The Silk Tree Page 3

  Nicander watched as the light-blue misty coastline ahead firmed into darker blue.

  It was a changed world now, one where Rome was diminished to a carcass for the plucking, finished as a country, let alone a world power. He had no real feelings for it any more; he’d lost his business and nearly his life because of their pathetic living in the past. They still maintained the pretence of glory with a senate and consul and all the flummery of an imperial history while letting their institutions decline and rot.

  It was different for Marius. Brought up as a true Roman he was staunch in his loyalty and protected against reality by the traditions and ceremony of the legion. And secure among his comrades, he’d been blind to the inevitable. It must have been a cruel awakening to have been broken in battle and see all he held dear and honourable crushed under a barbarian horde.

  How would he take to the other, more oriental Roman Empire? Nicander had dealt with quite a few merchants from these parts; clever, metropolitan and sly. They had done well under Emperor Justinian, who had transformed the climate for trading with his laws and firm rule, preserving a bastion of civilisation in the face of the human torrent that was flooding in from the vastness of Asia.

  And would he himself prosper or fade? With so little capital and no friends …

  The land ahead took on colour and detail. Constantinople was beginning to emerge to the left, occupying the end of the peninsula across his vision. On the right was Chalcedon, which lay in Asia. Between the two cities was the Bosphorus Strait, leading through the mountains all the way to the Euxine Sea.

  Nearer, a massive sea wall ran right along the foreshore, vanishing into the mists to the left. Above it were houses and larger edifices, glittering white in the morning sunshine. The wafting air brought the scent of land.

  The ship’s twin rudders were put over as their course was laid to round the peninsula, and as they closed with the shore new sights came into view. A tower, a lighthouse – domes, tall buildings – and a great palace. And there next to it, unmistakeable, was the marvel of the Church of Sancta Sapientia – or Hagia Sophia as he knew it, a breathtaking vision in marble.

  Close by it were the stern porticoes of some kind of senate building, looking as if it had been magically transported from Rome, and further round the end of the peninsula, gardens and olive groves, meadows and valleys.

  They did not continue on up the Bosphorus but followed the headland around. A noble acropolis stood high on the wooded promontory.

  On the left, a long and narrow waterway opened up, bustling with small craft – the Golden Horn, the legendary end point and focus for so much exotic trading.

  Sail was shortened, lines thrown ashore and the ship worked alongside the stone wharf. The high-class passengers were escorted off first, then Nicander and Marius joined the flood of others down the gangway and found themselves on the blessed solidity of the land.

  ‘So. Where do we …?’ Nicander began but tailed off when he saw the outstretched hand.

  ‘It’s farewell, then, Greek. I wish you well.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Join up, o’ course! Legionary like me, good to be under the eagle banner again.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  The sound of the fretful infant’s crying set Nicander’s teeth on edge. The Sarmatian woman had no time to care for a child – she had her hands full running the tabernaria, the street eatery beneath his room. He’d rented the little place from her crude Thracian husband and daren’t risk losing it by complaining, not with the way things were at present.

  The whining continued on and on and Nicander saw red. He jumped up and decided to go to his small lock-up and check if the shipment had arrived. Anything to get away from this racket.

  Snatching his chlamys he swirled it on, hoping the dash of colour at its hem and polished bronze brooch at the shoulder would conceal the shabby tunic underneath. He clattered down the wooden stairs, flashing a glassy smile at the woman pouring something from an amphora into a giant pithos set in the floor. A stomach-churning reek of rancid oil and stale fish billowed out from the array of hobs at the back of the tabernaria.

  Outside there was little relief from the fetid closeness. He stepped off briskly.

  In this capital city of Empire, despair marched side by side with monument and splendour. From his tenement in the fringe area it was only a couple of streets and he was at the Artopoleia with its bustling commerce, and then the four columns of the tetrapylon marking the end of urban Constantinople.

  A diseased beggar on his knees clutched at Nicander. Irritably, he kicked him aside; most were frauds and made a tidy living out of their condition. There were church sisterhoods and others who found their salvation by ministering to the poor – why should he be singled out?

  It had been a serious blow finding that his line of business was closed to him. There was a guild of incense traders licensed by the state and they were not interested in making things easy for an outsider. And without serious capital there was no prospect of setting up in competition with them. He’d had to look for some other entry-level venture, for no one was going to extend credit to yet another exile.

  He was approaching the edge of town, broken up with vegetable plots and artisan workshops. He hurried; all he’d been able to secure was an agreement to provide pomegranates to a monastery and if his Syrian supplier let him down again he stood to lose it.

  At the converted stable he eased open the door of his lock-up and saw it was quite empty. The old watchman he had hired to act as storekeeper was lying on sacking in a corner, snoring heavily.

  ‘Get up, pig!’ Nicander shouted.

  The man rolled over but didn’t awake.

  ‘Stir yourself,’ he bellowed, landing a kick.

  ‘Wharr?’

  Nicander caught the stench of cheap wine, he’d get nothing out of him. There’d been no delivery and he left with only the satisfaction of slamming the door with an almighty crash.

  He started back, trudging on in a black mood.

  Ahead was a building site – yet another villa or church in construction – and he winced at the noise, hurrying past the busy scene. At the roadway groups of men lay sprawled on the ground, waiting to be taken on as labourers by the hour.

  He noticed one in a dusty tunic, unusually with a cowl concealing his face. Suddenly he got up and made for him.

  Alarmed, Nicander braced himself.

  The man flicked back the cowl. ‘Ah, Mr Nicander, good to see you!’

  ‘Marius?’

  The proud legionary was kneading his hands, not catching his eye. ‘Do I see you in good health, sir?’

  ‘Quite well, thank you,’ Nicander replied cautiously. ‘And yourself? How’s the army treating you?’

  ‘I’m not with ’em any more,’ Marius said stiffly, then added, ‘You – you’re now in the way of business as a merchant, as you said you would?’

  ‘Fruit from Syria and so on. I’ve just come from my warehouse, checking on deliveries. I’ve a contract with the ecclesiasticals which sets fair to lead to big things if fortune allows.’

  ‘So you’re doing well, Mr Nicander.’

  ‘So-so. I’m rather busy, what with all this business to attend to, so I’ll have to bid you good day, old chap, and be on my way.’

  A hand shot out and clamped on his arm.

  Nicander glared until it fell away.

  ‘Look, I’m no good at begging. Don’t make me do it, friend.’ Marius’s eyes hardened, then he looked down. ‘It’s like this. I fell out with that mongrel army, took a run. Thought to set up as a bootmaker but the toad who rented me a shop found my silver loot and thiefed it, threatened to turn me in.’

  He came closer, his voice a whisper as though fearing someone might overhear. ‘So, well, I thought as how you might have a place for me in your company. Anything – anything at all! I don’t fear to get my hands dirty, and if you’d give me charge o’ your slaves I’d sweat ’em!’

  ‘Wel
l …’

  ‘Or even lumping. I’m good and strong still …’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Look, I’m desperate, Mr Nicander. Huck out your drains, swab down your warehouse, polish your pots …’

  Recalling how the legionary had toyed with him when he’d come aboard the ship in Brundisium he couldn’t help replying, ‘Why is Marius desperate, I’m thinking? Is it because no one will take him on? Then, should I?’

  ‘You’re making me beg. You gave your word not to.’

  ‘I made no such promise!’

  ‘Then … then you want me to beg, damn it.’

  ‘Well, I—’

  ‘On my knees? Kiss your sandals?’ Marius continued in a savage growl.

  He scruffed Nicander’s chlamys, lifting him off his feet. ‘I’ve never begged to any man in my life and I’m not starting with you!’

  Nicander tried to say something but the big legionary drew him close to his face. ‘You lot just don’t know what it is to be right out o’ luck, not a coin, not a future, no pride and all no fault of your own, do you?’

  He let go. ‘I’d have thought you a better sort, but then I’m no hand at judging men. Sorry.’

  ‘It was of no account,’ Nicander said, shaken.

  Marius gave a mock bow. ‘Well, sir will be wanting to get about his business. I won’t detain sir any longer.’

  ‘Wait – when I said that the business was doing fine, I didn’t really mean that well. In fact, not so prosperous that … and to tell the truth, not so brisk at all that I can think to hire any man.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Tell me, Marius, have you somewhere to stay at all?’

  ‘None of your business, Greek.’

  ‘It’s just that … I’ve a small place near the Artopoleia. If you’re embarrassed for accommodation at the moment perhaps …’ He’d come to know the man on the voyage out and had developed an odd regard for his character. And even though they were so different, they were facing the same fate … to have someone to talk with, share the wretchedness …

  ‘I couldn’t pay my way in a fine mansion like yours,’ Marius responded. But there was a knowing look in his eyes.

  ‘On a temporary basis, of course, I can see my way to suspending any fee incurred.’

  ‘We could share meals, it’ll be less for both.’

  ‘As it happens, there’s a tabernaria close by which I know well.’

  ‘Hah! So there’s something in it for you then, Greek?’

  He sighed. ‘Call me Nico, then, if you must.’

  Nicander could swear that the child had not left off whining the whole time he’d been away, only pausing to watch the big man in a cowl go up the stairs with him.

  As they entered the room, Marius said, ‘It’s decent of you, Nico. Letting me stay and that.’ He looked around at the humble furniture. ‘I’ll doss down there,’ he said, pointing to the ragged carpet against the opposite wall to the bed. There was no hint of sarcasm Nicander could detect.

  The child’s fitful crying broke out again.

  In a voice that had been heard above the din of a battlefield, Marius bellowed down, ‘Shut it, or I’ll come and tear off your poxy head!’

  The sound stopped as if cut off with a knife.

  Nicander fought down a rising warmth. ‘You’ve had a tough time of it, then.’

  ‘Been kipping on the steps of St Demetrius. Hard as a whore’s heart and noisy with it, they at their business all night. Look, if you’ve a bit o’ bread, I’d take it kindly …’

  Nothing less than a fish soup and a jug of rough watered African wine could meet Nicander’s feeling that he was no longer alone.

  Marius lifted his cup. ‘Here’s to rare times,’ he grunted and drank heavily.

  When he finished he fixed Nicander with a shrewd look. ‘Business not so good, then.’

  ‘Oh, fair, a slow start I’d have to say.’

  ‘So it’s bad.’

  The elated spirits fled under a tide of depression. His head hung in despair.

  ‘Not your fault, mate,’ the legionary rumbled. ‘The world being so fucked up.’

  The evening was drawing in, shadows deepening in the dingy room. Nicander found the oil lamp and brought flame to it.

  They both stared pensively into space until Marius broke the silence. ‘Seems to me a right shame.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Well, you and me. Now we understand each other, a pity we can’t work something out. Team up, come together on some venture.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I don’t know! Get in the ferry business? I can pull an oar better than the pathetic weasels I’ve seen.’

  ‘Capital.’

  ‘What’s that you said?’

  ‘We’ve no coin. That’s the rub,’ Nicander said bitterly. ‘No capital, no investment; no business, no profit.’

  Marius glowered.

  ‘I’d willingly join you if I could think of a venture not requiring capital, I really would.’

  ‘Well, what are you doing with yourself now? You said something about fruit.’

  Nicander sighed and explained what faced him in the fruit supply business. ‘Without the pomegranate shipment I’m finished anyway,’ he concluded.

  Marius gave a tight smile. ‘Ah, now that’s something that can be left to me. Tell me about this Syrian.’

  Next day, as if by magic, the pomegranates had arrived. Disbelieving, Nicander set about arranging delivery.

  ‘He’s sorry for the inconvenience and will do better next time,’ Marius said with a wicked smirk. ‘What now?’

  Then it was the oranges. A private arrangement with a ship’s master to regularise. Again there was no trouble, once the legionary had seen to it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘How’s our capital, now, Nico?’ Marius asked as the coins were carefully counted.

  ‘Improving.’

  ‘Can we—’

  ‘No. Capital is blood – we don’t shed it unless we have to. It’s our way out of this stinking hole, but we need to build up more.’

  ‘Damn it all, when will that be?’

  ‘At this rate … perhaps a year or so, then—’

  ‘I don’t want to wait that fucking long!’

  ‘This is what we have to do, Marius.’

  ‘Take a chance on it, man! Where’s your courage?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I say, yes!’

  Nicander’s face tightened. ‘You’re entitled to half the assets, Marius. Do you want them now? Shall I put them in a bag?’

  ‘A plague on your money-grubbing ways, Greek.’

  ‘Patience is the hardest lesson in business.’

  ‘A pox on that, too.’

  Rage suddenly clamped in. ‘You stupid bastard, Marius! Can’t you see? Do you think I want it to be like this? Let me tell you, not so long back you’d see me running my own incense business, seventy men taking my wages, a turnover of a hundred thousand solidi, a reputation in the city. Can you just try to think how it feels for me to be grubbing about in oranges and pomegranates at the beck and call of any pig with an obol or two? Can you?’

  Marius’s face went dull red. Then with a crash, his fist slammed down.

  ‘Now you listen to me, you … you poor pissed-upon bastard! How do you think I’m taking it? A first-class Roman legionary, service in Syria and Dalmatia, there’s enemy bones out there because I’m good with a blade – now all I’m told to do is put the frights on some witless idiot on a barrow stall!’

  He heaved a deep breath.

  Both men slumped back in their chairs.

  After a space Nicander said, ‘Look, I do appreciate what you’re doing. It’s hard on both of us …’

  He picked up his accounts and opened the ledger. ‘This Nabatean Grotius,’ he said wearily, ‘I advanced him an amount to cover his lemon shipment and now he’s crying poverty and won’t return it. If you
could go and persuade him to his obligation … or it’ll leave me embarrassed in the matter of the currants deal.’

  Marius flung open the door. ‘M’friend, m’ friend!’

  He rubbed his hands in delight as he sank into a chair with a wide grin.

  ‘You have the coin, then?’ Nicander asked, surprised as the legionary had only been away an hour or so.

  ‘Better’n that, Greek!’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Grotius. He begs to be released of his arrears.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘I said we’d agree to it.’

  Lost for words, Nicander blinked in confusion.

  Marius continued enthusiastically, ‘In view o’ what he had to say.’

  ‘Which was, might I ask?’

  ‘Ha! What you didn’t know is that the fat toad is in with the Blues faction in a big way.’

  ‘And what’s that got to do with us?’

  The brutal Roman circus of gladiators and Christian sacrifice had long since been overtaken in Byzantine popular entertainment by other offerings; now it was wild animal baiting and, above all, chariot racing between the Blues and Greens factions.

  Marius retorted triumphantly, ‘In two days there’s a fix, and Grotius is on the inside!’

  ‘So?’

  ‘He says it’s certain, as only he’s in the know and he trusts we’ll look kindly on his position while we collect our winnings.’

  ‘Do I hear you – you’re saying we should risk our precious capital – on a bet?’

  ‘Right enough. I can tell you on the quiet, he’s staking his wife and two daughters to slavery on it.’

  ‘No reason for us to be demented as well! Now look, Marius, betting is the business of fools. Can’t you see he’s throwing out an excuse so you leave him alone?’

  ‘This is our chance to make a hill o’ cash! Greens have had a good run with Priscus, their crack driver, they’re calling odds of sevens at least on a Blues win. We put—’