Eventually the priest began to nod. “It is not a plum blossom,” he said, “but a red rose.”
“Very well. The Monks of the Red Rose, then,” Kim said, shrugging to indicate that he did not really care what sort of flower it was or what this order called itself.
But Pius would not let go of the topic. “The rose is a symbol, in the heraldry of the Franks, for the Virgin.”
“Fine. They are celibate monks. We have them too. Or at least we have ones who claim to be celibate.”
“All monks are celibate,” Pius said. “That is not what the rose symbolizes. It means, rather, the Virgin Mary, Mother of God.”
A number of questions came immediately to Kim’s mind, but he forced himself not to utter them, since the conversation had already dwelled on this topic much longer than he had any use for.
Pius was unstoppable, though. “They are the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae,” he said, switching briefly into some other language that made no sense at all to Kim, “which means, the Order of Knights of the Virgin Defender.”
“They are defenders of virgins?”
“No. Well, yes. Of course they defend virgins. But that’s not what it means. The Virgin Defender is a sort of manifestation of the Virgin Mary that once appeared above a battlefield, holding a shield and a lance, inspiring the founders of this order to extraordinary feats of arms.”
“Can you get a message to them or not?”
“Yes. By all means.” Father Pius had begun rummaging in a chest socked away in the corner of the little room. All of its furniture had been burned or looted; this chest had been put in place after the battle. As Kim now saw, it contained the stuff that Franks used to write: dried animal skin, quills, and small clay jars that, judging from the stains around their necks, contained ink. A bit of time was lost now to fussing about with this gear, trimming quills and mixing mysterious fluids into the jars to get the ink to the proper consistency. Kim could see clearly enough that this was a little show that Father Pius was putting on to remind Kim of all the trouble and expense he was going to—trouble and expense for which he would expect to be compensated later. But in due time he got himself situated on the flat lid of the chest with all in readiness: candle, ink, quill, parchment, and Father Pius himself.
Kim cleared his throat. “Kim Alcheon, Last of the Flower Knights, to…” He paused. “What is the name of the master of the order?”
“They guard their secrets closely,” said Father Pius, “but it is rumored that one of their masters—a man named Feronantus—has been spied in their camp. And if he is really there, then he is unquestionably the man in charge.”
“…to Feronantus, then,” Kim concluded. “Greetings. I and my brother-in-arms, Mountain of Skulls, have taken note of your prowess and—”
“Would you like me to translate that literally?” Pius asked.
“What?”
“Mountain of Skulls? It seems a trifle…undignified.”
“You may write Zugaikotsu no Yama, then, or whatever other name pleases you,” Kim answered, “as long as this Feronantus understands that the man being referred to is the one who fought their champion in the Circus of Swords most recently.”
“Very well, I shall make that clear,” said Father Pius, and he spent a good long time scratching out a series of odd-looking glyphs. Kim had difficulty telling one apart from the next. They all looked approximately the same in his eyes.
Pius was looking up at him expectantly.
“We would discourse with you respectfully and honorably, warrior to warrior. If it would please you to accept, send word with the bearer of this note or make yourselves known to us within the encampment of the Khan, which is where we dwell. Yours in respect and honor…and so on and so forth.”
“That is all? You would not like to say anything more specific?” Pius asked, seeming a little crestfallen. Clearly he had been hoping to glean something of personal interest or value by eavesdropping on the exchange of letters and was disappointed by the lack of detail in what Kim had said. Kim gave him a sharp look. Pius cringed, understanding that he had revealed too much of his own desires and motives. Without any further editorial remarks, he finished scratching it all down, dusted the parchment with sand to blot the ink, and then blew it off and rolled it up into a tube. He dripped candle wax along the edge to seal it, and Kim used his own personal chop to mark the wax.
“When will you deliver it?” Kim asked.
“I was about to go out anyway,” said Father Pius, “to run some errands. I shall do it now.” He paused. “Their chapter house is some distance away, and I will not be back for some time…”
Kim ignored the priest’s hesitation. “When it has been done, I shall come back and talk to you about how you shall be compensated,” Kim said, forestalling any complaint from the priest with a stern look, and then took his leave.
Pius had not been the only one to recognize him, and word had already gotten round that he was inside the church. When he emerged from the back room, he found several young warriors waiting for him. Fortunately they were all boys seeking instruction, not men who wanted to fight. Feeling no interest whatsoever in giving instruction to these unwashed and unruly novices, he was about to tell them gruffly to go away. Then, though, he recalled the words of Two Dogs Fucking: Is there someone you could trust more?
Some of the boys were half Mongol, and others seemed to have learned a few words of the language during the months that the Mongols had been running the place. After a few minutes of verbally sparring with them—seeming to show interest in them one moment, brushing them off like flies the next—he settled on one of the older and more fluent boys. His name was Hans, which stuck in Kim’s memory because, unlike many other Frankish names, it was easy for him to remember and pronounce.
“Stealth and guile are fine qualities in a warrior,” Kim said to Hans as he drew him aside. “See if you can follow Father Pius without being detected, and bring me a report of his actions. If I am pleased by the results, I shall teach you something.”
Hans’s blue eyes flicked to one side, then the other, counting the number of other lads in earshot.
“You may translate what I have said to these others, or not,” Kim said, guessing his thoughts. “The choice is yours.”
“What will you teach me?”
Kim looked him up and down. “Since you do not have a sword, I shall teach you how to defeat an armed man with your bare hands.”
Hans spun and took off as if Kim had just threatened to kill him. He was pursued by several other lads who wanted to know what Kim had just said.
Kim smiled and, leaving the ruined church, enjoyed a pleasant—and unmolested—stroll to the shop of a certain woodworker, a carver who had been making Kim a staff out of a certain type of local hardwood. It was difficult, in this part of the world, to obtain woods as dark and heavy as the ones that were used for such weapons in more civilized parts of the world, and so the project was proceeding slowly.
The artisan spoke no Mongol and Kim spoke none of whatever language was common in these parts, and so the conversation was slow as well. They were only a few minutes into it when they were interrupted by Hans, who barreled into the workshop with the news that Father Pius had gone straightaway to talk to the Master of the Something-or-other Knights.
This was just what Kim had hoped to hear, and so he told Hans to wait for him to conclude his business with the turner.
A few more hard-won sentences passed between them, but Kim noted, after a certain point, that he had not heard a word of what the artisan had said to him. Something was troubling his mind. He held up his hand to still the woodworker’s tongue and devoted a few moments to thinking about what Hans had said.
“Did you say that Pius is meeting with this man now?”
“Yes, I saw them talking to each other at the knights’ compound.”
“That is odd,” Kim said, “since I was led to believe that the knights were staying at a place some distance away from here
.”
“Oh no,” Hans said, “it is no more than a bowshot from where we are standing.”
“What is the name of this master who Pius is talking to?”
“Dietrich.”
“Not Feronantus?”
Hans looked confused. “Feronantus is the master of the Shield-Brethren. Father Pius is at the compound of the Livonian Knights.”
“Take me to him,” Kim said. He snatched a staff from the woodworker’s supply—not the one he had commissioned, but a stout piece of oak that would do, in a pinch—and hustled after Hans. There was no time to explain to the woodworker that he was only borrowing and not stealing.
But by the time Hans had led him through the maze to the place in question, Father Pius had already finished his conversation with Dietrich and set out northeastward, in the direction of the camp of the Shield-Brethren. This news was given to Hans by a younger boy who was apparently acting as Hans’s deputy. Kim noted with interest and approval that Hans, even at his young age, was already capable of delegating responsibilities to followers. As Hans conversed in the local tongue with the younger boy, Kim scanned the stone building that the Livonian Knights had seized and made into their local headquarters—a building somewhat smaller than the standing church, but like it, in fairly good condition—and observed their sigil on a banner. The symbols were red—that much was correct, at least—but neither was a rose. This was not the standard of the Ordo—what had Hans called them? A simpler name than the impossible one that Pius had used. The Shield-Brethren.
Had Pius betrayed him to Dietrich? Or merely stopped by this building on some unrelated errand before proceeding to the meeting with Feronantus? I might not be able to trust him. Kim could already imagine the conversation with Zug.
There was only one way to be sure: check the seal on the letter.
CHAPTER 22:
TO SAVE THE EMPIRE
Gansukh kept his left hand on the pommel of his saddle and stretched his right hand out in front of him. He looked at his hand against the green of the vast grasslands of the Orkhun River Valley. The width of a man’s hand was called an aid, and it was used to measure everything a man could lay his hands on. Out here, he could measure the height of the grass, the depth of his stride, the length of his horse’s shadow, but all of these things were insignificant against the endlessness of the steppe.
The late-summer pasture grasses undulated like water, revealing the capricious pathways of the wind. The sighing sound of the stalks was a song the Blue Wolf had taught him to hear. He could anticipate the gusts and brace himself against the sudden blows that tried to rock him and his horse.
He closed his eyes and stretched both arms out to embrace the wind; bracing against a strong blast, he squeezed his thighs to stay in the saddle. His horse lowered its head and laid back its ears, groaning deep in its chest. The wind carried the scents of men—smoke, meat cooking for an evening meal, the musky scent of sheep, camels, and cattle—olfactory markers of the pervasive spread of the Khagan’s empire. Along with that came an underlying stink of shit from both beast and man, and abattoir offal, that no city could ever hide—and many didn’t try as hard as Karakorum to hide it.
There are no secrets here.
His nose flared again, and he leaned his head back to draw in more of the cool air—finding other wilder and more promising smells. The scent of rain was faint, the tiniest whiff of the oncoming change in the seasons, that time of year when the clans turned south and east.
Ögedei would be leaving Karakorum soon, heading for his winter palace, and while Chagatai Khan had laid no fixed deadline on Gansukh’s task to curb the Khagan’s drinking, he could not escape the feeling that time was running out. Time for what, though? Gansukh had tried to flee that thought since he had visited the Khagan’s chambers, but now, out where no one could see the expression on his face or hear any word that might slip from his lips, he could face it.
What was he supposed to save? The Khagan was a drunk, and the entire court was caught in an inward turning spiral of sycophancy. Was this the pinnacle of the Mongol Empire? Like an arrow fired at the sun, eventually it flies as high as it can and then begins its calamitous plunge back to the ground.
Gansukh’s horse lifted its head and nickered, shifting beneath him, as if to offer an answer to his question. He looked out across the grasslands again. The sun hung like a coal over his left shoulder; he was facing west and north, the same direction he had ridden a few nights ago when he had pursued the thief. Momentarily he indulged in the fantasy of escaping all this decline and misery—by simply kicking his horse into a trot. He would ride west to the Orkhun, and then beyond, across the endless plain to the edge of the empire.
Leaving it all behind before it destroyed him too.
Lian.
What would happen to her? Why did he care? He frowned. She had nothing to do with his duty—other than the pledge that she was going to help him. She was a slave—and a rather demanding one at that. Most of the time, he was sure she was laughing at him, and while he thought of punishing her for her insolence—both imagined and real—he knew it would only prove her point. He would gain nothing by such physical domination, and he was starting to realize he would actually lose something valuable by indulging in such brutish behavior.
An image of the thief’s terrified expression flashed through his head, that last instant before Munokhoi dragged her away. The look in her eyes. Despair, and a glint of anger, directed at him. He had failed her somehow, and he couldn’t shake that sensation. He couldn’t shake the impression that he had seen something similar in Ögedei’s expression as he had raged about his chamber. Failure.
If he rode away—if he fled—it would be his failure that he was running from, not the empire’s.
The wind shifted again, carrying now the rhythmic thump and hissing stalk rustle of an approaching rider. Gansukh looked back at Karakorum. He squinted, trying to guess the identity of the rider. Not Munokhoi. Too short. Too slender. He felt like a fool as his breath caught in his chest. A woman?
He curled his lips at the sour taste in the back of his mouth—his stomach’s reaction to the elation he felt at the possibility that the approaching rider might be Lian. What is she doing? he thought. How had she managed to get out of the city without an escort? The horse and rider were unhurried in their approach, signaling there was no urgency, which made the possibility that it was Lian both more real and stranger.
The mounted figure slowly dropped out of sight behind a gentle hill, and when it reappeared, there was no doubt as to the rider’s identity. Lian lowered her head to hide her smile, but not before Gansukh saw a flash of white teeth.
He turned away, shoulders twitching, to face the honesty and honor of the endless steppe, and to hide from her the grin stretching across his lips. By the time she brought her horse alongside, he had his face under control, burying his delight under the stern expression he tried to maintain in anyone’s presence.
The wind died back, and the grasses rose to their full height. The riders sat quietly for a minute, watching the verdant plain settle into stillness, and finally Lian broke the silence.
“Your world,” she said.
“Yes,” he nodded. “Simpler. Safer.”
“For you,” she said. “I would have thought I would feel safe too, but all this emptiness frightens me. I don’t know what is out there.”
“True, but the rules are less complicated. It is easier to know what to do.”
Lian smiled. “The rules at court are simple too, Gansukh. You have shown a ready ability to learn them. It is just that they are…foreign to you. Still. It is a matter of comfort. You look across the land of grass and you see…What? Freedom?”
“The falcon soars,” he said, pursing his lips. “The rabbit knows to hide.”
“Freedom for you,” Lian said. “Not for me. And why is that? Because I am a woman? Because I am Chinese?”
“Are those truths any smaller inside the walls of Karakorum?”
“No,” she said, “but there is less wind.” She braced as the grasses bent again. “A moment ago, I would have felt confident in being able to aim an arrow, but now…the wind plays tricks. How can people from the land of grass ever hit their mark?” As if taunting her, the wind rushed in and flung Lian’s hair about her face. She used her left hand to push aside the black strands—pulling one moist from between her lips, he noticed—while her right gripped the reins. “You know that secret, don’t you?”
Gansukh nodded. Above all the things he’d grown to appreciate about Lian—her beauty, her intelligence, and her knowledge about the ways of the court—it was her confounding way of speaking about two things at the same time that continued to surprise him. He wondered if Master Chucai knew this about her, or if he simply saw her as a useful tutor for an ill-attired steppe barbarian.
Gansukh tried to think of a clever response, and failing to come up with anything that seemed remotely daring or insightful, he opted for cautious response and a simple question. “We’ll return to the secret of shooting through and between the wind,” he said. “For now, tell me why you risk leaving the city walls alone.”
“I’m not alone.” She again stroked hair out her eyes and looked for his reaction.
Gansukh twisted in his saddle and peered back toward Karakorum, in time to see a second rider disappear behind the hill. Gansukh recognized the peaked hat. Master Chucai.
“He invited me to ride with him.” Lian folded both hands across the pommel of her saddle, giving up on trying to keep her hair in place. He studied the freedom of her hair, then the sweep of the grass. The secret is studying the flow of the wind between your arrow and the target, measuring the battle between gusts, and finally—watching your target’s hair. The arrow must be nudged a cat’s whisker against the direction of that hair.
With a sinking feeling, Gansukh acknowledged that Chucai arranging a meeting was far more believable than Lian risking leaving Karakorum alone. Although he was pleased she had sought him out, he should have known she would have done so at her master’s request.