Council or what he’s doing, just get him here. And tell him I want to see the Bogdo Khan tonight.”
“The Khutukhtu?”
“Yes, the Khutukhtu. In private. In his palace. Tonight.”
“Very well.” Sepailov rose to go.
“Sit down,” snapped Ungern.
“I haven’t finished yet.”
Sepailov sat hurriedly.
“I’m sorry, I .. .”
“Send a message to Kazantsev. Go to the radio station yourself and send the message in person. Make sure they bring Kazantsev to the other end.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell him to initiate a search for these boys and the man with them.
He’s to put every man on it he can spare. Make sure he understands.
Good men. Mongols, Tibetans, Burials. No Russians.
Understand?”
“Yes, sir. Is that the whole message, sir?”
“No. Tell him I want the boys killed. Keep the man alive if possible. But kill the boys. I don’t care if he has to kill every youngster between here and Uliassutai, just as long as he makes sure the boys are dead. The Tibetan child above all. Make your instructions clear. You can go.”
Sepailov rose again, saluted, and turned.
“And Sepailov ...”
“Yes, sir?”
“Tell Kazantsev I want the head. He’s to send the boy’s head to me. Be sure about that. He can stuff it with straw or anything he likes. But I want the head.”
“Yes, sir. The head. Very good, sir. I’ll tell him.” This was more like it. Heads he could understand. Heads he could relate to. All this other mumbo-jumbo just made him bilious. He would tell Kazantsev about the head.
Sepailov lifted the flap of the yurt and went outside. His hands were shaking. He hadn’t seen Ungern as angry in months. He took a deep breath and walked away. The thought of heads had made him restless. He hoped there would be an execution before bed-time.
“Will he come?”
“Yes,” said Chindamani.
“He will come.”
“Why?”
“Because I have asked him to. He cannot refuse me.”
Christopher got up from his seat and went to the window. He and Chindamani were sitting in a faded downstairs room belonging to Urga’s old Russian consulate building, roughly midway between Ta Khure and Mai- mai-ch’eng. The consulate consisted of a large, two-storey building built from wood and plaster, topped by an iron roof. Immediately beside it stood the house chapel, with a small cupola.
The consul and his staff had fled months ago, leaving behind a priest, two dogs, a caretaker, and the old Russian cemetery a wasteland of rubble, unmarked graves, and inconstant weeds.
They had met the priest, Father Anton, on their way to the city.
Winterpole had engaged him in conversation, regaling him with stories of his meetings with Father John Sergiev of Kronstadt, the famed spiritual healer at the naval base guarding St. Petersburg.
They found that they had friends and books in common, although Christopher suspected that much of Winterpole’s familiarity with Russian Orthodoxy was little more than bluff. Bluff or not, it was enough to secure them the friendship of the old priest.
He brought them to share his rather primitive quarters at the consulate. He himself lived in an icon-lined room in the west wing of the ground floor, but he gave them rooms on the first floor, more luxurious apartments that had belonged to the departed diplomats.
The building had been looted shortly after the consul and his people left, and the rooms were all but devoid of furniture or trappings. But Father Anton had access to meagre stores in a little cellar. He brought them a battered samovar and plates, musty bedding, and lamps with oil. For all its roughness, their situation seemed a special comfort to them, luxury after so much hardship.
There was black tea for the samovar and charcoal to burn in an iron stove at night when it grew cold, and in the mornings sunlight would lie like warm oil on their sheets.
Winterpole was upstairs writing some sort of report, though God knows how he intended to transmit it to anyone. Christopher and Chindamani were waiting for a man to arrive from the city, a monk to whom Chindamani had sent a message via the caretaker on the previous day. Tsering had originally been a trapa at Dorjela, but a few years earlier he had travelled to Urga to study at the mampa tat sang the medical college of Urga.
“Can he be trusted?” Christopher asked.
“Yes, Ka-ris To-feh, he can be trusted. More than Wan Ta-po upstairs.”
She still found the name “Winterpole’ unpronounceable.
“What is his name?”
“Tsering. Tsering Gyaltsen. There were two brothers at Dorjela, Tsering and Tsewong. Tsewong was at Dorje-la until a little time before you came.”
Christopher looked round at her. In the yard outside, yellow dust was blowing in all directions.
“I’ve heard of Tsewong before,” he said.
“At Kalimpong, in India.”
Gently, he explained to her what he knew of the circumstances of Tsewong’s death. But he did not mention the silver cross that Martin Cormac had found hidden on him.
Just as he finished, there was a knock on the door. Christopher opened it to find the caretaker waiting for him.
“The man you ask for here,” he said in stilted Tibetan.
“He ask you come outside. Not come in.”
Chindamani joined Christopher and together they stepped out of the room. In the passage, crows flew in and out through broken windows. One of the two dogs, a great fawn creature with a spotted back, ran backwards and forwards, growling aimlessly. In his palace of icons, Father Anton sang in a cracked voice, antiphonal refrains to a Palestinian virgin.
A young lama was standing awkwardly by the outer door. Dust blew in through a window and swirled around his feet. He moved from one leg to the other restlessly, unable to keep still. Tsering was narrow-faced and intellectual looking, thin and ascetic like all monks, yet honed to it by more than prayer or fasting.
Chindamani greeted him formally. He flushed and bowed deeply, then advanced and presented her with a khata scarf, which she accepted with a smile.
“I have no scarf to give you in return,” she said.
“It is enough for me to be in your presence again,” he said, keeping his head bowed.
“And I am very pleased to see you,” she replied.
“Do you have a scarf to give my friend Ka-ris To-feh? He is the son of the Dorje Lama. You must treat him with respect.”
The young man lifted his head and produced a second scarf, which he proceeded to place in Christopher’s outstretched arms.
Chindamani passed the scarf she had just been given to Christopher, and he laid it in his turn on Tsering’s wrists. The monk bowed even more deeply and remained standing, waiting for permission to move.
“Please come inside and talk with us,” said Chindamani.
“I would prefer to stay here,” Tsering said.
“Very well. Let us stay here. Have you done what I asked you to do?”
The lama nodded. His head moved on a stalk of a neck like a bird snapping for seeds. He was dressed in the usual drab weeds of a lama, but lacked the downtrodden, resigned look so many of them presented to the world. Whatever the source of his asceticism, it had little to do with disgust for life.
