“Jaufre?” Shasha’s voice was welcome but very loud. He winced.
“Can you sit up?”
He didn’t know if he could. Hands tugged at him. Oh well, if he must. He sat up and vomited immediately, although there was very little in his stomach given that he had not broken his fast that morning. “What happened?” he said, blinking. Shasha’s face blurred into two Shashas and then one again.
“Can you stand?”
He thought about it while listening to try to see what was going on beyond his currently lamentable range of vision. “If I have help.”
She took one arm and someone else took his other arm. He recognized him. Félicien. Good. He was on his feet again. Also good, although his balance seemed to be questioning the vertical in a way it never had before. “Where is Firas?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s happening?”
“Look.”
“What?”
Shasha’s voice had never sounded so grim. “Look.”
He blinked again. His vision cleared finally. He immediately wished it hadn’t.
There was a hand, an arm, a leg, neatly severed from their bodies. He heard cries, cut off abruptly. Hard-faced men with bloodied swords stood in a circle around a group of people. He recognized Fatima’s voice. She was screaming out Azar’s name.
In the center of the circle Johanna stood alone, facing Gokudo. In one hand he held his naginata. He had Jaufre’s father’s sword strapped to his back and Johanna’s purse now fastened to his belt. “As we agreed,” he said to the sheik. “The horse is yours. The girl is mine,” He grabbed Johanna’s arm.
“No, she is not!” she said, and yanked free.
He grabbed her again and this time she screamed as loudly as she could. “North Wind! To me! North Wind!”
North Wind answered her loudly and there was the sound of trampling hooves and men’s curses, but the sheik had evidently enough men to restrain even North Wind.
The sheik’s son said, “Father.”
The sheik made a motion with his hand. “A bargain is a bargain, my son.” His son was silenced. His eyes met Jaufre’s.
You die first, Jaufre thought.
Farhad reddened and dropped his eyes.
Gokudo began to drag Johanna away, a mistake, because she got her feet under her and tripped him. He almost fell and she was three steps away and moving fast when he caught her again. She fastened her teeth in his arm, and he gasped involuntarily. His face congested with fury and he hit her, brutally hard, knocking her teeth loose from his arm. She took immediately advantage of her mouth being free again. “North Wind! North Wind! To me!”
There was the sound of hooves striking and a man cried out in pain. This time North Wind sounded enraged. Come on, boy, Jaufre thought. He took a step forward, only to feel something sharp prod his back. He looked around and saw a hard-faced man with a grin on his face, holding a spear.
They were all of them being held at spear point, he realized. Shasha’s face was twisted into a snarl and she looked coiled, ready to spring. Félicien was white to his hairline. He couldn’t see Fatima or Azar or Malala or Ahmed, although a woman was sobbing somewhere nearby who sounded like Fatima. Hari was sitting on the ground with his legs crossed and his feet on his knees, eyes closed, omming, which Jaufre did not find useful. He heard Gokudo curse and looked around to see that Johanna had tried to trip him again, crying out, “North Wind! North Wind!”
This time Gokudo lifted her off her feet and carried her to his horse, to which a second horse was tethered. He threw Johanna up on the second horse and tied her hands to the pommel and her feet beneath its belly. She immediately kicked it in the belly so that it reared and plunged, the hooves narrowly missing Gokudo.
“Johanna!” Jaufre said. He would have gone to her, nothing would have stopped him, but he was seized from behind with arms like iron. “No, young sir, wait,” a voice whispered in his ear. “Wait.”
The man with the spear was laying on the ground, his blood spilling from a wide cut on his throat. So, Jaufre realized, were all of their guards. It had happened so fast and so quietly that, incredibly, no one seemed to have noticed what was happening behind them, their attention fixed as it was on the drama playing out in front of them. He looked at Firas, bloody scimitar in his hand, and found himself unable to utter a word.
Firas gave an approving nod and held up his hand, palm out. “Wait, young sir,” he said in a low voice. “Wait.”
Gokudo seized the reins of Johanna’s horse and dragged him down with an iron hand and struck her again. Blood spurted and this time Jaufre could not help himself. “Johanna!”
Gokudo looked around and grinned. “Ah, young Jaufre. How nice that you woke up from your nap in time for me to say goodbye.” He looked from Jaufre to Johanna and back again. “A little bruised but she will warm my bed nicely between here and Cambaluc.” The grin widened. “You must know that Wu Li’s widow has placed no conditions on her return to Everything Under the Heavens, other than that she be breathing.”
Jaufre lunged forward and was restrained by hands like iron. Firas again, although Gokudo, flush with his triumph, perhaps also in anticipation of the joys of the night to come, didn’t notice who was holding Jaufre back. The crowd had stepped forward over the slain mercenaries and had packed itself densely around Gokudo and Johanna and around Jaufre and Firas, occluding Gokudo’s view and hampering his actions. Later Jaufre would realize they had done this deliberately, put themselves at risk out of respect for Wu Li and affection for Wu Li’s daughter and foster son.
“Wait, young sir!” Firas’ voice said in his ear. “Wait.”
“Wait for what?” But something in Firas’ voice made him stop struggling.
“Look,” Firas said, a hand pointing over Jaufre’s shoulder.
Jaufre followed the direction of that pointing finger, past the suddenly still form of the samurai, yet to climb on his horse, past the faces of the sheik and his son who looked as if all at once they felt less in control of the situation, past the hard-faced men with swords who were hastily cleaning them and putting them back in their scabbards, as if to show they had never drawn them in the first place, the various body parts scattered around them to the contrary. Some of them began to melt back into the crown of caravaners, and shortly thereafter was heard the sound of galloping hooves.
“Look, young sir.” Firas’ voice was quietly insistent. Jaufre looked, and looked again, and then he didn’t need Shasha’s sharp indrawn breath to tell him his eyes were not deceiving him.
They had thought Uncle Wu Cheng’s caravan was large, and so it had been. A thousand camels was a lot of camels, and the people necessary to feed and care for them and to pack them and drive them amounted to a respectably-sized town.
What was coming at them from over the eastern horizon was something else again.
It was a veritable wave of men on horseback, hundreds of them, thousands of them. The black wave filled the horizon from end to end, rank after rank after rank of them, holding their mounts to a disciplined trot, the silver ornaments on their saddles blindingly bright in the rays of the rising sun. As they came closer Jaufre could see that they wore leather coats wrapped and tied with sashes, calf-high leather boots, and helmets with horse-tail plumes. Each carried a bow and a quiver filled with arrows with different heads, and wore knives and swords thrust into their sashes.
On they came, and onward, never breaking stride, and the sound of that many hooves was the sound of approaching thunder. A black banner snapped over a man who rode a little in front of the rest of them.
Gokudo shouted and Jaufre looked around to see that Johanna had pulled her mount free of Gokudo’s grip and was galloping toward the oncoming army. She shouted but she was too far away for them to hear her words.
“She has courage, the young miss,” Firas said approvingly.
“What is she doing!” Félicien said. “Has she completely lost her mind?”
Shasha look
ed up at Jaufre. “Do you think—”
“Maybe,” he said, his eyes straining to see the features of the leader, coming toward them at what felt at the time like an agonizingly slow trot.
He was so intent on the far prospect that he neglected the near, and jumped a little when Firas appeared in front of him. He had Jaufre’s sword in one hand and Johanna’s purse in the other. Numbly, Jaufre accepted the sword, and with a bow Firas offered the purse to Shasha, who accepted it with a long look that even Jaufre in this fraught moment could see promised a later reward.
He removed his sword from its worn leather sheath to see if it had come to any harm. It had not, and he slid it home again. No blood stained its blade, and he knew a burning shame that he had been taken prisoner without so much as raising a hand, let alone his sword, in his own or anyone else’s defense.
He looked toward Gokudo, expecting to see his body laid out on the ground like the spearmen who had held them hostage but it was impossible to see over the heads of the crowd that had now surged forward.
He looked at Firas and found Shasha binding his arm. “Did you kill him?”
“Not quite,” Firas said. “May I suggest, young sir, that you find North Wind and soothe him as much as you are able?” He nodded at the oncoming horde. “We do not want him to discourage any attempts at friendship the young miss might be making.”
Johanna was reining in next to the man who appeared to be leading the army on horseback. He halted, and they seemed to be speaking. After a few minutes he pulled the knife from his belt and Jaufre froze, his heart thudding dully in his ears.
The sun flashed on the blade of the knife as it moved in one swift, clean gesture. Johanna’s bonds fell and her hands were free. Jaufre breathed again. Johanna turned her horse and kicked it into a trot to match the leader’s, and Jaufre went to look for North Wind.
He found the stallion restrained with a rope around his neck and another around each foot. Someone had even managed to loop one around his tail. Not that it had appeared to have helped them restrain the stallion. Two men were laying on the ground, one silent, one moaning in pain. Four men held tightly onto the remaining ropes as if terrified of what would happen if they let them go. They were right to do so, as North Wind’s fury was incandescent. His ears flat, his teeth bared, with every plunge he jerked harder on the ropes holding him. As Jaufre came up he yanked one of the four off his feet, although the man scrambled up again immediately and scuttled out of the way of those deadly hooves. He would be free in the next moment and on a rampage that saw no difference between friend and foe.
“North Wind,” Jaufre said in a loud voice.
The horse ignored him and plunged again. The end of the rope around his neck was tangled in his forefeet, and he was bleeding from where the ropes had scraped all four hocks. “North Wind,” Jaufre said again, and in what was probably the bravest act of his life to date walked steadily forward, a hand raised, palm out. “North Wind,” he said in Mandarin, knowing that the words were unimportant, that the tone was all, “North Wind, Johanna is all right. I will take you to her. North Wind, settle down, settle down now. Calm yourself, calm down, calm down now.”
The ears stayed flat and the teeth bared but at least the stallion stopped plunging. Jaufre caught the eyes of the man North Wind had dumped on his back and gave a tiny jerk of his head, still talking to the horse. The man looked as if he might burst into tears of gratitude, and signaled to the other three men to follow his lead. He must have known something about horses in general for he did not just drop the rope, he laid it down slowly, and then backed up one step at a time. He was followed in lock step by the other three, and when they’d reached a safe distance they turned and ran. Wise of them. North Wind never forgot a smell, and when Johanna saw the state of his legs, the men would be in mortal danger from both of them.
Jaufre kept North Wind’s attention on him. “North Wind, North Wind, North Wind, that’s my boy, that’s my good boy, be calm now, be quiet now, North Wind.”
One ear came forward. Another. North Wind whickered and stretched out his nose to that familiar voice, and by the grace of the chariot of Arjuna, whose wheels are right effort and whose driver is truth, Jaufre had a bit of sugar in his pocket. He held it out in his left hand, just in case North Wind tried to take it off at the wrist, but the horse dropped his head and nuzzled his palm.
By the time he had calmed North Wind, Johanna came trotting up alongside the Mongol baron. Her hands and feet had been cut free and she had wiped the blood from her face, although bruises were already forming. Evidently her jaw wasn’t broken because she was chatting as freely with the baron as she would have with Yusuf the Levantine over a particularly good press of olive oil.
Gokudo was still missing. Those men of Gokudo’s still standing had been melting backwards even as the Mongol soldiers approached. The Mongol army took no notice, at least not yet. Everyone else stood stock still, watching Johanna approach at the head of an army with varying degrees of stupefaction.
“Jaufre, Shasha!” Johanna said. “Do you remember Baron Ogodei?”
“I would say I did regardless,” Shasha said in a murmur, and raised her voice. “Of course! My lord Ogodei, very well met!”
“Lord Ogodei,” Jaufre said, bowing. “It is an honor to meet you again.”
“Hah! Not only the honorable Wu Li’s daughter, but the honorable Wu Li’s adopted son and the honorable Wu Li’s adopted sister-in-law.” He smiled benignly upon them. “Well met indeed. I had not looked to find such pleasant companionship on the Road this day.” His eyes traveled across the assembled company, which now included everyone from the lowliest cook and camel driver to the sheik and his son, immobile in their voluminous white robes. As the baron’s eyes fell upon them they seemed to recall themselves and immediately saluted him, touching their right hands to heart, lips and head.
He nodded and dismounted, revealing himself to be Shasha’s height but twice as wide. His face was round and flat, his black eyes slanted up at the corners, and his skin was the gold of old coins. He was beardless but for two long mustaches trailing down to his chest, like those of Uncle Cheng. He looked to have spent every one of his thirty years in the saddle, bow and sword in hand, which indeed he had and which in part accounted for his rapid ascension up the ranks of the Mongol army.
Johanna brought her leg over the pommel and slid down into Jaufre’s arms. For just a moment she leaned against him, and he thought he felt a fine tremble go through her body, but she straightened at once and went around her horse’s head to the baron.
“I claim the Khan’s justice, Ogodei of the Mongols.”
He seemed to sigh. “Of course, Wu Li’s daughter. Make camp,” he said to his aide, who seemed a little bemused, probably at his commander taking what amounted to orders from a sixteen-year old girl. And not even a Mongol girl, at that.
Johanna turned to Jaufre, her face sharp with anxiety. “North Wind?”
“He’s fine.”
She looked around. “Where is Gokudo?” She saw Jaufre’s sword. “Did you kill him?”
“Firas fought with him,” Jaufre said. “He got my sword and your purse back, but he was wounded. Gokudo got away.”
“He can’t have gotten very far away,” she said fiercely, and whirled back to Ogodei. While they had been talking, his horse had been led away, a yurt had appeared as if by magic, and a carpet had been laid before its entrance. Pillows and more carpets had been piled into a comfortable couch on the carpet, and thereon Ogodei took his seat. Someone hurried up with a tray holding a pitcher and a cup. Ogodei poured the cup full and drank it off. “Now, where is this villain for which you seek the swift and sure justice of the Great Khan, young Johanna?”
Johanna bowed. “He seems to have vanished, lord.” Her tone of voice indicated her disbelief that Gokudo had done any such thing.
“Has he.” Ogodei’s eyes ran over the assembled crowd. “Has he, indeed.” He raised his voice. “Who here knows the whereab
outs of the Nippon mercenary who so cravenly attacked this caravan?”
“Is there a reward?” someone shouted, and someone else laughed.
Ogodei did not laugh. “There is death,” he said mildly, “for anyone who aided his escape.”
The caravaners, in a mood to celebrate their own escape from robbery, rape and murder, sobered at his words. Into this silence Fatima pushed forward to Johanna’s side, her face tearstained, and said, “I add my demand for the Khan’s justice against this man. He killed my affianced husband.”
“Fatima!” Johanna cried. “Azar? Dead?”
A cold hand clutched hers. “Do not be kind, Johanna. I could not bear it.”
The sheik, silent in the front row of the crowd, stirred and moved forward, in spite of the protests murmured by his son. He arrayed himself before Ogodei and bowed low. “I am the Sheik Mohammed, of Talikan. It may be that I have information useful to you.” He waited.
“It may be that you do,” Ogodei said, when it became evident the sheik had finished speaking. “I will not know how useful until you tell me what it is.”
“It seems to me to be very valuable information,” the sheik said.
Ogodei almost smiled, and did shake his head. “You Persians,” he said. “You always have to bargain.” His eyes narrowed and he leaned forward. “Mongols don’t bargain. We take. We take? And you die.” He let that sink in for a moment, and then leaned back. “You give? And you live.” He waved a negligent hand. “Possibly.”
The sheik was as cool as a lake on a calm spring morning, although people near him began sidling away. No one who had ever lived for an hour beneath Mongol rule doubted Ogodei’s plain statement was anything other than simple fact.
Ogodei waited without impatience, until the sheik bowed his head, indicating an obeisance to a superior force, and gave a wave of his hand. His son vanished into the crowd, to return some minutes later with Gokudo, bound and under guard.
Johanna stepped forward. “This, lord, is the man who stole my horse and who tried to kidnap me.”
Silk and Song Page 18
