THE SILK TREE

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

They made landfall in two days and turned in along the sandy shore of North Africa until they came up with the capital city of Egypt.

‘You’ve not been to Alex,’ Nicander said as they approached the double harbour. It was hot, the dry smell of dunes and the wafting pungency of camels sharp on the air.

‘No, never.’

‘Well, you’re in for treat. Look, there.’ He pointed to an immensely tall, stepped square structure at the edge of the sea. ‘The Pharos! You can see its flame from an unbelievable distance at night.’

The ships curved around to enter the harbour.

Nicander could see their captain measuring distances and speeds by eye. The entrance right by the Pharos was not wide and he was prudently coming in with more control. The oars began their steady pull until at about half a mile off they were suspended to allow the other dromonds to enter first.

‘See, when we get inside we go across to the docks, and there we’ll be right before the Library of Alexandria. And of course Cleopatra’s Caesareum which she put up for Julius Caesar but ended up dedicating to Marc Antony-’

‘Damn your history, why aren’t we going in?’ Marius snapped.

Their dromond made no move to enter, heaving gently to the waves, oars motionless. Nicander frowned. ‘That’s odd.’

They were at the wrong angle to see much inside the harbour but there was no reason to wait indefinitely after the others had gone in.

But then they were moving again. The huge, rearing Pharos passed on the right.

‘The docks are over there,’ Nicander said, pointing past the noble Caesareum to the untidy clutter of wharves and ships across the harbour.

‘And our mates are over there!’ Marius gestured to the left where their escorts were tucked into a small cove with a single pier.

They were not headed for the common docks – the landing was to be away from public gaze.

‘Now I see why we didn’t go in. They’ve taken the time to set up a full perimeter – see all the men over there?’ Marius pointed to the continuous line of soldiers surrounding the private dock.

‘Stops other buggers coming in, stops us going out,’ he added bitterly.

Their dromond curved around smartly and ended alongside. Ropes were secured and the vessel stood down from sea.

‘All ashore – everybody off!’

Snatching up their belongings, the passengers found themselves ushered to a spot well clear as an immediate start was made to land the precious tribute cargo.

‘Come along, you gentlemen,’ an anxious official encouraged.

Nicander and Marius were hurried past the Palatinate barracks to where a long line of horses, mules and carts stood patiently with their handlers. Names checked yet again, passengers were assigned to their carts or mounts. In minutes it was complete and the first cargo cases began arriving under escort.

Nicander shook his head in rueful admiration at the faultless organisation.

‘No chance here,’ Marius said in a low voice. ‘We’ll have to come up with something else.’

The tribute convoy prepared to get under way. Their conveyance was one of the laden carts, where they sat each side of the mule-driver while the compulsors were well behind them in another.

Marius watched the escort form up. A substantial detachment of cavalry in the lead, a sizeable formation of foot soldiers behind. At any threat there was speed at the front and force at the rear.

‘Where are we headed to?’ Nicander asked their driver.

The unsmiling Nubian raised his eyebrows. ‘East. Myos Hormos, o’ course.’

It seemed this was a simple journey across the delta of the Nile to end at the head of the Mare Rubrum, the Red Sea – and at the hazy boundary of the Byzantine Empire.

There were shouts from the head of the convoy – then they were off, grinding and creaking along the last streets of Alexandria and into the open country beyond.

Nicander and Marius looked out over the Egyptian landscape: stately date palms, neat reed houses on stilts, waterways and fields where peasants bent to their labours.

It was hot and close after the breezes of the sea and their monks’ robes itched and rubbed. Clouds of flies came up from the droppings as each cart went over them and far overhead buzzards wheeled. The jingling of the cavalry and the tramp of marching soldiers added to the general noise.

‘Be damned to it, but I’m not having the bones shaken out of my body!’ Nicander grumbled, and dropped to the ground to walk beside the cart.

‘Well, what now?’ Marius grunted, joining him. ‘Can’t see how we can do anything with this lot about us.’

‘I think I have a way.’

‘It had better work or we’ll end up in some godforsaken hole out on the borders.’

‘Listen – all this good land is here because it’s watered by the Nile. Once we get to the other side it’s a different story. Probably two or three days across the desert before we reach Myos Hormos.’

‘So?’

‘This time of the year I’ve never known it not to be plagued by sandstorms from the south. What we do is wait for one to strike! It’s easy to see them, a great wall coming at you across the desert.

‘Now, what everyone does is get down out of the way until it’s past. Not us! I saw where our chest went – number XIV, in not the next but the following cart. They’ll all be stopped, no one looking, so we feel our way down to it, give the driver a bump on the head and lead the cart out into the desert. That’s anywhere to the right, and keep on going. These storms last for hours – by the time it’s all over we’ve vanished. Can’t delay the convoy to go looking for us – we’re away!’

‘What about water, food?’

‘This cart’s got provisions for three, that one will be the same. Only a couple of days to reach somewhere like Memphis, won’t be a problem.’

The country slipped by, soon looking all the same. Occasionally, the tedium was relieved by a river or waterway crossing, the horses splashing and kicking in relief, and then it was back to the endless grind and bump.

At nightfall a stop was made at a hamlet. Under a full military guard there was nothing to be done and wearily they stretched out in sleep.

Time passed: four days after leaving Alexandria they met the Nile, a placid blue sliding mass of water. The ferries took many hours to ship horses and men across and then they were headed to the south-east and the desert.

Abruptly the carefully tended small fields and clusters of palms gave way to sand. Ahead stretched a nondescript stony desert with nothing but a few fraying bushes and the white sticks of dead wood protruding from the side of small dunes.

They stayed the night, resting horses and men and taking on water, then the next day they headed out into the desert.

The ancient road petered out. With no substantial stone to work with, the engineers had resorted to laying impacted gravel that wound between the low dunes. But the route was now seldom used and it had become a rutted dreariness.

The convoy moved on in the heat and dryness, the heads of horses drooping and the steady pace of the men slackening as they faced the deeper reaches of the desert. Night was spent under the stars and the next day was the same again.

‘When’s your sandstorm coming, then?’ Marius demanded.

Nicander didn’t reply.

They plodded on, the discomfort of their garb a growing penance in the heat.

The convoy reached the shores of the Mare Rubrum, a harsh glitter that spread across the vision.

They followed a coast road through reedy shallows, threading past hillocks and outcrops to the outskirts of a decaying town, Myos Hormos.

A halt was called while the cavalry rode ahead. In an hour riders returned to announce that they could proceed.

They moved on, past bleak scoured ruins of houses and overgrown gardens to the quay, which was deserted. There were precious few signs of life.

The convoy stopped; Nicander could see a knot of officers arguing, one throwing down his pace stick in anger. Eventually the order was given to make camp.

This was done in orderly fashion, sentries posted and the men released into the perimeter limits as military routine took over.

Nicander sat morosely in the shade of their cart. He glanced sideways at Marius. The old campaigner was asleep.

The tinny sound of a small bell intruded from a low building away to the left. Nicander squinted in its direction: a church of sorts, summoning what must be a tiny congregation in this hellhole of burning heat.

Then a thought struck. ‘Marius! Get up, you lazy sod!’

It took hard persuading before Marius would abandon his shade to trudge over to the little church. But when they returned each had on, in place of their monk’s robe, a blessedly cool linen tunic – they had left two holy men at the chancel fingering in wonder their new-won woollen robes, given in exchange.

But the relief was only temporary. The day became ever more oppressive and even talking was fitful and exhausting.

‘Bugger this, Nico. We’re going to be on a boat out of this stinking place – but leaving the Roman Empire! Away off into… who knows where. We’ve got to-’

‘Didn’t you hear what the mule-driver said? We’re to go the whole length of this Mare Rubrum to the end, where you’ll find the kingdom of Axum. The independent kingdom of Axum. Owes nothing to Justinian, or the Persians, just makes a pile of coin being in the middle.’

‘So…?’

‘So Roman law doesn’t work there. The compulsors can go and rot themselves, we’re not under their control any more. Just have to find some way to relieve them of their weapons and they’re powerless to call for help. And another thing – this is where we part company with the tribute convoy. They take ship for Eudaemon and the Persian Sea, while we… well, as we sold to the Emperor, we’re supposed to find a ship going to Taprobane.’

‘You’re saying if we move, it has to be at Axum, or we’re done.’

‘Exactly. The chest will be guarded only by those two, and we can surely turn up a riot that sees us end with the box and vanishing into the crowd. Not only that, there’s no way they can start a commotion, no one will take notice of them.’

Marius scratched his bare knee. ‘You seem to know a lot about this Axum?’

‘Of course! Never been there myself, but this is a famous place for incense. You get frankincense and myrrh from across in Saphar and at the same time, nard and the rest from the south. They double their money by adding in spices coming up from the Cushites and even ivory and slaves from the barbarian marsh people.’

The hired ships did not arrive for another day but they were no fine dromonds. Flat, broad and ugly transport craft, they were designed for livestock. The two holy men were given places on deck under an awning, unlike the hapless souls of the escort who were accommodated below.

It was long days of endurance in the baking heat and reflected glare of the sea before they finally raised the kingdom of Axum.

There, the jovial king had welcomed his Roman visitors warmly as representatives of the state that was piling so much trade wealth into his coffers. He had gone out of his way to meet their requirement, a ship on passage to the fabled Taprobane for a pair of holy men and their attendants.

Nicander and Marius had no chance to make their move: it had been a smooth exchange out of one ship into another, their hard-joking escort of soldiers entertaining them with lurid tales of what they might expect on their venture into the Erythraean Sea.

The trading dhow’s long curved bow met the swell with ease in a long upward swoop, triumphantly descending the other side in a swash of white, under the urging of its soaring lateen sail. On the after deck Marius sat wedged into the low bulwarks, holding on for dear life in the liveliness of their ship’s movement and staring hopelessly back at where they’d come from, a fearless soldier – but no sailor.

The last of the smudge of blue-grey that was Arabia had lessened by the hour until it had disappeared, and now all that was left was a blazing sun high in the sky and sea – an alien, watery expanse that stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction.

‘Where are we?’ he croaked, every legionary sense of place and purpose now irrelevant.

‘The captain knows what he’s doing,’ Nicander replied, feeling none too brave himself.

But they were heading straight out into open waters instead of hugging the coast as any prudent Roman would have done. The Arab captain, in broken trading Greek, had said only that they were following the season’s winds that blew always from one direction in summer and in the opposite in winter, and this was what provided their direct route to Taprobane.

Nicander had never heard of such a regularity of nature and immediately distrusted him. In the Mediterranean everything from calms to storms could be expected from any direction at any time at the whim of the gods.

The captain also talked darkly of the perils of the deep: the monsters surging out of the depths with no warning, the giant rocs that plummeted down from invisible heights to snatch unfortunate sailors from the decks to take back to feed their chicks. And an immense white octopus that rose up at night and ate ships whole.

Nicander had additional anxieties. The Erythraean sea was in the centre of the world; in the north was the land mass of Asia and the further you went the more frigid it got, until past Thule the human body froze in its last posture like a statue for all eternity. In the south there was no land, therefore it stood to reason that in that direction, in which it got progressively hotter, it would reach the point where the sea itself started to boil. No one had ever returned from the burning region to tell the tale.

What if there was a storm and the mast broke? Without sail they would be carried before the wind. And no one had ever worked out where the winds blew to in the end – it was quite possible that they would be driven ever further south, to end in a dreadful fate as they reached the boiling sea.

He decided to keep his concerns to himself. ‘We’ve a stout enough ship,’ he added in half-hearted encouragement.

‘You think so?’ Marius hissed. ‘Look! Look at this – did you ever come across such shite workmanship!’

To his horror Nicander saw that there was not a nail anywhere. Even the hull planks were held together with nothing more than twisted fibres and thongs. They were trusting their lives to a seagoing vessel that was just sewn together.

Nicander glanced back at the Arab captain at the steering oar, his unfocused eyes on a distant horizon as he chewed some kind of dried leaves. ‘But that’s the least of our problems. This voyage is only going to end in one of two ways: we’re going to be shipwrecked or worse – or we’re going to safely arrive at Taprobane. If we get there, those bastards forward will be watching very carefully while we carry out the plan we set before Justinian, which, if you remember, calls for us to wave our magic letter and demand the nearest trader of Sinae to take us there.’

‘But…’

‘Damn it, Marius. There’ll be nobody from Serica there and the people of Taprobane will soon tell them so. We’ll be exposed, unmasked – they’ll take us prisoner back to Justinian as frauds and no doubt we’ll be entertained by Marcellus again.’

‘We’ve got to get away, then,’ Marius said.

‘Tell me,’ Nicander said, glancing pointedly out over the vast, empty sea. ‘Just how you propose to do this?’

The big man looked down.

‘Let me sum up for you. We’re no longer looking to flee with a chest of gold, we’re looking to save our very skins! Just that – anything that sees us disappear. Not a sesterce to our name, but still alive.’