Everything Under the Heavens (Silk and Song) (15 page)

“Who is to say?” Johanna said, not wanting to agree but knowing this was most likely true. “We might meet on the Road again one day, honorable uncle.”

Wu Cheng smiled. “We might at that, honorable niece.”

She felt for the pouch at her waist. Had her father’s widow missed them yet? Very likely, and how furious she would be, and how much more so with no abomination of a child to take it out on, and how much more furious than that when she sent out riders and discovered that Johanna was now out of her reach. Johanna contemplated her father’s widow’s reaction with a great deal of satisfaction.

On her left, Shasha noticed the gesture, and wondered at the unease that whispered up her spine.

Jaufre noticed only the smile pulling at the corner’s of Johanna’s lips. “You look happy,” he said.

She breathed in, deeply. “Do you smell that, Jaufre?”

“What?” He sniffed. “You mean the salt air?”

She shook her head, still smiling. “Freedom,” she said.

He thought about it, even as she nudged North Wind into motion. The stifling tension that had infused the house of the honorable Wu Li from the moment he had brought his second wife home. The inchoate threat everyone had felt the day Dai Fang introduced Gokudo. The year full of encroaching snubs and slights as Dai Fang moved Jaufre out of the house and into the stables, Johanna from her suite near the garden to her room off the scullery, Shasha from her position as one of the family to that of a kitchen maid.

The only time they had been able to breathe was on the road with Wu Li. Jaufre had a very clear memory of his own father, but he was long dead and so would Jaufre had been, were it not for Wu Li and Shu Ming and Shasha, and always and ever, Johanna. He knew who his family was.

He nudged his bay into a stride to match North Wind’s, at least temporarily. Johanna turned her head to meet his eyes. “Freedom,” he said.

“Freedom!” they shouted together, and their horses, in that unexplainable way that horses do divined the high spirits of their riders and moved smoothly into a gallop, kicking up a cloud of dust that hung in the air, obscuring their passing, leaving only an echo of laughter behind.

Until the dust settled again, and left their tracks plain for anyone with the eyes to see.

Heading west. Always and ever, west.

WHEN THEY ROSE AGAIN
at dusk, the last trader to join their caravan had arrived, and there was a flurry of packing and loading. When it was done Uncle Cheng called the leader of each merchant group traveling with them into a conference. “I am Wu Cheng. Most of us have traveled together before but for those who are new to me, this is how it goes. We sleep days and travel nights. You are expected to be packed and ready to travel at dusk each day. You care for your own livestock. You buy and cook your own food, and I don’t want to be arbitrating any arguments over how you like your rice boiled. If someone gets sick, they will be quarantined until we arrive at the first available town or caravansary. If someone gets hurt to the point that it affects their ability to travel, they will be left at the first available town or caravansary. This caravan is not a traveling hospital.”

He let that sink in before going on. “If there is a fire, everyone turns out to fight it, and each morning everyone is responsible for locating the camels carrying the water sacks, which will every morning always be picketed next to the guards’ tents, which every morning will always be next to my yurt.” He pointed. “The one marked by the red and yellow pennon. Can everyone see it?”

Everyone nodded, very solemn, even those who had heard it many times before. They had to camp closely together for security, which also put everyone and their goods at risk if a fire broke out.

“Fighting, for whatever reason, inclination, drunkenness, gambling or sheer bad temper,” Uncle Cheng said. “Not in camp, and see my previous remarks about anyone getting hurt, I don’t care whether you started it or not. My plan is to get this caravan to Kashgar in seventy days, before the worst of the summer heat, and anyone who delays us in any way or for any reason will be left behind, willing or unwilling.” He tucked his hands in his belt and stared around the circle.

He looked perfectly calm and even relaxed, but Johanna and Jaufre exchanged a knowing glance. Jovial Uncle Cheng could appear quite intimidating at will.

“There are women and children traveling with us. None of them are to be interfered with in any way. If any such interference does occur and the report is credible, the offender will be taken under guard to the nearest city or caravansary and remanded to the custody of the local magistrate, with a recommendation of extreme prejudice.” He jerked a thumb at the man standing next to him. “And that’s only if my havildar doesn’t see fit to deal with the offender first. In which action, whatever it is, he will always have my full authority and support.”

Johanna couldn’t quite make out the man standing in Uncle Cheng’s shadow, who seemed to bow slightly and then efface himself.

“Please don’t test us in this. It will not end well for you.” Uncle Cheng’s smile was thin. “Although it may well end you entirely.”

Another uncomfortable silence, broken by a Persian sheik in flowing robes and grizzled beard. “Worthy Wu Cheng, are there reliable reports on the road ahead?”

“Sheik Mohammed,” Wu Cheng said with a respectful bow in return. “Are we at risk of attack by bandits, do you mean?”

The sheik inclined his head.

Uncle Cheng stroked his long, thin mustaches. “Well, we are at less risk traveling together simply because there are so many of us. Bandit gangs don’t generally tend to attack large numbers. But we’ve all heard the stories. We must be alert and vigilant, and I beg of you all, urge your people to be discreet. It is well known that the larger bands have agents of their own in some of the larger towns, and they will be looking for easy targets.”

“And if we are attacked?” another voice said, this one belonging to the man standing next to the sheik. He was younger and like enough to the sheik to claim him as father.

“We will defend ourselves,” Uncle Cheng said. “You all carry arms and know how to use them or I wouldn’t have allowed you to join this caravan. Keep your weapons in good working order and within reach. My havildar will instruct you further, one at a time, on this evening’s march, but what it boils down to is if we come under attack we bunch up in a group. They will always pick off stragglers. Any pack camel here would be worthy of the effort, especially if they manage to capture any people, who I’m sure I don’t have to tell you can be sold as slaves at the greatest possible profit.”

He let the words linger on the air for a moment, and then brought his two ham hands together in a loud smack. “We will be traveling fast but there will be time to buy and sell along the way. If a majority of you think we ought to stay an extra day at the market in, say, Kuche, or Yarkent, I will certainly acquiesce to the will of the majority. However, I will expect us to make up the extra day on the road.”

He smiled again, more widely, and such was his personal charisma that Johanna felt an immediate lessening of tension around the circle. “I have planned an extra full day’s stop at every oasis town we travel through, so if we stay on schedule there will be regular opportunities for rest, refit, and to buy supplies. And for wine, women and song.”

There was a ripple of laughter and a relaxation of tension.

“All right,” Wu Cheng said briskly. “Mount up.”

The first few days of travel was all confusion and vexation. Various groups wishing to travel together jockeyed for position in line and generally succeeded only in embroiling themselves, their animals and surrounding travelers in a hopeless tangle of reins, stirrups and leading strings. They were straightened out again by sweating, swearing handlers and guards, and provided Uncle Cheng with multiple opportunities to demonstrate in six different languages his comprehensive and inspiring command of invective. During one of these instructional episodes Shasha saw Johanna sitting to one side, repeating certain phrases silently. Johanna looked up to see Shasha watching and had the audacity to grin.

On the second day a trader from Balkh managed to mislay ten camels. The rest of the caravan carried on while Uncle Cheng’s havildar and a squad of guards were sent out to retrieve them. They returned in the middle of the night, missed in the dark by most of the caravaners, who were treated the following morning to the unpleasant spectacle of a thief and his three co-conspirators stripped to their waists and beaten until their backs were bloody. The missing camels were produced and returned to their grateful owner, who became a shade less grateful when Uncle Cheng assessed two of the camels as payment in full for the retrieval.

The lesson was well taken by everyone watching, but both were unsettling sights for the rest of them to take to their beds that morning. That evening, before the caravan set off again, by Uncle Cheng’s express command the four were left to make their way back to Chang’an as best they could, stripped of their shoes and with no water or food to ease their way.

Johanna lingered at the tail end of the caravan, watching the four pitiful figures staggering eastwards.

Unnoticed, Uncle Cheng had ridden up beside her. “Well, niece? Do you judge me to be too harsh?”

She turned to meet his eyes and said without flinching, “No, uncle. I’m just surprised you didn’t kill them outright.”

The corner of his mouth quirked.

“But then,” she said demurely, “there would be no one left alive to attest to the swift and certain justice of that greatest of all caravan masters, the mighty and terrible Wu Cheng.”

He burst out laughing. Hearing it, the four felons broke into a staggering run. “Hah! What a caravan master you would have made yourself, honorable niece!”

“And,” she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at the receding caravan, “none of them will forget it, either. Not the punishment, and certainly not the finder’s fee.”

He pulled his camel’s nose around. “Not from here to Kashgar,” he agreed cheerfully. “Serves them right for being so careless of their stock. And it is good to teach a strong lesson early in the trip. It saves much trouble later on.”

“Really, uncle,” Johanna said drily, “you owe them a debt of gratitude.”

“Indeed I do, honorable niece,” he said, “and I have paid it. They yet live.”

The four would-be thieves toiled up over a dune and dropped out of sight.

There were the usual difficulties between incompatible personalities, tribes and religions, but Uncle Cheng dealt firmly with anything that upset his peace and the peace of the traders traveling under his protection. One hapless Turgesh tripped over a tent pole and fell headlong into a tent full of Muslim women, and only quick footwork prevented a full-blown riot on the part of the women’s male relatives. There were the usual rivalries between traders as well, but again Uncle Cheng was quick to take notice and nip anything incendiary in the bud before it had a chance to flower into a fruit that would poison the entire enterprise.

By the time they reached Lanchow, the Golden City, the caravan had settled into the formation it would take for the rest of the journey. People were creatures of habit. If Hamid the Persian, dealer in silks, wools and other fine fabrics, took his place in line between Meesang the Sayam, buyer and seller of precious and semi-precious gemstones, and Wasim the Pashtun, purveyor of copper goods, one morning, chances were he could be found traveling between these two worthies for the duration of the trip.

Johanna reveled in the freedom of the Road with every league gained in distance from Cambaluc. On the Road it didn’t matter that her eyes were too round or that she was too tall or that her hair was the wrong color. There was no enforced separation of races on the Road, on the Road she didn’t have to be careful not to speak the Mongol tongue within the hearing of Mongol ears. Persian, Jew, Turgesh, Sogdian, Persian, Frank, Chinese, it did not matter. They were all one to Uncle Cheng, and for the duration of the trip his was the only authority to which they bowed. It was all the stronger because they had surrendered to it voluntarily, for the safety of one meant the safety of all.

In the meantime, she, Jaufre and Shasha were meeting old friends. One such they encountered at their first camp. “Johanna! Johanna!”

Johanna looked toward the sound of her voice. “Fatima!” she said.

The slim, dark girl ran up to her and embraced her with enthusiasm, laughing with pleasure. Fatima, daughter of Ahmed the baker and Malala his wife, was in fact a child of laughter, a pretty girl of Johanna’s age, wearing a short jacket over a tunic and an ankle-length skirt, all heavy with colorful embroidery, with unbound hair confined beneath a spangled blue veil. “But what is this! What are you doing on the Road this early? Usually I don’t see you until Kashgar.” She looked around. “But where is Wu Li?”

She was put in possession of recent events and her laughter faded, but only momentarily, and indeed Johanna could not wish otherwise. “And Shasha,” Fatima said, leaving Johanna to embrace the other woman. “And Jaufre,” she said, turning to him. Fatima was also something of a flirt. She ran an appraising eye over his long length. “Much…taller,” she said. “Than when I last saw you.”