The Mongoliad: Book Three tfs-3

by Neal Stephenson

  Styg shook off the thoughts, sensing the melancholic trap that a fighter could easily fall into after combat. He had used his sword to take a life. That act changed a man-there was no doubt of that in his mind-but to stop and dwell on that transformation would be as foolish as thinking while fighting. If he survived, he could dwell on his first blooding all he liked.

  He looked about for some sign of Eilif, and saw none. The orange tent, he reminded himself, and he jogged to his right, getting away from the two corpses before someone stumbled upon the scene. If Eilif was still undetected, Styg mused, it might fall to him to lead the Mongols away from the tent to give his friend enough time to free the prisoners.

  That is, if he hadn’t been spotted.

  Continue with the mission, he chided himself. He came around the curve of another tent, and was surprised to find a thick post standing in the middle of an open space. A man, his hands bound by leather straps that, in turn, were lashed to an iron ring set in the top of the post, half leaned, half sat on the ground. His hair was long and unkempt and he wore no shirt. Styg could make out the puckered edges of a still suppurating wound on the man’s back.

  A coarse shout sounded behind Styg, and he glanced back toward the tent with the two dead men. The bodies had been found, and already a Mongol was running toward him, sword drawn.

  Styg darted toward the block of wood and, as he came abreast of it, he swung his sword. The blade severed the leather straps, and he pivoted around the block, swinging his sword in a wide arc in his wake. The Mongol drew up short, avoiding Styg’s wild swing, and once the blade had passed, he leaped forward with a howl. Styg caught the Mongol’s cut on the strong of his blade and let the momentum of his enemy’s attack drive his pommel upward and into his enemy’s face with skull-cracking force.

  The freed prisoner stared uncomprehendingly at the senseless Mongol lying on the ground next to him. Styg kicked the Mongol’s curved sword toward the man, hoping the sight of the weapon would bestir the man. The man reached for the weapon finally, fingers wrapped around the hilt with a practiced familiarity.

  We all know what to do with a sword, Styg thought as he moved on, seeking the orange tent.

  He caught sight of a piece of orange felt, and relief washed over him that he hadn’t been running in the wrong direction. Drab and worn down with mold and rain, the tent’s coloration was not unlike that of a rotting gourd, left too long in the field.

  His elation was momentary, cut short by more shouts behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and spotted three more Mongols rapidly approaching. They all carried spears.

  His hand tightened on his hilt, memories of watching Andreas fight the Livonian in the Circus filling his head.

  Spears against swords. Not a good match.

  The smoke burned Dietrich’s eyes and throat as he slid off his horse and dashed toward the bridge. He didn’t have time to figure out who had put these barrels on the bridge or why. The Mongols were coming, and if he could clear a path, he might still escape.

  His boots clattered on the wooden boards of the bridge as he approached the first barrel. Up close, he could hear the hissing frustration of the fires inside the nearest barrel as it tried to devour the green and wet wood that was the source of the smoke. The barrel was surrounded by a primitive fire circle, and he kicked the broken rock aside. Clenching his eyes shut against the billowing smoke, he wished he still had his cloak to cover his nose and mouth. Trying to breathe as little as possible, he bent and shoved with his shoulder. The barrel slid across the bridge, rocking slightly, and he staggered against it, inhaling a lungful of smoke.

  Coughing, his eyes watering, he hunched over. His eyes were filled with tears, and his throat ached, but he couldn’t stop to hack up all the smoke he had inhaled. He had to shove the barrel off the bridge. He had to keep moving. The Mongols were coming. He had to get his leg to move.

  Wiping tears from his eyes, he stared stupidly at his recalcitrant leg. He had removed the arrow earlier. The one that hadn’t penetrated his armor. Why was it back? Forgetting about the smoking barrel for a moment, Dietrich reached down and touched the long shaft of the arrow protruding from his right thigh.

  It was longer than the other one, he dimly realized, and the fletching was different.

  Through the haze of smoke, he saw horsemen approaching. More arrows began to land around him, skipping off the planks of the bridge, burying themselves into the wood of the barrel next to him. Shorter arrows, fired from Mongol bows.

  “No,” he coughed. This isn’t fair. This isn’t the way it was supposed to end.

  He wasn’t going to die like Volquin. That wasn’t his destiny. He grabbed his stiff leg and hauled it with him as he staggered around the barrel. He was going to survive. He was going to escape.

  An arrow punched him in the shoulder, spinning him around, and he tried to arrest his fall, but his right leg crumpled under him. A brilliant spike of pain shot through his hip and made him cry out. His head rebounded off the bridge and his vision darkened. No. I will not die today. God is protecting me.

  Sprawled on the bridge, Dietrich found he could breathe more easily as there was less smoke. He could see more readily as well. The edge of the bridge wasn’t too far away. Could he crawl that far? He dragged himself through the talus scattered across the bridge, one agonizing inch at a time. Arrows continued to fall around him, and he dimly heard shouts and the clanging sound of steel on steel. The Mongols had been engaged by another host, and if his world had not been reduced to nothing more than this painful crawl, he might have wondered who had sprung this trap on the Mongol host.

  It was only as he tipped over the edge of the bridge and fell into the river that he caught sight of the arrow in his leg again. The white fletching. Chicken feathers.

  A Templar arrow.

  And then the water closed over him, and he knew nothing else.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The Mouse’s Trail

  Monferrato’s sedan chair had gotten them into the compound, though Monferrato had been dismayed to learn that he missed the vote and apoplectic to realize that a simple priest had been elected. Ocyrhoe thought the Cardinal’s eyes were going to pop out of his head when he learned that the College of Cardinals had not immediately invalidated the election.

  “How is this possible?” Monferrato had spluttered to the ostiarius who was leading them through the dark halls of the Castel Sant’Angelo.

  “You had best speak to Cardinal Fieschi,” the tall ostiarius said, his pace quickening as if he could escape further interrogation.

  “Where is he?” Monferrato demanded.

  The ostiarius slowed, confusion showing on his face. “He is with the other Cardinals,” he said. “But I thought-”

  “We do,” Lena said smoothly. She indicated Ocyrhoe and Ferenc. “However, these are longtime companions of the Pope. He will want to see them immediately. After which, you may escort Cardinal Monferrato to see Cardinal Fieschi.” Unlike the Cardinal, her voice was calm and soothing, and it had an immediate effect on the ostiarius, who nodded eagerly and started walking again.

  Monferrato started spluttering again, his eyes bulging even more, and Lena forestalled any further discussion by putting a finger to her lip and shaking her head.

  Ocyrhoe grabbed Ferenc’s hand and hurried after the ostiarius. She didn’t need to be part of their argument; she only wanted to see Father Rodrigo.

  Their guide took them to a hall with multiple doors, and he chose a small one on the left-it seemed terribly unassuming to Ocyrhoe to be the door that led to the Pope. But she said nothing as the ostiarius opened the door and indicated they were to enter. Still holding Ferenc’s hand, she stepped through the door into the narrow chamber beyond.

  Ocyrhoe was struck by the difference in Father Rodrigo, meeting him this time. First, of course, he was physically much healthier-which made him look younger. But more than that, he radiated beatitude-an emotional stability that she could not associate with the m
an she’d first met.

  She enjoyed watching the affectionate blandishments Ferenc and Bendrito showered on each other. She could not follow the language they spoke, but she could read their faces and body language, and sense the emotional pitching and tossing that Ferenc was going through as he listened to Father Rodrigo speak.

  Finally, after perhaps a quarter hour, Father Rodrigo turned to her and began to speak in the language of Rome. “Sister, Ferenc tells me you have been good to him and he is fond of you,” the new Pope began.

  “That is mutual, Father. Your Holiness,” she corrected herself without hurry.

  “He tells me that you are a native of the city and that you can help us to escape.”

  “They are holding you captive here, then?”

  “Ferenc tells me you saw me speaking in the marketplace. Did it look like I left there by my own free will?” He gestured around the room. “I have just been made Summus Pontifex Ecclesiae Universalis, yet, I reside in a small, windowless room with no pot to defecate in, eating cold food. Do you think I am here by my own choice?”

  Ocyrhoe squirmed a bit under the intensity of Father Rodrigo’s gaze, hoping that he wasn’t suggesting what she feared he was. Based on Ferenc’s gleeful expression, though, she suspected that escape was exactly what Father Rodrigo had in mind.

  By the time the new Pontiff had finished his private audience with the strange hunter-boy from the north, a temporary suspension of the endless canonical discussions among the Cardinals had been called; everyone agreed to turn in for the night, and to resume conversations, arguments, investitures, or whatever else the future might hold, starting the next morning.

  Ocyrhoe and Lena were put together in a room on the first floor; at the new Pope’s insistence, Ferenc slept in his room. Helmuth and Cardinal Monferrato were also put together in another guest quarter, closer to the rest of the Cardinals.

  Father Rodrigo’s room, not surprisingly, had a guard placed in front of it. That did not worry Ocyrhoe. In the dark hours of the morning, with a small kitchen knife and a kneading blade she had purloined from the castle kitchen, she let herself out of the room. Lena had not stirred as she had slipped out of bed and made her way to the door. Ocyrhoe did not feel that what she was about to do was at all contrary to her identity as a Binder, but still, she sensed Lena would discourage her from following her instincts.

  Her plan was simple enough-the sort of misdirection that came naturally to her as a child of the streets. Like a mouse, she laid out a trail for the guard to follow. She planted a number of obvious clues-a piece of torn fabric, some bits of wax from a candle, a wedge of plaster, and powder from that plaster-down the hall, around another corner, and aimed directly at the door of Cardinal Fieschi’s room.

  When she finished her false trail, she crept back to the corner near Father Rodrigo’s room. The guard was leaning against the wall, his lack of vigilance suggesting he had no idea who he was guarding. She tossed a pebble in his direction, making sure it bounced and rattled against the base of the wall. As soon as the guard roused himself, she scampered noisily away from the corner. There was a dark niche not far from the next corner, deep enough for her to hide in, and she pressed herself into the slot shortly before the guard stumbled around the corner.

  She was counting on the guard’s boredom, that he would be more interested in following a trail of evidence that would result in the capture of a sneaky thief than the endless monotony of guard duty.

  The guard paused as he came around the corner, looking around cautiously. Ocyrhoe held her breath, waiting for him to spot the piece of torn cloth. He did, and bowing over like a hound, he began to creep along the hall, his eyes clearly scanning for more clues. He passed by her hiding place without even looking in her direction. In another few heartbeats, he reached the corner and disappeared from view.

  Ocyrhoe darted out of her hiding place and silently-like a mouse-ran back to Father Rodrigo’s chamber. She quietly picked the lock on the door with the kitchen knife, pushed up the simple latch with the dough blade, then slipped into Father Rodrigo’s small room and shut the door behind her. Ferenc and Rodrigo were already awake and dressed. A candle stub burned by the bed, throwing their shadows up against the high stone and plaster of the ceiling.

  Father Rodrigo smiled benevolently. Did nothing disturb the man now? Perhaps a Pope was beyond fear.

  Ferenc looked nervous and happy to see her.

  Already she was loosening her satchel to pull out the map she had drawn. The moon was low but the compound in general never really slept; once she got them safely outside, away from people who would recognize their faces, they could walk off openly without causing suspicion. All the same, the map showed the most indirect, untraceable, forgotten pathways leading out of the city. Beyond the city walls, she could no longer help them.

  She smiled in the candlelight and reached out for Ferenc’s hand. Good-bye, my friend, she signed, and then threw her arms around him in an embrace.

  Ferenc went first, the idea being that the sight of the young Magyar might not raise as much alarm immediately as the sight of Father Rodrigo wandering around the halls. Father Rodrigo paused at the door to the room. “Will you stay here?” he asked, his eyes bright in the candlelight.

  “Here?” Ocyrhoe whispered.

  Father Rodrigo nodded. “An empty room is an easy mystery to solve, but a room that contains something other than what is expected will be confusing.” A small laugh slipped out of him. “Is that not what we find in our hearts?” he asked, though Ocyrhoe thought he wasn’t speaking to her. “We fear we are empty vessels, but we aren’t, are we?”

  “No, Father,” she whispered. An oddly familiar and yet foreign shiver ran through her body, not unlike the sensation she had felt when she had first laid eyes on the priest in the marketplace.

  “God bless you, child,” Father Rodrigo said, resting his hand on her forehead. His flesh was warm and dry. And then he was gone.

  Ocyrhoe waited in the empty room, feeling a little bit empty herself. What a bizarre and unexpected few days this had been! What unimaginable outcomes had developed from it!

  She looked around the room in the flickering light of the candle stub. I’ll sleep here then, she decided. Tomorrow morning, when they come for him, they will find me instead. They will be furious, but Lena will not allow them to hurt me.

  She was confident of that.

  She blew the candle out, pulled back the cover of the bed, and snuck under it. It was much nicer than the bedding she and Lena had been given. This would actually be quite nice, she decided, sleeping in a Pope’s bed, and allowed herself to smile. From the Emperor’s camp to the Pope’s bedroom in a single day! Sleep began to tug at her mind, and she welcomed it.

  Until she heard voices outside the room. Male voices, and one of them a little bit familiar-Cardinal Fieschi. She looked around. There was no place in here to hide, and no way to escape before he entered.

  An empty room is an easy mystery. Something unexpected is altogether more confusing.

  She flung aside the covers, scrambled out of the bed, pulled the covers back in place, and knelt beside the bed in a position of prayer.

  The door opened.

  Fieschi entered, carrying a torch, already incensed. “A thief? In the palace? Are you a fool?” Handing the torch off to the guard behind him, he flicked the latch. “It’s not even-”

  He had spotted her, and the change that came over him was frightening in its ferocity. He lunged at her, teeth bared, hands like claws, murder in his eyes.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The Archery Competition

  Gansukh felt well rested, all things considered. He had not expected to sleep that night, and it was only by a stroke of luck that he had stumbled upon the fact that Chucai had left the camp. Chucai’s ger had seemed like a perfect place to hide from Munokhoi.

  The ex-Torguud captain had nearly assaulted Gansukh at the fights, barely managing to contain his volcanic temper. Gansukh was
certain Munokhoi was waiting for him somewhere in the camp, and if the positions were reversed, he would have certainly lain in wait near his ger. He had been of half a mind to sleep in Munokhoi’s ger, figuring that the ex-Torguud captain’s rage would keep him alert and fixed in place outside of Gansukh’s ger, but in the end that had felt too risky of a proposition.

  What he needed was another opportunity like that of the night before to publicly mock the ex-Torguud captain without being seen as challenging him. It wasn’t a very clever plan, but it would get the job done as long as there were witnesses-people who would attest that Munokhoi attacked first, without provocation-then any response on his part, including a fatal one, would be seen as self-defense. No one would be fooled, but propriety would be maintained.

  He had learned that much from court-the maintenance of propriety. The phrase even sounded like something from one of Lian’s endless scrolls. The understanding-the unspoken rule of acceptable behavior-was that it didn’t matter who knew what you had done, as long as you gave the court an excuse to pretend otherwise. And if you took care of a persistent thorn, you were given latitude.

  Of course, this was all predicated on Munokhoi playing along-at least with the part where he was supposed to lose his temper publicly-but this plan didn’t leave as bad a taste in his mouth as the option of assassinating Munokhoi.

  He was running out of time, however. The Khagan was supposed to leave for his hunt today.

  “Ho, Gansukh!” It was Tarbagatai, eager as ever. The mountain archer jogged up to Gansukh, his round face nearly bursting with some irrepressible news. His face fell slightly when he realized Gansukh’s hand was on the hilt of his knife. “Did you not sleep well, friend?” Tarbagatai asked. “You seem jumpy.”

  Gansukh relaxed. “I slept quite well, in fact. It’s just…”

  “Oh,” Tarbagatai said, nodding. “It’s-yes, the fights… I… I think I understand.” His brow furled, betraying the fact that he probably did not have as much clarity as he claimed.