Everything Under the Heavens (Silk and Song) by Dana Stabenow

and laughed. “Is it a conspiracy, then?” Without waiting for an answer he gave a decisive nod. “The southern route, then, through Yarkent.” He shook his head. “Other than the oil, we have picked up very little in bulk here in Kashgar.” He looked at Deshi the Scout. “We should make good time.”
    Deshi the Scout nodded.
    “I have some news good enough to make us all sleep easier on the Road,” Wu Li said. “Ogodei and his ten thousand accompany us at least as far as Yarkent.”
    Wu Li saw Shu Ming’s shoulders relax. The memories of Jaufre’s caravan must have been preying on her mind. Well, and they had preyed upon his own.
    She looked up and saw him watching her, and knew her thoughts to be his own. She smiled at him.
    “And after Yarkent?” Wu Li said. “Straight home to Cambaluc?”
    There seemed to be no objection. Wu Li dismissed them to their various chores, and he and Johanna settled in to transferring the information from the new map into Wu Li’s route book. There were no roads on it, of course, and much of the distance involved had to be guessed at, but Johanna yearned for what lay at the edges of the pages. Wu Li gave an indulgent laugh. “We will travel them all one day,” he told her.
    “To the ends of the pages?” she said, her eyes drawn to the islands floating off the western edge of the map.
    He tousled her hair. “To the ends of the earth itself,” he said.
    She beamed up at him, and Jaufre knew a moment’s envy, not only for Johanna’s possession of a father still living, but for the prospect of a shore not yet seen.

    Wu Li was supervising the padding and packing of the two dozen amphorae of oil the next day when he felt a plucking at his elbow. He turned and saw a city clerk, an older man bent and shortsighted from years of stooping over his accounts. “Tabari,” he said, inclining his head courteously. “Forgive me, I did not see you standing there. How may I help you?”
    He listened to Tabari’s hurried speech with a bent head. Shu Ming, on the other side of the courtyard, saw the gathering frown beneath his polite expression.
    Tabari brought news of a beautiful woman who had fetched the highest price that year on the Kashgar slave block. He knew the names of several people who had attended the auction, and after suitable reward shared them with Wu Li.
    After an afternoon and a following morning spent knocking on Kashgar doors, bribes in hand, the one man Wu Li could find who would admit to having been present and who was willing to describe what had happened rolled his eyes and patted his heart. “Ah, you should have seen her, my friend! Not young, no, but ripe enough that the juice would run down your chin when you took a bite. Eyes so dark and liquid you could imagine diving into them, hair like black silk, and a figure—” his hands sketched an improbable shape in the air “—Oh, my friend. A proud one, too, head high, unashamed, though they stripped her for the bidding. It was fierce, I will tell you.” He sighed reminiscently.
    If only Barid the Balasagan’s purse had measured up to his appreciation for a beautiful woman, it was clear that Wu Li’s search would have ended there. Barid winked at Wu Li and gave him a nudge with his elbow. “But I know you for a stolid married man these many years, my friend. What is this, that you ask after another woman? If she knew, Shu Ming would carve out your liver and eat it while you bled to death in front of her, eh? What? A name?” He scratched his head. “Was she the one they called the Rose of Jordan? No, no, that was that skinny girl with the missing teeth. I think they called this one the Lycian Lotus. Eh? Who won? Some sheik from the west, I heard. Bedu, Turgesh.” He gave a vague wave of his hand, indicating everything west of Kashgar. “Berber, maybe. No, I didn’t catch his name. What? Who sold her?” He scratched his chin. “Anwar the Egyptian. At least he was the one looking the most satisfied at