die. She meant to survive, somehow, to live to escape. She would return to her own country some day, she swore it, because she had a purpose that would enable her to endure anything, no matter how dreadful.
She wanted revenge! She would never rest until she’d gotten that.
One of Ke Loo’s servants brought out a coil of rope and spoke in an undertone to his master.
“Tell him we won’t need that,” she said, speaking to MacNair though she did not deign to look at him again. “It’s not ropes, it’s my trust in you that has made me a prisoner.”
* * * * * * *
They set out almost at once. A luxurious chair had been provided for her, borne by four peasants. At first there were two burly coolies who ran alongside the chair as well to prevent any attempted escape. For a short while Lydia sat dry-eyed, seething with anger and the need for revenge. But the chair rocked gently and in the curtained privacy, Lydia gave vent to her anguish, sobbing into the pillows until they were stained with her tears.
It was infamous! This couldn’t be happening to her, not in the nineteenth century! Surely even in China there must be some form of authority. If Colonel Wu could do nothing, she’d beg someone else for help, she’d go to the Empress if necessary.
A fresh bout of sobbing assailed her. The Empress of China wasn’t going to listen to a mere girl, even if she could get to her. Anyway, it was said that the Dragon Empress hated the foreign devils as much as her subjects did.
Hopeless. She must be a slave to that cruel and terrifying mandarin, to submit to his caresses, and all because she had been betrayed by that monster, Peter MacNair.
She swore aloud, momentarily forgetting her grief in her anger. Over and over she repeated her vow, that someday, somehow, she would see Peter MacNair suffer as she suffered.
At length her tears ran dry and her grief faded to a dull gloom. Despite the horror of her situation, she was only sixteen, and China fascinated her. She found herself becoming interested in her surroundings, watching through the curtains as the great panorama that was China paraded itself before her eyes.
The coolies, mere beasts of burden to those who employed them, jogged quickly along. The peasants stood thigh-deep in water, working their fields with tools as ancient as the land. A water buffalo regarded her cynically, as if sharing with her a grim view of their circumstances. Old women tottered along the road.
Though they paused twice to rest and to make a brief meal of cold rice, she only saw her captor at a distance. She began to wonder if perhaps she had misjudged his intentions. Chinese men frequently had more than one wife, she had heard, the others being called concubines. She had heard of one prince with so many concubines that many of them never did meet him, though they lived all their lives in his palace.
Perhaps that was what fate intended for her. MacNair had said that to Ke Loo she was a novelty; perhaps he had satisfied his curiosity in acquiring her and, that accomplished, had lost interest in her.
Night fell and still they jounced along. A coolie ran before her chair carrying a lantern, its pale light giving her glimpses of a banyan tree, a thicket of bamboo, or the water gleaming darkly in the rice fields.
At last they passed one of the memorial arches that the Chinese raise to honor a virtuous woman or an eminent scholar, and she knew that they were near a town. The coolies seemed to quicken their step. The road led uphill and through the city gates. The streets were crowded still and the bearers shouted for the crowds to make way.
She was weary from the aftermath of the shocks she had suffered and the long day’s journey. They carried the chair into the courtyard of an inn and set it down.
She had never been inside a Chinese inn before, for when she had traveled inland with her parents, they had managed to find whites with whom to stay the night.
The courtyard was packed with people sitting at long tables, drinking tea or eating rice. Toward the rear, partially hidden in the shadows, two naked coolies were sluicing themselves with water.
She was taken to a chamber at the end of the yard, protected from the gaze of others by an elaborately carved screen. It was a large, windowless room with an open roof and a floor of trodden earth, its only furnishings a table with two wooden chairs and a pair of wooden pallets covered with filthy matting.
Notwithstanding its filth, she would have sunk wearily onto one of these had not Ke Loo’s servant clucked and scolded, preventing her from doing so.
“You wait,” he said, in almost his only English. He vanished, to return in a moment with a tied bundle. Untying it, he quickly replaced the dirty matting with clean taken from the bundle, and covered this in turn with silk cloths and pillows, until a luxurious bed had been made.
“Food,” the servant said when she stretched out with a weary sigh upon the bed. “You wait.”
“I’m too tired to eat anything,” she said, closing her eyes. “Just let me sleep, please.”
“You wait,” he said, going out.
She was asleep almost at once, despite the chatter of voices from the courtyard and the other rooms. In her dreams she was back again in Kansas. She had not been there since she was a child, and it was with a thrill of recognition that she saw again those great, broad plains, stretching as far as the eye could see, and the breeze making rippling waves on the surface of the ripening wheat. The wind soughing through the apple orchard, the scent of fresh-baked bread, lying in the velvet softness of the fresh-sprung grass—how long ago and far away it seemed, as if this alien land had become reality for her, and that was the stuff of fairy tales. Once she had sat listening to her parents make plans, and dreamed dreams of ancient China, of the mysterious East, as now she lay and dreamed of home—a home she might never see again.
Even in her sleep, a single tear escaped her eyes and wound its way down one cheek.
She was awakened by a sharply spoken command. She blinked, and saw Ke Loo standing by the bed. He had shed his embroidered robe and wore black trousers and a matching tunic, and in the dim light of the single lamp his eyes seemed to gleam with a light all their own.
He grinned, and in his grin Lydia saw the end to her last hope, that he might not desire her physically. He motioned for her to remove her clothing.
“Please,” she begged, hoping against hope. “I—I’m so tired....”
For an answer he lifted one hand and she saw that he held a whip made of knotted ropes, such as she had sometimes seen used on criminals and slaves. He brought it down loudly upon the scarred surface of the table, the noise making her flinch.
His meaning was clear. Regardless of the lack of ceremony, she was for all intents and purposes his wife now, and the wife’s role was to serve her husband. To refuse to do so would be to invite a beating, and far from being shocked, the others in the inn would sympathize with him if they knew the reason for his actions.
Too frightened to do otherwise, she got hastily to her feet and began to fumble with the fastenings of her gown, her fingers numb and clumsy.
As she undressed, Ke Loo watched her with little-concealed lust. She would have liked at least to undress in privacy, but as she watched Ke Loo swished the knotted whip to and fro impatiently, and she was afraid to ask.
Her gown fell to the floor, leaving her in just
