The Mongoliad: Book Two

Master Yelu Chucai strode through the confusion, overseeing the proceedings. As he passed, men averted their eyes and bent to their tasks with extra enthusiasm, not wanting to draw his attention. Everyone knew of the chief advisor’s mood.

During the first night of the festival, the Khagan had lost control-dancing drunkenly out in the main courtyard-and before the Khevtuul had been able to assist him back to his chambers, he had been spirited away. He knew Gansukh had taken Ogedei, and he put off the increasingly aggravated captains of both the Khevtuul and the Torguud, saying that the Khagan was indisposed and not to be disturbed. The ruse had worked until someone-and he suspected Toregene’s hand in the rumor-let slip that the Khagan was not in his chambers. As the Khevtuul were on the verge of marching on the palace, the Khagan had reappeared, striding through the palace gate as if just returning from a pleasant walk, acting as if he always left the palace without a retinue of guards. He had refused to speak of what had happened or where he had gone, ordering only that the remainder of the festival be canceled. He instructed Chucai to make immediate preparations for his departure from Karakorum, without the slightest flicker of awareness of the headache his disappearance had caused.

Their destination-he blithely informed Chucai-was not to be the winter palace. They were going to Burqan- qaldun.

My Khan, he had argued, you cannot seriously expect your entire retinue to follow you across the steppes.

I don’t, Ogedei had responded. But I am not just your Khan. I am the Khagan. What else can they do?

Chucai had pressed the Khagan, possibly more than he should have-the man had, after all, been drinking heavily the last few days-but the Khagan had cut him off. I have made so many concessions to civilized ways, Ogedei said with an unexpected fervor. Now it is time for civilization to make a concession to the Mongol ways.

“Master Chucai-”

A small man stood in Chucai’s path, fearful that the tall advisor would not notice him and stride right over him. “What is it?” Chucai snapped, rocking on his heels.

The man pointed. “A caravan has arrived from Subutai, and the Khagan’s son. Gifts from the campaign in the West.”

Chucai stared at the plain, trying to pick out the one caravan among the dozens being assembled. He spotted the likely one and noticed what looked like cages on several of the wagons. He began walking toward the wagons, causing the small man to leap out of his way and then run to keep up with him. “Prisoners?” Chucai asked.

“Warriors,” the small man panted. “From Onghwe Khan’s…” He didn’t finish, not knowing if Ogedei’s displeasure about his son’s predilections extended to gladiatorial fights.

Chucai looked over the cages on the weathered oxcarts. They were filled with a ragtag assortment of men, spoils of war from the distant corners of the world-places he would never visit. One man, exotically dark-skinned, squatted in a corner of his cage, gnawing on his knuckles; another, a Southerner from the looks of him, glared murderously at Chucai, his expression so marred by malnutrition-toothless gums, crusted lips, chancres on his face and hands-that the glare was more entertaining than terrifying. A third was so enormous he barely fit in his cage.

“What should we do with them, Master?”

Chucai understood the man’s confusion. The festival celebrating Tolui had been scheduled to last a week, and while the caravan of Onghwe’s gifts was late, it should have arrived in time for the final ceremonies. The Khagan, however, had unexpectedly changed his mind about his departure date from Karakorum.

“Take them with us,” Chucai sighed and waved off the small man. “We will need entertainment on this journey.”

The small man nodded and ran off to shout orders at the weary caravan master.

Chucai paused. One of the prisoners revealed little concern about the bustle around his cage. In fact, he seemed fascinated by the strange world in which he now found himself.

The prisoner sensed Chucai looking at him and openly met the tall man’s gaze, showing neither fear nor aggression.

He was lean and muscular, with hair so pale it was almost white and light-blue eyes.

9

Enter the Bear

Ocyrhoe knew the general layout of the Orsini palazzo. When the man she’d been following passed the pair of guards at the gate, she knew where on the back wall she could slip unseen into the grounds. There was enough moonlight to spot the shadows made by handholds on the rough stone wall. She climbed the wall, hung off the other side, and dropped into the shadows. An ancient apple tree leaned drunkenly toward the main house, and she clambered up its sprawling branches until she could leap lightly to the roof of the main building. The master of the house-Orsini, the Bear of Rome-usually met his visitors in a large room that looked out over the terraced ponds in the back. The moon was high in the sky, round and gravid, and its pale light revealed the long expanse of the city that lay below Orsini’s estate.

The roof here was well maintained, the tiles firmly interconnected, making it easy to move quickly and quietly. Ocyrhoe scampered like a squirrel across the angled peak of the roof, past the rim of stones that lay around the hearth’s smoke hole, and then launched herself at the stone railing of the balcony above.

A pair of lions, one on each front corner of the balcony, rose out of the worn stone balusters, mouths wide in frozen roars. Their backs and rears vanished into the railing, but the sculptors had carved every detail of their heads, chests, and forelegs, down to their clawed feet. Ocyrhoe grabbed one of the lions’ open mouths, her hands wrapping around its stony lower jaw, and her feet swung, scrabbled for a moment, and then found the top of the lion’s claws. She pressed herself against the granite beast, trying to catch her breath. She hadn’t stopped moving since this afternoon. Not since she had leaped onto the back of that horse.

The rest of the day had been a whirlwind. The strange sensation of flying as she clung to the hairy foreigner and his horse. The earthy smell of the young man. The soldier’s blade and the foreigner’s knife. The stone in her hand and how much it hurt her palm when she smashed the soldier’s head with it. The stranger’s alien language, a lilting song that was frustratingly familiar yet completely incomprehensible. His name-Ferenc-which he repeated over and over and over again until she figured out what he was trying to tell her. How immediately he fell asleep once she found a safe place for them to hide.

She had tried to lie down too, but her body was too wound up. Too much energy coursing through her. Too much she didn’t know. As much as she hated to leave the young man by himself, she couldn’t sit there and watch him all night. She had to find out what had happened to the priest.

That mystery hadn’t taken long to solve. An inn near the Porta Tiburtina market was still reliving the incident from that afternoon when she slipped in. The stories being bandied about the smoke-filled room were outrageous, and more than one storyteller was arguing that his version was the true one because he had been there. I saw it with my own eyes! This is the way it happened! The only thing all the tales had in common was the whispered destination of the priest: Septizodium.

A clink of metal-like a knife against a plate, or a decanter against a cup-returned her attention to her moonlit surroundings. Ocyrhoe shifted her weight and found a place for her foot on the curve of the lion’s shoulder. She pushed herself up so that she could see over the edge of the balcony’s railing. The balcony was long, running nearly the length of this side of the palazzo, and there was a set of double doors off to her left. Directly in front of her was a window. Its shutters were open, letting out light and sound; her line of sight wasn’t very good, but she could hear voices. Two men, she guessed, though she couldn’t make out their words.

She pushed up more and got an elbow on the top of the railing. The muscles in her arms protested as she