Robert Lyndon - Imperial Fire

‘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.’

Far behind, many miles astern, three shapes broke the flat and empty riverscape.

Vallon waited, measuring their progress. ‘They don’t seem to be gaining on us.’

‘They don’t have to press hard,’ Wulfstan said. ‘The sea’s still a couple of days away.’

By noon the enemy convoy was close enough for the Outlanders to see what they were up against. One of the ships was a four-masted three-decker twice the size of Jifeng . The second had three masts. The third vessel, more like a floating tower than a ship, had no sail at all yet was keeping station without any obvious means of propulsion.

‘I saw ships like that in the south,’ Wayland said. ‘It’s driven by paddle wheels, like the waterwheels in a mill. Some ships have half a dozen or more, each pair connected by axles with pedals sticking out like flat spokes — one set of pedals for each poor sod who has to tread them.’