The Mongoliad: Book One

an ass. He’s already feeling better.”

She gave him an incredulous look. He tried, but failed, to prevent a grin from splitting his face. “I didn’t say he felt grateful,” he pointed out, raising his hands in mock surrender. Then he used them to shoo her inside. “Get you in. There’s hot food and plenty.”

Cnan enjoyed the Syrian’s company but was happy to take his leave in this case. The pincers evoked a queasy reaction quite unlike her response to swords and daggers.

She entered the chapter house and felt something so unfamiliar that it took her a few moments to identify it: she felt safe.

She knew what it was to belong, surrounded by courage and kept from harm by the luck, skill, and daring of the knights of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae.

CHAPTER 4: THE YOUNG PONY

“This is a task for a fool.” Gansukh paced back and forth in the long hall outside the throne room. Sunlight streamed through windows covered in intricate latticework, and dust danced in the wake of Gansukh’s pacing. “I fought at the siege of Kozelsk. I was handpicked by General Subutai himself, to help infiltrate the city. This…this mission is not—”

“Protecting the Khagan is not important?” Chucai interrupted dryly.

Gansukh stopped and peered at the tall minister through the shafts of sunlight. “Of course it is,” he said. “My bow and my sword are his to command. I would lay down—”

“It is easy to die for your Khagan,” Chucai said. He glanced down at the floor, shrugging his shoulders gently. It was a tiny motion, but it quelled Gansukh’s outburst as easily as if he had punched the younger man in the chest. “Perhaps that is why Chagatai Khan chose you for this mission. When Great General Subutai picked you to go over the wall of Kozelsk, was it because he needed a wild-blooded fool who would die for him?”

Gansukh shook his head.

“Do you think less of Chagatai Khan, then? Is his vision not as clear and far-seeing as the Great General’s?”

“I…I do not know,” Gansukh said.

“These Khans are proud men,” Chucai said. “Stubborn too. It took me many years to convince Genghis to tax rather than slaughter. This…this is a negotiation, not a battle.” A brief smile flickered across Chucai’s face. “Warriors fight, Gansukh; that is their purpose in life. But eventually, there is no one left to fight, and they must learn how to think.”

“Your words are filled with wisdom, Master Chucai,” Gansukh said, bowing his head. “I will reflect on them.”

“Do,” Chucai said as he began walking down the corridor. “Stay and rest a few days while you reflect, and partake in the pleasures of Karakorum.”

“I have my ger…” Gansukh eyed the rafters as he followed Chucai down the halls. Surrounded by stone and wood, he felt as if he were inside a tomb. At any moment the high ceilings could collapse and bury him, and he would never see the sky again.

Chucai shook his head. “You will stay in the palace,” he said. He eyed the young emissary, and the skin at the corners of his eyes wrinkled, as if he were hiding a laugh. “You cannot hope to understand the Khagan if you do not stay close to him.” He stopped beside a door panel, his hand resting on the wooden frame. “When you hunt a deer, do you not place yourself in the animal’s world? Do you not follow in its footsteps, see what it sees, smell what it smells?” When Gansukh nodded, Chucai slid open the door.

The room was small, not much bigger than the large sleeping platform covered with furs and skins. Sheer yellow silks hung from the ceiling, falling like frozen sunlight around the bed. Behind the bed were screens, painted with red flowers. On the leftmost one, a heron—its long neck extended—was taking flight.

“Is it to your liking?” Chucai asked.

Gansukh struggled to find some appropriate words, and the only thing he could muster felt totally inadequate. “It is a magnificent chamber, Master Chucai.”

Chucai nodded. “It is yours.” He held up a hand to forestall Gansukh’s objection. “There’ll be a dinner in honor of Governor Mahmud Yalavach later this evening. Perhaps you might wish to observe the Khagan when he is in a better mood. Have you sat at a formal court dinner before?”

Gansukh shook his head. “Around the fire, we gather each night to make boodog or horhog.”

“I think you’ll find table manners are somewhat different when you’re not eating greasy roast goat with your hands. I’ll send along some scrolls so you can learn how to behave in civilized society.”

“Master Chucai…” Gansukh put his left hand over his closed right fist. The combination formed a double prison, one wrapped around the other. The ceiling and the walls of the palace preventing him from seeing the sky and the horizon. This mission—even with the insight offered by Ogedei’s advisor—was another cage. He was trapped. And yet, looking at his hands and imagining what it would be like to be trapped inside—a carrion fly or a moth—he realized that no matter how tightly he squeezed, he could never quite close the narrow gap where his index finger dug into his palm, even if he moved his thumb. “Master Chucai,” he said, “on the steppes, the opportunities to read are few, and I…”

Chucai gave him a look of paternal reassurance. “I could send someone to read them to you, if you wish. Perhaps as you take your bath?”

Gansukh opened his hands and stared at his palm. Would the moth be crushed by the pressure of its prison before it could escape? “My gratitude is endless, Master Chucai.”

Gansukh drifted in a cloud. The walls of the room were obscured by the steam from the pool, and he floated in the hot water. The pool was larger than the interior of a chieftain’s ger, and initially he had balked at soiling so much water.

His clothes, stiff with dried sweat and dust, had been taken away by pale-robed servants. He had sat naked at the edge of the pool for a few minutes, the steam from the water opening his pores. Eventually he had put his feet in, and the temperature of the water had made his skin tingle. He had then allowed himself the luxury of complete immersion, and it felt good.

He wasn’t alone. Gansukh jerked out of his reverie, splashing the water around him as he found his footing on the bottom of the pool. She was kneeling at the pool’s edge, the light-blue silk of her robe darkening at the knees from the water. Her long hair was unbound from the twisted coiffure most Chinese women wore, and it fell across half of her face like a sheet of black water. He could only see one of her eyes and half her mouth, but it was enough to tell she was amused.

“Who are you?” he demanded, more strenuously than he intended. He felt exposed in the water, and not just because he was naked. The servants had taken everything, and he hadn’t even thought to keep the small knife he usually carried. He slapped the water as if the noise might scare her away, but the woman didn’t even flinch. Fool, he thought. All it took was the offer of a bath and he had dropped his defenses.

“My name is Lian,” the woman said. Judging by the smooth paleness of her skin and the shape of her face, her life prior to Karakorum had been one of indolence and wealth.

“Did Master Chucai send you to attend to my needs?” Gansukh asked. He made the water ripple with his hands. “If so, you should be in the pool.” It wasn’t that he desired the company of a woman; it was more that he didn’t like her sitting there on the edge. There was something on the floor beside her, and Gansukh stood on his