She couldn’t help herself, and she darted toward Gansukh. A Chinese soldier reached for her, and she slowed, pulling her arm out of his reach. He grinned, revealing a wide gap between his upper front teeth; lowering his spear so that the point hovered near her breast, he shook his head.
Beyond him, Gansukh stared at her. One of his eyes was swollen partially shut, dark shadows already discoloring his flesh. Dirt and ash and blood streaked his face, and a chill ran across her arms as she met his one-eyed gaze.
The Chinese soldier clucked his tongue, flicking the tip of his spear toward the unruly mass of her unbound hair that fell across her breasts. She looked away from Gansukh, met the Chinese man’s eyes for a second, and then demurely dropped her gaze toward the ground.
She caught sight of a dagger shoved negligently through the man’s belt, and she sucked in her breath. Her dagger!
A man staggered toward the group, and Luo Xi drew his sword. It wasn’t a Mongol, and Luo Xi relaxed his guard enough to slam his helmet back on his head as the wounded man came closer.
Lian recognized him as the other commander, the one who had argued with Luo earlier. The one who had argued against taking hostages. He had worn a helmet too, but it was gone now, and his head was covered with blood, some of it still wet.
“We have failed,” he gasped to Luo. “We had the banner—” He caught sight of Lian, and stared owlishly at her. Slowly, as if he was having a great deal of trouble remembering something of vital import, he looked at the four men surrounding Gansukh. “My men are dead,” he said, and he swung his gaze back to Luo. “We are all dead.”
Luo’s face was ashen. “Idiot,” he hissed. “We only needed the sprout. Why didn’t you take it?”
“It wasn’t there.” Seeing Luo’s expression, he shook his head. “It had been harvested already,” he explained. “We had no choice but to take the banner. Otherwise—”
Luo cut him off with a wordless hiss. “Do not think you know what is best. The banner is too old to sustain life. What we need—”
“Commander,” one of the soldiers interrupted Luo. He pointed toward the rise that blocked the caravan from view. The light was softer now, no longer the harsh radiance of hungry fires. White plumes of smoke hung in the night air. “The Mongols are putting out the fires,” he said.
Luo’s companion swayed unsteadily. “If they know why we are here, they will not negotiate.” He pointed toward Gansukh. “Your hostage will not save you.”
The soldiers guarding Gansukh shuffled uneasily.
“I cannot run,” the man said softly, indicating the dried blood on his head. “I can barely walk...”
Luo lowered his head briefly in acknowledgment; then, with a swift jab, he ran his sword into the belly of the wounded Chinese man. The look of confusion on the other man’s face faded, and the tension in his face eased. His gaze remained locked on Luo, and he grunted lightly as Luo pulled the sword free. Something akin to a smile came to his lips.
All the air had fled from Lian’s lungs. She couldn’t move; she couldn’t scream. She could only stare in horror as the dying Chinese man tried to speak, failed, and crumpled to the ground.
Luo whirled, his face twisted into a demonic mask. “Kill them both,” he snarled. “And then run. Run as fast as you can, for the Mongol dogs will be at your heels.”
His sword was red with blood, and as he strode toward them, the paralysis that had held Lian vanished. “Wait,” she cried.
Luo didn’t slow down. He raised his sword.
“Let me do it.” Lian was as surprised as Luo to hear the words come out of her mouth.
Luo hesitated. “What?”
“If I kill him,” she said, letting the words run out of her mouth of their own accord. She didn’t think about where they were coming from or what they meant. All she knew was that if she wavered, if she showed any fear or hesitation, this sudden resolve would vanish. “If I kill him, will you take me with you?”
Luo’s mouth twisted, finally shaping itself into a nasty leer. “You want revenge on this dog?”
Lian stood firm, pushing her chin out and throwing her shoulders back. “This one. All of them.”
Luo examined her, letting his eyes roam over her body. His sword dipped slightly, but his body was still rigid.
“Commander,” one of the guards interrupted.
“Go,” Luo shouted, the muscles in his neck standing out. “Run, you cowards!” His eyes remained locked on Lian.
Two of the four guards took him at his word, dropping their spears and sprinting away into the darkness. One of the remaining pair lingered, unwilling to turn his back on Gansukh or leave his weapon. The gap-toothed one stayed, and Lian’s gaze fell on the dagger in his belt again.
“Let me do it,” she said again, and pointed at the dagger. “That’s his dagger. I want to kill him with it.”
Luo laughed, and Lian tried to not flinch at the sound, though it made her skin crawl. He nodded to his man, who pulled the blade free of his belt and tossed it to the ground. “Go,” Luo said to the remaining pair. “I...we,” he amended with a curt nod at Lian, “will meet you at the second camp.”
The soldiers needed no other prompting, and they too fled.
“Pick it up,” Luo said, indicating the knife as he walked toward the captive Mongol.
Gansukh hadn’t understood any of their conversation, but the look on Luo’s face was plain enough, as was the bloody sword. As the Chinese commander approached him, Gansukh strained at his bonds while moving slowly backward, giving himself some room to maneuver. He wouldn’t be able to dodge Luo’s attack, but his expression said he wasn’t going to make it easy for the Chinese man.
Lian crouched, and with a shaking hand, reached for her dagger. Was she going to go through with this? Could she actually kill a man? In his own way, Gansukh had tried to warn her at the feast. He had said she would be punished if she were caught with the weapon, which was true, but there was another message behind his admonition. Why carry it, he had implied, if you aren’t willing to use it? She slipped the blade from its sheath, and wrapped her fingers tightly about the handle.
She had no choice.
Luo feinted with his sword, and when Gansukh dodged away, the Chinese man leaped forward with a savage side kick that connected with Gansukh’s stomach. Gansukh doubled over, gasping and retching, and Luo brought a knee up sharply to Gansukh’s lowered face. Gansukh’s head snapped back and he toppled over. His hands, bound behind his back, prevented him from lying prone, and he flopped onto his side. He curled forward, retching and shaking. Trying to protect the parts of his body that had been traumatized.
Luo looked over at Lian, and nodded at the sight of the dagger in her hands. “Do it quickly,” he sneered, “and I won’t leave your corpse with his.”
“Pull the dog’s head back,” she instructed with more confidence than she felt. She couldn’t dwell on what was going to happen after the next few moments. She couldn’t let herself wonder if she was doing the right thing. She had to focus on what had to be done, on what was required in order for her to survive.
Luo put his sword down, and crouched next to Gansukh’s supine body. He hauled the semi-conscious man upright, and positioning himself behind Gansukh, he grabbed the Mongol’s hair. “Do it,” he hissed at Lian, exposing Gansukh’s throat.
Gansukh shuddered, his one eye rolling in its socket. Luo’s strike had bloodied his nose, and his lower face was smeared with blood and dirt. His mouth hung open. He was unrecognizable to Lian, just another Mongolian warrior—indistinguishable from the men who had taken her from her family years ago. They were all alike. It was as Luo had said: the Mongols destroyed everything; they burned countless villages; they had raped generations of Chinese women; they had plundered the great cities. So much had been lost to Mongolian rapaciousness, wiped from existence.
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 d
efend 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,” Léna 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,” Léna 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.
Léna 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,” Léna 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 Léna 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.
“Léna?” 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 with widespread wings on the chest. After them came Léna and the commander. They were followed by a striking-looking man who was pale-skinned, pal
e-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. Léna 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,” Léna 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 Léna 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.