Sebastianus maintained composure as the silence lengthened. He could not read Ming's face, and wondered if he had gone too far. But then the young emperor turned to Empress Ma and they exchanged a murmured dialogue.
Finally the Lord of Ten Thousand Years turned to Sebastianus and, through the interpreters, said, "Our honorable guest has anticipated a decision we had already made, many weeks ago. It is our desire to learn more about the teachings of the one called Buddha. We wish to build a shrine to him, and to share those teachings with the citizens of China. It was our plan to send some of the Buddhist missionaries, whom you brought to Luoyang a year ago, back to their home in India so that they may gather books and statues of the Enlightened One and bring them to us. We had intended to ask you, honored guest, if you would do us the great favor of escorting these missionaries back to India, and from there carry our respectful greetings to your Emperor in Li-chien.
"It is a most propitious sign that we arrived at the same thought together. It means that your journey is predestined and therefore will be a safe and lucky one. We will supply your caravan with whatever the missionaries need, as well as gifts for your Caesar and diplomatic passes that will guarantee your safe passage through territories between here and Persia. It is our wish that you depart Luoyang as soon as possible."
Sebastianus bowed and exited the pavilion. He wondered if Ming had truly meant to let them go, or if the excuse of the Buddhist missionaries were a way of saving face.
It did not matter. They were going home.
BOOK EIGHT
BABYLON
34
ULRIKA STOOD ANXIOUSLY AT the prow of The Fortunate Wind, searching the crowded dock as she drew near.
Pray let Sebastianus still be here.
Her boat was propelled by sixty oarsmen and carried a cargo of copper ingots. The sides of the boat were colorfully decorated with figures from myth, and the sails were bright blue and red in the sunlight. Ulrika tried to mentally urge the oarsmen to row faster, faster.
The Euphrates River ran through the center of Babylon, and so the massive protective walls that encircled the city spanned the river at two ends. Watercraft sailed under stone arches and through a series of movable iron gates cleverly engineered to keep invaders out. The quayside on this sunny spring morning was crowded and bustling with industry as sailors handled oars and rigging, passengers and families cried farewells and welcomes, vendors hawked their wares, and city officials stood at their posts recording departures and arrivals, assessing incoming and outgoing cargo, levying taxes.
Ulrika was returning from a visit upriver to the town of Salama, where a shrine had been built to house clay tablets that were said to be the oldest sacred books in the world, and which held secrets that not even the priests of Marduk knew. In her quest to find the Venerable Ones, Ulrika had sailed to Salama to meet with the caretakers of the shrine. And while she was there, she had heard of a Roman party that had successfully traveled to China and was now back in Babylon, bringing a caravan filled with exotic curiosities and treasure. The governor of Babylon had thrown a feast for the Romans, who in turn allowed citizens to walk among the oddities and look for themselves at strange creatures and fabulous riches from a mythical land. The caravan was heavily guarded, the gossips said, as its goods were the property of Nero Caesar and soon bound for Rome.
Ulrika had left Salama at once, buying passage aboard The Fortunate Wind, and now she searched the crowd on the bustling docks for a familiar head of bronze-colored hair set upon wide shoulders. Her heart raced. Sebastianus, are you here?
BABYLON HAD CHANGED, SEBASTIANUS observed as he made his way through the crowd on the docks. In the seven years that had passed since he was last here, the personality of the cosmopolitan center had shifted from one of tolerance to one of prejudice. The priests of Marduk, he had learned, were growing increasingly intolerant of outside religions, demanding that the citizens of Babylon worship only at the altars of the gods who had ruled here for centuries. Intolerance against other beliefs was encouraged. Mistrust of the followers of foreign gods was fostered.
Babylon had fallen upon hard times. Men had lost their jobs, and many begged on street corners. Houses stood empty because people could not afford to pay their landlords. The sick had no money to pay physicians. Crime infested the streets. People were afraid. They blamed the gods and the government for their misfortunes. Even in Rome, Sebastianus had heard, senators had become corrupt and officials could be bribed. The Imperial Treasury was bankrupt. And Nero, in whom everyone had placed such high hopes, had disappointed his citizens. It was said that he had launched a massive work program, erecting impossibly big buildings around Rome, in the hopes of fooling the people into thinking they were enjoying a spell of prosperity.
Here, in this city between two rivers, the priests of Marduk knew that when people were discontented and believed the gods powerless, they took their lives and their destinies into their own hands. Which meant that money normally going to the priests was crossing the palms of fortune-tellers and wonder-workers. And so anyone suspected of luring citizens and their money away from the temples was arrested and interrogated. Many were executed under the laws of sacrilege and blasphemy. Even here by the water, Sebastianus detected on the shifting wind the stink of rotting flesh. Although he could not see the corpses strung up on Babylon's walls, he knew they were there.
"Pay heed! Pay heed!"
Sebastianus turned to see a city crier climb up on a stone block so that he rose above the heads of the crowd. In an impressively loud and ringing voice, he bellowed. "Make it known to all newcomers, visitors, traders, travelers, and tourists to Babylon that the following people are forbidden to move freely in the city without first registering with the Royal Guard at the Temple of Marduk: magicians, necromancers, seers, sorcerers, conjurers, wonder-workers, medicine-men, diviners, and prophets. All who ignore this edict will be subject to arrest, trial, and punishment."
Putting the world's ills from his thoughts, Sebastianus searched for a boat that looked as if it might be getting ready to depart upriver. He needed to reach the town of Salama as quickly as possible. Ulrika was there.
The moment he had brought his weary caravan to the terminus outside Babylon's walls, Sebastianus had dispatched letters to men of his acquaintance in Jerusalem and Antioch, for information on Ulrika. But because she had said she would join him in Babylon if she could, he had sent men into the city to see if she was here. In the meantime, he had had to suffer the hospitality of local government officials, to ride in a parade through the Ishtar Gate, and patiently tolerate the accolades heaped upon the first man from the west to look upon the face of China. Each night, Sebastianus would inquire of his men if there were any leads as to Ulrika's whereabouts. They had had nothing to report until this morning. "I found her living in the Jewish Quarter, master, in the home of a widowed seamstress. But she went upriver three months ago and did not say when she would return."