So I was right, Struan thought. You
are the one! He lunged at Gorth and grabbed the handle of the cat, but others in the room fell on the two of them and pulled them apart. In the melee a candelabrum on one of the tables crashed to the floor, and Horatio stamped out the flames which caught the fluffy carpet.
Struan ripped himself free and glared at Gorth.
“I’ll send seconds to call on you tonight.”
“I baint needin’ seconds, by God. Now. Choose yor god-rotting weapons. Come on! And after you, Culum. I swear to God!”
“Why provoke me, Gorth, eh? And why threaten Culum?”
“You knowed, you son of a bitch. He be poxed, by God!”
“You’re mad!”
“You baint covering up, by God.” Gorth tried to fight loose from the grasp of four men but could not. “Let me go, for Christ sake!”
“Culum’s na poxed! Why say he is?”
“Everyone knowed. He beed t’ Chinatown. You knowed it and that be why they’s gone—afore it be showing terrible.”
Struan picked up the cat in his right hand. “Let him go, lads.”
Everyone backed off. Gorth went for his knife and readied for a charge, and a knife seemed to appear in Struan’s left hand as if by magic.
Gorth feinted but Struan remained rock-still and let Gorth see for an instant all the primeval murder lust that was consuming him. And his pleasure. Gorth stopped in his tracks, his senses screaming danger.
“This is nae place to fight,” Struan said. “This duel’s na of my choosing. But there’s nae anything I can do. Horatio, would you be a second?”
“Yes. Yes, of course,” Horatio replied, conscience-stricken over the tea seeds he had arranged for Longstaff. Is this the way to repay a lifetime of help and friendship? The Tai-Pan sent you word about Mary and gave you a lorcha to come to Macao. He’s been like a father to you and her, and now you knife him in the back. Yes—but you’re nothing to him. You’re only destroying a great evil. If you can do that, then that will make up for your own evil when you face God, as you will.
“I’d be honored to be your other second, Tai-Pan,” Masterson was saying.
“Then perhaps you’ll come with me, gentlemen.” Struan wiped the trickle of blood from his chin and threw the cat over the bar and headed for the door.
“You be a dead man!” Gorth shouted after him, confident again. “Hurry it up, you bastard-whorebitch-whelp!”
Struan did not stop until he was outside the club and safely on the
pra
ça. “I choose fighting irons.”
“Good Lord, Tai-Pan, that’s not—not usual,” Horatio said. “He’s very strong and, well, you’ve . . . you’re . . . the last week’s taken more out of you than you realize.”
“I quite agree,” Masterson said. “A bullet between the eyes is wiser. Oh yes, Tai-Pan.”
“Go back and tell him now. Dinna argue. My mind’s firm!”
“Where—where will you . . . well, surely this must be kept quiet? Perhaps the Portuguese’ll try to stop you.”
“Aye. Hire a junk. You two, me, Gorth and his seconds’ll leave at sunup. I want witnesses and a fair duel. There’ll be more than enough room on the deck of a junk.”
I’m na going to kill you, Gorth, Struan exulted to himself. Oh, no, that’s too easy. But by the Lord God, from tomorrow on you’ll never walk again, you’ll never feed yoursel’ again, you’ll never see again, you’ll never bed again. I’ll show you what vengeance is.
By nightfall the news of the duel had flown from mouth to mouth, and with the news the betting began. Many favored Gorth: He was in the full flush of strength and, after all, had good reason to challenge the Tai-Pan if there was truth to the rumor that Culum was poxed and that, knowing this, the Tai-Pan had sent Tess and Culum to sea with a captain who could marry them beyond the three-mile limit.
Those who put money on the Tai-Pan did so because they hoped, not believed, he would win. Everyone knew of his frantic anxiety over the cinchona and that his legendary mistress was dying. And everyone could see the havoc this had caused in him. Only Lo Chum, Chen Sheng, Ah Sam and Yin-hsi borrowed every penny they could and bet on the Tai-Pan confidently and petitioned the gods to watch over them. Without the Tai-Pan they were lost anyway.
No one mentioned the duel to May-may. Struan left her early and went back to his residence. He wanted to sleep soundly. The duel did not trouble him; he was sure that he could handle Gorth. But in the process he did not care to be mutilated, and he knew that he would have to be very strong and very fast.
Calmly he walked the quiet streets in the warmth of another beautiful, starlit night.
Lo Chum opened the door. “Night, Mass’er.” He motioned blandly to the anteroom. Liza Brock was waiting.
“Evening,” Struan said.
“Be Culum poxed?”
“Of course he’s na poxed! God’s blood, we dinna even know if they’re married yet. Perhaps they just went for a secret trip.”
“But he beed to house—who knowed where? That night with the highwaymen.”
“Culum’s na got the pox, Liza.”
“Then why dost others sayed it?”
“Ask Gorth.”
“I did an’ he sayed he were told it.”
“I’ll say it again, Liza. Culum does na have the pox.”
Liza’s huge shoulders shook with sobs. “Oh, God, wot’ve we done?” She wished that she could stop the duel. She liked Gorth even though he was not her own son. She knew that her hands also were guilty with the blood that would be spilled—Gorth’s or the Tai-Pan’s or Culum’s or her man’s. If she hadn’t forced Tyler to let Tess go to the ball, then all this might never have happened.
“Dinna worry, Liza,” Struan said kindly. “Tess’s all right, I’m sure. If they’re wed, then you’ve na anything to fear.”
“When be
China Cloud comin’ back?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“Thee be letting our’n doctor examine him?”
“That’s up to Culum. But I’ll na forbid him. He does na have the pox, Liza. If he had, you think I’d allow the marriage?”
“Yes, I do,” Liza said, tormented. “You be a devil and only the Devil knowed wot be in thy mind, Dirk Struan. But I swear to God, if thee be lying, I be killing thee if my men doan.”
She groped for the door. Lo Chum opened it and closed it after her.
“Mass’er, best slep-slep,” Lo Chum said cheerfully. “Tomollow soon, heya?”
“Go to hell.”
The iron front door knocker sent a dull reverberation through the sleeping residence. Struan listened keenly in the warm, airy darkness of his bedroom and then heard Lo Chum’s soft footsteps. He slipped out of bed, knife in hand, and grabbed his silk robe. He went out onto the landing quickly and silently, and peered over the balustrade. Two floors below, Lo Chum put down the lantern and unbolted the door. The grandfather clock chimed 1:15.
Father Sebastian stood on the threshold.
“Tai-Pan see me can?”
Lo Chum nodded and put away the cleaver that he had been carrying behind his back. He started up the staircase but stopped as Struan called out.
“Aye?”