Crimson in the Water

The hand lamp shines in Huihua’s eyes; she has just woken from her mother’s touch. ‘We are going in a few minutes, Hua. Are you sure you do not mind us leaving you? We can postpone it until next week.’

Huihua moves her pillows and sits up in the bed, giving a short smile away from the light. ‘No, you must go. Take care, I’ll be fine, I just want to stay quiet.’ She yawns and rubs her eyes. ‘Don’t think I’ll ride though. I might get back to some verse.’

She sees her mother looking at the table on the other side of her bed where Tsai Yuling’s translated Japanese poem and her own new one lie together upside down with the Truth Game writing.

‘You have been busy already, I see. Go back to sleep, my dear. We will be home two or three nights from now.’ Her mother bends down and kisses her, and Huihua returns a kiss into the air.

Madame Huang and Shanghan are about to make a short journey by river to two of the four estates the family own, a visit made every six months to discuss taxes and rents of money and kind, and to settle disputes between their peasants. Lieutenant Chu and six soldiers will be escorting them, because small bandit groups remain a possible threat, not in the vicinity of the mansion but much further along the river. The other danger comes from trigger-happy Japanese planes; hence they are setting off well before dawn in order to reach the first estate shortly after daybreak.

‘Is there anything you need in town, Mistress?’ maid Yiying says when coming with breakfast into Huihua’s writing room. ‘You haven’t forgot it’s my day off? I can bring back some apples, or ya pears if there are any left.’

‘That would be nice, thank you Yiying. No I hadn’t forgotten.’

The maid puts the tray down.

Huihua speaks sternly: ‘Tell everyone that I don’t want to be disturbed, not at all, all day you understand. I’m in the middle of some difficult composition. And tell Xuiey I don’t want any lunch brought up either, as I’ve got fruits here, but I’ll need a small supper later.’ She moves a tea bowl from the tray to the table. ‘Are you going right away? You’ll take the path through the woods, won’t you?’

‘Yes Mistress. It’s beautiful day, you should go for short walks in gardens, in between writing I mean.’

Huihua thanks her for the suggestion. ‘And please, no one to disturb me or I’ll lose my concentration.’ The thin maid bows before leaving the room.

Half an hour later Huihua changes into the worker clothes that she wears when occasionally helping the father and son gardeners, puts on old sandals, and takes up the doli her governess gave her five years earlier - the hat that protects against the sun - not wearing it but letting it hang on her back with its strap round her neck.

Quietly moving from her room, she makes her way along the passages, relieved no servant appears; if one comes she is ready to say she is going to the gardens. On reaching two linen rooms in a short corridor, she takes an iron key from her pocket (her mother and brother each have a similar key), listens, looks both ways and unlocks a third door to the right, the noise of the lock making her wince.

Quickly entering the small empty room, carefully she closes the door and places the key on the floor without re-locking. Daylight comes through a tiny window showing her the ring on the floor. She listens again for footsteps, and then pulls up a hinged trapdoor.

Only once before has she descended the internal wooden stairs leading to the underground passage; three years earlier she had a practice run with her parents and brother against the possibility of a commando assault on the mansion. Her father told them that none of the servants knew of the passage except Secretary Lee, and she and Shanghan were never to mention it.

A lamp stands on the third step with a small matchbox beside it, and soon she has it working. A powerful stick lies on the next step, propped against the wall. She leaves the trapdoor open and starts down, unable to use the rope railing as she has the lamp in one hand and stick in the other. The straight stairs creak and seem to have no end, but when she reaches level ground, she sees the passage go into darkness, and begins the long walk, slightly bent though there is reasonable headroom, and immediately feeling the cool.

Rats run from lamplight her father had said on the practice run when he wielded the stick in front of him. She knows the passage stretches a good two hundred paces, and that at the end it comes to a few steps leading up to another trapdoor inside the White Pavilion, the single-storey summerhouse outside the walls near the edge of the woods and strictly out of bounds to all but family.