“Aye. I suppose Culum told him?”
“Yus.” Brock marked the sharpness of Struan’s voice. He drank heavily of the beer and wiped the froth off his whiskers with the back of his hand. “I be sorry to hear that. Bad joss.” He drank again. “Yor boy’n mine be just like old shipmates.”
“I’ll be glad to be afloat again.” Struan ignored the taunt. “I had a long talk with Jin-qua this afternoon. About the fever. They’ve never had it in Kwangtung, so far as he knows.”
“If it be truly malaria, then we’s a passel of troubles on our’n hand.” Brock reached over and took a breast of chicken. “Help thyself. I heard price on coolies be up. Costs is soaring terrible in Hong Kong.”
“Na enough to hurt. The fever’ll pass.”
Brock moved his girth painfully and drained the tankard. “Thee wanted to see me, private? To talk about fever?”
“No,” Struan said, feeling tainted by the stench and the perfume Brock wore and the smell of stale beer. “It was about a long-standing promise I made to come after thee with a cat-o’-nine-tails.”
Brock picked up the handbell on the table and rang it vehemently. The sound splintered off the walls. When the door didn’t open immediately, he rang it again.
“That cursed monkey,” he said. “He be needin’ a right proper kick in the arse.” He went over to the barrel, of beer and, after refilling his tankard, sat down again and watched Struan. And waited.
“Wot about it?” Brock said at length.
“Tess Brock.”
“Eh?” Brock was astonished that Struan wanted to precipitate the decision over which he himself—and undoubtedly Struan, too—had fretted for so many nights.
“My son’s in love with her.”
Brock gulped some more beer and wiped his mouth again. “They’s met but once. At the ball. Then there were afternoon walks with Liza and Lillibet. Three.”
“Aye. But he’s in love with her. He’s sure he’s in love with her.”
“Are thee sure?”
“Aye.”
“Wot’s thy feeling?”
‘That we’d better talk this out. In the open.”
“Why now?” Brock said suspiciously, his mind trying to find the real answer. “She be very young, as thee knowed.”
“Aye. But old enough to wed.”
Brock thoughtfully toyed with the tankard, looking at his reflection in the polished silver. He wondered if he had guessed Struan correctly. “Is thee asking, formal, Tess’s hand for thy son?”
“That’s his duty, na mine—to ask formal. But we’ve to talk informal. First.”
“Wot’s thy feeling?” Brock asked again. “About the match?”
“You know it already. I’m against it. I dinna trust you. I dinna trust Gorth. But Culum’s got a mind of his own and he’s forced my hand, and a father canna always get a son to do what he wants.”
Brock thought about Gorth. His voice was brittle when he spoke. “If thee’s so strong against him, beat some sense into him or send him home, pack him off. Easy to rid of that young spark.”
“You know I’m trapped,” Struan said bitterly. “You’ve three sons—Gorth, Morgan, Tom. I’ve only Culum now. So whatever I want, he’s the one that’s got to follow me.”
“There’s Robb and his sons,” Brock said, happy that he had read Struan’s mind correctly, playing him now like a fish.
“You know the answer to that. I made The Noble House, na Robb. What’s your feeling, eh?”
Brock drained the tankard thoughtfully. Again he rang the bell. Again no answer. “I’ll have that monkey’s guts for garters!” He got up and began to refill his tankard. “I’m equal against the match,” Brock said roughly. He saw a flash of surprise on Struan’s face. “Even so,” Brock added, “I be accepting yor son when he be asking me.”
“I thought you would, by God!” Struan got up, his fists clenched.
“Her dowry’ll be the richest in Asia. They be married next year.”
“I’ll see you in hell first.”
The two men squared up to each other ominously.
Brock saw the same chiseled face he had seen thirty years ago, the same vitality permeating it. The same indefinable quality that caused his whole being to react so violently. By Lord God, he swore, I baint understanding why Thee put this devil in my path. I only knowed Thee put him there to be broken, regilar, not with knife in’t back and more’s the pity.
“That be later, Dirk,” he said. “First they be marrying, fair and square. Thee’s trapped right enough. Not o’ my doing and more’s the pity, and I baint driving thy bad joss in thy face. But I Seed thinking muchly—like thee—about they two and us’n, and I thinks it be best for they and best for us’n.”
“I know what’s in your mind. And Gorth’s.”
“Who knowed wot’s to be, Dirk? Mayhaps there be a joining in the future.”
“Na while I’m alive.”
“On the other hand, mayhaps there baint a joining and thee keeps thine an’ we our’n.”
“You’ll na take and break The Noble House through a girl’s skirts!”
“Now you be alistening to me, by God! Thee brung this’n up! Thee sayed to talk open and I baint finished. So thee’ll listen, by God! ’Less thee’s lost thy guts like thee’s lost thy manners an’ lost thy brains.”
“All right, Tyler.” Struan poured another brandy. “Say your mind.”
Brock relaxed slightly and sat down again and quaffed Jus beer. “I hate thy guts and I always will. I doan trust thee either. I be mortal tired of killing, but I swear by Jesus Christ I be killing thee the day I see thee again’ me with a cat in thy hand. But I baint starting that fight. No. I doan want to kill thee, just crush thee regilar. But I beed athinking that mayhaps the young’uns be puttin’ at rights wot we—wot baint possible for us’n. So I says, let wot’s to be, be. If there be a joining, then there be a joining. That be up to they—not t’ thee and me. If there baint a joining—likewise that be up to they. Wotever they do be up to they. Not us’n. So I says the match be good.”
Struan drained his glass and shoved it on the table. “I never thought you’d be so gutless as to use Tess when you’re as opposed as I am.”
Brock stared back at him without anger now. “I baint using Tess, Dirk. That be God’s truth. She be loving Culum and that be mortal truth. That be only reason I be talking like this’n. We both be trapped. Let’s be talking obvious. She be like Juliet to his Romeo, yus, by God, and that’s wot I be afeared of. An’ you too if truth be knowed. I baint wanting my Tess to end on marble slab ‘cause I hate thy guts. She love him. I be thinking of her!”
“I dinna believe it.”
“Nor I, by God! But Liza’s rit half a dozen time about Tess. She sayed Tess be mooning and sighing and talking about ball but only about Culum. An’ Tess’s ritted sixteen time or more about wot Culum sayed and wot Culum baint saying and wot she sayed to Culum and how Culum be looking and wot Culum be asaying back till I be fit to bust. Oh yus, she love him right enough.”
“It’s puppy love. It means nothing.”
“By the Lord God, you be a terrible hard man to talk sense to. Yo’re wrong, Dirk.” Brock suddenly felt very tired and very old. He wanted to be done with this. “Weren’t for ball it baint never happening. Thee picked her to lead dance. Thee picked her to win prize. Thee—”