Silk and Ashes
Copyright© 2026 by Komiko Yakamura
Chapter 2
Luoyang, Jin Empire, Three days later
The compound sat two li outside the city walls, hidden behind a grove of willows that had seen better years. No guards at the gate. No banners. Just a weathered wooden door that opened to Xiào Wèi’s specific knock.
Inside, men trained in silence.
Not the clash of steel and shouted commands of a military barracks. These men moved like shadows—practicing locks with wire tools, mixing compounds that smoked and hissed, speaking to each other in languages that weren’t Chinese. Some wore merchants’ robes. Others were dressed as monks, servants, even women.
The master of the compound, a man called Lao Chen, met Xiào Wèi in the courtyard.
“Twenty men,” Xiào Wèi said without preamble. “Two years, maybe longer. Most won’t come back.”
Lao Chen’s scarred face didn’t change. “Where?”
“Thessalonica. Galerius’s palace.”
A longer pause this time. “That’s past Persia. Deep into Roman territory.”
“I know.”
“What’s the objective?”
“Acquisition. A child. A year and a half old. The Caesar’s daughter.”
Lao Chen studied him. In the compound’s coded language, that meant kidnapping, not assassination. Harder. Messier. From one of the most powerful men in the Roman world. “You’ll need speakers.”
“Greek, Latin, Persian. And men who can pass as merchants from the Seres.”
“Wei Shu speaks all three. Looks Persian enough if you shave him.” Lao Chen gestured across the courtyard where a lean man was demonstrating a mechanism—some kind of spring-loaded device. “He built that. Clever hands. You’ll need those.”
“I’ll take him.”
“You’ll need a physician. Long journey, keeping a child alive.”
“Who do you have?”
“Jiang. Studied in the south. Knows poisons, sedatives, wound care. Buddhist, so he won’t kill unnecessarily, but he’ll do what’s required.”
Xiào Wèi nodded. “Send him to me.”
They walked the compound. Lao Chen pointed out men like a merchant displaying wares, but every recommendation was weighed, calculated. A lockbreaker who’d cracked the governor’s treasury. A forger whose travel documents had fooled three kingdoms. A former acrobat who could scale walls like a spider.
“For the extraction itself,” Xiào Wèi said, “I need someone who understands Roman palaces. Their guard rotations, their architecture. Specifically Galerius’s complex in Thessalonica if possible.”
“We don’t have anyone who’s been to Thessalonica.”
“Any Roman city in the East, then. Someone who understands how they build, how they guard.”
Lao Chen thought. “There’s a man in Chengdu. Armenian, came through ten years ago. Worked as a palace servant in Antioch before the Persians burned it. He knows Roman imperial compounds—how they’re laid out, where the weak points are.”
“Can he be trusted?”
“He’s expensive and unreliable. But he knows things.”
“Bring him. I’ll make him reliable.”
The Armenian arrived five days later—a short, nervous man who called himself Vahram and spoke Greek with an eastern accent. He sat across from Xiào Wèi in a back room of the compound, maps spread between them.
“Galerius’s palace in Thessalonica,” Vahram said, tracing lines on parchment with a dirty fingernail, “is not like other Roman buildings. It’s new. Built after his Persian victory. It’s...” he searched for words in Chinese, “ ... a statement. A city inside a city.”
“Describe it.”
“You enter through the Arch—the Arch of Galerius. Massive thing, covered in carvings showing him defeating the Persian king. Any delegation, any merchant train from the East, they walk under that arch to enter the complex. It’s meant to remind you: he conquered your people.”
Xiào Wèi noted this. The irony wasn’t lost on him.
“Beyond the arch, the palace complex spreads out. There’s the Rotunda—some say it will be his tomb. The barracks for the Protectores, his personal guard. The administrative buildings. And the Hippodrome.”
“The what?”
“Chariot racing. The arena connects directly to the palace. The imperial family watches from a private box—they can enter from inside the compound without ever touching the public streets.”
Wei Shu, who’d been listening silently, leaned forward. “How many guards in the imperial box during races?”
“Four, maybe six. But the box is elevated. Stone walls. One entrance from the palace side, one exit to the arena floor—and that’s locked during races.”
“How often are there races?”
Vahram shrugged. “Every major festival. The Ludi. Military victories. Imperial birthdays.”
Xiào Wèi exchanged a glance with Wei Shu. “The box is crowded during races?”
“The family, their attendants, sometimes honored guests. Twenty, thirty people. The noise from the crowd is...” Vahram made a gesture, “ ... deafening. You can’t hear yourself think.”
“Can’t hear someone scream either,” Wei Shu said quietly.
Xiào Wèi turned back to the Armenian. “The child. Galerius’s daughter. Would she attend races?”
“At ne and a half years old?” Vahram considered. “Probably. Romans start their children young. The spectacle, the excitement—she’d be there, watching from her mother’s lap or a nursemaid’s arms.”
“Security in the box itself?”
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