“You dinna ken these things, Tai-Pan,” she said coldly. “That’s where I hear rumors. At hairdresser’s.” She took his hand and made him touch her hair. “There, you see. It is much softer, no?”
“No! It is na! God’s death, if you ever leave without first telling me where you’re going, I’ll whack you so hard you will na sit for a week.”
“Just try, Tai-Pan, by God,” she said and glared back at him.
He grabbed her swiftly and carried her, struggling, to the bed and flung up her robe and petticoats and gave her a smack on her buttocks that stung his hand and tossed her on the bed. He had never struck her before. May-may flew off the bed at him and viciously raked at his face with her long nails. A lantern crashed to the floor as Struan upended her again and resumed the spanking. She fought out of his grip, and her nails slashed at his eyes, missing by a fraction of an inch, and scoring his face. He caught her wrists and turned her over and tore off her robe and underclothes and smashed her bare buttocks with the flat of his hand. She fought back fiercely, shoving an elbow in his groin and clawing at his face again. Mustering all his strength, he pinned her to the bed, but she slipped her head free and sank her teeth into his forearm. He gasped from the pain and slashed her buttocks again with the flat of his free hand. She bit harder.
“By God, you’ll never bite me again,” he said through clenched teeth. Her teeth sank deeper, but he deliberately did not pull his arm away. The pain made his eyes water, but he smashed May-may harder and harder and harder, always on her buttocks, until his hand hurt. At last she released her teeth.
“Don’t—no more—please—please,” she whimpered, and wept into the pillow, defenseless.
Struan caught his breath. “Now say you’re sorry for going out without permission.”
Her mottled, inflamed buttocks tightened and she flinched against the expected blow, but he had not raised his hand. He knew that the spirit of a thoroughbred must only be tamed, never broken. “I’ll give you three seconds.”
“I’m sorry—sorry. You hurt me, you hurt me,” she sobbed.
He got off the bed and, holding his forearm under the light, examined the wound. May-may’s teeth had bitten very deeply and blood seeped.
“Come over here,” he said quietly. She did not move but continued to weep. “Come over here,” he repeated, but this time his voice was a lash and she jerked up. He did not look at her. She quickly pulled the remnants of her robe around her and began to get off the bed.
“I did na tell you to dress! I said come here.”
She hurried over to him, her eyes red and her face powder and eye makeup streaked.
He steadied his forearm against the table and daubed the seeping blood away and poured brandy into each wound. He lit a match and gave it to her. “Stick the flame in the wounds, one by one.”
“No!”
“One by one,” he said. “A human bite is as poisonous as a mad dog’s. Hurry.”
It took three matches, and each time she wept a little more, nauseated by the smell of burning flesh, but she kept her hand steady. And each time the brandy ignited, Struan grit his teeth and said nothing.
When it was finished, he slopped more brandy over the blackened wounds and May-may found the chamber pot and was very sick. Struan quickly poured some hot water from the kettle over a towel and patted May-may’s back gently, and when she had finished he wiped her face tenderly and made her rinse her mouth with some of the hot water. Then he picked her up and put her into the bed and would have left her. But she held on to him and began to weep, the deep inner weeping that cleans away the hatred.
Struan soothed her and gentled her until she slept. Then he left and took over the watch from Brock.
At noon there was another meeting. Many wished to leave immediately. But Struan dominated Brock and persuaded the merchants to wait until tomorrow. They agreed reluctantly and decided to move into the factory for mutual safety. Cooper and the Americans went to their own factory.
Struan returned to his suite.
May-may welcomed him passionately. Later they slept, at peace. Once they awoke together and she kissed him sleepily and whispered, “You were right to beat me. I was wrong, Tai-Pan. But never beat me when I am na wrong. For sometime you must sleep and then I kill you.”
In the middle watch their peace was shattered. Wolfgang Mauss was pounding on the door. “Tai-Pan! Tai-Pan!”
“Aye?”
“Quick! Downstairs! Hurry!”
Now they could hear the mob swarming into the square.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“My da’ warned you all, God damn yor eyes!” Gorth said, turning away from the dining room window and pushing through the traders.
“We’ve had mobs before,” Struan said sharply. “And you know they’re always controlled and only ordered out by the mandarins.”
“Yus, but not like this’n,” Brock said.
“There’s got to be a special reason. Nothing to worry about yet.”
The square below was jammed with a heaving mass of Chinese. Some carried lanterns, others torches. A few were armed. And they were screaming in unison.
“Must beed two to three thousand of the buggers,” Brock said, then called out, “Hey, Wolfgang! Wot be they heathen devils shouting?”
“ ‘Death to the devil barbarians.’ ”
“What rotten cheek!” Roach said. He was a small, spar-rowlike man, his musket taller than himself.
Mauss looked back at the mob, his heart thumping uneasily, his flanks clammy with sweat. Is this Thy time, oh Lord? The time of Thy peerless martyrdom? “I’ll go and talk to them, preach to them,” he said throatily, wanting the peace of such a sacrifice, yet terrified of it.
“An estimable idea, Mr. Mauss,” Rumajee said agreeably, his black eyes twitching nervously from Mauss to the mob and back again. “They’re bound to listen to one of your persuasion, sir.”
Struan saw Mauss’s beaded sweat and untoward pallor and he intercepted him near the door. “You’ll do nae such thing.”
“It’s time, Tai-Pan.”
“You’ll na buy salvation that easily.”
“Who are you to judge?” Mauss began to push past, but Struan stood in his way.
“I meant that salvation’s a long and hurt-filled process,” he said kindly. Twice before he had seen the same strangeness in Mauss. Each time it had been before a battle with pirates, and later, during the battle, Mauss had dropped his weapons and gone toward the enemy in a religious ecstasy, seeking death. “It’s a long process.”
“The—the Lord’s peace is . . . is hard to find,” Mauss muttered, his throat choking him, glad to be stopped and hating himself for being glad. “I just wanted . . .”
“Quite right. Know all about salvation meself,” Masterson butted in. He steepled his hands and his manner was pious. “Lord preserve us from the godrotting heathen! Couldn’t agree more, Tai-Pan. Damn all this noise, what?”
Mauss collected himself with an effort, feeling naked before Struan, who once again had seen into the depths of his soul. “You’re . . . you’re right. Yes. Right.”
“After all, if we lose you, who’s left to preach the Word?” Struan said, and decided to watch Mauss if there was real trouble.