Julian Stockwin - THE SILK TREE

‘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.’

Yeh Ch’eng’s early morning light was delicate and pure, befitting an imperial city of China.

It touched the myriad rooftops, their upswept eaves and finials slowly taking colour. Soon it streamed into the apartment of the Lady Kuo Ying Mei. She sat by the window while her elaborate hairstyle was completed, braided up into an elegant double knot and secured with pearl pins by Lai Tai Yi, her Gold Lily Lady-in-Waiting.

A red-crested bulbul broke into song among the pink and yellow flowers of a nearby tree. Ying Mei sighed with contentment. ‘How enchanting, and from so tiny a creature!’

‘Your father would say that it is a sign of heaven’s blessing, my child, that daintiness is sent to bring beauty to strength,’ Tai Yi offered. The blossom of the plum was revered as a symbol of fortitude.

‘Just so, Ah Lai.’ She could use the familiar form of name, for Tai Yi had cared for her since birth and personally instructed her in the intricate ceremonial and etiquette expected of one attending on the Emperor himself.

The mention of her father, however, brought a frown. An only child, Ying Mei had become his confidante. As grand chamberlain to the elderly Emperor Hsiao Ching, he was becoming more and more enmeshed in the intrigues and betrayals that were sapping the dynasty of the Eastern Wei. A Confucian scholar and accomplished calligrapher – and a deeply honourable man – Kuo Ming Lai took his duties seriously and was pained by the incessant rivalry and treachery, much of it centred around the ruthless and tyrannical independent warlord Kao Yang. His bellicose manoeuvring out in the eastern counties was unsettling the peasantry and tales of his bestiality and callous indifference were widespread.

Why the Emperor had taken a course of appeasement and benevolence toward him was a mystery but he had, tolerating the military posturing for reasons which were hidden from mere mortals. She had heard that, in response, the warlord had sworn loyalty and promised to disperse his army at an early date.