"I am an ambassador, Your Majesty, the personal agent of my sovereign. My caravan brings gifts to the people of China. I also bring greetings from my emperor, who extends a hand of friendship to the esteemed ruler of this great land. Further, I have come on my own quest, Your Majesty, and that is to seek the wisdom of your philosophers and learned men. I offer not only an exchange of cultural goods but of ideas and knowledge."
The emperor smiled, and seemed to relax a little. "It is a welcome and honorable exchange, Sebastianus Gallus. Tell us, where are your ancestors buried?"
"Far from here, in my home country."
"Who are your gods?"
"My faith rests in the stars, Your Majesty. It is my hope that the Lord of Ten Thousand Years will grant me the right to visit with his esteemed astrologers."
"Our Great Sage, whose name it is taboo to speak, taught us that learning is the highest ideal. It will be our honor to grant you your wishes, Sebastianus Gallus. And in return, you will honor us with knowledge of your country, which you call Rome."
The audience ended and the guests were escorted to another vast chamber lined with crimson columns. Here, low tables were set with platters and goblets, and Sebastianus and his companions waited patiently as much courtly protocol was followed while the royal pair, then the dowager, and then the courtiers took their places.
While musicians hidden behind a screen played zithers and flutes, drums and bells, gongs, chimes, and wooden clappers, creating delicate exotic melodies that made the men from Rome think of mythical lands, and dancing girls performed in long graceful robes with sleeves that fluttered like birds, the emperor and his guests feasted on baked owl and bamboo shoots, lotus roots, and panther's breast. Acrobats and jugglers performed as platters were brought out, each more fanciful than the last, and the rice wine flowed.
During a demonstration of a martial art called kungfu, Noble Heron was summoned to Emperor Ming's table, where he kowtowed three times before receiving a message, which he quickly brought back to Sebastianus. "The Lord of Ten Thousand Years will be honored to look at maps of your empire, honorable guest, with locations of cities and military camps."
"Please inform His Majesty that I am not able to provide such information, as I am not a military man."
Noble Heron returned to his sovereign, kowtowed again, delivered the reply and received another message and returned. And thus the exchange was conducted.
"My Lord says that as a trader, Honorable Gallus, you know rivers, borders, towns. He would be delighted to see these things, and their exact placement within your empire. My Lord will provide cartographers, artists, calligraphers, and all the paper and parchment you desire. He will place as many people at your command as you need, and as many months or years as you need. Your comfort is My Lord's greatest concern, as is your spiritual need. And so he will generously allow you to build a shrine to your ancestors here in Luoyang, for a man must honor his ancestors."
The three men from Rome digested this bit of news along with sweet glazed pork and curried rice, and they understood the deeper meaning of what the emperor had just said.
Sebastianus, Primo, Timonides, and Nestor were now prisoners of the Chinese empire.
31
THEY WERE CALLED "SOCIAL FLOWERS" and their sole purpose was to give sexual pleasure to the Emperor's guests.
Little Sparrow was one such young lady in the royal court at Luoyang, a beautiful daughter of nobility schooled in the erotic arts, such as the Twenty-Nine Positions From Heaven to Earth. She specialized in "sharing the peach" and "cutting the sleeve," and had kept the Emperor's guests satisfied with these exquisite arts since she was thirteen years old.
She was twenty now and had managed these past seven years to avoid breaking the number-one rule of Social Flowers—never to fall in love. Her sisters in the dormitory had warned her against it, and she had never thought it would happen. But as Little Sparrow lay in Heroic Tiger's arms, she thought she could happily listen to him talk all night.
It didn't matter that she didn't understand a word he said. She loved the sound of his voice, the rich timbre, the exotic syllables that tumbled from his lips, the utter foreign-ness of his speech. He always talked for a while after they took pleasure, filling the perfumed evening with words brought from far away, while she lay in his strong arms, wishing the night would never end.
They lay on a mattress filled with goose down, the sheets made of silk, while a blind slave kept the air moving with the constant sway of a magnificent feather fan. The lovers were otherwise alone in the bedchamber, but they could hear the voices and music of the royal household drift over the garden wall. Heroic Tiger spoke, she imagined, of his home far away in the west. And she silently thanked the gods for this bronze-haired man to whom she had given her heart.
The role of Social Flower was a respected and dignified one, and it was a great honor to live at the royal court and serve as a pleasure-girl for important visitors. Only the daughters of the most noble families were chosen. Selection was rigid: a girl's looks, comportment, health, and ability to please a man were judged. In the case of Little Sparrow, she possessed a delicate round face, a smooth unblemished complexion, a slim, willowy body, small hands and feet. Her family had rejoiced when she was selected out of a hundred candidates. The rules were complex, and each girl was rigorously schooled in modesty and discretion, proper decorum. Her guest's pleasure was her primary aim. What she herself felt was of no importance. Once a newly recruited girl was chosen, she was moved into a special dormitory overseen by eunuchs, where she lived out her life in luxury and ease, with no other thought than how to decorate her hair or improve the painting of her eyebrows. When she was called to pay a visit to a guest, she went for the time required, did not speak unless spoken to, and returned afterward to her cot in the dormitory.
Little Sparrow was not her real name. When the Chief Eunuch had introduced her to the esteemed guest from a place called Rome, the visitor could not pronounce her name, for it was long and meant "she who awaits a little brother," as her parents had hoped for a son. And so she had told the eunuch to give the westerner her "milk" name, given to babies in their first year of life, a temporary name, as many infants did not live long. Her parents had called her Little Sparrow and only the man from the west now called her that.
By the same token, she could not pronounce the foreigner's name— Sebastianus—and so she called him Heroic Tiger, for that was how he was in bed.
But it was not for his sexual prowess that she had fallen in love with him. Unlike former guests of the Emperor to whom she had given pleasure, Heroic Tiger treated her with kindness. He smiled at her, stroked her hair, asked her how she was feeling. To other men, esteemed ambassadors and princes who were given royal hospitality when they came to Luoyang, Little Sparrow had been a piece of furniture—something to relieve the weariness of travel and then set aside. So she had reached the age of twenty without having borne even a mild affection for any of the men she had pleasured.
And then, six months ago, she had been selected to be Heroic Tiger's bedmate, and in that time she had surrendered her heart to him. But she kept her love for this foreigner a secret. She told none of her friends, and did not bare her heart even to Heroic Tiger himself.