THE SILK TREE

CHAPTER SIXTY

Nicander walked down the road to the caravanserai in a blissful haze. To have been granted by the gods the highest felicity in this life…

But his mind suddenly slammed in to the present. If he was to live in Samarkand, what was he to do? They couldn’t live off her capital indefinitely. Would it be enough to start some kind of business?

And there was the matter of the grand mission he and Marius had embarked on all those many months ago. Was it right to let his friend go on alone when he’d sworn to stand by him? He would have no regrets about letting Marius keep the secret of silk for himself, but he had to make it to Justinian first. And while the proud legionary had his strengths, this arguably needed both their talents.

Did this mean he must see it through first then return to her? Would she wait for him? Was it fair to expect her to?

But to leave her now was more than he could bear to think about.

The thoughts raced through his head and as he came up to the caravanserai cell he made a decision. He owed it to his friend to tell him about Ying Mei right away; he’d work the other things out with him afterwards.

He opened the door but before he could enter he was slammed to the floor.

‘What the…?’ he spluttered, staring up at Marius.

‘I thought it was… bugger that. Where’ve you been? You took your time saying goodbye!’

‘Well, I’ve-’

‘Save it. We’ve got big trouble.’ Marius went to the door, checked outside, then closed it quickly.

‘That clearance the caravan master had to get? The fucking Persians now know there’s someone here who’s come from China and heading through. There’s rumours of foreign devils talking to Sogdians, holy men who aren’t what they seem… Nico, they’re out looking for us. We’ve got to get away!’

‘You mean leave Samarkand?’

‘Of course I do! What’s wrong with you? This is bloody serious – we’ve got just hours before they find us.’

‘But if we can’t go by caravan then-’

‘For Christ’s sake! I’m saying now! Get out by any means as long as we’re gone from here!’

‘What about Ying Mei?’

‘Those two takes their chances, o’ course! Nico, there’s no time to argue, we’ve got to move.’

‘They have to come with us.’

‘Are you crazy? Whatever plan we come up with things’ll be rough, women’ll get in the way and we’ll be caught. No, they stay behind.’

‘Marius, we agreed to deliver them safely to the west. This is the west, but they’re not safe. I’m not leaving them here while they’re in danger.’

‘You’re not?’ Marius rapped.

‘No.’

‘So I go alone?’ he said with a steely edge of menace.

‘And break your word to Kuo?’

Marius flinched then gave a twisted smile. ‘You bastard. All right, they come. But let’s get out of here fast. We’ll hide with them while we come up with something – anything!’

Ying Mei opened the door. ‘Ah Wu! How nice to see you!’

After a quick look up and down the road, Marius pushed past her. Bewildered, she flashed a glance at Nicander who put a finger to his lips.

Wheeling about in the centre of the room, Marius demanded, ‘Where’s Tai Yi?’

‘I’m here!’ she said frostily, suddenly appearing.

Nicander caught Ying Mei’s eye and she gently shook her head. She’d kept her secret.

‘Tell ’em,’ Marius grunted, going out to check the back of the house.

It took little time to explain the situation and as soon as Marius returned it was agreed that they had to move fast. Their options were pitifully few. Any caravan would be watched, including the ones returning to Osh, so even falling back to where they had come from was not possible.

‘Creep out into the country and hide?’ hazarded Ying Mei.

‘We’ve got to look at the bigger picture, not just the short term,’ Nicander replied.

‘He’s saying we’ve got to get out o’ where the Persians are, to somewhere they’re not!’ Marius said flatly.

‘Like…?’

‘Let’s face it, Nico. We’re going back to Constantinople, whatever it takes. We’ve got to get around the Persians and I don’t know how. And that’s saying if the women are coming with us, they’re going there too.’

Nicander glanced at Ying Mei. Samarkand was to have been where the two of them were to have lived, and where she could listen for news of China. There were no such lines of communication out of Constantinople and she would therefore never know…

‘We go,’ Tai Yi said, surprising the others with the force in her voice. ‘These Persians know we were with the foreigners when they came. So, My Lady, we have to decide if we trust these two to get us somewhere where we will be safe. I do.’

Ying Mei bit her lip and avoided Nicander’s eye.

Knowing nothing of the country, the larger world, even the city outside, where would they begin to plan? It seemed hopeless.

Then she brightened. ‘Why don’t we ask Yulduz, you know, the caravan master we had? He’s sure to know if there are other ways.’

‘Damn it – she’s right!’ Marius agreed. ‘I’ll wait until dark to go and find him. Nothing we can do until then.’

Marius came back with disastrous news. ‘This is bad – no, it’s fucking terrible! I gets to him and asks him, nice and friendly like, to help us. Then he turns white, says he doesn’t know us and in any case there’s no way he’s going to help any who are wanted by the kingdom. I don’t give a single obol for our chances now!’

Tai Yi stood up. ‘We must go. Right now – into the country, find a farm or something and stay there while we think what to do.’

‘What if-’

‘Shut up! Quiet – all of you!’

Marius listened intently. ‘There!’ he whispered, pointing up to the ceiling.

The others heard nothing: but then there was a nearly inaudible scrape. And another. Marius beckoned Nicander and the two crept toward where the steps led down from the roof garden.

‘They’re here!’ Marius grated. ‘I’ll take the first, you-’

A dark figure dropped into view to a muffled scream from the women.

‘Wait!’ Marius hissed, holding up his hand, but there were no more following.

The figure threw back its hood. It was a bearded man, his eyes wary and suspicious. ‘You the four?’ he barked in broken Chinese.

‘Who are you?’

‘Mansur, son of Anjak. He say you want… get out of Samarkand.’

Quick as a cat, Marius crossed to the steps and looked about carefully, then returned. ‘How do you know this?’

‘My uncle, he say.’

The caravan master must have told him of their plight – and the opportunity for gold.

‘We have to leave right now. Can you…?’

It took some explaining but when Mansur had finished there was a deathly hush.

What was being proposed was audacious, dangerous and terrifying, but it might just work. Centuries before the Persians had clamped their hold on the caravan routes, there had been trade between Rome and China on the seasonal trails. One of these went north about the Hyrcanian Sea, what the Persians called the Caspian, and from there across to the Pontus Euxinus, the Black Sea. And then it was only a direct voyage by trading ship to the city of Byzantium itself.

There was a catch. The route had been long abandoned for fear of the Huns and Goths who had come out of the howling wilderness of the steppe lands on a path of pillage and destruction among the rich pickings of Europa. What was being suggested was that they journey into the homeland of these brutal nomads.

Mansur, however, specialised in trading with these peoples and knew them well. He was able to move freely about the more settled tribes for they liked the bright baubles of civilisation he exchanged for their furs and worked goods, and in fact he was off on a trading run now and could offer them safe passage for a price.

In terms of distance it would add little to the miles they would have had to travel by the usual route and the going across the steppe lands would be easier than the deserts and rugged lands of the south, but in terms of risk…

To stay was out of the question. It would be only a matter of time before they would be found.

Ying Mei had drawn heavily on her uncle’s note at the last possible place, Khotan, and Mansur’s price would seriously deplete her resources. However, there was nothing for it. To leave under eye through guarded gates was not to be considered, even in a disguise of some sort. As part of a caravan perhaps two had some chance of breaking out but as a conspicuous party of four…

‘How will we escape the city?’ Nicander asked.

‘Leave to me. First, you give me your mark.’

This was to be something that would recognisable to them later. ‘Marius! Your Mithras.’

Unwillingly the legionary took off his iron ring and passed it over.

‘Tonight, someone will come with this. You will do as he say! Your baggage – you leave in this room, so. Go with nothing.’ With that, Mansur slipped away.

It proved to be a long wait but, just as the first light was beginning to lift the darkness, a boy appeared at the steps.

He handed over the ring. Nicander gave a nod.

Nervously the lad beckoned. They followed on to the roof and down the rear in the predawn stillness. The boy darted ahead, peered around the corner, then motioned for them to make haste.

Nearby a cock crowed making Nicander’s pulse race but there was no holding back now.

The small group hurried down the street and turned into a narrow lane. It led to a communal well.

Pausing, the boy looked about – then feverishly cranked up the bucket and gestured to Marius.

‘In there?’ he muttered with incredulity.

The boy stabbed a finger at the bucket.

‘Stand on it, hurry,’ Nicander said with urgency.

Marius did so, holding on to the rope and the lad let him down quickly. He leant over to see, then cranked up the bucket and pointed to Tai Yi. She went down too, followed by Ying Mei.

As the bucket was being pulled up, Nicander heard footsteps behind. He whirled round – but it was only a woman with a large pitcher looking at them curiously.

The boy gabbled something and she came forward with a smile and took her time getting a fill of water, then left.

Nicander clambered on and the bucket was lowered quickly into the darkness, past slimed stonework that stank of mineralised water.

At the bottom was a light – a tallow dip set on a ledge giving a ghostly illumination to the three standing together in water to their knees.

‘I didn’t reckon on this,’ Marius quavered. ‘What’re we doing here?’

Nicander recognised the ancient method he’d seen in Petra for bringing life-giving water from distant snow-covered mountains to arid lands. ‘This is a qanat. You see that tunnel?’ He pointed to the low subterranean passage hewn out of rock. ‘It feeds a line of wells that goes far into the desert. I’ve a notion we’ll be going for a long wet walk.’

The boy shinned down the rope and splashed next to them. He picked up the light and led the way into the tunnel.

Bent double, they inched forward, following the wavering light and stumbling on the uneven floor.

In the gloom the sound of their splashing progress was loud and echoing.

Was the crushing weight of rock above them waiting to collapse and bury them?

Nicander had contrived to be behind Ying Mei whose mechanical movements betrayed her fear and in the darkness he ached to hold her, to comfort her. He realised that Marius, too, was affected by the confinement of the narrow, dark passage. He tried to keep up a steady conversation, complaining at the numbing cold of the water, the constant splashing forward and demanding that the sun had better be shining good and hot when they eventually came up.

Then far ahead there was a change in the Stygian blackness. As they made towards it, it resolved into a delicate splash of light from above. They drew nearer until they reached it – they were at another well and far up was a perfect disc of pure brightness.

Marius stared up, the light pitiless on his contorted features. He gave a hoarse cry and pounded on the side of the well.

The boy hurried back and urgently signalled that this was not the right one, they must continue on.

But Marius was near the end of his tether. Nicander pushed over to the legionary and swung him around. He scooped icy water and dashed it into his face. ‘We’re all still here, Marius! Let’s finish it together!’

The man’s chest heaved and Nicander could sense the struggle taking place as his friend strove to conquer his terror.

‘It’s time to march, caligatus,’ he said gruffly. ‘Now!’

With fixed, staring eyes Marius shuffled off down the tunnel.

They splashed on and on. It wasn’t the next well but the one after that when they were motioned to stop.

The boy whistled twice. There was no response.

He whistled again, agitated. No answer drifted down to their echoing dungeon.

Nicander felt panic rising. If there was a misunderstanding and no one was there…

A sudden dark shape broke the blinding circle of light above and a shout echoed.

In a giddy wash of relief the young boy shouted back and soon a bucket on a rope was clattering down.

‘Marius, you go.’ Nicander guided him forward.

‘No!’ he replied in a hoarse, off-key voice. ‘Ladies must.’

Ying Mei was first and the bucket was winched up. Then it was Tai Yi, but Marius would not be budged, it had to be Nicander next.

The squeaking windlass swayed him up into the ever-increasing light until in a blinding flash he reached the surface. Willing hands helped him over the lip of the well and in the warmth of the morning sun he found himself looking out over a parched landscape back to the walls of the city.

He turned to the well but it was the young boy who stepped out.

Marius was the last to emerge. He fell to his knees and kissed the warm earth. ‘I’ll rot in hell before ever I get down there again!’

Mansur was waiting for them with mounts ready saddled up, along with his packhorses and mules and a goods wagon piled high. ‘We stage at Aktash. Your baggage will catch us there.’