Silk and Song

by Dana Stabenow

  Fatima pointed in turn. “This is the man who killed Azar of Kashgar, son of Kalal.”

  Displaying a fine sense of the dramatic, Firas came up leading North Wind, although the instant North Wind scented Johanna he shouldered Firas to one side and headed straight for her, people moving hastily out of his way. He sniffed her all over once, and then again, just to make sure, after which threw back his head and whinnied a challenge to anyone who thought they could mishandle him so rudely and get away with it. Prudently, no one took him up on it.

  “We have traveled these five days almost without stopping,” the baron said, still mild. “We will join you here in your camp and refresh ourselves. While we rest,” he said, looking at Johanna, “we will attend to the matter brought to our attention by the daughter of the honorable Wu Li.” He looked at Gokudo, and though his expression remained amiable Gokudo seemed to shrivel in place. He turned from Gokudo to the sheik and his son, who looked wary but declined to shrivel. “We will meet in front of my ger to talk of these and other things when the sun is high.”

  They were dismissed. Two of Ogodei’s soldiers sauntered casually over to stand on either side of Gokudo, while four more arranged themselves around the sheik and his son. There was a great bustle as the soldiers made their camp, yurts going up as if by magic, horses fed and picketed, and dried meat and skins of koumiss produced practically out of the air.

  Hari was fascinated and walked among them, listening to them talk, now and then asking a question and listening intently to the answer. The soldiers tolerated him, but then Mongols were notoriously easy-going when it came to priests. They had so many gods already, what was one or two more? He ended his tour sitting before Ogodei, who questioned him closely about India, although Hari was more conversant with temples and gods than he was rulers and standing armies.

  Johanna accompanied the others back to their campsite, North Wind following close behind. He wasn’t ready to let Johanna out of his sight. She received her purse back from Shasha, made appropriate thanks to Firas, and tied it again to her belt. “Are you all right?” she said to Jaufre. “What happened to you? You were gone when the noise woke us. You and Firas both.”

  He reached a hand up to the back of his head and winced. “Something woke me up. I went to check on North Wind and I think that someone hit me on the head. What happened to you?”

  Shasha found her pack and got out a smelly yellow salve that she smeared impartially on Johanna’s cheek and Jaufre’s crown. “The noise of the fighting woke us up, and then—”

  “—and then he came,” Johanna said, almost spitting out the words. “And he dared to put hands on North Wind, and then on me!”

  North Wind still came first, Jaufre noted without surprise. “We were lucky today.”

  “Very,” Shasha said.

  “Very, very lucky,” Félicien said, and the strength seemed to go out of his legs and he dropped the bedroll he was folding and slumped down on it all of a heap. “Traveling with you is more exciting than I’d bargained for.”

  Jaufre and Shasha looked accusingly at Johanna, who waved an airy hand. “Yes, well, at least you can’t say it’s been boring.” She smiled as sunnily as she was capable of with the entire left side of her face stiff and swollen.

  “What now?” Jaufre said. He sat down, too, feeling a little shaky himself.

  Shasha, Firas and Johanna followed suit, and a brief silence fell as everyone took stock of their current circumstances and tried not to dwell on what might have been. After a bit Félicien went for water, and they built a fire, such as it was, and broke their fast with lukewarm tea, unleavened bread and dried fruit.

  “I’d kill for a bowl of noodle soup,” Johanna said. “Hot, hot, hot noodle soup.”

  “Never, ever say that again,” Jaufre said. “Or at least not until we get down out of the mountains, where fire burns as it ought.” The sun was warm on his back and Shasha had given him a powder in his tea that had eased the ache in his head. “What will Ogodei do, do you think?”

  Johanna shrugged. She was putting a good face on it but she was clearly feeling her bruises, and the anger and indignation that had buoyed her thus far was ebbing. She yawned suddenly, her jaws cracking. “He was a friend of Father’s.”

  “But Wu Li is dead,” Shasha said.

  Johanna nodded. “There are many witnesses to what Gokudo did. At the very least he is guilty of conspiracy, assault, theft. I asked for the justice of the Khan from Ogodei.” She shrugged. “Perhaps he will give it. Perhaps he won’t.” She brightened. “I wonder where he’s going. We could ask him for escort.”

  Shasha shook her head.

  “What?”

  “Johanna, I doubt very much if one of the generals of a hundred thousand is going to offer the protection of his royal troops to such as us.”

  “He did for Father.”

  “Yes, well, and how many camels loaded with Cipangu pearls did we have with us on that trip?”

  “We could tell Ogodei everything,” Jaufre said.

  Shasha was repacking her herbs but her head snapped up at that. “We have no proof.”

  “By all the round-eyed gods, Shasha. When did Wu Li in his entire life ever fall off of anything with a saddle?”

  Johanna, who had been about to doze off, sat bolt upright. “What? What are you talking about?”

  Jaufre looked at Shasha, who held his gaze for a long moment before sighing and dropping her eyes. “All right. Tell her.”

  Jaufre turned to Johanna, squaring up to her as if he were facing an opponent in a duel, which he might very well be. “I checked Wu Li’s tack as soon as I could after the accident. His girth was cut through. Not all the way, just enough so that it would snap beneath his weight when he kicked his horse into a run.”

  The silence that fell over their little campsite was acute and uncomfortable. Félicien and Firas were asleep or pretending to be, and Hari had yet to return from his anthropological expedition into the Mongol horde. It was just the three of them. It had been just the three of them since Wu Li had died.

  “Why didn’t you show me the tack?” Johanna said finally. She felt numb, and Jaufre’s words were coming to her from a great distance.

  “Because it disappeared from the stable right after I looked at it. I asked the stable master and he told me that Gokudo had collected it himself, saying it would be bad luck to keep it and that it must be destroyed.”

  This time the silence went on longer. Johanna’s face was frozen, her eyes dazed, her body, usually a fountain of restless energy, immobile. Jaufre looked at Shasha, who raised a hand slightly as if to say, Wait.

  “What else?” Johanna said.

  He didn’t answer at first, and she said more strongly, “What else did she do, Jaufre? Because there is something else. I can tell just by looking at you.”

  “I went to Wu Li’s room as soon as we heard that he had died,” Shasha said. “His eyes were red, and his lips were blue. He was smothered where he lay.”

  “She killed him,” Johanna said.

  “Gokudo killed him,” Shasha said. “Wu Li was paralyzed only from the waist down. She wouldn’t have been strong enough. He fought. There was blood under his fingernails.”

  “She killed him,” Johanna said. “She killed him. Twice. Gokudo was only her tool.”

  Neither of them contradicted her.

  When the sun was high overhead, they gathered again before the big round white ger with the black banner flying from its peak. Ogodei relaxed on his couch, an intricately woven carpet beneath him and a flagon of koumiss in his hand. “Johanna of Cambaluc, daughter of Wu Li, niece of Wu Cheng, you have asked for the Khan’s justice.”

  Johanna rose, tall and proud and white to the lips. “I have, lord.”

  “Speak.”

  She kept it short, relating the incidents of the past night in full, pointing to Gokudo and the sheik in turn, ignoring the wounded look in the son’s eyes. “He and they are guilty of conspiracy, my lord. They are
guilty of assault and murder—three people are dead, including Azar of Kashgar, my dear friend and the betrothed of Fatima, daughter of Ahmed and Malala, also of Kashgar, and also a dear friend.”

  The baron quaffed koumiss. The smell of the fermented mare’s milk was strong enough to reach Johanna’s nostrils, and she repressed a sudden wave of nausea. She knew what she was asking for was just. She would not shame her father by asking for less than what was due his memory. “A dozen are wounded, some severely, and one woman was raped. I have no doubt more would have been had you not come upon us.”

  “Let us adhere to the facts of the matter, Wu Li’s daughter.” Ogodei said, pleasant as always. “If we venture into speculation we will be here until the snow falls.”

  Johanna bent her head. “It is my joy always to obey you, my lord.” It was not merely an empty saying. When Johanna bent her head to Ogodei, she bent it to the power of the Khan in Cambaluc. “He conspired with the Sheik Mohammed to kidnap me and to steal my horse. We all heard him say so.” She looked around and heads nodded vigorously in confirmation. “He assaulted me.” She pointed at her face. “He announced his intention of doing more than that on the Road to Cambaluc.” More nods. Gokudo had a fine, penetrating voice. Everyone had heard him clearly.

  “Well,” Ogodei said. “He is, clearly, guilty of all of these things, and of stupidity as well, since he did all these things and then convicted himself of them out of his own mouth.” He drank koumiss and looked at Johanna. “What is the penalty he must pay, Wu Li’s daughter?”

  “His life,” Wu Li’s daughter said.

  Gokudo made a sudden movement, and subsided when the Mongol soldiers at his sides reminded him they were there.

  The baron raised his eyebrows. “You are not dead, Wu Li’s daughter.”

  “Others are,” Johanna said.

  “You are not even much hurt.”

  “Others are.”

  “Your horse has been returned to you—he is very like a horse I bet on last winter in Cambaluc, did you know? A horse owned and raced by Edyk the Portuguese. Perhaps he is of the same lineage?”

  “Perhaps,” Johanna said through stiff lips. It was a warning, and kindly meant, but she could not stop, not now that she knew the whole story. “There is also the matter of blood guilt, lord.”

  Gokudo, unable to speak behind his gag, slumped a little between his guards.

  The baron raised his eyebrows. “What blood guilt is this?”

  “As I told you, Gokudo is a member of my father’s household.”

  “Johanna—” Shasha said.

  “He came there as bodyguard to my father’s second wife.”

  The baron nodded. “Yes, I recall. The honorable Dai Fang.”

  “Not so honorable, my lord. She dishonored my father with Gokudo.”

  Gokudo came alive again, struggling and trying to shout from behind his gag.

  This time the baron’s eyebrows ascended all the way to his hairline. “You have proof of this?”

  “The word of my foster brother and my aunt, and myself.”

  “Very well.”

  “By the observations of my foster brother, Jaufre of Cambaluc, my father’s saddle was tampered with so that he would fall from his horse that day.”

  The baron looked at Jaufre, who nodded. The baron said, “But Wu Li lived beyond his accident, did he not?”

  “He did, my lord. Too long, as it happened, because Gokudo and Dai Fang grew impatient, and smothered him in his bed.”

  Gokudo had managed to work his gag free. “Bitch! No one will believe your whore’s words!”

  “As attested to by my aunt,” Johanna said steadily.

  The baron looked at Shasha, who nodded in turn.

  A murmur ran through the crowd, soldiers and merchants alike. Wu Li was well known to the Road, and those who traveled thereon. The baron suppressed a sigh. “So it is death you ask for, Wu Li’ s daughter?”

  “It is death I am owed,” she said. “And not just any death.”

  “Oh god, Johanna, no,” Jaufre said beneath his breath. Next to him Shasha closed her eyes and shook her head. Félicien looked at Firas, whose countenance was more than ordinarily mask-like.

  “Give him the death of the carpet, lord,” Johanna said clearly, raising her voice so that it could be heard.

  There was an immediate tumult, not least of which came from Gokudo, who called her names until at a gesture from the baron one of his guards gagged him again.

  The baron in turn rose to his feet. “It shall be so,” he said, and the crowd, pausing only long enough to hear the words, shouted their approval, over and over again.

  There wasn’t a great deal of ceremony to it, and no waiting period. Gokudo was hustled to a flat space beyond the camp. Mongol soldiers mounted their horses and formed two lines with a clear lane between. A carpet was brought, the very carpet that had supported the baron’s couch. Gokudo, cursing and struggling, was swallowed up by Mongol soldiers and when they saw him again he was rolled into the carpet. All they could see of him was a topknot of black hair.

  The carpet was laid between the two rows of horses. The baron stood at one end and raised his arm. Another company of soldiers waited at the other end of the lane. When the baron’s arm fell, they kicked their horses into a gallop. They thundered down the lane and over the rolled carpet. The noise was so loud from the crowd and the soldiers that nothing could be heard from inside the carpet, although Jaufre would have sworn he heard the man scream.

  The baron’s arm raised and fell again, and again the company of horses thundered down the lane and over the carpet. Again, the arm fell, and again the horses galloped, and again, and again. Red began to seep through the carpet, and they paused to unroll it to see if Gokudo was dead. He was unrecognizable by now, a mess of blood and splintered bone wrapped in a mass of quilted black cloth, but unbelievably the blood pulsing from many wounds indicated that he was indeed still alive.

  Ogodei shouted something and his soldiers cheered and banged their bows against their shields. Two held open Gokudo’s mouth and a third rammed it full of horse manure, of which there was by now a plentiful supply. The broken body jerked in a horrible, boneless struggle. They rolled him back into the carpet and thundered the horses over him another three times.

  This time when they unrolled the carpet he was definitely dead.

  The baron beckoned to Johanna, and she marched toward him on stiff legs, her back very straight, her chin very high, her face like stone. She wanted to spit on Gokudo’s remains, but she could not bring herself even to look at him, and her mouth was too dry for spitting anyway. “Lord?”

  “Is your call for justice satisfied, Wu Li’s daughter?”

  “I have received the justice of the Khan,” Johanna said steadily, “and I am satisfied.”

  “And the sheik and his son, Wu Li’s daughter? The samurai’s co-conspirators? They have also gravely offended you. What to them?”

  “I leave them to your good judgement, my lord,” Johanna said. “So far as I know they are only thieves.”

  The expression on the sheik’s face indicated that he did not view her words as a compliment, but he said nothing, and he stopped his son from speaking as well. He’d had dealings with Mongols before this, and he knew how little the Mongols wished for trouble with the Persians. They had other fish to fry.

  “Thievery,” Ogodei said pensively. “For a first offense, that usually means the sacrifice of the right hand.”

  Johanna swallowed hard, and repeated, “I leave their punishment to your good judgement, lord.”

  The baron approached her and bent his head so that his lips were next to her ears. “Did no one warn you, Wu Li’s daughter, that vengeance can be as bitter on the tongue as it is sweet?”

  By unspoken agreement Johanna and her party took their leave of the rest of the caravan, packing and riding away from that place of horror as quickly as they could. As they were leaving camp Fatima ran up. “Johanna!” She reached up
and clasped Johanna’s hand between her own and looked deeply into her eyes. “Thank you,” she said.

  Tears stung Johanna’s eyes. “I’m so sorry about Azar,” she said.

  “He is avenged,” Fatima said simply, and ran back to her parents.

  The trailhead down was reached in less than an hour and Johanna was grateful that it was another narrow trail, so that they would have to go single file and she didn’t have to talk to anyone. She had to stop once to vomit, and Shasha, who was behind her, said nothing.

  Johanna wiped her mouth. “You should have told me.”

  “Before we left Cambaluc, do you mean? And what would you have done? Killed Gokudo? Killed Dai Fang? Tell, me, Johanna, would we now be a thousand leagues from Cambaluc if you had done so? Or would we be locked in the same dungeon your grandmother died in?”

  “You should have told me,” Johanna said fiercely. “I am no longer a child, Shasha. You are no longer allowed to protect me from harsh realities of our lives.”

  Shasha threw up her hands in disgust and climbed back on her horse. Johanna grabbed a handful of North Wind’s mane and threw a leg over his broad back, and they moved rapidly down the trail without another word.

  That night they made a cold camp beneath the evergreen trees that had reappeared along the trail. No one spoke very much or slept very well.

  At noon the next day the sheik and his men materialized out of the forest, surrounding them.

  Johanna, too tired to be afraid, said, “Sheik, you are beginning to annoy me.”

  “He let you go,” Shasha said. “Ogodei just—let you go?”

  Félicien looked frightened and clung tight to his donkey. Hari said in a sterner voice than any of them had heard before, “Your god is named Allah, is he not? Would he approve, I wonder, of your attacking and robbing innocent travelers on the road?”

  Firas said nothing and did nothing, sitting immobile on his mount.

  The sheik ignored them both. “I will take the horse now.”

  Johanna laughed, an edge of hysteria to her voice. “Have you learned nothing, sheik? He will not go with you!”