A bronze libation vessel was brought forth; three-footed and of great antiquity, it was filled with precious wine and placed before His Imperial Majesty. With the utmost dignity, he raised it and drank, first to the heavens, then to the august earth, and finally, to the ancestors – and it was time.
At a discreet signal, a small pure-white goat was led out, bleating piteously in its anxiety. The creature was pinioned in front of the Emperor. A reverent hush descended on the crowd as the sacrificial knife – jade, with an obsidian blade – was presented to him. He raised it high, chanting sacred words known only to gods and emperors, and in the expectant quiet brought it down.
But the sacrifice was fumbled by the old emperor.
The kid screamed and kicked. In place of a clean slice across the throat the wound tailed off on one side. Spurting blood splattered those nearby as the animal, frantic with pain, went berserk. Unnerved, the Emperor stabbed and slashed until the creature finally gave up its life.
When it was over the Emperor stood before his people, bloodstained and hesitant. Trembling, he was unable to take the ancestral Book of Wei in his hands. The Grand Chamberlain held it for him, expressionless, while he feebly pronounced the sacred words.
The omens could not have been more dolorous. The Emperor mounted his chariot and moved off, a diminished figure. Down the torchlit way there was no doubt of what had passed: instead of the full-throated roar of acclamation due an emperor – Wan siu! Wan siu! Wan wan siu! Live ten thousand times ten thousand years! – there were only thin and fitful cries. The act of intercession and reassurance had failed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The captain announced that they would raise Taprobane in a day or so, save no monsters of the deep should appear in the meantime.
‘We’re never going to get away, not with those two around our necks,’ Nicander said bitterly. ‘And Taprobane – what in Hades is it like? Do they speak half-decent Greek? Or Latin? If we make a run for it, how do we survive without means – let alone get back to any kind of civilisation!’
‘You want me to tell you?’ Marius said.
‘You’re not saying we should give up, turn ourselves in?’
‘No, sort it out now. They’ve got their orders. Get the seeds at all costs, then get rid of us.’
‘You mean…?’
‘After they find out it’s all a fast one, their only chance of clearing themselves before Justinian is to scruff us and make sure we front up to him to explain ourselves. Nothing else will save ’em. This is all to say that either way, in Taprobane we’re finished.’
‘But-’
‘No. That’s it – we’re gone. Unless we solve everything in one hit – even to lay our hands on the gold.’
‘I know what you’re going to say, Marius, and-’
‘We get in first. Knock ’em on the head and our problems fly away.’
Nicander’s world shrank to a single focus. He was being asked to kill. When a human life flickered to its end under his hands, could he coldly just move on?
His rational self told him there were times when there was no other recourse – on the battlefield, defending oneself – but could he be like Marius, who he’d seen with his own eyes arrive at the decision to kill a child and then act on it? It had undoubtedly saved them all from the Ostrogoths but he feared he could never bring himself to do it.
‘Marius, I’m not sure I could do it. Kill someone, I mean.’
‘Barehanded? Yes, it can be tough for anyone not used to it.’
He edged toward the bulwark and furtively used his chlamys to shield a crude seaman’s knife, its haft bound in worn rope but with a stout blade and wickedly sharp.
‘Take it. Go for the throat and make it a good ’un.’
‘Marius-’
‘Don’t worry about me, I’ve got a hatchet.’
‘You… you don’t understand,’ Nicander said piteously. ‘It’s that… you have to believe me, I can’t go up to someone and… and… just kill them!’
‘Do it right, they won’t feel a thing.’
‘No! I can’t…’
‘What do you mean, you can’t do it?’
‘The knife, the… the blood… kill them, that is.’
‘You might not like it, but there’s times when you have to, Nico!’
‘I – I know, Marius. But… but I really can’t,’ he ended miserably.
Marius breathed heavily. ‘If you don’t do your bit, where are we going to be? I can’t take both of ’em at the same time.’
Nicander said nothing, his eyes pleading, but he took the knife.
‘Look, we do it after the captain and watch turn in about midnight. Gives us time to heave the bodies in the sea after. And if you’re worried about being caught, don’t be. We’re holy men, we’d never do a thing like that,’ he added. ‘Get some kip while you can. I say it has to be tonight, we haven’t time else.’
Sleep would not come for Nicander. Brutal scenes of murder and death preyed on his imagination.
At last the captain did his final turn around the decks and disappeared. In the enveloping blackness of night the vessel settled into a creaking peacefulness.
A single lookout took his position right aft. He was staring away over the stern lost in thought – they had the ship virtually to themselves.
Marius whispered hoarsely, ‘Now’s the time! Are you ready?’
Nicander felt for the knife in rising panic.
‘Good. Let’s go, Nico.’
He started silently forward but Nicander was frozen to the deck.
‘Come on,’ Marius snarled, gesturing savagely. ‘We’ve not got long!’
Nicander couldn’t move.
‘Right! You’re leaving it all to me, you scumbag! Well, I know what has to be done and I’m going to do it. I’ll take both of ’em on, be buggered to you, Greek!’
In a chaos of emotion Nicander’s feet released themselves and he followed, his hand shaking so much he nearly dropped the knife.
The sharp bow came together at the prow and the compulsors had set up their ‘home’ there in the cool. The rest of the crew were under cover further in, taking advantage of the fatter turn of hull to sleep across-ways.
A sudden snort made Marius drop to his knee but it was only an unknown snorer.
He inched on to where the foredeck fell away to the open prow, looked back once at Nicander then eased forward the last few inches. He lifted his head up to peer over and down but quickly turned and gestured savagely that they should return to their sleeping place.
‘Those fucking bastards! We haven’t a chance – they’ve rumbled us!’
It took some time for the torrent of swearing and cursing to subside. Either suspecting them or from instinct born of their trade, the compulsors had given up their prime position in the bows and were now sleeping with the rest of the crew.
In the morning a drifting palm-tree was sighted.
‘Ah. Tomorrow, maybe the next – we dock at Taprobane,’ the Arab captain told them.
‘Think of something!’ Marius whispered savagely. ‘Full on, we haven’t a prayer against ’em with their weapons and soldier mates.’
‘I… I can’t.’
‘Then…’
A coldness settled in the pit of his stomach. The fates had thwarted their every move, destroyed each cunning plan.
They had run out of ideas.
As the day progressed, the seas lost their energetic tumbling, and a long, slow swell came, a deep and languorous motion spreading ever on to the distant haze of the horizon.
The vessel slowed and the captain frowned in vexation. Two hours later vapour began rising from the sea and the distant haze grew more marked. The band of white swelled, reached out and the coolness of a tropic mist wreathed around them.
It thickened. Nicander watched as the ship’s bow faded and their world contracted to barely a dozen feet about them, the passage of ship through the water now not much more than a muted chuckle.
It only delayed the inevitable, of course. The fog would burn off, the winds return and in hours they would meet their fate.