“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
