THE SILK TREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Inside the gate it was a different world. Ordered, a sense of ancient peace – but also menacing in its alien mystery.

Nicander and Marius were hurried along a confusing maze of alleyways into a wide courtyard. The reek of horses left no doubt where they were but as they entered a dark passage at the end they were startled by a sudden roar of some wild beast and the agitated chatter of monkeys.

Cages extended into the gloom, some with giant snakes slowly uncoiling, others with creatures they’d never seen before.

Their escorts stopped at a door set apart from the animals and entered, pushing Nicander and Marius ahead.

A small, remarkably ugly man sat at a table spread for a meal. He looked up in annoyance but after a heated exchange the escort left.

The man raged across the room to Nicander and Marius. Because of a crooked back he could not stand straight and craned his neck sideways to peer up at them.

He threw out a torrent of words then pointed to a side room.

When it was clear they didn’t understand, he grabbed Marius, rotated him to face the room, then booted him hard in the rear.

With a snarl of rage Marius turned on him.

But in one catlike move the man leapt aside, his hand flinging over his shoulder and coming back with a small but vicious whip.

‘Come on, Marius. The ringmaster here wants us in that room,’ Nicander intervened.

It turned out to be a small sleeping area, and for want of chairs they sat on the bed.

The man took his time finishing the meal, burping with satisfaction.

Then they were summoned with a hectoring, animal-quelling roar.

Twisted back aside, the man was different to the others. His eyes were like their own, round and without the upper fold and he had a close-trimmed beard. Was he a tribesman from the outer lands?

Nicander and Marius stood uncertainly while he looked at them in puzzlement. At length he stepped back and barked something.

It was in no language Nicander had come across in his years of merchantry and he shook his head. The man tried again, this time in a rough patter that sounded for all the world like heavily accented Persian.

Then again – and unbelievably he was hearing Aramaic, the lingua franca of traders in Syria and Anatolia!

Stammering in his eagerness he managed, ‘I’m Nicander of Leptis Magna. What is your name, sir?’

The man glowered in triumph. ‘Hah! Knew you were foreign devils, soon as I clapped eyes on you.’

‘What are you doing here, where are you-’

‘Calm down, Nicandorus whatever. Bugger, but I’m rusty in this barbarian lingo! But thank the gods we can talk – we’ve one pile o’ things to get done.’

Marius grabbed Nicander’s arm. ‘What’s he say? Tell me, for God’s sake!’

‘You speak Aramaic! H-how is this possible?’ blurted Nicander.

The man eyed him shrewdly. ‘Let’s be straight on one thing. Wherever you’ve come from I don’t give a toss. Now, I’m the master, you bastards are my slaves and you do what I say. Understand that, Mr Nicandorus?’

‘Yes, Mr…?’

‘You two can call me Beastmaster Yi.’

‘Tell me!’ implored Marius piteously.

Nicander ignored him. ‘Mr Yi, sir. In all mercy, please, what country is this? Where under heaven are we? I beg!’

Yi eased into a smile and slowly shook his head. ‘Then you really don’t know, do you?’

‘No! For pity’s sake…!’

‘I’m of Chalcis, in Syria. Know it?’ He went on, ‘That was a fine place to grow up. But then the Persians went through it on their way to sack Antioch and I was taken. The fucking bastards sold me on to a Bactrian as a stripling and I can’t remember how come I ended here. Where are you from, then?’

Nicander hastily brought Marius up to date, then told their story to Yi.

‘Byzantium? I’d keep a bit quiet about that, if I was you.’

‘Why?’

‘They knows nothing here about the other side of the world – only that someone out there is paying big for what they’ve got a lot of. Silk. They doesn’t want ’em to find out, break their secret of how it’s made or they’d do it themselves. So anyone from that side has got to be a spy, hasn’t they?’

‘I suppose so. Grows on trees, of course, doesn’t it?’

‘Silk? Don’t be stupid. It’s little insects weaving away like spiders.’

‘But – how?’

‘Don’t ask me fool questions. Talk to the peasants, they’re herding the worms.’

‘No trees?’

‘No, no trees. Now – you had it tough, but you’ve got it better than me – I had to start on my own, no one to speak the old lingo to me! Made it all on my own, I did.’

‘Yes, Mr Yi. But – please tell, where the devil are we at all?’

‘Well, you’re in Chung Kuo. Means the middle kingdom, it being the centre of the world,’ he added. ‘The Romans call it Sinae, Serica or something. All these people, they’re your Seres. Heard of it?’

Nicander gulped, speechless.

Yi went on, ‘Here they sometimes call ’emselves Sons of Chin. I’d think we’d have to call it Chayna, it being easier in Aramaic, and I suppose the locals are then Chinese.

‘More’n that,’ Yi went on impressively. ‘This here is Yeh Ch’eng, and it’s the imperial city, the capital of the Northern Ch’i dynasty.’

At the puzzled look he explained, ‘You’ve come to the big one. This is where Emperor Wen Hsuan, the Son of Heaven himself, lives and rules – and this is his palace!’

‘Then… why are we here?’

‘Ha! Because that prick Hao is banking on you being the next big act at the Emperor’s feasts.’

‘Act?’

‘Yes! Thinks you should prance about being fantastical foreign devils, frighten the ladies, you looking so queer, like.’

‘But-’

‘I know,’ Yi said bitterly. ‘Me! The top beastmaster in the kingdom! I’m proud o’ my work, I’ve had leopards and lambs in a chase act, snakes as will play dead and alive, dogs walking backwards. And now they want me to put on a couple of kuei lao strutting about acting foreign. Won’t work, I tell you.’

‘This is why we’re wearing this stuff?’

Yi nodded. ‘The merchant who traded you to Hao wanted to dress you up to look like a kuei lao. See, years ago, the time of the Han dynasty – ’bout three hundred years ago, about the same time as, oh, Antoninus, was it? – seems that some Romans did come here, no idea how. Didn’t do ’em any good, they had nothing to trade the Chinese wanted, and never came back. But they made a splash at the time, and ever since, they think all kuei lao wear a toga like in old Rome, and they’ll expect you to look the part.’

Nicander tried to make some sense of all that he was hearing. ‘So – we live here as your slaves, and our job’s to be going on public show as…’

‘As a kuei lao – foreign devil. I can’t see it lasting,’ Yi said acidly. ‘And I’ll be blamed. Wen Hsuan – he’s barking mad and murderous with it, you know – he tires of things very quickly. I spend all the days the gods give me trying to think of something new for the prick and, every time, I leave the room feeling for my head, that it’s still there.’

‘So it’s important-’

‘It’s life and bloody death! If the bastard’s not amused I wouldn’t give a single lychee for your chances of seeing out the year. Savvy?’

Nicander murmured something appropriate and relayed it all on to Marius.

Then the germ of a notion took root.

‘Say, Mr Yi. I’ve been thinking. By my reckoning we’re all in this together. Why don’t we come up with an act that gets in the crowd, wins them over to our side.’

‘Oh?’

‘Well, I’ve an idea, but we can talk about that later. What I’d like to be assured of is that we’ll be looked after. Decent living quarters, regular routine, that sort of thing. Then we’d be keen in our work, wanting more – and giving all credit to you, of course.’

‘You’re still my slaves.’

‘In a manner of speaking. I thought more along the lines of say, foreign devils together against the odds – friends, in fact.’

‘Bloody cheek! I’ll sleep on it.’