“Tshant?” Mongke said.
“Kaidu.”
“He’s malicious,” Psin said. “He likes to see people hurt. Do we start raiding over the Danube soon? The Hungarians are getting bold.”
“Yes,” Sabotai said. “And I want you to start thinking about reconnaissance raids for this winter, too. Now that we’ve settled into Hungary.”
Chan said, “Put it there, Arnulf.”
“Yes, Lady.” He put the rug on the ground and turned back the corners. The air was rich as wine. Autumn air, he thought. He tried to remember how the summer had smelled—hot, of course, and dusty, sweaty. But he couldn’t actually remember. Chan sat down on the rug, arranged her robes to cover her feet, and spread out the thin Chinese parchment on the carpet before her.
Sitting to her left, he studied her. Her skin reminded him of heavy cream. She had told him about her children; he found it impossible that she could have grown sons. Chinese, he thought. How many different peoples there are in the world. How wonderful the variety of God’s creation. He crossed himself. Once he had struggled against bitterness that God should have thrust him into the hands of these people, but now he recognized the plan, the reason, or as much as any man could see of the mind of God.
She was sketching, looking up occasionally at the plain before her. He tried to see what she was seeing—exactly how the plain looked to her. Brown and gold, it flowed on farther than he could see. The horizon was faintly purple with distance. A little way from them the river ran almost dry, and horses grazed among the scant trees on either bank, with Mongols keeping watch. They had had some trouble with Hungarians sneaking in to steal Mongol horses. Why a Christian would want such shabby, scrawny little horses Arnulf couldn’t understand, except that a Mongol horse would trot until a normal horse would drop, turn around, and trot back again.
He started his afternoon prayers, watching the plain. Dmitri had said that the Mongols believed in one God, whom they called Tengri, and no other; many of them were Christians. “Quyuk, who may be the next Kha-Khan, is Christian. But his wife is a witch.” Arnulf thought of the river and how easily it could be crossed. O God, he thought. Thy Will be done.
Chan was staring at him. He smiled at her, and she said, “What are you thinking about that makes you so happy?”
“Did I look happy?”
She nodded. Her face was still, almost set, but he had come to understand that it didn’t mean she was angry. He said, “I was praying.”
“Oh. I used to pray, when I was little. To the Moon.”
She changed brushes and made small red marks on the parchment. He went around behind her to see. The river and the trees were only lines, and the horses flecks of color, yellow and brown. She had drawn a herder, and his red coat seemed to fill up the whole slice of paper.
“You see things so much differently than I,” he said.
“Of course.”
The picture was pleasing to look at. He watched it while he prayed. When he was done, she had already finished and was packing up brushes and inks. He helped her stow them in the pouches on her saddle and lifted her onto the horse. She gathered the reins, looking down at him, and said, “Stay here. Stay with us. Why go back to your own people and be conquered?”
“Lady, they are my people.”
“The Chinese were mine. I came with the Mongols.”
He brought his horse over and mounted. “They are my people. I have always… inclined toward the sin of discontent.” He smiled. “You’re happy here. I am not.”
She looked away, toward the river, and turned her eyes back to him. “He will kill you.”
His spine tingled. She had guessed; he had thought before that she was speaking of when the Khan would send him back to Rome, but she knew what he intended. He said nothing. She made a face suddenly, so violent that he laughed, and with a kick started her horse at a canter toward the camp.
Djela ran in, towing a puppy by a rope around its neck, and said, “Batu said to ask you if he could talk to you.” He flopped down on the carpet before the door, dragged the puppy into his arms, and began to wrestle with it.
Artai said, “Such courtesy from Batu?” She was combing out Psin’s hair. With each stroke of the comb his head drew back.
“Djela,” Psin said. “Go tell Batu Khan he may talk to me until they grave me.”
Djela bounded up and left. The puppy lay panting on the carpet. Artai laid the comb on Psin’s left shoulder. “Tidy your mustaches.”
“All four hairs?”
She laughed. “If you didn’t chew them they’d grow. Shall I leave when Batu comes?” She pushed the front section of his hair onto his forehead, so that it hung in his eyes.
“Do you want me to talk to a khan looking like a madman? Stay.”
Batu came in, with Djela right behind. The puppy banged its tail on the carpet. Batu sat down. “I was going to see Kadan and I thought I’d stop by and see you. It’s been a fine autumn, hasn’t it?”
“I think the winter’s always late here. Djela, fetch your cousin some kumiss. Or wine, Batu?”
“Kumiss,” Batu said. He was smiling; he’d put on weight, so that he made a square solid shape in the middle of the carpet. “I wanted to ask you if there is ill feeling between us, because of what my grandson did.”
“On your grandson’s part, maybe. Not on mine. Tshant should have been more careful.”
“Is he angry?”
“Yes. But I can handle him.”
Artai cut his hair off evenly and began to braid it. Batu said, “And I can handle Kaidu. So much for that.” He took the cup from Djela. Dmitri came through the yurt with a basket of chips for the fire on his shoulder and bowed.
“Is Kadan having any trouble?” Psin said.
“No. At least he’s not said so. But he’s been drunk since the middle of the summer. His tuman-commander is ruling for him. That’s a cunning man.”
“Huduk. Yes.”
“You know him?” Batu looked surprised.
“I’ve heard of him. He’s a Kipchak, and for a Kipchak to become a tuman-commander is interesting enough to be news.”
“Well. Kadan’s district is… almost a separate country, you know. Because of the hills. If he can rule it so well, maybe I can make him governor of the whole territory when we move on.”
Psin licked his mustache into his mouth, remembered, and spat it out. He began to see what Batu was after.
“Do you think so?” Batu said.
“I doubt Huduk should be without a Mongol to keep watch on him.”
“Ah.” Batu hadn’t touched his kumiss. Now he drank it in three gulps. “Who? Not Kadan. Would you do it?”
Artai’s fingers clenched in Psin’s hair, so that his scalp ached. His back muscles stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“Would you stay as my deputy in Hungary, when we go on west?” Batu leaned forward. “Sabotai can be talked into it. Tshant is a good general—he’s itching to take your place in the army. Let him go on. And when we hold Europe, you can rule it all, in my name.”
Psin let out his breath. “In the name of Batu Khan, or Batu Kha-Khan?”
Batu’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth slipped into a smile. “That… would be… according to the will of God.”
Artai got up and went into the back of the yurt. She called sharply to Djela, who had been listening rapt. The curtain fell between them and the two men. Batu said, “Well?”
“Let me think about it. You honor me. I’m not sure I’m worth it.”
“Who but you could do it?”
“Your brothers.”
“No. I know them better than you do.” He got up. “Tell me when you decide. Don’t be hasty. Talk to your son, if you wish.”
Psin’s head jerked up, but Batu had already turned his back to go. If Batu had mentioned this to Tshant—Psin got up and went into the back of the yurt.
“What will you do?” Artai said.
“Grandfather—”
“Be quiet. Don
’t tell Tshant. Artai—Djela, will you go?”
Djela ran off. Artai said, “At least he’s not subtle, Batu. A third part of the world?”
“Well, it’s not taken yet.” He laughed.
“Will you accept it?”
“I don’t know. Do you think I should?”
She put her hand on his sleeve. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe you should.” Her eyes searched his face. “If you want to.”
“Women. Just don’t let Tshant know.”
“I won’t.”
He turned to go. Her women were pretending not to listen; their cheeks glowed. When he went out past the curtain, he heard the sudden bubble of their voices, and Artai’s, quick and sharp, quieting them. Djela came in, the puppy in his arms, and looked up at Psin.
“May I tell Ama?”
Psin hunkered before him and put his hands on Djela’s elbows. “No. Do you know why?”
“Because Ada will be angry if he knows and you do not accept.”
“That, too. Batu told me… what he told me in confidence. He wouldn’t want it around the camp. You keep quiet about it.”
“I will.”
Psin smiled at him. “I know.” Djela was so much bigger, taller, with more heft to him, than he had been only ... It had been Djela who had pulled Tshant out of Kaidu’s hands, who had sent for Psin and Batu and strangely for Mongke. Psin stood up. “If I did, it would be for your sake.”
“No,” Djela said. “I wouldn’t want it.”
He went on into the back of the yurt. Psin sank down on the floor with his back to the couch; lacing his fingers together, he set his thumbs under his jaw and stared at the far wall and thought.
The days shortened, and the cold winds flattened the grass. Batu said nothing more, even after he came back from Kadan’s territory in the south. Tshant and Kerulu went out hunting alone and stayed away for a full day and a night. Artai was scandalized.
“They are too old to act like that.”
“They aren’t,” he said. “Unfortunately, I am. Let them alone.”
Artai pressed her lips together and glared at him.
Chan said, later, “You never took me away hunting.”
“I never thought you wanted to go.”
“I didn’t. But you never even suggested it.”
“If I had, you would have—”
“You never think of me except as something nice for your bed.”
“What are you trying—”
“Do you?”
“I think of you a lot. I do.”
“You don’t. I’m nothing but a broodmare to you. I wish I were back in China, where at least the men treated me like a woman.”
“If there ever was a man in China—”
He broke off. Her eyes were snapping. He muttered under his breath. Her unexpected smile burst over her face, and she dove into his arms. “Keep me warm.”
He tightened his arms around her. “Chan. You’ll drive me to my death.”
She was laughing, the sound muffled against his chest. He lay back, and she curled up against him. Her cats were sprawled all around the couch; they got up and purring started to lick Psin’s face and Chan’s, until they had to pull the covers over their heads to get away from them.
The next day he spent the whole afternoon talking to Kerulu about Quyuk and his mother and wife. Tshant came home just before sundown and Psin spoke with him a moment and left. When he went back to his own yurts, Artai said, “I’m glad you’re finally here. I have work for Arnulf.”
Psin stooped to sniff at the cooking pot. “Grouse? What does my coming here have to do with Arnulf?”
“Chicken. I sent him after you.” She shook out a robe and folded it, with three of her women holding the other corners. “But I suppose whatever you were doing had—”
“You sent him after me?”
“Yes. He said you’d gone down to the—where is he?”
“I never saw him. Dmitri.”
Dmitri looked in the door.
“Where is Arnulf?”
“I’ve not seen him, Khan.”
“Get me a horse. Artai, I was over at Tshant’s yurt all day. Where did he say I’d gone?”
“To the river to check on the herds.” She sat down heavily. “And he took a horse—I said he could.”
“God above.” He pointed to the Kipchak woman, who was rolling up felt socks. “Go over to my son’s yurt and tell him that Arnulf has run off. Tell him to call up all the men around here.” He took his bowcase from the wall and counted his arrows. The Kipchak woman trotted out, holding up the slack in her trousers with one hand.
Artai said, “Be easy with him.”
“The Yasa says he must be killed.”
He went outside. The dark was filled with an unnatural soft wind. Dmitri ran up with the dun horse and held him while Psin mounted. Dmitri said, “Khan, you were too easy with him. He never understood—”
“Don’t criticize me. Get me a torch.” The dun pawed at the ground and swung his hindquarters.
Tshant rode up on his dark brown horse. “Where did he go?”
“West. He has the white-footed bay horse, I think. That mare.”
Four or five men milled in the darkness before Psin’s yurt, getting on their horses. Dmitri came out with the torch and Psin thrust it into the lashings of his saddle.
“What did you do to him to make him run away?” Tshant said.
“Nothing. He’s European. They’re all crazy.”
Dmitri took hold of Psin’s stirrup and said, “Khan, don’t hurt him. He doesn’t know.”
“He knows.”
They rode out of the camp to the west. Before they’d passed the last yurt six other men had joined them—Kipchaks. Psin told them to spread out and yell if they saw anything. The plain rolled away before them to the river, and under the moonlight everything looked more distinct. They rode at a fast lope. Arnulf would have left the camp as if to find Psin—he’d told Artai that Psin was by the river so that he could go that way. Probably he had hidden in the trees on the bank until dark. Everybody around here knew Psin Khan’s yellow-haired slave.
The plain looked black as tundra under the full moon. He could smell the pitch on the torch, and far to his left one of the riders carried a torch lit. That had to be a Kipchak. No Mongol would ruin his night vision with a lit torch.
They reached the river and searched quickly through the trees. Psin studied the far bank, looking for hoofprints. He was sure Arnulf had crossed by now. Tshant called out, and he started at a canter toward him, ducking branches; suddenly the dun snuffled the freshening wind and neighed.
Psin reined him to the riverbank, stood in his stirrups, and looked. The grass of the plain beyond the river crawled under the wind. The hills at its far edge were under the horizon. The dun was staring at something, and looking where he looked Psin saw the moving thing, all but lost between the huge sky and the plain.
He turned the dun and started into the river. Tshant called a question and Psin pointed ahead. The others leapt into the shallow water and waded their horses across. Scrambling up the far bank, the dun broke into a gallop, and Psin had to pull him back to a trot.
Arnulf was far ahead. If he reached the hills they’d have to get help to dig him out. The other Mongols had seen him, and they drew closer together and in a single rank trotted after the knight.
The moonlight was hard on Psin’s eyes. Sometimes it seemed like a liquid, like silver tears. He stopped watching the knight all the time. The horse’s trot relaxed him and made him realize he was hungry. He dropped the rein over the pommel of his saddle and rode with his hands on his thighs, wondering what to do with Arnulf. He was too easy with his slaves; everybody said so, and wondered how he could live so well in households full of people constantly expressing their own opinions. He’d never had a slave run away before.
He looked up. Arnulf was slightly nearer than before. He had to have seen them coming. If he turned back and surrendered himself, or even if
he stopped and waited, Psin would only have to flog him.
The horses trotted along almost in a loose rank. He looked over at Tshant. In the moonlight Tshant’s face was gaunt, and the bones stuck out like rocks from the earth. Psin called to him, and he veered over.
“What shall I do with him?”
“You know the Yasa. Kill him.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Maybe he wants you to. Maybe he thinks his honor requires him to run away.”
“Maybe.” Why had he waited so long?
“The Christians believe that when they die they are made birds and taken up into the sky. So they aren’t afraid of dying. If he’s unhappy with us—”
“I told him I would send him back to Rome. I don’t understand him.”
“Neither do I. But just because we don’t understand doesn’t make it impossible.”
Psin glanced at him, amused. “You sound like a shaman. Are you learning new things at your age? And trying to teach me, too.”
“Kerulu told me that Djela acts older than I do, sometimes.” Tshant nodded ahead of them. “He’s stopped. He’s waiting. Has he got a weapon?”
“Possibly.” Psin looked. The white-footed bay was still, and Arnulf had dismounted. But Arnulf turned and mounted again and rode off. “If he had none when he left he has one now.”
“A stone, a stick—”
“He’s strong. You saw him fight. Would you like to go up against him, hand to hand?”
“No.” Tshant rubbed his chin. “Not at all.”
They trotted on. The knight had lost ground to them when he stopped, but he wasn’t moving his horse out; he seemed content enough with this distance.
“Do you remember Kobe Sechen?” Tshant said.
“Yes.”
“Whenever he sent off mounted slaves, he gave them wind-broken horses.”
“I hope he never sent them off with urgent messages.”
“We’d have caught him by now if that bay were windbroken.”
“Am I to herd unsound horses, just in case I’ve got a restless slave? That mare has a bad hock. She’ll go lame sooner or later.”
Until the Sun Falls Page 50
