Silk Road (46 page)

‘Where have you been?’ William demanded when Josseran returned to the palace later that afternoon.

‘I have been talking with the princess Miao-yen.’

‘You spend too much time with her. It is not worthy.’

‘I learn much about the Emperor and his people through her.’

‘You lust for her. I see it in your eyes.’

Josseran was affronted at this accusation, for it was unjust. ‘She is a princess and the Emperor’s daughter.’

‘When has that ever deterred you from your base instincts? The smell of her, the artifices she employs on her face, the silk robes she wears! She has all the Devil’s devices. I lavish hours on showing her the path to virtue and to God and you undo all my good works!’

Josseran sighed. ‘I do not know what more you wish of me.’

‘I wish nothing of you. It is God who wishes you to help me bring these people to the love of Christ.’

‘Have I not done all that is in my power?’

William shook his head. ‘I do not know,’ he said. ‘God alone can answer that.’

Khubilai awaited her in the Pavilion of Sweet Flowers. He wore a gown of green silk brocade and an expression of watchful discontent.

The pavilion was open to the gardens on all sides. Urns had been planted with pink-flowering banana and cinnamon, and windmills were artfully placed about the tiled courtyard so that the gentle movement of the spars carried the fragrance of the flowers into the halls. The chatter of birds in the trees that overhung the eaves was almost deafening. An altar stood at the northern end of the pavilion. It contained grass from the steppe, as well as earth brought from the Tatar homeland; ochre mud, yellow sand, black and white pebbles from the Gobi. Although it was ostensibly a Tatar shrine, the Altar
of the Soil was a Confucian ideal. It was covered with a mantle of red brocades, with benedictions written on the cloth in the gold characters of the Chin.

So many contradictions here.

She approached on her hands and knees. Then she joined her hands and bowed her head three times on the marble floor before looking up into the silken eyes of her father. The stern faces of his Confucian and Tangut advisers watched from the dais below his throne.

‘So, Miao-yen. You do well at your studies?’

‘I am diligent, my lord.’

‘What do you make of your tutors?’

‘They are sincere, my lord,’ she answered carefully, wondering what it was her father wished to know.

‘And what of this religion they bring with them?’

‘It is as you said, Father. It is very like the Luminous Religion of Mar Salah, except they have great esteem for this man they call Pope. They find much fault with the joining of a man and a woman and they also believe in the confession of a person’s sins to their shaman, which brings about immediate forgiveness from their god.’

‘They find fault with the joining of men and women?’ Khubilai said, no doubt thinking of his own extensive harem.

‘Yes, my lord.’

He grunted, unimpressed with this philosophy. ‘They say that in the barbarian lands all the people bow down to this Pope.’

‘It seems he is their Khan of Khans, and has the power to make kings among them, yet he does not himself carry sword or bow, if they are to be believed. It would seem he is a shaman, who has risen to be more powerful even than the greatest of their warriors.

‘This almost once happened to us,’ he said. She could imagine the direction of his thoughts. He would want no part of any religion that would threaten the supreme position of the Emperor.

‘Do they have magic?’

‘I have not seen them do magic, my lord. They have taught me prayers that they wish me to say, and told me of this Jesus that they hold so dear, as does Mar Salah and his followers.’

‘You like this religion they have?’

She looked into Phags-pa lama’s eyes. ‘I do not think it as great as that of the Tanguts, my lord, nor as powerful.’

Phags-pa seemed to relax. Her father, too, seemed satisfied with her answer.

‘What of the warrior? What do you think of him?’

‘He seems an honest man, my lord. Yet this I do not understand; he says he travelled to another land to fight these Saracens, as he calls them, when he has nothing to gain for himself in either loot or women. He claims to do it for the merit of heaven. Yet it also seems they are frightened to leave their forts for fear of these same Saracens they are pledged to destroy.’

Khubilai grunted, her appraisal matching his own. ‘I do not believe they will make strong allies. Even Mar Salah preaches against them, and he worships this Jesus, as they do. The Metropolitan says they wish to subject us all to the rule of this Pope, of which they speak overmuch.’

‘All I know is this Joss-ran deals kindly with me and seems earnest,’ Miao-yen said quickly, for she felt an affinity with this barbarian giant, and wished him no harm.

‘And his shaman?’

‘For him, I cannot answer,’ she said, ‘other than that he smells vile.’

‘I commend you for your report, daughter. Be diligent. If they tell you something you think I should know, convey it to me yourself, in person.’

She was dismissed. She shuffled from the hall, tottering backwards on tiny feet.

W
ILLIAM WAS WOKEN
by a loud banging on his door. One of the Metropolitan’s black-robed priests stood breathless in the corridor, two of the Emperor’s
kesig
beside him. He was babbling incomprehensibly in his heathen tongue.

One of the guards went to fetch Josseran from his chamber. The Templar finally appeared, dishevelled and scarcely awake, hastily wrapping a silk robe around him. He listened to what the priest had to say and then explained to William that the man had been sent by Mar Salah. The Metropolitan of Shang-tu wished to see him at once.

He was dying.

The soldiers went ahead with flaming torches and they followed them through the darkened streets of Shang-tu. They came to a great house close to the palace wall. It was surrounded by a high wall, roofed with glazed ceramic tiles in the traditional split-bamboo pattern. The iron-studded door below the roofed gate was flung open and they followed the priest through a courtyard of flagstones, bordered with willows, pine trees and fishponds of golden carp. There was a cloister supported by lacquered pillars. Some servants stood by a doorway at the end of this gallery, wailing.

As they entered the main house Josseran was struck by the richness of the furnishings; he saw a cross made from sandalwood and agate; camphor chests inlaid with pearls; vases of beaten gold and precious blue and white porcelain; carpets of rich brocade; ornaments in jade and silver. Mar Salah lived in the sort of splendour that would not have shamed a Christian bishop, Josseran noted.

Churchmen! They were the same the world over.

The bedroom, too, was sumptuous, with hangings of silk and ermine. In the corner was a huge bronze urn filled with dried flowers. Mar Salah lay on the bed, behind a painted screen. Josseran
was shocked at his appearance. He was deathly pale, and there were plum-coloured bruises around his eyes. The flesh had wasted off him. He had been coughing up blood; there was a froth of pink spume at the corners of his mouth.

His three wives were gathered around the bed, keening.

Josseran knew the smell of death; he had encountered it many times before. But he found the wailing of the women unnerving and he had the soldiers usher them from the room.

He looked at William, remembering how he had spent the last weeks in prayer outside Mar Salah’s church, inviting the vengeance of the Lord God. He shuddered, feeling the prickling of the small hairs at the back of his neck.
Surely not.

Mar Salah raised his head from the pillow and raised a clawed finger to indicate that Josseran should come closer. When he spoke, his voice was no more than a whisper.

‘He asks what you have done to him,’ Josseran said to William.

William’s lips were pressed together in a thin line of contempt. ‘Tell him I have done nothing. It is God’s judgement on him, not mine.’

‘He thinks you have cast a spell.’

William threw back the black hood and placed about his shoulders the purple stole he had brought with him from the palace. In his other hand he clutched his Bible. ‘Tell him I shall hear his confession if he wishes it. Or else he will burn in hellfire.’

Mar Salah shook his head.

‘He says he does not believe in the confession,’ Josseran said. ‘He claims that there is no mention of it in the sutras of the Gospels.’

‘Tell him that he is going to hell for all eternity unless he makes a full confession to me now.’

Mar Salah looked defeated and very afraid. Josseran told him what William had said.

‘He is frightened and says he will do it. But you will have to instruct him.’

‘Very well,’ William said. ‘But I shall do this only on the condition that before he dies he summons all his priests to this room and before them recognizes the Pope as the father of all Christians everywhere in the world and agrees to pass the leadership of his church to the authority of the supreme Pontiff in Rome.’

Josseran could not believe his ears. ‘You would blackmail a dying man?’

‘Is it blackmail to unite our Blessed Church as God intended? Tell him what I say.’

Josseran hesitated, and then bent over the dying priest. His breath was rank. ‘Mar Salah, Brother William says that before he can give you absolution, you must pass authority of your church over to our blessed Pope in Rome.’

‘. . . never.’

‘He insists.’

‘No,’ Mar Salah croaked.

Josseran turned to William and shook his head. The prospect of dying unshriven was something every Christian feared. He thought of his own sins and wondered again if his resolution to condemn himself to this same fate would falter at his last moments. ‘Do you have no pity?’ he said to William.

‘None, for sinners.’

‘He still says he will not do it.’

‘Remind him again of the torments of hell. The hot brands applied endlessly to his naked flesh, the pitchforks thrust again and again into his belly, the whips with their metal tips.
Tell him
.’

Josseran shook his head. ‘No.’

‘You will not defy me in this! The future of the Holy Church here in Cathay is at stake!’

‘I will not torture a dying man. That, as you have made abundantly clear, is the Devil’s work, and I want none of it.’ And over William’s outraged protests, he strode from the room.

An hour before dawn, just as the cries of the monks with their alms bowls were heard in the street below, Mar Salah gave up his ghost, and went to the Devil and his exquisite banquet of tortures.

T
HE SOLDIERS OF
the
kesig
stood guard while the Emperor strode to the water’s edge, a fur of leopard skin around his shoulders against the dawn chill. Phags-pa lama was with him. Mist clung to the lake. In the distance a range of black mountains, dark and treeless, folded upon each other like silks on a bed.

Josseran appeared, escorted by Sartaq and one of his troopers. He knelt and bowed his head, awaiting the Emperor’s wishes.

‘The Metropolitan of Shang-tu is dead,’ Khubilai said.