“Must have been a devastating flood!” said Gaius.
“It was indeed,” said Marcus. “Tens of thousands died, whole towns just wiped out.”
“One wonders how you Hanaeans - I guess you are one now after all these generations, despite your Roman blood - how you Hanaeans survive and even thrive in such adversity.”
“We’ve been doing it thousands of years by our legends, and yes, I am both, rather more Hanaean than Roman. Survival here involves accepting the will of the gods, which for us is to maintain order in all things, li. The emperor is the son of heaven, and he sets the standard for order. If he becomes disorderly in his conduct, then the gods express their displeasure in bad events like floods. If it gets bad enough, then we must choose a more orderly emperor.”
“How do you do that?” asked Gaius, assuming there was some sort of protocol.
“We do it crudely. We have a civil war, and the strongest and most organized emerges as the new emperor. Then order reigns again, until disorder breaks out again,” Marcus said with a grin.
“Hmm, sounds like Hanaeans are more like Romans than I thought. ”
They went off on a discussion of Roman politics, since Marcus’ understanding of Roman government from his ancestors ended well before the rise of Julius Caesar and the establishment of the Augustan Principate. “At first it didn’t seem that big a change. Augustus Octavian was Princeps Senatus, speaker of the Senate, a constitutional position permanently assigned to him. He was Imperator, supreme commander in chief of all legions, and he could appoint all of the commanding generals, with the Senate’s consent. It didn’t seem that big a change from the Republic, some said it wasn’t even a change. But when the Princeps became disorderly there was no way to stop him, and no way to remove him except by assassination or civil war. Just forty years ago, we had four emperors in the space of a year after Nero, and they all died violently! We are more alike than either of us would like to admit.”
After a little over two weeks, the Xue Long docked in Luoyang. Antonius had come out of his cabin only to eat, and Marcia not at all.
CHAPTER 40: DESTINATION
Luoyang was gray with cold snow when they arrived in mid-November, with a biting wind from the northeast that drove the warmth from the bones. The gray sky and stone walls layered with snow brooded on the hillside leading up from the river to the mountain behind.
The riverboat had left the Hwang He River for the Luo River at their confluence, cruising through the hilly countryside for about thirty-five miles until the capital emerged from the fog around a bend in the river. A massive wall perforated by two gates fronted the river behind a wide stone dock. Rowboats assisted in towing the big riverboat alongside the dock, lines went over to bollards, and they were at their destination.
Wang Ming led Aulus and his party to the easternmost gate into the walled city. Aulus noted that the guards came to attention expressionlessly and raised their lances after Ming presented documents bearing text and a square red seal. Inside the city, another walled compound loomed on their left, but they turned right to a large building abutting the outer wall, where they maneuvered through still more guards inside. With each, Ming repeated the ritual with the same stoically respectful result.
Banners vertically inscribed with the inscrutable Hanaean script dangled from the ceiling between long cylindrical lamps that brightened the interior. Busy officials scuttled back and forth, carrying scrolls from office to office. Wang Ming led the entourage through several layers of officials of apparently increasing rank, until they reached Ming’s intended contact.
He and Ming exchanged formal salutes, hands joined inside their cloak sleeves, accompanied by a bow, then burst into smiles, clasping each other’s shoulders and engaging in an extended exchange of pleasantries. Wang Ming and this official apparently knew each other quite well, and they seemed intent on catching up on details of the court, and on Ming’s adventures in the West during the past several years. Aulus stood silent, Gaius and Antonius at parade rest. Protocol demanded silence, except to answer questions put to them.
At last, Ming remembered the envoys, and introduced them to the official, pointing to each in turn and saying their names with a decidedly Hanaean pronunciation: “Aus Gawba, Gis Luk Lu, and Anjin Aris”. Marcus he introduced by his Hanaean name, Si Nuo.
Then Ming addressed the envoys, first in his stumbling Latin. “This man see all safety for Emperor He, he give permission to enter palace.”
After stumbling over a few technical terms, he recognized the limit of his Latin and switched to Hanaean for clarity, with Marcus translating: “This is Wang Tai, head of Imperial security. You must have his personal permission to be inside the Imperial compound.” Marcus handed out three scrolls to Aulus, Gaius and Antonius. “Keep these with you at all times in the compound, and don’t go anywhere outside your residential area without me as translator. These confirm your permission to be inside the South Palace.”
Conspicuously, Ming had not identified Marcia as a translator.
Each of the Romans nodded in turn, accepted the documents, and Ming led them out of the building. Outside, some clerks, senior officials, and a few military officers were coming and going or sitting together in small groups, in what was apparently a hub of government. Marcus explained quietly what had just happened.
“That was the supreme military commander’s office, the taiwei. The man with whom we spoke, Wang Tai, is a mid-level officer, commander of what you would call the urban cohort, several thousand men that guard Luoyang and the Imperial palaces. He is Ming’s brother, hence the big reunion. Ming is a senior minister in the situ, the ministry of finance, the big building to the north of the taiwei. That position is what led him to be selected to accompany the westward expedition a few years ago. The interior walled compound is the palace itself, and foreigners require the taiwei’s approval to enter.”
They reached the enormous east gate of the palace compound, flanked by red columns with gilt capitals and pedestals, guarded by two green and red dragon statues snaking outward along either side of the broad thoroughfare. The thirty-foot palace gate, which Marcus said was the Canglongmen Gate, was always shut unless the Emperor was exiting. Built into each huge wooden door panel and guarded by soldiers called sima, however, were two smaller doorways, closed, that admitted foot, horse and carriage traffic into the South Palace.
The impassive sima, clad in a blue quilted uniform and conical helmet, examined each of their paperwork in turn. He then grunted and the door swung open to admit the party.
The door was big enough to admit a man on horseback, and as it opened, Aulus noted it was about two feet thick. He watched, admiring the engineering, as the massive door weighing several tons swung open effortlessly and silently, then closed behind them with a solid thunk.
They looked onto the vast South Palace compound, a quarter mile wide, the whole expanse paved with perfectly flat white stonework. Aulus observed the side of the building on their immediate right, elevated on a huge white stone foundation about a hundred paces in width, with a wide stone stairway. Just the side of that building was as big as the Curia in Rome.
On the far side of the compound, separated from them by a wide sunken road lined with low stone walls, were two more massive red and black columned structures with gilt decoration and lettering, with the unique dark green Hanaean-style curved tiled roofs. The buildings were separated by a garden filled with trees, now stark winter skeletons except for a few dark green conical pines, weighted with snow.
Ming led them on until they reached the central road, terminating in another gate on the north wall a half-mile away where some yellow-clad individuals were barely visible. There was no other discernible human activity, no sound except the sighing of the winter wind and the intermittent clanging of some distant gongs. The vast emptiness was overwhelming, the silence deafening.
The building on their right was a palace wider than the two buildings and gardens facing it put together, perhaps
five hundred paces long with a central promenade easily a hundred feet wide. The promenade terminated in steps of the same width, flanked by dragons running down the stair walls. The roof was double-peaked, and a long horizontal inscription in gold Hanaean characters proclaiming something ran the length of the roof line. The walls were a dull red color with black, white and gilt trim, black columns flanking the huge entrance.
Not as long as Nero’s mile-long Domus Aureus in Rome. But that was gaudily ostentatious and clustered in amongst a tumble of other buildings. This one just radiates quiet power and solitary majesty. The isolation made one feel like an ant, alone in a space larger than the Roman Forum, but devoid of people, uncluttered by statuary and dominated by that temple to their god-king!
They continued up the concourse until another narrower walkway on their right led them to the north side of the palace, similar to the south side they had seen on their entrance. They walked up fifty or so steps to enter the building through a wide columned portico, flanked by two grotesque lion-like figures snarling in frozen menace. No one challenged them.
Inside, the floors were gray polished granite, the walls blue at the bottom with gilt decoration and pinkish red above, the ceiling towering over them. Hanging banners proclaimed announcements in characters that were a silent shout to the Romans, illiterate in all but the most basic ones. The banners were interspaced with cylindrical lanterns about eight or so feet long that added illumination to the generous daylight entering through rice-paper windows overlaid with wooden grills. These windows ran the length of the hallway on their right. In the distance, a dark blue curtain blocked the corridor.
There was activity as individuals clad in blue and gray uniform robes quietly went about their business, but like outside, all was order and silence.
The three Romans tried to take this in stoically, without gaping at the magnificent simplicity of their surroundings.
About a quarter of the way down the corridor, a set of wooden stairs opened to their left, and they climbed up two floors to a residence area reserved for foreign envoys. Ming led them to a door which opened into a large sitting area, with highly lacquered black tables and chairs in the center on a yellow mat. The wall was lined with rice paper-covered windows and wood grillwork that admitted light but kept out weather. A door at the center of the far end gave way to one large private bedroom, flanked by two more doors leading to a shared hot bath on the right and a toilet on the left. Two doors on each side wall gave way to four more private bedrooms, small only in comparison to the huge first bedroom.
Ming and Marcus conversed in Hanaean for several minutes, then Ming excused himself. “I go now, your comfort here in room, Marcus explain.”
Aulus attempted the Hanaean salute, fists pressed together in the sleeves of his Hanaean cloak, and gave a curt bow of his head while watching Ming. “I thank you for your hospitality, Wang Ming! Vale!”
Ming beamed, and returned the salute, “Vale, Aulus Aemilius!” and left.
“Welcome to the envoy’s quarters,” smiled Marcus.
“Not bad, not bad at all,” admired Gaius, examining the fine lacquered table. “I take it you are going to insist on the larger bedroom, cousin?”
“Well, I am Trajan’s envoy, so I guess, yes, I will. I hope you three will be comfortable in your spartan accommodations,” answered Aulus with a chuckle.
Their traveling chests had already been brought up from the riverboat, set neatly in the living area. They each lugged their own into their bedrooms.
They inspected their bedrooms, heated kang beds like they had seen in Tianjin, but more spacious with woolen blankets, a silk decorative coverlet and silk pillows. These beds were heated by some sort of hypocaust system, rather than their own fireplace. Probably charcoal, judging by the faint tang. There was a cabinet for hanging clothes, and a chair for sitting, with several lamps. Each room had small translucent windows that admitted ambient light from the hallways.
After a few minutes of organizing their material, they reassembled in the common area.
“One important question, Marcus. What is the proper way to use the latrine here?” This candid comment brought a chuckle from everyone.
“Very simple, sir. After you have -er- done your business, use the pads of papers to clean yourself, then just dump the bucket of water down the toilet to remove the residue. It’s a simple system.”
“So simple even a Roman could use it,” quipped Antonius.
“What will we do without our communal sponges?” chuckled Gaius, back into his humorous routine.
“I guess we’ll survive somehow.” Aulus asked, “You didn’t mention your sister earlier as an available translator. Is she not well? We haven’t seen her for months.”
Marcus answered sadly, “She is well, but she is now a full-time concubine for Ming, and you probably won’t see her again. Her translator’s duties have been terminated.”
“Will you be able to see her?”
“I am her brother, so I can see her from time to time. She sends her best wishes and thanks you for the great friendship you have shown her. She regrets she could not say goodbye.”
“We understand,” said Aulus. “Please thank her for her help and companionship.”
That silenced the group for a moment. Their fleeting views of her on the riverboat revealed a very different person than the happy, outgoing woman she had been on the Europa, so eager to teach and learn.
“She was not happy to see Wang Ming again. After the hijacking, once she got over her fear of Ibrahim, she began to think she would never see him again. I have never seen her so happy and optimistic as she was then. She even thought about finding a way to return to Rome with you. Oh well, there is nothing to be done about it,” said Marcus.
After another uncomfortable silence, Aulus announced “I have a bit of a treat for you. We have been through no end of adventures and challenges, but now at least we are within a few hundred paces of the Hanaean emperor himself. Maybe tomorrow, or maybe next week or next month, we will meet with him, and we can all go home! I have a bottle of fine Falernian wine, guaranteed to be at least twenty years old, from an ill-fated vineyard on the side of Mt. Vesuvius. Would you gentlemen care to join me?” He introduced a wax-stoppered ceramic bottle, opening it while the rest of the group eagerly searched the living quarters for drinking cups.
CHAPTER 41: REUNION
The following day dawned bright and sunny, though with a cold northwesterly breeze; yesterday’s snow for the most part remained. Aulus’s living quarters had an outside balcony allowing them to see much more than they had on their gray arrival.
Luoyang sloped upward to the foot of Mount Mangshan to the north, a sheer cliff of yellow granite several thousand feet high. In the distance they could see another walled compound on the northern edge of the city, the North Palace, reserved for ceremonial occasions involving the public, according to Marcus. The South Palace was reserved for the imperial residences and government functions.
The two buildings they had seen on the western side when they first entered the palace compound were the Empress’ palace and the women’s quarters, respectively. They could see some women strolling in the winter-barren garden.
“Marcia is staying there?” asked Gaius.
“Yes. Ming has a wife and several concubines there,” answered Marcus.
“Together? Sounds like trouble to me.”
“I think you know the Hanaean symbol for ‘woman,’ Marcus said, making the symbol in the air with his finger, chuckling. The symbol for ‘trouble,’ nuán, is two women. He keeps his wife separate, but the concubines are together. They actually get along well. Marcia unfortunately is his favorite.”
“What happens to her if she stops being his favorite?” asked Aulus.
“Not much. She wouldn’t be able to leave, but she would be relieved of his constant suspicions. He is very jealous of her, though she has never given him any reason. Perhaps because she was so young when he took her.” Marcus a
bruptly changed the subject. “Would you like to go out to see the rest of the city?”
“Can we actually get out of here?” asked Antonius.
“It’s much easier to get out than to get in. You just have to slide a little door open and ask, and out you go. Getting back in, then you will need your papers.”
Aulus replied with a little disappointment. “I have business with Ming today, people to meet and so forth. But go on, enjoy yourself. Tell me all about it when you get back.”
The three exited the palace, wearing quilted Hanaean winter garments against the chill, and retraced their steps to the Canglongmen Gate. Marcus drew a sliding panel in the door to make his request to leave, and the door slid open silently to permit their exit into the government area. Marcus pointed out the Taiwei office where they had first stopped yesterday. This was not just the ‘urban cohort,’ but the headquarters for all Hanaean army formations throughout the empire. The situ and sikong buildings next to it were the ministries of finance and public works, respectively, separated by the Maomen city gate in the eastern wall.
They left the government area behind and came to a marketplace. Here the sights, smells and sounds of a big city emerged, with farmers hawking animals and birds in cages, bushels of wheat and millet, rice from the far south, and many things unfamiliar to the Romans. But the babble of many people buying and selling their goods was familiar, if the language was not.
A number of yellow-robed men, very lightly dressed for the chilly weather, one shoulder bare and their chests exposed to the wind, wandered throughout the market. Some had an Oriental cast to their faces, others black like southern Indians, some almost Western in appearance, all with their heads and faces shaved. They would periodically accost a passerby with a bronze bowl and a mumbled greeting. The person usually smiled and dropped a few copper coins in the bowl, and the strange beggar made some sort of hand motion, bowed with a head nod, and went on his way.
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