The Silk Tree

by Julian Stockwin

  Behind was the black mass of the city walls, studded with lights. A little way in front of them glittered the river gliding past in the moonlight.

  ‘This way, quickly!’

  He led them to a meadow. In the dark it was difficult to make out shapes and he frantically looked about. ‘There! A boat waits!’

  They made their way through the thick turf, stumbling against grass clumps. Out of the dimness came animal noises as they pressed on in a fever of excitement.

  Halfway across they heard sounds from the direction of the city walls: distant cries, a powerful war drum starting an urgent beating.

  ‘We’ve been discovered! Go for your lives!’

  They ran – the boat was not a hundred yards away up the river by the bank. A figure stood nearby.

  A line of torches flickered to life along the city walls and a trumpet bayed out.

  ‘No!’ screamed Wang as their boatman, now just fifty yards away, panicked and shoved off without them.

  ‘The slivey bastard!’ Marius shouted and waded into the water, making for the fast-moving boat to intercept it.

  It came on but he was up to his neck and the man had not seen him. As it passed by, a hand shot up and seized his ankle, pulling hard. The man gave a despairing cry and toppled into the water. Marius lost no time hauling himself in. He found the steering oar and brought the boat safely in to nudge into the shallows.

  ‘Move!’ he roared.

  Falling over each other they scrambled aboard. The women disappeared into a shelter aft while Kuo and Wang squatted in the middle.

  Marius seized one of the boat oars, gesturing to Nicander to take the other. Wang clambered up to the steering oar.

  ‘Go!’ Marius bellowed. They heaved mightily and the boat came off the mud.

  Nicander stroked in time with Marius and the boat swung to face downstream.

  They began to move out and away. Wang found the main channel and soon the banks were slipping past. Dare they hope?

  Nicander did not have Marius’s brute strength but with his best efforts he pushed and heaved, his lungs bursting, the ill-balanced oar a burning weight.

  As they slid around a curve in the river, to their horror, they saw a squadron of cavalry on the bank. A challenge came to pull in.

  Orders cracked out ashore. Half the soldiers reined in, extracted their crossbows and opened fire while the others kept pace. Bolts hissed past, some skittering in the water nearby. Two made a solid thunk into the hull.

  ‘Keep down!’ Marius gasped. Wang steered the boat away but another squadron came into view on the opposite bank. There was nothing for it but head midstream.

  The river widened; they were out of range. But the cavalry squadrons either side cantered along effortlessly, waiting for their chance.

  Nicander felt sickened. They would never lose their pursuers, and at some point the river would narrow or become shallow enough for horses, and then …

  ‘The Four Pheasants Gorge – we cannot go around now!’ Wang said grimly.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Nicander gasped.

  ‘Ahead, around the bend the river narrows through a cliff chasm, goes over rocks. We cannot go on!’

  They would be forced to land the boat.

  On the banks the two squadrons slowed to a trot, the glitter of unsheathed steel appearing as they waited to see which side their prey would choose.

  They heard the first dull roar of the gorge, a dark cleft through an escarpment of broken rocks that stretched across from either side. Flecks of white showed at its maw.

  ‘We must go through – who’s with me?’ Marius roared.

  Kuo spoke for them all. ‘Better death in the cataract than at the hands of Wen Hsuan!’

  Marius elbowed Wang aside and gripped the steering oar tightly. His eyes fixed on the approaching terror, calmly judging distances, angles.

  Small whirlpools appeared and their onward velocity increased as they were gripped by the current. ‘Get the oars in,’ he rapped. ‘Everyone, low as you can get – we’re going through!’

  Angry shouts came from the banks.

  The thunder of water increased but even in the rising moon the narrows were in shadow – there could be anything waiting for them.

  Nicander glanced at the shore. ‘Look!’

  On either bank the horses were being reined in, baulked by the craggy escarpment across their track, their riders brandishing weapons in frustration.

  He peered into the darkness ahead in cold fear. They had escaped from one fate but were hurtling to another.

  The sides of the gorge whipped past and a heavy roar battered their ears in the confined space. As his eyes got used to the gloom Nicander made out the figure of Marius, standing on the afterdeck, heroically straining to keep the boat from splintering against some lethal rock.

  Their speed was now dizzying – vague black masses flicked by and the odour of churning water and pungent weed rose up.

  Kuo and Wang crouched with Nicander in the middle of the boat. Ying Mei and Tai Yi huddled in the little shelter.

  They plunged on. It was impossible to make out much ahead; the very next instant could see them smashed to their deaths.

  The gorge seemed endless, the darkness near impenetrable. White lathering over deadly rocks showed as Marius slewed the fragile craft this way and that to avoid them. Nicander could only imagine the burning pain in his body.

  The lip of the chasm was still relentlessly high. How much further?

  Then a massive buttress jutted out from one side, obscuring what was ahead. It was also constricting the waters – and the little craft gathered speed into the roaring chaos.

  Nicander knew it was beyond even Marius to take them through alone and hauled himself up beside him, grabbing at the oar.

  ‘Tell me!’ he yelled against the noise.

  Marius nodded. ‘Left!’

  They thrust against the shuddering haft, the frightful strength of the shooting water transmitted directly to them.

  ‘Right!’

  It was working: they were slipping past the vicious hazards in the narrowing channel, but then the buttress loomed close. There was no sight of the river ahead which seemed to be curving around it.

  ‘We take it in the middle!’

  In a nightmare of speed and terror they shot past and into the void beyond – it opened up wide but just ahead, spreading right across their track was a continuous chain of white.

  There was nothing they could do except scream a warning.

  The boat hit and reared up before dropping with a rending crash on the other side: Nicander felt himself flung into the air and then plunging into the water. He was rolled and tossed, choking and helpless until it quietened and he managed to get his head above water. Thrashing about he saw that the boat had entered a broad patch of placid water and Marius was levering it towards a sandy outcrop.

  He struggled towards it and was hauled in as the others scrambled, damp and trembling, on to the sand.

  ‘Got to check the boat,’ Marius croaked.

  The craft was fast filling from a splintered plank. Without tools there was no possibility of repair.

  ‘We can’t wait here,’ Kuo said through chattering teeth. ‘The soldiers will find a way around before long – we must leave!’

  ‘Then get in and bail – every last bastard!’ Marius ordered.

  They found whatever they could to use and when the boat was refloated even Kuo, feeling for the gunwale, bailed as hard as he could.

  ‘Oars again,’ growled Marius at the steering oar.

  Nicander and Wang took up their labour once more. They were keeping pace with the leak – they had a chance!

  The night wore on until, imperceptibly, delicate light stole in to lift the darkness.

  Ahead, Wang spotted a familiar fork in the river. ‘Heaven be praised!’ he gasped. ‘Ye Ching!’

  At a rickety bamboo landing place their little craft came to its rest and they scrambled thankfully to the s
hore.

  Wang made off quickly down the river path to the village while Kuo, clinging to his staff with weariness, called the rest together.

  ‘It has been a cruel experience for us all, but as so often in our mortal existence, with a hidden gift. In the usual way we should have disembarked before the gorge, made our way across country to the tributary and in another boat followed it down the longer way to this conjunction. Instead we went by a more direct, and you will no doubt agree, a faster route.’

  He straightened painfully. ‘By this, we have broken through the search cordon and have arrived here at Ye Ching well on schedule. They have no proof that a single fleeing boat held their quarry and therefore they cannot afford to relax their pursuit in other directions. I’m certain that if we move without delay we will stay ahead of them.’

  Wang met them at the inn. ‘Sir, we are desired to wait in the private room while our transport is prepared.’

  ‘We have little time to waste,’ Kuo said briskly once they were inside. ‘Thus I will tell you now what must be done.

  ‘You will head as rapidly as possible for the north-west. You will be safe there after crossing the mountains at the Wu Tsen Pass; on the other side you will reach the Yellow River. From there it is a simple journey to Chang An and the rest of your adventure.’

  ‘And you, sir?’

  ‘Master Wang and I will be taking horse in the opposite direction, to Shaolin.’

  ‘Then …’

  ‘Yes,’ Kuo said with infinite gentleness. ‘It is therefore here that we must part.’

  Ying Mei’s features remained blank.

  ‘First, I give over to you the chest. It contains sufficient means to get you to Chang An, together with required passes and documents.’

  Tai Yi firmly took it in charge.

  ‘Next, I ask my daughter to accept this staff of mine that has done me such service.’

  ‘F-Father …?’

  ‘I do so for a reason. It is this.’ From inside his robe he brought out an extraordinary object, a thick length of black hair, shiny with lacquer. He looped it over the tip of the staff.

  ‘It is the tail of the yak, a beast not seen in China but much esteemed by the western barbarians. It is a sign to them that you are of noble birth and you will be respected. Receive it with my blessing.’

  ‘And to you gentlemen – staffs also for your journey, but more than that, I now give my daughter into your protection.’

  ‘My Lord, we …’ Nicander struggled for words.

  ‘I take that to be your accepting. Then … then if you will permit me, I would desire to take farewell of my daughter in private.’

  Nicander motioned for the others to leave and they went outside into a bright early morning. There was a small carriage waiting, with gauze veils over the window spaces. Behind were four mules, two with saddles, two with packs.

  A pair of birds began singing among the blossom of a nearby tree. The sweetness of their song brought a lump to his throat as he thought of the anguish that now must be in Ying Mei’s heart.

  Then she emerged. Pale but erect she stood and blinked, eyes overbright but her face a mask of control. Without a backward glance she went toward the carriage.

  Impulsively Nicander pressed forward. ‘Miss Ying Mei, do please understand how much I feel for you in this—’

  She stopped … and looked into the distance, her chin lifting defiantly.

  ‘How dare you!’ Tai Yi thrust herself between them, her face pinched with anger. ‘This is the Lady Kuo Ying Mei! Ni sheng – know that any communication from the likes of you goes through me, and me alone!’

  Struck dumb, Nicander watched Ying Mei enter the carriage and draw the veil.

  ‘In the future I’ll thank you to remember your manners, foreign devil,’ Tai Yi said icily.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The Yellow River was broad and slow-moving, its muddy waters sliding along as they had done for untold centuries through the featureless flat plain.

  Settled under an awning on the timber cargo of the big lighter, Nicander watched the passing spectacle while Marius snoozed.

  He looked aft. The amiable old man in a curious conical bamboo hat at the steering oar, who was owner and captain of the craft, gave a toothless smile. His whole family was on board in a tiny house-like structure perched right on the stern.

  From above came the comfortable creaks of the single lofty rectangular sail, heavily slatted and needing little handling, driving them on at a steady pace.

  Forward, Ying Mei and Tai Yi were keeping out of sight in the privacy of their own spacious temporary quarters atop the long timbers. He shifted in annoyance. There had been no thawing in the Ice Queen and in fact it felt as if she was going out of her way to antagonise them with her airs.

  Damn her Chinese ways!

  He had reluctantly accepted that there was a distance to be kept between a high-born and commoner but this was ridiculous – having to communicate only through her doughty and ever-vigilant lady-in-waiting, the averted eyes, the cold hauteur. The boatman and his wife were always fawning and bowing, overawed by her presence. Even Marius was uneasily polite and deferential in front of her.

  Nicander had tried to get Ying Mei to utter words directly but never once succeeded. He’d come up with strategems, from saying there was a unicorn behind her, to pretending she was not there and passing sly comments to Marius on her appearance. None had broken the silence.

  There was no future in a confrontation. No doubt he and Marius could seize the chest, but to what purpose? Her uncle was crucial to their deliverance and that needed her presence. The Ice Queen had the upper hand.

  They left the broad expanse of the Yellow River for a tributary and with distant mountains always to the left, sailed on westward.

  Nicander idly wandered back to the boatman, who grinned in pleasure at the break in the tedium.

  ‘Ho!’ he cackled, pointing to the horizon off to the right where a long, low dun-coloured smoke haze betrayed the presence of a great city. ‘Chang An!’

  Although it was hard going, as the accent in this part of China was flat and guttural, Nicander pressed the old man for information about their destination.

  It was a very old city, perhaps the oldest. It had been the capital of the first emperor of China and counted on gnarled fingers by centuries, it was apparently two thousand years older than the Rome of Augustus – clearly impossible, of course.

  Its size was equally fantastic – from excited sweeps of the arms it would need to be measured in handfuls of miles, but he’d not wanted to show sceptic and let the old man babble on about the sights and the pleasures in the venerable city.

  Marius was not impressed. There was only one thing he was interested in and that was getting back to Roman civilisation and a decent feed.

  The waterway was now busy; barges and lighters like their own, slim fishing craft and fat brick transports, pleasure skiffs and sampans – all the usual bustle at the approaches to a great metropolis.

  Outer settlements began to appear along the bank, here and there pagodas on the skyline.

  The Lady Kuo Ying Mei stepped out of her quarters. She had long restored her appearance, the slim silk gown with its elegant embroidery setting off her elaborate hairstyle, her ceruse-daubed face restored to its impassive rigidity. She looked about with cool detachment.

  The captain hurried up, enquiring of her lady-in-waiting if there was anything she desired. It seemed not and the man was dismissed.

  The sprawl of settlement became continuous. They dropped sail and were pulled down a long canal against the wind by hundreds of whipcord-thin men.

  What they had seen before was the overflow of buildings outside the city. Inside a rectangle of great, towering walls twenty feet high and pierced only once each side with a single set of three gateways, Chang An proper was indeed immense in size.

  Peoples of all kinds in every sort of dress were coming and going, quite ignoring the arrival of ye
t another boat from the outside world.

  Tai Yi was soon engaged in spirited bargaining for the hire of their transport.

  The merchants’ quarter was well known and they set off, My Lady in a curtained sedan chair, Tai Yi sitting next to the driver of a cart, the foreign devils on the tailgate.

  Passing through one of the city gateways they came on an impressive sight – arrow-straight, immensely broad treelined avenues that disappeared into the distance in a regular grid. Minor boulevards and streets led off them and there were canals with pretty arched bridges and every so often a noble pagoda or vermilion eaved mansion showed above the roofs.

  They swung off the main avenue and proceeded along a street with high, blank walls on either side. They turned again, into a residential district. Then, past the hubbub and commotion of a bazaar, they came to street stalls selling fish, pastries and flowers.

  Through more urban bustle they crossed another broad avenue and continued along by a residential ward, spacious and well guarded.

  Abruptly, they stopped by a dignified entrance. Painted on each panel of the heavy wooden gate were demons. Above, a large red triangular flag trimmed in yellow with huge Chinese characters in black flapped lazily.

  Nicander dropped to the ground. ‘Looks like we’re here.’

  Tai Yi spoke with a guard who went away, returning quickly to open the gates.

  Waiting inside was a group of people, in the centre a small figure in a flowing blue robe, his face so creased with pleasure his eyes almost disappeared.

  Ying Mei went up to him and bowed.

  Words passed between them; she turned and beckoned the others forward. ‘Dear Uncle, you know my lady companion, Lai Tai Yi, who has served me steadfastly since I was a child. Those two are foreign holy men, Ni and Ma, who are accompanying me in my visit.’

  Kuo looked at them in keen interest. ‘From where do they hail, Ying Mei?’

  ‘A long story, Uncle. It were best left to later.’

  ‘But of course – I forget my manners! Do enter, my child, take some refreshment while you tell me why you are here. You are most welcome, most welcome!’