Julian Stockwin - THE SILK TREE

It was a brisk, practised process.

Once dealt with, the travellers were free to go but the camel train remained until Su and the merchants had paid their toll.

The two-storey caravanserai was vast and spacious. Water trickled down one wall, cooling the rooms while the inside courtyard was criss-crossed with a grape trellis which gave welcome shade.

Nicander and Marius cheerfully freshened up. After so long on the trail they were going to have some fun!

‘Now, our funds?’ Nicander asked.

Their small hoard was laid out, but they were in a foreign country; what did their motley collection of silver, bronze and copper amount to here?

‘We need someone who knows the place.’

‘Who? Su isn’t going anywhere until he’s done his haggling, no one else has been here before.’

‘So we’ll stick together. Where’s Korkut?’

‘Where do you think? All the merchants have gone off to try their luck.’

‘Then…?’

‘We step out, just we two – the boys from Rome!’ cackled Marius.

Nicander agreed with a wide grin. It would be an unwise Turfanian in the backstreets who thought to pick on Marius.

‘But in these?’ He fingered his monk’s habit, threadbare but comfortable, which he’d worn since Chang An.

‘Get new stuff at some market, a bit snappier, like.’

As they left they saw Ying Mei standing with Tai Yi in the courtyard.

‘Ah! There you are,’ she said brightly.

‘We were just going out.’

‘How convenient. We need to do a little shopping and would appreciate the company in this strange town.’

‘That is, we were on our way to the monastery to give thanks for our safe arrival,’ Nicander said. ‘But as women are not allowed…’

‘Oh. And I was so looking forward to seeing the sights. With a friend, that is. Come, Tai Yi, we’ll have to go back to our room. These gentlemen haven’t time for us.’

‘It might not be-’ Nicander began awkwardly.

Marius interrupted gruffly. ‘He’s saying as women don’t like to go where men do, M’ Lady. And we’re-’

‘We’d be no trouble, Ah Wu, none at all! It’s just that… well, you and Ah Yung being my friends I really thought you’d…’

Nicander felt himself weakening. ‘If you came with us-’

‘Oh, thank you!’ she said happily. ‘We’ll have such a time together.’

The bazaar was vast, an arched-over covered expanse with many cross street-ways. To the eyes of the travellers accustomed to the limitless vista of empty desert it was almost more than the senses could stand. Wafting stinks and fragrances fought each other, the lure of baubles and silks competed with beaten silver and jade, animal skins with stout linen – and people of all the tribes of Central Asia pushed past in an intoxicating mix.

It was all new and exciting: an alcove with nothing but dried reptiles, another with cunningly worked children’s toys, yet more with spices and medicinals and others offering sweetmeats and strange confections.

Ying Mei insisted they stop at a purveyor of holy raiment. Nicander selected a long wrap-around garment in a modest ochre. It came with an inner robe and waistcloth and was delightfully cool. Marius found a similar one in a more dashing deep red – with his beard, a striking sight.

Nicander felt in his purse but found a hand lightly on his.

‘Please let me, Ah Yung. You’ve been so good to us.’

He was aware that her touch had lingered.

In another part of the bazaar there were goods on display that could only have come from the mountains and beyond: furs, leather capes, felt blankets. The stallkeeper was black-browed and tall and delighted in producing more – from deerskin carpets to almond pastries, rakhbin cheese to horse hides. Marius was delighted with his lynx-fur cap purchase and said he would put it away for the cold nights but when he picked up a bright-painted pipe with a belled end the man convulsed in mirth.

Tai Yi told him, ‘That’s a child’s piddling tube you have, Ma sheng . For winter when they’re under many layers of furs. He wonders that you must be so… poorly endowed.’

Ying Mei stifled a giggle.

They continued on, to where the vividly coloured costumes of the mountain people were on display.

‘How does this look on me?’ Ying Mei asked Nicander anxiously, holding up a gaily embroidered black dress.

He hesitated then beamed approval. The last vestiges of the Ice Queen had gone – in its place was a laughing, high-spirited soul who was going out into the world to see what it had to offer. Against the barbaric boldness of these dresses he saw that she was a different woman, no trace of the porcelain doll now in the natural flush of her cheeks.

They took refreshments at a stall, watermelon cider with a startling potency and grapes cold from ice pits.

It was proving a very agreeable day.

Leaving the market, they came to the entrance of a sunken garden. It turned out to be a grape forest – the fruit growing on trellises vertically and flat above them, a gratifying ambrosial shade. For a small coin they ate all they wished, straight from the vine.

Hearing a distant din of drums, gongs and cymbals they hurried out on to the streets. It was a procession. Over the heads of the onlookers they caught glimpses of part of a dazzling gold canopy, a float of some sort. The noise swelled and then into view came an extravagantly ornamented temple-car bearing a single image of the Buddha garlanded in flowers. It was accompanied by a dozen shaven-headed priests, clashing tiny cymbals and chanting.

Preceding them was a single barefoot figure daubed with red and white whorls and draped in a plain-coloured robe. In his hand he bore incense and flowers and attendants held aloft a richly decorated parasol.

The man was given great respect. People bowed their heads, others fell prostrate.

‘That’s our king! His Greatness Yong Ping who is on his way to the monastery to intercede for us with the Enlightened One. And then in three nights it will be the Feast of the Lanterns. You are welcome to join us.’

The ladies decided to lose no time in returning to the market to find something suitable to wear but after it was pointed out that too much admiring of female attire was perhaps not what holy men should be seen doing, the men were released.

‘So what’s to do?’ Marius said with a wicked leer. ‘All on our own in an oasis – I’ve seen worse. Take Syria. Damn, but they were evil. Did I ever tell you-’

Nicander frowned. ‘We can’t.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Not in this gear. We’d be asking for trouble. Remember we were going to buy some clothes…’

Marius grinned. ‘Never mind that. Leave it to me – I know what to do!’

Later that evening two men in the garb of a recently arrived caravan escort slipped out into the night. After a particularly tough desert march it was quite understandable that they would be wanting to sluice away the memories with the far-fabled wines of Turfan…

The morning heat was beginning to take hold and Nicander threw aside the light linen bed cover. On the previous evening, unlike Marius, he’d held off on the wine, finding it sweet and cloying. He’d not appreciated the coarse gaiety of the Kuchean dancing girls, nor the lewd frolics of the performing boys. His mind was restless in a way it had never been before.

He freshened up, staring at the face that looked back at him in the bronze mirror. If they ever made it through he would be a very different man from the one who had set out. All the old certainties, his place in the world, what was possible to achieve, what was not, the value of things – were now in a state of fluidity.