His horse walked on meekly, an occasional shake of its head and muffled whinny its only protest. Behind, their camel dutifully plodded in their wake.
One morning some weeks later, Marius spotted new mountains ahead, others to the left and then, unexpectedly, a wide river.
Swirling yellow-brown with silt, it was fast-moving – the Yellow River once more. Further along was the substantial town of Lan Chou.
The settlement had high, well-defended walls and was a frontier between the fertile plains they had been crossing and the route out into the borderlands. On the way to the caravanserai there were strange peoples with weather-darkened faces, market smells that were pungent but unknown and everywhere a restlessness, a feeling of transience.
They did not stay long. Su got them on the road as soon as he could, swearing that he would lose half his crew if they were any longer in such a town.
Not far upstream they arrived at a crossing point, under vertically fluted crags between two opposite flat areas. There were dozens of rafts manned by scores of small, muscle-hard peasants who jockeyed noisily for position, some joining several craft together to form larger rafts.
The rafts were supported by inflated sheepskins and had to be energetically paddled across against the swift-moving current.
The operation took some time; camels imperturbably standing until their turn came, precious cargoes given particular care and passengers marshalled in apprehensive groups.
Halfway across the river Nicander was fascinated to see figures in the cliff opposite – colossal carved statues ninety feet high. He hoped the Buddhas would look kindly upon their journey…
Their crossing complete, the mountains closed in: to the right a range of undistinguished crags with bands of red-brown, to the left a mighty rearing that had the far-off glitter of white snowcaps.
Slowly but steadily the camel train began an ascent on a stony track through the first pass. They were following a caravan route as ancient as time, out of China and into the trackless deserts and fearful wastes of the interior.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Nicander gazed out on a flatness so vast it was limitless. A deadness – where nothing lived, the eternal grey-brown dust and sand with occasional clumps and tufts of desiccated vegetation stretching out in ever-tinier detail until it dissolved into nothingness at the horizon where the desert met the hard blue sky.
And with it a silence descended that was so profound that his ears filled the void with a soundless screaming.
For weeks – and countless miles – they had travelled in company with a solid, reassuringly visible work of man – the Great Wall of China. The wall came to an end in a tall open structure with upturned eaves above a massive portal, the Jade Gate. The act of passing through this was the formal leaving of the Middle Kingdom, China.
After this point they were entirely on their own.
Near overwhelmed with the sense of desolation and loneliness he trudged back to the safety and familiarity of the caravan in time to farewell Wu Kuo Chin, the young officer, who took his leave with a wooden face.
‘A great honour for him,’ Nicander murmured to Korkut.
‘Ha! He’s going to a living death, and he knows it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s to command a band of criminals, slaves and broken-down misfits sent here for punishment. They have to man those watchtowers and shift for themselves, there’s nobody cares what happens to them. No glory to be won here, only sudden raids by brigands and those bastard Hsien Pei Mongols.’
‘The Great Wall, how long has it been here?’
‘Why, this part… from the time of Western Han. Five, six hundred years.’
Nicander shook his head at the thought that it had been manned continuously for centuries even before Julius Caesar had seized power in old Rome.
Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Marius, and gave a hail.
His friend waved, his clothes, like Nicander’s own, were now dust-stained and worn. ‘Just heard. We’ve been called up before Su. Wants to talk about what we’re going to face or something.’
It wasn’t a large, formal meeting. The camel-drivers and passage crew were busy at their preparations and knew what was expected but Su was taking no chances with the travellers.
He stood at the centre of a loose circle: Korkut, his lively wife, the monks in a group, others, some thirty in all – and the Ice Queen.
She had compromised her courtly appearance and was now dressed in a plainer robe with less ornately styled hair. Her expression, however, was the same – a patrician stare above the common herd, a controlled blankness.
Su’s bluff features had a serious cast. ‘You’re seeing me because I want you to hear me tell you what’s ahead. To leave you in no doubt what you have to do if it starts getting rough.
‘The first thing for you to know is that I’m in command of this caravan and therefore responsible for it. That means you do exactly what I say. Understood?’
He looked from one to the other. ‘Very well. The second is just as important. Never leave the caravan. We carry only so much water, camel feed and so on and that means the caravan never stops. Not even to look for anyone who’s missing, wandered off somewhere. We never go back!’
Checking to see he still had their full attention he went on, ‘Up to now we’ve more often than not stayed at a comfortable caravanserai. That’s all over. We’re going on our own resources by day-stages as fast as we can across the plains between oasis stops, where we rest and take on fresh victuals and water. There’s no roads, no paths – if you ramble off you’ll never find your way back, you’ll leave your bones as a warning to others.’
He continued. ‘Water. More precious than gold – you have your own gourds during the day which you’ll only be able to refill from our skins at the end of the day. Never more than three sips at a go, relish it before you swallow.’
‘What about attacks by raiders, barbarians?’ one of the monks wanted to know.
‘We’re a good-sized caravan but with an escort to match. No band of raiders is likely to trouble us, but they might if they’re desperate. If it happens, we’ll have the camels form a circle and get down, you stay behind them while our archers and cavalry deal with ’em. Don’t stray or run, stay until we give the word.’
Su continued. ‘So where are we going? This is the start of the southern caravan route. The first stop is Dunhuang, then we’ll be keeping close to the mountains all the way to Khotan. It won’t be pleasant but believe me it’s better than the northern route across the desert!’
‘What will it be like for us?’
‘Going’s good, if that’s what you mean. Plenty of water from snowmelt off the Kunluns but pretty bare else. Sooner we get through the better.’
One of his crew signalled to him.
‘We’re ready to move out. Remember what I’ve just said. The season’s advanced but we’re on time. Should have a good run.’
His confidence was reassuring and they mounted up quickly.
Soon the camel train was moving out, every pace setting more distance from civilisation, the world of men and order – deeper into an arid wasteland. A few heads turned back to catch a last glimpse of the Jade Gate, now a forlorn outpost in a sea of desert.
The sun reached its zenith and they plodded on. It began to descend but before the usual violet dusk of the desert stole in, Su had found his place for the night; a twist of sand and rock that had given shelter for a line of grey-green camel thorn and a flat area to settle.
A fire was quickly started and the well-practised routines of preparing for the night were begun. In respect for the cold of the desert nights Nicander and Marius had now accepted a tent.
This evening seemed in some way different. Was it the certain knowledge that they were utterly alone at the empty heart of the universe? That they would meet no others until they reached the next oasis?