Julian Stockwin - THE SILK TREE

The chat stopped when Su himself arrived, looking tired and distracted. ‘Things on the trail are going to get worse – a whole lot worse,’ he muttered to no one in particular.

With a sweep of his hand he cut short the anxious babble. ‘You’ll find out soon enough. Now let’s have some eats.’

The mutton stew was cheering against the chill of the night and with the appearance of the hung tsao chiu things were definitely on the rise. Made from dried and powdered buckthorn date, the hot drink was mixed with a liquor. Su swore by its effectiveness against both cold and heat and declared that it would be on issue every night while in the desert.

Nicander was puzzled. The fierce-eyed seer was nowhere to be seen.

He asked Su, ‘Could you tell me where I’d find Dao Pa at all?’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Some kind of monk, I think. Comes from the south somewhere, if you saw him you’d never forget the man.’

‘Look, I know who’s in this caravan and there’s no Dao Pa!’

‘Beard, biggish fellow – and blue eyes.’

‘A foreigner! I know all you buggers, and there’s no one like that. Now I’m bloody tired. Why don’t you leave me be, hey?’

Nicander shrugged. He’d search out Dao Pa later.

There seemed to be an unspoken acknowledgement that any entertainment in this appalling loneliness would have to come from among themselves. One of the cameleers came forward shyly, and sat cross-legged. He pulled out a flute and softly accompanied by another on a small drum performed a dreamy piece.

They played a second tune, spirited and gay.

Zarina got to her feet. ‘Let cares take flight!’ she laughed, and began dancing.

Shouts of encouragement came from all sides and she drew up one of the young serving girls and the two whirled and gyrated in a dance of Central Asia, ribbons swirling, dresses flaring, faces alight.

They sat to thunderous applause.

A woman who tended to the cooking was next. From one of the many tribes from the outer lands, her features were bluff, oriental and sun-darkened. She wore a padded tunic and her boots were as colourful as the long scarf that she coyly flicked as she stepped into the firelight.

Another drummer joined in. The rhythm set toes tapping as she strutted about in a high-fingered twirl, moving faster and faster until she collapsed in an exhausted heap.

Nicander was enchanted. It was so unreal: far out in the desert, untouchably remote and so dependent on each other and their animals, a bubble of humanity progressing through a hostile universe.

A gruff merchant stood up and came forward. He said some incomprehensible introductory words and then, unaccompanied, sang in a deep voice that rang with emotion.

There was a pause; people looked about expectantly. A voice called from the other side of the fire. It was Ying Mei asking if anyone possessed a pipa, or any kind of lute. Someone brought an old but clearly cherished yu ch’in, a circular instrument with four strings.

She accepted it gracefully and experimentally plucked delicate notes.

She nodded. ‘“Water Lilies in the Shade of Purple Bamboo”.’

The music flowed like water in a brook, tinkling and rushing, her clear, high voice complementing it. Around the fire there was rapturous attention and when the piece concluded with a last melting and affecting note held to nothing, there was stunned silence and then wild applause.

Korkut stirred in admiration. ‘I’d have thought that kind of playing you’d only ever hear at the imperial court.’

Her next piece was more robust. ‘Night of the Torch Festival.’

First one drummer then another picked up on the processional rhythm and the flute came in with an ingenious cross-melody.

After another two tunes she sat down, pleading fatigue.

The fire crackled and spat, its red glare illuminating the near desert with moving shadows and ghost-like shapes.

Marius leapt up. ‘Damn it, I’m in!’

‘Fighting song o’ the Pannonians!’ he roared in Latin. Marching up and down he belted out a legionary favourite, his audience bemused but appreciative.

When it was over he flopped heavily next to Nicander. ‘Be buggered, but that felt good!’ he muttered, taking a long pull at his hung tsao. ‘Memories…’

Then he turned and shoved Nicander to his feet. ‘Sing something, Greek!’

There was a patter of polite applause but Nicander’s mind went blank.

It had to be something from the motherland. Perhaps from the rich traditions of Pythagoras’s music of the spheres, one of the songs which he had learnt so painfully at school.

The difficulty was that there was no kithara to play and also the Grecian modes were so at variance with the oriental. In their classicism they could seem remote and unfeeling. He refused to compromise with Byzantine catch-songs of the street so there was nothing for it but to try to conjure something of value and moment.

He stepped forward. A vision of a scowling music dominie with a willow switch waiting for his first bad note threatened to unnerve him but he manfully launched into one of the Hymns of Apollo.

A Greek song was a series of long notes, full of feeling and intended to be accompanied by a plucked instrument which would drop notes rich with meaning into the spaces between.

There was a respectful quiet as he did his best, striving for pure and golden notes but aware that without the plangent twanging of the kithara the strange Greek intervals would sound baffling to his audience.

Then a soft tone sounded – and another. In the right places and while not in strict Phrygian mode, they were a very good approximation. He looked round. Ying Mei with her borrowed juan had come around to his side.

She stood beside him, watching intently.

They finished the song together to a wondering applause.

He bowed, touched at her gesture. ‘Thank you, My Lady.’

She smiled – but without a word returned to Tai Yi.

Day followed day as they passed through a moonscape of ragged sere cliffs and sand bluffs.

For all of one stage the camels trudged through a salt-encrusted surface of hard-packed clay, what remained of the inland sea Lop Nor. The spongy grit slowed them and made them spit harshly. At one point Su stopped the caravan while chunks of salt were lifted and stowed for later use.

Occasionally there were old watercourses, meandering to peter out among the sand-blown flatlands with relics of past times of plenty – low thorny bushes, stunted clumps of wiry grasses, bleached skeletons of long-ago tree life.

The heat rose and the stony plains shimmered and rippled into an uncertain distance, each plodding pace an effort of will, the only distraction the occasional whirlwind of sand moving over the ground like a dancing ghost.

How Su could make out where to go in the stony wastes was beyond Nicander. If it was by recall, he would need to remember hundreds, thousands of miles of a featureless landscape from all perspectives and all seasons – or was it by some other way, perhaps watching the angle of the sun, the stars at night?

One afternoon the camels imperceptibly quickened their pace, raising their heads and snorting. They came upon a small group of wells, each some four feet across, and with age-withered fitments including ropes and buckets. The caravan stayed several hours, sitting under makeshift awnings while the animals took their fill. However, this water was brackish and no one felt inclined to drink it.

Then it was the dunes again – a broad tongue of the Taklamakan that had to be crossed before the Gobi beyond.

The camels wound up into the maze of vast dunes, picking their way along the crests and into the hollows between in patient, slow steps.