sort of evidence that the consul was looking for. He reasoned that the assignment would not be considered complete until the consul had in hand all the information he was seeking.

  In each port and town that Casca had traveled through he had sought out the contact for the British intelligence network and sent a dispatch to the consul. He reported widespread resentment toward foreign devils, and especially the British. He exaggerated every instance of obstruction or lack of cooperation that he observed, and reported casual anti British remarks as the rantings of agitators. He also reported widespread dissatisfaction with financial conditions, and assessed the general state of the society as unstable.

  He had come to Shou Chang in the hope of uncovering evidence of impending conflict. He had already decided that if the evidence happened to be insufficient, he would see to it that more evidence came to light, even if he himself had to foment a rebellion.

  As it happened he need not have worried. Discontent was, indeed, everywhere and growing daily. China was a powder keg waiting only for a detonating spark.

  When Ju Songzhen woke him to say that her own bedchamber was ready for its guest, Casca got up from the chair, put two fingers into his satchel strap, and casually lifted it just clear of the floor. He allowed it to swing there like a pendulum, and as he came to the doorway of the bedchamber he let it swing forward and released it so that it skated across the floor to come to rest in a corner.

  The carefully wrapped gold and gems made no sound, and Casca thought he had adequately disguised the sack's real weight.

  He turned in the doorway, effectively occupying the space beyond as his own private territory.

  "Thank you my kind hosts. I am sure this chamber will be very satisfactory. Now I intend to rest."

  He let the sack curtain fall in their faces.

  He was moving to retrieve his satchel when an embarrassed cough came from the curtain, and he turned to see Liqun's face nervously peeping into the room.

  "What is it?" Casca asked.

  "Honorable barbarian Cas Ca Sho," Ju Liqun said, coming into the room, "does not my humble wife Songzhen please you?"

  "I find your wife and your house very pleasant and suited to my purpose, thank you."

  Ju Liqun looked confused and worried. After a moment he plucked up the courage to speak again.

  "Honorable Cas Ca Sho, we are of the Hakka people, a people who travel much. We understand the needs of travelers, and it affords us the highest gratification to provide for the pleasant relaxation of strangers who have been wearied by long journeys. The hospitable reception of strangers is agreeable to our deities, and draws down the blessing of increase upon our families, and ensures augment to our wealth and safety from dangers."

  He waited expectantly, but Casca didn't speak for want of understanding where this conversation was headed.

  "We are a poor and humble family, and my wife is an insignificant woman, but I humbly beg that you will take her for your pleasure."

  He drew aside the sack curtain and gestured to where his wife stood in the doorway.

  Her work clothes had been replaced by a close fitting cheongsam that ended at her knees. Deep slits in the sides of the dress revealed shapely legs. Songzhen's almond eyes fluttered as she looked apprehensively at Casca, and he realized that she dreaded the possibility that he might reject her and so deprive her family of the much needed goodwill of the gods.

  Well, Casca thought, one shouldn't be ungracious, and I would not wish to cause embarrassment. He smiled and held out his hand to Songzhen and bowed to Liqun. "Thank you, generous host, for your kind hospitality. The gods will bless you for it."

  Ju smiled and bowed, then withdrew to the other room. There was a great deal of noise, as if something heavy were being dragged about, and Ju Liqun reappeared in the doorway, dragging an iron tub full of steaming water. The two children were helping him, pushing the tub from behind. They smiled and left the room.

  Songzhen indicated to Casca that he should undress and get into the tub, and he very readily did so. Songzhen squatted beside him and soaped and washed his body thoroughly.

  "Where does this hot water come from?" Casca asked in some wonder.

  "Why, the water comes from the village pump, and it is heated in our yard. Like everybody else we love to bathe each day in hot water."

  "But is it not expensive to heat the water?"

  Songzhen laughed lightly. "Not at all, honorable guest, we have much coal in our yard."

  "But where do you buy this coal?"

  "But we do not buy it. It is always there. We dig for it.''

  Then Casca recalled that coal was, indeed, everywhere in this country and, in the main, only a few feet beneath the surface. Even the poorest people, he now remembered, we’re accustomed to bathing at least every few days. Those who were too poor to have their own tub went to public bathhouses where the water was heated at the expense of the community for the convenience of all.

  He got out of the tub and Songzhen dried him carefully, then motioned for him to lie on the low, wide bed. She squatted beside him and anointed him all over with some sweetly scented oils, and then gently and thoroughly massaged his aching muscles. .

  By the time she was through Casca felt pleasantly relaxed and at ease.

  Songzhen stood up and unlatched the cheongsam at the neck, allowing the garment to fall to reveal her small breasted, slim hipped but shapely body.

  Not bad, Casca was thinking when she threw herself at him, grabbing him by the shoulders and biting him tenderly but hungrily on the neck while she rubbed the length of her body against his. Her little hands fluttered about like butterflies, now playing with his hair, now stroking his chest or fondling his testicles. All the while Songzhen continued to nibble at his body wherever her mouth happened to contact it.

  Then she was astride him and he was inside her, her agile body pushing at him with a fierce energy that said clearly that it had been a long time since her drunken husband had satisfied her longings.

  Casca readily devoted himself to the task, and in a little while Songzhen slept serenely beside him, a small smile of contentment on her face.

  From the next room came the sound of the sleeping Liqun's heavy breathing. Worn out, Casca surmised, with his fruitless study of how to secretly open his two boxes.

  So far so good. By tomorrow he will have given up on the boxes as impossible to open without obvious damage. He might then start thinking about Casca's other possessions, such as the leather pouch, full of diamonds perhaps, but in fact, of shaving gear. So he would continue to carry the pouch on his person and allow Liqun to see it from time to time, while using it to carry a portion of his valuables.

  Which would leave only his satchel. Time to do something about that. He crept out of the bed and explored the floor on his hands and knees, seeking a loose floorboard.

  But, when he found one, the empty hollow beneath convinced him that he had found one of the Ju family hoards, n
o doubt just recently emptied while Songzhen had prepared the room for him.

  He continued his search by the faint moonlight, and at last found what he was looking for – a gap between the wall and the first floorboard. He dug into the ground under the board, and soon produced a cache large enough for his valuables.

  He put the opium, most of the English money, some gold, and some diamonds in the small pouch, and buried the rest.

  He carefully scraped all of the earth back into the gap, compacting the loose soil over his hoard so that even exploring fingers would find nothing but dirt. Then he took off his jacket and trailed it back and forth and around in circles until all traces of fresh dirt had been distributed all about the room.

  He guessed that any time now Ju Liqun would awake and start thinking about his satchel, so he put his shaving gear in it and placed it where it could just be seen around the sack curtain. He had Liqun thinking it held nothing of value, so now he could find it so.

  All the while he had kept one eye on Songzhen, but her eyelids had not so much as fluttered, nor had the smile left her lips.

  For his amusement, he noted his satchel's position. He knew that when he awakened he would no doubt find it slightly moved. Thus noting its place in the room, he fell into an untroubled sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  As it happened, when he awoke the position of his sack was not one of Casca's immediate concerns.

  His main concern was to stay well out of sight, which he did by crouching behind the bed, while through the space beneath the curtain he stared at the elaborately studded boots which were all he could see of the man who stood in the outer room talking roughly to the Ju family.

  The boots were of blue velvet, studded with brass rivets, with thick rope soles. The heels carried spurs that came to a single long point. The boots were about the size that Casca would wear himself. The man's exceptional height was added to by the elaborate spiked knob atop his leather helmet. From his position Casca could hear a horse snorting and stamping outside in the street.

  The visitor announced himself as the representative of the warlord Zhang Jintao who was visiting the village to consult with the community elders about circumstances in the countryside, and to exact tribute.

  Casca heard Ju Liqun bleat that the insatiable tax gatherers of the ever hungry and heartless emperor had already taken everything of value.

  The collector answered with grunts of disbelief and disinterest, and Liqun quickly abandoned his act and went to the counter. He produced a small rosewood box and handed over the pile of coins that it contained.

  The extortioner took the money with one hand while a backhand swing of the other arm swept Ju Liqun into a corner.

  Songzhen ran to the most obvious of the family hoards, a broken teapot atop the stove. She brought it to the tax gatherer and emptied its coins into his outstretched hand.

  As the last coin fell she was hurled to join her husband on the floor.

  "Stupid people," the collector snarled, "do you think we can protect you from your enemies without money?"

  He drew his heavy sword and pointed it at the children, who cowered against the wall.

  "Look at this sword. It is all that stands between you and the greedy emperor and the even greedier foreign devils. Without our swords to protect you, you would have long since starved. And now you try to cheat us of our just stipends."

  Sword in hand, he started for the room where Casca was hiding. As he moved past the sack curtain Songzhen's terrified shriek turned him for a moment, and he was just turning back when Casca's feet caught him in the chest as he came up from behind the bed and tumbled across its width, utilizing all the momentum of his somersault in the kick.

  The extortioner went down backward and his sword clattered to the floor.

  Casca sprang from the bed and hurled himself onto the fallen man.

  But he was not there, and Casca crashed heavily to the floor. The big man kept rolling, then sprang to his feet, his retrieved sword in hand.

  "Oh shit," Casca panted, rolling frantically in his turn as the sword came down to cut deep into the floor where he had been.

  "Ah ha," the warrior shouted, "a foreign devil is harbored here. I will have some questions once I have killed him."

  With confidence he moved closer. As he raised the sword Casca shouted: "Zhang Jintao will have your head if you harm me."

  The warrior paused. His stupid little eyes looked worried. How could a barbarian know Zhang Jintao? It did not occur to him that Casca had just heard the name from his own lips. How could a barbarian speak Chinese? "You know the warlord Zhang Jintao?"

  Casca made a quick assessment of the man. A typical tax collector, pea sized brain in a giant body. Easier to fight the brain while he could get away with it. "Take me to him," Casca demanded imperiously.

  "I will take him your head," the warrior replied and commenced to raise his sword again. .

  "And you will surely lose your own. I have a message for Zhang Jintao from the Baron Chung Wei."

  Perfectly true, Casca thought to himself. I was Baron of Chung Wei under the Emperor Tzin. Sure, it was more than a thousand years ago, but I don't want to sow confusion and further addle this ape's head.

  He smiled at the thought.

  The tax gatherer was totally confused. Surely the barbarian was lying. But he could not risk his warlord's displeasure. And why was the foreign devil smiling? He motioned with his sword for Casca to precede him.

  Casca stepped through the doorway and saw Deng Ziyang jerk the edge of his hand across his throat in the universal gesture.

  His mind was racing as he tried to weigh his chances of escape once outside the house, or the even less likely chance of his being able to outwit the warlord once he met him. The old man's gesture decided him, and he turned back toward the warrior, who was just a pace behind him, the point of his sword a few inches from Casca.

  Casca pointed to his satchel, noting as he did so that it had been moved. "I have some valuables in this room," he said.

  "Aha." The giant turned, and as he did Casca drew his knife and drove it into his kidneys with all his force, pushing the big man farther into the room.

  He staggered and almost fell, but turned on his buckling knees and swung his heavy sword for Casca's throat.

  But Casca had hung back. The sword missed, and Casca leaped forward to reach under the sword arm and drive his knife deep into the extortioner's heart. He pitched forward onto the floor, a comical look of amazement on his stupid face.

  Deng Ziyang spoke from the doorway. "The only thing to do, or we were all dead. But now, my esteemed friend, we must move fast. We must hide the body of this stinking Korean, and his horse too."

  "Korean?" Casca asked.

  "Of course Korean. No Chinese is so big. Many warlords hire stupid Korean mercenaries as tax collectors. They hate Chinese anyway, so they are especially brutal to us.”

  The old man's voice had taken on a note of authority and evident enjoyment to be involved in some action.

  Casca realized that Deng was also enjoying the prospect of recovering from the corpse not only the Ju family's money, but everything that the collector had extorted from the villagers that day. Many of the village families would recover their tax contributions and reward Deng Ziyang for them.

  Indeed, Liqun and Songzhen had already removed the extortioner's belt and pouch, and were now busy taking off his clothes, while Deng Ziyang studied the contents of the pouch.

  Casca picked up the shirt of heavy blue cotton and realized for the first time how lucky he had been with his two knife thrusts. The shirt was of two layers of cotton, lined with small scales of hardened leather to form a sort of armor to protect the wearer from sword slashes.

  Casca's thrust to the kidneys had gone under the length of the shirt, and his second thrust had found one of the gaps between the leather scales.

  He shrugged his way into the shirt and found it a tolerable, if rather tight fit. He added the leg piec
es and the small apron made of the same material. He took the belt and pouch from Deng and smiled to see the old man's face fall, then light up as Casca emptied the pouch on the floor. There was a knife in a sheath on the right side of the belt, the sword scabbard on the left.

  By now Ju had removed the studded boots and Casca stepped into them, the thick rope soles adding a couple of inches to his height. He put on the leather helmet and pulled the peak down over his eyes.

  "Good enough to get by if I don't come face to face with any of the warlord's other men."

  He crossed the small front room and went out into the street to look at the horse. It was a fine animal, in good condition, with a splendid saddle. A leather socket held a bamboo lance about eight feet long, and from the pommel hung a round cane shield and a face guard.

  The guard was in the form of a mask, made of a number of small metal plates riveted together to resemble a man's face with eye slits, a nose pierce, and a hideously grinning mouth.

  Casca went back into the Ju house. In the back room the naked body lay on the floor and Casca studied its bulk distastefully. Killing a man never troubled him, but he had an ingrained objection to the tedium of disposing of bodies. Especially when it had to be done in secret.

  Dead bodies, he knew, were heavy; they stank; and they were almost impossible to carry unobserved even in the dark if they were lucky enough to be able to wait for darkness.

  While he was pondering the problem he saw Songzhen returning to the room with a broad bladed Chinese cooking knife in her hand. Ju Liqun and Deng Ziyang struggled to turn the body onto its face, and she squatted beside it and began to slice through the backs of the knees. As she pushed the severed legs aside her husband wrapped them in pieces of sacking.

  She wielded the cleaver like an ax to cut through the hip joints and then went to work at the shoulders, and lastly chopped through the neck. She carried out the whole operation as disinterestedly as she might have butchered a pig.