Will Thomas - Fatal Enquiry

“Where the hell am I?” he suddenly bellowed into the night.

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Within minutes, the boy pressed small cups of strong, black tea into our hands, and I began to suspect that, all things being considered, I just might live. Briggs had fallen into a sullen silence, probably irked at how easily he had been overcome by my employer. In spite of what he’d called out, he appeared incurious of his surroundings, or of his sodden clothing, but then, he was likely nursing a concussion.

The boy soon returned with bowls of rice flavored with egg but with neither spoons nor chopsticks to eat them with. Barker dug his fingers into the bowl and shoved a handful into his mouth. Briggs sniffed the bowl suspiciously, decided the contents wouldn’t kill him, and began to do likewise. I followed suit. When we were done, Barker patted his pockets, then remembered his pipe lying on the floor in our offices with its stem broken. He frowned and sniffed, mentally tightening his belt.

“Lad,” he said. “Leave James and me to talk. There are berths down below. Get some sleep. You’ll need it.”

I wanted to hear what plan the Guv had concocted, but at the same time, I was cold and exhausted. I nodded and said good night, then went through the door of the makeshift structure and down a narrow set of steps. The boy met me there and led me through an ill-lit corridor to the stern of the ship. There, divesting myself of every stitch of clothing I had, I climbed into the unfamiliar bed, and was asleep almost instantly.

Hours later, I woke to the sound of the river slapping against the barnacle-laden timbers near my head. The cabin was smoky with the acrid scent of whale oil, and I felt nauseous from the fumes. Pushing myself out of the berth, I looked about for my clothes, but they were gone. Wrapping the blanket around me like a toga, I staggered to the door and threw it open. When I was certain I wasn’t going to be ill, I shuffled down the corridor. Ahead of me I heard a tinkling sound, almost like sleigh bells. In the main cabin, I was treated to a sight which almost made me forget my nausea entirely.

Cyrus Barker was stripped to the waist and there were stout steel rings suspended from his forearms, seven or eight on each one. They were an inch thick and a little wider than the circumference of his arms. He was performing one of his Chinese forms, like a ballet, but an earthbound one, under the accumulated weight of the rings. So deep was the strain, in fact, that the Guv’s body dripped with sweat and the short hair spiked upon his head. Barker had taught me several rudimentary forms but I had not seen one like this before. I waited until he was done before daring to speak.

“Where is Briggs?”

“I let him go,” he said, as he let the rings slide down his arm onto the floor with a musical clatter.

“You trust him to keep our whereabouts secret?”

“I trust him to do that which is in his own self-interest. I paid him off with a few damp bills from your trouser pockets. It should buy us some time, at least.”

“I hope you didn’t give him too many. Goodness knows how long we must live off them.”

“It’s only money, lad, and easily gotten,” he said, putting on a shirt.

“The words of a rich man,” I countered. “I’ve never found it so.”

“Yesterday morning you awoke in a comfortably appointed bed in an elegant house, where you dressed in the latest fashion and were fed by London’s finest chef. I would say you’re not doing too poorly for yourself.”

I couldn’t argue with that, but I put out my hand and reclaimed the wallet, which I found had been emptied of twenty-five much-needed pounds. Scotsmen are like that, I’ve found, penny-wise and pound foolish, but it was his money, and he could do with it as he pleased.

“What are we going to do today, sir?” I asked. “Shall we lie low?”

“We have an appointment later, but first we are expecting breakfast.”

“More rice and egg, I suppose?”

“The egg is considered a treat,” the Guv explained. “Normally they just have rice. They are giving us the best they have.”

“There’s nothing like a bit of rice and egg to break one’s fast,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

“It’s nourishing, at least. That is why half a continent lives upon it.”

“To be sure,” I agreed. “Sir, could you tell me what has become of my clothes? I don’t relish going about in a bedsheet all day.”

“They’ve been washed and mended and are drying on deck. They should be ready after breakfast.”

The tea arrived first, piping hot, but practically tasteless. Were I to mention it, no doubt I’d be told the flavor was subtle and I needed to refine my tastes. I prefer coffee to tea, and that as black as the devil’s heart, but I drank the tea and ate the rice anyway. The boy offered me chopsticks, but I still hadn’t mastered them yet, unlike Barker, who could pick up a single grain between the tips.

“This barge belongs to the Lo family, our gardeners,” Barker explained. “The boy’s name is Yuk.”

Soon after, Yuk came down with my clothes. They were still slightly damp, but it was better than spending the day dressed like a Roman senator in a grammar-school version of Julius Caesar . After changing, I returned from our cabin.

“What’s on for today, then?” I asked.

“We’re going out, but it’s early yet.”

“In that case, do we have time to finish the story you began yesterday? Your brother didn’t return from battle. What happened next?”

Barker’s brows went flat across the top of his spectacles like a storm head gathering.

He was not inclined to open the vault of his remembrances so soon after his last revelation. Under normal circumstances, I’d back away and leave him to himself, but not this time. This time I had the justification of my convictions. This time I was right. He had told but half a story, and I wanted and deserved the rest of it. What had happened after his brother was so cruelly slain in the field? Did he confront Nightwine, and if so, what happened next? There are times when you can just tell that a momentous story is about to be told, and I refused to be cheated out of his because of a man’s natural or perhaps unnatural reticence.

He cleared his throat a couple of times, perhaps hoping I’d take pity on him, but I was stern as granite. He rubbed a hand over his fringe of hair and began to speak.

“I did not learn of my brother’s death right away. Townsend Ward had been killed at the siege of Chang-Sheng-Chun and the army was in disarray. Some joined the captain’s force and others began to pack up to go to America with the Devil Soldiers. Colonel Charles Gordon was coming; the Americans were out, for the most part, at least, and the British were coming in. The rebels took advantage of this time of command confusion and launched an attack upon an unnamed hillside town south of Shanghai, and during that offensive, my brother had been killed. No one but Nightwine knew of our connection, of course, and who would associate a Chinese spy among the rebels with General Ward’s Scottish-born interpreter? It was three days after the siege before I heard he was missing in action.

“The first thing I did was to buy some bottles of plum wine and get blind drunk. Then I strapped a dagger to my wrist and went to Nightwine’s tent, determined to avenge Caleb’s death. It was a stupid mistake, but I was young. He waited in bed until I had the knife raised to strike, then pulled his pistol and sang out. The tent was immediately full of guards, and I was thrown in the stockade. Being in charge at the time, Nightwine could keep me there indefinitely without trial, or as he put it, I could stay there and rot.