Silk Road

by Falconer, Colin

  But a Tatar woman does not sit quietly and compliantly like a Chin with her braided hair and lily feet. She set out to prove to her father that she was tougher and braver and more skilled than any in the clan. She had practised hour after hour, day after day, with bow and arrow. And these last two seasons she had won her reward, for Qaidu had allowed her to ride beside him in the hunt, had even given her command of her own mingan.

  But she was still a woman and he expected her to marry and bear sons. And if that was how it must be she had promised herself that one day it would be her children, and not any of her brothers’ spawn, that would take her father’s place as khan of the clan and lord of the Fergana steppes.

  But her ambition had been betrayed by a weakness she had never suspected within her. There was simply no advantage to a union with this barbarian and yet she had allowed herself to imagine it.

  She could not understand why he harboured this craving for her. When he discovered she was a mare like any other he would be disillusioned, and then she would be powerless, both as a woman and as the man she had tried to become.

  So why did she persist with this dangerous game?

  Qaidu had told her of the challenge that the barbarian had issued. That he would do such a thing, take such a gamble for her, truly astonished her. But she had told her father that she would accept. He would take the test that all her suitors had taken. If she won, he would die; if he won, she would relinquish her saddle and surrender herself to him as wife to husband.

  Which would it be?

  Let tomorrow decide.

  CXII

  THE VALLEY HAD been washed clean and the sky was a pale blue, the blue of Tengri, Lord of the Blue Sky. In the distance the snow-flecked green of the spruce forests swooped down to a cobalt lake.

  Khutelun sat astride her white mare, in long del and riding boots, her face wrapped in her purple scarf. She did not spare a glance for Josseran. They had given him an unappealing and irritable yellow mare with bad teeth and an ugly disposition. His long legs nearly reached the ground either side of her.

  The whole village had gathered to watch the entertainment. There was a carnival atmosphere, for everyone knew the ugly barbarian was certain to lose. Perhaps this evening they would have another boiling to look forward to.

  Qaidu emerged from his yurt, went to Khutelun and placed a hand on her horse’s poll. He leaned towards her. ‘You must not lose,’ he whispered.

  ‘I know what I have to do.’

  ‘Do not let your womanly feelings for this barbarian stand in the way of the interests of the clan.’

  ‘I have no womanly feelings for him, Father.’

  ‘I know this is not true. But whatever you feel, do not let me down!’

  Her white mare stamped and flicked its tail in its eagerness to begin. ‘I have raced and beaten better horsemen than this,’ she said. ‘I will win.’

  Josseran gritted his teeth against the pain in his shoulder. It was a blessed relief to be out of the cangue. But the arrow wound had left him with virtually no power in his left arm, and blood was still soaking his shirt. He would have to ride one-handed.

  Khutelun would not meet his eye.

  He felt a flicker of unease. She may be my equal on a horse, he thought, and she knows these hills better than I. But she surely understands the nature of the gamble I have taken. This contest is not a test of horsemanship, but a trial of the heart.

  I hope I am right about her.

  ‘Whoever brings me the goat has their will,’ Qaidu shouted, and as he stepped back he slapped the rump of Khutelun’s mare. It leaped away and the race was on, leaving Josseran’s horse standing.

  He galloped after her, towards the wooded hills at the foot of the ridge. The flat, hammering run of the pony sent shocks of pain through his shoulder. He ignored it. The only thing that mattered now was this race.

  Khutelun’s horse suddenly veered away, towards the steepest part of the hill, the spur that the Tatars called The Place Where the Ass Was Felled by a Goat. But Josseran had already decided on his own ascent, straight up the broad shoulder of the col.

  Although he trailed already by the distance of a crossbow shot, he knew he would win because in his heart he did not believe that Khutelun would let him die.

  He reached the shadow of the ridge and looked over his shoulder for Khutelun. Where was she? She had taken what seemed to him the steepest and most circuitous path and he expected now to see her far below him on the trail. But there was no sign of her.

  But then a shadow fell across his face and he looked up, startled, and saw her above him, at the very summit. She scooped up one of the carcasses and swung it above her head, in triumph.

  He remembered again what William had said. She is a witch and beyond redemption.

  No! He refused to believe she would trick him.

  He spurred his horse up the trail. When he reached the ridge he leaned from his saddle and scooped up the other carcass and laid it across the saddle of his horse. He looked around desperately for Khutelun.

  Now he saw the way she had come; there was a narrow defile that traversed the col, all but invisible from below. She was returning down this same trail, the bloodied carcass in her left fist. He spurred his own horse down the slope after her.

  He felt a thrill of fear in his belly. Perhaps this was, after all, the real Khutelun; Khutelun the Tatar, Khutelun the vixen who could not countenance defeat by any man, willing to stake his life against her own pride.

  He urged his pony over the loose scree, its hooves slipping on the loose rocks. But he knew he had lost. She was a hundred feet below him, her mare picking its way swiftly down the narrow trail as it had done scores of times before. Khutelun rode upright in the stirrups. It would be impossible to close the gap on her now.

  It occurred to him that he might turn his pony around and ride back over the mountain, away from Qaidu and the steppes of Fergana. Perhaps that was what Qaidu, even Khutelun also, had intended; this race was merely a diversion that provided him with a fresh horse and put him a safe distance from the camp.

  That was it. Qaidu wanted him to escape, and relieve him of the responsibility for his ultimate fate. They would make a show of coming after him, of course, but the khan would ensure that they did not catch him. Khutelun would have her victory and this night they would laugh about the barbarian around their fires, while the mutton grease and koumiss shone on their chins.

  He reined in his horse and watched her go. He wondered if she had loved him at all.

  He saw her turn in the saddle and look back up the ridge. She raised a hand into the air. In farewell, or in triumph?

  And then her horse stumbled.

  CXIII

  HE WAS SILHOUETTED against the sun, a hundred feet above her. She felt a momentary stab of pain at what she had done. But this way was best. She had saved his life and also acted in the best interests of her father and the clan. As a Tatar princess it was the only choice.

  She saw him turn his horse around, abandoning the chase. She twisted further around in her saddle for one last glimpse of him.

  It was all that was needed to change everything.

  If she had been watching the way ahead she would have seen the loose scree and guided her mare around it. Or perhaps her twisting in the saddle unsettled the pony. But moments later she felt a jolt as her mare lost her footing. Khutelun leaped clear to prevent them both sliding headlong down the slope.

  It was the mare’s instincts as well as her own agility that saved them. She jumped back to her feet, grabbing for the reins while the pony scrambled to keep its footing on the crumbling shale. Khutelun felt the rocks slip away beneath her boots and she fell hard on to her back. But she held on to the trailing rein, keeping the terrified animal in check. With a final effort the mare scrambled back on to the path.

  Khutelun lay there, winded by the fall. She got slowly to her feet, gasped at the pain in her ribs where she had fallen on a jagged rock.

  And then he w
as on top of her.

  She heard him galloping along the narrow trail, the fleece of the goat carcass slapping against his pony’s flanks. He was going too fast, but somehow he kept himself in the saddle.

  Her hand went to her belt and the plaited leather whip appeared in her right hand. It arced through the air with a crack like a falling tree. Josseran’s pony shied and bucked and Josseran slid to the ground.

  She quickly recovered her own mare and jumped into the saddle.

  Josseran scrambled to his feet and watched her ride away down the trail, numb with disbelief. He looked down at his left hand, at the bloody weal left by the whip. It had even shredded the fabric of his coat. His shoulder was on fire again; he could feel fresh blood running down his arm.

  His pony was skittering a few yards away, kicking its hind legs, its nerves and its temper not improved by this most recent experience. Josseran ran after him, caught the reins and tried to gentle him. It was still not too late to ride back up the trail and across the ridge. He could still get away, as he was sure they had all intended.

  No, damn her.

  He remounted swiftly and spurred the pony down the trail.

  Khutelun looked over her shoulder yet again, hoping this time he had taken the lifeline she had thrown him. Surely he had abandoned the chase.

  She could not believe her eyes.

  He was still in pursuit. ‘Get away!’ she shouted at him in frustration. ‘Get away!’ Her voice echoed around the mountain, along the defile, through the forest of spruce and fir, across the deep black pool at the foot of the ridge. ‘Go back! Go back to Kashgar! Save yourself! Go back!’

  He reined in his pony, was silhouetted for a moment on the ledge above her. She waited to see what he would do. Finally he turned away. As she watched him retreat she experienced a flood of relief, mingled with bitter disappointment. He was just a man like any other, after all.

  He knew he could not catch her. His little pony was fighting for every step on the loose rock. If he pushed him too hard he would eventually stumble and send them both sliding to their deaths down the side of the mountain.

  He had reached a broad ledge, and between the walls of the gorge he could make out the dun-coloured steppe and the black yurts of the Tatar encampment. A stream rushed down the mountain, foaming into a black pool far below. The sedge at the lake’s edge was still hardened with the night frost; the surface of the lake was black, afloat with sheets of ice. Patches of hardened snow clung to the hollows of the tarn where the sun could not reach.

  He peered over the lip of the cliff, heard the clatter of hooves echoing from the rock face on the trail below him. Khutelun’s voice echoed along the valley: ‘Get away, Joss-ran! Go back!’

  Go back. Go back with the mark of my whip on your face, Jossran. Go back without me, wonder about me for the rest of your life.

  ‘Better to drown in that cold black lake than boil in your damned father’s pot,’ Josseran said, aloud. He dug in his heels and tried to spur the pony towards the ledge. He would not move. So he took his dirk from his boot and slammed it into the pony’s rump.

  A wild leap into space.

  As they tumbled through the air Josseran threw himself from the saddle, still clutching the goat’s carcass in his right fist. He thought he saw the shadow of rocks hidden beneath the surface. He hit the water feet first. If death it was, then by some mercy he prayed it would be swift.

  There was horror in such spectacle, but wonder as well; wonder at his courage and his pride. One moment she had been staring upwards, shielding her eyes against the glare of the sun, thinking he was gone. Then suddenly there was a great mushrooming of water in the tarn below as the pony disappeared into the black water, and another, smaller splash as Josseran followed.

  Khutelun gasped. She had never imagined he might do something like this. The shock waves from where horse and rider had plunged in rushed towards the rocky shallows, where they lapped and foamed.

  How could anyone do such a thing?

  The pony’s head broke the surface first, and it swam desperately for the far bank. It struggled out of the water on tottering legs, blood streaking down its flank from a dagger wound in its rump.

  Still no sign of Josseran though. She choked back a cry of grief.

  CXIV

  AND THEN SHE saw him.

  His head bobbed to the surface, streaked with blood. He struck out for the bank with his good arm. He dragged himself from the water and lay gasping on the rocks. He still clutched the goat carcass to his body in the crook of his injured arm. Then he dragged himself back to his feet, reclaimed his horse’s reins, and scrambled back into the saddle. The pony, defeated by this madman, shocked and probably in pain, was compliant as a lamb.

  Khutelun cursed under her breath. It would have been better for them both if Josseran had died. Now there was no hope for him, or for her.

  She could try and swim across the tarn, or she could ride around it; whatever she did he had an unassailable advantage. So instead she just walked her horse along the trail, knowing she could not catch him now.

  Josseran was slumped over the poll of his horse, blood streaked down his face from a new laceration on his scalp, fresh blood dripping from the tips of his fingers where the wound on his shoulder had opened again. He was shivering so that his teeth chattered, soaked from the icy waters of the tarn. His horse, too, had blood streaked along its rump, and a mist of steam rose from its flanks.

  He walked the pony through the human corridor the Tatars had formed on the plain, directly to the doorway of Qaidu’s yurt. The silence was deadly and complete.

  Qaidu was pale with shock. His daughter had never been bested before. Now she had been defeated by the one man it was impossible for her to marry. Hers was a tiny figure, still two hundred paces away across the plain.

  Josseran threw the goat carcass at Qaidu’s feet. ‘The race is mine,’ he said.

  Qaidu nodded to his bodyguards. They dragged Josseran from his horse.

  ‘You cannot marry my daughter,’ Qaidu said. He turned to his soldiers. ‘Take him away. Put him back in the cangue. Tomorrow he dies.’

  And he stormed back inside his yurt.

  CXV

  ‘YOU HAD THE chance to escape. Why did you not take it?’

  He did not answer her.

  They were alone in the yurt, the wind hurling itself against the walls of felt. His head was bowed by the weight of the cangue. They had betrayed him. They had both betrayed him.

  He bears his pain without murmur, Khutelun thought, as a man should. Her whip had laid open the flesh on the back of his left hand and at his temple. He had injured his left leg when he hit the water, and his knee was swollen to the size of a melon. His shoulder, too, had opened again and there was a fresh clot of blood around the wound.

  But his trials had won him only an appointment with Qaidu’s executioner.

  The spirits of the Blue Sky had indeed had their joke at her expense. Finally she had found a man who had proved himself to her, who had bested her on horseback, and now he was to die. She knelt in front of him, cupping a small wooden basin of water in her hands. She dipped a cloth into it and started to clean his wounds. ‘Why did you not take the chance to escape?’ she repeated.

  ‘Let me ask you this first,’ he said. ‘Did you know what your father was going to do?’

  ‘I am the daughter of a khan. I cannot marry a barbarian.’

  ‘And so you thought I would run to save my own life rather than stay and fight for you.’

  ‘Any sensible man would have taken his chance when it was given him.’

  ‘A sensible man would not be sitting on this godforsaken plain thousands of leagues from the place where he was born. A sensible man would not have sold his lands to serve five years as a monk and a soldier. A sensible man would not run a fool’s errand across half the world.’ He blinked slowly, as if waking from a dream. ‘But you did not answer my question. I asked you if you knew what your father planned.’
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  ‘Of course I knew.’

  She slipped the scarf from her face. She ducked her head and put her mouth over the wound on his shoulder and started to suck at the clotted blood.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he whispered. He felt her teeth pull at the flesh of the muscle, small trembling tugs like a child at the breast. Her mouth was moist and hot.

  ‘It is to clean the wound.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ he said, his voice hoarse.

  She pulled away again and looked up at him, puzzled. There was a brightness in her eyes that had not been there before. ‘But the blood will turn bad.’

  ‘Just leave me.’

  ‘Is it what you wish?’

  ‘No, but leave me anyway.’

  There was blood on her lips. The smell of her stirred him, not sweet perfumes and ointments, but blood and leather and sweat.

  ‘You cannot marry a Tatar princess,’ she said.

  ‘How does your father intend to kill me?’

  ‘The traditional way for men of high birth and great valour. You will be rolled in a carpet and trampled by horses. That way your blood cannot be spilled on the ground and bring the tribe bad luck.’ She unexpectedly reached out a hand and touched him, just below the heart. ‘You are too brave. You should have run when you had the chance. That was my plan; my father conspired with me on it. I did not want this.’

  He was not listening. Even now all he could think about was her breath, her heat, her eyes and, as he had so often wondered about, her body. The look in his eyes again betrayed his thoughts.