Silk Road

by Falconer, Colin

  ‘Christian?’

  ‘I left Acre to bring the friar to your prince Hülegü. I thought I should be returned inside the walls within the month. I had not wanted any of this.’

  ‘When we begin any journey, we cannot know where that road may lead us. Obstacles fall across the way and force us to other paths. It is the way of things. Come. We must go. It will be dark soon.’

  He followed her out of the cave. Outside, the sun was a copper ball and the valley was in shadow. A ghost moon hovered in a sky of exquisite colour. He reached out his hand towards it, felt as if it was close enough to touch.

  He followed Khutelun down the trail, leaving the idols to keep their lonely vigil on the mountain for another night.

  LVI

  ONE-EYE POINTED to the north. ‘The Flaming Mountains,’ he said.

  A range of red hills stretched towards the horizon as far as he could see. Gullies were scoured into their face by countless rivers, making flame patterns in the red clay. Through the haze of the afternoon the mountains indeed appeared like a wall of fire.

  And still the worst of the desert was before them.

  Josseran walked in the shade of his camel’s flank rather than endure the constant jarring of the hard wooden saddle and the torture of the sun. He heard William panting behind him.

  ‘A pleasant day for a walk, Brother William.’

  ‘I am in agony.’

  ‘A condition much prized before God. One day you will be canonized. It will all seem of no account then.’

  ‘Do not mock me, Templar.’

  Josseran almost pitied him. The friar’s face was blistered from the sun, his beard was matted and the flesh had wasted off his face, heat and exhaustion and piety had taken a terrible toll. ‘I had not meant to mock you.’

  ‘I fear I was wrong to entrust my life to you.’

  ‘You are still alive, are you not? Do not forget who it was that saved you in those accursed mountains. Though I have yet to receive a word of thanks for it.’

  ‘It was God’s will that I lived. Perhaps He means me to be the instrument of your salvation. Though I see you resist it at every turn. You broke your word to me. You said you would confess your sins to me last night.’

  ‘My sins will keep.’

  ‘Where did you go with the Tatar witch?’

  ‘She wished to show me some cave paintings these followers of Borcan had left in a cave.’

  ‘You fornicated with her, I know it! Stay away from her, Templar! Woman is the gate of the Devil, the path of wickedness, the sting of the serpent.’

  ‘Then why did the Lord create Eve, churchman?’

  ‘She was put on the earth to preserve our species and look after our children and our homes. She was also created as temptress to test our holiness. All evil comes to the world through Woman.’

  ‘Is that what you think, Brother William? Because it seems to me that it comes to us through men. I have not seen women butcher children and violate other women but I have seen men do it. Even men with crosses sewn on to their surcoats.’

  ‘If these women and children you speak of were Saracen, then you will know that the Pope has given a special dispensation to those who rid the world of unbelievers. It is called malecide, the killing of evil ones. Therefore it is not sinful. But we are not talking of the sin of violence. We are talking of the sin of lust.’

  ‘Lust does not seem such a terrible thing to me when you have seen men with their entrails out. Does it not say in the Bible “Thou shalt not kill”?’

  ‘You wish to debate theology with me, Templar? I tell you, a man may not always be mild. Did the Lord not cast the moneychangers out of the Temple? It is not a sin to rid the world of sin.’

  ‘I know a sin when I see one. I know when a man butchers another and sells his children to slavers, then that is a sin, whether his victims are Franks or Saracens. And how can a babe be evil? It was God’s will that it was born to a Mohammedan, was it not? And what of the Christian knight who chops off the head of that infant after raping the babe’s mother and disembowelling her? Does he then go straight to heaven? Is that the justice and truth of God?’

  Josseran pulled hard on the camel’s nose string and scrambled on its neck. He pulled himself up and settled himself on the hard wooden saddle, preferring the torment of the sun and the jarring of the camel’s back to the opinions of the pious.

  LVII

  THE PLAIN WAS pure ochre now, soft rolling dunes made up of fine grains of sand that found their way into the ears and the eyes, and left filmy, glistening layers on the clothing and skin. The great wilderness yawned before them, and they were swallowed by a heart-breaking silence.

  Sunset threw black pools of shadow across the dunes. The camels knelt in the sand, roaring and snapping, while One-Eye removed the loads. The ropes had rubbed sores under the animals’ chests, and the wounds ran with pus and some were infested with maggots. No wonder they were so ill-tempered, Josseran thought.

  Josseran and William went off to collect argol for the fires. Josseran heard a groan, and when he looked around he saw William staring at his hands in disgust. The argol he had found had not been sun-dried. In fact it was very fresh indeed.

  One of the Tatars saw his mistake and laughed. The others joined in.

  William smeared the excrement off his hands and on to Satan’s tattered hide. The camel roared its protest at this rough handling and tried to bite him. William stalked away. But there was nowhere for dignified retreat, no tree or rock for concealment, and so he just kept walking.

  ‘Bring him back,’ Khutelun said to Josseran. ‘Soon it will be night. He will lose himself in the desert.’

  Josseran went after him. But William’s sense of self-preservation was better developed than she had given him credit for. He had stopped, still in sight of the camels. He was on his knees, his head bowed. ‘God asks too much of me,’ he said as Josseran approached.

  ‘It is only a little digested cud, Brother William.’

  ‘It is not the filth on my hands. My back feels as if it has been racked, my nether parts are on fire, every bone in my body is weary. How can you endure this?’

  ‘I am a knight and a soldier. It is expected of me.’

  ‘You shame me,’ he murmured.

  ‘Also,’ Josseran added, ‘I had a woman the other night. It is good for the spirits.’

  It was all the medicine William needed. ‘May God forgive you,’ William croaked and jumped back to his feet. ‘You are without shame, Templar! You fornicate and you blaspheme and you shall answer for your heretical opinions when we return to Acre!’ He brushed past Josseran with a crazed look in his eye. ‘All right, you heathens!’ he shouted as he stamped back towards the caravan, ‘I shall come and pick up more shit for you!’ He waved his hands above his head like a madman. ‘We shall all bury ourselves in shit!’

  It was only a drab, wattle-and-daub town, but a paradise on earth to all those who had spent the last few weeks travelling the borderlands of the Taklimakan. The pens of the han were full; camels rested on their bellies, their forelegs tucked beneath them, gazing down their long noses in disdain at their human tormentors as they unstrapped the loads. There were also a few asses, and perhaps a dozen horses, part of a large Mohammedan caravan heading west with a cargo of silks and tea from Cathay.

  After she had ensured that their own camels were properly bedded down for the night, Khutelun headed away from the pens towards the canvas awnings of the village bazaar, following the aromas of spices and roasting meats.

  Joss-ran called to her and ran over. She experienced a moment’s hesitation. She knew the others were whispering among themselves about the amount of time she spent with him. She was a princess after all, and a shaman, and they resented her playful and friendly attitude to this barbarian.

  In the cave Joss-ran had confessed that he wanted to possess her, and she did not find his desire displeasing. But having him as her husband was a prospect so fantastic that the only wonder was th
at she entertained it at all, even in her imagination. Here was a man so estranged from his own nature and so torn in his own soul that it seemed impossible to her that he would ever find peace. How could any woman love such a man, even if it were allowed?

  As he came closer she saw that he was holding something beneath his cloak. ‘You asked to see one of our books,’ he said.

  ‘Your holy book? You have it with you?’

  He produced the Psalter from beneath his cloak. It had a thick black binding of hardened leather with embossed gold script. He held it open for her. ‘It is written in a language called Latin. These verses are songs to the praise of God.’

  She had seen such treasures before; her father owned several illuminated Q’rans of the Mohammedans. They were a rare treasure for only a few still remained on the steppe. Chinggis Khan, it was said, had made the night turn to day when he lit a fire with them outside Bukhara.

  The Psalter was coated with dust from the journey but was otherwise undamaged. She opened it at random and ran a finger across the pages. Some of the letters were illuminated in vermilion and royal blue, the calligraphy very precise, like the Kufic script on the mosques in Samarkand, but without its fluid aspect. There were beautiful pictures, wonderfully executed, that reminded her of the cave paintings in the desert, though these images did not have the same energy or joy.

  ‘You will give this to the Great Khan?’ she asked him.

  ‘William hopes to reveal to him the mysteries of our religion.’

  ‘He cannot even reveal them to you.’

  She thumbed the pages of the sacred book he had given her, and then handed it back to him. ‘Thank you. Now we have both shown each other our cave.’

  ‘I would show you much more, if I could. There are many things in my own lands that you would wonder at.’

  ‘I wonder at the steppes and the mountains and the rivers. For all else, I am merely curious.’

  ‘And yet . . .’ he began, but was not able to finish. Their conversation was interrupted by a commotion from the camel pens. William had thrown One-Eye to the ground, and had him by the throat. One-Eye cursed him back in Turkic while he fumbled for his knife. Josseran hurried over. ‘William? What is wrong?’

  ‘This thief has stolen my Psalter!’

  ‘No one has stolen it,’ Josseran said. He held up the psalm book.

  William stared at him in bewilderment. He rolled off the camel man, who got to his feet, dusted off his robes and spat in William’s face for good measure, before stalking away.

  William looked over Josseran’s shoulder at Khutelun. ‘You let the witch desecrate it?’

  ‘She did not desecrate it. She wished to understand more of the mysteries of our faith. Who knows? Perhaps you will have a convert there.’

  William snatched the book from his hands. ‘I would as like baptize the Devil!’ He waved a gnarled finger in his face. ‘You have gone too far!’ William shot a look of pure loathing in Khutelun’s direction and stalked away.

  One-Eye watched him depart. ‘May you grow boils in your ears the size of watermelons,’ he shouted after him, ‘and may your stalk turn into a chicken and eat your testicles a peck at a time!’

  Josseran turned back to Khutelun. ‘It seems I have greatly offended him. He thinks you have desecrated his holy book.’

  ‘It is not the Psalter that offends him,’ she answered. ‘Your shaman has a great fear of women. I can see his weakness and he knows it.’

  ‘He does not fear women. He merely despises them.’ He smiled. ‘There is a difference.’

  ‘Is that what you really think?’ she said and smiled sadly, and turned away.

  Oh, but you are wrong, Khutelun thought, as she walked away. Your holy man fears me, as he fears all women. She had sensed the fracture in the priest’s soul that first night in Tekudai’s yurt and even though she could not see how it would be done, she knew that one day his weakness would divide along its fault and break him.

  LVIII

  THE LAKE FORMED a perfect crescent between the dunes, the flat, black water enclosed by sedge and reeds. A fat yellow moon hung over the ruins of a temple at the shoreline. Josseran made out the faint glow of an oil lamp, smelled incense burning in pots by the altar.

  Khutelun stood at the lake’s edge, the wind trailing the silken scarf at her face. ‘Do you hear that, Joss-ran?’

  He cocked his head to listen.

  It was the sound of riders, their horses’ hooves drumming on the sand. Instinctively his hand went to his sword.

  ‘Do not alarm yourself. It is just the Singing Sands.’

  ‘They are all around us!’ he shouted.

  ‘There is nothing out there. Just phantoms. The spirits of the desert.’

  He sheathed his sword, listened again. She was right. The sound was gone.

  ‘The Singing Sands?’ he repeated.

  ‘Some say it is just the sound of the wind blowing across the sand. But the Uighurs believe there are cities out here that were buried long ago by the advance of the desert. They say the sounds you hear are the souls of the dead, crying from beneath the dunes.’

  He shuddered and put a hand to the cross he wore at his throat.

  ‘The spirits are lonely,’ Khutelun said. ‘They are looking for more souls to join them.’

  ‘Join them?’

  ‘They prey on the caravans that cross the desert. A traveller falls behind his party and he hears the sound of the hooves and rushes across the dunes in their direction to try and keep up. But the more he hurries the further away the sounds appear, luring him even deeper into the wilderness. By the time he realizes it is just the sand spirits he is hopelessly lost and the desert claims him.’

  The wind shivered on the surface of the water.

  Josseran heard it again, the drumming so close this time he imagined an army must suddenly appear at the crest of the nearest dune. But then it abruptly vanished on the wind.

  ‘I have seen and heard such things on this journey as no one will ever believe when I return.’

  ‘There are still many wonders yet, Joss-ran.’

  ‘We still have far to travel?’

  ‘Not far now. Before the moon is full you will gaze on the face of the Khan of Khans.’

  ‘That is all the time that is left?’

  ‘Is this journey not long enough for you? The mountains were not high enough, this desert too small?’

  He did not answer her.

  ‘At Kumul we will trade the camels for horses and ride north towards Qaraqorum. You will pay your fealty to the Great Khan and then you will go back to Christian.’

  ‘I am not here to pay fealty to your khan.’

  ‘No, but you will.’

  The Singing Sands returned, a sound very like voices now, high-pitched, like the plainsong in a church. He could understand how a man might be drawn to follow it.

  ‘Are you not eager to return to your own?’ she asked him.

  ‘There is a part of me that does not wish this journey to end.’

  ‘All journeys end. Only the wind and the waters never change.’ She sighed. ‘They say the sand is blown here every day by the wind yet the lake never fills and it never changes its shape. You dream of your conquest of the Saracens; in Qaraqorum other men dream of being Khan of Khans. But the days move on, the wind blows, men die, empires fall. And still the lake is here, the same as it has always been, like the desert, the steppes, the mountains. The wind blows across the surface and the sand whispers. And all men are forgotten.’

  ‘So we are fools if we do not seize every moment that is granted to us.’

  She stood at the lake’s edge, silhouetted by the moon. How old are you? he wondered. Eighteen summers, twenty? You have the brazenness of a Marseille whore, the arrogance of a queen, and the mind of a philosopher. I have never known a woman like you. I wonder what your body is like, and what passions you are saving for your husband? I wonder if I could lose myself in you, if you might be the heart where all my passions
at last find their rest?

  ‘Why do you stare at me like that?’ she said, suddenly.

  ‘I was thinking how beautiful you are.’

  In truth, he could not see her in the darkness. Her beauty was preserved in his mind; her exotic almond-shaped eyes; a wisp of jet hair loosed by the wind; her skin burned to bronze by the wind. ‘Are you courting me?’

  ‘I would if I could.’

  ‘Because you think me beautiful? But what does beauty do for the woman? She abandons her freedom for her husband’s yurt and a brood of children. The stallion mounts his mare and is satisfied. He is still free. The beautiful mare is held captive by her young. I do not understand why the loveliness you see in me is such a wonderful gift.’

  ‘If a woman is not to be a wife, why did God give her milk?’

  Khutelun came close. For one wild moment he thought this exotic creature might be about to kiss him. ‘If only I had my whip,’ she whispered.

  ‘What would you do with it? Beat me? Or test me for your husband?’

  ‘You would fall in the dust after three strokes,’ she said and turned on her heel, leaving him to the siren calls of the sands.

  LIX

  DAYS, WEEKS; FORMLESS, endless, the monotony of the journey broken only by almost imperceptible changes in the desert surface and the vagaries of the weather. One morning broke warm and blue, but by noon the sky was leaden with clouds and the winds turned the horizon to an impenetrable yellow haze. The storm lasted an hour. By the afternoon the sky had cleared and the desert was once more a furnace.

  The next morning they woke with ice in their beards.

  Flat gebi stones gave way to sand, which flowed like breakers on a big sea and changed shape in the wind even as they watched. The dunes stretched as far as they could see, some as high as the walls of Antioch.

  There were no birds, or lizards, or shrubs. The way ahead now was marked only by occasional clumps of crumbling argol and the bones of long-dead animals, bleaching under a relentless sun.