'Maybe so,' Bold said. 'It's possible. There certainly are a lot of them. And those treasure ships are impressive, no doubt of that. But you can't sail into the heart of the world, the steppes where I came from. And the people out there are much tougher than the Chinese. They've conquered the Chinese before. So things should be all right. And listen, no matter what happens, you can't do anything about it.'

'We'll see about that in Nanjing.'

It was crazy, of course. The boy was deluded. Nevertheless there was that look that came into his eye – inhuman, totemic, his nafs looking out at things – the sight of which gave Bold a chill down the chakra nerve right to the first centre, behind his balls. Aside from the raptor nafs, which he had been born with, there was something scary in the hatred of a eunuch, something impersonal and uncanny. Bold had no doubt that he was travelling with some kind of power, some African witch child or shaman, a tulku, who had been captured out of the jungles and mutilated, so that his power had been redoubled, and was now turning to revenge. Revenge, against the Chinese! Despite his belief that it was crazy, Bold was curious to see what might come of that.

Nanjing was bigger even than Hangzhou. Bold had to give up being amazed. It was also the home harbour for the great treasure fleet. An entire city of shipbuilders had been established down by the Yangzi River estuary, the shipyards including seven enormous drydocks running perpendicular to the river, behind high dams with guards patrolling their gates so that no one could sabotage them. Thousands of shipwrights, carpenters and sailmakers lived in quarters behind the drydocks, and this sprawling town of workshops, called Longjiang, included scores of inns for visiting labourers, and sailors ashore. Evening discussions in these inns concerned mainly the fate of the treasure fleet and of Zheng He, who currently was occupied building a temple to Tianfei, while he worked on another great expedition to the west.

It was easy for Bold and Kyu to slip into this scene as small time trader and slave, and they rented sleeping spaces on the mattresses at the South Sea Inn. Here in the evenings they learned of the construction of a new capital up in Beiping, a project which was absorbing a great deal of the Yongle Emperor's attention and cash. Beiping, a provin cial northern outpost except during the Mongol dynasties, had been Zhu Di's first power base before he usurped the Dragon Throne and became the Yongle Emperor, and he was now rewarding it by making it the imperial capital once again, changing its name from Beiping ('northern peace') to Beijing ('northern capital'). Hundreds of thousands of workers had been sent north from Nanjing to build a truly enormous palace, indeed from all accounts the whole city was being made into a kind of palace the Great Within, it was called, forbidden to any but the Emperor and his concubines and eunuchs. Outside this precious ground was to be a larger imperial city, also new.

All this construction was said to be opposed by the Confucian bureaucracy who ruled the country for the Emperor. The new capital, like the treasure fleet, was a huge expense, an imperial extravagance that the officials disliked, for bleeding the country of its wealth. They must not have seen the treasures being unloaded, or did not believe them equal to what had been spent to gain them. They understood Confucius to say that the wealth of the empire ought to be land based, a matter of expanded agriculture and assimilation of border people, in the traditional style. All this innovation, this shipbuilding and travel, seemed to them to be manifestations of the growing power of the imperial eunuchs, whom they hated as their rivals in influence. The talk in the sailors' inns supported the eunuchs, for the most part, as the sailors were loyal to sailing, to the fleet and Zheng He, and the other eunuch admirals. But the officials didn't agree.

Bold saw the way Kyu picked up on this talk, and even asked further questions to learn more. After only a few days in Nanjing, he had found out all kinds of gossip Bold had not heard: the Emperor had been thrown by a horse given to him by the Temurid emissaries, a horse once owned by Temur himself (Bold wondered which horse it was; strange to think an animal had lived so long, though on reflection he realized it had been less than two years since Temur's death). Then lightning had struck the new palace in Beijing and burned it all down. The Emperor had released an edict blaming himself for this disfavour from Heaven, causing fear and confusion and criticism. In the wake of these events, certain bureaucrats had openly criticized the monstrous expenditures of the new capital and the treasure fleet, draining the treasury surplus just as famine and rebellion in the south cried out for imperial relief. Very quickly the Yongle Emperor had tired of this criticism, and had had one of the most prominent critics exiled from China, and the rest banished to the provinces.

'That's all bad,' one sailor said, a little bit the worse for drink, 'but worst of all for the Emperor is the fact that he's sixty years old. There's no help for that, even when you're Emperor. It may even be worse for him.'

Everyone nodded. 'Bad, very bad.' 'He won't be able to keep the eunuchs and officials from fighting.' 'We could see a civil war before too long.'

'To Beijing,' Kyu said to Bold.

But before they left, Kyu insisted they go up to Zheng He's house, a rambling mansion with a front door carved to look like the stern of one of his treasure ships. The rooms inside (seventy two, the sailors said) were each supposed to be decorated to resemble a different Muslim country, and in the courtyard the gardens were planted to resemble Yunnan.

Bold complained all the way up the hill. 'He will never see a poor trader and his slave. His servants will kick us away from the door, this is ridiculous!'

It happened just as Bold had predicted. The gatekeeper sized them up and told them to be on their way.

'All right,' Kyu said. 'Off to the temple for Tianfei.'

This was a grand complex of buildings, built by Zheng He to honour the Celestial Consort, and to thank her for her miraculous rescue of them in the storm.

The centrepiece of the temple Is a nine storeyed octagonal pagoda,

Tiled in white porcelain fired with Persian cobalt That the treasure fleet brought back with it.

Each level of the pagoda must be built With the same number of tiles, this Pleases Tianfei, so the tiles get smaller As each storey narrows to a graceful peak, Far above the treetops. Beautiful offering And testament to a goddess of pure mercy.

There in the midst of the construction, conversing with men who looked no better than Bold or Kyu, was Zheng He himself. He looked at Kyu as they approached, and paused to talk to him. Bold shook his head to see this example of the boy's power revealing itself.

Zheng nodded as Kyu explained they had been part of his last expedition. 'You looked familiar.' He frowned, however, when Kyu went on to explain that they wanted to serve the Emperor in Beijing.

'Zhu Di is off campaigning in the west. On horseback, with his rheumatism.' He sighed. 'He needs to understand that the fleet's way of conquering is best. Arrive with the ships, start trading, instal a local ruler who will cooperate, and for the rest, simply let them be. Trade with them. Make sure the man at the top is friendly. There are sixteen countries sending tribute to the Emperor as a direct result of the voyages of our fleet. Sixteen!'

'It's hard to get the fleet to Mongolia,' Kyu said, frightening Bold. But Zheng He laughed.

'Yes, the Great Without is high and dry. We have to convince the Emperor to forget the Mongols, and look to the sea.'

'We want to do that,' Kyu said earnestly. 'In Beijing we will argue the case every chance we get. Will you give us introductions to the eunuch officials at the palace? I could join them, and my master here would be good in the imperial stables.'