Robert Lyndon - Imperial Fire

Hero raised the glass to his lips but didn’t drink. ‘Cosmas told me that the Chinese are a most ingenious race, with many inventions and wonders to their credit. It would be a singular privilege to study their arts and engineering.’

Vallon swallowed his wine and poured another cup, the neck of the flagon chattering on the rim.

‘No, I won’t allow you to come. Consider how I’d feel if you died on the journey.’

‘Consider how I’d feel if I let you go without me.’

‘I’m duty-bound. You aren’t. I have family to consider. You don’t.’

Hero’s mouth tightened. ‘Each of us has different motives. In my case, I’d accompany you out of choice, to satisfy my curiosity, to further my store of knowledge. An expedition to China would be the adventure of a lifetime.’

‘Do you despise your profession so much that you’d throw it away for a land march into the unknown?’

‘I’m still only twenty-seven. I have half a lifetime in which to practise medicine.’

Vallon knocked over his glass and swore. ‘Hero, you’re not coming. Let’s talk of other matters. I insist.’

Hero drank no more than a couple of sips. ‘Do you think Wayland has received a similar summons?’

Vallon glanced around as if he half-expected to find someone lurking in the shadows. ‘No, thank God. Even if the Logothete’s influence extended as far as Suleyman’s court, Wayland wouldn’t abandon Syth and the children to go traipsing to the end of the world on some unknown minister’s say-so.’

‘You said “children”. That means an addition to the family.’

‘A girl, born three years ago. I have the letter in my study. Bring your wine and we’ll read it together.’

Vallon took Hero to a small room furnished with a table overflowing with papers. Vallon waved at them in disgust. ‘I’m still struggling to complete my report on the last campaign.’ He rummaged in a casket that held his personal correspondence. ‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Wayland’s command of written Arabic is as weak as mine.’

Hero smiled as he unravelled meaning from the letter. ‘He says that in addition to holding the position of senior falconer to the Sultan, he’s been honoured with the title of Master of the Hunt. I’m not surprised. Wayland can truly bewitch animals.’

A jangling at the gate made Vallon cross to the window.

Hero peered over his shoulder. ‘Could that be Caitlin?’

‘Most unlikely.’

Wulfstan entered. ‘Letter for you, General. Delivered by imperial messenger. No answer required.’

Vallon broke the seal and read the missive. His lips drew back from his teeth. ‘Another summons, ordering me to present myself at the Magnaura Palace in four days’ time to meet the imperial ambassador I’ll be escorting to China.’ He turned his snarl on Hero. ‘And guess what? The Logothete has learned of your arrival and requests most earnestly — in other words, demands — that you accompany me.’

Watching the ferry carry Hero away, Lucas felt a stirring of shame at his boorish behaviour. He suspected that he’d misjudged the man. Seeing him board the ship at Naples, he’d assumed from his sober dress and quiet manner that he was a monk. Perhaps he was, though he wasn’t tonsured like the Roman priests or bearded like the eastern clerics. He wore his black hair long, brushed back from a high forehead. His protuberant eyes, quill-like nose and full, almost feminine mouth should have conveyed a comical effect, but in fact he projected a most dignified air. He was certainly a scholar with an uncanny command of languages. Lucas had heard him converse with his fellow passengers in Greek, French, Arabic, Italian and some unknown tongue that might have been English.

One of the touts pestering him tugged his sleeve. Lucas rounded on him. ‘Take your hand off me.’

The tout gauged the level of resistance, flicked his fingers in front of Lucas’s face and strode away muttering. Lucas drew a deep breath and walked through the port gate into a crowded street lined with tenements, picking his way past trundling carts and porters stooped under bales. The city assailed his senses. Tradesmen from a dozen lands shouted their wares. Spices and leather goods scented the air. Overhead, neighbours held bellowed conversations from adjoining balconies that nearly blocked off the sky, their voices almost drowned out by the din up ahead. A legless man scooted alongside on a trolley, begging for alms. Whores in dresses cut low to expose their breasts stuck out their hips and spread their lips in salacious O’s.

The racket increased to a deafening pitch and Lucas found himself at the junction of a thoroughfare packed with a heaving mob — men, women and children all heading in one direction and chanting what sounded like battle cries. Some wore green or blue tabards and when the factions met, the faces of both parties contorted in fury and they stabbed fingers at each other and hurled abuse. Mounted soldiers brandished staves and whips to keep the rival groups apart.

Someone shoved him from behind, propelling him into the mob. It bore him away. Unable to go against the flow, he struggled into a colonnaded walkway on one side of the thoroughfare. Merchants had set up booths and stalls under the arches. A man waved a token in his face.

‘I don’t understand. Where’s everyone going?’

The man pushed him away and plucked another passer-by out of the stream. A shoe barked Lucas’s heel and he stumbled, almost falling. A hand pulled him upright and he turned to see a man carrying on his shoulders a little boy trumpeting through his hands in fierce ecstasy.

‘What’s going on?’ Lucas shouted. ‘Is this a religious procession?’

The man pointed ahead. Lucas heard the word ‘Hippodrome’ and understood: the crowd was on its way to the races.

He went with the flow, buildings sliding past on both sides. Some of them were fine mansions with draped balconies occupied by silk-clad figures who looked down on the stew of humanity with patrician disdain.

The mob must have borne Lucas nearly a mile before it disgorged into a forum, the river dividing around a lofty shaft of purple marble crowned with an imperial statue. The buildings on all sides were the most splendid he’d seen, with dazzling white façades and noble porticoes. The crowd spilled into an even wider thoroughfare. Over the packed heads rose a high arcaded wall similar to the ruined Colosseum he’d seen while passing through Rome. It extended away almost to vanishing point. Slowly the crush moved forward. A hand touched Lucas’s waist, but when he whirled, the faces around him were blank. He patted his purse under his tunic.

The crowd funnelled towards a massive gate surmounted by four life-size rearing bronze horses. Stewards manned the entrance. Lucas thought he saw money changing hands and fumbled for his purse, was still fumbling to remove coins when the crush thrust him forward. A steward held out his hand, but Lucas didn’t know the price of admission, didn’t know the exchange rate for his Italian money, didn’t know the value of the coins that Hero the Greek had given him. Didn’t know anything .

‘ Diploma ,’ the steward kept shouting. Lucas held out a few coins. The steward threw up his hand in vexation.

‘I don’t understand,’ Lucas shouted, bracing himself against the mob pressing from behind.

Unable to force Lucas back, the steward snatched the coins from his palm and propelled him forward. He stumbled through the gateway into a huge amphitheatre lit by dazzling sunshine. He’d never seen so many people in one place. The stadium could have held the population of Rome with room to spare. All the ringside seats were taken and the spectators spilled up the tiered stands. He climbed thirty steps and worked his way around the Hippodrome before finding a thinly occupied section, below the U-shaped curve at one end of the racetrack. The starting stalls were at the other end, almost a quarter of a mile away. Down the middle of the course, separating the two straights, ran a stone plinth crammed with obelisks, statues and bronze figures of animals and charioteers. Fitful music carried from an orchestra assembled in the centre of the arena. Peering hard, Lucas saw that some of the musicians were playing organs, the bellows operated by teams of children.