The Crimson Pagoda by Christopher Nicole

Author:Christopher Nicole [Nicole, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2015-05-25T04:00:00+00:00

9

The Sack of Port Arthur

Constance had the strangest feeling that she had come home. Port Arthur was where she had been happier, for a single glorious week, than at any other time in her life. And here in this bath was where it had begun. The warmth of the water at last seemed to restore some peace to her tortured mind, even as it alleviated the aching of her feet and her back — it had been a walk of several miles over the hills from the beach to the town — and her ribs, still bruised from being hurled against the rail of the Kowshin; it really was a miracle that she had not broken anything.

She lay, half-floating, and allowed D’ao to massage her neck and shoulders, her breasts and her stomach. This was where she wanted to be for the rest of her life. Here in this bath, only the present was important. The horrors of the past could be forgotten; a consideration of the likely horrors of the future could be rejected.

Even the agitation about her no longer disturbed her tranquillity. Kate had not entered the pool. She still wore her nightclothes — it was not yet dawn — sat on one of the marble seats, hunched and aghast at what she had just heard, saying over and over again, “But, Constance, how terrible for you. How terrible for you.”

What had happened to a thousand men and one woman did not seem relevant to an imperial princess.

Ksian Fu had also not entered the pool to be with her, but preferred to pace up and down above her. If he had laid this plan to bring her back to him, he had been completely astonished when he had been awakened to find her in the palace, escorted by his soldiers, exhausted and dusty, parched with thirst and still shivering with terrifying memory. “War,” he said. “An act of piracy. With no declaration, no ultimatum, even. Is that the behavior of civilized people? Oh, we shall destroy them. We shall shatter them into the littlest pieces. Constance … Constance, open your eyes and listen to me.”

Constance opened her eyes; he was kneeling at the edge of the bath, looking down at her. Are you going to send D’ao for me tonight? she wondered. Because right this minute she wanted that. She wanted the physical reassurance of knowing a man, of knowing that she was alive, alive, alive, when so many others were dead. She had never actually seen anyone die before. The man who had been castrated by the soldiers outside of Chu-teh had still been alive when he had been dragged away, however soon afterward he might have perished. But yesterday morning she had been floating in the midst of a thousand dead men. And one dead woman.

She could understand that she was suffering from a minor nervous collapse, that she would eventually recover her strength and her determination, that anything she did now, as a result of

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