Spirit Hunter (25 page)

But people did not only endure such hardship to make money. Over a thousand years ago, near a gorge in the Flaming Mountains of western China on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert, seventy-seven caves were cut into the rock. These caves hide enormous paintings, hundreds upon hundreds of years old. Amongst scenes from the life of Buddha and princes and princesses from local tribes there are pictures of blue-eyed Buddhist monks, evidence that a religion born in India had reached the blue-eyed nomadic tribes who roamed Central Asia on horseback. Buddhism may have begun in India, but it too was a passenger on the Silk Road, an idea carried by holy men prepared to travel many thousands of gruelling miles to spread the word.

Around the year
AD
540, an Indian Buddhist monk called Bodhidharma – Tamo in Chinese – arrived at a monastery nestled at the feet of Mount Shaoshi. According to the old stories, the monks here spent most of their time translating Buddhist scrolls from Sanskrit into Chinese, and had become so feeble that they’d lost the physical and mental strength needed for hours of meditation. Horrified by their weakness, Tamo taught the monks at Mount Shaoshi how to move as they meditated. Legend has it that these yoga-like exercises grew into a form of kung-fu, inspired by the grace and speed of birds and animals. The wonderful, enduring myth of the Shaolin was born: holy men and women who fought to defend the peace of their temple, summoned to the Imperial court by Emperor Gaozong. No one really knows how much of this story is true and how much it has been embroidered over time. Of course, there are some who say the Shaolin really did use their skills to fight and even to kill – and perhaps they are right. Others believe that these gentle, devoted Buddhists simply developed their immense physical skills as an aid to meditation. There is a lot of disagreement over the history of kung-fu, and particularly the Shaolin monks, so I hope the experts will forgive my version of the tale.

By the time Asena and Swiftarrow make their own journey to Chang’an at the height of the T ’ang Dynasty, Buddhism had spread throughout China, thoroughly mixing and mingling with traditional beliefs – which is why even as a novice in a monastery, Swiftarrow feels the power of his
chi
, or life-force, and prays to the goddess of the moon, as well as striving to follow the Buddhist Middle Way.

Buddhism was not the only religion to travel the Silk Road – so did Islam and Christianity, and a whole rambling trail of ingenious ideas including the once-hidden Chinese art of making silk, the skills of making paper and glass – and the not-so secret intentions of armies, kings and emperors. But genius and faith were joined on the Silk Road by more deadly passengers – it is thought that the bubonic plague or Black Death reached Europe in this way, carried by fleas trapped in packages of silk and fur.

Over the centuries, hundreds of nomadic tribes have ridden the vast, wild steppes of Central Asia (some still do), and many terrorized the cities, towns and villages of surrounding empires – stealing whatever took their fancy from the grain-stores and treasuries of settled communities. By around
AD
550 the Gok Turks ruled an empire from horseback so huge it stretched from the gates of Constantinople in modern Turkey all the way to China. Also known as the Blue Turks, Sky Turks or the Ashina, these fast and deadly riders held firm control over the Silk Road for a number of years. Unfortunately, the Gok Turks left very little of their own written history, so we don’t hear much about their side of the story. We do know that the balance of power shifted with the death of their leader, Taspar Khan, fracturing the Gok Turk Empire, and that T ’ang dynasty China rose to supremacy, regaining control over the Silk Road.

In the early 1400s, nearly eight hundred years after Swiftarrow and Asena rode away from Chang’an, trade along the Silk Road finally petered out as travel by sea became a more practical option, but centuries later spies were still carrying secrets along paths once trodden by silk-traders. This cat-and-mouse hunt – the Great Game, as it was called – reached its zenith in the 1800s as the British and Russian Empires fought for control of Central Asia. Snaking through great empires and kingdoms that rose and fell over thousands of years, the Silk Road was trodden by many spies and even assassins hired to kill. Most likely, such people are there to this day, scattered across the steppes of Central Asia and the mountainous wilds of Afghanistan, even though the people in charge are not the same.

Finally, the T ’ang Dynasty really did see the only female ruler in the entire history of China: the notorious Empress Wu Zetian. Around
AD
640, a beautiful thirteen-year-old girl called Wu Zhao arrived at the Imperial palace, personally summoned by Emperor Taizong to join his many concubines. Fifteen years later, the young courtesan had become Empress Wu, ruling at the side of her husband, Emperor Gaozong. Eventually, after he died, the Empress took complete control and even founded her own dynasty, the Zhou. Empress Wu must have been an extraordinary woman to rule a vast empire in an age dominated by men: she took the Imperial throne almost a thousand years before Elizabeth I was crowned Queen of England. To put this in perspective, English women could not even vote in elections until 1928; in China women had no vote till 1949. I wish I could believe that Empress Wu Zetian has been mistreated by history, most of which was written by men who didn’t like the idea of a woman in charge. Although it’s thought that equality between men and women improved during the reign of Empress Wu Zetian, more than two thousand people met their deaths at her orders, including her own family members – usually as a result of ridiculous charges of corruption and treachery. Personally, I don’t buy the old accusation that Empress Wu smothered her own baby daughter in order to frame the Emperor’s first wife, Empress Wang, but she certainly held on to power at an extremely high price, and no woman has ruled China since she died in
AD
705, more than 1,300 years ago. We will never know what Empress Wu was really like, but I love a good old-fashioned arch-villain and so that is how the Empress appears in
Spirit Hunter.

Finally, I should say sorry to any readers who know more than I do about Chinese and Central Asian history – you are almost certain to notice the mistakes that I’m likely to have made in my research! I enjoyed this fact-finding mission tremendously but I can’t claim to be a scholar.

A
s ever, I’d like to thank my agent and my editors; Catherine Clarke, Denise Johnstone-Burt, Chris Kloet, Ellen Holgate and Clare Baalham. I’m also very grateful to everyone at Walker Books for the huge amount of essential behind-the-scenes work which the outside world never knows about! Thanks also to Sam Llewellyn for helping me over a hurdle, to Jo Macey for her advice on Buddhism, and to Natsegdorje for pointing me in the direction of some excellent books about Central Asian shamanism, or Tengerism. The latter is a fascinating and complicated system of beliefs, which I simplified in places for the sake of my plot, but it’s well worth finding out more about it if the interest strikes you.

K
aty Moran is an author with a unique ability for capturing the atmosphere of the times and places she describes, which she attributes to the strong connection she felt to the landscape around her when she was growing up. Katy is now a full-time writer and lives in Shropshire with her husband and son.
Spirit Hunter
is her third novel for children.

Bloodline

In the wild landscape of Dark Age Britain, Essa is abandoned by his father in a lonely marsh-village trapped between two warring kingdoms. Destined to become tangled in the bitter feud, Essa’s part in it is more important than he ever dreamed. But how will Essa save those he loves and discover the secret of his true identity when he can trust no one?

Cai, the Ghost, is the fastest, most cunning young criminal in Constantinople. A perfect life, until he is captured, bound and sent to Britain – the home his barbarian parents fled long ago. When he is taken in by Wulfhere, prince of Mercia, Cai soon discovers that his Anglish master knows more about his family than he does. But war threatens and Cai finds he must choose: will he betray his new clan and save himself, or be loyal and risk his life?