Eventually, the Shield-Brethren gathered around a pyre erected from the remaining firewood. Rutger counted thirty somber faces. Full knight initiates, squires, and the untested like Styg and Eilif who had more than proven their worth in the past few weeks. Andreas had been right, Rutger realized as he looked at the assembled men. They were boys no more. He was surrounded by his brothers-the only family he had ever known-and their hearts and minds were as focused to the task ahead as their bodies were ready. There were no other men among whom he would rather stand when it came time to die.
The Mongols had taken what was left of Andreas’s corpse and nailed it to the walls of the arena. While he would have preferred to give Andreas a proper burial, dying in an effort to retrieve the body was an utterly foolish way to honor their fallen brother. What few personal items that remained would be enough, a symbolic gesture that would hearten the men and honor the spirit of their departed companion.
A torch was offered to him, and he managed to wrap his stiffening fingers around the piece of wood. Thirty pairs of eyes turned toward him, and he knew it was time.
Time to tell them why. Time to tell them the reason they all took the oath.
“We are all dying,” he said bluntly. Feronantus would have done a better job. His old friend was a much more gifted orator, but as the most senior brother present, the duty was his now.
What happened to all of them was his responsibility. He tightened his grip on the torch, afraid that his clumsy fingers would betray him and let go of the flaming brand before he was done speaking.
“High-born and low, peasant or king,” he continued, “our lives come to the same end. The Virgin claims our souls, and the earth and sky claim our flesh and blood. She whose honor we have sworn to defend measures our deeds in life, and those who are found worthy are taken to her hall where we spend eternity beneath the tree that is the root of all. Those of us who remain honor the memory of our worthy dead by hanging their pommels in the Great Hall of Petraathen.”
Rutger paused, a lump at the back of his throat, a wetness swelling behind his eyes. “Brother Andreas was worthy,” he said, his voice breaking. “Honest in word and deed; unflinching in his courage; first to act when the call came. When we floundered in our duty, he remembered. When we wished to hesitate, he struck. Andreas was everything that a knight of the Shield-Brethren must remember to be. When we forget who we are, when fear seizes us or when doubt assails our hearts, we need only think of our brother Andreas to find our strength again.”
Styg raised a longsword encased in a worn leather scabbard. Upon its pommel was a design similar in composition to the sigil of the order, but unique. Every brother owned a blade, given to him when he proved himself, that bore his own symbol. When he died, it was the sworn duty of his brothers to return the weapon to Petraathen. The blade would be reused, given to a new initiate, but the pommel would be struck free and permanently housed in the Great Hall. Andreas’s sword would have been lost with his body, but for the fact that he had not carried it with him into his final match. The blade had stayed here at the chapter house, and so they possessed it still.
Rutger carefully transferred the torch to his left hand. With his right, he drew Andreas’s sword from its scabbard. His hands felt like they were on fire, each knuckle a burning coal beneath the skin. “This blade is the finest steel our smith could forge, and when we go into battle, this sword is our virtue and our strength. But our brother did not take this sword into battle. Instead he took his faith and his love.” He raised the blade. “It is our tradition to break and reforge a blade once its wielder has fallen, but I submit to you that this sword should never be broken. It should hang, whole, in the Great Hall for all eternity as a reminder of our brother’s faith. It never faltered. He never faltered…” His voice wavered, threatening to lay bare his grief, and he tightened his grip around the hilt, the pain in his joints hardening his resolve. “We are the Knights of the Virgin Defender. We are the Shield of Saint Mary.”
He said the older name next, the Greek words hard in his mouth, and he saw confusion on the faces of some of the younger men. It is time they knew. “We have stood fast for many lifetimes,” he explained. “We live to see our brothers die in battle. We too will die violent deaths. But our vows remain. Our strength remains.” He raised the sword high and let his pain fill his voice. “Andreas,” he cried. “Alalazu!”
His brothers answered with the same. The still air was filled with the sound of swords being drawn and voices raised in salute. Alalazu! Alalazu! The battle cry of the Shield-Brethren shook the branches of the trees and rattled the old stones of the ruined church, and before the echo of the first salute had died away, a second followed. And then a third.
In the wake of their salute, they heard the sound of horses. The rhythmic rumble of hooves against the hard ground. The jingling sound of steel against steel.
“Mongols,” Styg spat.
“No,” Rutger countered. Too heavy. “Mongols don’t ride chargers.”
The sun had nearly set, a redness bleeding in the western sky, and the horsemen riding into the camp appeared to be swimming out of a sea of blood, the last light of the day glinting off helmets and shields and maille. White surcoats marked with red crosses and black ones marked in white hung on the riders as they filed into the clearing, their combined numbers several times that of Rutger and the Shield-Brethren about him.
Rutger lowered Andreas’s sword and stared at the host of Templars and Hospitallers. As he waited for some sign as to their presence, the lead Templar slid from his horse. His short hair and closely cropped beard were steel gray, and his face was a stone-etched mask. “I am Leuthere de Montfort, commander of the Templars at Hunern,” he said in a rough-edged voice turned hoarse from many years in the field. “Who commands here?”
Rutger stepped forward from among the circle of Shield-Brethren. “I am Rutger, knight initiate of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae. My brothers look to me for guidance.” Having said the words, he felt their weight settle upon his shoulders. I will lead them, Andreas, he vowed. “Do you come for blood?” he asked plainly. The Livonians had made themselves enemies of the Shield-Brethren today, openly and with all the hatred that could be mustered. He was somewhat surprised that the other orders would feel the need to mete out justice.
One of the Hospitallers dismounted and strode forward to stand beside the Templar. “I am Emmeran, commander of the Knights of Saint John,” he said. Like Leuthere, he was armored for battle. His face was kinder, however, though at the moment it was etched with a solemn expression. “The Livonian atrocity committed upon your brother was ill done. You should know that their Heermeister, Dietrich von Gruningen, had come to both our orders previously, speaking ill of you and your brothers.”
Leuthere nodded in agreement with the Hospitaller. “I apologize for the bluntness of my question,” he said, his gaze still unreadable. “Your man, when he threw his spear at the Khan today… was he acting alone?”
A desperate hope seized Rutger as his mind warred with itself over whether or not to tell the truth. He was surrounded by a host of knights that was several times larger than his small company of Shield-Brethren. He exhaled slowly, and in his mind’s eye, all he saw was Andreas, smiling at him. Wouldn’t you rather choose the manner of your death?
Rutger opened his eyes and looked at the unlit pyre for their fallen brother. I hope you rest in the arms of the Virgin, he thought. With a grunt, he threw the torch atop the bundle of wood, and it clattered across the pyre, scattering wisps of flame. As the oil-soaked wood ignited with a huff, he turned back to the Templar and Hospitaller. “The plan was of his making,” he said, “but it was done with our knowledge and support. Our brother did not act alone.”
Emmeran and Leuthere exchanged a look, and then the Templar’s mouth cracked into a smile. It looked almost bizarre on that stony face. “Surely he did not think he could take on the entire Mongol host by himself?”
Rutger shook his head, try
ing not to let the small hope burning in his chest erupt into something larger. “No,” he said, his eyes flickering back and forth between the two men. “Such an action requires more men.”
The Hospitaller’s eyes glittered in the leaping firelight. “That is our thought as well,” he said. “Which is why we have come to join you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Long and Winding Road
Now I understand why the Silk Road runs along the edge of a desert,” Yasper groused, slapping his arms against his body in a futile effort to keep his body warm. He wore a fur hat, pulled down as far as his eyebrows, and he had let his beard grow out again. Wild and uncombed, it resembled a weaver’s nest, and his voice issued from somewhere inside the bramble of wiry hair. “What I wouldn’t do for a handful of hot sand. Doesn’t that sound like paradise?” he said wistfully. “Just one handful of hot sand.”
Raphael nodded, though the motion was hard to distinguish with all the frantic shivering he was doing. Even with woolen strips wrapping his arms and legs and an extra layer of foul-smelling furs the company had traded for a week prior, the cold air still managed to worm its way down his back. He was doubly glad he had stopped wearing his maille several days ago. The chain seemed to absorb the chill in the air, and more than once he had found his hands sticking to the metal links.
Of all the company, Feronantus seemed the least affected by the weather. He wore extra layers, like everyone else, but Raphael had yet to see the old veteran shiver. If anything, he seemed to find the frigid air bracing.
Raphael had only ever been to Tyrshammar during the long summer months, when the nights were short and the sky never fully darkened. Over the last few days, he started to get a sense of what the winters in the northern stronghold must be like.
Of their own journey, there was one more pass to ascend before they reached the long valley where Boreas blew constantly. Raphael couldn’t even imagine attempting this route if there was more snow. As it was, they had reached the snow line the day before, and by Cnan’s reckoning, it was another three days before they would be able to pass through the gap and start their descent to the Gurbantunggut Desert.
Like Yasper, Raphael had been having dreams-when he was able to fall asleep-about deserts. Along with dreams of the sun and fire, vast pinwheels of raging flame spinning across the sky.
As the horses slowly picked their way up the narrow mountain path, Raphael tried not to let his thoughts dwell on the significance of the pinwheels. It was unsettling to think they might be the same spoked wheels that Percival saw in his visions; if they were, did that mean he was gradually being won over by the persistent truth of Percival’s vision? That the images the knight saw were, indeed, a message that issued from divine lip and hand.
Raphael had seen too much of what men did in the grip of visions. From the atrocities perpetrated in the Levant and in Egypt, to the mad works of that unholy inquisitor Konrad in his zealous pursuit of heretics in Thuringia, to the mystical zeal that was the source of constant torment and conflict within Percival.
It was not fair of him to judge Percival so, but over the last few months Raphael had begun to lay the blame of Roger’s death on the Frankish knight. If Percival had not insisted on visiting the caves beneath Kiev in pursuit of the illicit artifact he had imagined he knew to be there, then Roger might not have been killed.
He was spending too much time reliving the past. It was an unfortunate aspect of his fascination with keeping a record of their journey. At first, his tiny marks in the journal had been a means of passing the time during the endless days of riding; later, when he started to look back upon earlier entries and find them lacking in detail, he began to write more earnestly, thinking of Herodotus and Thucydides and their histories of the ancient Greek world. During the long nights on the steppe, when he could not sleep and lie, staring up at the endless spray of stars across the heavens, he began to think of the Confessiones written by Augustine of Hippo when the Christian theologian was of a similar age. In many ways, the Confessiones was a preamble to Augustine’s truly revelatory work, De Civitate Dei, as if the theologian had to exorcise his own past before he could address the more complex philosophical inquiries of the later work.
Vera said he thought too much, and while she did not intend her words to be mean-spirited, there was more than a hint of truth to them. Raphael would not deny that he thought a great deal about an endless panoply of ideas; it was his boundless curiosity about God’s creation, about his role within it, and how he was supposed to understand his purpose. Many never gave much thought to their ultimate purpose on the earth, and he knew that it was by God’s grace that he was able to even conceive of having a purpose, but that self-knowledge only inflamed his desire.
Yasper and his alchemical recipes had not helped either. The scrawny Dutchman had his own codex, though the alchemist’s was not nearly as well constructed as Raphael’s, being an olio of parchment, cloth, hide, and a few scraps of what looked suspiciously like tattooed skin. Yasper kept the loose collection in an oilskin satchel, and he referenced it, annotated it, and fussed with it on a daily basis. Raphael’s curiosity had led him to inquire about the alchemist’s notes, and he had been intrigued by some of the Arabic passages Yasper had in his collection. Written by a Persian named Jabir ibn Hayyan, the material was not-as he had anticipated-a babble of mystical nonsense disguised as a treatise on philosophical medicine, but a well-reasoned discourse on the immutable nature of the soul. Jabir sought answers to the same questions as Augustine; it was only his rhetoric and his practical methods that were different.
What is my purpose? How may I best serve God?
“It is a beautiful view, isn’t it?” Eleazar spread his arms to encompass the vista of snow-capped mountains. “Almost worth the trip for this alone, yes?”
Yasper shook his head, and nudged his shivering horse back onto the path.
“You must not take umbrage with Yasper,” R?dwulf explained to Cnan. The pair of them were riding behind Yasper and Eleazar. “He was born in a place that has nothing but dikes and low hills that barely come up to here.” He held his hand out, level with his horse’s shoulder. “The first time he saw the Alps, he fell off his horse. He claimed he was struck dumb in awe and terror at the majesty of God’s work. The other riders he was with thought otherwise and, on many subsequent occasions, performed entertaining pantomimes of what came to be known as the Low-Lander’s Abasement before God.”
“Does it happen often when he is talking to you?” Cnan asked, squinting up at R?dwulf. The tall Englishman smiled wolfishly. Glancing around, Cnan saw smiles on the faces of a few of the others who had paused at the scenic overlook.
There had been few opportunities for jovial camaraderie since they had left Benjamin at the rock. The trader had argued strenuously about joining the company, even after his detailed account of why such a decision was financially disastrous for him. Cnan had not understood the merchant’s interest in the hard ride that the Shield-Brethren had before them, but as she listened to the trader’s cogent argument, she grew to see that Benjamin thought he was in the company’s debt.
A debt that, ultimately, Feronantus refused.
The route through the Zuungar Gap was not well traveled, Benjamin argued, and the villages and clans that dotted the route were not as open to strangers as many who lived more closely to the Silk Road. The company would need a guide and an interpreter if they were going to reach the far side of the gap.
It was Benjamin’s informed guess that Alchiq would be keeping to the trade routes, where he could readily acquire fresh horses. Benjamin’s proposed route along the Tien Shan and through the gap would be rigorous and more dangerous, but it would be quicker.
Rigorous, dangerous, and quicker: those had been the magic words that had betrayed Benjamin. Feronantus had nodded with a gravid finality that the others knew well when Benjamin stressed them. Three reasons why you cannot come with us, Feronantus had said. You place too little value on y
our life.
What of you and yours? Benjamin had retorted.
Each of our lives have no meaning, except that which we give them by our deeds, Feronantus had replied, and Cnan knew he was quoting some old dictum of the Shield-Brethren.
In the weeks since, Cnan had noticed how the weight of that saying-the burden of their journey-was starting to show on the old veteran from Tyrshammar. He may have traveled to the far edges of Christendom, but the steppe was much broader than he could have imagined, and occasionally Cnan could read a crumbling despair in Feronantus’s eyes when he stared at the distant horizon. What had, in the beginning, seemed like a simple plan-ride east, passing over the Land of the Skulls and into the heartland of the Mongol Empire, and kill the Great Khan-was becoming such an extended odyssey that he was beginning to doubt they would reach their goal in time to save the West.
“That one over there is Khan Tengri,” Cnan said as the rest of the company reached the overlook, pointing to the white peak, blazing in the afternoon sun. “We are close to the Zuungar Gap.” The mountain floated above a layer of blue and gray clouds, a slab of flying marble like the mystical and unreachable home of foreboding gods. “When the sun sets,” Cnan finished, “the snow turns red.”
Istvan hawked and spat, and Cnan wasn’t sure if the Hungarian’s reaction was one of disbelief or if he was engaged in some manner of warding ritual. More and more, she had begun to see the Hungarian as a deeply superstitious man, one who was both haunted and hunted by some spirits only he could perceive. He hadn’t been completely taken by the influence of the freebutton mushrooms for many weeks, but she suspected he still had a secret cache of them on his person and that he would, from time to time, chew one.
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