Desert Rhapsody - Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Adnan had chosen Taif not only because it had once been his hometown. Establishing a papermaking workshop required sufficient raw materials, and across the entire Empire of Arabia, there were few places with abundant water and flourishing forests. The Arabian Peninsula was filled with deserts and stony wastelands, while the open plains of Syria were crowded with princes and nobles. The Province of Egypt, Aden, and Oman were fertile enough-one the granary of all West Asia, the others a shopfront of spices-but they were too far from Baghdad and Damascus, beyond the reach of Adnan’s connections. And so, after much deliberation, the old merchant chose Taif, a mountain city situated among ranges and vital trade routes. Its climate was mild, its groundwater gushed endlessly from beneath the rocks, and it produced all manner of crops, meat, dairy, and fragrances. Its direct customers were Mecca and Medina.

Aside from Baghdad, who could have a greater demand for paper than Mecca? This was a new beginning tailor-made for Adnan, and what was more, it was so close to the Nafud Desert where the Blood Eagle Bandit Group was hiding. Taif was commonly known as the “Summer Capital,” a city where many officials and nobles went to escape the heat. If he could gain a firm foothold there, Adnan’s network of connections would come into play at just the right time, making it easier to secretly exchange goods and information with Blood Eagle, and to transfer stolen property.

But the first problem was moving. Jiang Yuan asked, “Are you sure?”

Adnan said, “This is the best way, dear Jia Nan.”

In this age of cold weapons, with no trains or airplanes, moving everything by manpower, mules, and horses alone was no easy task. On a map or sand table, it looked simple enough: a line connected by trade routes, bending from Baghdad to Damascus and then on to Taif. Jiang Yuan and Abal had once taken this road. Traveling with a caravan, switching freely between water and land routes, they had completed the journey in only about two months.

But transferring an entire foundation was not something done overnight. The difficulty of one person with two mounts traveling a thousand miles was nothing compared to transporting a fortune over the same distance-it rose exponentially. Adnan had spent time with many caravans and understood this well. Wind, sand, and rocky wastes; bandits and wild beasts; once the elderly, the weak, the sick, and the disabled grew numerous, the shadow of disease could easily fall over the crowd. After careful consideration, the experienced old merchant chose the more cost-effective approach.

“We can hire merchant ships and head south, taking the route from Oman to Egypt.”

That was what he told Jiang Yuan. The two of them were sitting cross-legged opposite each other on a carpet, a sand table between them. Crooked roads had already been drawn across it with a finger, laying out the rough map passed down by word of mouth from those who had gone before.

“I have some friends at sea. They’ve sailed this route before. Having so many people will be troublesome, but it’s still better than traveling overland. We can exchange our gold coins for goods, ship them to Oman and Aden to sell, then use the money to buy local treasures and load them onto ships bound for Egypt.”

This was probably the sort of wondrous thinking that only appeared in an age of seafaring. After Westerners blazed the trail, merchants chasing gold eagerly followed. To bypass the Assyrian Empire, they opened sea routes, rounding Africa’s Cape of Good Hope and crossing the Indian Ocean to the East to trade in spices. Adnan said, “Once we reach Egypt, we’ll switch back to land. We’ll sell the goods in Alexandria, buy a camel caravan, and travel with the grain convoy to Taif. That will be much more convenient and much safer.”

Setting aside the difficulty of actually carrying out this plan, Jiang Yuan could only admit that it was indeed the better method. The fertile Nile River Valley produced cotton, wheat, and millet; it was the granary of the entire Empire of Arabia. Bandits generally did not touch grain convoys headed for Mecca. They were heavily guarded and offered little profit. Some merchants would travel with the convoy, which required a few connections and a bit of bribery, but since Adnan had proposed this route, he naturally had his own channels. Jiang Yuan, however, did not need to take that road. Adnan entrusted her with an even more important task. “I’ll send the first group to Taif ahead of time to buy houses and land and establish the workshop. You will go afterward to oversee things.”

The old merchant had always abided by the principle that camels, sheep, and horses could not be tied in the same pen. He would have liked to go to Taif first himself, but one man could not split himself in two. Abdul could not independently lead people on a sea voyage, and the matters of papermaking and Blood Eagle could only be handled by Jiang Yuan. Filled with guilt, Adnan recited, “I had hoped to let the white lamb rest peacefully in my home, yet who knew I would send it on another expedition?” He sighed over this for a very long while, but no matter what, he could not find a better candidate. Jiang Yuan smiled and comforted him, saying, “I’m very happy to be able to help you, dear Adnan.”

Only, this meant they would have to separate. Adnan’s route was too long and too far. He would have to circle the entire Arabian Peninsula and sail up along Africa. The monsoon winds of the Atlantic did not blow all year round. Once he left, who knew when they would meet again? She asked, “How long will it take?”
“Two or three years may be too long, but one year won’t be enough either,” Adnan said with a sigh. “My shopkeeper and steward know you’re on good terms with the envoys from the Tang Empire. They won’t make things difficult for you.”

Jiang Yuan wanted to distract him and lighten his mood, so she asked deliberately, “Can you handle traveling by ship?”

Most descendants of the Bedouin were accustomed to land, and storms at sea might not even be the harshest disaster for them. Adnan pretended to be angry. “Is that any way to speak to your adoptive father? In my youth, I nearly went to Alexandria to enlist and fight for the Caliph! I’m still hale and hearty. I could kill a mad wolf all by myself!” Jiang Yuan laughed and pointed. “Then you’ll have to eat less of that.”

They both looked at the plate beside his hand. It was piled high with the sweet pastry called Zaynab’s Fingers. The golden-fried finger-shaped pastries were drenched in honey and syrup, each bite packed with enough calories to make happiness explode in one’s mouth. The people of Arabia loved sweets; without sugar, there was no joy. Jiang Yuan took the plate away and said, “No more.”

Adnan patted his belly and burst into laughter. “You are my child. You fulfill your duty, and I fulfill mine. How can a son disobey his father? I haven’t had enough yet. I order you to return that plate of pastries to me.”

Jiang Yuan laughed as well. They looked at each other and patted each other on the shoulder.

There was no need to go into the rest in detail. A month later, Jiang Yuan set out with one-third of Adnan’s gold and goods, traveling together with the household servants and craftsmen he had sent ahead. They joined a great merchant caravan formed by multiple traders. Starting from Baghdad, the endpoint of this overland route was Aden.

Jiang Yuan sometimes thought of Sun, whom she had temporarily left in the desert, and wondered whether this counted as returning home in glory. There was not much she had to do. Whenever they reached a city, she only needed to send her servants to sell goods and buy new stock. She was good with numbers, generous with money, and agile enough to hold her own-the miraculous skill of chopping a wooden board in half with her bare hand once again spread through the crowd-so the servants rarely dared to play tricks in front of her. As for Jiang Yuan herself, she could take a Black slave with her into the city to wander around, buy little trinkets, observe local customs, and taste the unusual foods of each place. All in all, when examined closely, this leg of the journey was quite pleasant.

A month later, in Damascus, she received a letter from Adnan. In it, he said they were about to depart. Back when Jiang Yuan was still in Baghdad, she had gone to the port to look at the ships. At the time, they had not yet been launched and were still being loaded with cargo and maintained. Their masts stood in dense rows, lined up in the water like awe-inspiring giants. She put the letter away. Barring any accidents, this might be the last letter she would receive for several months. Their itinerary could not be pinned down no matter what, and the next letter could only be sent to Taif. Silently, she wished Adnan fair winds and a smooth journey.

The truly difficult journey began after they left Damascus, when the caravans entered the wilderness and desert. Summer had arrived, the hottest season on the peninsula of Arabia. Far fewer people traveled the trade routes at this time, but with less competition, selling goods also became much easier and far more profitable. Risk and wealth went hand in hand; that had never been an empty saying. However, the stretch of land they were about to pass through had always been a place where wild beasts and bandits appeared together. It was exceedingly dangerous.

Because the caravan was powerful and well-funded, they hired eight Monitor Lizard Riders in Jerusalem to escort them all the way to Aden.

It was Jiang Yuan’s first time seeing this type of soldier. They were warriors from Arabia proper, Persia, and Turkic peoples who had purchased retired giant lizards from the army. Every one of the beasts looked ferocious, with short, thick limbs and heavy tails lashing behind them. They seemed to crawl along the ground as they moved, walking like monsters. Aside from their masters, no one dared approach these savage beasts during the day, and at night, when their muzzles were removed, people had to stay even farther away. The giant lizards would snap up any rabbits or mice that crossed their path, and if given the chance, they would even eat humans. Along the way, two slaves had already been bitten to death by the giant lizards because they were careless while feeding them. Their nature was vicious in the extreme, deliberately cultivated that way to turn them into weapons for battle.

The security fee the caravan paid for this group of Monitor Lizard Riders made up nearly half of all such expenses. But it was well worth it. On the road, Jiang Yuan was not sure whether she had seen bandits in the distance, but any scouts who observed them from afar would quickly avoid them. There were also fools who refused to believe in the danger and tried to rob them, only to be knocked down in a single charge. Generally speaking, the whole journey was still quite safe. It was just that she had not felt it back when she traveled with Abal. Now, in a party of nearly a hundred people, she felt how vast and desolate the stony desert truly was. Along the entire road, theirs was the only group in sight, five hundred camels lined up from front to back in a single file that nearly stretched beyond view. Jiang Yuan carefully kept her own people in check and tried not to let them drink. Some of the merchants traveling with her were doing the same.
On the eighth day after entering the desert, they spotted a sandstorm in advance and hurried to an oasis to take shelter. Sandstorms were common in the desert, and this one was small in scale. But an accident happened when they were about to continue onward. A herd of goitered gazelles, panicked and blindly fleeing, crashed into the oasis. They must have blundered into a swarm of scorpions while escaping the sandstorm. Sometimes, that did happen. To dilute the poison, the gazelles drank large amounts of water, but the scorpions’ venom killed them by the water’s edge. Some of the survivors bounded away at top speed, while the remaining corpses and scorpion venom contaminated the water source. The water was no longer drinkable, but the five hundred camels had not had enough to drink yet, and half the people in the caravan had not filled their waterskins.

Jiang Yuan was also called over to discuss the matter. Their original plan had been to rest at this oasis for three or four days, letting the camels and horses fully recover before setting out again. Now the caravan leader could only suggest that they leave the oasis immediately and continue on, taking a detour to fetch water from a canyon that was not on their route. Although there was only a small pool there, it was closer. Otherwise, the next oasis would take five days to reach. The camels were carrying heavy loads and could not be shortchanged, while sending a group there to fetch water was both unrealistic and dangerous. The only problem was: “We might run into bandits.”

“Do we stop walking just because there’s a viper in the road?” said one merchant, the one with the most camels and goods. “We have numbers, and we have the Monitor Lizard Riders!” Since the caravans had joined together, they absolutely could not split up. Those who had water could not outargue those who did not, and in the end they had no choice but to agree to change course.

After a day and a half of travel, they reached the canyon, a narrow cleft with walls rising on either side. Jiang Yuan had originally been worried they would be ambushed here, but no one was stupid. They had already sent people up to scout. Everything seemed safe; there was no one here at all. The cool air within the canyon also lifted everyone’s spirits, wonderfully comfortable after the heat. But the terrain was rugged and could not accommodate five hundred camels making camp, so they could only find a flat patch of ground outside the canyon, pitch their tents there for a temporary rest, and take turns carrying water out until both people and camels had drunk their fill.

Jiang Yuan had just finished tidying her things. She wiped away her sweat and sat on the ground to drink. Dawn was just breaking, the fiery red half-sphere of the sun about to rise over the horizon. She slowly drank as she watched the scene. The water from the canyon was especially cold and sweet, with a flavor unlike the water at the other oases. “Wuu-” A camel cried out. At that very moment, she heard an eagle’s cry in the sky. Her heart jolted, and she looked up. An eagle was flying over their heads. At the same time, she heard the shout of a patrolling warrior: “Enemy attack!”

The crowd erupted into chaos. From the sunrise beyond the horizon, a line of black shadows suddenly leapt into view. Dozens of camels and several horses came galloping down from the dunes, and howls rose from every direction as well. A band of bandits had already surrounded them. The warriors tried to grab their blades and mount their war camels, but after so much traveling they were exhausted, and they had just let down their guard and drunk their fill. Even the camels’ steps were unsteady, their momentum gone. The three Monitor Lizard Riders charged out side by side in the chaos. Their lizards collided head-on with two camels, knocking them askew; the riders of those camels were thrown and trampled, screaming. But this slowed the lizards’ advance. More camels surrounded the three riders, flinging lassos, and in an instant, the Monitor Lizard Riders were also pulled to the ground.

“Stop! Everyone stop! Close ranks!” Jiang Yuan heard the caravan leader screaming himself hoarse in the language of Arabia, his Damascus accent thick. “Close ranks! They don’t intend to attack! They’re here to demand a bribe!” Hundreds of camels and horses surrounded them, every rider atop them a bloodthirsty bandit with a weapon in hand. Jiang Yuan’s gaze passed over the fighting crowd and turned toward the dune. The eagle folded its wings and landed on one man’s raised wrist. The horse beneath him did not have a single stray hair on its body. It was black as Night.

Coming home in glory, my ass.

All right, after resting hard for a few days, updates are finally back… Tomorrow I’ll write the demon.

That’s right, forcing them to change routes was also Abal’s doing. Bandits can spot sandstorms in advance too, you know.

Yuan Yuan: Coming home in glory, only to get robbed by bandits. Coming home in glory, my ass.