Panting as if he had run for miles, Kublai met the eyes of the guard. The man nodded to him, not as a warrior to his officer, but as two men who had just survived a fight. Kublai blew air out slowly, looking around him. The Sung were all dead, but just four of his guards were still on their feet. Three of them stalked among the bodies down the hill, bringing their swords down in sharp blows at the slightest movement of wounded men. They were still raging and Kublai was alone with the last one standing, the man who had saved him.
The camel bellowed again in pain and Kublai saw its leg was broken, hanging as if only stretching skin kept it attached. His mind cleared and he looked around for the drummer boy who had thrown himself at the attackers. Kublai closed his eyes for a moment as he saw a sprawled figure on the ground. He dismounted, growling as his bruises made themselves known. The cut on his arm would have to be stitched. He could feel something dripping from his fingers and he raised his hand in surprise to look. There should have been more pain to produce so much bright red blood.
The boy had been knocked senseless, a large lump visible on his forehead. Kublai opened one of his eyes with a rough thumb and saw it twitch at the light. He was about to speak when he froze and remembered the battle he was meant to be commanding. His legs and back protested as he stood again. He did not try to mount, instead shading his eyes as he stared out.
The Sung had broken. Thousands of them stood in dejected silence, holding their hands up to show they had laid down their weapons. Many of them had already been bound and knelt with their head down in exhaustion. In the distance, a few were racing away from the bloody field, hunted down in twos or threes by Mongol warriors. Kublai let go of his held breath, desperately relieved. The boy groaned and Kublai went back to him as he stirred.
‘What is your name?’ Kublai asked. He should have known it, but his mind felt thick and slow.
‘Beran, my lord,’ the boy replied, his voice weak. One of his eyes was red as blood seeped into it, but he would live.
‘Your bravery saved me. I will not forget it. When you are old enough, come to me and I will give you command of a hundred men.’
The boy blinked through his pain and a smile began to spread before he turned to one side and vomited onto the grass.
Kublai helped him up and watched as Beran staggered to the camel, the boy’s swollen face distraught at what he saw.
‘I will find you another mount, lad. That one is finished.’
The boy winced, though he understood. For a moment, Kublai met the gaze of the guard standing near him, the man’s expression somehow out of place. He too had been battered in the fight and Kublai could hardly find words to express his thanks. He wanted to reward him, but at the same time, the man had done nothing more than his duty.
‘Come and find me tonight, in my ger,’ Kublai said. ‘I think I have a sword you’ll like. Something to remember our little fight on the hill.’
The guard grinned at him, revealing a bloody mouth and more than one missing tooth.
‘Thank you, my lord. With your permission, I’d like to take my son back to his mother. She’ll be worrying.’
Kublai nodded stiffly, his mouth slightly open in surprise as the guard tapped the staggering drummer boy on the shoulder and walked him away down the hill. He could not help wonder if the man would have fought with such berserk energy if he had not seen his son knocked down, but it did not matter. Alone, Kublai sagged against the flank of his horse. He had survived. His hands began to shake and he held them up, seeing the sword calluses that ridged each finger of his bloody right hand. They were no longer ink-stained. For the first time, Kublai felt truly comfortable in the armour that had certainly saved his life. He began to laugh as he leaned against his mount, reaching out to rub its muzzle and leaving a bright smear of blood that the animal licked away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Xuan, Son of Heaven and heir to the Chin empire, looked over the glassy surface of Hangzhou lake and listened to his children laughing as they splashed one another in the sun. He could see the ripples they made in the shallows spreading out over the deeper water, where a boatman fished for trout and stared too obviously in the direction of the Chin emperor’s family. Xuan sighed to himself. It was unlikely so lowly a man was a spy for the Sung court, but you never knew. In his years of peaceful captivity, Xuan had learned to trust no one outside his wife and children. There was always someone watching and reporting his every word and action. He had thought once that he would grow used to it in time, but in fact the opposite was true. Whenever he felt eyes on him, it was like already tender skin being prodded again and again until he wanted to rail and shout at them. He had done so once and the unlucky scribe who had made him angry had been quietly removed from his post, only to be replaced by another before the day was out. There was no true privacy. Xuan had come into Sung lands to escape a Mongol army and they had never been quite sure what to do with him. He was a cousin of the Sung emperor by blood and had to be treated with respect. At the same time, the twin branches of the family had not been friends or allies for centuries, and more importantly, he had lost his lands, his wealth and power - a sure sign that bad luck stalked his house. The truth was that luck had played a very small part in the tragedies he had known. The armies of Genghis had taken Yenking, his capital city. Xuan had been betrayed by his own generals and forced to kneel to the khan. Even decades later, the memories stirred restlessly beneath the calm face he showed the world. Yenking had burned, but the wolves of Genghis had still hunted him, relentless and savage. He had spent his youth running from them, city by city, year by year. The sons and brothers of Genghis had torn his lands apart until the only safe place was across the Sung border. It had been the worst of all choices, but the only one left to him.
Xuan had expected to be assassinated at first. As he was moved around the Sung regions from noble to noble, he used to jump up from his bed at every creak in the night, convinced they had come to end it. He had been certain they would stage his death to look like a robbery and hang a few peasants afterwards for show. Yet the first decade had passed without him ever feeling a knife at his throat. The old Sung emperor had died and Xuan was not even sure the man’s son still remembered his existence. He looked at the wrinkled skin on the backs of his hands and made fists, smoothing them. Had it truly been sixteen years since he had crossed the border with the last of his army? He was forty-nine years old and he could still remember the proud little boy he had been, kneeling to Genghis in front of his capital city. He still remembered the words the khan had said to him: ‘All great men have enemies, emperor. Yours will hear that you stood with my sword at your neck and not all the armies and cities of the Chin could remove the blade.’
The memories seemed part of another age, another lifetime. Xuan’s best years had vanished while he remained a captive, a slave, waiting to be remembered and quietly killed. He had seen his youth wither, blown away on silent winds.
Once again, he looked to the lake, seeing the young men and women bathing there. His sons and daughters, grown to adulthood. The figures were blurred, his eyes no longer sharp. Xuan sighed to himself, lost in melancholy that seemed to spin the days away from him, so that he was rarely
Xuan still missed his wife, dead these ten years of some disease that ate her up from the inside. He had written many letters then, breaking his silence to beg the Sung court for doctors to save her. No one had come and each time he had been allowed to visit, she had grown a little weaker. His mind skittered away from the topic as it did with so many things. He dared not let his thoughts drift into the angry roads within.
A flight of ducks passed over his head and Xuan looked up at them, envying them their ability to fly and land wherever they wanted. It was such a simple thing, freedom, and so completely unappreciated by those who had it.
