It occurred to Hawkwood that he might have seen scorpions strike with less speed and ferocity; estimating later that it had probably taken Chen longer to climb over the ropes than it had for him to put the champion on his back.
To a stunned silence that could have been cut with a knife.
It had been hard to tell who was the most shocked: the crowd, the booth owner, or Billy Boyd.
“Jesus!” Jago’s whisper had echoed the reaction of every witness in the tent.
With Boyd still flat on the canvas, Chen had left the ring to claim his purse, only to discover that the tout was not prepared to relinquish the prize in the wake of a bout that had lasted barely ten seconds, even more so when the challenger had not even had the decency to engage in a fair contest. Especially, the tout had added, when he was a “bleedin’ Chinaman” to boot. Emboldened by the belief that he had the bulk of the spectators on his side, he’d told Chen to sling his hook.
But Chen had stood his ground.
By then, factions within the crowd had begun to argue, divided between those who agreed with the tout that the Chinaman had employed unfair tactics, typical of a bloody slant-eyed little heathen, and those who thought that landing Billy Boyd on his arse had been no bad thing and worth the entrance fee on its own.
Things had been on the verge of turning ugly when, with reluctance, Hawkwood had stepped in. Having Jago at his shoulder had helped, but mostly it had been his brass-crowned Runner’s baton and the magistrate’s warrant contained within it that had persuaded the tout that it might be in his best interest if he reconsidered his decision. It was either that, or notice would be issued to close down the booth and both the tout and the champion could spend the night reflecting upon their decision in the nearest police cell. It’d save a lot of bother, Hawkwood promised them, if they paid the Chinaman what they owed him. Then everybody could go home.
Muttering under his breath, the booth owner had handed over the five guineas. In the interest of public order, Hawkwood and Jago had escorted Chen from the tent and, in case any of Boyd’s supporters harboured thoughts of revenge, from the Common as well.
When they’d reached a safe distance, Chen had thanked them in halting English. Then he’d asked Hawkwood why he’d helped him.
There had been two reasons, Hawkwood told him. The first was because Chen had won the bout and the purse was therefore his.
The second was that Hawkwood wanted Chen to teach him to fight.
They had been using the cellar beneath the Rope and Anchor twice a week for three months. The owner, a former lighterman called Tully Robinson, owed Jago a favour. Jago had called in the debt and Tully had bequeathed one of the pub’s cellars, no questions asked. It even had its own entrance, approached via a dank, shoulder-wide passage with the appropriate name of Gin Alley.
The cellar became their training room. Hawkwood had been mystified by some of the additions, the sparring tree in particular. Only when Chen had given him a demonstration, using his hands, forearms and feet to attack the bare wooden figure had it begun to make sense, as had the ridges of hardened skin along the outside edges of Chen’s soles and palms. It was only after their second session together that Hawkwood noticed how compact Chen’s hands were; his fingers were uniformly short and almost of the same length. As a result, his fingertips, when held rigid, were as formidable as an axe blade and just as effective as the edge of his hand.
Chen had begun by teaching Hawkwood simple sequences of blocks and strikes. Hour after hour, he would take Hawkwood through the drills until the mantra became all consuming.
“Too slow. Again.”
Block, strike; block, strike.
“Too slow. Again.”
The techniques that Chen employed were not entirely new to Hawkwood. He’d served with a man during his time in Spain, a Portuguese soldier turned guerrillero, who’d plied his trade in the East and who’d picked up some interesting fighting skills along the way. He’d shared some of them with Hawkwood, telling him they’d originated among an order of Chinese holy men. Forbidden to carry weapons, they had devised their own form of combat using their hands and feet and whatever implements were available.
Hawkwood had remembered some of the elementary moves and indeed had used them on occasion. Watching Chen display the unexpected yet instantly familiar tactics against Billy Boyd had ignited the thought that maybe fate had presented him with an opportunity to widen his knowledge and improve upon those few basic skills he’d acquired from his Portuguese comrade-in-arms. Anything that would give him an edge over the sort of men he hunted had to be an advantage.
As the lessons progressed so did Chen’s command of English. From what Hawkwood had been able to glean, Chen had no family. He came from the south of China; a province with a strange name that was almost impossible to pronounce. More intriguing was Chen’s disclosure that he had indeed been a monk, a member of a religious order that had fallen foul of the authorities. A number of sacred sites had been desecrated, including Chen’s own monastery. The monks had retaliated and a price had been placed on their heads. Many of them had fled the country. Chen had arrived in England on board a British merchant ship, one of hundreds of anonymous seamen recruited abroad as cheap labour by the East India Company. As a result he’d found himself marooned, an orphan in a storm, unable to return home, for fear of imprisonment or death.
He’d managed to find a bed in one of the Lascar-run Shadwell boarding houses, using the last of his pitiful wages. When they ran out he’d resorted to begging; a legacy from his time as a monk, when the only way to obtain food had been to wander the streets with a bowl and cup. But he’d soon learned there was little sympathy shown to foreign beggars – there were enough home-grown ones – and his orange robe, which would have elicited charity in his own country, counted for nothing on the streets of London. Starvation looked a likely prospect, but he’d persevered. He’d known that the best pickings were to be found wherever crowds gathered, so he had followed the fair-goers to Bow Common. There he’d seen the illustrations on the outside of the boxing booth. He had sufficient English to understand what was required in order for him to walk away with enough money to cover three months’ lodgings. He’d watched Boyd through a gap in the back of the tent and even though he’d not used his fighting skills in many months, he knew he would beat him and that it would not take long.
And so it had proved.
In their training they would alternate roles and Hawkwood would take on the role of the aggressor, wielding his tipstaff or the knife in his boot or on occasion one of the tools hanging on the wall; the threshing flail, the hammer, the hand scythe or the axe. Invariably, Chen would disarm him with ease, no matter how quickly Hawkwood attacked or what weapon he favoured. Gradually, however, Hawkwood came to understand the principles Chen employed, how it was possible to defuse an attack using gravity, speed and leverage to unbalance his opponent and effect a counter strike and every now and then he found himself piercing Chen’s formidable defences. But not very often.
Chen transferred his weight to his left foot and thrust the knife towards Hawkwood’s throat. This time, Hawkwood was unarmed. He brought up his right hand, found Chen’s wrist, rotated it and, stepping to the left, brought the heel of his left hand against Chen’s braced elbow. Chen went down and Hawkwood released his grip.
Chen came off the mattress and nodded. “Better. You still slow, but better.”
“Better”, Hawkwood had learned, was the closest Chen ever got to awarding high praise.
They’d been in the cellar for two hours. Hawkwood’s shirt was soaked. Perspiration coated his skin and his arms and legs ached. He felt a perverse pleasure, however, at seeing for the first time the thin line of perspiration that beaded Chen’s temple. It meant he was probably doing something right.
In