Now when Bahram visited the caravanserai, he heard many disquieting stories from the east. Things were in turmoil, China's new Manchu dynasty was in an expansive temper; the new Manchu Emperor, usurper that he was, was not content with the old and fading empire he had conquered, but was determined to reinvigorate it by war, extending his conquests into the rich rice kingdoms to the south, Annam and Siam and Burma, as well as the parched wastelands in the middle of the world, the deserts and mountains separating China from the Dar, crossed by the threads of the Silk Road. After crossing that waste they would run into India, the Islamic khanates, and the Savafid empire. In the caravanserai it was said that Yarkand and Kashgar were already taken – perfectly believable, as they had been defended for decades by the merest remnants of the Ming garrisons, and by bandit warlords. Nothing lay between the khanate of Bokhara and these wastelands but the Tarim Basin and the Ferghana Mountains, and the Silk Road crossed those in two or three places. Where caravans went, banners could certainly follow.
And soon after that, they did. News came that Manchu banners had taken Torugart Pass, which was the high point of one of the silk routes, between Tashkent and the Takla Makan. Caravan travel from the east would be disrupted for a little while at least, which meant that Samarqand and Bokhara would go from being the centrepoint of the great world exchange, to a largely useless endpoint. It was a catastrophe for trade.
A final group of caravan people, Armenian, Zott, Jewish and Hindu, turned up with this news. They had been forced to run for their lives and leave their goods behind. Apparently the Dzungarian Gate, between Sinkiang and the Khazakh steppe, was also about to be taken. As the news raced through the caravanserai ringing Samarqand, most of the caravans resting in them changed their plans. Many decided to return to Frengistan, which though full of petty taifa conflict, was at least Muslim entire, its little khanates and emirates and sultanates trading between themselves most of the time, even when fighting.
Such decisions as these would soon cripple Samarqand. As an endpoint in itself it was nothing, the mere edge of Dar al Islam. Nadir was worried, and the Khan in a rage. Sayyed Abdul Aziz ordered the Dzungarian Gate retaken, and an expedition sent to help defend the Khyber Pass, so that trade relations with India at the least would remain secure.
Nadir, accompanied by a heavy guard, described these orders very briefly to Khalid and Iwang. He presented the problem as if it were somehow Khalid's fault. At the end of his visit, he informed them that Bahram and his wife and children were to return with Nadir to the Khanaka in Bokhara. They would be allowed to return to Samarqand only when Khalid and Iwang devised a weapon capable of defeating the Chinese.
'They will be allowed to receive guests at the palace. You are welcome to visit them, or indeed join them there, though I believe your work is best pursued here with all your men and machines. If I thought you would work faster in the palace, I would move you there too, believe me.'
Khalid glared at him, too angry to speak without endangering them all.
'Iwang will move out here with you, as I judge him most useful here. He will be given an extension on his aman in advance, in recognition of his importance to matters of state. Indeed he is forbidden to leave. Not that he could. The wakened dragon to the east has already eaten Tibet. So you are taking on a godly task, one that you can be proud to have been yoked to.'
He spared one glance for Bahram. 'We will take good care of your family, and you will take good care of things here. You can live in the palace with them, or here helping the work, whichever you please.'
Bahram nodded, speechless with dismay and fear. 'I will do both,' he managed to say, looking at Esmerine and the children.
Nothing was ever normal again.
Many lives change like that – all of a sudden, and for ever.