leaned back in his saddle, the metal ring clutched desperately in his hand. The squad leader grimaced as he closed his own hand and raised his fist toward his men, who quickly responded with another noisy rattle of their swords. Instantly terrified, the youth tossed the ring to the leader.
The squad leader caught the ring and brought it close to his face so he could squint at it. Without turning his head, he called to his men, and one of the taller ones leaped forward. A hushed conversation followed. Ocyrhoe strained to catch their words, then took a few steps forward, just in time to see the leader drop the ring into the open hand of the tall soldier, who saluted, spun around, and trotted off through the crowd.
The foreigner had spotted the transfer too, and he cried out in protest. The priest was so startled by the sound he fell off his horse and landed with a thump on the stone paving and dirt. As the crowd surged forward, the youth pulled hard on the reins of his own horse and leaned forward, signaling-
For Ocyrhoe, the world unraveled in that instant. The crowd became an undulating mass of bodies: some resisting being shoved forward, faces contorted with fear at the sight of weapons and flailing hooves; others pulling back, arms raised to protect their heads.
The priest lay sprawled on his back in a cloud of dust-slack-jawed, eyes flicking left and right, hands twitching-caught in the grip of fever-born phantoms. The squad leader gawped, the open cavern of his mouth making him seem like a dull-witted buffoon; his men flanked him, staunch-shouldered, arms flexed for a fight, their expressions a mix of ferocity and fear.
The foreign youth’s horse pulled back its lips and flared its nostrils; the wild boy himself was the only one who appeared calm in the sudden fracas. It was now clear to Ocyrhoe that he had perfect command of his mount and had deliberately set off this chaos. She made her decision in that instant.
With an ease that belied the confusion and tumult of the marketplace around her, she fixed her eye on a spot on the young man’s horse. As she moved, the noise of the crowd faded to a distant growl, like thunder dying across the hills. Her feet hardly touched the stones as she sprang up and dashed forward, and she barely registered the presence of the semiprone merchant whom she used as a vault to achieve a place on the foreigner’s horse-right behind him, so close she pressed against his back.
Her arm, around his shoulder. He tensed.
Her mouth, next to his ear. “Ride,” she whispered, then pointed, her finger tracking the tall soldier with the ring as he neared the edge of the square.
“Peter,” she said, knowing it was the only word he would understand. He did.
She felt his legs clamp around his horse. The animal snorted and charged, diving toward the shining blades of the approaching soldiers. Her heart leaped into her throat, her skin flushed and heated at the thought that she had made a terrible mistake. But the foreigner had given his horse the freedom to run, and run it did, scattering soldiers and commoners alike.
Ocyrhoe held tight as the market became a blur. The soldier with the metal ring had disappeared around a corner; he did not know they were chasing him, and even if he did, he couldn’t outrun this horse. She had never ridden a horse before, and the powerful thump and heave of the animal beneath her was both terrifying and exhilarating.
2
Every day in the cage was another day of freedom. Haakon’s prison was a rough enclosure of wood and bone and metal, too small to allow him to stand upright, and if he lay down and stretched his arms over his head, he could just touch the metal bars with both his fingers and his toes. The roof was made from long planks, mismatched and warped. The cage sat in the back of a weather-beaten cart. A pair of stolid oxen pulled the cart-one brown, one black-at a pace always too slow for the liking of their handler. At first, Haakon was inclined to agree-the scenery passed with agonizing slowness-but in time, he realized every day they traveled was another day he would not have to face whatever fate the Virgin had in store for him. Another day of life. Another day of freedom.
The caravan was heading east. It had left Legnica the morning after his bout in the arena against the “demon” Zug. Haakon had walked into the tunnel of the Red Veil, expecting-naively, he now realized-some manner of reward ceremony, perhaps even an audience with Onghwe Khan himself. Instead, he had been accosted by a dozen Mongol warriors wielding pole-arms with weighted ends. He had instinctively blocked the first guard’s jab and had soon realized that defending himself was only going to increase how much they would hurt him when they finally knocked away his sword (and he did not suffer the illusion that he could best twelve men with pole- arms).
They had driven him into a tent beyond the arena, and once inside the tent, they had forced him to strip out of his armor. As long as he complied with their gestures, they only prodded him with the weighted staves; they did not want to hurt him, and Haakon-biding his time-did not relish the idea of trying to escape with a broken arm or leg. Once he had removed his armor, his arms and legs were bound. A crude leather sack was forced over his head. Only then had he panicked.
Some creature had perished in the bag; he could smell-and taste-the taint of its blood. He tried to shake the bag off his head, but as he thrashed about, he only managed to force the rough hide more firmly against his mouth and nose. He could hear their laughter, and as he struggled against a black tide that threatened to overwhelm him, their laughter became the last thing he remembered.
When he came to his senses, he was in a cage, buffeted by the cart as it bounced over muddy ruts of a wide track through the Polish forest. Since then, the only thing that had changed was the landscape. The trees, shorter and fewer in number, gave way to rocky terrain and then gently rolling plains covered with silky, tall grass.
The caravan was long, though much of his immediate view was blocked by similar cages on the carts in front and behind him-other prizes from Christendom.
The man in the cart just behind Haakon’s was huge. His red hair and beard overflowed his tiny head, and his body-wedged against the cage’s bars and in the cramped corners-was covered with a layer of fine red hair.
The captive in the next cart forward lay on his back and did not move overmuch; Haakon suspected he would not survive their journey.
And so Haakon waited. In time, his body grew accustomed to the shifting motion of the wooden cart; he listened to the Mongols as they shouted at the oxen, slowly absorbing the sounds of their language; he could tell when the cooks shifted from green wood to dried dung for their fires; when it rained, he would roll against the bars of his cage and let the bitter water sluice down his grimy face and into his mouth. He slept as often as the rattling motion of the cart allowed. At night, he studied the sky, trying to find the shapes he knew: the eyes of Thiassi, thrown into the heavens by Odin after the All-Father plucked them from the
His captors were taking him someplace, for some reason. He’d know soon enough. Perhaps too soon.
The rhythmic creaking and jolting of cage and cart, the guttural curses of the handler and his assistant, the infrequent lowing of the oxen, the mournful sighs and whispers of wind over the endless grass, filled Haakon’s mind and brought him a strange, contemplative peace. He had many, many hours to remember his training…and to prepare for whatever ordeal awaited him.
