Gansukh was one of them. Had he not demonstrated that fact when he chose his brutal Khan over her? Had he not denied her the ability to defend herself by stealing the very dagger she now held in her hand? Had he not wanted to keep her as a slave? It didn’t matter how much she taught him about how to speak, how to dress, how to be civilized; he was still a barbarian, a dog with blood on his face and hands.
She gripped the dagger tight, the way Gansukh had taught her.
She looked at Luo’s sweat-slicked face, and her stomach twisted as she realized his expression was just as alien. His eager anticipation of Gansukh’s death sickened her.
But he was one of her own countrymen-her rescuer. He was going to help her get back to China. Back to her family. She was going to be free. All she had to do was kill one man. One Mongol.
“Kill him,” Luo barked. He jerked Gansukh back, leaning forward as he did so. His face was so close to Gansukh’s, his mouth nearly touching the Mongol’s ear. “Watch her,” he laughed in Gansukh’s ear. “I want you to see your death.”
Gansukh surged against Luo, but he had little strength and less leverage. The Chinese man held Gansukh tight, his knee in the middle of Gansukh’s back. Gansukh snorted, blowing blood and snot out of his impacted nose; his open eye staring wildly at Lian.
She licked her dry lips and stepped forward, swinging the dagger from left to right. Her swing was slow and weak, and Luo grimaced as he watched her halfhearted attack. She was too far away, and the blade missed Gansukh’s neck.
Luo was starting to say something, his lips curled in an ugly snarl, when he realized she wasn’t finished. Having come as close as she dared to the Chinese commander, she stabbed savagely upward, the way Gansukh had taught her, driving the dagger deep into Luo’s neck.
CHAPTER SIX
A Colorful Tongue
You are young to have gone through so much loss,” Lena said when Ocyrhoe finished telling her story. “I hope you know how strong you are.”
Ocyrhoe shook her head. “I am not strong. I am small and weak, and that is why they didn’t come for me. I don’t know anything. I was not worth hunting.”
“You were the only one left, dear child, and you managed not only to survive but to bring a message out,” Lena stared intently at Ocyrhoe. “You taught yourself to hear within the silence. While you lack an understanding of certain rituals and the signs we use to identify ourselves to one another, you have innate and remarkable skills.” She laughed gently. “They should be frightened of you. Not the other way around.”
Ocyrhoe should have been pleased by such compliments, but the only thing she felt was deep exhaustion. It seemed ironic now, how eager she’d been to tell her story to a kin-sister, but it was so tiring. She had wanted to find out what was going on in Rome, but she actually had more information than anyone else. The more she learned, it seemed, the less she understood.
Lena wasn’t finished with her questions. “What happened when it was only you?”
Ocyrhoe exhaled, letting the words run out of her in a tumbling rush to be done. She knew she was babbling, but she didn’t care. “I don’t even remember what happened next. I don’t know what I ate, or where I slept, or if it was too hot or cold. The days were a blur. The Bear-” she stopped, flustered at her use of the nickname. How would this woman know who she meant? “The Senator,” she corrected. “Senator Matteo Orsini. His men had a list, I knew it as plainly as I knew I was the last one, and I couldn’t go anywhere I had been before. All I could do was practice my lessons. Learn the faces. Listen to the city. Stay out of sight. Stay alive.
“I would visit the statue of Minerva, because I remembered that Varinia had said that she watched over us. I didn’t know what else to do; maybe if I prayed…” She shrugged, summarizing her frustration and helplessness in that simple motion. “But why did I do that?” she continued. “I don’t really know. One day there was a pigeon with a message that said, Where are my eyes in Rome? Had one of my other sisters made it to Palermo? I didn’t know. And so I kept watch. I kept waiting until-”
Until the priest and Ferenc had arrived, and in the few days since-how many days? One? Two? — everything had changed.
“Enough,” Lena said. “I have asked too much of you already, I can tell. Let me send in some food, and then I shall inquire about someone who speaks your friend’s language. I have questions for him.”
When Lena left, Ocyrhoe sat with Ferenc on the cool and dry ground. They leaned against one another, their fingers tapping on the other’s skin. She told him as much as she could: the woman was a friend, another like her, and they had been talking about what had happened to others like them; she had gone to fetch them food and someone who spoke his tongue; afterward, they would return to Rome, probably with armed soldiers, to rescue Father Rodrigo from the Septizodium. Ferenc was remarkably patient throughout the lengthy process of Ocyrhoe telling him all this. If he were a tracker or a hunter, she assumed he should have been more intent on knowing what the goal was, but he appeared quite placid. He only showed some urgency when the food arrived; he ate quickly, as if he feared the hovering page boys might try to snatch the plates away before he was finished. He kept a protective eye on her too; otherwise he may as well have been one of the camp stools, so quiet and still he was.
She realized her affection for him went deeper than the simple love one had for an attentive pet.
When they finished eating, the page boys took away all the dishes, and they were left alone with a guard standing outside the tent. Dimly Ocyrhoe could hear the joyless sounds of camp life going on around them, and the light outside the open tent flap finally softened to an amber tint. A page boy came in and lit the lantern, and a hint of cool air began to circulate through the tent.
“Lena?” Ferenc asked and Ocyrhoe almost jumped; he had been silent so long.
“She wanted to find a Magyar speaker,” she said, and then signed on his arm. “She wants to talk to you.”
“About my mother,” Ferenc signed back, and gave her a questioning look. When she nodded, he signed, “My mother is dead.”
Ocyrhoe grimaced and patted the back of his hand. “Mine too,” she sighed.
“She was killed by the invaders,” Ferenc added.
Ocyrhoe snapped out of her maudlin remembrance of Auntie coaching her on how to use the needle and thread. “The invaders,” she signed. “The invaders who also made your priest body-sick and mind-sick.”
Ferenc nodded.
Her life, her focus, had always been about the city of Rome. She knew there were lands beyond; Auntie had taken her to another woman’s house on occasion to look at maps, and Auntie had wanted her to memorize them, but she had always found it so hard to make sense of the jagged lines. She knew that Binders were sent to other places, like the ones named on these maps, but she was a child of Rome, and there was always so much happening there. Her attention had never had occasion to wander far, and recent events seemed so enormously significant: the death of the Pope, the incarceration of the Cardinals, the destruction of the Binder network, the Emperor’s blockade of the city. What could possibly be more significant? Even the worried murmurs in the marketplaces about vicious, keen-eyed invaders from the East seemed so distant and so… unimportant. The threat of these Mongols was only something that strangers visiting from far-off places concerned themselves with.
But the Mongols had destroyed Ferenc’s life, and Ferenc was not a stranger.
Ferenc touched her cheek, and she started. “You are staring at me,” he signed, a self-conscious, slightly lopsided smile tugging at his mouth.
“Sorry,” she signed hurriedly. “I am sad for you.”
At that moment, there was a movement by the tent flap, and they both scrambled to their feet. Ferenc looked embarrassed, and she thought it was not entirely because he hadn’t noticed the approach of all the people who were streaming into the tent.
First two heavily armed young men entered, wearing livery that featured a black eagle wi
th widespread wings on the chest. After them came Lena and the commander. They were followed by a striking-looking man who was pale-skinned, pale-eyed, and nearly bald. The hair he did have-which covered much of his face and his bare arms-was a vivid reddish color. His tunic was far more ornate than those of the other men, and the entire front of it was covered with an image of the same black eagle, which gleamed with iridescence. After him came several more well-dressed men, all ruddy and tall, and all with the eagle insignia somewhere on their person; these were followed by two more armed guards.
The group, a dozen in all, entered formally, and took a seemingly ceremonial stance just inside the tent flap. Lena stepped forward and gestured for them to come closer. Ocyrhoe stepped forward cautiously, Ferenc behind her, a protective and reassuring hand resting on her narrow shoulder.
Ocyrhoe wondered who the man with the red hair was. He was ugly, in part because he was squinting, as if he could not see well. He looked stern, but not cruel. She had already met the commander; perhaps he was a general? Would he be leading the soldiers back to the Septizodium when they went?
“Ocyrhoe,” Lena said, “I have the honor of presenting you to the Wonder of the World, Frederick Hohenstaufen, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and King of Germany, Burgundy, and Sicily.”
Ocyrhoe recovered from her surprise, and gazed upon the man with respect, which she was sure he could tell from her gaze. But Lena said sharply, “You are to bow to him.”
Ocyrhoe hurriedly did so, and felt Ferenc do likewise behind her. “Your Majesty,” Ocyrhoe said. Ferenc made an earnest attempt to imitate the sounds of her address, but ended up mumbling nonsense syllables.
Frederick chuckled. “You are the first goddamned Roman who has bowed to me in months,” he said to the top of Ocyrhoe’s head; he spoke with a heavy accent, but she could understand him clearly. There was a pause, during which nobody spoke or moved. “It’s all right, you may stand up now,” he said at last, still to the top of her head.
Ocyrhoe straightened. “It is an honor to meet Your Majesty,” she said, wondering if his cursing was intended to frighten or intimidate her. Ferenc, behind her, had straightened as well; she was grateful that he made no attempt to imitate her words again.
“I have heard Somercotes’s message,” Frederick said.
Wanting to demonstrate her professionalism, Ocyrhoe quickly put her hand to her heart and declared, “Thus delivered of my message, I am like the fox, here unbound and unencumbered.”
Lena’s lips tugged back in an almost motherly smile. Frederick, as if he had not heard her, continued on, “Lena has informed me of what has transpired in your city, and it saddens me that Senator Orsini-what did you call him? The Bear? Yes, it saddens me that the Bear has treated his innocent people so monstrously. Whatever grievance you have with the Senator, I too share.”
Binders bear no grudges, she heard Varinia’s voice recite in her mind. Binders bear nothing but messages and knowledge. She opened her mouth to say it aloud, but Frederick seemed to not require a response from her. “Jesus Christ. I am sure you’d take as much satisfaction as I would in my men destroying that goddamned Orsini and tearing down his whole goddamned palace, but I cannot indulge the impulse. Why are you gaping at me?”
Ocyrhoe blinked, and looked at the ground to recover her composure. He spoke like the other children who ran wild in the alleys and tumbledown hovels of Rome. She’d never heard anyone in good clothing use such foul language-and he did it so casually. She had never wasted much imagination anticipating how an Emperor might behave, but she assumed his demeanor should resemble the Pope’s, and Frederick’s most certainly did not.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” she said, and looked up again. “I am to return with your response to my message, and I am uncertain of…” She found herself struggling to find the right words. He isn’t a street rat; think of the ways Auntie and Melia taught you to speak. “I only wish to be certain of your reply.”
“Oh, I’ll reply,” Frederick said with a huff of bitter laughter. “You better damn well believe I’ll reply. But not the way he asked me to. If I send soldiers in there to storm the Septizodium, the Church will accuse me of all sorts of goddamned abominations, and as soon as they’ve gotten their new false idol on the throne of Saint Peter, he’ll only continue to blather at me the same way his predecessor did. Perhaps, instead of simply excommunicating me, they’ll put my entire empire under interdiction.” He started to pace about the tent, and his attendants shuffled closer to the canvas walls to give him space. “Not that I give a shit about that, of course, but my nobles tend to twist their hands like frantic ladies when the subject of eternal damnation comes up. They are like pustules on my ass, even when things are going well.”
Ocyrhoe bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself quiet; she was absolutely astounded at the man’s language and attitude. She herself had never felt any particular interest or attraction to the Church-the few times she had been inside any of the churches in Rome had been as part of her lessons with Varinia-but she knew enough to be respectful. She had been to several public events outside the Lateran Palace and St. Peter’s Basilica, and had watched in wonder at the reverence with which each person approached the Pope. Even from those whom she later learned did not like the Pope. And excommunication. It had to be a horrible thing, the way people in Rome spoke of it, but the Emperor seemed to think it was less troubling than a mild ailment of the stomach.
“No, my child,” Frederick continued in the same offhand tone, “I must take a different tack altogether. The Church rages against me because I am preventing some of its Cardinals from returning to Rome. They wish to elect a new pontiff, but their own rules have forced them into a deadlock. I knew Orsini had hidden them, so as to better prevent my spies from influencing their decision, but the decision to remain in that fucking nightmare hellhole of a ruin is theirs. Not mine.
“So, rather than leaping to take up this role they wish me to play-the part of the villain-and assaulting their precious conclave, I will opt to be the hero and salvage their byzantine procedure instead. I will not send troops into Rome; I will release one of the Cardinals instead. I will allow him to accompany you to the Septizodium, where he may join the others in damnable discomfort and imprisonment. May his vote end their tedious torture.”
He offered her a dazzling smile, clearly very pleased with his decision. “He will probably vote for the wrong man, but”-he threw up his hands and looked toward the roof of the tent-“there is no right man. Attempting to control the outcome has been a misguided waste of my goddamned time, frankly. It doesn’t matter who the hell they choose, he isn’t likely to approve of me. Let’s just get the damn thing settled; let the new puppet dance on his throne, let him waggle his finger at me and write his endless bulls and tracts, castigating me and telling me how to run the empire. I will ignore him much like the man before him; life will go on.”
Ocyrhoe did not know if she was supposed to respond to this diatribe (though she suspected a response was neither necessary nor required), and so she stood there mutely, a pleasant smile plastered to her face. How would she tell all of this to Ferenc? For all his patience, she knew he was eager to return to Rome with a complement of soldiers and stage a dashing rescue of his beloved Father Rodrigo. She glanced at Lena, wondering if the Binder had found someone who spoke Ferenc’s native Magyar.
Lena was staring at her, a thoughtful yet distracted expression on her face. She had seen similar expressions on the faces of artisans in the marketplace crafting something out of raw material. It was an expression of concentration; simultaneously assessing the half-crafted state of the object in front of them and comparing it to their mental image of what that thing was meant to become.
Having finished his proclamation, Frederick turned and said something to one of his officials in a guttural tongue that she did not know. The man responded tentatively, and at a nod from Frederick, bowed and scurried out of the tent. Frederick said something to Lena-in th
e same tongue-and she stirred from her reverie, her reply precipitating a rapid conversation. Frederick’s face lost some of its ready humor, but he eventually agreed to whatever she was suggesting. Even though she did not understand what they were saying, Ocyrhoe was fascinated by the brief insight into the working relationship between them-they seemed to be conversing as equals. Then, very abruptly but cheerfully, the Emperor bid good afternoon to Ocyrhoe and Ferenc, and strode out of the tent while they were still bowing to him. The entire retinue, except for Lena, followed.
“If I ever used half as much gutter-speak, Auntie would have whipped me,” Ocyrhoe declared when the entourage was well outside the tent.
Lena-very briefly-smirked. “His Majesty is renowned for his colorful and often blasphemous language. He grew up in Sicily,” she said, as if that somehow either explained or excused his language. “I hope you understood the import of his words?”
Ocyrhoe nodded, turning toward Ferenc and taking his arm to start the lengthy process of relaying Frederick’s decision.
“You will stay here in the camp until His Majesty has determined which Cardinal it will be. His guests, as he describes them, are staying at the castles of men he trusts. When the one he has selected arrives, we will return to Rome.”
Ocyrhoe paused, her fingers resting on the back of Ferenc’s hand. “We?” she asked.
“Yes,” Lena said. “I will be going with you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lian’s Dagger
Lian stabbed Luo in the neck, and she had only a moment to be shocked by the volume of blood spurting over the blade and her hand before the Chinese commander violently clawed at her. He caught some of her hair with a wild grab, and clutching the black strands tightly, he yanked her head forward. The hilt of the dagger was slippery, but she tightened her grip and sawed the blade back and forth. More blood gushed out, and Luo gurgled and coughed, and blood spattered from his yawning mouth.
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