The Tiger Warrior

15

Jack and Costas stood beside the lake and waved at the army truck as it trundled off east, revving through the gears and disappearing over the ridge. After leaving Pradesh and Rebecca at the air base they had endured an exhausting four-hour journey from Bishkek, crammed into the cabin with the Kyrgyz driver and his guard. The U.S. Army Chinook helicopter which was meant to have brought them here had developed mechanical trouble, and rather than wait in Bishkek and risk losing a day they had opted to hitch a lift on a supply truck heading to the naval test base at the far end of the lake. Jack’s anticipation had risen over the last hour as the truck had lurched its way toward the lake, through an extraordinary landscape of ravines and ridges formed by the raging cataract that had once flowed from the lake, now shaped again by the wind. He had imagined the thoughts of travelers who had once braved the pass, knowing that each dark recess might conceal a robber band, ready to inflict the murderous fate that had befallen so many on the Silk Route. And then the truck had mounted the final rise and they had seen Lake Issyk-Kul stretched out before them, with the snowcapped peaks of the Tien Shan Mountains lining the far side. The driver had stopped abruptly and gestured across a rocky field toward a solitary yurt, a traditional Kyrgyz tent. They had thanked him and jumped out, and now they slung their rucksacks and began to pick their way across the rocky landscape. Jack began to see the features that had made this place so beguiling to Katya: swirling, curvilinear patterns on the boulders, carvings that looked as old as the rocks themselves. He stopped at one, putting the flat of his hand against it, feeling the hand of the sculptor more than two thousand years ago.

“A cemetery?” Costas said from behind. “They look like tombstones.”

“Possibly,” Jack said. “But there’s lot of shamanistic stuff here too. It goes on for miles, where boulders have tumbled down the slopes and come to rest near the lakeshore. Katya thinks the earliest petroglyphs date from the Bronze Age, from the late second millennium BC, but nomads were carving here right through the period of the ancient Silk Route, to the later first millennium AD. As well as the nomads, traders made their way east or west among these boulders for thousands of years; stopping here after surviving that pass or before risking it. In addition to all the nomad art, there’s a chance of finding something really amazing, inscriptions made by those people-Bactrian, Sogdian, Persian, Chinese, you name it. Those traders are what give this route its place in history, yet they hardly left an imprint at all. Any discovery could be a huge revelation.”

Jack shaded his eyes and looked across the field of boulders, away from the lake and back toward the pass. The late afternoon sun was in his eyes, and it was impossible to see much, flashes of light off the weatherworn surfaces of the rock, shadows where there were gullies and ravines. It would be very easy to get lost in this place, and very easy never to be found again.

“There they are,” Costas said. “I can see Katya. Come on.” Costas looked faintly out of place in his baggy shorts, oversized Hawaiian shirt, hiking boots and wraparound aviator sunglasses, but he was surprisingly agile and leapt nimbly from rock to rock. He reached a tall man in a felt hat who stood up among the boulders and shook hands. Jack joined them and shook hands too. The man was about his own age, with blue eyes, his face etched by sun and wind in the way of steppeland people. Katya stood behind him, looking as if she also had taken on the hue of the landscape. She caught Jack’s eye and flashed him a quick smile, but her expression gave little away. She turned to the man. “Meet Altamaty,” she said. “He’s curator of the Cholpon-Ata open-air petroglyph museum. As well as his native Kyrgyz, he speaks Russian and Pashtun, but he’s only just started to learn English. He’s got diving experience with the old Soviet navy. He wants to be involved in the underwater investigations at the eastern end of the lake. I spoke to you about him, Jack.”

“Where’s the museum?” Costas asked.

Katya gestured around. “You’re standing in it. It’s probably the largest museum in the world. And the most under-resourced. It’s basically a one-man show.”

Jack looked at Katya. She was wearing faded military-surplus trousers and a khaki T-shirt, her forearms caked with dirt. Her long black hair was tied back and her face was deeply tanned, accentuating her high cheekbones. She looked more tired and weatherworn than the last time he had seen her, at the conference three months ago, but the color suited her. Jack knew that her mother had come from this area, and her face seemed at one with the tall Kyrgyz man beside her.

“I’ve already briefed our people about Altamaty,” Jack said. “As soon as the Chinook’s airworthy, Ben and Andy are flying from Bishkek straight to the old Soviet naval base at the eastern end of the lake. The Americans have already got things up and running there, and I want divers in the water as soon as possible to show what we can do. Rebecca’s going with them.”

“Your daughter is with you?” Katya said.

Jack had told Katya about Rebecca for the first time at the conference. “I was going to bring her here, but not after what happened to your uncle in the jungle. This place might be over the danger threshold. And she’ll have enough on her plate with the guys on the lake. This is her first IMU expedition, and I want it to be a good experience, especially so soon after losing her mother.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting her,” Katya said.

“The maintenance team thought the chopper would be grounded for another day. I’m hoping they’ll get there soon enough for things to be up and running before we arrive. Last time we were diving was in Egypt a week ago. I’ve never dived in a central Asian lake. I’m looking forward to it.”

“I might take a raincheck until I pass a Geiger counter over the water,” Costas said, rubbing his stubble. “Forty-odd years of Soviet submersible and torpedo testing. I know exactly how they fueled their gear. It was my master’s thesis at MIT.”

“The biggest problem is the old Soviet early warning stations on the mountaintops, which were nuclear-powered so they could be left unmanned,” Katya said. “Locals have raided them and come back with pockets full of uranium, and been dead within a week. The nightmare is that any of this stuff finds its way onto the black market. It’s why the Americans are so keen to take over cleanup of the old naval base. It’s not so much environmental concern, but the war on terrorism.”

Jack thought he saw a flash of light in the distance. He glanced up at the boulder-strewn slope behind them. It could have been a reflection off glass or metal, or just a trick of the eye. He shaded his eyes against the sun, looking hard, then turned to Katya. “Anyone else out here?”

“The odd shepherd, sometimes a hunter who disappears up there and never seems to come back.” She turned to Altamaty and spoke to him in Kyrgyz. He followed Jack’s gaze up the ridge, then spoke quickly to Katya. “Altamaty has eagle eyes,” she said. “He says he saw breath from a horse when it was cold early this morning, far up on the ridge. The hunters sometimes stay in one place for days, waiting for deer.”

“You’re sure it’s a hunter?” Jack said.

Katya eyed him. “Who else do you think it could be?”

“Are you armed?” Costas asked.

“Altamaty has his old service Makarov pistol and an SKS rifle he liberated from navy stores here when the Soviet Empire collapsed. We go hunting together. It supplements the mutton that’s the staple out here.”

“I forgot,” Costas murmured. “A palaeolinguist who knows about guns.”

Katya gestured toward a cluster of boulders about fifty meters away, where the top of a tractor was just visible above the rocks. “Come on,” she said. “The light’s perfect now, just as it was yesterday when we found it. And Altamaty’s got some stew simmering in a big pot outside the yurt. You’re in for a traditional Kyrgyz feast this evening.”

“I’m starving,” Costas said. “And I know mutton’s one of Jack’s favorites.” Jack gave him a withering look and swallowed hard. It was the one thing he had been dreading. He could stomach virtually anything, except boiled sheep. He had lived for several years as a child in New Zealand, and had once overindulged. Since then even the smell made him feel nauseous. He knew it was a matter of the utmost importance that he conquer the problem now. His manhood was at stake. He smiled at Altamaty, then followed Katya along a track between the boulders. The ground was hard, baked like brick, with only a few tufts of coarse vegetation growing around the edge of the boulders. It was as if a sea of mud and rock had slid down the mountainside and solidified in one mass, embedding the boulders. Jack saw more rocks with carved designs on them, some so eroded they were barely discernible. He stopped for a moment to peer at one, and Costas hurried past him to Katya. “I meant to say,” Costas said quietly, “I’m sorry about your uncle.”

Katya glanced at him and nodded, saying nothing. She walked ahead, and they followed her in silence through the rocks until they came to the tractor. Costas stopped dead in his tracks, like a boy who had just been given a dream present. “A four sixty-five,” he murmured reverently. “A Nuffield four sixty-five. This was why I got into engineering. I had a summer job on a farm in Canada. This was the first-ever diesel four-cylinder I disassembled.” Altamaty opened the engine cowling, and the two men peered inside. Costas glanced at Jack. “I think I can bond with this guy. I think we just found a common language.”

“No way,” Jack said. “We did not come here to disassemble a tractor.” Costas sighed, patted Altamaty regretfully on the shoulder, then followed Jack to where Katya was kneeling in front of a boulder a few meters away. They could see where it had been dragged away by the tractor, revealing another boulder that had been partly buried. Between the two was a marked-off excavation area of about four by two meters. In the center was a carefully excavated pile of smaller rocks, about a meter across and two meters long. Jack squatted down and stared at the markings on the freshly exposed boulder. It was why Katya had called him here. “Well I’ll be damned,” he murmured.

“Another rock carving,” Costas said. “It looks better preserved than the others.”

“Not just another rock carving,” Jack said. “It’s fantastic.” His mind was reeling. It was one thing hearing it on the phone from Katya, but another thing seeing it for real. He felt the power of the past as he touched it. Letters in Latin. “It’s the same number as in the jungle shrine, the same symbol. XV Ap. The Fifteenth Apollinaris legion.”

Costas knelt down beside Jack. “I can see it. And that Roman inscription from the cave in Uzbekistan. The one Katya’s uncle recorded.”

“It’s definitely the same sculptor,” Katya said. “I’ve photographed this and scanned it against the image from the cave. He has a distinctive way of doing his finials, ending each line by angling the chisel back and knocking out a triangular chunk of rock.”

“A citizen-soldier,” Jack murmured. “One who remembered his trade, and still practiced it with care. He was the one they called upon when they needed to make an inscription.”

“In the cave in Uzbekistan, I think it was a casual marking, ‘Licinius was here,’” Katya said. “Maybe the cave was where they really felt they had escaped from Merv, where the desert of Uzbekistan became the foothills of central Asia. From there, the Silk Route follows the ravines and mountain passes that eventually lead to this place. But this inscription here by the lake was for a different reason. You can barely make out the first line above the legion inscription, but it’s a different personal name, I think Appius. And look at those two letters at the bottom.”

“D M,” Jack said, tracing his fingers down. “Dis Manibus. That means given to Dis, the god of the underworld. A funerary inscription.” He glanced at the pile of rocks between the boulders. “This is a grave.”

Costas peered at the rock. “And that symbol above the inscription. It’s an eagle, isn’t it? Isn’t that what we saw in the jungle shrine?”

“It’s the same legion,” Jack murmured. “Incredible.”

“It’s exactly what I dreamed we’d find,” Katya said. “The burial place of someone who died here, or in the pass below. For some, this must have been a place for exultation, for recuperation before the next stage in the journey. For others, it would have been a place to die. There must have been many deaths among the traders, Persians, Bactrians, Sogdians, Chinese. But Roman? It’s astonishing.”

“Did you find anything in the grave?” Costas asked.

“It was a hasty burial, as you might expect,” she replied. “The ground’s rock-hard and there isn’t enough wood here to fuel a cremation. The body was covered with stones, maybe cut turf That inscription would only have taken an hour or so to cut, for a skilled mason.”

“A skilled mason?” Costas said. “Are you really sure about that?”

“There’s no doubt about it.” Jack traced his fingers over the symbols. “He had somehow fashioned a chisel with the right width of head, and he knew precisely where to place each blow. He knew the characteristics of this kind of rock, that it could take a glancing blow without fragmenting the surface. It’s what I said in the jungle shrine. A citizen-soldier.”

“You think this is the same guy?” Costas said.

“Let’s wait to see what else Katya has to show us.”

Katya looked at him, took a deep breath and pointed to a wooden finds crate on the ground. “The soil’s very alkaline, and any bones would have disappeared long ago. But when the tractor dislodged the boulder, it revealed this.” She drew back the cloth covering the interior of the crate.

Costas whistled. “That’s some weapon.” Inside was a magnificent socketed halberd-head, dull silver in color with patches of green where it had corroded. On one side was a vicious curved blade extending outward about ten inches, and on the other side a narrower straight blade, the shape of a cut-throat razor.

“I’ve seen one like that in the British Museum,” Jack exclaimed. “Late Warring States, early Western Han period?”

Katya nodded. “The razor-shaped blade is similar in proportions to Han-period swords, which look like Japanese samurai swords.”

“Isn’t this bronze?” Costas said. “Wouldn’t that be too early for us?”

Katya shook her head. “Not necessarily. Iron was introduced in China by the fifth century BC, but the early cast iron was brittle so bronze was still used. And this bronze has been coated with chromium, which would have made it harder, better to hold a sharp edge.”

“And a weapon like this might have been prized, passed down the generations,” Jack murmured, touching the blade. “It could have been made in the early Han period, not long after the time of the First Emperor. But it could have survived in use for two centuries or more, to the period when we think these Romans came here.”

“But what’s a prestigious Chinese weapon doing in this place?” Costas said. “A passing Imperial Chinese warrior dumps it on a Roman grave? I don’t get it.” He gazed at Katya, who stared back at him, her eyes gleaming. “Ah,” Costas said. “That’s uncannily like the look Jack gives me. It means you’ve found something else.”

Katya picked up a small plastic finds tray from beside the crate. “The halberd was in the center of the grave, as if it had been placed on the torso of the body. These two objects were where the head might have been.” There were two coins in the tray, one silver and one corroded green, a disk with a square hole in the center. Jack took the silver coin, holding it up in the fading sunlight. “It’s a silver tetradrachm of Alexander the Great!”

“And it’s uncirculated,” Katya said. “It’s like those Roman coins from south India you were telling me about, uncirculated bullion.”

Jack passed the coin to Costas. They could see the portrait on the obverse, the familiar head of Alexander wearing the mane of a lion, the classical form giving sudden reality to the idea of travelers from the ancient Graeco-Roman world coming this far east, to the very borderlands with China. Costas rotated the coin, peering at the portrait again, and a puzzled look returned to his face. “If my history’s right, Alexander the Great lived in the later fourth century BC. That’s a hundred years before the First Emperor, and three hundred years before our Romans. There must have been old Greek coins that found their way out here, used as bullion, jewelry. But they would have been worn.” He looked dubiously at the Latin inscription on the boulder, then back at the coin. “Does this mean we’re not looking at a Roman here after all, but at a soldier of Alexander the Great?”

“You’ve read the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea?” Katya said.

“The merchant’s guide? First century BC, Egyptian Greek. I’m becoming an expert.”

“Well, it says ancient coins of the Greeks are still to be found in Barygaza, just as you suggest,” Katya said. “Then there are those new lines of the Periplus from Hiebermeyer’s excavation in Egypt, describing Crassus’ legionaries. Jack filled me in about that on the phone. They specifically mention an altar of Alexander, passed as they went east. That would have been in Uzbekistan, close to the cave with that Fifteenth Legion inscription. The Roman soldiers would have heard legends of Alexander’s lost treasure. Once they’d reached that windswept altar in the desert, the mountains of central Asia looming ahead, they’d probably shaken off any pursuers from Merv and could relax a little. So what do they do? They dig around, searching. If Alexander was going to bother building an altar, he would have included offerings, and what better than mint coins with perfect images of himself. The Romans could have found this coin there, and brought it with them.”

Jack took the coin from Costas, turning it over. “And then they place it on an eye of the body as an offering to Charon, the boatman across the river Styx.”

“And the other coin?” Costas said. “On the other eye? That coin looks Chinese to me. Talk me through that one, Katya.”

She picked up the second coin, with the square hole in the center. “There are three Chinese symbols on it, one to the right of the square hole, two to the left. This is a coin of the Han dynasty, a wushu, which means five grains, equaling four grams, the same weight as a Greek drachma or Roman denarius. Millions of these were produced, and they’re quite common finds in Chinese central Asia.”

“Can you pin down the date?” Costas asked.

“The symbols to the left are those of the reigning emperor, as distinctive to the Chinese as the change of portrait was to a Roman. And just as in Rome, a new emperor would attempt to replace existing coins with his own new ones. Token coins such as these, with no bullion value like silver or gold, would have been worthless with the name of a former emperor, and may even have been dangerous to be seen with. So this coin is unlikely to have been in circulation beyond the reign of that emperor. And he was the Han emperor Cheng, who ruled from about 32 to 5 BC.”

Jack exhaled slowly. “Perfect,” he said softly. “That fits with my own best-guess date for the escape of Crassus’ legionaries, 19 or 18 BC. That’s about a decade into the reign of Augustus, about the time he negotiated peace with the Parthians and saw the return of the lost legions’ eagles.”

“So how do our escaped Romans get hold of a Chinese coin?” Costas asked.

Jack pursed his lips. “They would have been desperate men, trained killers with nothing to lose. Any morality would have been stripped away with the loss of the eagles at Carrhae, and they would have been brutalized by years of torture and hardship under the Parthians. They may have stolen Parthian gold when they escaped, but they still had to eat. Silk Route traders packed everything they needed for the journey. The Romans would have preyed on any caravan they came across, probably killing everyone, maybe taking the odd captive as a guide, gorging themselves on food and drink, looting anything of value they could carry. This coin may have been in the saddlebag of some ill-fated Sogdian trader. But it was of no bullion value, and was something they could afford to leave here to satisfy Charon and ease their comrade’s journey into the afterlife.”

“And the halberd?” Costas said. “That would have been a much bigger sacrifice.”

“A warrior was always buried with his weapon,” Jack murmured. “With their eagles gone, the legionaries only had each other, and they probably cherished a dream that they would once again march alongside their dead comrades, heads held high in the fields of Elysium. Even if it meant reducing their own defenses, they would never have buried a comrade without a weapon for the afterlife. Even a weapon so much at odds with the normal equipment of a legionary.”

“You think they looted that from a trader too?” Costas asked.

“The Romans would have armed themselves with whatever they could find,” Jack replied. “Thrusting swords and spears would have been their favored weapons as legionaries, but anything would do.”

Costas touched his finger on the curved blade. “This seems an unlikely sidearm for a trader.”

“There were others on the Silk Route besides traders,” Katya said quietly. “Mercenaries, employed as caravan guards. Marauding bands of robbers, preying on the caravans like highwaymen. It was like the Wild West out here. Up on the steppes, in the mountains, is the toughest place for an outsider to live, and only the most murderous gangs survived. No mercy was given. And there were others.”

“Warriors from the east.” Jack looked carefully at Katya. “Warriors who bore the tattoo of a tiger.”

Katya shot a glance at Jack, and looked down at the halberd again. “There were murder gangs out here, but there were also raiding parties from China, from the warrior empire itself They were the most feared of all, superbly armed and equipped, on horseback, always accompanied by a drumbeat, rising in a crescendo as they swooped down on their prey. They would have seemed invincible. For the nomads who live out here, for my mother’s people, the sound of a distant drumbeat still sends a shiver through the soul. Even I can sense it, when I let my imagination run free.”

“So the Chinese raided their own traders?” Costas said incredulously.

“To understand why, you have to understand the nature of Chinese society. The empire was a totalitarian state, inward-looking, a universe unto itself Control freaks always need a boundary, between the world they can dominate and the world outside, which is feared, rejected. There’s no hazy middle ground. When you look at the Great Wall of China, remember that psychology. In extreme cases, the boundary acts like a prison wall, and the controller sends out tentacles to draw back anyone who steps beyond. At some periods, that’s what happened with China.”

“So how could Chinese traders operate on the Silk Route?” Costas asked.

“They didn’t. Officially, at least. But the people of central Asia and western China are similar in physiognomy, and an intrepid Chinese trader could pass through unnoticed. There were probably plenty of them, disguised among parties of Sogdians. There were rich pickings to be had in the silk trade, and the temptations for a Chinese trader would have been great.”

“So you’re saying they were hunted down?”

Katya nodded. “But there was another side to that coin. The Chinese elite enjoyed their luxuries. Like all megalomaniacs, the emperors were prey to human temptation. Prized raw materials could only be got abroad, such as precious stone: lapis lazuli, peridot. The emperors turned a blind eye to the trade, as long as the traders were invisible. But if anyone was known to stray, they were ruthlessly sought. The Records of the Grand Historian, the Chinese imperial annals, are full of stories of aberrant younger sons or nephews seeking fortunes elsewhere, forming pacts with outsiders. In that sense the Chinese royal dynasties were like any other, but they were unique in their relentless quest to bring back and punish anyone who tried to leave.” Katya gestured at the weapon in the box. “That halberd’s an imperial Chinese weapon, a prized item like an officer’s sword. You’d never have found a weapon like that in the hands of a mere caravan guard. That weapon was brought out here by a Chinese warrior.”

“So how on earth does a Roman get hold of it?” Costas asked.

Katya eyed him. “Speculation built on speculation, right? We’ve got a party of Romans, desperate men, escaped prisoners, tough ex-legionaries going east. Their numbers are dwindling. They’ve been attacked again, maybe in that pass behind us. Their attackers are not just another robber band, but fearsome warriors, worthy opponents. The Romans have fought well, and have captured some weapons. But they are hard-pressed. One of their comrades has fallen, and they quickly lay him to rest. They set off again east.”

“If their attackers were Chinese, why are they coming after the Romans?”

“Backtrack in time a day or two,” Katya said. “Imagine a party of Sogdian traders, laden with silk. They’ve come across the lake, heading west. They leave their boats here, and transfer to the camels awaiting them. They make their way through the pass. Soon after that they’re attacked, by a band of desperadoes far worse than any they’ve seen before, by the Romans. The traders are all massacred, except for one, kept alive to guide the Romans back through the pass. Only the trader they’ve got is not a Sogdian. He’s Chinese. And he’s being followed. He is one who had strayed.”

“With something that he shouldn’t have,” Jack murmured. “With what we found out from the inscription in the shrine. A jewel.”

Katya shot him a piercing glance, and Jack held her eyes for a moment. Costas pointed at the crate. “Anything else to show us?”

Katya lifted out another tray. “We did find something pretty fantastic. I was saving it until the end.” She drew back the cloth. Beneath it was a blackened lump, like a shriveled rind of fruit that had been peeled open in strips and left to dry. “It’s camel leather, local Bactrian camel,” she said. “It’s uncured, skin taken from a freshly dead animal. Altamaty says that when the nomads do this, they soak the leather in urine to keep it supple.” She sniffed the lump. “You can still smell the uric acid. That’s probably why this survived, under the rocks where the feet of the body would have been.” She picked up a clipboard and showed them a design that looked as if it had been cut from folded paper, full of triangles and rhomboids. “I downloaded this from an excavation report of a legionary fortress on the German frontier,” she said. “A Roman soldier who’d been trained to make something one way would always replicate it, especially such a tried and tested design.”

Costas stared. “Okay, Katya. I give up.”

“The indispensable camel,” Jack said, smiling broadly. “To a Roman legionary in need of kit, the first thought when he sees a camel is not something to ride or carry gear, but leather for making boots.”

“Boots,” Costas exclaimed. “Of course. The bits sticking out are where it laces up.”

“These are caligae,” Jack said. “Every legionary wore them, wherever he was. The pattern was fixed about the time of Julius Caesar, when these guys were doing their basic training.” He leaned down and sniffed. Katya was right. He could smell them. It was an extraordinary feeling, a heady rush from the past, and for a split second he could sense it all, the sweat, the adrenaline, the fear, the sickly-sweet odor of decay at this spot, the reek of men with the heightened animal intensity that comes with the proximity of death.

He looked away. He realized that Altamaty had disappeared. Another smell came wafting over them, from the direction of the yurt. Jack steeled himself It might be time to break his taboo in the field and drink something fortifying. Very fortifying. He could toast the Kyrgyz people. Katya was looking at him, the hint of a smile on her lips. “Are you ready to do Altamaty a great honor and feast on some mutton, prepared in the traditional way as a great mark of esteem to our guests?” Jack swallowed hard, and nodded. She knew. She dropped her smile and looked at him seriously. “And then we’ll go up that hill behind us. There’s something else I need to show you. You were right about that Sogdian, Jack. He had something he never should have had. Something of incalculable value. We might just be on the most extraordinary treasure hunt you could ever imagine.”