“Yes, and we did not mark them ahead of time,” Tarbagatai laughed. “Do you remember which ones were yours?”
Gansukh pointed at the nearby target that sported two arrows. “That one was already dead when my arrow hit it,” he said.
Tarbagatai grinned. “But what of the last?”
Gansukh shaded his eyes with his hand and made a show of peering at the farthest target. “It is very far away,” he said, “And I have developed a thirst. Perhaps we can check later.”
Merriment danced in Tarbagatai’s eyes as his grin stretched even wider. He raised his bow and let out a loud whoop of joy. “Yes,” he chortled. “Let us have a drink in celebration.”
As the other men noisily agreed with the resolution of the match and eagerly dispersed to gather skins of arkhi, Tarbagatai put his hands on Gansukh’s shoulders. “I would follow you into battle, brother Gansukh,” he said, and the intensity of his gaze matched the fervor of his words.
Gansukh returned the embrace, and found himself considering a strange idea. Could he lead men like Tarbagatai? To have the Imperial Guard at his command? The idea presented itself with no preamble, and he was surprised to find himself considering it.
And then he remembered the siege of Kozelsk, and the idea was like a black stain in his mind. He wanted to make it go away, but it only spread.
The arkhi, when he shared a skin with Tarbagatai a few minutes later, was incredibly sour in his mouth, and he fought the urge to spit it out.
She shouldn’t have stayed, but she had, and when Gansukh stirred shortly after dawn, she had laid still and kept her breathing as even as possible, hoping he would think she was asleep. With her eyes lightly closed, Lian listened to Gansukh as he rolled out of the tangled mass of furs and blankets that were their shared bed. He stretched, grunting and mumbling to himself, and noisily fumbled his way into his clothing.
Trying to be quiet, and failing miserably. She fought the urge to smile.
Once he was gone, Lian continued to feign sleep, slowly counting to one hundred in her head before she moved.
She had been sleeping in his tent since the night of the Chinese raid, though they had not been intimate that first night. He had given her the bed, and had slept next to the flaps of the tent, letting her know that no one would enter the tent without his knowledge. His protective gesture had been touching; and no less so when, a few hours later, she had prodded him with her foot and found him completely unresponsive. He had become her protector, but he did so without making her feel like property.
She had power over him, whether he realized it or not, and as she rose and dressed, she wondered what she was going to do with that power. A few weeks ago, the answer would have been clear, but she found her resolve wavering. Don’t be a silly girl, she thought angrily as she pushed back the flaps of the tent and stepped outside.
She wandered toward the heart of the caravan, taking note of the increase in activity around the cluster of ger where the caravan masters were quartered. The Khagan and his entourage might move today.
A clump of women came toward her, and Lian recognized Second Wife and her attendants, and she scuttled around the nearest tent, trying to avoid being seen. If spotted, Jachin would insist on hearing any gossip, especially anything about the Chinese raid.
She just couldn’t bear to talk about it. Not with that woman.
The women’s voices followed her, and her heart started to tremble in her chest. They couldn’t be following her, could they? She was being irrational, but that didn’t stop her from quickening her pace and changing her course several times. And when she spotted the flag raised over Master Chucai’s tent, she quickly made a decision and altered her course for his ger.
Jachin would never follow her in there.
She slapped the open flap of Chucai’s tent and waited impatiently, glancing over her shoulder. There was no response, and so she slapped it again, more firmly this time, and jumped back as one of Chucai’s servants suddenly appeared in the ger’s open mouth.
“Oh,” she started. “I... I am here to see Master Chucai,” she finished.
The servant stared at her, one eyebrow partially raised, and made no move to stand aside. His rigid posture made it clear that a shift in power had occurred. Rumors of her relationship with Gansukh were already circulating, and Chucai’s servants were taking advantage of the gossip to remind her that there was a difference between being the slave of a powerful man like Master Chucai and being the kept woman of a horse rider.
Lian sucked in a large breath, using the motion to draw herself up to her full height and to throw out her chest. “At his command,” she amended, with more than a little of regal haughtiness in her voice.
She should have come to see Chucai earlier, but there was no sense in castigating herself about that now.
The servant nodded without blinking, and stepped aside. She swept past him, flicking her hair with mock distain as she did so. Playing her old role, while part of her was certain the man would see right through it. He could see she was filled with nothing but doubt.
“Ah, Lian.”
Chucai’s traveling home was a replica of his small office at Karakorum. He was seated behind a wooden desk, working by candlelight. His travel trunks sat on one side of the ger, neatly arranged in a row; on the opposite wall, his long fur coat hung on a collapsible wooden rack.
“Sit down,” he said, waving a hand toward the stool next to the trunks. If he was surprised to see her, he gave no sign.
Lian sat, placing her hands, right over left, on her lap. She waited while he finished reading the scroll. He read, untroubled and unhurried by her presence, and she did not fidget. Fidgeting was for nervous girls, for scared women who were not in control of their lives. Squirming was what bored slaves did, and she was neither.
“It is a curious situation, is it not?” he asked as he began to roll the scroll up.
“Yes, my Master,” she replied immediately, her eyes downcast. Mainly so he would not spy any of the confusion and frantic wonderment she was experiencing.
“On one hand, I think you may have overcommitted yourself to your assigned task; on the other, I admire the security it has provided you.”
She knew he had seen the terse exchange at the entrance of his ger, and though he wouldn’t admit to having instructed his servant to act that way, Lian knew Master Chucai well enough to read the underlying message in both his words and his servant’s attitude. “Yes, my Master,” she breathed, carefully stressing the last two words without seeming to grovel.
“And of course there is the matter of why you might feel the need for such protection.” Chucai looked at her then, holding her with his piercing gaze. Not accusatorily, but with an air of knowing, as if it was indeed true that he knew everything that went on in this camp, just as the same impression were true within the walls of Karakorum.
Lian blinked. “Munokhoi,” she said, giving name to the true dread that had kept her awake the previous night.
It should have been the dead commander, Luo, but when she closed her eyes, it wasn’t his face, with his staring eyes and accusing mouth and the black tears that dripped from the gash in his neck, that haunted her dreams. It was the cruel visage of the Torguud captain.
“Before the Chinese bodies were even cold, he was here in my tent, standing right over there, railing at me about you being a Chinese spy.”
“What?” Lian spluttered, too surprised to form more words than the one.
Chucai squared up the ends of the scroll with a practiced twist of the cylindrical shape. “Indeed. It is an interesting accusation. And when I thought to ask you myself, you were—”
“I swear to you I am not—I would never—I am not a spy!” Lian tried to quell her rapid breathing, to lessen the feeling she had of being squeezed by a giant hand.
Chucai stared at her, letting the silence stretch between them to an almost unbearable length. “Yes,” he said eventually, releasing her from the penetrating intensity o
f his gaze. “I do believe that you are not.”
Lian gulped a breath and nodded gratefully. “Thank you,” she managed. Being subject to the gossipy attention of Second Wife and her attendants might not have been such a bad fate after all.
“However, I also believe the Torguud captain’s accusation that you were trying to escape, though he has, in all likelihood, completely forgotten this little detail by now. A fortunate omission in his record, don’t you think?”
Lian made no reply.
“Even though I believe you did not lead the attackers to us, what I think is of little consequence.” Chucai offered her a tiny smile, completely absent of any affection. “At least, in this matter.”
Lian regarded him warily, a serpent of fear slowly twining itself around her lower spine. If she had come to his tent immediately after the raid, would his attitude toward her been better? And yet, he sat here speaking to her as if she had been expected, as if he had, indeed, summoned her to hear this very... obtuse... conversation.
“Your opinion matters in all things, Master,” she said, lowering her gaze to her hands. Her fingers were knotted in her lap, and with some effort, she extricated them from one another.
Chucai chuckled. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it does. In some areas, my opinion is all that is required. What I think is best is what is done. And what is done by my command causes ripples. Like a stone dropped into a pond. The frog, thinking it is safe from predators, may suddenly find its protective lily pad disturbed. Removed from beneath it, even.”
“Am I the frog?” she asked.
“Are you?” Chucai raised his hand and mimed dropping a heavy stone. He leaned forward as if he was examining the results of his action.
“Munokhoi fears change,” Chucai said after staring at the results of his imaginary stone. “He does not like being outside the city walls. Too provincial. Too many wild animals, untamed creatures like... ponies.” Chucai laughed. “Yes, our brave Torguud champion is afraid of a young pony.”
The serpent twisted even higher up Lian’s spine. The young pony, she thought, and in thinking of him, was afraid for his safety. And hers, as well.
“What is to become of me?” she heard herself asking.
Chucai raised an eyebrow as he sat back in his chair, running his fingers through his long beard. “What should become of you?” he asked in a somewhat bored tone.
And she knew, in that instant, that Chucai was done with her. The failed escape attempt, the relationship with Gansukh, the threat of Munokhoi: these were all matters he no longer wished to concern himself with, and he had, in fact, realized a simple solution to all three. When she walked out of Chucai’s ger, it would be for the last time.
She should have been more thrilled. Chucai had, in effect, freed her, but where could she go? They were days from Karakorum, and if she tried to ride off again, Munokhoi would relish the opportunity to hunt her down. And Gansukh. Would he follow her? Would he protect her against Munokhoi?
She put her hand over her mouth to stop a half sob, half giggle from escaping. After all these years, what she had yearned for was being offered her, and all she could think of how to reject this freedom. How could she restore her usefulness to Chucai?
At least until the Khagan’s caravan returned to Karakorum.
“The Chinese,” she started, grasping at a fleeting memory from the night of the attack. “While I was being held captive by the Chinese, I heard one of their commanders talking about...”
The Khagan’s advisor remained slumped in his chair, but his fingers were no longer idly stroking his beard. “Go on,” Chucai said carefully.
“He spoke of a sprout, and... and a banner—”
Chucai leaped out of his chair, startling her into silence. He leaned on his desk, looming over her. “What did he say?” Chucai demanded, his voice sharp.
Lian swallowed nervously, her hands fluttering in her lap. The change in Chucai’s demeanor was not what she had expected, and she squirmed under his intense gaze. Her mind raced, trying to recall the conversation between Luo and the other Chinese man. “They... they said they wanted a sprout—that was why they attacked the Khagan’s caravan, but... but they were not able to find it. And so they tried to steal a banner instead.” She sat up, realizing which banner Luo and the other man had been referring to. “The Khagan’s Spirit Banner,” she breathed.
“Hssssst,” Chucai uttered, slamming himself back into his seat.
Lian fell silent. She kept her gaze on her lap, mentally calming her fingers and her breathing. Now was not the time to speak. Whatever she had heard from the Chinese meant something to Master Chucai; it was best to let him tell her, versus her trying to puzzle it out.
For now, at least.
“A sprout,” Chucai said eventually.
Lian let her gaze flick up, but Chucai was staring into the space over her head and did not notice. “Do you know what he was talking about? Have you seen such a twig?” he asked.
Lian shrugged. “A twig, Master? I have seen many twigs.” She felt unduly coy in saying it, but sensed a change in Chucai’s mood. If there was a way she could benefit from this change, she had to try to take advantage of it. “Perhaps you could enlighten me a little more.”
Chucai snorted and shook his head. “You would know it if you had seen it,” he snapped. “I’m not talking about the sort of branch of flowers that Jachin has her handmaidens bring her. This would be...” He waggled his fingers at her, glowering.
Chucai doesn’t know either, she realized. She dropped her gaze so that he couldn’t read her expression. “I have not, Master,” she said. “Though I would be more happy to keep an eye out for it, while I...” She left her sentence unfinished, hoping he would fill it in for her.
“While you what?” Chucai asked, his demeanor returning to its previous stony state.
The panic returned, squeezing her body. She was like the frog, swimming frantically in an enormous pond, with no shelter in sight. No lily pads. Just open water.
“While I... do nothing, Master,” she ended lamely. Her dreams of freedom were nothing more than childish whimsy.
“Exactly,” he replied with finality.
The frog, waiting for the stone to drop.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A Fateful Choice
Tegusgal was not the most physically imposing of men, but there was a quality in his gaze that Dietrich found both refreshing and worthy of a modicum of respect. They sat across from each other in a tent in the Mongol compound, separated by a narrow table on which a small pitcher of airag and two cups sat, both untouched.
To one side stood the priest, Father Pius, a nervous look on his face as he waited to translate for whomever would speak next. His eyes darted between the two dangerous men, looking rather like a mouse caught between two cats.
“Will he take the deal?” Dietrich asked when the silence overtook his patience. The priest turned and spoke rapidly to Tegusgal in the Mongol tongue. As he did, Dietrich loosened the pouch from his belt, laying it on the table with a jingling sound that no man, no matter his creed or homeland, could fail to recognize. The Fratres Militiae Christi Livoniae had lost many things, but its wealth was still in some part preserved, and Dietrich had brought enough coin with him to finesse certain situations.
Tegusgal reached for the leather pouch, loosening the string and digging out a single coin. He held it aloft between callused fingertips, and his eyes were dark and hooded. He flipped the coin and caught it, then said something in his own language.
The priest nodded in his nervous way, then translated. “He wishes to know why.”
Dietrich frowned, suddenly in muddy waters where the stones on which to put one’s feet could not be seen. A clumsy answer could upset everything the coin was about to purchase. Still, the coins were already on the table. It was too late to turn back.
“Because there are times,” Dietrich said, “when a higher purpose must be put before all other things. When honor must be defend
ed, even if doing so seems mad and foolish.”
That was the truth of it. There were other benefits to this arrangement—matters which Tegusgal could ascertain for himself easily enough—but the settling of accounts was of paramount import to Dietrich. His return to Rome would not be coated in shame. His masters would not be able to accuse him of failing in his assignment or speak derisively of his efforts at protecting the honor of his battered order.
“This is such a time,” Dietrich finished, and let it lie there in the space between them, with the coins.
The priest translated the words into the Mongol tongue, and Tegusgal’s only response was a soft grunt. The Mongol’s attention was on the sack of coins, his fingers dipping in and drawing out coins at random. Finally, the man’s dark eyes flickered toward him once more. Tegusgal’s lips curled into a cruel smile and he said a single phrase, short and direct.
The priest translated. “He finds your deal agreeable.”
Zug hustled beside Kim through the maze of tents that formed the fighters’ camp, an air of energy and urgency informing their pace. They rushed passed fires where meat roasted on spits, dodged around clumps of men bent over impromptu games of knucklebones, and diverted from their path to avoid a crowd forming around two men who were settling a disagreement over a camp girl by bare-knuckled brawling. They were running out of time.
They had not been able to speak with Madhukar. He had been impossible to find since word had come from the guards that he was to fight next in the arena. Worse still, they had been waiting for confirmation from the street rats that the Rose Knight, Andreas, would be the Western fighter. Zug had thought it too risky to warn Madhukar of the plan far in advance, and now they only had a few minutes before Tegusgal’s men arrived and escorted the wrestler to his bout. By the time they reached the tent, Zug and Kim were both winded.
Gasping for breath, Kim flipped back the flap on the wrestler’s tent and stared in shock. Madhukar was calmly seated on a mat, a girl massaging each of his massive arms while a third tried to dig her delicate hands into the hard muscles of his shoulders and neck. He was wearing a narrow loincloth that was only a token nod toward modesty. He was not even remotely ready to fight in the arena.