If I Loved You Less
By DJ Clawson
Welcome back! For those of you just joining us, you should go start earlier in the series, because at this point it's going to be complicated to pick it up. I recommend starting with a .pdf of the revised first two stories here:
laughingman. web. aplus. net / phpbb / viewtopic. php?t31Next year at this time, G-d willing, you'll be able to buy it in book form.
Last time on our series, an emotional wounded Georgiana Bingley ran from a physically wounded Geoffrey Darcy by spending a year in a womens' school in France. There she learned trust herself, open up to other people, and that if you start killing people, it's going to just pile on itself.
A year later...
Chapter 1 – Prologue – 1825
"You want to get in trouble, don't you? I have to answer to the Chief Councilor for this."
Liu Xiao took the tea from the English servant girl. She always seemed mystified when he left the saucer in her hands. "This? I haven't even done anything yet."
"I have to answer to him for everything we do," Quon Jin said. "And I know you are going to do something."
"I can't help it if I'm bored," Liu said, and gagged on the tea, putting it back in the saucer, saying in English to the servant, "More tea in tea!" She did her little knee-drop bow and scurried off. "This stuff is terrible," he said, returning his interests to further adjusting his attire in front of the gigantic mirror provided for him. He had already removed his blue silk shirt and everything else with any kind of imperial insignia to define his status as an ambassador.
Quon Jin did his best to look imposing, which was very difficult. As a man in his sixties, he was stooped over in a permanent bow (convenient on many other occasions) and his little black goatee was beginning to turn grey. He was almost a head shorter than Liu. "I don't care if you're bored or not and neither does the Grand Council! You were given a very honorable position because of your intelligence and if you can manage not to ruin it by getting drunk with these monkeys, or heaven forbid something else, you might get a promotion. Or at least come home alive."
"All you think about is promotions," Liu said, and put on his hat. "I suppose that makes you a better official than me." Liu knew very well he was too low-ranked for this mission, and was only acquired because he had a talent for languages, even written ones, and could write in English. "You are a better diplomat, too, even if the king likes me better because I'm young."
A man entered and offered Quon Jin a stool. Their servants always had such disrespectful posture, and their neckbands made them look all the more like an animal puffing itself up. Nonetheless Ambassador Jin took the seat. He was tired after a long night at Lord Liverpool's dinner party, even if they were told it was dismissed early. "He likes anything new and shiny. Like a child. I did not leave for this filthy kingdom just to be paraded around like a puppet in front of delighted barbarians."
"Then go do something else," Liu Xiao said. "I am off. I will be back."
"When?"
"When I am needed."
Actually he intended to be back before dawn, but that was not important to say. It wouldn't soothe Quon Jin, whom he liked for some strange reason. Jin had a sort of endearing quality to his insistent manner of doing things, like an overeager grandfather.
They had been in London for three months now and Liu Xiao knew enough to not ask directions, at least while he was still in the west part of the city. To the east they had rarely ventured except to talk to some merchants who requested their audience, which actually was proving more successful than any negotiations with the ruler. The king was obscenely fat, obscenely drunk, and made no attempt to hide it, and the general consensus was that the entire kingdom was waiting for their ruler to die. This would not have been so unusual had it not been for a lack of structure beneath him. There was the Parliament, chosen not for their wisdom or their years of service but by bribery, heredity, and commoner vote. It was a mass rabble no better than the ones on the market square. Liu, as a younger man, found it interesting but nonetheless unproductive; in three months they had not succeeded in getting a single person to take them seriously, much less consider talking about or even looking at a proposed treaty. Instead the Imperial diplomats went from dinner party to dinner party, where the women laughed at the men and the men tried to talk of politics but were too inebriated to do it.
Liu was not enough of an administrator yet to be truly annoyed at the behavior of the local government. He had only completed his exams four years before. He spent ten years studying for them, and it was worth every minute by anyone else's standards, but he could not help but think that there was something to be said for village life. At least it was doing something.
The poor of London were easily found, mainly by the smell. Dressed respectably in black, but fooling no one as to his identity as a "Chinaman," he traveled the streets. He heard there were roving gangs, but he also heard they were all terrible fighters, and so went unhindered by anything except the minor responsibility not to get himself killed, as he spoke English much better than Quon Jin.
"Hey mister, I'll show yah where 'tis."
He looked away from the sign and down at the child, his face smeared with black soot, probably from his job. The sign had said something about a fight. "How much?" he said.
"Two shillin' be all 'tis, sir."
He laughed. "Two farthings are more appropriate, I believe, young master," he said, putting his fist in his other palm and bowing a little.
The boy did not look pleased that Liu understood the money system. "Two farthings 'tis, then."
Of course the boy did do him a service, as even he found the directions hard to follow in this brick maze of a city, and he decided in the end it was worth two farthings, but certainly no more, and he paid the boy and entered the building.
A host of noises and smells assaulted him as he entered the crowd in the warehouse. Several gaslights burned over the center, where the hay had been cleared away and a little ring made by the boundaries of the crowd. Inside that man-made ring, two peasants were pummeling each other with their fists, doing little to block and always going for the head. Liu watched with the first real fascination in weeks as he melted into the crowd. These Englishmen were indeed so busy puffing themselves up that they stood perfectly straight and hit each other like poles with targets. It was logical – for an idiot – and undisciplined. It was also quite bloody, as the face bled especially easily, and finally one of them was hit hard enough to knock him down. The apparent ringmaster began to call down from ten to one, and then declared the other man, rendered almost indistinguishable for all the red swelling and bleeding on his face, the winner.
"All takers! All takers! Half-pence on the current champion!"
There were takers, and they went down until one of them beat the champion in question, who at this point was probably done just from sheer exhaustion. They were bloodthirsty creatures.
When they were no takers to the current man, as bulky as a horse, Liu stepped in. He had to look up to face the man, but he bowed politely, and the money came down like rain around him, and the ringmaster had to run to collect all the bets before the fight could begin.
"I'll smash your face in, little man," said the champion, "and hang you by your ponytail."
Liu smiled and bowed again. "It is an honor." He turned to the crowd closing in behind him. "Please, back away. You are not in the fight."
The bell was rung and it began, and the champion sent his fist flying. It would have bashed Liu's face in, if he had been stupid enough to leave his face there, but instead he knelt down and as the boxer's muscled chest came flying at him, Liu pushed his hand into the man's diaphragm. Forces of nature did the work for him; he had to kick out the man's legs to send him backwards and make sure he didn't just fall on Liu, who would not appreciate being crushed. The thud was audible even on the dirt floor as the man hit the ground in front of him, and Liu rose to his feet, his queue still swinging behind him.
There was a moment of silence before the ringmaster could even scramble to begin calling it. The champion was too stunned to rise. "Champion!" he said, pulling Liu's arm up into the air, and there was a lot of booing, but a fair amount of cheering.
And so it began. Liu Xiao didn't even begin sweating before the fourth fight, and that was just from the heat in the room. The second was more hesitant and it took a few more moves. The third even managed to get back on his feet a few times before Liu broke his leg, ensuring it would not happen again. So far, he had bloodied no one, and there was not a drop on him.
Now the crowd had learned and the ring was much larger, as there was far more movement between fighters. In fact, it was almost double the size when Liu looked at the ringmaster, who turned to the man beside him and said, "Get Jack."
No contestants came forward. Liu stood respectfully. He had no real desire to taunt them, as that would invite more trouble, and he really wanted to walk out without killing an opponent or seriously harming himself (and he had not heard good things about English medicine). Finally a space was cleared in front of them as someone emerged from the back, and crowd began cheering as the man they shouted for stepped into the light.
"Jack" was not much bigger than he was, and not particularly bulky, though his coat and scarf hid most of his body and therefore his build. He had wraps around his hands, so he was probably a somewhat regular fighter. Little was visible of his face because he had both a scarf on despite the heat and a headband around his wild black hair.
Liu bowed, and Jack returned it, without the hand gesture. They both took a moment to size each other up, though Jack had had more of a chance, if he had been present for the past few rounds. Liu, however, was still trying to make out his opponent, who stood waiting, not for the bell but for Liu to do something, as if he was a fighter to sit on his heels until his opponent struck. Except Jack did not have heels. He had sandals. Japanese geta shoes, male version. Liu was probably the only one who recognized them for what they were, but Jack was not Japanese. Or maybe he was. It was hard to tell.
The bell rang and Liu realized how lost he had been in contemplation. Jack stood and waited, giving no indication of a fighting stance. He would wait for Liu, and not make the same mistake of every Englishman previous to him. "It is an honor," Liu said in Pinyin, his native tongue, but Jack either did not understand or decided not to acknowledge it.
Since Liu had to fist fight, he would. His fist came carefully but quickly, and Jack was ready. He moved to the side to block, something all of the other Englishmen had failed to do. He even tried to twist Liu's arm and break it, but Liu was too strong and managed to spin him over. Jack wasn't very heavy and hit the ground, but was hardly incapacitated. He spun around to give himself the momentum to get up without his hands, and got back on his feet with a "clonk" as his wooden shoes touched the floor again, and the crowd cheered.
So it continued, for a long time, in fact. Jack was evasive – almost too much, and the crowd gave them a wide berth as Liu's punch went into a box instead of Jack's neck, smashing the wood. Jack kicked the other hand, catching it between the spokes of his geta, which were reinforced with metal, and simply stepped down to catch Liu's arm.
"If I twist it," Jack whispered to him, "I'll break it."
Liu's other limbs were not pinned, and his left successfully knocked out one of Jack's, who went back down, freeing Liu, who grabbed the leg. "The same," he said in English.
Jack growled and kicked Liu in the stomach, hard enough to push him back and free himself. The fight resumed with them both on their feet, even though it had never officially stopped.
This time, Liu assumed a formal tiger stance. Jack didn't bother with formalities and met it with a crane. Liu smiled; now he was truly back at home. Jack was no Englishman.
They came at each other with blocks and kicks and punches, but they were well-matched. Liu was no master, but neither was Jack. Liu was more powerful and aggressive; Jack more wily and inventive. Liu was stopped in a charge when a wooden sandal went flying at his face, hitting him square between the eyes as Jack hit him in the stomach. Still not enough to knock him out, though Liu did cough, and the crowd, which had turned deadly silent, heard it and cheered.
This would not stand. He grabbed the sandal and tossed it back at Jack, and though it hit far more wildly, it gave Liu enough time to kick his legs out with enough force to leave serious bruises. Liu put his slipper on Jack's chest, feeling his heaving breath. "You know the moves," he said, trying Japanese, "but you don't understand them."
"I won't give you this fight," Jack replied in the same language, though his accent was strange.
"If you don't, there will be serious consequences."
Jack sighed, and put his head back on the ground. He tapped the ground with his left hand, and the bell rang. "Winner!" the ringmaster said, and lifted up Liu's hand. Now Liu was perspiring and though he could have continued beating Englishmen all night, he had other things on his mind. He offered a hand to Jack, who accepted it, and got back to his feet, collecting his geta sandal as he did.
"I want to fight you again," Liu said in Japanese.
"Good luck," Jack said, bowed in the Japanese style, and turned to leave. Liu was going to follow, but Jack was an expert at disappearing into the crowd as the ringmaster came to give Liu his winnings.
Since no one else would challenge Liu, the night was called. Everyone had won or lost enough, anyway. "High numbers tonight," the ringmaster said. "You be back tomorrow?"
"Where is Jack?" he said. "Where can I find him?"
"How should I know?"
"Is he here every night?"
"No. You got lucky."
Liu frowned and grabbed the ringmaster's arm. The old man stopped counting his money as Liu demanded, "Who is Jack?"
"For G-d's sake, I don't know!"
It was obvious that he didn't. The ringmaster hadn't fought Jack, hadn't figured out the most basic thing that identified the mystery fighter from every other person in the room.
"I may be back," he said, "maybe not." With that, Liu left with his money and a lot on his mind. As he stepped into the morning light, he brushed off his gown to catch the tiny hairs that had been caught in the buttons near his neck. He picked up the hairs and examined their beautiful shade of orange in the light.
Jack had been wearing a wig. The ringmaster didn't know that. He didn't know a lot of things, obviously. Liu wondered how many times he had held up Jack's arm and noticed the hands were too small to be a man's.
Next Chapter - Anne's Ball