The Mongoliad: Book Two

immediate assistance from you, my young master.” Andreas smiled. “There is a man I need to find, and I think you know him-either by sight or by reputation.” When Hans nodded, Andreas swallowed half the contents of his cup before continuing. “I would like to see more of this city, and I do not wish to be distracted or befuddled by its confusing array of unmarked streets and chaotic marketplaces. Would you be my guide?”

Hans bowed. “I would, Sir Rose Knight.”

Andreas laughed. “Please,” he said, laying his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Call me Andreas. Brother Andreas, if you must. Let there be no more talk of titles.”

“Very well,” Hans agreed. He hefted the pitcher. “Would you?”

“No, thank you.” Andreas took one last sip from the cup and poured the meager remains out among the roots of the tree, careful to not splash the sleeping boy. In memoriam, he prayed. It was an old ritual, one rooted in a time before the Shield-Brethren founded Petraathen. Much of the world had changed-both outside the walls of the ancient citadel and within-but the intent of the gesture still had truth and meaning. The chain of brotherhood remained unbroken. With a lingering glance at the twisted branches of the tree, he followed Hans out of the hidden garden.

As they walked, Hans described the geography of Hunern. There were two landmarks that pulled at the inhabitants-like lodestones, Andreas pointed out, and Hans only shrugged, unfamiliar with the word. The arena, he pointed, and the church. The Mongol camps lay closer to the arena, the heavy tents peeking over the mud-brick walls like shy clusters of mushrooms; the tents, shanties, fortified compounds, and half-raised walls of the assembled Christian encampments were a circular labyrinth with the leaning spire of the church in the center. Roads and paths became narrower and more infrequent as one got closer to the church; in their zeal to be close to the beacon of Heaven, desperate pilgrims claimed nearly every inch of open ground.

The arena was not at the center of the new city, Hans explained as they approached an open commons. Wooden scaffolds and a jumbled mass of crates and sloppily connected pieces of wood made for a crude parody of the more refined construction of the arena, visible on their left. Stakes and ropes marked off three areas, and while they were currently empty, their function was clear. A pole stood beside each fighting ground, a pair of rings and posts jutting from either side. A wooden triskelion separated the arenas from each other, and each leg of the platform was a honeycomb of narrow slots.

“It’s called First Field,” Hans said. “This is where they start.” He pointed at the platform in the center. “They bring their flags and place them there.”

Andreas nodded, understanding how the system worked. Each fighter entered in the competition by putting his flag in one of the open slots. When all the holes in a leg of the triskelion were filled with standards, the fights would begin. A pair of standards would be moved to one of the circles, and their owners would enter the roped-off arena and compete. It was a system not unlike the one used by knights throughout Christendom in their tournaments of arms.

“Win here; go there,” Hans said, pointing at the arena.

“How often are the fights?”

“Every three days.” Hans shrugged. “But no one goes to the arena anymore, and so they don’t fight as much.”

Andreas nodded. The Mongolian champion whom Haakon had fought had gone crazy when the young Shield- Brother had spared his life, and a number of Mongolian guards had died in the ensuing riot. Onghwe Khan had closed the arena, and there hadn’t been any word when-or if-he was going to start the fights again.

The temporary residents of Hunern were waiting, and after a few weeks, they were starting to lose their patience. Andreas assumed the same was true for the Mongolian army. How long would they simply sit and wait for their Khan to regain his interest in the competition? How long before tempers frayed to the breaking point?

The situation was not unlike a siege, and Andreas had seen the way madness crept in men’s minds when they thought they were trapped.

“The Mongol camps are there.” Hans waved his hand. With the arena on his left and the church on his right, Andreas guessed the general direction of Hans’s wave was to the south and east of First Field. Hans pointed to the west. “Knights there, and Christians.” His hand moved to indicate the church and the area to the north and west of it. “Hunern, before…” Hans trailed off with a shrug. “Some call it that now too.”

“And where we came from?”

“Rat,” Hans said. “That’s where the rats live.” There was a hint of pride in his voice.

“Rat,” Andreas echoed. “Do you have names for the other quarters as well?”

Hans indicated each section again as he listed their names. “Wolf, lion, and eagle.”

Andreas liked the simplicity and the descriptive names the boy had given the areas of the city. He doubted a reasonably accurate map could be made of Hunern, but Hans’s basic divisions against the two perpetually visible landmarks made it easy to know where one stood in the sprawling maze. If you were closer to the arena than the church, you were closer to the enemy; safety meant putting the church between you and the Mongols-a rule any good Christian could remember.

“The Livonians are in the Lion Quarter, then?” Andreas asked.

“Mostly,” Hans answered. He brought his hand up to his mouth, and Andreas realized he was miming a specific action. “The Heermeister likes to drink,” the boy said.

Andreas chuckled. “Having tasted your uncle’s ale, I can’t say that I blame him.” He clapped the boy on the shoulder. “Lead on, young scout. I want to see everything. Show me the Mongols, the Livonians-I want to see where they sleep and keep their arms-and then we’ll go find their master and have a drink with him.”

An idea was beginning to form in his head-a simple plan that Rutger would, no doubt, find entirely unacceptable. Yet, there was an elegant purity to it that was appealing. Yes, he thought, looking at the honeycombed triskelion, at some point you cannot hide who or what you are.

In the Wolf Quarter, the Mongolian presence was overwhelming. Andreas had expected to see an armed presence, but the sheer number of roving four-men patrols astounded him. They got as far as being able to see the gates of the Khan’s compound, but Hans would go no closer. Nor could Andreas blame him. At least three groups of Mongolian guardsmen had taken interest in the two of them already, and to stand around and stare at the gates would only attract more attention.

Marching up to the gate and asking if one of the guards would mind delivering a letter to the Flower Knight wasn’t an option. Andreas hadn’t really thought it would have been that simple, but there was no reason to not be sure. At the very least, he had gotten a glimpse of the Mongolian defenses and had found them strong and sound. Nothing larger than a squirrel or a rat was going to sneak into the Khan’s camp.

He and Hans swung west, scurrying back across the invisible line that separated east from west, losing themselves in the unnamed and unmarked alleys that snaked across the city. Soon thereafter, he spotted the Livonian standard, raised over a dilapidated barn, the white flag snapping in the wind. The red cross surmounted the red sword, its tip pointing down as if to signal to any passersby, “Here be righteous knights.”

Slightly north of the Livonian camp, Hans led Andreas through a half-collapsed arch and up a charred beam. The wood groaned and shifted under their combined weight, and Andreas crouched low, keeping both hands on the beam. A jumble of masonry jutted out from a ruined wall, obscuring their view of the camp. They couldn’t be seen, either; Hans, crouching at the top of the beam, indicated that Andreas should creep up the last few feet and peek over. Andreas did and found he had a bird’s-eye view of the Livonian camp.

They surrounded a run-down barn that was missing half of its roof. A lazy curl of gray smoke from within the barn indicated the barn was used as the communal mess. Andreas guessed the Heermeister, the Livonian Grandmaster, had sectioned off a private space for himself underneath the portion of the building that was still covered.

A corral of rope and logs kept the horses sequestered on the eastern side of the compound, and several pieces of sailcloth had been stitched together to make a clumsy shelter and windscreen. Andreas would have set aside part of the barn for the horses-that was its original function, after all-and let the men sleep in their tents, but the Livonians clearly thought differently about their mounts.

The entire compound was protected by a fragmentary bulwark made of debris piled behind hastily dug