The Eleventh Tiger (7 page)

‘Yes.’

‘And would your name, by any chance, be Master Wong?’

‘Yes it would. Wong Kei-Ying. You’ve heard of me?’

‘But of course, yes! You’re quite highly regarded, you know.

Yes, very highly indeed.’

The Doctor seemed to remember his friend and immediately became as professional and curt as Kei-Ying had heard Western doctors could be. ‘The cart is a good idea. We can hardly carry poor Chesterton ourselves. But we must be careful when we lift him up, so as not to disturb any broken ribs or internal injuries.’

‘Don’t worry, Doctor. My son and I also teach
gungfu,
and we’re used to handling such injuries.’

Pang loomed behind the Doctor. ‘I’ve got the cart ready,’ he said. He looked down at Chesterton, his expression sad, and shook his head.

Barbara knelt at Ian’s side, holding his hand almost tightly enough to hear the bones grate against each other. At just such an imagined sound she lessened her grip, flooded with guilt. He was injured enough already.

Barbara couldn’t recall ever wanting to hit someone, or hurt a person physically, so when the desire to do so washed through her she didn’t recognise it at first. It was a dark tension that started somewhere in the pit of her stomach, and spread upwards and outwards in her blood. Every beat of her pulse carried it a little further.

At first she mistook it for worry, or impatience for Ian to heal. Then she remembered the faces of the men beating him

- their sweat-stained skin and gleeful expressions - and knew that feeling her knuckles crack against their cheeks or jaws would relieve that intolerable tension.

She wondered what tensions those men had taken out on Ian, and decided there probably weren’t any. She wished she could have done more to fight off the gang. She could see blood under her fingernails where she had scratched at least one of them, but she didn’t remember what it had felt like at the time. She wondered if remembering the feeling would make her feel better or worse.

Her fingers throbbed where the nails had been levered up against the thug’s skin and bone, but she knew it was nothing compared to what Ian must be going through.

At first she had thought the same as Vicki - the inn was a safe-looking place, and the number of locals and foreigners eating there suggested it served good and healthy fare. Then some of those locals had set upon Ian just, as far as she could see, for being Ian Chesterton.

This in itself was a puzzle. How could they know his name, or who he was? She had asked this several times on the cart journey here, but nobody had answered. They all either looked at her as though she was mad for not knowing the answer, or dodged the question. It was infuriating enough to make her want to explode. Frankly, it was infuriating enough to make her want to take out her fear and anger on them, and repay them for the beating Ian had taken rather than the help they were offering. It was wrong, and she knew it, but feelings couldn’t be helped - they just happened to you, whether you wanted them to or not.

The man who had pulled the mob off Ian had been true to his word and had brought the time travellers to his surgery, if that’s what this place was. He wore simple trousers and a shirt, but carried them as well as if they were the uniform of a general. He wore the look comfortably and easily, and Barbara had no doubt that he wasn’t putting on an act for anyone’s benefit.

His eyes were dark, but were flecked with lighter slivers the way the autumn sunlight falls warmly on to undergrowth in a forest path. They were strong and calm, and he clearly had nothing to prove. He had introduced himself as ‘Wong,’ to the Doctor. ‘Wong Kei-Ying.’ The name was vaguely familiar, but Barbara couldn’t place it.

The giant cook had brought a cart round to the inn and, with Kei-Ying and his son, had gently carried Ian to it. There was a simple mattress in the cart.

‘I brought it from my room,’ the giant said quietly. ‘Don’t forget where it came from.’

‘It will be returned within the hour,’ Kei-Ying promised him.

Barbara was as mystified by the giant’s kindness as she was by the gang’s hostility. ‘Thank you,’ she said. She liked him immediately, though she couldn’t say why.

He simply smiled. Then the Wongs,
pere et fils,
boarded the cart, as did the Doctor, Vicki and Barbara herself.

The journey lasted only a few minutes, and took them from the city centre to a reasonable suburb. Various homes and workplaces lined the streets, and Kei-Ying guided the cart into a street with perimeter walls on either side that made it difficult to see what sort of buildings might be beyond them.

One side of the street was taken up with a long whitewashed wall, about eight feet high. Above it Barbara could make out tiled roofs, angular but with gentle curves. Halfway along the wall a dark wooden gateway stood twelve feet high.

The gates themselves, studded with metal, were the same height as the wall, leaving a gap between them and the top of the wooden frame. Barbara guessed the frame was intended to be decorative rather than a barrier to intruders.

Wong’s son jumped down and opened the gates to let the cart through into a space that felt open and airy. A drive paved with flagstones led between two dusty lawns to a wide courtyard of hard-packed earth. On either side there were long, low buildings, separated from the drive by the lawns.

The open space was only the size of a large garden, but it felt like a field with room for the air to circulate.

The courtyard fronted an impressive wood and plaster building with two wings on either side of the courtyard, which was edged on three sides by a raised veranda. All the doors and windows were wooden and were carved with intricate patterns. The main double doors in the middle of the central section slid aside and folded away as several men emerged.

‘Fei-Hung,’ Kei-Ying said to the youth, then rattled off a string of syllables that Barbara couldn’t follow. She presumed they were the names of medicines of some kind -

herbs, most likely. The young man nodded and ran into the building.

Barbara helped the Doctor, Vicki and Kei-Ying to lift Ian out of the cart. He felt heavier than she had imagined. Under Kei-Ying’s direction they brought him into the room where Barbara was now kneeling beside him.

It was a simple room, with several low beds and a polished wooden floor surrounded by dark shelves filled with bowls, cups and scrolls, and all the impedimenta of some esoteric form of medicine. A couple of simple tables bore lamps near the beds, as did some of the thick, black, square wooden beams that supported the ceiling.

Fei-Hung was waiting, his arms overflowing with clay jars and vials, all tightly stoppered and labelled with Chinese characters. Kei-Ying wasted no time in brewing a herbal tea and preparing lotions to dab on to Ian’s wounds.

‘What are they?’ Barbara asked.

‘Tsan go tsui,
to reduce the pain from swelling injuries,’

Kei-Ying answered
. ‘Chi da
to reduce the bruising.’

‘These are quite effective natural anti-inflammatories,’ the Doctor agreed, reassuringly. ‘And these other herbs here, they should be quite effective analgesics.’

Barbara wasn’t so sure. ‘I’d be happier if we had aspirin available. I’m sure Master Wong knows what he’s doing, and that some plants and herbs have some medicinal value -’

‘Oh, really?’ the Doctor asked. ‘What you call aspirin orig-inates from the bark of the willow. You’d be surprised how many natural substances are used or replicated in your modern medicine.’

Finally, Kei-Ying was finished and Barbara had to admit that Ian was breathing more normally and the swellings under his bruises were starting to reduce. ‘He will need a few days’ rest,’ Kei-Ying said, but it will take weeks for the broken bones to heal. Especially the left shin. I have some little skill, but even I cannot force bone to glue itself together overnight.’

The Doctor looked Ian over and seemed satisfied with what he saw. ‘Some little skill? Please, Master Wong, don’t do yourself down. Your skills are quite remarkable for this day and age. Yes, remarkable. In fact I don’t think I could have done better myself.’

‘You honour me.’

‘Yes, I suppose I do,’ the Doctor murmured. ‘But we shall have to do something about those ribs and that leg before we can move again.’

Kei-Ying nodded. ‘He has quarters at Xamian, of course, but it may be dangerous to move -’

‘Xamian, you say? I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’ve only just arrived here in Guangzhou.’

‘Just arrived? But Chesterton has been here for at least a year.’

‘That’s impossible,’ Barbara exclaimed.

‘No,’ the Doctor said slowly. ‘I’m afraid it isn’t impossible.

Not in the TARDIS.’

He half-closed his eyes, sinking deep into his thoughts the way Barbara liked to sink into a relaxing bath. ‘Master Wong, I’m sure you are honest and truthful, and that Chesterton has been here for a year. It would be very difficult to explain, but I must ask you to believe me that he has also just arrived today, and that he has no lodgings at Xamian, wherever that may be.’

Kei-Ying hesitated, then looked back at Ian. ‘Then he should stay here tonight.’

‘I’ll watch over him,’ Barbara said.

The Doctor’s face softened immediately and he put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Of course, Barbara. You will let me know if he wakes up, hmm?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I can stay too,’ Vicki volunteered.

‘That’s very kind of you, child,’ the Doctor said quickly, ‘but we don’t want to crowd Chesterton, now do we?’

Barbara gave the Doctor a look of thanks, willing him to hear the gratitude she wasn’t vocalising. He nodded slightly and ushered Vicki out.

‘I will check on him in an hour,’ Kei-Ying promised.

Barbara smiled and nodded. She felt as if she herself was likely to keel over at any moment. All the light in the room seemed to have floated to the top edge of her peripheral vision, and everything she focused on was cloaked in twitchy gloom.

She knelt beside Ian and took his hand. She appreciated Vicki wanting to help, and the fact that the girl cared about her travelling companions, but right now she just wanted to be alone with Ian.

She was able to relax slightly, knowing that something had been done about Ian’s injuries, but she couldn’t help feeling that while he was unconscious some part of her was blacked out. It was like having a radio on which one of her favourite stations was silent. At the same time she felt, and hoped that it wasn’t just a hope, that he would somehow know that she was there.

Soon, the tension that remained was a dark one that spread out from her stomach. For the first time she could remember, Barbara wanted to hit someone.

Fei-Hung followed Kei-Ying out. His father had done a good job and had made the young man proud to be his son, as he often did. Despite this, Fei-Hung wasn’t sure they should have bothered. ‘Father, why are we keeping him here? The garrison at Xamian Island has its own doctors -’

‘As I told the old man and the women, it could be dangerous to move him right now.’ Kei-Ying sounded distracted and distant. ‘Fei-Hung, have you met Chesterton before?’

‘Not as such. I’ve seen him from a distance, when he rode by.’

‘Didn’t he strike you as being a little older than this man? I recall he had more grey in his hair.’

‘Yes... Now that you mention it. Could this man be his brother? That would explain why he has no quarters at Xamian.’

Kei-Ying nodded. ‘That’s what I was thinking.’

Fei-Hung hesitated. ‘But, Father, he’s still a
gwailo,
still a supporter of the Manchu -’ He fell silent as Kei-Ying grabbed his ear. Though he had celebrated his eighteenth birthday, and was taller than his father, he made the appropriate sounds of pain as he allowed Kei-Ying to escort him across the courtyard and out of the main gate.

Without letting go of his son’s ear, Kei-Ying pointed at the sign above the gate. ‘What does that say?’

‘Po Chi Lam, Physician’s Surgery.’

‘Does it say “except for gwailos”?’

‘No, but -’

Kei-Ying released the ear just long enough to give it a clip with his hand, then twisted it again.

‘No buts! No exceptions. This Chesterton needs a physician.

I am a physician, therefore I will help. You will be a physician too, so the same rule applies to you.’ He released his son.

Fei-Hung rubbed his ear. ‘I bet their physician wouldn’t help you if the situation was reversed.’

‘That,’ Kei-Ying said patiently, ‘is why we should help. If you dislike someone, why would you want to be like him?’ He turned to go back inside, then paused to curse. ‘I forgot to ask Cheng about that box.’

They had been so completely sidetracked that Fei-Hung hadn’t thought to mention it either.

‘Just a moment,’ he said. ‘I have seen those people before!

We passed them on the Baiyun road.’

‘So we did! And the old man, the Doctor, said they’d just arrived. Perhaps the box is theirs.’ Kei-Ying nodded to himself. ‘I shall ask them, at dinner.’

‘What about Cheng’s cart?’

‘Tell Jiang to take it back to the Hidden Panda.’

‘Jiang?’ It seemed a rather menial task for another teacher.