Kate Furnivall: The Russian Concubine

She stumbled as he fell, then caught herself, but instead of fleeing, she remained where she stood, eyes wide with astonishment. Entranced by the movements of the young Chinese man. He seemed to float in the air, hover there, and then swing out an arm or a leg as fast as a cobra strike. It reminded her of the Russian ballet that Madame Medinsky had taken her to at the Victoria Theatre last year. She’d heard about such fighting skills but never seen them in action before. The speed of it made her head swim. She watched him approach the man with the scythe and swing backward with elbows raised and hand outstretched, like a bird about to take flight, and then his whole body twisted and turned and became airborne. His arm shot out and crashed down on the back of the man’s neck before the scythe could even begin its swing. The Chinese woman’s red mouth opened in a wide scream of terror.

The young man turned to face Lydia. His black eyes were deep-set, long and almond-shaped, and as Lydia looked into them an old memory stirred inside her. She’d seen that look before, that exact expression of concern on a face looking down at her in the snow, but so long ago she’d almost forgotten it. She was so used to fighting her own battles, the sight of someone offering to fight them for her set off a small explosion of astonishment in her chest.

‘Thank you, xie xie , thank you,’ she cried, her breath ragged.

He gave a shrug of his broad shoulders, as if to indicate the whole thing were no effort, and in fact there was no gleam of sweat on his skin in spite of the speed of his attack and the stifling heat in the alley.

‘You are not hurt?’ he asked in perfect English.

‘No.’

‘I’m glad. These people are gutter filth and bring shame to Junchow. But you should not be here, it is not safe for a…’

She thought he was going to say fanqui.

‘… for a girl with hair the colour of fire. It would fetch a high price in the perfumed rooms above the teahouses.’

‘My hair or me?’

‘Both.’

Her fingers brushed aside one of the locks of her unruly mane that had fallen loose from under her hat, and she caught the stranger’s slight intake of breath and the softening corners of his mouth as he watched. He lifted his hand and she was convinced he was about to put his fingers into the flames of her hair, but instead he pointed at the old man who had crawled into the shadow of a doorway. A black earthenware jar stood in one corner of it, its wide mouth stoppered by a cork the size of a fist. Bent double with pain, the man lifted the jar and with a scream of rage that brought spittle to his lips, he hurled it at the ground in front of Lydia and her rescuer.

Lydia leapt back as the jar shattered into a hundred pieces, and then her legs turned weak with fear when she saw what burst out of it.

A snake, black as jet and more than three feet long. A few seconds, that’s all it took for the creature to slither cautiously toward Lydia, its forked tongue tasting her fear in the air. But abruptly it swept its head in a wide arc and disappeared toward one of the cracks in the wall. Lydia almost choked with relief. Those few seconds were ones she would not forget.

She looked back at the young man and was shocked to see that his face had grown pale and rigid. But his eyes were not on the snake. They were fixed on the old devil where he lay hunched in the doorway, staring up at them both with malice and something like triumph in his eyes.

Without dropping his gaze, the young Chinese said in a quick urgent voice, ‘You must run.’

Lydia ran.

Theo Willoughby liked his pupils. That’s why he ran a school: the Willoughby Academy of Junchow. He liked the raw untarnished eagerness of their young souls and the clear whites of their eyes. All unblemished. Untainted. Free from that damned Apple with its knowledge of Good and Evil. Yet at the same time he was fascinated by the change in them during the years they were under his wing, the gradual but irresistible journey from Paradise to Paradise Lost that took place in each of them.

‘Starkey, stop chewing the end of that pen. It’s school property. Anyway, you’ll catch woodworm from it.’

A faint titter ran round the classroom. The pupil in the second row of desks dug inky fingers into his mop of brown curls and threw his teacher a look of pure hatred.

Theo, at thirty-six years old, was as adept as any Chinese poker player at keeping his expression blank, so he didn’t chuckle. Just gave a curt nod. ‘Back to work.’

That was another thing he liked about them. They were so malleable. So easy to provoke. Like kittens with tiny little claws that barely scratched the surface. It was their eyes that were their true weapons. Their eyes could rake your heart to shreds if you let them. But he didn’t let that happen. Oh yes, he liked them all right, but only up to a point. He was under no illusions. They stood on the opposite side of the fence and it was his job to haul them over it into a well-equipped adulthood, whether they wanted to or not.

‘I would remind you all that the essay on Emperor Ch’eng Tsu is due in tomorrow,’ he said briskly. ‘No slackers, please.’

Instantly a hand went up at the front of the class. It belonged to a fifteen-year-old girl with neatly bobbed blond hair and a sweet dimple in each cheek. She looked slightly nervous.

‘What is it, Polly?’

‘Sir, my father objects to the fact we are learning Chinese history. He says I must ask you why we are finding out what some heathen barbarians got up to hundreds of years ago, instead of…?’

Theo brought down the wooden-backed board eraser with such a crash on his desk that it made the whole class jump. ‘Instead of what?’ he demanded. ‘Instead of English history?’ His arm shot out, pointing to a pupil in the front row.

‘Bates, what is the date of the Battle of Naseby?’

‘1645, sir.’

The arm swung around to the back of the class. ‘Clara, what was the name of Henry the Eighth’s fourth wife?’

‘Anne of Cleves.’

‘Griffiths, who invented the spinning jenny?’

‘James Hargreaves.’

‘Who was prime minister during the passing of the Reform Bills?’

‘Lord Grey.’

‘When was the introduction of macadamised roads?’

‘1819.’

‘Lydia…,’ he paused, ‘who introduced the rickshaw to China?’

‘The Europeans, sir. From Japan.’

‘Excellent.’ Theo slowly uncoiled his long limbs from his seat, his scholar’s gown billowing around him like great black wings, and walked over to Polly’s desk. He stood looking down at her, as a crow might look at a wren with its tiny foot in a snare. ‘So, Miss Mason, does that indicate a lack of knowledge in our little group of the history of our noble and victorious country? Would your father not be impressed by such a display of historical facts?’

Polly started to turn pink, her cheeks ripening to the colour of plums. She stared down at her hands, fiddling with a pencil, and stammered something inaudible.

‘I’m sorry, Polly,’ Theo said smoothly, ‘I didn’t quite catch that. What did you say?’

‘I said, yes, sir.’ But still her words were mumbled.

Theo turned to face the room. ‘Class, could any of you hear what Miss Mason said then?’

In the back row Gordon Trent stuck up a hand and grinned. ‘No, sir, I couldn’t hear nothing.’

‘We will ignore that appalling use of the double negative by Mr Trent and return to Miss Mason. So, let me remind you of my question, Polly,’ he said quietly. ‘Would your father not be impressed by such a display of historical facts?’

Before Polly could reply, Lydia jumped to her feet.

‘Sir,’ she said politely, ‘it seems to me that Chinese history is much like Russian history to an English person.’