The Silk Tree

by Julian Stockwin

  They passed a wine shop overflowing with raucous customers. Marius snarled a curse. ‘Wait!’ he mouthed and loped off down a side alley.

  Nicander became uneasy when he didn’t reappear after some minutes.

  Then Marius, cradling a heavy amphora, burst from out of the alley, pursued by a livid innkeeper. Nicander thrust out his foot and the man chasing him was sent sprawling headlong on the ground.

  ‘Where are you going with that?’ he panted after catching up with Marius.

  ‘What do you think!’

  Nicander glanced back into the darkness. ‘Better you play it smart – put it over your shoulder and follow your master, slave!’

  Marius growled but fell in behind him for the trudge home.

  In their shabby quarters Nicander got a rush dip going and found a knife to pierce the hard wax around the stopper. It came free and the heady pungency of wine filled the room. He sniffed appreciatively.

  The amphora yielded up its contents, a dark, rich red wine.

  ‘No water?’ Roman wines were strong and always diluted to taste.

  ‘No water.’

  Nicander didn’t argue and poured for them both. ‘To damnation in hell for this stinking city!’ he said and downed his wine in one. It coursed to his belly in a flooding tide of guilty release. He wiped his mouth on his hand and pronounced, ‘A Falernian niger – and a good one.’

  Marius held out his empty cup. ‘Will do me whatever it’s called, by the gods.’

  They drank deeply again, then Nicander threw at Marius, ‘Would never have happened if you hadn’t made me bet.’

  ‘Or you hadn’t staked the lot!’

  They lapsed into silence; given what was ahead there seemed little point in debating blame.

  They were facing the unthinkable.

  Marius tossed back more wine. ‘Be quit o’ the place! Get out, go somewhere a man can breathe clean air again!’

  ‘Oh? Where? I can’t think of anywhere not crawling with Goths or Huns, can you?’ He snorted. ‘Of course, there is one way that will keep us safe and warm, never short of a bite – security and all that.’

  ‘All right, Greek. What?’ Marius said morosely.

  ‘Sell ourselves into slavery. That way we get silver in our pocket and not much work – can’t be bad!’

  ‘Be buggered to that! I’m a free Roman and—’

  ‘Calm down, I’m only joking.’ Nicander said wearily. ‘If Leptis Magna is still standing, I suppose I could go back there,’ he muttered. He’d not told Marius about the feud with his father and in truth he doubted a return would be welcome. ‘But without a single sesterce – and assuming I could raise the passage money. How about you? Could—’

  ‘I’ve got no folks,’ Marius said tightly.

  ‘Then …’ Nicander felt a curious pang at the thought of parting with the strong-minded and plain-speaking man he had come to know and respect. ‘I suppose for now we could throw ourselves on the state, register for the bread handout.’

  ‘I’ve never begged before and I’ll not start now!’

  ‘Then it leaves us with only one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pull off a crime so big we’re right back in the picture.’

  ‘Now you really are joking, Greek.’

  ‘You’ve got a better idea, then? Well, if we’re not to thieve our way out of trouble, there’s only one way to turn an honest coin and that’s in business.’ The wine was doing nothing for his concentration but Nicander pressed on, ‘We’ve got to find something that has solid returns and quick yields.’

  ‘Business? I know the biggest there is!’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes! With my own eyes, I saw it. In charge of the fore-escort to Ankara.’ His brow furrowed in concentration as he recalled the details. ‘Four carts, eighty men, all on the quiet. I asked my centurion, he said it was gold – payment to the Persians. Over a ton! Told me it was to pay the bastards for silk as can only be got from them. Each year, six loads o’ gold go to Nisibis and gets handed over. Just think about it, Nico – tons of gold because the poxy priests and royal court can’t do without their silk!’

  ‘And you want us to lift a shipment!’

  ‘Listen, Greek! You asked about a big business, I’m telling you one! You’re the mighty money man – let’s see you make something out of this silk thing!’

  Nicander tried to throw off the wine’s fuddle. Maybe there was some little corner which they could ease into. ‘Ah, I grant you, if we get into it, why, we’ve chance for a good earner … but there’s always going to be need of capital.’

  ‘But what about those damn Persians?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Got a stranglehold on the whole stinking silk trade. Can’t get past ’em to buy directly, demands we pay in gold, nothing else will do.’

  ‘Ah. So if we can get around them, we can set up a business deal?’

  ‘Not a hope. I tell you, they have the lot in their hands. I heard about it! The ships, the border, those caravans o’ camels, they control it all. How? Because they has an arrangement with the seller, takes their entire lot for cash in hand. Are they going to listen to a piddley three-obol dealer? Forget it, Greek!’

  Nicander glowered at Marius as though it was all his fault, but it was obvious that while the Persians were sitting astride all the trading routes there was no chance of importing on his own account.

  Then an idea floated into his mind. A beautiful, magnificent idea. Yes, it truly was!

  He smiled. ‘I’ve had a thought!’

  ‘May we be blessed to hear it, O Master?’

  ‘Marius – it’s simple. We grow our own! Silk, that is. Start in a small way, sell smart, build it up. Only need to get a peasant to lend us his farm until …’ He tailed off in wonder at the scope of his great plan.

  ‘How?’

  ‘What do you mean, how?’ Nicander slurred, resentful at anything said against his precious idea.

  ‘Well, where do we—’

  ‘Simple! I read somewhere silk grows on trees. What can be easier than we go and help ourselves to a load of seeds? Buy ’em, steal some if we have to – and if we can’t sling a bag of seeds over the shoulder and tramp across the mountains with it, we’re … we’re …’

  ‘Hump back and plant in the farm? Yes!’ enthused Marius.

  ‘I think we’ve got something!’ Nicander crowed. ‘Let’s drink to it!’

  CHAPTER SIX

  The next day they left the bedlam and distractions of Constantinople behind and sat together on rocks warm with the sun high above the shore of the Bosphorus.

  ‘We need to think,’ Nicander managed to croak. ‘Think and plan!’ He was feeling a little better after Marius had come up with an old legionary restorative but, in future, he swore, the wine would be well watered.

  Marius turned to him. ‘Answer me this. If your idea’s so fucking good, why hasn’t anyone else come up with it?’

  ‘You have to understand the business mind, Marius. Men of finance want as little risk as they can arrange, no daring plans for them. You see, what they’re always after is to squeeze better deals on import, sharpen up percentages, margins, build on things as they are. What we’re going to do is to get around the whole damned thing, cutting out everybody in the middle. But now, we’ve bigger problems. Like … for instance, how do we get a handle on the costings?’

  ‘You tell me,’ grunted Marius.

  ‘Well, there’s nothing simpler than to walk away with a bag of seeds. It’s getting there in the first place. Why, Sinae where the Seres live, it must be thousands of stadia off – across Persia, over the mountains somewhere. How do we—’

  ‘A march across Persia will take you a month at least, Greek. I heard there’s Huns beyond – with surprise we’d get through them in, say, another month, if we leave off attacking the bastards. Mountains? Always tough going. And then the other side – the Seres might not take kindly to so many boots on their soil.’r />
  ‘Boots? What the hell are you talking about!’

  ‘Come on, Mr Businessman, where’s your thinking now? An expedition into hostile territory; I’d not feel secure without we have at least a cohort of pedes and cavalry to match. I’m no officer but even I can see we’d need camp support to the same numbers. Say a thousand or so?’

  ‘Do you know what you’ve just said?’

  ‘I suppose if we have to go around the Persians then it’ll add at least another month – or so. A tight expedition, and I’ll agree the numbers might be a bit thin for what we’re thinking.’

  ‘Marius – you’ve just put paid to the whole thing!’

  ‘Wha—?’

  ‘Where are we finding the money for that? We can’t afford a couple of serving slaves, let alone half an army!’

  Marius replied huffily, ‘Those Huns are mad bastards – I should know – where we’re going we’ll surely need a hell of a stout force to keep ’em off our backs.’

  ‘Can we find our way around them?’

  ‘No. Maybe we can dodge the Persians for a while but then we have to go east – this means right through the buggers.’

  ‘So what this is now saying is we’ll need to be funded, get some sort of investment capital into our venture.’

  ‘Right, so we do that.’

  ‘Heaven give me patience. Marius – if an investor puts more money into this than we can, he gets control. And profits in proportion. We take all the hard stuff, he sits back and piles it up.’ He shook his head. ‘Come to think of it, what’s to stop the bastard liking the plan and then ditching us entirely for his own operation?’

  ‘So no money man can be trusted!’ Marius paused. ‘But there may be a better way.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Who’s to get the biggest kick out of what we’re doing? Remember what I said about all that gold – it’s the Emperor! Six tons of it a year going out of the country – if we can stop that, he’ll be so happy he’ll put up statues to us both!’

  ‘State funding. I can see how it’ll work. In return for the subvention we undertake a perpetual contract to supply. On exclusive terms, naturally.’

  Marius rubbed his hands. ‘Yes, that. Get him to pay!’ He stood up impatiently. ‘Hey, now – what are we waiting for? Let’s move!’

  Nicander’s mind raced. It was too easy …

  ‘Marius. Sit down. Spare a minute to consider what we’re thinking of. We two, not quite in the front rank of the citizens of the greatest city in the world, do knock on that great bronze gate of the Grand Palace and demand to see His Top Highness, the Emperor of Byzantium, Justinian, because we’ve a good idea we want to share with him, and him alone.’

  A fleeting memory of the vision at the hippodrome came. He shivered – their impertinence verged on the sacrilegious and the palace was a byword for intrigue and betrayal. To enter without a friend or guide, into that labyrinth … ‘On second thoughts don’t think that’s such a good move. Perhaps we …’

  ‘We get someone to speak for us!’

  ‘And lose our idea? I don’t think so.’

  ‘All right, then we’ve got to go in ourselves, for fuck’s sake!’

  ‘Who do we see first? Come on, just who do you know in the Grand Palace has the ear of the Emperor? Will not let on to others, will—’

  ‘So we find a bastard who knows!’

  ‘Who?’ But even as he spoke, it came to him. ‘I supply Sarmatian grapes to that villain Messalia. And he’s got one very picky customer out in the country.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘John the Cappadocian!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Count of the Sacred Largesse – or was.’

  ‘What’s the point of this, Greek?’

  ‘Well, I got it all from Messalia, the gossip. John the Cappadocian’s a legend – the most grasping and cruel tax collector of all time. Spared none, high or low, however hard they squealed. Justinian relied on him to pay for his wars and he didn’t fail him. It’s said he handed over fourteen times his own weight in gold every year, rain or shine.

  ‘For years he had the top job at the treasury – and power and riches – until he fell foul of Empress Theodora, who plotted to bring him down. To please her, Justinian stripped him of his wealth and banished him. After she died he let him back, but to live out of town, poor and in disgrace.’

  ‘And he’s …’

  ‘He knows every secret in that palace, everyone’s – and he can tell us how to get to the Emperor.’

  Not far from the massive red-striped Thedosian Walls, nearly hidden among an olive grove on a small estate, was their quarry. It had been several hours’ walk under the hot sun and Nicander, in his best tunic, with Marius as presentable as could be contrived, stopped to rest.

  ‘Remember, let me do the talking. This is the most famous money man of the age and won’t be accustomed to plain speaking.’

  ‘If it please y’ highness,’ Marius replied in mock grovel, hoping it hid his nervousness at the prospect of addressing a minister of state, however fallen.

  Nicander too felt apprehension. This was their only chance and he would need all his merchant’s cunning and guile to bring off their objective.

  This was the man who’d, in his day, wielded his power directly under the Emperor and who was even said to have run a private prison within the Praetorium for the torture and execution of offenders in the matter of their tax affairs.

  How would he take a visit from the likes of themselves?

  There was a high fence around the modest villa with a gate that led through to a garden arbour then into a courtyard. Nicander took a deep breath and strode forward as if he had every right to, Marius at his side.

  In one silent, deadly move the apparition of a northern barbarian sprang in front of them, lank-haired, clad in wolfskin and leather and with wild eyes. A hatchet leapt magically into his hands.

  ‘To see His Excellency,’ stammered Nicander. A sharp call came from inside the courtyard and the guard stepped aside reluctantly.

  There was a table under the dappled shade of a latticed fig tree spread with a simple meal: a jug of wine, olives, bread and honey cakes. A man sat there, a sheaf of notes beside him. A dog cringed beneath his feet, its eyes only on him.

  Nicander approached with as much confidence as he could muster. ‘Two gentlemen desiring to consult with His Eminence John the Cappadocian.’

  There was no doubting that this was he – a near-feral presence radiated from the man, terrifying, unnerving. He was repellently corpulent and dressed in a short chlamys that left his fat legs, hairy and gross, thrust out naked before him. But his eyes gleamed with a fierce intelligence.

  ‘You’re a colonial Greek – a merchant, I suspect. And your friend is an exile Latin. I wonder why you came?’ he pondered. ‘If it’s to gloat over my fall then please be aware I shall ask Wulfstan to first break your heads and then throw you out, but I fancy it’s for some other reason. Am I right?

  ‘And if you’re thinking to sell me some oriental nostrum then I’m gracious enough to allow you a ten-second start before Wulfstan comes after you,’ he added with a cruel smile.

  Nicander gulped. ‘Sire. We come for quite another purpose.’

  ‘Oh? Go on.’

  ‘On a concern that if it came to a true conclusion would be of profit to us both.’

  ‘You’re not being very clear, but continue.’

  ‘I – we seek advice in the matter of a business venture of some degree of delicacy that Your Excellency is well placed indeed to advise.’

  ‘I see. Would this be connected with my knowledge of the Byzantine court by any chance?’

  ‘Sir, I will be plain with you.’

  ‘That would be a splendid start.’

  ‘We have a scheme that promises to be of great benefit to the Emperor but requires first we approach him for funding.’

  ‘Ah, me. And I’d hoped the day would bring me diversion of a more worthy nature.’


  The dog whined softly. He kicked it.

  ‘Sire, it’s to be—’

  ‘If you had any notion of how often I’ve heard those words you’d pity me with all your heart, you really would.’

  ‘But sir, this is truly a great opportunity,’ Nicander pressed. ‘A once in a lifetime chance!’

  John the Cappadocian yawned, patting his mouth in mock politeness.

  Marius bristled and before Nicander could stop him he leant forward. ‘Six tons o’ gold!’ he snarled. ‘Year by year! Enough to interest Your Greatness?’

  ‘Your friend has a … direct manner. Yet he knows how to pique my interest. You must tell me more about it. We shall leave names aside for now.’

  They were motioned to sit and cups were summoned for wine.

  ‘So. As I understand it, you have an idea, a scheme, which you are sanguine will engage the Emperor’s attention. It has, however, the fatal flaw that, by its nature, a degree of pelf is required to be laid out before it may be set in train. Is this correct?’

  ‘It is, sire.’

  ‘Do dispense with the court flummery, there’s a good fellow. I’ve been a common citizen these years past and have no hankering over its return.’

  He downed his wine, then sat back with a cynical smile and poured more. ‘I rather fancy that unless you’re frank with me in all particulars we shall not make much progress.’

  Nicander hesitated. If he gave away their precious secret, their only asset, and it was taken from them, it would be all over. On the other hand if they did not go forward they would have nothing.

  ‘I should tell you … all my idea?’

  This was met with a pitying half-smile.

  ‘Ah. Then this is what we propose. Should we succeed in our scheme as a result of your offices, then a due proportion of our increase we shall return to your good self.’

  ‘Yes, a fair and proper course, undoubtedly. Now, why are you not concerned that your scheme, once divulged, will be taken by myself for my profit alone?’

  He stuffed a honey cake into his mouth. ‘Then I’ll tell you. Since I cannot fund you myself I must yield to another. I have thereby surrendered any chance of return. If on the other hand I guide you to a successful conclusion there is a remote possibility I shall be remembered. This is not certain but assuredly better than nothing at all and my rational course therefore is to aid your venture. There is no risk attached to me, it being your necks that are at hazard, neither is there any question of my venturing any coin of mine upon it as I haven’t any, and thus I remain perfectly safe.’