The Mongoliad: Book Three

Without Tegusgal around, the guards who remained at the Mongol compound had a tendency to let their displeasure at being left behind turn to laziness, which presented an opportunity for Kim and Zug to plan somewhat openly. The Mongols were typically loath to allow any group of fighters to enjoy true seclusion in numbers greater than two, but this afternoon they-and some of the men who they had approached previously-were allowed to gather in the training yard, where the relative absence of supervision permitted them to stand about and speak. So long as they periodically made a show of moving through patterns or drills, the bored guards would not be overly suspicious.

They made for a strange assortment of mismatched and dangerous individuals, a patchwork of potential violence that would alarm Tegusgal if he were ever to see them assembled. Will it be enough? That was the worry that gnawed at Kim as he surveyed his motley band.

Madhukar’s shoulders rippled as he uttered a sound of dissatisfaction. The wrestler’s grasp of the Mongol tongue was not exceptional, but Siyavash, a Persian with a face that looked like it had been carved from marble, understood some of the big man’s native tongue. Enough to offer better translations.

“Too much waiting, Madhukar says,” Siyavash murmured. “And standing around talking like this is dangerous.”

“A little longer,” Zug murmured where he stood, leaning against a stave of white wood. The bushi was already sharper than Kim had ever seen him, his focus honed like the edge of his skull-maker and set inexorably upon the task at hand. And yet, he exuded such patience. “Unless the Rose Knight has been killed by Lakshaman.” The cheers from the arena had occasionally reached them, and judging by the ebb and flow of the noise, the fight was finished.

“We don’t know to which of the fighting orders Lakshaman’s opponent belonged,” Kim said. “’Tis better to concern ourselves with what we know, and what we can accomplish.”

“With or without him, what is your plan, Kim?” Siyavash intoned. The man’s eyes held him steadily, hungry for freedom, suspicious of hope. These men had all entertained dreams of escape once upon a time, but the relentless yoke of their imprisonment had destroyed most of those ambitions. They were prisoners, surely, but they were not broken men, not like some of the others who were so filled with bitterness and resentment that the very idea of rebellion was violently loathsome. But they were wary of being hopeful. It was a dangerous emotion, the kind that could get them killed.

And yet, here they were. Gathered in the training yard, holding wooden weapons. Listening to the impossible plan as if it were an idea with the slightest possibility of success.

“Kill the Khan,” Zug said with a jarring, blunt sobriety. “How, we are not certain. When? When the moment is right. How? That is part of why we are here.”

“We are closest to him when we fight in the arena.” Kim said, spinning a stave as though he were at his drills. “All we need to is put one of our own in the ring with one of theirs, and there will be an opportunity. If the Khan is killed, the Circus will crumble around him. Even Tegusgal cannot keep order at such a time.”

Silence hung palpably on the field between them, broken only by the rise and fall of the wind. The cheers from the arena had died down, as a wave recedes from the pounded sand. Madhukar’s face had been stoic as he listened, but now the wide mouth cracked into a broad grin that Kim suspected would have sent every child of Hunern running in terror.

“Good plan,” he said in his halting grasp of the Mongol tongue. He thumped his wooden cudgel against the ground. Kim could easily imagine a skull bursting apart beneath it.

“That is not a plan,” Siyavash said. “It is madness.” Nevertheless, Madhukar’s smile was contagious, and as much as the Persian wanted to keep himself free of the infectious gleam of hope, he couldn’t help himself. “But I agree with Madhukar,” he said finally.

“We will have to get word to the Rose Knight,” Zug said. “Using the boys.”

“Agreed,” Kim said.

“A simple plan it is, then.” Zug said with an air of finality. “Often, those are the best. The less we must argue about information, and the more we can act with weapons in hand, the better. A word is all that will be needed, and the understanding that those who stand in the arena will not live long after they make the kill.”

There was the wild look in Zug’s eyes once more as he spoke, and Kim was reminded again that a part of his friend longed for death. Given what Zug had been through, it was difficult for Kim to begrudge him his wish. He simply hoped that the burning desire did not kill them all. One by one, the others nodded their agreement.

And like that, the planning was done. They stood in silence awhile, listening to the wind of voices that blew over their heads from the distant structure of the arena that controlled all their destinies.

“Are there many flowers today?” A nervous young voice asked. Kim turned sharply, lowering his eyes to find one of the very boys they had been speaking of looking up nervously at him. So many children came and went from the camp, conscripted to bring everything from wine to drugs, that the Mongols seldom paid attention. These children had a courage that any man worth his strength could admire.

“I would hear of the fighting first,” Kim said, kneeling down to bring himself eye level with the youth. Behind him, he could feel the attention of the others. “Who has won in the arena?”

“The red-cross knight is dead,” the boy said simply.

Kim breathed a tangible sigh of relief. It had not been Andreas in the ring, as he had feared. He looked behind him, catching Zug’s eye. “The one with the knives was wounded,” the boy continued. “But he will live.”

“The task falls to one of us then,” Zug laughed.

Kim couldn’t help but smile, and to quell the boy’s confusion at their words, he rested a hand on the lad’s shoulder. “Lakshaman-the man with the knives-will not fight again so soon,” he said. “Therefore it will be one of us who goes to the arena. To fight the Rose Knight.” He squeezed the boy’s shoulder gently and leaned forward. “There are no more flowers to be picked here,” he said quietly. “This is the message I want you to carry. We are done picking flowers, but two will bloom in the bloody sand. Can you remember that? The two will bloom together.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Paten and the Chalice

Rodrigo was grateful the young priest had allowed him to descend into the crypt alone. He had approached the high altar in the middle of the church, its towering canopy dwarfed by the almost incomprehensible height of the cathedral’s ceiling. A balustrade descended into the sacred pit below the altar, the walls lit by oil lamps. Those lamps have burned unceasingly since I was last in Rome, he thought, not sure how many days or hours or lifetimes that had been.

He followed the steps into a cavelike chamber, feeling as if Mother Earth herself was preparing to take him into her bosom and relieve him of his burden. At the far end of the lamplit space stood a wall of red and white marble with a low, arching doorway in the middle. On the other side, he knew, lay St. Peter, Christ’s greatest disciple, in a repose more peaceful by far than anything Rodrigo himself had ever, would ever, know. The silence was absolute, as if the world had stopped, paused to breathe in the holy air of such a holy man. Even the lamps burned in ghostly silence-with none of that serpentlike hissing they made in the upper world.

Carefully, worshipfully, Rodrigo walked in callused bare feet toward the archway. He was only half convinced the father of Catholicism would awaken to hear his prophecy… but if he didn’t, if Peter were too close to God to care now what became of the minions left on earth, it would still be restful to spend a moment by the crypt and pray to the saint for guidance.

Rodrigo lowered his head and entered the crypt. This too was lit by an eternal flame, an oil lamp suspended from the ceiling just above the coffin. For a long moment, too long, he tracked a tendril of soot rising from the flame, studied it as he had studied the marble.

That is the reward and the way of sacred repose, the blessed freedom to think such thoughts, make such observations undisturbed, alone, forever and ever.