Throne of Jade Page 0,80

to the taste, smoky and thin, with pitchers of bright red vinegar as accompaniment and to add sharp flavor, and masses of short dried noodles in each bowl, strangely crunchy.

All the while the servants were bringing it in, the translator had been murmuring quietly in answer to some question from Sun Kai, and now on his behalf leaned across the table and asked, "Captain, is your father a relation of the King?"

Though surprised by the question, Laurence was grateful enough for any excuse to put down his spoon; he would have found the soup difficult eating even had he not already gone through six courses. "No, sir; I would hardly be so bold as to call His Majesty a relation. My father's family are of Plantagenet descent; we are only very distantly connected to the present house."

Sun Kai listened to this translated, then persisted a little further. "But are you more closely related to the King than the Lord Macartney?"

As the translator pronounced the name a little awkwardly, Laurence had some difficulty in recognizing the name as that of the earlier ambassador, until Hammond, whispering hastily in his ear, made it clear to whom Sun Kai was referring. "Oh, certainly," Laurence said. "He was raised to the peerage for service to the Crown, himself; not that that is held any less honorable with us, I assure you, but my father is eleventh Earl of Allendale, and his creation dates from 1529."

Even as he spoke, he was amused at finding himself so absurdly jealous of his ancestry, halfway around the world, in the company of men to whom it could be of no consequence whatsoever, when he had never trumpeted it among his acquaintance at home. Indeed, he had often rebelled against his father's lectures upon the subject, of which there had been many, particularly after his first abortive attempt to run away to sea. But four weeks of being daily called into his father's office to endure another repetition had evidently had some effect he had not previously suspected, if he could be provoked to so stuffy a response by being compared with a great diplomat of very respectable lineage.

But quite contrary to his expectations, Sun Kai and his countrymen showed a deep fascination with this intelligence, betraying an enthusiasm for genealogy Laurence had heretofore only encountered in a few of his more stiff-necked relations, and he shortly found himself pressed for details of the family history which he could only vaguely dredge out of his memory. "I beg your pardon," he said at last, growing rather desperate. "I cannot keep it straight in my head without writing it down; you must forgive me."

It was an unfortunate choice of gambit: Liu Bao, who had also been listening with interest, promptly said, "Oh, that is easy enough," and called for brush and ink; the servants were clearing away the soup, and there was room on the table for the moment. At once all those nearby leaned forward to look on, the Chinese in curiosity, the British in self-defense: there was another course waiting in the wings, and no one but the cooks was in a hurry for it to arrive.

Feeling that he was being excessively punished for his moment of vanity, Laurence was forced to write out a chart on a long roll of rice paper under all their eyes. The difficulty of forming the Latin alphabet with a paintbrush was added to that of trying to remember the various begats; he had to leave several given names blank, marking them with interrogatives, before finally reaching Edward III after several contortions and one leap through the Salic line. The result said nothing complimentary about his penmanship, but the Chinese passed it around more than once, discussing it amongst themselves with energy, though the writing could hardly have made any more sense to them than theirs to him. Yongxing himself stared at it a long time, though his face remained devoid of emotion, and Sun Kai, receiving it last, rolled it away with an expression of intense satisfaction, apparently for safe-keeping.

Thankfully, that was an end to it; but now there was no more delaying the next dish, and the sacrificed poultry was brought out, all eight at once, on great platters and steaming with a pungent, liquored sauce. They were laid on the table and hacked expertly into small pieces by the servants using a broad-bladed cleaver, and again Laurence rather despairingly allowed his plate to be filled. The meat was delicious,