“You think they know something about Haakon?”
“Perhaps,” Andreas shrugged. “Maybe not. They could just be stirring up trouble. We won’t know until we go down there and find out.”
Rutger shook his head. “We can’t risk it. That may be exactly the sort of reaction they’re hoping to provoke. The boy came here looking for Feronantus, and he knew enough to know you were lying to him. We have to stay here; we have to protect the secret of Feronantus’s hunting party.”
Andreas made a noncommittal noise in his throat. And when Rutger repeated his last statement, he roused himself as if from a trance. “Yes,” he said somewhat curtly, “I know. But these Livonians are another matter, especially if they are wearing the red cross and sword. They aren’t hiding in the Teutonic ranks. Who is leading them? Is it someone who truly knows Feronantus on sight? What if they decide to pay us a visit?” He waved a hand at the chapter house behind them. “And what of them? How long can we keep them here, pretending that a few more days of training is all they need to be ready?”
Rutger crumpled up the false message. “I don’t know.”
“The Khan is going to get bored, if he isn’t already,” Andreas said, “and he’s going to order his army to move on. We can’t keep hiding here, waiting for a miracle to happen.”
Rutger whirled on him. “What would you have me do?” he snarled, his voice low and harsh. “Throw them all against the horde that outnumbers them ten to one? It’s going to happen eventually, so what is the point of waiting any longer, is that it?”
“No,” Andreas said quietly. “It is always better to avoid a fight than rush into it. But that does not mean we sit idle.” He looked over at Hans. “Kim wants to meet us.” He smiled. “From the boy’s description, it sounds like he might be one of the Khan’s champions. We need to issue a challenge. There are still qualifying fights going on, even if the main arena is closed. We need to draw the Khan’s attention to those fights—offer some sort of exhibition bout, even. I’m sure it won’t take much to convince the Khan to try another of his fighters against us.”
Andreas rolled his shoulders. “Besides, I want to meet this Flower Knight. He sounds like he might be a challenge. I’m getting tired of smacking your charges around.”
When the guards threw him in the same cage with Zug, the Nipponese man hauled himself off his mat and came to inspect the bruises on Kim’s face. “You trusted the wrong man,” he grunted as he sat back on his haunches.
Kim rolled onto his back and lay still, staring at the rusty ceiling of their cell. “Yes and no,” he said enigmatically. He worked his tongue around his mouth, checking his teeth. The Mongols hadn’t roughed him up too much—they had, after all, noticed and appreciated that he had downed two knights from one of Christendom’s fighting orders—but they had had to inflict some punishment on him for being so close to the river.
“Was it worth it?” Zug asked.
Kim shrugged. “I’m stuck in here with you now,” he said. “I should have given that more thought.”
Zug grunted and kicked him lightly as he shuffled back to his mat. His strength was returning, albeit too slowly for his—or Kim’s—liking.
Kim ignored Zug, closing his eyes and letting his breathing slow. He had some pain in his lower abdomen and would probably be pissing blood sometime in the next few days, but it would all pass. He could be patient for a while; he had waited long enough.
“Two,” he murmured as he started to relax.
“What?” Zug grunted.
“I took down two armored Franks.” Kim smiled. “They never touched me. When you’re feeling strong enough, maybe I’ll show you how it’s done.” He drifted toward sleep as Zug unleashed an elaborate string of Nihongo curses.
CHAPTER 25:
THE SUBTLETIES OF WRESTLING
Master Chucai left them, galloping back to Karakorum. Black robes streaming behind, he looked like a giant raven clinging to the horse, its talons digging into the animal’s flesh. Lian and Gansukh rode in silence, letting their horses pick their own pace. Neither felt any compelling desire to return to the bustling hive that was the Imperial Court.
“Stop. Look,” Lian said as they came in view of the walls. She touched his arm, drawing him out of his maddeningly convoluted reverie, and pointed toward an expansive cluster of colorful tents clustered around the nearest gate. “The traders who have come for the festival. Let us think about something else for a little while.” Her lips parted, and Gansukh again caught a flash of her teeth. She snapped her horse’s reins. “If you are to face Ogedei, perhaps it would be best to find suitable clothes.”
“I have—”
But she was already ahead of him, and he sat on his horse, grinding his teeth. He would never understand her. Her mind was too foreign, too strange in the way it leapt from subject to subject. He couldn’t let go of things as readily as she did, and other matters that seemed nonsensical and pointless to him were of paramount importance to her.
The wind, full of her laughter, swirled past him.
He cursed, then wheeled the horse about and tapped it into a trot.
The caravans hadn’t bothered to enter the city. The camels and pack animals had come to a stop outside the eastern gate, and the merchants had set up their shops in the middle of the road. Their manner of dress was not familiar to him, and he gawked openly at the men’s garish clothing: brightly colored silk pants with tops that didn’t match, shirts that billowed at the arms and waist, sweeping body-length coats with high collars. And the women! Some seemed to wear hardly anything, or what they wore was tight and dark or bright, translucent, and swirling. Many of the women were bare-footed and wore heavy ornamental rings or torques on wrists, necks, ankles. Coins like fish-scale mail armor lay in wreaths on their breasts. The men were more likely to dress in white than the women. Small silver bells hung from belts at their waists, and the high, step-rhythmic tinking of jewelry, coins, and bells added a melodic jangle to the raucous atmosphere of the bazaar.
As Gansukh let his horse pick its way through the crowds, he found himself wondering if Lian would ever wear any such adornments.
Somewhere up ahead, in the shadow of the wall, musicians were performing. The strange, loose music sounded an exotic backdrop to the cacophony of shouting and arguing and haggling. The scents were more foreign still, and Gansukh’s stomach grumbled as he picked out the greasy scents of boiled mutton and roasting chicken, along with the blood smell of dozens of recently slaughtered sheep—the heady, almost overwhelming miasma of a bazaar. Idly he wondered if his stomach could stand up to any food sold from the makeshift stalls. He had only just become accustomed to the rich food of the court.
“They are Persians.” Lian was suddenly at Gansukh’s left elbow. She had wound her hair up in a ball at the back of her neck, held in place by a lacquered comb.
“Persians,” he grunted. Persia was a vast place. “Where in Persia?”
“From the Khwarezmian Empire,” Lian reminded him.
“Ah, yes—the one Genghis defeated.”
