Imperial Fire (56 page)

‘I think I know a way to smuggle it aboard.’

‘Did you obtain the formula?’

‘That would have been too much to hope for.’

‘Then we’re not much further forward.’

‘Don’t be so sure. If the Chinese can unpick the secrets of Greek Fire, we can unravel the mystery of Fire Drug.’

The sun was diffusing into the fog over Kaifeng when Vallon and his party reached the ship. Wulfstan hailed them from the stern deck and raised a hooked hand in greeting. He’d had the prosthetic fitted to make ship-handling easier. A squad of Chinese infantrymen on the jetty rose from their mah-jong and dice. Their captain saluted.

Vallon saluted back. ‘I appreciate you guarding my ship so diligently.’ He slipped a purse into the man’s hand. ‘In appreciation of your vigilance.’

‘I can’t accept gifts.’

‘Come now. In my country it’s considered a virtue to reward exemplary service.’ The other guards had clustered around. ‘Share it with your men.’

They were bickering over their portions when Vallon and company went aboard. ‘You must be bored out here on your own,’ he said to Wulfstan.

‘Not really, sir. I’ve become mates with the soldiers and… well, craving your indulgence, sir, I took the liberty of inviting some company aboard.’

‘A woman?’

‘What else. Actually, I was thinking of making her my wife. She’s a lovely thing.’

‘Well, we’re all human. Even you.’

‘Thank you, sir. What brings you here?’

‘Business. I’ll explain when the transaction’s done. You know how the cargo is disposed. Fetch me the barrel of cobalt.’

Wulfstan disappeared into the hold and emerged lugging a smallish cask. ‘God knows what it’s for, but it makes good ballast. A hundred of these would keep a dromon on an even keel.’

Vallon turned to Gorka. ‘You know what to do?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Gorka placed the barrel in a backpack and went down the gangplank. The Chinese officer blocked his path as he made to mount his horse. The bribe had made him well disposed to the barbarians, but it hadn’t lowered his guard.

‘What’s in there? Where are you taking it?’

Vallon answered from the ship’s deck. ‘It’s a pigment used in the manufacture of ceramics and it’s on the way to the imperial porcelain factory. Gorka, show him the bill of sale and the superintendent’s seal.’

The officer examined both. ‘I’ll have to examine the contents.’

‘Go ahead. Careful, it’s heavy.’

Satisfied that the barrel didn’t contain contraband, the officer painted a character on the cask to show that he’d inspected the goods. ‘I apologise for the delay.’

‘Not at all,’ said Vallon. He gave an airy wave. ‘I’m going to my cabin now.’

Down below he grabbed Wulfstan. ‘Bring me a sack of sand, a funnel and a dry barrel the same size as the one Gorka’s carrying.’

He was looking out over the river from his cabin when the guards cried out. He went on deck to see Gorka galloping back to the ship. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he shouted. ‘You should have been in Kaifeng by now.’

‘Why are you angry?’ the Chinese captain called. ‘Why has the soldier come back?’

‘The dolt forgot the letter he was supposed to take to the superintendent.’ He smacked Gorka’s shoulder as the trooper staggered up the gangplank, still burdened by the barrel. ‘Idiot.’

He followed Gorka down to his cabin, where Wulfstan, Hero and Aiken were waiting. ‘Did you make the exchange?’ he asked the sweating trooper.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Make it quick,’ Vallon told Wulfstan.

The Viking took the barrel from Gorka and nearly dropped it in surprise. ‘This isn’t the —’

‘Of course it isn’t. Empty it.’

Wulfstan prised out the bung and began funnelling the contents into the spare barrel. ‘Could do with some light in here.’

‘No!’ Vallon said. ‘Christ!’

Wulfstan dribbled out the last of the contents.

‘Fill Gorka’s barrel with the sand. Hurry.’

The sun was a crimson glow in the pall over Kaifeng when Gorka emerged on deck, stooped under the original barrel now filled with sand. The captain of the guard was diligent to a fault and insisted on checking the load.

‘For heaven’s sake,’ Vallon shouted. ‘He’ll miss the curfew.’

The officer satisfied himself that the barrel was the one he’d marked before waving Gorka past. The guards watched him galloping away into the dust and then went back to their cooking fire. Sweating with excitement, Vallon returned below.

‘Is it the right stuff?’ he asked.

Hero had decanted a sample of the black powder onto a dish. ‘It looks like finely ground charcoal. There’s only one way to find out.’

‘We can’t test it outside. Vast as China is, you’re never more than a few yards from a peasant. Burn a small sample here. Wulfstan, bring a bucket of water and a hide blanket in case it burns too fiercely.’

Hero formed the powder into a small heap. ‘Bring me a lamp and taper. Stand well back.’

Wulfstan thrust himself forward. ‘I’m the master of ordnance. If anyone’s going to get his eyebrows singed, it should be me.’

Hero gave way and Wulfstan lit a taper from the lamp and brought it towards the powder. Vallon, Hero and Aiken pressed back against the walls of the cabin.

Poof.
 

Red and yellow flame flashed. Aiken choked on the fumes. Hero opened the window and fanned the smoke out. ‘I recognise one of its ingredients. That Devil’s breath is sulphur.’

Wulfstan laughed. ‘And the other smell is my charred beard. That’s powerful stuff.’

‘You ignited only a spoonful,’ Vallon said. ‘Imagine the effect if we lit the entire barrel.’

They dwelt on the outcome of such an experiment before Aiken spoke. ‘It would consume our ship and everyone on it.’ He crossed himself. ‘That’s a hellish compound.’

‘Stow it somewhere safe,’ Vallon said.

Xiao-Xing was a skilful lover who made it her business to educate Lucas out of his farmboy fumblings and clumsy couplings. With the aid of a lavishly illustrated pillow book, she taught him how to give her pleasure and enhance his own. Lucas learned the technique called ‘Fish Playing in Spring Water’, the position known as ‘The Dragon in the Cave’, and one night, well after midnight, was initiated into the strenuous delights of ‘Taming the Demon Princess’.

Xiao-Xing’s cunning grip she’d taken with arms and legs alike drew him inexorably into the realm of reflex. He tried to delay the climax by thinking of Gorka eating. It was little help. Reflexive spasms began, signalling the end. Beneath him Xiao-Xing convulsed, clinging with all her might, her breath panting.

‘Are you in there, sir?’

He was over the edge and shooting down cascades when Gorka’s shout cut through his orgasm.

‘Sir, it’s urgent. We have to get out of here.’

Swearing, Lucas unpicked his way out of Xiao-Xing’s hold, covered himself with a towel and slid open the door. ‘What the hell are you shouting about?’

Even in his desperation, Gorka couldn’t resist sneaking a look at the girl sitting up with her hands over her breasts. ‘Vallon’s orders. We have to make a run for the ship. Take only arms and armour.’

‘Why?’

‘We must have upset our hosts. If we wait until morning, they’ll arrest us.’

Lucas threw on his clothes. Xiao-Xing looked on distraught. He kissed her and held her face. ‘I’m sorry, my love. I have to go.’

He buckled on his sword, slung his suit of armour over his shoulder and ran out. Men’s curses and women’s wails from all quarters announced an unwilling separation of cultures.

Gorka ran through the compound. Distant firecrackers popped somewhere in the city. Josselin was waiting at the gate. ‘Make for the Gold Bird Guard Bridge.’

Lucas’s gaze fixed on the body of a Chinese soldier sprawled a few yards beyond the entrance.

Josselin pushed him. ‘Get going. Let no one stand in your way.’

Lucas and Gorka ran through the empty streets, the feet of the other Outlanders slapping behind them. Not long before, each of Kaifeng’s wards would have been surrounded by walls with gates closed after the evening curfew and watchmen patrolling the avenues. Now the gates and walls were gone, but the curfew was still in force and night patrols still walked the streets on the lookout for anyone wandering outside their own ward. Twenty blows with the thin rod was the punishment for transgressors.

It wasn’t long before Lucas and Gorka ran into a squad of watchmen. The soldiers challenged them, and when the runaways failed to stop, they twanged their bowstring to reinforce the command, then shot arrows at their feet. Lucas and Gorka swept past. A whistle blew behind them and was answered by more whistles.

Lucas clutched his side to ease a stitch. ‘It’s miles to open country. Three walls and gates block our escape. We’ll never make it.’

‘Vallon must have thought of a way.’

The bridge came in sight, deserted now, lights from a few oil lamps dappling the river.

‘This way,’ a voice called.

Lucas turned right and saw two large sampans moored, a turbaned figure waiting on the bank. He slapped Lucas past. ‘Into the boats and stay quiet.’

Lucas scrambled into a boat already occupied by half a dozen confused and disgruntled Outlanders. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’ one demanded. ‘What’s fucking Vallon playing at?’

Lucas arched up. ‘Talk of the general like that again and I’ll take the hide off you. He wouldn’t order a breakout unless it was necessary. Now stay as quiet as a nest of mice.’

A fraught silence fell, broken by shrilling whistles and braying trumpets dissipating through the city. Windows opened and householders demanded to know what outrage had disturbed their rest. A three-quarters moon raced through a rack of clouds. Four more men pitched into Lucas’s boat and another five found places in the craft alongside. Through their panting Lucas heard more urgent footsteps and then a voice that sounded familiar but unplaceable.

‘Is that everyone?’

‘Everyone who’s coming,’ Josselin said. ‘Two refused to leave. One was too drunk to stand. The night patrols caught another.’

He clambered into the other boat and the turbaned man stepped into Lucas’s craft and cast off.

‘If you haven’t plied an oar before, you’d better learn fast. We have to get beyond the last wall before the Chinese work out how we intend to breach it.’

Lucas picked up a paddle. ‘You heard him. Dig hard, dig deep.’

The Outlanders found some semblance of rhythm and the city began to slide past. Lucas thought of Xiao-Xing, the lovely maid he would never see again. He reached out and prodded the orchestrator of this upheaval in the back.

‘If someone rousts me from bed at dead of night, I want to know who he is.’

The man turned and smiled. ‘Well met, Lucas. I’m glad you survived the journey and even gladder that you overcame the demons holding you apart from your father.’

‘Wayland! How did you get here?’

‘Later. Keep going.’

Confusion made Lucas obey for a while. ‘They’ll soon work out how we intend to escape and send cavalry to secure the ship. We won’t outpace horses.’

‘Vallon’s put a lot of thought into our flight. If we escape the city we’ll reach the ship.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Gone ahead with Hero and Aiken. Now stop pestering and row.’

Lights bobbing ahead made Lucas draw his sword. He sank back when he saw they were only floating lanterns placed on the water by nocturnal revellers. Watching them glide past, he thought again of Xiao-Xing. The pang of loss subsided into a clench of vague dread. Kaifeng had been a haven, the ultimate oasis. What would they do now? Where could they go?

Several times on their journey watchmen spotted them and raised the hue and cry, their shouts merging into the alarms spreading through the entire city. By this time the Outlanders had put thoughts of abandoned sweethearts and warm quarters behind them and were rowing for their lives, what was lost gone forever and an unknowable future ahead.

A squad of cavalry intercepted them and loosed arrows without mercy, wounding two rowers before a warehouse built on the waterfront in defiance of planning regulations blocked their pursuit. The city’s outer wall bulked large. Soldiers carrying torches ran about on its ramparts. A tunnel through the barrier gaped.

An arrow thrummed in the thwart beside Lucas and then the tunnel closed around them. Moments later they slid clear, the landscape ahead empty and the Yellow River mirrored on the base of low-hanging clouds.

‘Not far now,’ Wayland said.

Lucas heard a whinny and spotted horses in a node of darkness on the right bank.

‘Put in,’ Wayland said.

Vallon stood on the bank. ‘Mount up and ride for the ship.’

Lucas flung himself onto a horse. Quarter of a mile behind, a stream of torches emerged from the city wall.

‘They’re coming,’ Vallon said. ‘Don’t spare your horses. We won’t need them again.’

With that he spurred into the dark and Lucas followed, concentrating on extracting every last effort from his horse. The plain flew past, pools of shadow stretching out to the north. The river showed ahead in the light of the fleeting moon. A flame winked on its bank.

‘Make for the torch,’ Vallon shouted.

Lucas reached the jetty and threw himself off his horse. Gorka stood on
Jifeng
’s deck, urging the troopers to make haste. Lucas ran up the gangplank and turned to see the lights of the pursuing cavalry pricking the plain behind. Wayland was the last to board. The sweating horses they’d left behind gleamed in the dark.

‘Cast off,’ Wulfstan shouted.

Jifeng
slipped her moorings and nosed away down the flaccid current. She was still close to shore when the Chinese reached the bank. They galloped along the dike, loosing arrows until the ship drifted out of range.

‘That was close,’ Lucas said.

‘They ain’t going to let us slip away that easy,’ Wulfstan said.

Vallon stepped onto the stern deck. Qiuylue stood behind him, dressed in nomad fashion – tight tunic nipped at the waist and kidskin leggings. Josselin clapped his hands for silence. The mutters of the trooper died. A hundred Outlanders had embarked at Constantinople and only fifty-four remained to hear Vallon announce their fate.

‘You’ve probably heard the rumours that I’ve accepted a commission as commander of a Chinese regiment. Who’ll take service with me?’

Lucas looked around and raised his hand.

‘Only a third of you,’ Vallon said. ‘Just as well, because I have no intention of joining the Chinese army. I’m going home. Who’ll follow me back across the Taklamakan?’

‘I think it’s one of his trick questions,’ Gorka murmured.

Vallon’s gaze swept the troopers. ‘Still only a third. What do the rest of you want to do?’

The soldiers maintained an obstinate silence.

‘I know what you want,’ Vallon said. ‘You want to rest idle in the Palace of Friendship with your doxies, being served on hand and foot. Do you really think the Chinese would allow you to go on living in such luxury? I’ll tell you what they’ll do. They’ll conscript you and post you to some frontier outpost like that shithole in the Tsaidam. Or they’ll send you to work building walls on the Yellow River. I’m told the bones of a million men lie entombed in those fortifications.’

‘What’s the reason for our flight?’ a trooper demanded.

‘We were sent east to establish mutually respectful relations between Byzantium and China. Unfortunately, the Son of Heaven doesn’t recognise any country as equal to his own. We leave with only a few flowery words of friendship.’

No one spoke. Kaifeng was just a reddish smudge out on the plain.

‘I was taxed with another mission,’ Vallon said. ‘That was to obtain the formula of a Chinese incendiary called Fire Drug. I didn’t discover the formula, but Hero and Aiken succeeded in obtaining a barrel of the compound. Unfortunately the man who provided it is a drunk whose mouth runs over when he’s in his cups. The transaction was discovered, and if Wayland hadn’t had an informer in the armoury, we would all have woken this morning with swords at our throats. That’s about all. Any questions?’

‘Where are we going?’

‘How the hell did Wayland get here?’

‘Both questions beget the same answer. Wayland sailed from India and I plan to return the same way. The prospect chills me less than the thought of retracing our steps across Asia. With fair winds we could reach India by mid-summer and be home by Christmas. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to trade on the voyage, and you’ll find no shortage of women in the ports where we put in. And think of the stories you’ll have to tell when you’re back in Constantinople. It will be free drinks in every tavern.’

Gorka hawked and spat. ‘Hell, I was getting bored lying around doing nothing but eat, drink and fuck.’

A trooper pushed towards Vallon. ‘How come you get to keep your woman while we were forced away without even time to say farewell?’

‘I’ll overlook your insolence,’ Vallon said. ‘If I’d left Qiuylue behind, the Chinese would have killed her. Dismiss.’

Vallon entered his cabin and embraced his mistress. ‘I’m sorry I gave you no warning. There wasn’t time.’

‘You shouldn’t have brought me.’

‘Would you have preferred death?’

‘You’re going back to your family. You told me that in your country a man takes only one wife. There can be no place in your household for another woman. It would create disharmony.’

Vallon sank onto his cot. ‘I’ll put you ashore with enough gold for you to start a new life. You can’t return to Kaifeng, but everywhere else is open. You could go back to your homeland. If it’s city life and comforts you desire, you could go south to Hangzhou. Whatever you choose, I’ll do my utmost to grant.’

‘My only wish is to remain at your side for as long as possible.’

No sign of pursuit at dawn. That didn’t mean the Outlanders were in the clear. The state employed thousands of runners who could relay messages up to a hundred miles in a day and night. Even faster were the horse couriers who, galloping flat out between staging posts, were disciplined if they didn’t cover more than a hundred and fifty miles a day. Strategic routes were also linked by signal towers that transmitted messages by flags or mirrors. By now, Chinese garrisons downriver might be laying plans to intercept the fugitives.

It came as some relief when clouds built up and released a downpour that lasted all day, turning the low-lying roads along the banks into quagmires. Even under a light breeze,
Jifeng
maintained a good pace. At this time of year the Yellow River was at its highest, swollen by melting snows in its mountain headwaters. In places spring ice had gouged away the dikes, creating lakes twenty miles across, dark lines of willows and poplars the only indication of where the river ended and land began. Wulfstan had picked up a hazy knowledge of the river’s lower course. It should take four or five days to reach the sea.

The third day broke clear. Vallon leaned out from the bow, peering at the rising sun through the surface reflections. Each side of the river the wet green of flat farmland merged into the misty blue of distance. Waders rose in swirling clouds from sandbars. Ducks beat up from reedbeds and whistled down the sky. Bare-legged women bent over in long lines, setting seeds. A cart drawn by two oxen followed a pale ribbon of road towards a village.

Vallon had ordered the Greek Fire siphon to be mounted on the foredeck. Wulfstan had rigged up the trebuchet on the stern, reinforcing the deck against its weight and the force of its recoil. For ammunition he’d selected about forty ballast stones weighing between twenty and a hundred pounds apiece.

In the afternoon Vallon watched Hero and Wulfstan conducting experiments on Fire Drug to determine its combustible properties.

‘It’s too fierce,’ Hero said. ‘Even a spark sets it off. To be of any use against an enemy, we’d need something to delay the ignition until the right moment.’