As they had covered the miles, and entered regions with new dialects, Sebastianus had realized he would have to devise a system of communication, for he would never find a man who spoke both Chinese and Latin. And so they had picked up two translators along the way, happy to come along for the adventure and act as communication intermediaries: the first, speaking Latin and Persian, the second speaking only Persian and Kashmiri. A week ago, they had taken on a third man who spoke Kashmiri and Chinese. A long chain of dialogue to be sure, and one open for error, but Sebastianus knew that until he learned to speak Chinese, he would need to rely on these middlemen.
The fortune-teller lifted a deeply lined, weathered face to Timonides and said, "Your life ends with the mulberry worm."
Sebastianus saw the look of skepticism on the old astrologer's face. It made Sebastianus smile. Despite his absolute faith in the stars and their infallible predictions, Timonides was like any other man, he had a weakness for seers and their promises.
As Sebastianus returned to his map, he reached for his mug of watered wine and a strange whistle filled the night air. In the next moment, he felt a breath of wind rush past his head. He looked up in time to see the second and third arrows fly into the camp. One of Timonides's companions cried out and clutched his arm.
And then suddenly men were jumping up and shouting as a hail of arrows came down on them. As women and children dashed inside tents, men reached for swords and daggers, ducking behind boulders and shrubs, trying to see where the volley was coming from.
Inhuman shrieks pierced the night as dark shapes appeared from out of nowhere, jumping down the mountain slopes, materializing out of ravines, great formidable men wielding massive swords and axes. They bore down on the camp with a frenzy of speed and unearthly screams, swinging their weapons this way and that, bashing anything that was in their way.
Sebastianus was on his feet and racing toward them, his own sword clasped between his hands. Behind him, Primo and his trained men threw off their merchants' cloaks to charge at the invaders with clubs and spears, no longer the merry drunks they had appeared to be moments before, as no wine had passed their lips, for that was part of their ruse. Now the attackers saw the "merchants" for what they truly were, fighting men in Roman military costume, muscular, powerful, engaging the brigands with a ferocity that took them by surprise.
Almost as quickly as they had charged into the camp the brigands fell back, as so many had before them during the caravan's eastward progress, lawless mountain men seeing the fat and lazy members of a rich caravan and tasting the victory and spoils of so easy a prey. But now they were on the run, finding themselves outnumbered and outmatched by foreigners who had staged a deception. Primo and his men yelled with glee as, once again, they drove raiders from their camp.
When Sebastianus heard a strange sound fill the night, he turned and frowned. When it sounded a second time, and he recognized the unmistakable ringing of a gong, he shouted, "Wait!"
Primo and his men stopped and turned, a puzzled look on their faces. They had the brigands within reach. They could teach the outlaws a lesson, as they had previous others. But before Primo could protest, his eyes widened at an astonishing sight approaching from the mountain's eastern road.
Accompanied by swaying lanterns, an elegant carrying chair of red and gold, borne on the shoulders of twenty porters, led a procession of another twenty men, all costumed in red and gold silk with black silk caps on their heads. Two men carried an enormous brass gong between them, and bringing up the rear were pack animals laden with goods.
Sebastianus knew what this was. He had suspected that, when word of the caravan from the west reached Luoyang, the Chinese emperor might dispatch an envoy to meet the strangers. He watched as the remarkable procession came to a halt and the red and gold chair was lowered with great ceremony to the ground. As the night wind blew, causing torches to flicker and pennants to snap, the visitors from Rome watched as an extraordinary man stepped to a cushion set before him on the ground.
Tall and gaunt with a yellowish cast to his skin, he wore black silk shoes over white socks, which peeped out from beneath the hem of a lavish robe made of red silk breathtakingly embroidered with dragons and birds. The robe was wrapped around the man's slender body and secured with a wide red sash. A wispy white beard lay upon his chest, above which a long thin moustache cascaded down below the chin. His face was thin and bony with high cheekbones, his eyes almond-shaped and slanting beneath thin white eyebrows. Upon his head, a wide-brimmed hat of stiff black silk, under which long white hair had been brushed up and tucked.
He came silently forward, his hands clasped together in the voluminous sleeves of his robe. Dark, shining eyes scanned the strangers, one at a time, as if trying to determine who was the leader of the group. Finally he said, "Are you the travelers from Li-chien?" The translation was passed along from Chinese to Kashmiri to Persian to Latin.
Sebastianus knew that Li-chien was China's name for the Roman Empire, which no Chinese had ever visited but of which they had heard in mythical tales. "I am," he replied.
The man bowed. "Noble Heron, lowly and unworthy servant of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of the Great Han Dynasty, Son of Heaven, Lord of Ten Thousand Years. I humbly invite you and your companions to visit the house of My Lord, who is interested to meet travelers from so far away."
Sebastianus had learned along the route that, two years prior, Emperor Guangwu had died and Crown Prince Zhuang had ascended the throne as Emperor Ming. "Are you here to escort us to Emperor Ming?"
Noble Heron nodded with a slight tremor of his eyebrows. "It is my humble honor to enlighten My Lord's illustrious guests on court etiquette and protocol, for how are you to know when you have never been here? It is taboo to speak the emperor's name, or the name of any royal or exalted person. You may call me Noble Heron because I am but a lowly servant at the imperial court. The emperor can be addressed in many ways, which I will teach to you."
Sebastianus saw that the man was struggling with his impulse to stare at the strangers. He wondered if what the Chinese had heard of Romans was as outlandish as what the Romans had heard of the Chinese. When Noble Heron brought out a hand to gesture in the direction of Luoyang, it was Sebastianus's turn to stare. The Chinese official's fingernails were so long they grew in curls, and each was tipped with a protective gold cap.
"My esteemed friend," Sebastianus said through the interpreters, "you would do us a great honor by sharing our camp, and while you accept our hospitality, I will explain to you as best I can our customs, which must seem strange to you."
As Noble Heron graciously accepted, and retreated while his servants prepared his tent, Primo came up to Sebastianus and said quietly, "I do not trust that man."
Sebastianus turned to him. "Go on."
"There was something strange about the attack. For weeks now we have not been troubled by local brigands, not since we entered the sphere of Chinese military influence. All the tribes and settlements we encountered were vassals of the emperor. So how is it that these brigands should attack so close to the capital city? How could they not have seen this fellow and his enormous retinue coming up the road, clearly an envoy from the imperial court?"