Imperial Fire

XLII

Xiao-Xing was a skilful lover who made it her business to educate Lucas out of his farmboy fumblings and clumsy couplings. With the aid of a lavishly illustrated pillow book, she taught him how to give her pleasure and enhance his own. Lucas learned the technique called ‘Fish Playing in Spring Water’, the position known as ‘The Dragon in the Cave’, and one night, well after midnight, was initiated into the strenuous delights of ‘Taming the Demon Princess’.

Xiao-Xing’s cunning grip she’d taken with arms and legs alike drew him inexorably into the realm of reflex. He tried to delay the climax by thinking of Gorka eating. It was little help. Reflexive spasms began, signalling the end. Beneath him Xiao-Xing convulsed, clinging with all her might, her breath panting.

‘Are you in there, sir?’

He was over the edge and shooting down cascades when Gorka’s shout cut through his orgasm.

‘Sir, it’s urgent. We have to get out of here.’

Swearing, Lucas unpicked his way out of Xiao-Xing’s hold, covered himself with a towel and slid open the door. ‘What the hell are you shouting about?’

Even in his desperation, Gorka couldn’t resist sneaking a look at the girl sitting up with her hands over her breasts. ‘Vallon’s orders. We have to make a run for the ship. Take only arms and armour.’

‘Why?’

‘We must have upset our hosts. If we wait until morning, they’ll arrest us.’

Lucas threw on his clothes. Xiao-Xing looked on distraught. He kissed her and held her face. ‘I’m sorry, my love. I have to go.’

He buckled on his sword, slung his suit of armour over his shoulder and ran out. Men’s curses and women’s wails from all quarters announced an unwilling separation of cultures.

Gorka ran through the compound. Distant firecrackers popped somewhere in the city. Josselin was waiting at the gate. ‘Make for the Gold Bird Guard Bridge.’

Lucas’s gaze fixed on the body of a Chinese soldier sprawled a few yards beyond the entrance.

Josselin pushed him. ‘Get going. Let no one stand in your way.’

Lucas and Gorka ran through the empty streets, the feet of the other Outlanders slapping behind them. Not long before, each of Kaifeng’s wards would have been surrounded by walls with gates closed after the evening curfew and watchmen patrolling the avenues. Now the gates and walls were gone, but the curfew was still in force and night patrols still walked the streets on the lookout for anyone wandering outside their own ward. Twenty blows with the thin rod was the punishment for transgressors.

It wasn’t long before Lucas and Gorka ran into a squad of watchmen. The soldiers challenged them, and when the runaways failed to stop, they twanged their bowstring to reinforce the command, then shot arrows at their feet. Lucas and Gorka swept past. A whistle blew behind them and was answered by more whistles.

Lucas clutched his side to ease a stitch. ‘It’s miles to open country. Three walls and gates block our escape. We’ll never make it.’

‘Vallon must have thought of a way.’

The bridge came in sight, deserted now, lights from a few oil lamps dappling the river.

‘This way,’ a voice called.

Lucas turned right and saw two large sampans moored, a turbaned figure waiting on the bank. He slapped Lucas past. ‘Into the boats and stay quiet.’

Lucas scrambled into a boat already occupied by half a dozen confused and disgruntled Outlanders. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’ one demanded. ‘What’s fucking Vallon playing at?’

Lucas arched up. ‘Talk of the general like that again and I’ll take the hide off you. He wouldn’t order a breakout unless it was necessary. Now stay as quiet as a nest of mice.’

A fraught silence fell, broken by shrilling whistles and braying trumpets dissipating through the city. Windows opened and householders demanded to know what outrage had disturbed their rest. A three-quarters moon raced through a rack of clouds. Four more men pitched into Lucas’s boat and another five found places in the craft alongside. Through their panting Lucas heard more urgent footsteps and then a voice that sounded familiar but unplaceable.

‘Is that everyone?’

‘Everyone who’s coming,’ Josselin said. ‘Two refused to leave. One was too drunk to stand. The night patrols caught another.’

He clambered into the other boat and the turbaned man stepped into Lucas’s craft and cast off.

‘If you haven’t plied an oar before, you’d better learn fast. We have to get beyond the last wall before the Chinese work out how we intend to breach it.’

Lucas picked up a paddle. ‘You heard him. Dig hard, dig deep.’

The Outlanders found some semblance of rhythm and the city began to slide past. Lucas thought of Xiao-Xing, the lovely maid he would never see again. He reached out and prodded the orchestrator of this upheaval in the back.

‘If someone rousts me from bed at dead of night, I want to know who he is.’

The man turned and smiled. ‘Well met, Lucas. I’m glad you survived the journey and even gladder that you overcame the demons holding you apart from your father.’

‘Wayland! How did you get here?’

‘Later. Keep going.’

Confusion made Lucas obey for a while. ‘They’ll soon work out how we intend to escape and send cavalry to secure the ship. We won’t outpace horses.’

‘Vallon’s put a lot of thought into our flight. If we escape the city we’ll reach the ship.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Gone ahead with Hero and Aiken. Now stop pestering and row.’

Lights bobbing ahead made Lucas draw his sword. He sank back when he saw they were only floating lanterns placed on the water by nocturnal revellers. Watching them glide past, he thought again of Xiao-Xing. The pang of loss subsided into a clench of vague dread. Kaifeng had been a haven, the ultimate oasis. What would they do now? Where could they go?

Several times on their journey watchmen spotted them and raised the hue and cry, their shouts merging into the alarms spreading through the entire city. By this time the Outlanders had put thoughts of abandoned sweethearts and warm quarters behind them and were rowing for their lives, what was lost gone forever and an unknowable future ahead.

A squad of cavalry intercepted them and loosed arrows without mercy, wounding two rowers before a warehouse built on the waterfront in defiance of planning regulations blocked their pursuit. The city’s outer wall bulked large. Soldiers carrying torches ran about on its ramparts. A tunnel through the barrier gaped.

An arrow thrummed in the thwart beside Lucas and then the tunnel closed around them. Moments later they slid clear, the landscape ahead empty and the Yellow River mirrored on the base of low-hanging clouds.

‘Not far now,’ Wayland said.

Lucas heard a whinny and spotted horses in a node of darkness on the right bank.

‘Put in,’ Wayland said.

Vallon stood on the bank. ‘Mount up and ride for the ship.’

Lucas flung himself onto a horse. Quarter of a mile behind, a stream of torches emerged from the city wall.

‘They’re coming,’ Vallon said. ‘Don’t spare your horses. We won’t need them again.’

With that he spurred into the dark and Lucas followed, concentrating on extracting every last effort from his horse. The plain flew past, pools of shadow stretching out to the north. The river showed ahead in the light of the fleeting moon. A flame winked on its bank.

‘Make for the torch,’ Vallon shouted.

Lucas reached the jetty and threw himself off his horse. Gorka stood on Jifeng’s deck, urging the troopers to make haste. Lucas ran up the gangplank and turned to see the lights of the pursuing cavalry pricking the plain behind. Wayland was the last to board. The sweating horses they’d left behind gleamed in the dark.

‘Cast off,’ Wulfstan shouted.

Jifeng slipped her moorings and nosed away down the flaccid current. She was still close to shore when the Chinese reached the bank. They galloped along the dike, loosing arrows until the ship drifted out of range.

‘That was close,’ Lucas said.

‘They ain’t going to let us slip away that easy,’ Wulfstan said.

Vallon stepped onto the stern deck. Qiuylue stood behind him, dressed in nomad fashion — tight tunic nipped at the waist and kidskin leggings. Josselin clapped his hands for silence. The mutters of the trooper died. A hundred Outlanders had embarked at Constantinople and only fifty-four remained to hear Vallon announce their fate.

‘You’ve probably heard the rumours that I’ve accepted a commission as commander of a Chinese regiment. Who’ll take service with me?’

Lucas looked around and raised his hand.

‘Only a third of you,’ Vallon said. ‘Just as well, because I have no intention of joining the Chinese army. I’m going home. Who’ll follow me back across the Taklamakan?’

‘I think it’s one of his trick questions,’ Gorka murmured.

Vallon’s gaze swept the troopers. ‘Still only a third. What do the rest of you want to do?’

The soldiers maintained an obstinate silence.

‘I know what you want,’ Vallon said. ‘You want to rest idle in the Palace of Friendship with your doxies, being served on hand and foot. Do you really think the Chinese would allow you to go on living in such luxury? I’ll tell you what they’ll do. They’ll conscript you and post you to some frontier outpost like that shithole in the Tsaidam. Or they’ll send you to work building walls on the Yellow River. I’m told the bones of a million men lie entombed in those fortifications.’

‘What’s the reason for our flight?’ a trooper demanded.

‘We were sent east to establish mutually respectful relations between Byzantium and China. Unfortunately, the Son of Heaven doesn’t recognise any country as equal to his own. We leave with only a few flowery words of friendship.’

No one spoke. Kaifeng was just a reddish smudge out on the plain.

‘I was taxed with another mission,’ Vallon said. ‘That was to obtain the formula of a Chinese incendiary called Fire Drug. I didn’t discover the formula, but Hero and Aiken succeeded in obtaining a barrel of the compound. Unfortunately the man who provided it is a drunk whose mouth runs over when he’s in his cups. The transaction was discovered, and if Wayland hadn’t had an informer in the armoury, we would all have woken this morning with swords at our throats. That’s about all. Any questions?’

‘Where are we going?’

‘How the hell did Wayland get here?’

‘Both questions beget the same answer. Wayland sailed from India and I plan to return the same way. The prospect chills me less than the thought of retracing our steps across Asia. With fair winds we could reach India by mid-summer and be home by Christmas. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to trade on the voyage, and you’ll find no shortage of women in the ports where we put in. And think of the stories you’ll have to tell when you’re back in Constantinople. It will be free drinks in every tavern.’

Gorka hawked and spat. ‘Hell, I was getting bored lying around doing nothing but eat, drink and fuck.’

A trooper pushed towards Vallon. ‘How come you get to keep your woman while we were forced away without even time to say farewell?’

‘I’ll overlook your insolence,’ Vallon said. ‘If I’d left Qiuylue behind, the Chinese would have killed her. Dismiss.’

Vallon entered his cabin and embraced his mistress. ‘I’m sorry I gave you no warning. There wasn’t time.’

‘You shouldn’t have brought me.’

‘Would you have preferred death?’

‘You’re going back to your family. You told me that in your country a man takes only one wife. There can be no place in your household for another woman. It would create disharmony.’

Vallon sank onto his cot. ‘I’ll put you ashore with enough gold for you to start a new life. You can’t return to Kaifeng, but everywhere else is open. You could go back to your homeland. If it’s city life and comforts you desire, you could go south to Hangzhou. Whatever you choose, I’ll do my utmost to grant.’

‘My only wish is to remain at your side for as long as possible.’

No sign of pursuit at dawn. That didn’t mean the Outlanders were in the clear. The state employed thousands of runners who could relay messages up to a hundred miles in a day and night. Even faster were the horse couriers who, galloping flat out between staging posts, were disciplined if they didn’t cover more than a hundred and fifty miles a day. Strategic routes were also linked by signal towers that transmitted messages by flags or mirrors. By now, Chinese garrisons downriver might be laying plans to intercept the fugitives.

It came as some relief when clouds built up and released a downpour that lasted all day, turning the low-lying roads along the banks into quagmires. Even under a light breeze, Jifeng maintained a good pace. At this time of year the Yellow River was at its highest, swollen by melting snows in its mountain headwaters. In places spring ice had gouged away the dikes, creating lakes twenty miles across, dark lines of willows and poplars the only indication of where the river ended and land began. Wulfstan had picked up a hazy knowledge of the river’s lower course. It should take four or five days to reach the sea.

The third day broke clear. Vallon leaned out from the bow, peering at the rising sun through the surface reflections. Each side of the river the wet green of flat farmland merged into the misty blue of distance. Waders rose in swirling clouds from sandbars. Ducks beat up from reedbeds and whistled down the sky. Bare-legged women bent over in long lines, setting seeds. A cart drawn by two oxen followed a pale ribbon of road towards a village.

Vallon had ordered the Greek Fire siphon to be mounted on the foredeck. Wulfstan had rigged up the trebuchet on the stern, reinforcing the deck against its weight and the force of its recoil. For ammunition he’d selected about forty ballast stones weighing between twenty and a hundred pounds apiece.

In the afternoon Vallon watched Hero and Wulfstan conducting experiments on Fire Drug to determine its combustible properties.

‘It’s too fierce,’ Hero said. ‘Even a spark sets it off. To be of any use against an enemy, we’d need something to delay the ignition until the right moment.’

Wulfstan rubbed his forehead with his hooked stump. ‘When I served in the Byzantine navy, we used Greek Fire to undermine city walls. To give themselves time to get clear, the sappers ignited the barrels with slow-burning tapers — a bit like Chinese incense sticks. Fuses, they called them.’

‘How do you make one?’

‘Piss. Boil a gallon of piss down to half a pint, soak a length of tow in it, let the tow dry. It smoulders without burning. Cut the tow to the size you need and you vary the time it sets off the incendiary.’

‘Get pissing,’ Vallon said.

They made a small raft. Wulfstan packed an earthenware pot three-quarters full with Fire Drug and tamped it with lint soaked in Greek Fire. Into the wadding he placed a tow wick.

‘Someone will have to light it when it’s clear of the ship.’

Vallon cast about. ‘Gorka.’

‘I knew you’d pick me.’

They tied a rope to the raft and paid it out astern. Gorka and another trooper lowered themselves into the ship’s boat and drifted down the wake until the raft came within reach. While the other trooper held onto the rope, Gorka lit the fuse. They rowed back to the ship and joined Vallon, Wulfstan and Hero in the stern. There they waited.

And waited.

‘You sure you lit it properly?’ Wulfstan said.

Gorka bristled. ‘If I light something, it stays lit.’

Vallon gave it a while longer. ‘It must have gone out. Tow it in.’

The troopers had dragged the raft back to within twenty yards when the pot exploded, showering the spectators with clay fragments.

‘I must have made the fuse too long,’ Wulfstan said.

Gorka plucked a shard from his forehead. Blood trickled. ‘Or else your piss is too weak.’

Lucas ran down to Vallon’s cabin and stopped outside, checked by the sound of his father’s easy laughter. Resentment made him wrench open the door.

Vallon looked up, one arm draped about Qiuylue. ‘You might have knocked.’

‘Wayland’s spotted ships astern.’

Vallon took his arm away from Qiuylue. Sensitive to the tensions between father and son, she slipped away. Lucas stayed where he was.

‘Yes?’ Vallon said.

‘You lied to us. The Chinese weren’t going to arrest us. You made up that story to panic us into flight.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Wayland said you’d given a lot of thought to arranging our escape. You couldn’t have organised the horses and boats at short notice. You must have planned it over days.’

‘It was the only way to keep my men together. You saw how reluctant they were to quit their billets. Given the choice, only a third would have followed me.’

Lucas gritted his teeth. ‘I raised my hand.’

‘Out of military duty rather than filial devotion, I suspect.’ Vallon rose and touched his son’s shoulder. ‘One day you’ll command a squadron. When you do, you’ll learn that it’s sometimes necessary to lie.’ He reached for his sword. ‘I’m sorry you had to leave that girl behind.’

Lucas’s laugh was bitter.

‘You’ll soon forget her.’

‘You don’t forget your first love. I left a piece of my heart when I left Xiao-Xing.’

‘I tore mine to pieces when I killed your mother.’

Hearing Vallon’s admission rocked Lucas. His eyes filled. ‘That didn’t stop you marrying Caitlin. And now you’ve taken another lover.’

‘I can’t bring your mother back. If there was only one person meant for each of us, life would be a long and lonely search. Fortunately it offers second chances.’

Lucas’s throat worked. ‘In all the months since I told you I was your son, you’ve never tried to justify your crime.’

‘It’s not my place to justify or explain the unforgivable.’

‘So you expect me to do it for you.’

‘No. I would never lay that burden on my son. The weight is all mine to bear.’

Lucas clenched his hands. ‘I’ve tried. I mean, Wayland and Hero told me how Roland betrayed you and left you to rot in a Moorish prison. I know my mother was unfaithful. It’s just that…’

‘She was your beloved mother and I killed her. Don’t torment yourself. Leave that to me. I don’t seek forgiveness. That’s why I’ve never sought a confessor.’

Lucas looked at Vallon through tear-smudged eyes. ‘I’ve kept close watch on you since we left Constantinople. Sometimes I thought you acted like a monster; sometimes I marvelled at the way you managed to slide through perils without shedding blood.’

Vallon appeared not to hear him. He buckled on his sword belt. ‘I seem to have put on weight. Let’s go up and face our doom.’