When Old Hai asked what he had been doing that day, Trinket told him that he had been helping supervise the confiscation of Oboi's estate.
He concluded his account—which of course omitted any mention of the dagger and various other valuables that he had pocketed for himself—by telling him about the two copies of the Sutra in Forty-Two Sections that had been discovered in Oboi's house.
The old eunuch jumped up in surprise.
'Did you say there were two copies at Oboi's place?'
'Yes,' said Trinket.
'We were told to look for them by the Empress Dowager; otherwise I could have brought them to you without anyone knowing.'
Old Hai's face fell, but he soon recovered his composure.
'Hm, in the Empress Dowager's hands now, are they?' he said grimly.
'Well, it could be worse.'
Shortly after this their evening meal was brought in from the Imperial kitchens.
After eating barely half a bowl of rice, the old eunuch sat back, turned up his pale, unseeing eyes towards the ceiling, and appeared to be lost in thought.
When he had finished his own meal, Trinket decided to get a little sleep in before going to his midnight assignation with the maid-in-waiting.
Not wishing to disturb the old eunuch, who was still sitting motionless in his chair, he slipped over to his bed, lay down on it fully clothed, and was soon asleep.
After sleeping fitfully for what must have been several hours, he got up silently, stuffed the box of cakes inside his breast pocket,and made his way on tiptoe across the room, pausing at each step for fear the old eunuch might waken.
Then, slowly and gently, he slid back the door-bar and opened one of the leaves of the door.
At that very moment he heard the old eunuch's voice calling out from behind him.
'Laurie, where are you going?'
'I'm . . . I'm going out for a piss.'
'Why can't you piss in the pot?'
'I can't get to sleep,' said Trinket.
'I thought I'd walk around in the garden for a bit.'
No point in standing there talking, he thought; better get off quickly, before the Old Devil could stop him.
But just as his foot crossed the threshold, he felt a tightening around the throat.
'Ow!' he hollered.
The old eunuch had him by the collar and was propelling him back into the room.
'Damn!' thought Trinket, 'Damn!' as the old man threw him down on the bed.
The Old Devil knows I want to go and see that little maid and now he's going to stop me.'
'Is this to test my reactions, Goong-goong?' he said, forcing a laugh.
'It's a long time since you've taught me any kungfu.
What do you call that grip?'
'Catching a Turtle in a Jar, ' said the old eunuch.
'Little turtle!'
'Turtle yourself!' thought Trinket, but didn't dare say it out loud.
His eyes were darting all round him, looking for some means of escape; but the old eunuch sat himself down beside him on the bed and began addressing him in a low, almost mournful voice.
'You're bold but not careless,' he said.
'You're a sharp, intelligent lad.
You haven't shown much willingness to exert yourself, but if I could have taken you in hand and knocked you into some sort of shape, you might have made quite a promising little fighter.
It seems such a pity.'
'What does, Goong-goong?'
Trinket asked.
'What seems a pity?'
The old eunuch ignored his question and heaved a sigh.
After a pause he said: 'Your Peking accent is almost perfect now.
If your voice had sounded like this a few months ago, without a trace of the Yangzhou twang in it, I might have been taken in.'
Shock raised the fine hairs on Trinket's body.
An uncontrollable shivering took possession of him and his teeth began chattering.
Nevertheless he managed a nervous laugh.
'G-g-goong-goong, you're speaking very—ha ha!—s-strangely tonight.'
The old eunuch heaved another sigh.
'How old are you, child?'
He was speaking so calmly that Trinket's terror was somewhat allayed.
'About fourteen, I think.'
'If you're thirteen, you're thirteen; if you're fourteen, you're fourteen.
What do you mean, you "think"?'
'My mother's not sure herself,' said Trinket.
'I can't say exactly.'
This was true.
His mother had always been vague when asked about his age.
The old eunuch nodded and coughed for a bit.
'A few years ago I overtaxed my body in some way while I was training.
It brought on this cough which just seems to get worse and worse.
This last year I've begun to realize there's no hope for me.'
'Oh, I don't know,' said Trinket, not quite sure where this conversation was heading.
'I thought your cough was getting a bit better lately.'
'Better?' said the old eunuch shaking his head.
'It's not the least bit better.
I've got a terrible pain in my chest all the time.
What would you know about it?'
'What's it like at the moment?' said Trinket.
'Would you like me to get you some of your medicine?'
Again the old man sighed.
'I've already lost my eyesight.
Medicine has to be taken in the proper doses.'
Trinket almost stopped breathing.
Did this mean that the Old Devil had guessed about that as well?
'You've got a lucky streak,' the old eunuch continued.
'Getting yourself into the Emperor's graces like that—it could have been very useful.
You haven't been purified, of course, but that's no problem.
I could have done the cutting for you.
Ah, it's a pity.
Too late. Just too late.'
Trinket had no idea what 'purified' meant; but everything the old eunuch was saying tonight seemed to have something odd about it.
'Goong-goong,' he said, 'it's very late.
Shouldn't you be getting some sleep?'
'Sleep?' said the old eunuch.
'Sleep?
There's plenty of sleeping to come: sleeping all day, sleeping all night, sleeping and never waking up again.
No more getting up in the morning, no more pains in the chest, no more coughing.
What do you think, boy?
Don't you think it would be nice?'
Trinket was too frightened to answer.
Tell me, boy,' said the old eunuch, 'who else is there besides you in your family?'
The question was straightforward enough and seemed to have been asked without sinister intent, yet Trinket did not know how to answer it.
He hadn't the faintest idea what family the late Laurie had had and feared that almost any answer he gave was likely to betray his ignorance; yet he had to say something.
He settled for a modified version of the truth, hoping that Old Hai himself knew nothing about Laurie's family.
'My mother's the only one at home,' he said.
'What's happened to the rest of the family during these past few years, I'd rather not say.'
'Only a mother,' said the old eunuch.
'And what word do you use for "mother" in the Fujian dialect?'
Here was another surprise for Trinket.
'Could the real Laurie have been a Fujianese?' he wondered.
'I thought he said just now that I used to have a Yangzhou accent.
Perhaps . . . perhaps he does know that I blinded him.'
Some seconds elapsed while his brain raced through a number of possibilities.
His final response was a lame one.
'I... I—why do you ask?'
There was another sigh from the old eunuch.
'So young and yet so wicked!
I wonder where you get it from.
Who do you most resemble, your father or your mother?'
'I don't think I'm like anyone,' said Trinket.
'Anyway, I'm not all that bad.
I may not be very good, but I don't think I'm wicked.'
'I haven't always been a eunuch,' the old man said after a few more coughs.
'I was already a grown man when I was purified.'
Trinket was horrified.
'So that's what being "purified" means: having your piss-pipe and the other bits cut off.
I hope he doesn't think he's going to purify me.
Holy ding-a-ling dongs!'
But the old man's thoughts were on another track.
'I had a son once,' he said.
'Unfortunately he died when he was only eight years old.
If he'd lived, I might have had a grandson today of about your age.
Tell me, is that Whiskers Mao your father?'
'No.
No, he's not.
Hot-piece momma, of course he's not!'
'I didn't think he was,' said the old eunuch.
'If you were my son and you were trapped here in the Palace, I would find the means of getting you out somehow, whatever the danger.'
Trinket forced a smile.
'Pity you're not my father,' he said.
'I could do with a nice, kind father like you.'
'Those two kinds of Martial Art I was teaching you, the Greater Catch-Can and the Merciful Guanyin,' said the old eunuch, '—I'd only started you on them: you couldn't be said to have more than a smattering of either.'
'You ought to teach me them properly, Goong-goong,' said Trinket.
'You're a world champion.
You ought to have someone to carry on the tradition when you're gone.
Teach me, so that one day I can make you famous: that's what you ought to do.'
The old man shook his head.
'I'm not a "world champion".
There are any number of kungfu Masters in the world as highly qualified as I am.
In any case, you couldn't master my two kinds of kungfu if you spent a whole lifetime studying them.'
After a moment he said: 'Put your fingers on your belly about three inches to the left of your navel and press.
Hard.
Tell me what you feel.'
Trinket did as he said.
A pain shot through his vitals, so intense that he cried out loud.
He found himself panting, and the sweat stood out on his brow.
As a matter of fact, for several weeks now he had from time to time been conscious of a slight pain in his left side which he put down to indigestion.
Since it had invariably gone away after a bit, he had not paid it much attention.
He had certainly never imagined that pressure on the source of this pain could produce such agony.
'Interesting, isn't it!' said the old eunuch with ill-disguised satisfaction.
Trinket cursed him inwardly: 'Hateful Old Devil!
Stinking Old Turtle!'
But all he said was: 'It hurts a bit.
I wouldn't have said it was interesting exactly.'
'Every morning when they deliver our food from the kitchens, you're still not back from gambling with your friends or wrestling with the Emperor, ' said the old eunuch.
'I noticed some time ago that the soup they serve is in need of seasoning, so every day I've been getting out one of the little bottles from my medicine chest and tipping a little of the powder in the soup to give it a bit of flavour.
Only a tiny bit.
Too much of the poison would have too obvious an effect.
A smart lad like you doesn't miss much; but as I had been careful never to take soup myself anyway, you didn't suspect anything.'
Trinket could feel his skin crawling.
'But. . . but...
I thought you didn't like soup,' he said.
'You said it made you cough.'
'I'm very fond of soup as a matter of fact,' said the old eunuch, 'but when the soup's poisoned, even if there's only a minute amount of poison in it, the effect of drinking it day after day could in the end become a little dangerous, don't you think?'
'I should say it could!' said Trinket indignantly.
'You think of everything, Goong-goong, don't you!'
'Oh, I don't know, ' said the old eunuch with a sigh.
'I'd originally been planning to let "you take the poison for about three months and then set you free so that it would have a nice long time to work on you.
To start with you'd just have about half-an-hour's pain every day, not very severe.
Then, as time went by, it would get gradually worse and the periods when you felt it would get longer.
After about a year you would be in pain continuously, night and day, and the pain would get so terrible that in the end you would be dashing your head against walls and tearing the flesh of your arms and legs with your teeth, '
He sighed again.
'Unfortunately my health is getting so bad that I doubt if I can wait that long.
Now then, no one else has an antidote for this poison but me, so why don't you be a good little boy and tell me who you are working for?
Who was it that put you up to blinding me?
If you will give me an honest answer to that question, I promise to give you the antidote this minute. '
The question was unanswerable because there was no such person; but Trinket, though young, was not so naive as to believe that the old eunuch would spare his life even if he answered it.
'The person I'm working for?' he said.
'You'd get a nasty shock if I told you.
So you knew all along that I wasn't Laurie and you thought this trick up to make me suffer?
Well—ha ha ha!— you're the one who's been tricked.
Ha ha ha!
You've been had good and proper.'
He kept up the artificial laughter in order to cover up the wriggling of his body.
While he was talking and laughing he had managed to draw up his right leg so that he could get his hand on the dagger in his boot and draw it from its sheath.
Any slight sound that this operation might have given rise to was masked by his idiotic cachinnation.
'What do you mean?' said the old eunuch.
'How have I been had?'
Trinket had to go on talking in order to keep the old man's attention distracted.
Any old nonsense would do.
'I could tell there was something funny about that soup the very first day I tasted it, ' he said.
'I asked Misty about it and he told me you were trying to poison me . . .'
The old eunuch was clearly startled by this.
'The Emperor knew this?'
'Of course he did, ' said Trinket, '—though I didn't realize at the time that he was the Emperor.
Misty advised me not to let on that I knew.
He said pretend to drink the soup but don't swallow it; then afterwards you can spit it back in the bowl.
So that's what I did.
It wasn't very difficult to fool you because you couldn't see.'
All the while he was saying this, he was raising the dagger inch by inch and aiming it at the pit of the old man's stomach.
He knew that in order to succeed he would have to kill him instantly.
Even a correctly aimed blow, if it did not kill him at once, would cost him his own life.
The old eunuch wasn't sure whether to believe him or not.
'If you didn't drink the soup, ' he said, 'how is it that it hurt so badly when you pressed your belly?'
Trinket affected a sigh.
'I suppose it's because I didn't rinse my mouth after spitting it out.
Some of the poison must still have got into my stomach.'
While he was saying this he managed to move the dagger a few inches nearer.
'Good!' said the old eunuch.
The important thing is, there's no cure; so though you've had a lighter dose, all that means is that the poison will act more slowly and you will have that much longer to suffer.'
Trinket began laughing loudly again.
Under cover of his laughter he made a tremendous stab, concentrating all the strength of his body into his right arm and aiming at a place he had chosen just beneath the old man's ribs.
He had worked out in advance that, after driving the dagger home, he would roll towards the corner of the bed, crawl out from under the foot of it, and make for the still open door.
But at that very moment the old eunuch sensed a slight coldness of the air caused by the proximity of the metal.
Surprised but, because of a lifetime of training, never totally off his guard, he raised his left hand almost automatically to fend off an attack—though of what nature, he had no time to think—while his right hand followed with a blow of such giant force that it knocked Trinket flying through the papered lattice of the bedside window and into the garden outside.
Almost at the same time the old eunuch became aware of an agonizing pain in his left hand.
The dagger had severed all four of the fingers on it.
The old man calculated that the blow must have killed Trinket instantaneously and that he was probably already dead when he crashed through the window.
'Pity!' he muttered to himself, smiling grimly.
The little devil didn't deserve to die so quickly.'
When he had recovered somewhat from the shock of his own gruesome accident, he went to his medicine chest and got out some wound-powder to put on the bleeding stumps; then he tore a strip off the bed-sheet to bind up his left hand with, continuing to mutter to himself as he did so.
'Where on earth could the little devil have got hold of a blade like that?
I've never come across anything so sharp in my life before.'
Forcing himself to endure the excruciating pain in his hand, he jumped through the broken window into the garden, groped his way to the place where he thought Trinket must have fallen, and began feeling around for this extraordinary weapon; but though he searched for a long time, he could not find it.
Because he had come to know the garden so well while he still had his sight, he retained a clear memory of where each rock and shrub was situated.
According to his calculation, Trinket must have fallen into the bed of peonies.
He could understand that the weapon might have flown from his hand and be lying at quite some distance away, but where was the body?
The blow that Trinket sustained had knocked all the air out of his lungs and caused an agonizing pain in his chest, coupled with the feeling that every bone in his body had been broken.
When he hit the ground, he very nearly fainted; but somewhere at the back of his fading consciousness there was an awareness that to lie where he was would mean certain death, for the old eunuch had not been killed and would certainly come after him to finish him off.
Making a supreme effort, he struggled to his feet, but after staggering no more than a couple of steps, his legs gave way and he collapsed once more onto the ground.
Fortunately the place where he had fallen was the beginning of a fairly steep declivity in an open part of the garden, so instead of lying where he fell, he began rolling downwards.
If the old eunuch had not been so distracted by pain, he would probably have heard something; though so certain was he that the boy was dead, that even if he had, he would probably have attributed the sound to some other cause.
The slope was a long one and Trinket must have rolled a dozen yards or more before his body came to rest.
He struggled to his feet and began walking again in the same direction.
This time, though his whole body hurt unbearably, he did not fall.
Incredibly, he was still holding the dagger tightly in his hand.
'I think I must have a lucky streak,' he said to himself when he became aware of this.
'After being knocked through the window and rolling down the bank and everything, it's a miracle I didn't cut myself.'
He stopped for a moment to put the dagger back inside his boot.
'Well, the cat's really out of the bag now, ' he thought.
'If the Old Devil knows I'm not what I'm pretending to be, I can't stay in the Palace a moment longer.
Pity about that half a million taels though.
Fancy winning all that money in a single go and then losing the lot in an evening!
That's what I call real style!'
A few minutes before this he had been nearly dead, but now, after a little boasting, he was on top of the world.
'That little maid will be wondering what's become of me,' he thought.
'I can't get out of the Palace anyway in the middle of the night, so I might as well still go and see her. —Aiyo!'
Fishing it out from inside his gown, he found that the box of honey-cakes had, as he feared, been squashed completely flat.
'Better take this as evidence, in case she's feeling cross because I've kept her waiting so long, ' he thought.
'I'll tell her I had a fall.
Ha!
Some fall!
It's turned the cakes into a cow-pat.'
He sampled a small piece of the sticky mess.
'Hot-piece tamardy, this is really nice!
Have you ever eaten a piece of cow-pat?
Do try some, it's delicious!'
As he started walking again, this time in the direction of the Hall of Maternal Tranquillity, the Empress Dowager's compound, he was feeling so cock-a-hoop that he was stepping out at quite a pace.
The result was a most frightful pain in his chest which at once slowed him down to a shuffle.
When he reached his goal, however, he found the gate tightly closed.
'Damn!' he thought.
'I didn't think this one would be shut.
Now how the devil am I going to get inside?'
Just as he was wondering what to do next, the gate suddenly opened a bit and a girl's head popped out which he recognized in the moonlight as Blossom's.
She smiled at him and beckoned to him to come in.
He complied happily, and when he had slipped inside, she fastened the gate after him.
'I thought I'd better wait here in case you had trouble getting -in,' she said softly in his ear.
'I've been waiting ever such a long time.'
'I know, I'm late,' Trinket whispered back, 'but I had a fall on the way.
I tripped over a horrible old turtle.'
'I didn't know there were any in the Palace,' said Blossom.
'I've never seen one.
Did you hurt yourself?'
The effort of getting to this appointment had absorbed so much of his attention that it had almost taken his mind off the pain; but as soon as she asked the question he became aware that he was hurting dreadfully all over and groaned in spite of himself.
Blossom seized his hand in her own.
'Where does it hurt?' she asked in an anxious whisper.
As Trinket was on the point of answering her, a shadow appeared on the ground and he looked up to see a dark figure like a great eagle floating down from the top of the garden wall and softly alighting at the foot of it.
He was so startled that he almost called out.
While he watched, the monstrous bird-shape transformed itself into a much taller, thinner shape which he could see now, in the light of the moon, was no eagle but a man—a tall, thin man with hunched shoulders and a rounded back: none other, in fact, than Old Hai the eunuch.
Blossom, who had her face towards Trinket and away from the wall, had not seen this apparition; but when Trinket fell silent and turned to stare at something with a startled look on his face, she turned to look as well.
The next moment Trinket had his hand over her mouth, holding it perhaps rather tighter than was necessary for fear she might cry out.
At the same time he signalled to her with his other hand to keep quiet.
When she nodded to show that she understood, he slowly withdrew the hand from her mouth, though all the time keeping his eyes on the old eunuch.
Old Hai had now straightened himself up and was standing rather stiffly with his head cocked to one side as if listening for something.
After a while he began, very slowly, to move forwards.
Trinket breathed a silent sigh of relief when he saw that he was not walking in his direction.
'Who'd have thought the Old Turtle would be able to follow me all the way here in spite of being blind?' he thought.
'Still, provided neither of us makes any noise, he isn't likely to find me.'
After taking a few steps forwards, the old eunuch made a sudden leap sideways which brought him right in front of Trinket; then, shooting out his right arm, he grasped Blossom round the neck.
She tried to scream, but because of the pressure on her throat, it was only a little smothered sound that came out.
'It's me he's after, not this girl,' thought Trinket.
'I don't think he'll kill her.'
He was only a couple of feet away from the old man and so scared that he was nearly wetting himself, but he dared not budge an inch, knowing that if he made the slightest movement he would be heard.
'Don't make any noise,' the old eunuch hissed to Blossom.
'If you don't do as I tell you, I shall strangle you.
Now tell me, but keep your voice down, who are you?'
'I. . . I. . .' Blossom began.
The old eunuch ran his hand over her head, then over her face.
''You're one of the maids-in-waiting, aren't you?' he said.
'Yes,' said Blossom in a little voice.
'So what are you doing out here in the middle of the night?'
'I'm just. . . just playing,' said Blossom.
A faint smile appeared on the face of the old eunuch which the dim moonlight transformed into a ghastly leer.
'Who is here with you?'
He cocked his head to listen.
What had enabled him to tell where Blossom was standing was the fact that she did not know how to control her breathing and had been breathing rather heavily because she was frightened.
He hadn't been aware of Trinket's presence because Trinket's breathing was more restrained.
When Trinket heard the old eunuch's question, he wanted to signal to Blossom not to let on that he was there, but dared not risk even moving his hand.
Fortunately Blossom's quick wits had already sensed that the old man was blind and she said 'no one' without needing to be told.
'Where are the Empress Dowager's rooms?' said the old eunuch.
'Take me to her!'
'Goong-goong, please, ' said Blossom pleadingly, 'please don't tell her.
I... I promise never to do this again.'
She assumed that he intended to report her for being caught wandering outside at an unauthorized hour.
'No use bleating,' said the old eunuch.
Take me to her, or I'll strangle you this minute.'
He increased the pressure on her throat so that she could no longer breathe and her face became swollen and purple.
Trinket was so frightened that he lost control of his bladder and piss soaked through his trousers and began falling drip after drip on the ground.
Fortunately the faint sound it made was not detected by the old eunuch; or if it was, he must have assumed that it was the little maid of honour who was wetting herself.
He released the pressure on her throat.
'Come on!
Take me there!'
Blossom had no choice but to obey, but before they went, she shot a look full of tenderness at Trinket which seemed to say, 'Go, quickly!
I promise I won't give you away.'
That's the Empress Dowager's bedroom, over there,' she whispered, temporarily forgetting that the old man couldn't see.
She began walking, very slowly, in me direction she had indicated.
The old eunuch walked beside her, his right hand still encircling her throat.
'The Old Devil's going to tell the Empress Dowager about me, ' thought Trinket.
'He'll tell her everything—how I killed Laurie and dressed up in his clothes, and how I made him blind, and he'll ask her to have me arrested.
But I wonder why he doesn't tell the Emperor?
I suppose it's because he knows the Emperor likes me and is afraid he might not do anything about it.
Oh help!
What am I going to do?
I have to get out of this Palace as quickly as possible.
Aiyo, I can't though!
The gates will have been shut long ago.
It won't be long now before the Empress Dowager gives orders for my arrest.
I shan't get away then, even if I grow wings.'
