The Amazing, Astonishing, Prodigious Adventures of Curiosity Blade:
From Asia with Love
`1865 was considered by some to be the dawn of the luxury steamship voyage. Lady Curiosity Blade and her cousin, Lord Katzu Ono made quite the striking entrance to the grand dining hall of the maiden voyage of the Soaring Orient steamship on her way to San Francisco from Hong Kong.
Katzu was arrayed in full samurai dinner dress, complete with his navy blue kimono, with sash, swords, and coiffed long black hair. He had serious black eyes that missed nothing. He had a deceptively modest frame that belied the well trained, taut muscles beneath. Katsu was patient as a sage, deadly as a cobra and twice as fast. It was rumored that Katsu once killed a man over a matter of honor. Those who witnessed the event watched his opponent’s head roll in the dust without ever having seen the blade, until it was pointed towards the ground, dripping blood, as the swordsman cleaned his blade to return it to its black and blue scabbard.
Since his cousin, Curiosity, was determined to make a grand traveling tour of the world, he had chosen to be the chaperone by her side. In all honesty, he did not believe she needed physical protection as much as to help maintain her already strained reputation. Curiosity had trained since they were both children, and she had beaten him more than once in martial arts close quarters. However, Katzu was taller and had a longer reach.
Outside that small inner circle, Curiosity was more vulnerable. In addition to his expertise with the sword, Katzu could hit a locust on a blade of grass or graze a man’s top hat off kilter with an arrow. Katzu also possessed a photographic memory, which came in handy from time to time. Almost a mirror image of his cousin, Katzu was as quiet as Curiosity was, well, curious. Her hunger for knowledge was almost as insatiable as her desire for justice. On this last point, the two were in complete agreement, so Katzu was probably the best possible companion for the kind of adventures Curiosity had in mind.
Curiosity was as flamboyant as Katzu was reserved. She appeared in the dining room a vision in peacock turquoise silk. The lower half of the dress was intricately embroidered with colors and seed pearls that resembled a single, three foot peacock feather with dew on its delicate filaments. The bodice of her gown was a less flamboyant collection of peacock feathers that framed her modest cleavage and drooped gently from her pale shoulders.
Her exotic heart shaped face was framed by golden hair set in the simple European braids of the time. The simplicity might have left a lesser beauty plain, but Curiosity’s black eyes sparkled from under a thin turquoise lace veil with a tiny matching pin adornment that held her hair in place.
Katzu took her lifted, small gloved hand and led Curiosity to the captain’s table.
The room sparkled with glitter from crystal chandeliers, candlelit tables, with their gold rimmed plates, silver utensils, and brilliant white table cloths. The mirrors and windows were all made with etched and beveled glass, and the mahogany chairs and railings were polished to a gleam you could see your reflection in as you passed.
As she approached, the captain and the other officers at the table rose from their seats. The rest of the men in the first class dining room did the same. There were also a few dignitaries in the lot, but Curiosity was the only lady in the room, as it happened. Women did not often travel from the Orient to the colonies, at least not in first class.
And Lady Curiosity Blade belonged nowhere else. For a few passing moments, every man in the room seemed to hold his breath, until she seated herself atop the proffered chair, and the rest of the men allowed themselves to return their attention to their own tables.
A young, blonde English Captain could not take his bright blue eyes off Lady Blade. Lord Ono cleared his throat and woke Captain Maddock out of the trance Curiosity mischievously held over him. She knew well the effect she could have on men, and used it to her advantage when it suited her.
“Uh, Right!” Maddock stuttered “Captain Christian Maddock at your service, my Lady. My will is yours to command.” He said with a slight bow and what he hoped sounded like chivalry.
“Well,” winked Curi, “We shall have to be careful not to test your restraint beyond your capacity then, shouldn’t I?”
“I beg your pardon?” Maddock blushed, utterly undone.
“Precisely,” replied Curi with a smug grin of putting the man in a 3 move social checkmate, neatly establishing herself at the top of the table’s hierarchy for the evening.
As the evening wore on for hours, Curiosity sparkled. Her laughter elicited more secrets from these captains of military and industry than a small army of spies in as many months.
Lord Ono was content to watch her work, listen intently, and read the unspoken characters of these gentlemen with their naked faces and easy responses.
At last, after lamps were low and conversation trailed to fatigue, Lord Ono rose and lifted Curiosity from the perch among her admirers. Much as they coveted her, only Ono knew that not one of them was a match for her. He grinned briefly looking down at her as they left the room.
“That went well, cousin.” He said. “Did you get the information you needed?”
“A start,” she said. “We have almost two months to unwind them completely. Better not to show our hand by being overly eager.”
“Well,” he nodded, “you have clearly had practice mastering their egos. Was there a one among them not wrapped around your fingers like schoolgirls’ yarn?”
“Not that I noticed,” she laughed.
But, in the shadows, even where Lord Ono did not glance, there was one man who was not taken in. Not at all.
He was a hunter.
And she was his prey.
***
There was a sitting room in the luxury suite between the steamship rooms they were booked in. There was a small altar at one end of the room with oranges, incense, candles, a peony, an urn, a poem in Japanese, and a photo of a mutual relative. There was also a little table where a game of go was being absent minded played over the course of the voyage between Ono and Curiosity. They were a good match. Competitive.
Curi took big risks that Ono didn’t always see coming, Ono quietly plotted away, paying exquisite attention to details, gradually sneaking up on his opponent. Usually when they played, over the weeks they were neck and neck for who would win the game. There was always a tiny wager, and it always involved an unpleasant chore.
But for the moment, Ono and Curiosity knelt at a low, black lacquer table with abalone inlays of blue-green river dragons, and spread out their contract and plans.
“So the workers have stopped labor completely? Asked Ono.
“Yes, they have,” replied Curiosity.
“That is odd. These are peasant immigrants from Guangdong ?”
“Yes, they are,”
“That doesn’t make sense. There is starvation in Guangdong, there is no place to go back to, and no other work to be had,” said Ono, still musing, looking into the distance.
“And we have been hired by the Six Companies to investigate?” said Ono.
“Kong Chow Company, an arm of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, also called the Six Companies. Kong Chow is a department set aside for community welfare, such as it is, They felt this situation warranted some action be taken,” said Curiosity.
“And they are certainly paying us enough. The fee and the publicity alone would set up our agency for several months,”: continued Curi.
“Why are you doing this, Curiosity? I am not sure I really understand. You aren’t some pampered European princess making the grand tour husband hunting. So exactly what are you doing?” asked Ono, bluntly.
Curiosity held up the report, waving it like a warning flag. “They kill one out of ten workers, but now it’s 7 out of 10 because the foreman started using human beings to pull dynamite into the pass instead of horses. What would you do?”
“Someone responsible for human safety who showed such blatant disregard to life? I would hang him upside down on the village wall and split the man from groin to throat if I was feeling merciful, and boil him in oil if I didn’t.”
“When Confucius talked about taking “right action” he did intend for us to fit the punishment to the breadth and depth of the crime. And this is evil. Cold, calculated, money motivated, cruel evil. But we are headed for America, Curi, not Japan. I doubt we would get very far with our traditional approach to such matters of law and public trust. We do not reform. We deter by example.”
“Right. But these are romantic Europeans. They believe that knights slay dragons, not holding travelers hostage at choke points on travel routes and convert people by the tip of the sword. But that’s ok. It’s a new country, made out of the best of all of us!”
“So I’m slaying dragons!” said Curi, cheerfully.
“I will buy you a huge dragon kite with fireworks and you can shoot it over the sky. Will that suffice? Which dragons, Curiosity, specifically and how.” said Ono with some finality.
“Ono, I am going to separate them from their power – I am going to beat them at their own game.”
“You know that game is rigged.” said Ono matter of factly.
“Of course,” she said.”They cheat, so I will cheat. If you don’t want to kill the cheater at the poker game, what do you do?” asked Curi.
“You know I don’t gamble, not even on dice.” said Ono, his eyes narrowing at the idea of indulging in vice. Ono was strict with his training, and pretty old school with his values.
“Right, neither do I. But you can’t play a game if the house always wins. So without killing them, and without cheating and running the risk of being shot myself, what’s left?” she asked.
“Alright, I am curious, Curi, what’s left? Asked Ono.
“Oh you naive man. First, the same skills women have used for thousands of years to overpower innocent men who are presumed to have more power, money, status and physical strength than them.” said Curiosity innocently, batting her eyelashes disarmingly.
“That’s fine line, Curi, if they catch you out as competent. But let’s say you can convince them. You will hide in plain sight, nudge their choices, then what?” he asks.
Curi rubs her hands together mischievously. “You will have to wait and see. Each case will be different and I will use every skill we can employ.” said Curiosity with conviction. “That’s what makes it so exciting!”
“Ono, you know as a woman without money I have no freedom. Even with a husband I would have little freedom. But America is the land of change.”
“But in America, it’s a new age in a new land! They abolished slavery, they are working for women to get the vote! In America I can be whoever I want. I can dress like a man, I can ride a horse, I can make my own money. You know Daddy doesn’t really have much, and I don’t want the arranged marriage my mother had. I am good with figures, with investment. I can make my own money and there in America, I can be anything I want. In America, anything is possible.”
“I will be free, Ono!” she said.
“And what will you do with that freedom, once you have it?” Ono asked.
Curiosity didn’t skip a beat. “Why, I am going to catch Robber Barons and bankrupt them, give their money to their workers while we set up the agency. Like the Pinkertons, only for justice.”
“So basically you want to play Robin Hood in America?” Ono asked.
“Precisely!” she said, grinning.
At that moment the door of the sitting room exploded inward in splinters and shards of wood and glass.
A figure, wrapped in black from head to toe burst through the door, splitting the lacquer table in half as Ono stands to confront him instantly.
“My hands are harder than steel, you cannot get past them,” says the attacker.
“Your shield means nothing if I never strike there,” replied Ono.
As Ono caught the assassin’s wrist and flipped him backward. The attacker found himself surprised to be on his Butt behind Ono. Curiosity lands on his back, splitting the wrapping bands clothing his back. She ripped them open with her sharp waist knife that was presumed to be a decoration, on a weapon. Amid a map of scars lay a tattoo of a dragon coiled around two orange choi fish. The tattoo covered him from shoulder to below his waist and marked him as a Yakuza outcast.
Ono’s sword was holding up the man’s head by his throat.
“Don’t kill him,” says Curiosity. “We need him for information.”
“Are you still sure this is a good idea, Cur?” Ono asks her.
“Oh yes,” she responds. “More than ever. If someone is trying this hard to stop me, it must mean I am needed.”