by Various
“I heard you might come,” said Taran, “and knew you’d need whipping into shape before the contests begin.”
“Taran you know,” said Feronantus, “and this dark, splendid fellow is Raphael, our physician. There is much we might speak of greetings and tales, but, Roger and Percival, you have interrupted me en route to a meeting, one I’m assured is too important to be delayed.”
Eyes went to Cnán, then back to Feronantus.
“This is our swift-footed guide and messenger,” Feronantus said. “Her name is not important—for now.”
Taran muttered something about Bindings, and then wary interest chased the confusion out of their faces.
• • •
“Where did I come from? Places of which you have never heard the names. So there would be little point in my reciting them,” Cnán said, in answer to Feronantus’s first question.
Amusement around the table, only a little strained. She was nervous that the one named Raphael, with the close-cropped black beard and the Syrian look, might call her bluff. A Crusader, she guessed, born and bred in one of the few surviving fortress-cities that the armies of the west still garrisoned in the flyblown hellhole that they styled the Holy Land. But such a man might know the deep parts of Asia better than say, Taran, who was Irish and probably considered Dublin to be part of the exotic Orient.
Or perhaps she was being unkind. Hunger, and being hunted like an animal, had a way of shortening her temper. She tore into a piece of bread while the three senior knights enjoyed a chuckle.
“But most recently,” she went on, chewing and talking at the same time, “in the last few days, I have traveled from Czeszow. East of here.” She swallowed. “In the forest.” And again. “Where Mongols don’t like to go. There is a man there, a Ruthenian of noble birth, from the city of Volodymyr-Volynskyi—you probably know it as Lodomeria. He says he knows you.”
A serious, pained look came over Feronantus’s face. “Illarion,” he said.
“A member of your Order?”
“No,” said Feronantus, “but he could have been, were it not for… religious controversy.”
“Wrong kind of Christian?” Cnán asked, still chewing.
“Yes. Please go on. Illarion is alive, you say?”
“You seem surprised,” Cnán observed, “which tells me that you must have heard tell of what happened at Lodomeria.”
Feronantus’s silence implied consent. But Taran only looked provoked. “I have not heard,” said the Irishman.
“Briefly, the same as happened to all other cities that stand in the way of the Mongols. Perhaps worse than usual.”
“How did Illarion escape? He is not the sort to run away.”
“Aye, your judgment of his character is sound,” Cnán said. “He stood and fought. Was captured, along with many others of that city’s noble class, as well as clergy, merchants, and so forth. Mongols do not like to shed the blood of captives. It’s fine on the battlefield, of necessity, but they prefer to put prisoners to death bloodlessly. If it’s only one, or a few, they bring out a wrestler who breaks the spine. But that’s too slow for large numbers. So they bind their captives and force them to lie down in an open field, like a human carpet. While the poor people moan and plead, over this the Mongols throw planks, making a heaving floor. Then they ride their horses up onto the floor—though the ponies like it not a whit—and ride them back and forth… over and over… until the crying and moaning stops. The Mongols bray and babble and toast each other with their foul milk. Their young watch and dance like imps in hell. It’s a fine party,” she spat, and her eyes darted around the astonished circle. She put down her bread. “By the time the party’s over, most of the prisoners have been trampled to death. The ones who survive are too broken to move. Mostly dead, mostly broken,” she added, fingering the bread again. Her stomach twitched and she shook her head. “Enough.”
“This happened to Illarion?”
“Yes. And his wife and daughter. The next morning, while Onghwe Khan and his men were sleeping it off, a few black bones came around—”
“Black bones?” Feronantus asked.
“Mongols of lower caste. Tartars, Turks, some Ruthenians. They came to pull up the planks and take ears.”
“Ears?” Taran asked sharply.
Raphael explained, “It is how they count the enemy dead.”
“Most of us have two ears!” Taran protested.
“It is always the right ear,” Raphael said gently.
“When they cut off Illarion’s right ear, he woke up,” Cnán said. “Reached up like a demon out of the muck, snatched the knife from the ear-cutter, twisted it around, and gutted him. A few other black bones bandied their bow legs his way. He picked up a plank and used it like a quarterstaff. Brained them one by one. Killed them all.”
This cheered her a little, and she took another bite. “Collected their horses and rode away. Do you have beer?”
The knights looked at each other and smiled as if at a secret. Raphael poured her a glass of the foaming sour stuff they had been drinking. It tasted like beer but was as strong as mead and made her head swim.
“Since Illarion still lives, I cannot simply dismiss the story,” said Feronantus, after thinking about it for as long as he wanted to, “but I suspect it to be half true and half nonsense.”
“Plank as quarterstaff,” Taran said, tugging mightily at his beard and screwing up his face. “Difficult to get a proper grip.”
“Illarion was always good with a staff,” Feronantus reminded him.
“I doubt that the ear-taker woke him,” Raphael said. “He was probably lying in wait, feigning death.”
“His ear is definitely gone,” Cnán announced. “His right ear.”
“We needn’t resolve such questions now,” said Feronantus, as Taran seemed about to voice a new objection. “You say he is alive, and nearby.”
“Barely, and in a manner of speaking,” said Cnán. “Two days’ ride under normal circumstances.”
“I love Illarion,” Feronantus admitted freely, “and would do almost anything for him. But there are only a few of us, and we are here for another purpose.”
“He said you would say that,” said Cnán, “and you should come and get him anyway, and that you would understand when he got here.”
Feronantus looked mildly put out. He gave Cnán a searching look. “You would lead us to him?”
“Of course, if you let me finish this bread. And give me more beer.”
“Please, eat your fill. Raphael, will you go and tend to Illarion’s wound?”
“Of course.”
“Take Finn and, in case there’s trouble, Haakon.”
“We might need Haakon here,” Taran warned. Cnán wondered why they needed the boy. He was feckless and clumsy-looking. She almost felt sorry for him.
“Raphael will bring him back safe and sound,” Feronantus returned, shifting his gaze to the Syrian.
CHAPTER 2: The Khan of Khans
ÖGEDEI, KHAN OF KHANS, third son of Genghis the Great Conqueror, sat upon his throne. His mighty frame was draped in fine robes—delicate embroidery depicted clouds and dragons in pure gold thread on a sky-blue background. Around him were the lavishly painted walls of the Great Palace of Karakorum. The lilting music of zithers filled the room, and lithe girls danced about the Khan’s throne, their sheer silk sleeves twirling red spirals in the air. Ögedei divided his attention between listening to the petitions of the bureaucrat prostrated before him and playing with his empty cup. He spun the cup deftly in his broad right hand, tracing the delicate silverwork with his fingertips. The cup was empty. He did not wish it to remain empty.
“O, Khagan, Master of the World,” said the Shanxi Provincial Sub-Administrator, his fat forehead firmly planted against the floor, “I bring myself before you today to humbly request that the grain taxes for Xieliang County be lowered from one in twelve bushels to one in fifteen…” The beaded tassels on the top of his cap dangled back and fort
h as he talked, and Ögedei found the motion mesmerizing. He was well into the embrace of the wine, and his mind was easily snared.
Weak, he thought, staring at the tassel-topped Sub-Administrator. A life hunched over books and papers. Any simple peasant among his subjects could subdue him and choke the breath from his throat, yet he governs them completely. He studied the man, his ludicrous hat, his soft fat hands. One blow, he reckoned, I could split his head in two with one stroke, and then he could bother me no more. Ögedei sighed, and looked away. One hand idly stroked his mustache, while he traced the grooves and ridges on the cup with the other. But another would just take his place, and after him, another. Like swatting at a swarm of flies.
The Shanxi Provincial Sub-Administrator twisted his neck to look up at the Great Khan, expecting an answer to a question Ögedei had only half heard. He grew pale, seeing the twisted line of Ögedei’s mouth, and he started to stammer, the tassels bobbing up and down. Ögedei cut him off with a grunt and a wave of his hand. “Let it be thus,” he said. The tassels clattered against the floor as the Sub-Administrator groveled in gratitude. Praising the magnificent wisdom of the Khan, he shuffled backward until he was far enough away to flee the throne room without causing offense.
The Sub-Administrator scuttled between a pair of men entering the throne room. One was Yelu Chucai, Ögedei’s advisor; the other was a young warrior, wearing dust-covered leather armor. Chucai strode across the room, a floating apparition in his black silk robes. His beard, as dark as his robes, trailed down to his waist, a not-inconsiderable distance of his seven-foot frame. The young warrior looked small next to Chucai, even though the crown of his head was in line with the other man’s shoulder. The warrior’s eyes were wide, his boyishly smooth face unable to hide his wonderment at the array of treasures arranged in the throne room. Chucai knelt before the Khan, and the young man belatedly scrambled to follow his lead.
“Khagan,” said Chucai, “this envoy comes from Chagatai Khan.”
Ögedei studied the young man kneeling beside Chucai. Why has my brother sent an emissary? He tried to recall the last report from the noyon, his generals in the field. Batu, Jochi’s intemperate son, was still in the west, expanding the edge of the Empire with the aid of Subutai, Genghis’s brilliant strategist. Kadan and Onghwe were with the great horde as well; conquering lands for their father was a worthy cure for the boredom that had consumed them at Karakorum. Chagatai’s holdings—given to him by Genghis—extended from the Altai Mountains to the Amu Darya River. As long as Batu—and, by extension, the rest of Jochi’s offspring—kept conquering lands to the west, there should be no conflict between the two branches of the family. What more could Chagatai want?
The nagging question gave birth to a wine-spawned idea: the possibility of sending the warrior away, dismissing him outright without giving him a hearing.
“Why has my brother sent you?” Ögedei sighed, putting aside the idle idea.
The emissary started. “I…” he stuttered, “Chagatai Khan has sent me to…” He looked up at Ögedei, and the Khan of Khans saw both confusion and something else in the young man’s face. “I have been sent to ensure your safety.”
“Safety?” Ögedei echoed. A scattering of half-formed thoughts raced through his head, a confusion of trails that looped back on themselves. Who? He raised his head and looked around the room. Oil lamps illuminated every inch of the walls; there were no shadows, no places for assassins to hide. There were a handful of men at every door throughout the palace, and hundreds more—thousands—who would die for him at but a word. How much safer could this one man make him? “An assassin?” he sneered, the wine slurring his words.
“No, great Khagan,” the emissary spoke quickly, attempting to redirect the conversation. “Who would be so foolish to try to assassinate you? Khan Chagatai sends me to…” The emissary glanced at Chucai, and seeing no help in the advisor’s hooded gaze, plunged on. “Your brother worries about you, about your drinking. He has sent me to… to watch over you… and… and to make sure you do not drink more than a single cup a day.”
Ögedei stared at the emissary for a long time, long enough that even Chucai started to fidget. The young man looked out of place—a warrior more at ease on the steppes than in the halls of Karakorum, a man who did not like the roof over their heads—but there was something about the way he held himself, about the way his eyes moved about the room.
From deep in Ögedei’s belly, a rumbling sound rose, a laugh that shook his shoulders and made his robes tremble. “My drinking? My brother is concerned about how much I drink?” He swiped a hand across his mustache, and noticing his cup on the arm of his throne, he picked it up and threw it at the young emissary. The warrior had the presence of mind to not flinch as it bounced off his leather jerkin, dust rising from the impact. “My brother dotes on me like a brood mare.” He stood, looming over the two men, and the last vestige of the laugh became a booming echo in his voice. “I am Ögedei, Khagan of the Mongol Empire. I do as I please. My brother’s attention should be on the kingdoms he can conquer in my name, like his nephew Batu. Like my sons. The rest does not concern him.”
The wine was making his legs wobble, and Ögedei put a hand down on the arm of his throne to steady himself.
The emissary’s face tightened as he watched the Khagan. “It will be as you say, Khagan.” He offered a shallow bow and then turned away from the Khan, showing Ögedei his back as he walked out of the throne room.
Ögedei collapsed into his throne, a hot flush rushing up his neck. How dare he walk away like that? Gripping the arms of his throne, he pulled himself upright to yell at his guards.
Chucai had not moved, and the stormy expression on his face was enough to quell the shout rising in Ögedei’s throat. The wine fought him too, muddling his vision, and making it seem as if dark shadows swam behind his advisor. Shadows that could contain…
“I will speak with him,” Chucai said. Before Ögedei could argue, Chucai offered a perfunctory bow and went after the emissary, leaving the Khan to brood on his throne.
• • •
Ögedei leaned back on silk sheets and breathed the aromatic air infusing his private chambers deep into his lungs. Jasmine and magnolia, with a hint of cedar. It wasn’t the same as the rarified scent of the open steppes, but it reminded him nonetheless. In this room, away from the bowing and scraping sycophants and the watchful eyes of his guard, he could forget about the affairs of the empire for a while. His head throbbed faintly, a pressure against the crown of his skull—a lingering reminder of the wine. Dinner with Governor Mahmud Yalavach was a few hours away, and he hoped the headache would be gone by then.
The bed shifted around him, the light presence of his wives as they undid his robe and removed his fur-lined shoes. Hands ran over his muscular chest, and without opening his eyes, he caught them. He heard a quick gasp, and he knew whom he held. Jachin, the tallest. He had chosen her for her eyes, the brightest green color he had ever seen.
One of his wives put her mouth next to his ear, and he felt her breath. “So tense,” she whispered. He released his grip on the pair of fluttering hands and groped for the woman next to him. His hand brushed against her head, touching her thick braids and the thin ribbons she had woven into the strands.
“Toregene,” Ögedei murmured, rolling toward her.
She clucked her tongue, and the sound echoed in his ear. He instinctively moved away from her, and her hands slid under his body, pushing him further. He rolled onto his stomach, still trying to reach back and grab her. She evaded his clumsy grope, and tapped him lightly on the bare shoulder. “Lie still,” she admonished. “Let us see if we can’t work these knots out of your back.”
Ögedei grunted and relented, letting his hands fall onto the bed. “If I had my way,” he said, “I’d stay like this all evening, in bed, surrounded by my beautiful wives. We’d make love and then eat fried dumplings, then clean off in a cold bath and take a midnight ride. Out, over the steppes.
”
“As if you’d ever be able to keep up with me,” Toregene laughed.
Ögedei opened his eyes and tried to look over his shoulder. “In lovemaking or riding?”
“Both.”
Ögedei smiled. “Would you not leave me my pride, woman?”
Toregene snorted. “You would get it back in a morning at court. All those officials crawling on the floor, calling you High Grand Exalted Master of the World. Begging you to notice them.”
“It is our job to remind you of more important things,” Jachin said as she joined Toregene. She pressed her elbow down hard into Ögedei’s shoulder, and he let out a grunt of pleasure. “Tense as a bowstring. What is it that worries you?”
The dust on his shoulders, Ögedei thought. The young emissary from his brother Chagatai. The warrior had ridden countless days across the steppe to reach Karakorum. He had slept outside, nothing but the endless bowl of the heavens over his head. There had been a horse beneath him, and the wind had flowed through him. All he had known was the grass that lay behind him and all he saw was horizon before him.
“Do you know how long it has been since I’ve been on a horse?” he said. “How long it has been since I’ve ridden freely across the grasses?”
Neither woman answered. Nor will they, he thought bitterly. They know as well as I. “Some nights I dream of escaping this cave,” he confessed. “I’m sitting in that room, watching an endless parade of bureaucrats and officials. They flow in like a spring river, and every time I blink, there are more of them. A flood that will overwhelm me.
“And in this dream, I escape. I leap from a balcony, and there is a strong pony waiting for me. No one can stop me. I ride out of the gates, and I keep riding forever, until I die in the saddle. But the pony doesn’t stop. He keeps going, and my body rots away. My bones are scattered across the empire, and the pony doesn’t stop until he reaches the place where the sky bends down and touches the ground. All that is left of me then is my hands, my fingers wound in his mane.”
