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.”
Léna’s lips tugged back in an almost motherly smile. Frederick, as if he had not heard her, continued on, “Léna 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 Léna, wondering if the Binder had found someone who spoke Ferenc’s native Magyar.
Léna 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 Léna—in the 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 Léna, 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.
Léna—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,” Léna 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.
Gansu
kh, having ducked aside during Lian’s stab, planted his feet more firmly against the ground and shoved. Luo, a dead man’s grip on Lian’s hair, stumbled back.
The dagger came out of Luo’s neck and Lian, her resolve failing, swung it again and again at Luo’s hand and arm. She wasn’t trying to cut him; she just wanted him to let go. She just wanted to get away. Luo—covered in blood, mouth gasping wordlessly, eyes rolling back in his head—no longer seemed alive. He was a shambling apparition, already claimed by death but whose body was still animate. Would death claim her as well, bound as they were by Luo’s frightful grip? She felt the blade of the dagger bite into flesh, and holding the hilt tight, she cut again.
Finally, Luo’s hand let go. His legs gave out, and he fell down. His body jerked, legs kicking as if they were still trying to walk. He lay on his side, one arm reaching out. He stared at her, though his eyesight had already fled, and his mouth tried to form a word, but he never finished. His legs stopped, and his frame relaxed. The fingers of his outstretched hand folded in, and his gaze fell to her feet.
“Lian.”
She started, dropping the dagger. When Gansukh whispered her name again, she finally managed to tear her gaze away from the dead Chinese commander.
Gansukh was sitting up, half turned toward her. He raised his shoulders, trying to draw her attention toward his bound hands. “The dagger,” he whispered, blinking and nodding toward her feet. “Cut me free.”
Nodding dumbly, she bent to pick up the dagger. She recoiled at how much blood was on the blade and the handle, unwilling to touch the bloodied weapon, but then she saw her own hand and arm. She froze, staring at the stain.
“Lian,” Gansukh hissed. “Don’t panic.”
I’ve killed a man. The thought swelled in her head, and she could hear the individual words growing louder and louder inside her skull. She couldn’t make them stop. A terrible voice—hers, hoarse and ragged with utter despair—was shouting the words, and a multitude of echoes answered, chirping and shrieking the words in response, kill kill kill killed a man...
“Drop it,” Gansukh barked, and her hand opened of its own accord like a startled bird taking wing from a bush. Then, freed from the dagger, she recoiled from the sticky thing lying on the ground, stumbling and tripping over her own feet.
Clumsily, Gansukh dragged himself toward the dagger, falling onto his side and blocking her view of it. He stared at her, moonlight making his swollen and pulpy face a hideously grinning mask. His shoulders moved as he struggled to pick up the dagger with his bound hands and orient the blade so that it could cut his bonds, but he didn’t give up. With dogged, unblinking persistence he kept trying to free himself, all the while without saying a word—without admonishing her to help him in any way.
She regarded him with fascination as if she were watching a wild animal try to chew its way out of a snare. A tiny part of her still wept and shrieked within, but mostly she found herself fixated on Gansukh, staring uncomprehendingly at this being who fought with every iota of his body to live. Who would kill in order to live. He had done so, and would again. And it wouldn’t bother him. It was part of who he was, a real part of the world in which he lived.
It wasn’t her world. She had strayed into it. He had warned her. He had tried to protect her, but she had gone anyway. Was she like him now? Would she fight and claw for her own life? Would she kill again in order to survive?
She shivered, not wanting to know the answer to those questions, but as the voices in her head fell silent, there was no avoiding the knowledge.
Gansukh could barely see. One eye was swollen shut, the result of a brutal clubbing from one of the Chinese guards, and his nose was broken. His other eye was nearly glued shut with sand and blood and tears. His lower back ached—he was sure he would be pissing blood in the morning—and his shoulders shook as he tried to move his hands up and down. He gasped heavily, breathing through his mouth, and his tongue pressed against his lower teeth. He could still feel pain. It is enough, Gansukh thought.
It had been enough at Kozelsk, when he had been pinned down behind a barn with arrows in his gut and his leg. He hadn’t died then. Narrow-faced Jebe, an old boyhood rival, laid out in the city street, pinned to the mud by arrows. Still alive, each breath a gasping torment. He had sat there, hiding behind the worn barrels, and watched Jebe die, ashamed that he was hoping that his death would be quicker. That he’d never see it coming.
But as long as could still feel pain, death wasn’t coming for him at all.
His hands slipped, and he thought he had missed the blade of the dagger, but as he tried to reseat the cloth that bound his hands behind his back against the sharp blade, he realized his work was done. The cloth had separated, sawed through by his dogged determination. By his denial of death.
His shoulders quivering with exhaustion and strain, he tried to pull his hands apart. Slowly, he felt the rope stretch and come apart around his wrists, and with a last, shuddering tug, he split his bonds. His hands flopped around, his shoulders sighing with relief at no longer being restrained. The skin along his upper arms and across the top of his back prickled fiercely, a thousand needles being shoved under his skin. Grimacing, he rolled over.
Behind him lay the crumpled corpse of the Chinese commander. The earth around the man’s head was darkened with blood. There was no movement of his chest, and his gaze remained fixed and unblinking. Just like Jebe.
Gansukh struggled to sit up. “Lian?”
Unlike the Chinese commander, she was still breathing, though judging from the manner in which each breath rattled out of her body, she was deep in shock. She could hear him, but she wasn’t present.
The ground vibrated, the sound of hooves against the packed earth. Gansukh recognized the rhythmic beat, the noise of steppe ponies. Friendly riders. With a lingering glance at Lian, he struggled to his feet so as to not be mistaken for a Chinese raider, trying to flee. He brushed the last few strands of rope from his wrists and tried to summon the breath—and presence of mind—to speak.
Lian. He walked, his legs stiff and slow to respond, over to her. He made no effort to touch her; he just positioned himself between her and where he thought the approaching riders were coming from.
Short-legged horses emerged from the gloom, and they quickly shifted their course to converge on Gansukh and Lian. The man on the lead horse was much too large for the frame of the horse, making him seem all that much more like a giant in comparison, and Gansukh felt his throat relax when he recognized the man. The wrestler, Namkhai.
Namkhai pulled his horse up short—deliberately blocking the advance of the riders behind him—and Gansukh stood still as other riders flowed around Namkhai like a stream diverting around a large stone. Out of the corner of his field of vision, Gansukh saw a pale flicker as moonlight glanced off a rider’s naked head. Munokhoi. He inclined his head toward Namkhai, acknowledging what the wrestler had just done for him.
Respect. Hard won and easily lost. But still very much the coin of the realm among the true men of the steppes.
Horses continued to flow around them, and by the time the Torguud captain managed to bring his horse around, a ring of Mongolian riders had formed. Freezing the tableau of recent events into an image that would now be assessed.
Gansukh. Lian. The dagger. The dead Chinese commander.
Munokhoi pushed his mount through the throng, his sword raised above his head. “I said to cut down anyone on foot,” he shouted, his voice breaking. “Why are these dogs still standing?” He refused to look at Gansukh and Lian, staring at his men with a wild ferocity, daring any of them to question his order. His face was streaked with soot and blood, which made his bulging eyes only that much more deranged.
“Because they are not dogs,” replied Namkhai evenly.
Munokhoi jerked his horse’s head back, and the animal nearly reared. Its nostrils flared and it showed its teeth. “They are dogs if I say they are dogs,” he retorted, still not looking at Gansukh or Lian. br />
Namkhai stared at the aggravated Torguud captain with the same calm mien that Gansukh had seen when they had wrestled. Appraising. Waiting. Confident. Unafraid.
Munokhoi knew the gaze as well, and he looked away. He finally looked down at Gansukh and Lian, his lips curling into a sneer. “She’s Chinese,” he pointed out as if no one had ever noticed. “The Chinese attacked us. They are her people. She must have told them where to find us.”
“Was the Khagan hiding?” Gansukh found his voice, and in the silence that followed his words, he cleared his throat and explained his question. “If she had to tell them where we were, that would suggest that they couldn’t have found us with their own eyes.” He rolled his shoulders and straightened his back. “Are you saying that the Khan of Khans was traveling in stealth? That he was afra—”
Munokhoi kicked his horse, and it lunged forward while simultaneously trying to avoid running into Gansukh. Gansukh shuffled to his right, but not so much that he abandoned Lian, and the horse’s shoulder bumped into his chest. He stepped back, not out of fear of being hurt by the horse, but to get out of range of Munokhoi’s sword. His hand, reaching back, brushed Lian’s arm and he felt her shiver.
“They are no danger to us, Munokhoi,” Namkhai said. “There is no danger to the Khagan here.” Namkhai’s voice was clipped and tight, somewhat impatient. With a hint of a challenge. “We should be guarding the Khagan. Not riding around in the dark, chasing ghosts.”
“You will go where I tell you to go,” Munokhoi raged.
Gansukh took another step back, directing Lian to move with him. He knew that physical contact with her would clearly link them together, but what could be gained by denying their connection? Munokhoi was out of control. He was dangerous when he was soft-spoken and calculating, but that was only because everyone knew that calm facade hid a much more monstrous aspect of the man. They were all seeing it now, and glancing around at the faces of the other men, Gansukh saw that he was not the only one who was concerned.