Julian Stockwin - THE SILK TREE

Nicander glanced back into the darkness. ‘Better you play it smart – put it over your shoulder and follow your master, slave!’

Marius growled but fell in behind him for the trudge home.

In their shabby quarters Nicander got a rush dip going and found a knife to pierce the hard wax around the stopper. It came free and the heady pungency of wine filled the room. He sniffed appreciatively.

The amphora yielded up its contents, a dark, rich red wine.

‘No water?’ Roman wines were strong and always diluted to taste.

‘No water.’

Nicander didn’t argue and poured for them both. ‘To damnation in hell for this stinking city!’ he said and downed his wine in one. It coursed to his belly in a flooding tide of guilty release. He wiped his mouth on his hand and pronounced, ‘A Falernian niger – and a good one.’

Marius held out his empty cup. ‘Will do me whatever it’s called, by the gods.’

They drank deeply again, then Nicander threw at Marius, ‘Would never have happened if you hadn’t made me bet.’

‘Or you hadn’t staked the lot!’

They lapsed into silence; given what was ahead there seemed little point in debating blame.

They were facing the unthinkable.

Marius tossed back more wine. ‘Be quit o’ the place! Get out, go somewhere a man can breathe clean air again!’

‘Oh? Where? I can’t think of anywhere not crawling with Goths or Huns, can you ?’ He snorted. ‘Of course, there is one way that will keep us safe and warm, never short of a bite – security and all that.’

‘All right, Greek. What?’ Marius said morosely.

‘Sell ourselves into slavery. That way we get silver in our pocket and not much work – can’t be bad!’

‘Be buggered to that! I’m a free Roman and-’

‘Calm down, I’m only joking.’ Nicander said wearily. ‘If Leptis Magna is still standing, I suppose I could go back there,’ he muttered. He’d not told Marius about the feud with his father and in truth he doubted a return would be welcome. ‘But without a single sesterce – and assuming I could raise the passage money. How about you? Could-’

‘I’ve got no folks,’ Marius said tightly.

‘Then…’ Nicander felt a curious pang at the thought of parting with the strong-minded and plain-speaking man he had come to know and respect. ‘I suppose for now we could throw ourselves on the state, register for the bread handout.’

‘I’ve never begged before and I’ll not start now!’

‘Then it leaves us with only one thing.’

‘What?’

‘Pull off a crime so big we’re right back in the picture.’

‘Now you really are joking, Greek.’

‘You’ve got a better idea, then? Well, if we’re not to thieve our way out of trouble, there’s only one way to turn an honest coin and that’s in business.’ The wine was doing nothing for his concentration but Nicander pressed on, ‘We’ve got to find something that has solid returns and quick yields.’

‘Business? I know the biggest there is!’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes! With my own eyes, I saw it. In charge of the fore-escort to Ankara.’ His brow furrowed in concentration as he recalled the details. ‘Four carts, eighty men, all on the quiet. I asked my centurion, he said it was gold – payment to the Persians. Over a ton! Told me it was to pay the bastards for silk as can only be got from them. Each year, six loads o’ gold go to Nisibis and gets handed over. Just think about it, Nico – tons of gold because the poxy priests and royal court can’t do without their silk!’

‘And you want us to lift a shipment!’

‘Listen, Greek! You asked about a big business, I’m telling you one! You’re the mighty money man – let’s see you make something out of this silk thing!’

Nicander tried to throw off the wine’s fuddle. Maybe there was some little corner which they could ease into. ‘Ah, I grant you, if we get into it, why, we’ve chance for a good earner… but there’s always going to be need of capital.’

‘But what about those damn Persians?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Got a stranglehold on the whole stinking silk trade. Can’t get past ’em to buy directly, demands we pay in gold, nothing else will do.’

‘Ah. So if we can get around them, we can set up a business deal?’

‘Not a hope. I tell you, they have the lot in their hands. I heard about it! The ships, the border, those caravans o’ camels, they control it all. How? Because they has an arrangement with the seller, takes their entire lot for cash in hand. Are they going to listen to a piddley three-obol dealer? Forget it, Greek!’

Nicander glowered at Marius as though it was all his fault, but it was obvious that while the Persians were sitting astride all the trading routes there was no chance of importing on his own account.

Then an idea floated into his mind. A beautiful, magnificent idea. Yes, it truly was!

He smiled. ‘I’ve had a thought!’

‘May we be blessed to hear it, O Master?’

‘Marius – it’s simple. We grow our own! Silk, that is. Start in a small way, sell smart, build it up. Only need to get a peasant to lend us his farm until…’ He tailed off in wonder at the scope of his great plan.

‘How?’

‘What do you mean, how?’ Nicander slurred, resentful at anything said against his precious idea.

‘Well, where do we-’

‘Simple! I read somewhere silk grows on trees. What can be easier than we go and help ourselves to a load of seeds? Buy ’em, steal some if we have to – and if we can’t sling a bag of seeds over the shoulder and tramp across the mountains with it, we’re… we’re…’

‘Hump back and plant in the farm? Yes!’ enthused Marius.

‘I think we’ve got something!’ Nicander crowed. ‘Let’s drink to it!’

The next day they left the bedlam and distractions of Constantinople behind and sat together on rocks warm with the sun high above the shore of the Bosphorus.

‘We need to think,’ Nicander managed to croak. ‘Think and plan!’ He was feeling a little better after Marius had come up with an old legionary restorative but, in future, he swore, the wine would be well watered.

Marius turned to him. ‘Answer me this. If your idea’s so fucking good, why hasn’t anyone else come up with it?’

‘You have to understand the business mind, Marius. Men of finance want as little risk as they can arrange, no daring plans for them. You see, what they’re always after is to squeeze better deals on import, sharpen up percentages, margins, build on things as they are. What we’re going to do is to get around the whole damned thing, cutting out everybody in the middle. But now, we’ve bigger problems. Like… for instance, how do we get a handle on the costings?’

‘You tell me,’ grunted Marius.

‘Well, there’s nothing simpler than to walk away with a bag of seeds. It’s getting there in the first place. Why, Sinae where the Seres live, it must be thousands of stadia off – across Persia, over the mountains somewhere. How do we-’

‘A march across Persia will take you a month at least, Greek. I heard there’s Huns beyond – with surprise we’d get through them in, say, another month, if we leave off attacking the bastards. Mountains? Always tough going. And then the other side – the Seres might not take kindly to so many boots on their soil.’

‘Boots? What the hell are you talking about!’

‘Come on, Mr Businessman, where’s your thinking now? An expedition into hostile territory; I’d not feel secure without we have at least a cohort of pedes and cavalry to match. I’m no officer but even I can see we’d need camp support to the same numbers. Say a thousand or so?’