Imperial Fire (38 page)

‘An excellent idea,’ said Hero.

‘It’s a difficult language,’ Shennu said. ‘The Western tongue isn’t shaped to speak it.’

Vallon indicated the night stretching ahead. ‘It’s not as if we lack leisure to learn. Let’s fill these long nights in a practical pursuit.’

‘Very well,’ Shennu said. He pointed at Vallon’s horse. ‘
Ma
.’

‘
Ma
.’

‘No.
Ma.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘You said
ma
, which means “mother”. Such a mistake could cast you into a most embarrassing situation. Suppose you asked a Chinese nobleman if you could mount his mother?’

Aiken suppressed a laugh. ‘
Ma.
’

‘Very good,’ said Shennu.

‘
Ma
,’ Vallon repeated.

‘Now you pronounce the word for “linen”. In a different context, the same pronunciation would mean “scold”.’

‘What a ridiculous language,’ said Vallon. ‘
Ma.
’

‘Like this,’ Shennu said, stretching his mouth. ‘
Ma
. Do you hear the difference?’

‘
Ma
,’ Vallon and Hero said.

Wayland cantered past with Zuleyka, the dog loping behind.

Hero hailed him. ‘We’re learning Chinese. Will you join our class?’

Wayland answered without turning. ‘Thank you. I won’t need Chinese.’

Hero watched him ride away. ‘Did you hear that? Unless you and Wayland mend your differences, he’s going to leave us.’

Aiken and Shennu exchanged glances and went on.

Vallon reined in. ‘It’s not for me to make the first move. If Wayland apologises for his irresponsible actions, I’ll gladly welcome him back into my heart.’

‘I’ve talked to him. He doesn’t think he did anything wrong.’

Vallon’s jaws worked.

‘You’re angry because he’s taken up with the gypsy girl.’

Vallon erupted. ‘He’s married to a woman who’s as dear to me as my own daughters. It offends me to the core to see him riding around with that strumpet.’

‘I don’t think they… I don’t think… Even if they did… Syth has made a hole in Wayland’s heart large enough for any other woman to pass through.’

‘That’s what hurts. I never thought Wayland would so much as look at another woman.’ Vallon wrapped his reins around his hands. ‘I thought that Wayland and Syth had discovered what I could never find – true love.’

‘But you and Caitlin love each other. I know that sometimes you strike sparks off each other, but that’s what happens when iron and flame collide.’

Vallon didn’t answer for some time. ‘My wife is unfaithful.’

‘Oh no, sir. Don’t say that.’

‘For the last nine years I’ve spent one season in four at home. Caitlin’s a passionate woman, I think you’ll agree. I can hardly blame her if she seeks solace in the arms of another man.’

‘Are you sure? Do you have proof?’

‘She wears jewellery too expensive to have been paid for out of my shallow purse. Once, soon after I returned from the frontier without warning, a Byzantine lord’s servant arrived at the house with a letter for my lady. She said the message came from the man’s wife, a woman she claimed to have befriended. A few weeks later we met the lady outside St Sophia. She didn’t so much as glance at Caitlin. They were complete strangers to each other.’

Two stages later they reached an oasis surrounded by a forest of tamarisks, the trees growing out of sand cones, their spindly branches and grey leaves lashing in a roasting wind. At the evening reveille, Josselin called a trooper’s name and received no response. His squad mates hadn’t seen him since making camp. He wouldn’t have deserted in such a hostile place, and foul play was unlikely. He must have wandered away from the oasis and lost his way. The search parties realised how easy that was when they set out to look for him. The tamarisks sprouted from the sand at ten- to twenty-yard intervals. Turn in any direction and the view was identical. Walk the wrong way for a few hundred yards and you lost all bearings. Vallon ordered a bonfire to be lit and left behind a squad to trumpet their whereabouts. In the morning the trooper still hadn’t returned and Wayland set out to find his trail. Too many people and animals had criss-crossed the oasis for his dog to pick up the trooper’s scent. Wayland rode north calling out until he reached the end of the tamarisks and climbed a huge wave of sand and looked over an ocean of red dunes overlapping each other like shields. He guessed that the trooper must have perished within half a mile of the camp.

Shennu had warned them of the black wind that could strike from nowhere. It attacked next day while the men lay scratching and sleepless in the noonday heat. The camels began to bellow and buried their muzzles in the sand. A few curs that followed the caravan whimpered and fled for shelter. The drivers shouted and ran about tightening saddle-straps and double-pegging tent ropes.

Emerging from his tent, Vallon saw that the sky had taken on a glassy look. A dirty yellow stain advanced from the east, thickening into a grey column, its spinning base spawning dust devils that waltzed through the tamarisks with a scuttling noise. The storm wobbled closer and semi-darkness obscured the sky.

‘Take shelter,’ Shennu cried. ‘Hurry!’

Vallon ran for the lee of a low dune.

‘Cover your head!’ Shennu shouted.

Face down, head mantled, Vallon heard the rustling and clacking increase to a hungry roar and then a shriek as the storm hit, driving a wave of sand and gravel across the ground. Stones stung Vallon’s hands. Dust forced its way into his mouth and under his eyelids. Peeping from under his cape he glimpsed trees, dunes and tents looming like spectres in the howling blackout. He held his breath and his lungs were close to bursting when his ears popped and silence fell. He thought he must have lost his hearing. Shennu shook him and he looked out from under his cape at a clearing sky. Spitting grit from his mouth he tottered to his feet to see the sandstorm spinning away to the west.

Mounds of sand heaved up, reconstituting themselves as men, slapping at their clothes and blinking around through dust-reddened eyes. The tents that had stood up to the storm sagged under the weight of driven sand. The caravan master gave an order and his men salvaged the tents and gathered the animals. Fine dust had found its way into the most tightly sealed containers. The caravan moved on as the sun sank into a bed of clouds, leaving the western horizon aflame, the red fading into violet dotted with a few smoky clouds.

The caravan made the last two stages to Khotan by day, advancing under a shining veil of dust kicked up by the animals. On the evening before they reached the oasis town, Aiken was in Vallon’s tent reciting Virgil’s
Aeneid
. They had begun reading poetry to help while away the night marches, and Vallon found the ritual soothing. Aiken had reached a passage concerning the tragedy of Dido, queen of the Phoenicians.

‘“It was night, and weary bodies throughout the land were reaping the harvest of peaceful sleep. Forests and harsh seas lay at rest as the circling stars glided in their midnight course. The whole landscape was soundless – flocks and herds and painted birds, the ones that live far and wide on the glimmering lake-waters, and those that dwell in the wilds of prickly brambles – all laid to rest beneath the silent night.

‘“But not so the Phoenician queen. Her wretched spirit could not relax into sleep…”’

Vallon opened his eyes to find his servant hovering at the entrance.

‘Sorry to disturb you, sir. That young trooper Lucas is outside. He wishes to speak to you.’

‘What about?’

‘A personal matter, it would seem. He appears rather agitated.’

‘I’ll leave you,’ said Aiken, making to get up.

Vallon waved him back into his seat. Troopers didn’t speak to their commanding officer in his personal quarters unless summoned. Channels and procedures existed to allow them to bring their concerns to their superiors’ attention.

‘If, God forbid, Lucas is in more trouble, tell him to take his problems to his squad leader. I’m surprised you didn’t point him in that direction yourself.’

‘Yes, sir. I wouldn’t have intruded unless… Very good, sir. I’ll send him away.’

Aiken waited for the man to leave. ‘I meant to tell you. Lucas apologised for his boorish behaviour. He sounded sincere.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘I still don’t understand why he took against me so violently.’

Vallon wasn’t interested in Lucas. He sank back. ‘Read that last bit again.’

Pomegranate groves and fields of cotton surrounded Khotan, a walled town on the eastern frontier of the Karakhanid empire. It was an important Silk Road trading centre, famed for the quality of its silks and for the green and white jadestone gathered by prospectors in the two rivers that watered the oasis. After settling into the caravanserai, the expedition went into town – Hauk and his Vikings in search of precious nephrite jade, Aiken and Hero to visit an important madrasah. Cities didn’t hold much allure for Wayland and he remained behind. He tended to agree with the Turkmen who said that men who built walls to protect themselves didn’t realise that they were creating prisons.

Raucous cries at evening drew him into the courtyard. Hauk swayed past on horseback, drunk on wine.

‘Feast your eyes on this,’ he said in a slurred voice, holding out a chunk of pale mineral.

‘It looks like a shiny lump of rock.’

Hauk took a long pull from a bottle and hiccupped. ‘That’s all you know.’ He slapped the stone. ‘It’s white jade. Not any old white jade. It’s mutton-fat jade. Only the Chinese emperor is allowed to wear it. Forget the carpets we had to leave behind in Samarkand.’ He slapped the stone again, almost unseating himself. ‘This, my friend, will make me rich if I don’t make another purchase between here and China.’

‘Let me take a look,’ said Shennu, appearing out of the dusk. The Sogdian hefted the lump, held it against the light and rapped it with a pebble. Wayland knew what he was going to say before he said it.

‘You’ve been cheated. It’s serpentine from Afghanistan.’

‘What!’ Hauk bellowed. He snatched at the stone, toppled into the dust and staggered to his feet. ‘Come on, men. We’re going back to the bazaar. I’ll cut the thieving bastard’s liver out.’

Vallon blocked his path. ‘Close the gates,’ he ordered.

Hauk fumbled for his sword. ‘Out of my way.’

Vallon stood his ground and one of Hauk’s more sober lieutenants led the Viking struggling and swearing to his quarters. Wayland hadn’t seen this side of Hauk before and it fed his forebodings. He returned to his cell and was meditating on this and other matters when someone tapped on the door.

‘It’s me. Wulfstan.’

Wayland let him in and fumbled a lamp alight. Wulfstan held what looked like a bolt of whitish cloth in his hands.

‘You’ll never guess what this is,’ he said.

Wayland stroked the textile. It felt cold, heavy and inert. ‘Some kind of coarse silk?’

‘Salamander skin, born in fire and immune to flame.’

‘Hauk showed me his jade. A fool’s born every moment.’

‘All right, it’s not salamander skin. That was just the merchant’s patter. Shennu says it’s a textile spun from rock fibres. The Greeks call it asbestos, meaning “pure” or “unquenchable”. Something like that. It’s used to make royal burial shrouds.’ Wulfstan picked up the lamp and held its flame to the fabric. The material didn’t burn or melt or smoulder. When he took the flame away, it left only a sooty halo. Wulfstan brushed the lampblack away.

‘You see? Flame doesn’t harm it. The hotter the fire, the brighter the fabric.’

‘Are you planning to wear it for your funeral?’

‘Don’t talk soft. I was thinking it might provide protection against Greek Fire. You know what a fickle friend that can be.’

Wayland suppressed a yawn. ‘You made a better bargain than Hauk struck.’

Wulfstan stowed the material under one arm. ‘I didn’t call on you just to show my salamander skin. Hero told me that you mean to quit. That ain’t no surprise. I’ve seen you moping ever since we left Bukhara.’

‘Leave, not quit. I nearly went my own path at Kashgar, where a turning leads south to Afghanistan.’

‘Don’t take it. If the general’s too proud to admit it, I ain’t. We need you.’

‘I suspect Hero put you up to this.’

‘No, he didn’t. It’s the talk of the caravan.’

Wayland lay on his pallet after Wulfstan had left. He didn’t latch the entrance and a breeze slapped the door against its hinges. Zuleyka appeared in the gap, her gown rippling against her body. She beckoned.

‘Come away now. We must leave soon.’

Wayland jerked awake to find the doorway dark and empty.

Next day he explored Khotan. The Muslim Karakhanids had captured it less than a century before and were building mosques on the levelled foundations of Buddhist temples and monasteries. It was still a frontier town, though. Walking down one of the wider streets, Wayland gave way to a mob of Tibetans swinging along like pirates on shore leave – big, black-haired ruffians wearing boat-shaped felt boots and homespun red or black gowns hanging in pleats below the waist, baggy right sleeves dangling loose to leave unwashed arms and chests exposed. Crudely forged swords jostled at their hips and chunky coral and turquoise necklaces chinked against silver amulets containing charms certified by lamas. The Tibetans examined the blue-eyed stranger with unabashed curiosity and went on their way with earth-shaking tread.

In the next street he passed a depot where a Chinese overseer with hands tucked into the sleeves of his gown looked on while a gang of pigtailed menials in short black jackets and baggy trousers gathered at the ankles stacked loads for a caravan. Neither master nor workmen paid him a second glance.

Negotiating a bazaar, Wayland passed through the rancid butchers’ quarter, fanning away flies when something glimpsed to his left swung him round. There on the pestilential counter, legs trussed and fledgling wings brailed, lay a young eagle.

‘What on earth…?’

‘You want to buy?’

‘Where did you get it?’

The butcher pointed towards the Kun Lun range. ‘Shepherds took it from its nest in the mountains.’ He scooped it up. ‘Good price.’

When he set it back down, it fell over before squatting right way up, propped on its elbows with its legs stuck out, head sunk on its balled-up feet. Wayland’s lips curled. ‘Why would anyone buy an eagle in that condition?’

‘For soup.’

‘You eat eagles?’

Like many citizens of Khotan, the vendor was afflicted by goitre. ‘Oh yes, sir. Berkut meat makes men strong.’

Wayland exhaled a fluffing breath and studied the creature. It was close to death, its mouth agape, indifferent to the flies walking over its slitted eyes.

‘What have you been feeding it on?’

‘Bread.’

‘Dear God.’

‘Excuse me?’

Wayland stifled his anger. ‘When did the shepherds take it?’

The butcher raised his shoulders. ‘One week perhaps.’

‘How long have you had it?’

‘Fresh this morning.’

Wayland swung away. ‘It will be dead before the day is out.’

‘For you, one solidus.’

Wayland halted despite himself. The butcher cocked his head like a bird about to spear a worm.

‘Nobody in their right mind would pay that much for carrion.’

‘You belong to the Greek caravan. I hear you spend gold coins as if they were horn buttons.’ The butcher held up a finger as if bestowing a benediction. ‘One solidus.’

‘To hell with you.’

‘Not so fast, my friend. Let us talk. Let us bargain. We’re gentlemen.’

Wayland stabbed a finger at the eagle. ‘I’ll give you a dirham just to save it from the cooking pot.’

The butcher clapped his hands at an attentive urchin. ‘Chai for our honoured client. Or perhaps the gentleman would prefer wine. Please, sir. Step this way.’

Wayland entered the caravanserai cradling the sickly foundling, two live cockerels dangling around his neck. Lucas spotted him and hurried over.

‘A young eagle, by heaven.’

‘Find Hero and ask him for some eye balm.’

Wayland barged into his quarters and dumped the eagle on the ground. Even for a tenth of the asking price – cockerels included – the bird was worthless. What galled him was the knowledge that if the bird had been healthy, Sultan Suleyman’s falconers would have paid as much as they would have laid out for a prize stallion. The berkut was the largest race of golden eagle, capable of killing gazelles, foxes and even wolves. Under Wayland’s quizzing, the butcher had told him that no one in the Khotan oasis practised falconry.

Wayland’s dog glanced at him, requesting permission to investigate the eaglet. It sniffed the soiled plumage, wrinkled its nose and backed off.

‘I know,’ Wayland said.

Lucas crashed in with Hero’s potions and watched while Wayland swabbed the eagle’s eyes.

‘That doesn’t look like a well bird,’ he said.

‘Cut one of the cockerel’s throats and collect the blood. Fetch fresh water.’

Zuleyka entered. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Step out of my light. No, stay. I might need your help.’

‘Here,’ Lucas said, offering Wayland a bowl of warm blood.

‘Grip her by the shoulders. Not too tight.’

Lucas clasped the eagle’s wing butts. ‘How do you know it’s a “she”?’

‘Because she is,’ Wayland said.

He took from his bag of hawking furniture a thin gut tube and a horn funnel.

‘Hold her beak open,’ he told Zuleyka.

‘She might bite me.’

‘She’s only a baby.’

Zuleyka prised the mouth apart. The eagle gave a pathetic mew and seemed to collapse from within.

‘I think it’s dead,’ Lucas whispered.

Wayland inserted the tube above the eagle’s pallid tongue, eased it down into its crop and fitted the funnel to the free end. He half-filled it with diluted blood, jiggled the tube and registered the level of the liquid sink.

‘If you ask me, you’re wasting your time,’ Lucas said.

‘You waste yours. I’ll waste mine.’

Drop by drop Wayland emptied the funnel. He swayed back and scrubbed his brow with his forearm. ‘Find a basket.’

Zuleyka left and the dog followed her.

Wayland slumped on a stool and looked at his purchase. The kindest thing would be to wring its neck.

‘Anything else I can do?’ Lucas said.

‘No. Thank you for your assistance.’

‘Call if you need me.’

‘Yes,’ Wayland said. ‘There is something you can do. You can end this nonsense with Vallon.’

Lucas cramped up. ‘I tried. I requested an audience a few nights ago and he wouldn’t admit me.’

‘You’re not an ambassador seeking admission to a foreign court. You’re his son. Just say the words or let me say them for you.’

‘Aah,’ Lucas groaned. ‘It’s not as easy as you think. Imagine yourself in Vallon’s place. What sort of reception would you give to a son you gave up for dead ten years ago?’

They were strung on each other’s stares when Zuleyka returned with a fleece-lined wicker basket. Wayland placed the eaglet in the cradle and levelled his gaze at Lucas.

‘The eagle will be dead by dawn. Life is fleeting. We have only one chance to cast our shadows against the sun. The previous expedition was wiped out between here and the next oasis. When I’m gone, nobody else will know who you are.’

‘You gone?’

Zuleyka stamped a foot. ‘He tells you to go.’

She crouched before Wayland and took his hand.

Wayland snatched it away. ‘I’ve told you. I’m not interested. I have a wife and children.’

Zuleyka rubbed her face against his hands. He jumped up.

‘Get away from me.’

She flounced out, stopping at the door to crook two fingers at him in some kind of spell or malediction.

‘Not you,’ Wayland said to the dog.

It slunk after Zuleyka with a hang-dog look, leaving Wayland alone with the dying eagle.

During the night the fledgling produced a horrible squelching sound as it vented the noxious matter that had been clogging its gut. Wayland pushed up on one elbow and stared through the dark before sinking back. He’d already wasted too much time on the bird.

He woke by dawn, lit a lamp and stole over to the eagle. It lay in a heap, an inanimate bundle of flesh and feather. He steeled himself to handle the corpse.

At his touch the eaglet opened its eyes and blinked.
Kewp
, it said. It wobbled upright.
Kewp
, it repeated in a more insistent tone.
Kewp
.

Wayland ran to the door. The poplars surrounding the caravanserai were just beginning to brush the sky. ‘Lucas!’

He was holding the eagle on his lap when Lucas burst in. Wayland smiled like a proud father. ‘Baby wants her breakfast.’

Another feed of the nourishing liquor only sharpened its appetite and lent strength to its voice. ‘Cut up a chicken breast. Chop it fine.’

By the time the sun had cleared the walls, the eagle had gorged and lay asleep on Wayland’s lap with its crop distended to the size of an apple. His dog slunk in, looking guilty.

‘Are you going to train her?’ Lucas asked.

Wayland placed the eaglet in its cradle. ‘I don’t know. She’s been taken too young. Now her cries tug at your heartstrings, but in a month her squalling will drive you mad. By then she won’t be a helpless infant. She’ll be full-grown and dangerous, with no respect for her handler or anyone else. I knew a Seljuk falconer who reared a goshawk from a ball of fluff. Six months later that hawk – a quarter of the size of a full-grown berkut – plucked out one of his eyes and laid his face open from brow to jaw.’

Lucas rubbed his hands. ‘What are you going to call her?’

‘I’m no good at names. Wait. What about Freya, the Norse goddess?’

‘Freya sounds good.’

When Lucas left, Wayland studied the fledgling properly for the first time. He guessed she was about six weeks old, an infant with a gawky out-at-elbows look, her flight feathers still in blood and her head downy. But already she weighed more than any other bird of prey he’d trained. Her smoky hazel eyes, billhook beak and saffron feet armed with black talons hinted at her latent powers. Her hind claws were already as long and thick as his little finger. When fully grown, each extended foot would be wider than a hand’s span and powerful enough to drive through a deer’s skull.

He left Khotan with the eaglet travelling loose in a basket placed in front of his saddle. She wolfed down her rations and grew daily, metamorphosing from avian toad into Jove’s winged avenger in the space of a fortnight. By then she was hard-penned, only a few traces of down on her head, her plumage an autumnal blend of greys, tans, cinnamon, plum brown and burnt ochre. Wayland had worried that her traumatic experiences would have left hunger traces on her flight feathers – thin lines marking arrested development and points of weakness. Instead, her feathers grew straight and sound. She began to exercise her wings and peer about with the curiosity of a youngster exploring the world and its wonders.