“But what’s a prestigious Chinese weapon doing in this place?” Costas said. “A passing Imperial Chinese warrior dumps it on a Roman grave? I don’t get it.” He gazed at Katya, who stared back at him, her eyes gleaming. “Ah,” Costas said. “That’s uncannily like the look Jack gives me. It means you’ve found something else.”
Katya picked up a small plastic finds tray from beside the crate. “The halberd was in the center of the grave, as if it had been placed on the torso of the body. These two objects were where the head might have been.” There were two coins in the tray, one silver and one corroded green, a disk with a square hole in the center. Jack took the silver coin, holding it up in the fading sunlight. “It’s a silver tetradrachm of Alexander the Great!”
“And it’s uncirculated,” Katya said. “It’s like those Roman coins from south India you were telling me about, uncirculated bullion.”
Jack passed the coin to Costas. They could see the portrait on the obverse, the familiar head of Alexander wearing the mane of a lion, the classical form giving sudden reality to the idea of travelers from the ancient Graeco-Roman world coming this far east, to the very borderlands with China. Costas rotated the coin, peering at the portrait again, and a puzzled look returned to his face. “If my history’s right, Alexander the Great lived in the later fourth century BC. That’s a hundred years before the First Emperor, and three hundred years before our Romans. There must have been old Greek coins that found their way out here, used as bullion, jewelry. But they would have been worn.” He looked dubiously at the Latin inscription on the boulder, then back at the coin. “Does this mean we’re not looking at a Roman here after all, but at a soldier of Alexander the Great?”
“You’ve read the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea?” Katya said.
“The merchant’s guide? First century BC, Egyptian Greek. I’m becoming an expert.”
“Well, it says ancient coins of the Greeks are still to be found in Barygaza, just as you suggest,” Katya said. “Then there are those new lines of the Periplus from Hiebermeyer’s excavation in Egypt, describing Crassus’ legionaries. Jack filled me in about that on the phone. They specifically mention an altar of Alexander, passed as they went east. That would have been in Uzbekistan, close to the cave with that Fifteenth Legion inscription. The Roman soldiers would have heard legends of Alexander’s lost treasure. Once they’d reached that windswept altar in the desert, the mountains of central Asia looming ahead, they’d probably shaken off any pursuers from Merv and could relax a little. So what do they do? They dig around, searching. If Alexander was going to bother building an altar, he would have included offerings, and what better than mint coins with perfect images of himself. The Romans could have found this coin there, and brought it with them.”
Jack took the coin from Costas, turning it over. “And then they place it on an eye of the body as an offering to Charon, the boatman across the river Styx.”
“And the other coin?” Costas said. “On the other eye? That coin looks Chinese to me. Talk me through that one, Katya.”
She picked up the second coin, with the square hole in the center. “There are three Chinese symbols on it, one to the right of the square hole, two to the left. This is a coin of the Han dynasty, a wushu, which means five grains, equaling four grams, the same weight as a Greek drachma or Roman denarius. Millions of these were produced, and they’re quite common finds in Chinese central Asia.”
“Can you pin down the date?” Costas asked.
“The symbols to the left are those of the reigning emperor, as distinctive to the Chinese as the change of portrait was to a Roman. And just as in Rome, a new emperor would attempt to replace existing coins with his own new ones. Token coins such as these, with no bullion value like silver or gold, would have been worthless with the name of a former emperor, and may even have been dangerous to be seen with. So this coin is unlikely to have been in circulation beyond the reign of that emperor. And he was the Han emperor Cheng, who ruled from about 32 to 5 BC.”
Jack exhaled slowly. “Perfect,” he said softly. “That fits with my own best-guess date for the escape of Crassus’ legionaries, 19 or 18 BC. That’s about a decade into the reign of Augustus, about the time he negotiated peace with the Parthians and saw the return of the lost legions’ eagles.”
“So how do our escaped Romans get hold of a Chinese coin?” Costas asked.
Jack pursed his lips. “They would have been desperate men, trained killers with nothing to lose. Any morality would have been stripped away with the loss of the eagles at Carrhae, and they would have been brutalized by years of torture and hardship under the Parthians. They may have stolen Parthian gold when they escaped, but they still had to eat. Silk Route traders packed everything they needed for the journey. The Romans would have preyed on any caravan they came across, probably killing everyone, maybe taking the odd captive as a guide, gorging themselves on food and drink, looting anything of value they could carry. This coin may have been in the saddlebag of some ill-fated Sogdian trader. But it was of no bullion value, and was something they could afford to leave here to satisfy Charon and ease their comrade’s journey into the afterlife.”
“And the halberd?” Costas said. “That would have been a much bigger sacrifice.”
“A warrior was always buried with his weapon,” Jack murmured. “With their eagles gone, the legionaries only had each other, and they probably cherished a dream that they would once again march alongside their dead comrades, heads held high in the fields of Elysium. Even if it meant reducing their own defenses, they would never have buried a comrade without a weapon for the afterlife. Even a weapon so much at odds with the normal equipment of a legionary.”
“You think they looted that from a trader too?” Costas asked.
“The Romans would have armed themselves with whatever they could find,” Jack replied. “Thrusting swords and spears would have been their favored weapons as legionaries, but anything would do.”
Costas touched his finger on the curved blade. “This seems an unlikely sidearm for a trader.”
“There were others on the Silk Route besides traders,” Katya said quietly. “Mercenaries, employed as caravan guards. Marauding bands of robbers, preying on the caravans like highwaymen. It was like the Wild West out here. Up on the steppes, in the mountains, is the toughest place for an outsider to live, and only the most murderous gangs survived. No mercy was given. And there were others.”
“Warriors from the east.” Jack looked carefully at Katya. “Warriors who bore the tattoo of a tiger.”
Katya shot a glance at Jack, and looked down at the halberd again. “There were murder gangs out here, but there were also raiding parties from China, from the warrior empire itself They were the most feared of all, superbly armed and equipped, on horseback, always accompanied by a drumbeat, rising in a crescendo as they swooped down on their prey. They would have seemed invincible. For the nomads who live out here, for my mother’s people, the sound of a distant drumbeat still sends a shiver through the soul. Even I can sense it, when I let my imagination run free.”
“So the Chinese raided their own traders?” Costas said incredulously.
“To understand why, you have to understand the nature of Chinese society. The empire was a totalitarian state, inward-looking, a universe unto itself Control freaks always need a boundary, between the world they can dominate and the world outside, which is feared, rejected. There’s no hazy middle ground. When you look at the Great Wall of China, remember that psychology. In extreme cases, the boundary acts like a prison wall, and the controller sends out tentacles to draw back anyone who steps beyond. At some periods, that’s what happened with China.”
“So how could Chinese traders operate on the Silk Route?” Costas asked.
“They didn’t. Officially, at least. But the people of central Asia and western China are similar in physiognomy, and an intrepid Chinese trader could pass through unnoticed. There were probably plenty of them, disguised
among parties of Sogdians. There were rich pickings to be had in the silk trade, and the temptations for a Chinese trader would have been great.”
“So you’re saying they were hunted down?”
Katya nodded. “But there was another side to that coin. The Chinese elite enjoyed their luxuries. Like all megalomaniacs, the emperors were prey to human temptation. Prized raw materials could only be got abroad, such as precious stone: lapis lazuli, peridot. The emperors turned a blind eye to the trade, as long as the traders were invisible. But if anyone was known to stray, they were ruthlessly sought. The Records of the Grand Historian, the Chinese imperial annals, are full of stories of aberrant younger sons or nephews seeking fortunes elsewhere, forming pacts with outsiders. In that sense the Chinese royal dynasties were like any other, but they were unique in their relentless quest to bring back and punish anyone who tried to leave.” Katya gestured at the weapon in the box. “That halberd’s an imperial Chinese weapon, a prized item like an officer’s sword. You’d never have found a weapon like that in the hands of a mere caravan guard. That weapon was brought out here by a Chinese warrior.”
“So how on earth does a Roman get hold of it?” Costas asked.
Katya eyed him. “Speculation built on speculation, right? We’ve got a party of Romans, desperate men, escaped prisoners, tough ex-legionaries going east. Their numbers are dwindling. They’ve been attacked again, maybe in that pass behind us. Their attackers are not just another robber band, but fearsome warriors, worthy opponents. The Romans have fought well, and have captured some weapons. But they are hard-pressed. One of their comrades has fallen, and they quickly lay him to rest. They set off again east.”
“If their attackers were Chinese, why are they coming after the Romans?”
“Backtrack in time a day or two,” Katya said. “Imagine a party of Sogdian traders, laden with silk. They’ve come across the lake, heading west. They leave their boats here, and transfer to the camels awaiting them. They make their way through the pass. Soon after that they’re attacked, by a band of desperadoes far worse than any they’ve seen before, by the Romans. The traders are all massacred, except for one, kept alive to guide the Romans back through the pass. Only the trader they’ve got is not a Sogdian. He’s Chinese. And he’s being followed. He is one who had strayed.”
“With something that he shouldn’t have,” Jack murmured. “With what we found out from the inscription in the shrine. A jewel.”
Katya shot him a piercing glance, and Jack held her eyes for a moment. Costas pointed at the crate. “Anything else to show us?”
Katya lifted out another tray. “We did find something pretty fantastic. I was saving it until the end.” She drew back the cloth. Beneath it was a blackened lump, like a shriveled rind of fruit that had been peeled open in strips and left to dry. “It’s camel leather, local Bactrian camel,” she said. “It’s uncured, skin taken from a freshly dead animal. Altamaty says that when the nomads do this, they soak the leather in urine to keep it supple.” She sniffed the lump. “You can still smell the uric acid. That’s probably why this survived, under the rocks where the feet of the body would have been.” She picked up a clipboard and showed them a design that looked as if it had been cut from folded paper, full of triangles and rhomboids. “I downloaded this from an excavation report of a legionary fortress on the German frontier,” she said. “A Roman soldier who’d been trained to make something one way would always replicate it, especially such a tried and tested design.”
Costas stared. “Okay, Katya. I give up.”
“The indispensable camel,” Jack said, smiling broadly. “To a Roman legionary in need of kit, the first thought when he sees a camel is not something to ride or carry gear, but leather for making boots.”
“Boots,” Costas exclaimed. “Of course. The bits sticking out are where it laces up.”
“These are caligae,” Jack said. “Every legionary wore them, wherever he was. The pattern was fixed about the time of Julius Caesar, when these guys were doing their basic training.” He leaned down and sniffed. Katya was right. He could smell them. It was an extraordinary feeling, a heady rush from the past, and for a split second he could sense it all, the sweat, the adrenaline, the fear, the sickly-sweet odor of decay at this spot, the reek of men with the heightened animal intensity that comes with the proximity of death.
He looked away. He realized that Altamaty had disappeared. Another smell came wafting over them, from the direction of the yurt. Jack steeled himself It might be time to break his taboo in the field and drink something fortifying. Very fortifying. He could toast the Kyrgyz people. Katya was looking at him, the hint of a smile on her lips. “Are you ready to do Altamaty a great honor and feast on some mutton, prepared in the traditional way as a great mark of esteem to our guests?” Jack swallowed hard, and nodded. She knew. She dropped her smile and looked at him seriously. “And then we’ll go up that hill behind us. There’s something else I need to show you. You were right about that Sogdian, Jack. He had something he never should have had. Something of incalculable value. We might just be on the most extraordinary treasure hunt you could ever imagine.”
16
Two hours later, Jack and Costas followed Katya up a rocky hillside at the western end of the lake, above the pass that dropped through a fractured landscape of ravines and gullies toward the central plain of Kyrgyzstan. It was early evening and the sun had nearly set, but it was due to be a full moon and the lake was bathed in an eerie glow. Katya found a ledge and sat down, and Jack and Costas sat on either side, looking back over the shimmering surface of the lake. A few hundred meters to the north there was a roar of diesel and a puff of smoke as Altamaty fired up the tractor and drove it back toward the yurt, his form lurching and bobbing over the uneven track that led from the site where they had excavated the Roman burial. Huge boulders lay embedded in the slope as far as they could see, like a vast inchoate army struggling to free itself from the earth.
Jack’s mind returned to one small group who had passed this place over two thousand years before, men who bore fierce allegiance to their greatest symbol, the eagle of the legion, who had paused to carve it on the tombstone of a companion in this place where none but they would recognize it. He remembered something Pradesh had told him about Kashmir, where his unit had fought Pakistani troops for possession of a bleak mountain plateau. It was the age-old wisdom of the soldier, that when you fight you do it not for any higher cause but for your comrades, for your unit. Jack narrowed his eyes, and wondered whether those legionaries had looked up and sensed the proximity of the heavens, felt the tingle of the wind. For a moment he saw not just a ragged band of survivors but a fully formed legion on the march, shadow-warriors who had been with them since the battlefield at Carrhae, but were here closer than ever, in a place where the living might seem but one short step away from the fields of Elysium.
Costas passed a cup he had carried up from the yurt toward Jack, who shook his head firmly. “No thanks.” He could smell the fermented milk. He had avoided disgrace at the feast by accepting the choicest morsels to chew on, tasteless rubbery lumps from the sheep’s head that were reserved for the most honored guest. Then Rebecca had saved the day by calling on the satellite phone just as Altamaty was serving up the mutton stew, and Jack had taken his plate outside with the receiver, apparently eager not to lose a moment before tucking in. He had returned with a convincing pile of gristle on the side of the plate, and had even tossed it back into the cauldron to be softened up further, scrupulously following the custom Katya had explained to him. Costas had looked at him innocently from the other side of the low table, reaching for Jack’s plate and the ladle, but Jack’s eyes had bored into him. It had been a close-run thing, but it was only a temporary fix. As he had clearly passed the test, endless feasts were in the offing. He had an image of the eyes of the Kyrgyz people glued on him as swimming stews of mutton and grease were poured onto his plate. He glanced at his watch. The helicopter was due to whisk them
away in less than an hour’s time. He turned to Katya. “You had something more to tell us.”
Katya looked at the cover of the book she had been carrying and cleared her throat. “Okay. The period in history when these legionaries were making their way through this place was the time of the greatest empire the west had ever known. When the legionaries left Italy for the east, Rome was still a republic, just before the civil wars. But by the time they escaped from the Parthians over three decades later, Rome was ruled by her first and greatest emperor, Augustus. Those legionaries were not emissaries of Rome. They may not even have known that Rome was ruled by an emperor. But unwittingly, they were a bridge between Rome and the greatest empire of the east, one that had begun in China two centuries before. That was the time of King Zheng of the Qin dynasty, the warlord who unified China and ruled from 221 to 210 BC. He was the one history knows as Shihuangdi, the First Emperor.”
“The guy with the terracotta warriors,” Costas said.
Katya nodded. “The warriors were buried with him, surrounding the greatest unexcavated tomb in history. For the legionaries the fantasized image of that tomb may even have been the light at the end of their tunnel, a legend of unplundered riches that may have persuaded them to go east when they had escaped the Parthians. I’ll get to that in a moment. Jack, what do you know about the Res Gestae ?”
“It means things I have done” Jack said. “It was Augustus’ record of achievements, inscribed on bronze plaques and set up all around the empire. Lists of conquests, buildings projects, benefactions, laws, that sort of thing. The record of a man who saw himself as primus inter pares, a citizen who had taken temporary charge to restore the republic. Above all it was a celebration of peace, the pax Romana, the inspiration for the pax Britannica that led men like my great-great-grandfather to believe their purpose was a noble one, that a benign empire was truly possible.”
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