Silk Road

by Falconer, Colin

  ‘. . . so that you may acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Son of God and worship His name by practising His religion . . .’

  William was now on his feet and was reading the Pope’s letter at the top of his voice, in Latin, which neither the Emperor or any of his courtiers could understand. Madness. If he continues in this vein the Emperor will have another chalice to add to his collection. The Wrath of Khubilai Emperor.

  ‘. . . that you desist from the persecution of Christians and that after many and such grievous offences you conciliate by fitting penance the wrath of Divine Majesty, which without doubt you have seriously aroused by such provocation . . .’

  ‘What is he saying?’ Khubilai wanted to know.

  ‘I fear, great lord, that the journey has greatly fatigued him. Perhaps we may continue our conversation alone and allow my companion the rest he so desperately requires.’

  At a nod from the Emperor, two men of the kesig, the imperial bodyguard, stepped forward and took William by the arms. He yelped in alarm. Ignoring his struggles, they dragged him bodily from the tent. Josseran could hear his shouts of protests even as they marched him back up the avenue of willows.

  LXXVII

  ‘TELL ME, BARBARIAN, who is your khan?’

  ‘My king is named Louis.’

  ‘He sent you here?’

  ‘No, my lord. In Outremer I give my allegiance to the Grand Master of the Knights of the Temple, who put their service at the feet of the Pope, who is the head of the Christian Church.’

  Khubilai considered this. I suppose it must seem to him a fantastic and confusing arrangement. ‘Where is this Outremer that you speak of?’

  ‘It is far to the west of here, my lord. Its capital is a place called Acre, close to Aleppo, where Prince Hülegü lays siege.’

  ‘The siege is ended. I learned many months ago that Hülegü is now master of Aleppo and another city called Damascus.’

  Josseran stared into the Emperor’s golden eyes and wondered what else he knew. Had the Tatars also laid siege to any of the castles of Outremer? Had they already routed all of the Saracens and besieged Acre as well? If Khubilai knew the answers to these questions, he was clearly not of a mind to say.

  ‘Where are you from, Barbarian?’

  ‘I am a Frank, great lord. I come from a place called Troyes.’

  ‘And do you have good pastures there? Do you raise many horses?’

  ‘The lands are very different from here.’

  ‘They say the horses you brought with you were large and slow and did not even survive the journey to the Roof of the World.’

  ‘My own horse had served me well through many campaigns.’

  ‘Yet it died on the journey.’

  ‘I did not have the means to feed her.’

  ‘Your horses cannot forage for themselves?’

  ‘No, great lord. That is not in their nature. They are not accustomed to mountains and deserts.’

  And so it went on. Khubilai asked endless questions in a similar vein: Did Frankish kings live in palaces as fine as his? What was the punishment for stealing a horse? What was the punishment for putting a knife in the fire – an action, Josseran had learned, that was considered heinous among the Tatars. He wanted to know everything he could about Christendom but did not seem disposed just yet to allow Josseran to ask any questions of his own.

  Finally, Khubilai turned his attention to matters of religion. ‘Mar Salah is of this Luminous Religion, as you yourself claim to be. He says his God is named Jesus. He also has this one he calls the Father. And this Holy Spirit as well. Do you have these same gods?’

  ‘There is just one God. Christ was his son on earth.’

  ‘Just one god? It seems to me, then, that for all your bluster you do not place great store by religion.’

  ‘On the contrary. We fight wars for our religion. It is why we made armed pilgrimage to Outremer. There is a place we call the Holy Land where the Son of God was born. Men came from all over Christendom to protect it.’

  The Emperor studied him for a long time. ‘And this is why you wish for alliance with us against the Saracen. So you can possess this place?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Josseran waited, feeling his heart hammer in his chest. Finally they were to talk of the matter for which they had travelled these six long months.

  Khubilai’s expression was unfathomable. ‘I will consider what you propose,’ he said, finally. ‘Perhaps you will reside here in Shangtu and enjoy the hospitality of my court while I discuss such a treaty with my ministers. In the meantime, I am curious about this religion of yours, and how it is different from the Jesus which we already have. I would also like to know more of this Pope that you speak of.’

  ‘My companion, who is a priest, and sent by our Pope himself, would be most delighted to instruct you further.’

  ‘Can he do magic?’

  ‘Magic?’ Josseran looked at him, mystified.

  ‘Yes, this shaman who accompanies you. Can he do magic?’

  ‘I fear not, lord.’

  ‘Mar Salah claims that this Jesus could raise the dead and turn water into wine. Can this Pope and his priests do likewise?’

  ‘Our Saviour could do this, yes,’ Josseran told him. ‘But William is just a man.’

  Khubilai, Lord of Heaven, seemed disappointed in this answer. He nodded slowly. ‘What good is religion without magic?’

  Six months before he would not even have understood such a question. But at that moment, Josseran Sarrazini, sinner and knight, felt a certain sympathy with the Great Khan’s predicament. ‘I should like to speak with your shaman but there are many affairs of state which already occupy my time. However, if it pleases you, there is another who may be interested in what you have to say.’ Josseran waited while the Emperor studied him with his deceptively soft brown eyes. ‘I shall arrange it.’

  There were guards posted outside William’s door when Josseran returned to the palace. According to Sartaq they had orders to keep the ‘barbarian madman’ in his quarters until his ravings had ended.

  Josseran took a deep breath and gently eased the door open.

  William was standing by the window, his face white with anger. For a long time neither man spoke. ‘What was the meaning of your behaviour?’ he said finally.

  ‘It was your doing. You put us both in danger.’

  ‘I am the emissary of the Pope! You are my escort, not my master!’

  ‘Did I not warn you to be more circumspect? Did I not encourage you to diplomacy? Why will you not pay heed to me?’

  ‘I know why you were sent here. Your Grand Master, Thomas Bérard, thinks he is more powerful now than the Holy Father. You are here to make a secret treaty with the Tatars, is this not true? Should the Pope hear of your perfidy, he would withdraw his protection from your Order and you would all be destroyed!’

  ‘Threaten me all you want. I have a duty to perform and I intend to see it through. If you want this Khubilai to hear you out, you will have to trust me.’

  ‘Trust you? I would rather trust a serpent!’

  ‘Be that as it may, I have some news for you. The khan, it will please you to hear, wishes you to instruct his daughter in the Christian faith.’

  William sat down heavily on his bed, astonished. ‘His daughter?’

  ‘Yes. So, regardless of what you think of me or my methods, I would suggest we have both made some progress this day.’

  ‘God be praised.’ William fell to his knees and whispered a short prayer of thanks. When he stood up again he seemed somewhat consoled. ‘Very well, Templar. I shall trust your devices for now. We are not to know God’s mysteries. Perhaps even one such as you may be His instrument.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Josseran said with a smile, and left the chamber, seething.

  LXXVIII

  FROM HIS WINDOW high in the palace, Josseran looked over the darkened streets of Shang-tu. A single mournful note sounded from a wooden drum, followed by the resonant echo of a gon
g as the watchmen on the bridge tolled the hour of the night.

  I have travelled further than a hundred merchants might travel in a lifetime, he thought, further than I had ever hoped or wanted. And I have never felt so lonely.

  He thought of Khutelun. He had imagined that the madness would have left him by now. But the thought of her lying dead or bleeding in the desert tormented him constantly. I must believe she survived the skirmish, he thought. Else how will I ever rest? If only there was some way of knowing for certain.

  What am I to do? I finally find a renegade spirit to match my own and she is forbidden to me. I grieve when I think her dead; I ache when I tell myself she might still be alive. She has left me broken as a mourner, weak like a boy.

  Did she really see my father ride in my shadow?

  A visceral pain bent him double. I do not think I will ever be at peace if I never see her again.

  LXXIX

  WILLIAM WAS IN a towering rage. The news that the Emperor wished him to instruct his own daughter in the Christian faith had mollified him for a few hours, but only as long as it took him to discover that there were Christian artisans in the city, brought as captives from Hungary and Georgia many years before, who had been denied the sacrament by Mar Salah.

  Communion had been withheld from them until they consented to being baptized again in the Nestorian church, and repudiated the authority of Rome. Even then, Mar Salah would only perform the liturgy for payment.

  This Mar Salah had further corrupted God’s law by taking three wives, in the Tatar manner, and benighted his own soul by consuming large quantities of black koumiss every night.

  ‘This man is a blot upon the reputation of clerics everywhere!’ William shouted at Josseran.

  ‘On the contrary, Brother William, I would say he is exactly like every cleric I have ever known.’

  William nodded, conceding the point. ‘Yet it is outrageous that such a man speaks out against me, the Pope’s emissary!’

  ‘He doubtless sees you as a threat to his own position.’

  ‘As a priest, to think of oneself before God is unconscionable. We are all servants of Christ!’

  ‘It behoves us to be politic, William. This Mar Salah has some influence at court. If we wish to treat with the Tatars, we should take care what we say about him.’

  ‘We are here to show them the true path to salvation, not treat with them! You speak of them as if they were equals. These Tatars are uncouth, loud-mouthed and foul-smelling!’

  ‘They have said the same of you.’

  ‘I care nothing for their opinions. I care only for the truth! I wish you to come with me now and confront this Mar Salah and remind him of his duty before God.’

  Josseran shot him an angry look. He would not take orders from this arrogant churchman. Yet he could not deny him his services as translator.

  ‘As you wish,’ he sighed.

  LXXX

  THE GLOW OF a single oil lamp was reflected in the silver cross on the altar. William fell on his knees, repeating the words of the paternoster. Josseran hesitated, and then did likewise.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Mar Salah said, in Turkic.

  Josseran rose to his feet. ‘You are Mar Salah?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Do you know who we are?’

  ‘You are the barbarians from the west.’

  ‘We are believers in Christ, as you are.’

  With his long, angular face and hawk nose Mar Salah looked more like a Greek or a Levantine Jew. He even had a tonsure, like William himself. But his teeth were bad and he had a disease of the scalp that had left raw, red patches on his skull. ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘Brother William wishes to speak with you.’

  Mar Salah studied them down the length of his nose. ‘Tell him he is not welcome here.’

  ‘As I told you, he is not overjoyed to gaze upon us,’ Josseran said to William.

  ‘Ask him if it is true that he told the Emperor that we are not true Christians.’

  Josseran turned back to Mar Salah. ‘He knows what you said to the Emperor about us.’

  ‘He asked me what I thought of you. I told him.’

  ‘What does he say?’ William said.

  ‘He dissembles.’ Josseran turned back to the Nestorian. ‘Brother William is angry because you refused to give the Georgians and the Hungarians the sacrament until they were baptized into your church.’

  ‘Who do you think you are to question me? Get out!’

  ‘What is he saying now?’ William shouted. If only he had the gift for tongues that this godless knight possessed!

  ‘He says you have no right to question him.’

  ‘No right? When he debauches himself with three different wives? When he shames the name of his church by drinking himself into a stupor every night and takes money from the poor souls that the Tatars hold hostage here, just to perform the liturgy!’

  ‘He says you sin with three wives,’ Josseran said to Mar Salah, ‘and that you steal money from the Christians for performing your religious services. What have you to say for yourself?’

  ‘I am not answerable to you for what I do here! Or your Pope in the west! The Emperor is not going to listen to you. Now get out!’

  Josseran shrugged his shoulders. He had no taste for theological argument between two hot-smelling priests. ‘He says he has nothing to say and we are to leave. We serve no good purpose here. Let us do as he says.’

  ‘Tell him he will burn in hellfire! God will know him for what he is and send His avenging angels down on him!’

  Josseran was silent.

  ‘Tell him!’

  ‘Curse him in your way if you will. It does not serve us.’

  He slammed out of the church. Even from the street, he could hear the two priests still insulting one another inside, each in their own language. They sounded like two tomcats in an alley at night.

  LXXXI

  THE NEXT DAY they presented themselves at the Palace of Coolness. Miao-yen received them kneeling on a silken carpet. She was a striking creature with almond eyes and bronzed skin. Her long jet hair had been combed back from her forehead, wound in rolls and pinned on top of her head in a chignon. It was decorated with hairpins and ivory combs and ornaments of golden birds and silver flowers. Her eyebrows had been plucked and replaced with a thin but well-drawn line of kohl, and her fingernails were tinted pink with an ointment made from crushed balsam leaves.

  Khubilai’s youngest daughter was very different from the woman Josseran had expected. He had anticipated a robust and spirited creature like Khutelun; yet this woman was more like a Christian princess in her manner and refinement. While Khutelun was tall for a Tatar, Miao-yen was petite; while Khutelun was haughty, and quick to temper, Khubilai’s daughter had downcast eyes and appeared as fragile as a porcelain doll.

  She was likewise dressed, not for the steppe, but for the court. She had on a long gown of pink silk with a white satin collar at the throat, fastened on the left side with little oblong buttons that were tied into loops of cloth. The sleeves were so long that her hands could not be seen. There was a broad girdle at her waist with a jade buckle in the shape of a peacock and on her feet were tiny red satin slippers adored with gold embroidery. She had the look, not of a princess, but of a pretty child.

  He remembered Tekudai’s admonition: To have the blood veil is the sign of a woman who has spent little time on horseback. She cannot therefore be a good rider and so she would be a burden to her husband.

  He wondered what he would think of this Tatar princess.

  They settled themselves on the carpets around the table. Josseran looked around the room. The windows were covered by squared trellis and glazed with oiled paper, and on the floor there were carpets of rich gold and crimson brocade. Watercolours of snow scenes hung from the walls. They are intended to induce a feeling of coolness in the hot weather, Sartaq had told him. It is how the pavilion got its name.

  Calligraphy scrolls hung
on the walls, brilliant vermilion on a white background. On the low black-lacquered table was a statue of a horse, made from a single piece of jade, and a vase made of agate to which had been added a spray of plum blossom. At the princess’s side was a bamboo cage containing a giant green cricket.

  In the corner, three young Chinese girls in beautiful gowns played tiny harp-like instruments. Their music drifted across the lake.

  ‘They tell me you have been brought here to educate me in the ways of your religion,’ Miao-yen said.

  ‘It was your father’s wish,’ Josseran answered.

  ‘Is it your wish also?’ she asked him.

  ‘I wish for everyone to know of the one true God.’

  Miao-yen smiled. Two servant women brought them something she called White Clouds tea. It was served in cups of fine blue and white porcelain from a lacquered tray.

  As they sipped the scalding liquid she asked endless questions of him. She was intensely curious and, like her father, wanted to know about Christian – which was how she referred to France – and about Outremer and also about their journey and what they had seen. She listened hungrily to Josseran’s descriptions of the Roof of the World and the Caves of a Thousand Buddhas. William pestered him endlessly for translations, requests which he ignored or answered only peremptorily.

  Finally William grew impatient. ‘Enough of this. It is time we talked to her of Christ.’

  Josseran sighed. ‘He wishes to begin your instruction now.’

  ‘So you are not my teacher?’

  Josseran shook his head. ‘I am merely a warrior and a very humble lord.’

  ‘You do not have the eyes of a warrior. Your eyes are gentle. His eyes are very hard for a shaman’