Chapter 1

Chapter One

A ihan stumbled out of her cabin, clutching the walls for balance; the ship was listing dangerously, buffeted by the wind and the waves. She fought her way to the ladder that led onto the deck. Rain lashed her face as soon as she pushed the hatch up; the wind snatched it from her hand and blew it back on the deck with a slam. She scrambled out onto the deck, then fought to push it back into place and latch it down.

Around her, the crew scuttled about, tying things down. Three of them were wholly occupied in holding the rudder in an attempt to keep the junk from running aground. The anchor seemed to have slipped its mooring, and the vessel was heading for the rocks. Their shouts barely registered above the howling wind and the visibility was very poor, the clouds being so heavy and low. The sun was completely obscured.

She held tight to the railing, entirely drenched, her silk tunic and pants clinging to her thin frame indecently, her long dark hair plastered to her face. Where is Caishen? She looked about for her brother’s student but couldn’t see him. It had been several weeks now since Liang left the ship and there had been no word from him. The anxiety chewing at her was close to boiling point; then the storm had come up out of nowhere this afternoon. It was almost worse than some of the storms they had endured on the voyage from Canton.

“Caishen?” she called, but the wind snatched her voice away.

A loud crack rent the air and for a moment everything was bright as midday. In that second, Aihan saw him clinging to the rigging and swaying in the wind. In the next moment he seemed to lose his grip, and his body was falling. She screamed, racing towards the spot, as his body plummeted into the water and disappeared from view in the choppy waves.

“Caishen! Help him!” She yelled at the crew, who stood near her staring at the place he had disappeared. They backed away, making the sign to ward off evil, and returned to their work.

The ship listed at that moment, flinging her sideways as a wave breached the deck, drenching her in cold, salty water. Coughing, she fought her way over to one of the coiled ropes and staggered towards the rail. Fighting to maintain her balance, she tied one end to the rail and the other around her waist. She climbed precariously over the rail, jumped into the turbulent water, and went under.

The cold almost robbed her of breath, and she surfaced coughing and shuddering as the icy water seeped into her bones. She turned around, looking for any sign of Caishen, but there was nothing. She struck out swimming, but the waves buffeted her so badly she made little headway and as she had completely lost her bearings, she was soon going round in circles, her limbs beginning to go numb with the cold.

Realising it was a fruitless endeavour and she would drown if she didn’t get back to the ship, she fought her way back to the Shaolin and dragged herself up the side by the hooks. The crew made no move to help her as she heaved herself over the rail onto the deck, collapsing with a splash, the heavy, sodden rope dragging at her waist.

Aihan sprawled on the deck, panting for several moments. Eventually, with numb fingers, she wrestled to unknot the rope and release it from her waist. All the while, the storm continued to rage around the ship, making it roll and heave and rattle, the wind a constant howling, the rain almost horizontal, sheeting water across the deck.

Free of the rope, she clambered to her feet and staggered towards the hatch, fumbling with the latch, her fingers so stiff with cold they almost refused to work; she got it open eventually. Her limbs were shaking so much she couldn’t control them. She pulled the hatch back down over her head, latched it from the inside, and battled her way back to her cabin, where she stripped off her sodden garments and dried herself off as best she could, battling the list of the ship to stay upright.

She wrapped herself in a dry blanket and crawled into her bed, rolled by the ship’s movement towards the bulkhead, pulled the covers over her head, and huddled into a shaking ball in an attempt to get warm.

Caishen is gone and Liang is gone. There was just her and a crew that only wanted to go home. What am I going to do? Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to let then fall. That was weakness and Liang had taught her not to be weak.

The storm blew itself out overnight, and Aihan emerged from her cabin with a plan. In the daylight the sea was calm, almost flat, and the ship was anchored once more, but this time it was nearer to the shore of the land called Scot-land. The strange name was awkward to pronounce.

As the current has brought the ship here to this harbour, perhaps it has also brought Caishen’s body? She needed to find out.

She turned to the captain, Zhou Sheng. He and his men had grown increasingly truculent the longer her brother was gone and had made no secret of their desire to return home. “I am going ashore to look for Caishen’s body,” she said with decisive authority. If she showed any weakness, she would be lost. There was one of her and six of them.

“That is madness. We should go home. Master Ming is lost, Shen Caishen is lost. The Gods are telling us to go home!”

She shook her head, “I must find Caishen’s body and my brother. Come with me. We will find them together and then go home.”

The captain looked around at his men, who were all looking at the deck or the horizon, anywhere but at her.

He shook his head. “I will give you one day.”

“Three! Three days,” she bargained.

“Very well, for Master Ming’s sake. Three days. If you are not back by then we will leave for Canton.”

She nodded. “Row me to shore in the lifeboat?” They’d had three, but there was only one left. However, the one Liang had taken, or perhaps the one his men who had gone before him had taken, should still be there, and she could use one of them to get back to the ship.

The captain nodded.

Aihan went below and packed a small backpack, her weapons, her cloak, and the last of the strange coins that Liang had gotten in trade before they left Canton. These, he had explained to her, would give them currency in this peculiar foreign land. He had left her a dozen of them. She had no idea of their value.

Returning to the deck dressed in a fresh tunic and pants, boots upon her feet, cloak wrapped round her shoulders and the pack secured to her breast, she followed the first mate over the rail and down to the rowboat bobbing in the water.

He said nothing to her the whole way, wouldn’t even look at her. That hurt. She had spent twelve months of her life with these men and now they were treating her like a stranger, an enemy. Climbing out of the boat on the shore, she said firmly, “I will return in three days. Do not leave without me!”

He nodded and set the oars to row back to the Shaolin . A shiver passed over her skin as a premonition washed through her that she would never see him or the Shaolin and its crew again.

She shook it off, straightened her shoulders, and turned to survey the view before her. Several foreign boats bobbed at anchor in this little harbour; beyond the harbour, trees blanketed the coast to the right. But ahead of her lay buildings and to the left a stretch of beach and tangled rocks and a low escarpment with scrub and wood above it.

She headed to the right first, looking for signs of Caishen’s body washed up by the tide, along with seaweed, shells, and dead wood. She walked for an hour and found nothing and no sign of the row boats either. Aihan turned back and retraced her steps, pausing occasionally to sip on her meagre water supply. The sun was warm on her back, although a breeze tugged at her garments and hair as she trudged.

Reaching her starting point, she set off to the left. This took longer because the terrain was more broken up by rocks and there were more places that a body might be wedged, but again after two hours, by the position of the sun, she had found nothing. She returned to the little harbour, her heart heavy. No sign of Caishen . She must conclude the water had taken him or beached him farther afield than she expected. And no sign of the row boats. But perhaps she could hire one to take her back out, if she found some trace of her brother....

This time she struck out for the buildings, conscious that she only had three days to find out what had happened to her brother before the ship would sail without her.

On the beach she had encountered no one, but venturing up into the village Aihan immediately began to attract attention. Her clothing, she noted, was very different from that of the other females she saw, who all wore long gowns with high waists under their cloaks. Her blue silk tunic and trousers attracted stares and whispers and frowns of disapproval. She clutched her pack where it was strapped to her front and strode on, her face flushing with embarrassment.

These foreign women were all fragile things, ignorant and weak; they would not last five minutes in a fight. She had to find this Mac Sceacháin—that was the name her brother had given her. If she could find him, she could find out what had happened to her brother.

The streets were lined with rude buildings made of stone with hard edges and rough surfaces. Ugly by comparison with the elegant lines and curves of houses at home. She trudged along, her stomach rumbling and her mouth dry. I need food and drink. Will those strange coins purchase me sustenance? If so, from where?

Winding her way through the streets of the village, she came upon a building that appeared to serve food and drink to passersby. They had a stable, too, where horses were accommodated. A sign with a spotted chicken above the door swung in the breeze, and she entered, ignoring the stares of those who stood about outside.

Inside there was a long, chest-high bench along one wall separating the man who stood behind it from the rest of the room. A fire burned in a hearth at the back, and the room was filled with tables at which an assortment of men and a few women sat with jars of liquor and plates of food before them. The general hum of conversation stopped dead when she entered, as everyone turned to stare at her. Aihan ignored them and strode over to the man behind the high bench. She had one of the coins clutched in her palm; she laid it on the top of the bench and said, “Food! Drink!” in Mandarin. The man just gaped at her. She dredged her mind for the few words of Eng-ish, the native language of these people, that her brother had taught her on the long voyage. She gestured towards her mouth, making chewing motions, and then lifted an imaginary pot to her lips and swallowed. “Food. Drink.” She enunciated slowly.

He nodded and said something she couldn’t follow. But the coin vanished, and some others replaced it, which she scooped up and shoved in her pocket, and soon after a plate and a pot appeared on the bench. The plate contained a slice of some kind of pastry filled with meat, a wedge of pungent yellow cheese and a slice of crusty bread smothered in butter. The pot contained some dark liquid. She nodded and thanked him politely, although he had no clue what she was saying. She took the plate and pot to a table in the corner of the room, where she sat with her back to the wall, keeping the whole room in sight.

She ate the strange food and found it odd but largely not unpalatable. The pastry contained some kind of jellied meat. The cheese was hard and had an odd flavour. The butter she scraped off the bread, finding it too fatty for her taste.

The dark liquor was bitter but refreshing, and she drank it all, being very thirsty. Wiping her mouth, she sat back against the wall, closing her eyes momentarily to let her stomach settle. Mac Sceacháin , she repeated the strange words beneath her breath as her brother had taught her to say it: Mac Skeehain . She rose from her place and went back to the high bench where the man was still standing, serving pots of drink to customers. She waited until he was finished with several customers and then boldly caught his eye and beckoned him over. He wiped his hands on a cloth and made a noise: Aye? Whatever that meant.

“Mac Skeehain.” she said.

“Huh?” The man frowned at her.

“Mac Skeehain,” she repeated.

He shook his head at her.

“Mac Skeehain! Mac Skeehain!” Frustration made her voice rise a bit. She took a breath and repeated slowly “Mac Skee-hain . . . ?”

“Aye!” The man nodded with a smile. “Laird Sceacháin.”

“Where?” she asked, spreading her hands.

He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and then disappeared through a door behind him. He came back in a moment with a piece of paper on which was a drawing. He pointed to a square on the paper and tapped the bench, then pointed at her and himself.

She nodded, pointing, “here!” She smiled.

He then pointed at a series of lines leading from the first square to another one. “Mac Sceacháin hoose.”

She grinned and bowed in thanks. She fished in her pocket and gave him back the coins he had given her in change earlier.

He gathered them up and nodded to her. “Guid luck, lassie.”

With the paper in hand, she left the building and tried to follow the directions in the sketch. It took her two hours and multiple attempts to communicate with the locals before she finally found the house that belonged to the Mac Sceacháin.

It was coming onto dusk, the sun dropping to the horizon, streaked across the grounds, catching the glazing in the windows and turning it to blinding gold. It was a big, solid building, made of grey stone, ugly to her way of thinking. Double story and double fronted, slate roofed. She circled it, examining it from all angles, keeping to the trees and shadows, careful not to be spotted. Not that there was anyone about that she could see. The house had a heavy, sad air about it. Bad chi , she thought.

She crept into the stable. The horses nickered at her; she patted them and looked about for somewhere to hide. The wooden building had a thatched roof and, above the horse stalls, a mezzanine floor, accessible via a ladder. She mounted the ladder and found some hay and an old blanket. It was enough. She raked the hay up into a pile, spread the old blanket over it and, using her cloak as a wrap and her pack as pillow, settled down to sleep.