Imperial Fire

XXVII

Word of Wayland’s raid and Vallon’s courtroom theatrics spread through the squadron, producing much merriment. Lucas’s comrades greeted him with a kind of dazed admiration and told him that he was the most expensive trooper in the history of the Byzantine army. They were pleased to have Zuleyka back, too. What particularly tickled them was that this was the third time she’d been delivered from bondage. It reinforced their suspicions that she possessed uncanny powers and made them keep a respectful distance. Besides, they believed that Wayland had laid claim to the girl — or perhaps, said some, it was the other way round.

The trial had another outcome. Fearing retaliation by the vengeful plaintiff or the smarting Bukharan high-ups, Hauk decided to postpone his journey back to the Caspian and throw his lot in with Vallon for one more stage. His men would accompany the expedition as far as Samarkand, where they’d add to their trade stuffs before returning to the ships by a route that avoided Bukhara.

With only three days to make ready the caravan, the men worked night and day laying in stores. Many of the troopers’ mounts and pack animals were used up and had to be traded in against fresh stock. Here the Sogdians demonstrated their worth. Shennu — Vallon had dropped the ‘An’, a Chinese surname meaning ‘from Bukhara’ — accompanied the general to a horse fair in the Registan.

‘They’re ugly brutes,’ Wulfstan said, surveying the shaggy, mallet-headed, crested-mane, mouse-coloured beasts. ‘I’ve drowned better-looking dogs.’

‘They’re bred for desert travel,’ Shennu said. ‘Wild tarpans crossed with Turkmen stock. They’ll survive for weeks in conditions that would kill your Greek horses in days. Their hooves are so hard they don’t even need shoeing.’

Vallon eyed the horses. ‘Even so, I don’t intend to ride into Kaifeng with my spurs dragging in the dust.’

Shennu sized him up. ‘If you have deep pockets, you can buy the finest steeds on earth right now, right here.’

‘Show me.’

Shennu led Vallon’s party to a corral ringed by a more affluent class of buyer. Wulfstan whistled when he saw the horses. Mainly grey or bay in colour, they matched Byzantine cavalry mounts in size and, but for a rather large head and very straight forelegs, they were splendidly proportioned, with eyes radiating spirit and intelligence.

‘Ferghana horses,’ Shennu said. The Chinese believe they are half-dragon, born in water and capable of carrying their riders to heaven. They’re reserved for the aristocracy.’

Vallon pointed at a sweating gelding. ‘How much will that one fetch?’

‘You have a good eye for horses.’

‘So I should. I’m a cavalryman.’

‘It won’t come cheap.’

‘Pay whatever it takes.’

‘That might be more than you bargained for, but if you bring the horse to Kaifeng in sound condition, you’ll sell it for many times the price you pay today.’

Vallon folded his arms over his chest while a groom put the Ferghana through its paces. Hands shot up, registering bids. Shennu didn’t make any gesture that went beyond his eyebrows.

‘Are we in the bidding?’ Vallon demanded.

‘Of course. The agent for a rich dealer is driving the price up.’

Vallon wiped his palms on his thighs. ‘Match him.’

Shennu stood calm while the other bidders shouted and waved their hands. Finally the crowd fell quiet and the auctioneer swung his head left and right before, like a pendulum coming to rest, he fixed his eyes on Vallon.

‘The horse is yours,’ Shennu said. ‘Congratulations.’

‘How much?’

‘Forty-seven solidi.’

‘Christ,’ Vallon said.

‘It’s not as much as we paid for Lucas,’ Aiken pointed out.

At midnight before the dawn departure, everyone in the caravanserai was up, saddling horses, greasing cart axles, attending to the scores of tasks required to get the caravan underway. One hundred and seventy-four Bactrian camels sat couched in the courtyard, submitting with haughty indifference while twenty-nine native handlers, including women and children, lashed loads onto them. Each camel could carry forty pounds more than a horse and could travel twice as far at half the pace on quarter as much water.

Shennu came over to Vallon. ‘We’re ready.’

It was still dark, the storks’ nests crowning the ribat’s towers ragged silhouettes against the greying stars. Vallon mounted his heavenly horse, rode to the gate and stood in his stirrups.

‘Men, we’re on our way to China. Stay faithful to our mission and to each other and you can look forward to returning home laden with riches and honours.’

His troops cheered. Vallon gestured to the gatekeepers to open up. ‘And God save us,’ he said, passing through.

The camels travelled in strings up to ten strong and the last of them were still pacing out of the city when Vallon heard the first call to prayer rising faint behind them on the plain.

Josselin caught up. ‘It looks like three Turkmen have deserted.’

‘I expected to lose more.’

‘After a week’s whoring and feasting, the men have forgotten the misery of desert travel. They’re excited to be riding the Silk Road.’

Vallon grunted. ‘They won’t be so eager in a month’s time.’ He glanced back down the column. ‘Is Master Wayland still with us?’

‘He is, sir, riding in the rear with the gypsy girl. Do you want to send a message?’

Vallon hadn’t exchanged a word with the Englishman since the trial. Working in his quarters late at night, he’d often looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps, hoping it was Wayland come to make peace. He never did. Vallon shortened rein and headed for the rising sun. ‘No.’

A week later the expedition camped five miles outside Samarkand. After the dramas in Bukhara, Vallon had no intention of letting his men inside another city so soon. Hauk entered the general’s tent after supper and sat for some time in silence, nursing a beaker of wine.

‘This really is our last meeting,’ he said at last. ‘A part of me wishes I was going with you, but my men are homesick. It’s been nearly two years since they left their hearths.’

‘Do you have a family?’

‘My foes killed them.’

‘I have a wife and two daughters in Constantinople.’

‘I’ll pray for your safe return. Farewell.’

Vallon looked up when the Viking was at the door. ‘Farewell to you, Hauk Eiriksson.’

From Samarkand they travelled east by way of the Ferghana Valley, sweating in humid heat. They halted for two days at Osh to re-provision and then climbed through an outlier of the Pamirs, passing fields where horse-breeding nomads had taken to cultivating lucerne for their herds. The path steepened and narrowed. Four days’ climbing brought the caravan gasping in the thin air to a rocky pass strewn with rags of snow and littered with the bones of animals and men who’d gambled on a fair-weather crossing and paid with their lives.

The path switchbacked over the ranges, gradually descending, at one point squeezing through a marble gorge so narrow that the camels’ loads brushed the sides of walls polished smooth as silk by the traffic of centuries.

Seven days after leaving Osh, Vallon looked out from the last pass across the rust-coloured wastes of the Taklamakan, the desert that had swallowed the previous expedition. Shennu told him that its name meant ‘you go in, but you don’t come out’.

A trooper shouted and Vallon turned and spotted horsemen rising over the shoulder. They were too few to be a threat and were riding in a way that told him they were fleeing rather than following.

‘It’s Hauk and his men,’ Wulfstan said.

Vallon counted twenty-eight, eight fewer than the number who’d gone their own way at Samarkand.

The Viking leader rode up, his silk suit torn and stained with dried blood.

‘What happened?’ Vallon said.

‘An argument over a trinket whose value I wouldn’t set at five dirhams turned into a battle.’

‘Are they pursuing you?’

Hauk spat. ‘Not unless they want more of the same. For every man I’ve lost, those bastards lost three.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘It seems that fate conspires to prevent me returning home,’ Hauk said. He peered into the dust-filtered wastes of the vast in-between. ‘How far is it to China?’

‘At least four months to the border, probably another two to the capital.’

‘Hero told me there’s a sea route from China to the western seas.’

‘I wouldn’t stake my life on its existence.’

Hauk glanced back. ‘And I wouldn’t hazard it returning through Samarkand and Bukhara.’

Three of his men were wounded, two seriously. One had taken an arrow through his lungs and died within the day. The other casualty was Rorik, Hauk’s giant lieutenant. Hero examined him and decided there was nothing he could do to save him. A soldier had rammed a spear into the back of his thigh, auguring the barbed blade and ripping out a hole large enough to accommodate a child’s fist.

Pus oozed from the blackened and fly-blown flesh. Hero shook his head at Aiken standing at a distance with one hand over his nose to ward off the stench.

‘Gangrene.’

‘I’m not done for yet,’ Rorik said. ‘The memory of my attacker’s eyes when I popped them out of his head will keep me going.’

Each day for the next six days Hero cleaned and dressed the wound, astonished that someone so corrupted by death wouldn’t yield to its embrace. By the time the expedition approached Yarkand, he almost wished that the Viking would die. Rorik’s foul rantings offended almost as much as his rotting ham.

The next day, certain it must be Rorik’s last, Hero went through the motions of bathing the wound when it seemed to quiver like a diabolical hatchling. He threw himself back in disgust as Rorik’s thigh ruptured, expelling a mess of rotting flesh and a shard of iron. A trickle of clean blood followed.

Rorik opened one bloodshot eye. Already it looked less crazed.

‘You have no right to be alive,’ Hero said.

‘Yes, I have. The coward attacked me when I wasn’t looking.’

At Kashgar Shennu hired new camels and drivers. Here the Silk Road divided, one branch winding north of the desert under the Tian Shan Mountains, the other skirting the southern rim within sight of the Kun Lun range. A hundred rivers flowed into the Taklamakan and none flowed out. Shennu told Vallon that in the middle of the desert lay cities buried under sand, the mummified corpses of their fair-haired citizens dead a thousand years.

They took the southern route. The July sun, dull with the ash of its own burning, bored down, making travel by day intolerable. Each evening the caravan master waited until shadows overtook the lingering blue of the desert sky before giving the signal to depart. The handlers climbed to their feet, collected their hobbled beasts and drove them towards their loads where, by jerking on their head-ropes, they forced them to their knees. Then two men lifted the load onto the pack saddle and secured it with two loops and a peg. They struck the tents and stowed them on the beasts that carried the camp equipment, then string by string, the caravan moved off, the bells of the camels clonking and the drivers picking up a song that might last all night or stop for no reason, leaving only the shush-shush of the camels’ pads brushing through sand.

At daybreak or soon after, the long procession would reach the next oasis or well and the drivers would lead the camels forward in lines to drink from troughs filled with water hauled up in caulked wicker baskets. Then they would drive the camels out to forage on the spiky vegetation and the camp would fall into fitful sleep until the sun sank to the western horizon. So it continued, day after day, night after night, week after week.

Riding half asleep at night through the desert, Vallon sometimes imagined that he was treading a path above the earth, the stars lying awash beneath him. Other nights the moon-blanched sands closed in until he was travelling down a lane bounded by high hedges and overhanging trees. His eyes focused on some destination that never arrived, drifting further and further into unconsciousness until a sudden jolt jerked him back to a reality almost as outlandish as his dreams.

One night Vallon and Aiken fell in with Hero and the two Sogdians. ‘Shennu says we should reach Khotan within a week,’ Hero said.

‘The day we met I said that a journey was just a tiresome passage between one place and another. I wasn’t wrong.’

Hero laughed. ‘Admit it. A part of you is beginning to believe that we’ll really reach China.’

Vallon turned to Shennu. ‘Tell us more about its people.’

‘They are a contradictory race. Deeply conservative, revering their ancestors and traditions, yet inventive beyond belief. They believe their emperor is appointed by the Mandate of Heaven. At the same time they consider him mortal and therefore fallible, which gives his subjects the right to overthrow him if disaster strikes the empire. That’s why, though they value harmony, the empire has suffered so many upheavals. The real power lies with the scholar officials, civil servants selected by examination. In theory, competition is open to all and promotion is by merit. In practice, most candidates and top officials are the sons of aristocrats.’

‘What position do the military occupy?’

‘The ruling class regard them as a necessary evil. To be frank, they despise them. Many of the commanders are foreigners and the rank and file are largely drawn from the dispossessed and criminals. The imperial circle prefers to pay off enemies rather than confront them. China is like a large honey pot surrounded by swarms of flies. The Chinese can’t swat every fly, so they drip honey into the mouths of the flies’ masters and hope that will satisfy them. Of course having tasted drips of honey, the flies want to drink deep from the source.’

‘Who are these flies?’ Vallon said.

‘Horse nomads. Tanguts in the west, Khitans to the north. To placate them, the emperor lavishes wealth on them at the expense of his subjects.’

Vallon gave Hero a jaundiced smile. ‘That sounds familiar.’

They rode on in silence for a while. ‘Will you teach us Chinese?’ Aiken asked.

‘An excellent idea,’ said Hero.

‘It’s a difficult language,’ Shennu said. ‘The Western tongue isn’t shaped to speak it.’

Vallon indicated the night stretching ahead. ‘It’s not as if we lack leisure to learn. Let’s fill these long nights in a practical pursuit.’

‘Very well,’ Shennu said. He pointed at Vallon’s horse. ‘Ma.’

‘Ma.’

‘No. Ma.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘You said ma, which means “mother”. Such a mistake could cast you into a most embarrassing situation. Suppose you asked a Chinese nobleman if you could mount his mother?’

Aiken suppressed a laugh. ‘Ma.’

‘Very good,’ said Shennu.

‘Ma,’ Vallon repeated.

‘Now you pronounce the word for “linen”. In a different context, the same pronunciation would mean “scold”.’

‘What a ridiculous language,’ said Vallon. ‘Ma.’

‘Like this,’ Shennu said, stretching his mouth. ‘Ma. Do you hear the difference?’

‘Ma,’ Vallon and Hero said.

Wayland cantered past with Zuleyka, the dog loping behind.

Hero hailed him. ‘We’re learning Chinese. Will you join our class?’

Wayland answered without turning. ‘Thank you. I won’t need Chinese.’

Hero watched him ride away. ‘Did you hear that? Unless you and Wayland mend your differences, he’s going to leave us.’

Aiken and Shennu exchanged glances and went on.

Vallon reined in. ‘It’s not for me to make the first move. If Wayland apologises for his irresponsible actions, I’ll gladly welcome him back into my heart.’

‘I’ve talked to him. He doesn’t think he did anything wrong.’

Vallon’s jaws worked.

‘You’re angry because he’s taken up with the gypsy girl.’

Vallon erupted. ‘He’s married to a woman who’s as dear to me as my own daughters. It offends me to the core to see him riding around with that strumpet.’

‘I don’t think they… I don’t think… Even if they did… Syth has made a hole in Wayland’s heart large enough for any other woman to pass through.’

‘That’s what hurts. I never thought Wayland would so much as look at another woman.’ Vallon wrapped his reins around his hands. ‘I thought that Wayland and Syth had discovered what I could never find — true love.’

‘But you and Caitlin love each other. I know that sometimes you strike sparks off each other, but that’s what happens when iron and flame collide.’

Vallon didn’t answer for some time. ‘My wife is unfaithful.’

‘Oh no, sir. Don’t say that.’

‘For the last nine years I’ve spent one season in four at home. Caitlin’s a passionate woman, I think you’ll agree. I can hardly blame her if she seeks solace in the arms of another man.’

‘Are you sure? Do you have proof?’

‘She wears jewellery too expensive to have been paid for out of my shallow purse. Once, soon after I returned from the frontier without warning, a Byzantine lord’s servant arrived at the house with a letter for my lady. She said the message came from the man’s wife, a woman she claimed to have befriended. A few weeks later we met the lady outside St Sophia. She didn’t so much as glance at Caitlin. They were complete strangers to each other.’

Two stages later they reached an oasis surrounded by a forest of tamarisks, the trees growing out of sand cones, their spindly branches and grey leaves lashing in a roasting wind. At the evening reveille, Josselin called a trooper’s name and received no response. His squad mates hadn’t seen him since making camp. He wouldn’t have deserted in such a hostile place, and foul play was unlikely. He must have wandered away from the oasis and lost his way. The search parties realised how easy that was when they set out to look for him. The tamarisks sprouted from the sand at ten- to twenty-yard intervals. Turn in any direction and the view was identical. Walk the wrong way for a few hundred yards and you lost all bearings. Vallon ordered a bonfire to be lit and left behind a squad to trumpet their whereabouts. In the morning the trooper still hadn’t returned and Wayland set out to find his trail. Too many people and animals had criss-crossed the oasis for his dog to pick up the trooper’s scent. Wayland rode north calling out until he reached the end of the tamarisks and climbed a huge wave of sand and looked over an ocean of red dunes overlapping each other like shields. He guessed that the trooper must have perished within half a mile of the camp.

Shennu had warned them of the black wind that could strike from nowhere. It attacked next day while the men lay scratching and sleepless in the noonday heat. The camels began to bellow and buried their muzzles in the sand. A few curs that followed the caravan whimpered and fled for shelter. The drivers shouted and ran about tightening saddle-straps and double-pegging tent ropes.

Emerging from his tent, Vallon saw that the sky had taken on a glassy look. A dirty yellow stain advanced from the east, thickening into a grey column, its spinning base spawning dust devils that waltzed through the tamarisks with a scuttling noise. The storm wobbled closer and semi-darkness obscured the sky.

‘Take shelter,’ Shennu cried. ‘Hurry!’

Vallon ran for the lee of a low dune.

‘Cover your head!’ Shennu shouted.

Face down, head mantled, Vallon heard the rustling and clacking increase to a hungry roar and then a shriek as the storm hit, driving a wave of sand and gravel across the ground. Stones stung Vallon’s hands. Dust forced its way into his mouth and under his eyelids. Peeping from under his cape he glimpsed trees, dunes and tents looming like spectres in the howling blackout. He held his breath and his lungs were close to bursting when his ears popped and silence fell. He thought he must have lost his hearing. Shennu shook him and he looked out from under his cape at a clearing sky. Spitting grit from his mouth he tottered to his feet to see the sandstorm spinning away to the west.

Mounds of sand heaved up, reconstituting themselves as men, slapping at their clothes and blinking around through dust-reddened eyes. The tents that had stood up to the storm sagged under the weight of driven sand. The caravan master gave an order and his men salvaged the tents and gathered the animals. Fine dust had found its way into the most tightly sealed containers. The caravan moved on as the sun sank into a bed of clouds, leaving the western horizon aflame, the red fading into violet dotted with a few smoky clouds.

The caravan made the last two stages to Khotan by day, advancing under a shining veil of dust kicked up by the animals. On the evening before they reached the oasis town, Aiken was in Vallon’s tent reciting Virgil’s Aeneid. They had begun reading poetry to help while away the night marches, and Vallon found the ritual soothing. Aiken had reached a passage concerning the tragedy of Dido, queen of the Phoenicians.

‘“It was night, and weary bodies throughout the land were reaping the harvest of peaceful sleep. Forests and harsh seas lay at rest as the circling stars glided in their midnight course. The whole landscape was soundless — flocks and herds and painted birds, the ones that live far and wide on the glimmering lake-waters, and those that dwell in the wilds of prickly brambles — all laid to rest beneath the silent night.

‘“But not so the Phoenician queen. Her wretched spirit could not relax into sleep…”’

Vallon opened his eyes to find his servant hovering at the entrance.

‘Sorry to disturb you, sir. That young trooper Lucas is outside. He wishes to speak to you.’

‘What about?’

‘A personal matter, it would seem. He appears rather agitated.’

‘I’ll leave you,’ said Aiken, making to get up.

Vallon waved him back into his seat. Troopers didn’t speak to their commanding officer in his personal quarters unless summoned. Channels and procedures existed to allow them to bring their concerns to their superiors’ attention.

‘If, God forbid, Lucas is in more trouble, tell him to take his problems to his squad leader. I’m surprised you didn’t point him in that direction yourself.’

‘Yes, sir. I wouldn’t have intruded unless… Very good, sir. I’ll send him away.’

Aiken waited for the man to leave. ‘I meant to tell you. Lucas apologised for his boorish behaviour. He sounded sincere.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘I still don’t understand why he took against me so violently.’

Vallon wasn’t interested in Lucas. He sank back. ‘Read that last bit again.’