She tried to raise herself to a sitting position but lay down again with a cry of pain. She said with a trembling voice:
'I am a courtesan of the second rank. I live upstairs.'
'Who has been beating you? '
'Oh, it's nothing!' she replied quickly. 'It was really all my own fault. Just a private matter.'
'That remains to be seen. Speak up, answer my question!'
She gave him a frightened look.
'It's nothing, really,' she repeated softly. 'Tonight I attended a dinner, together with Autumn Moon, our Queen Flower. I was clumsy and spilled wine on the robe of a guest. The Queen Flower scolded me and sent me to our dressing-room. Later she came there too and took me here. She started to slap my face, and when I tried to ward off her blows I accidentally scratched her arms. She is very short-tempered, you know, she flew into a rage and ordered me to strip. She bound me to this pillar and gave me a whipping with my trouser-cord. She told me she would come back later and free me, when I had had time to think over my shortcomings.' Her lips began to tremble. She swallowed a few times before she went on: ' But . . . but she didn't come. At last I couldn't stand on my legs any more and my arms grew numb. I thought she had perhaps forgotten all about me. I was so afraid that . . .'
Tears came running down her cheeks. In her excitement she had started to speak with a heavy accent. Ma Joong wiped her tears off with the tip of his sleeve and said in his own broad dialect:
'Your worries are over, Silver Fairy! A man from your own village shall now look after you!' Ignoring her astonished look, he went on: 'It was a lucky chance that made me pass by this house and hear your moans, for Autumn Moon won't come back. Not now or ever!'
She raised herself on her hands to a sitting position, not minding the dress that had dropped down from her naked torso. She asked in a tense voice:
'What happened to her?'
'She is dead,' Ma Joong replied soberly.
The girl buried her face in her hands, she started to cry again. Ma Joong shook his head perplexedly. He reflected sadly that you never knew with a woman.
Silver Fairy raised her head and said in a forlorn voice:
'Our Queen Flower dead! She was so beautiful and so clever. . . . Sometimes she would beat us, but she was often also so kind and understanding. She wasn't very strong. Did she suddenly become ill?'
'Heaven knows! Let's talk a bit about me now, shall we? I am the eldest son of the boatman Ma Liang, from the north of our village.'
'You don't say ! So you are a son of Boatman Ma ! I am the second daughter of Wu, of the butcher shop. I remember that he mentioned your father, said he was the best boatman on the river. How did you come here on the island?'
'I arrived here tonight, together with my boss, Judge Dee. He is the magistrate of the neighbour district Poo-yang, and now temporarily in charge here.'
'I know him. He was at the dinner I told you about. He seemed a nice, quiet man.'
'Nice he is,' Ma Joong agreed. 'But as to quiet — let me tell you he can be mighty lively, at times! Well, I'll carry you up to your room, we must do something about your back.'
'No, I won't stay in this house tonight!' the girl called out with a frightened look. 'Take me somewhere else!'
'If you tell me where! I only arrived tonight, and I was kept fairly busy, didn't yet get round to finding myself a place to stay.'
She bit her lips.
'Why is everything always so complicated?' she asked unhappily.
'Ask my boss, dear! I only do the rough jobs.'
She smiled faintly.
'All right, take me to the silk shop two streets up. It's kept by a widow called Wang, from our village. She'll let me stay there the night, and you too. Help me to the washroom first, though.'
Ma Joong made her stand up and put the white robe round her shoulders. He picked up her other clothes, and supporting her by her arm, took her to the bathroom at the back of the house.
'If anyone comes and asks after me, say that I have left!' she told him quickly before closing the door.
He waited in the corridor till she came out, fully dressed. Seeing how much difficulty she had in walking he picked her up in his arms. Following her instructions he carried her out into the alley behind the house, then through a narrow passage to the back door of a small shop. He put the girl down and knocked.
Silver Fairy hurriedly explained to the sturdy woman who opened that she wanted to stay there with her friend. The woman asked no questions but took them straight up to an attic, small but clean. Ma Joong told her to bring them a pot of hot tea, a towel and a box of ointment. He helped the girl to undress again, and to lie down on her belly on the narrow couch. When the widow returned and saw the girl's back, she cried out:
'You poor dear! What has happened to you?'
'I'll take care of that, auntie!' Ma Joong said and pushed her outside.
He put ointment on the weals on the girl's back with a practised hand. They didn't amount to much; he thought that all traces would have disappeared in a few days. But when he came to the bleeding sores on her hips he frowned angrily. He washed them with the tea and put ointment on them. Then he sat down on the only chair and said curtly:
'Those sores across your hips were never caused by a cord, my girl! I am an officer of the tribunal, and I know my job! Hadn't you better tell me the whole story?'
She pressed her face on her folded arms. Her back shook, she was sobbing. Ma Joong covered her up with the robe, then resumed:
'What games you girls play amongst yourselves is your own affair. Within reason, at least. But if an outsider maltreats you, that's very much the business of the tribunal. Come on, tell me who did it!'
Silver Fairy turned her tear-stained face to him.
'It's such a sordid story!' she muttered unhappily. 'Well, you'll know that girls of the third and fourth rank have to take any customer that pays the price, but that courtesans of the second and first ranks are allowed to choose their lovers. I belong to the second rank, I can't be forced to grant my favours to someone I don't like. But there are, of course, special cases, like that horrid old Wen, the curio-dealer. He is a very important man here, you know. He has tried to get me several times but I always managed to escape. At the dinner tonight he must have wormed out of Autumn Moon that she had left me tied to the pillar in the training hall, and the odious man came there not long after the Queen Flower had left. He said he would untie me if I did all kinds of sordid things, and when I refused he took one of the long bamboo flutes from the wall and started to beat me with it. Autumn Moon's whipping hadn't been too bad, it was the humiliation that counted more than the pain. But that dirty Wen really wanted to hurt me, he left only when he had me screaming for mercy at the top of my voice and when I had promised I would do anything he liked. He said he would come back later for me, that's why I didn't want to stay in that house. Please don't tell anybody, Wen can completely ruin me, you know!'
'The mean bastard!' Ma Joong growled. 'Don't you worry, I'll get him, and without mentioning you. The wretched crook is mixed up in some shady business here, and he started as long ago as thirty years back! Nice long record!'
The widow had brought no cups, so he let the girl drink from the spout of the teapot. She thanked him, then said pensively:
'Wish I could help you, he has maltreated other girls here too.'
'Well, you wouldn't know about what happened here thirty years ago, dear!'
'That's true, I am just nineteen. But I know somebody who could tell you a lot about the old days. She is a poor old woman, a Miss Ling. I take singing lessons from her. She is blind, and she has a bad lung disease, but she has a very good memory. She lives in a hovel, over on the west side of the island, opposite the landing stage, and . . .'