Emperor

by William F. Wu

  “I’m going to look inside the inn,” said Steve. “Stay on your horse, all right?”

  “All right.”

  Steve dismounted and quietly walked up onto the front porch of the small wooden building. He opened the door and leaned inside, looking around. It was much like the inn in which they had stayed the night before, with a large room full of tables in front of a big fireplace. The furniture was more finely finished, carved and deeply polished, suggesting greater prosperity. Long, vertical landscape paintings hung on the walls.

  “Welcome, friend.” A big, burly innkeeper hurried forward, smiling.

  Past him, Steve recognized a couple of merchants from the group he wanted to avoid.

  “Sorry,” Steve muttered quickly. He pulled out of the doorway and closed the door quickly behind him. From what he could tell, no one except the innkeeper had seen him.

  “What happened?” Marcia asked.

  “They’re in there,” said Steve, as he swung into the saddle. “That’s good, because now we know where they are. I don’t think anyone saw me.”

  “Then we can stay at another inn.”

  “I’ll do the same thing again, in case that group had to split up to get rooms.”

  They rode to another inn. Again, Marcia waited outside. Steve looked inside this one and did not recognize any of the visitors who had sat down to dinner. He stepped inside, still looking around cautiously.

  This time a slender, white-haired man approached him and bowed. “Good evening, stranger. Are you in need of lodging?”

  “I may be,” said Steve. “I, uh, had an argument yesterday with other travelers along this road. I would like to avoid them if I can.”

  “I see. Well, I have some soldiers here on their way south to Khanbaliq.”

  “The ones I’m talking about are going north. some merchants and students, as well as soldiers.”

  “I have no group like that.”

  Steve grinned with relief. “Good. Uh, I have a companion. We’ll take two rooms. And two dinners.”

  “Very well. I ask six coppers for each room.”

  “Fine. I’ll take our horses to the stable.”

  “Of course.”

  As Steve hurried out, he realized that he had forgotten to bargain. It was too late now; he had revealed to the innkeeper that he had reason to avoid the other inns, which had ruined his bargaining position. He decided not to worry about it. In this case, a safe place to wait for Hunter was more important than exactly how much they spent.

  The hostler was a tall, gaunt man with graying hair who walked stiffly with age. With a weary, uninterested nod, he took the reins from Steve and Marcia. Steve untied the cloth bag with their changes of clothes from the back of the saddle. As they started toward the inn, hoofbeats came through the gate and they turned to look.

  A group of Mongol riders rode through the gate. Grinning, they arrogantly ignored the Chinese sentries who glared sullenly at them, and split up. Small knots of riders trotted toward different taverns and inns. Four young riders, dressed in furs with breastplates, backplates, and pointed steel caps, came toward Steve and Marcia.

  “I guess the battalion was dismissed,” said Steve.

  “Let’s get inside,” said Marcia. “I’m scared.”

  “All right.”

  They turned away.

  “Ho! You there!” One of the soldiers called out in accented Chinese.

  “Ignore him,” Marcia whispered. “Let’s just get inside.”

  “I better not,” said Steve. “We don’t want to make them mad.” He turned and looked up at the riders. “Good evening,” he said in Mongol.

  The lead rider raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You speak our language?”

  “Yes, friend. And I see you have fine horses. We saw you ride a few minutes ago, beyond the wall.’ Steve figured a compliment would always be wise.

  “The best in Mongolia.” The rider grinned, seeming to mock his own boasting. “You know horses?”

  “A little,” Steve said modestly. He was certain that boasting himself would be a mistake. “I had a very fine one of a different desert breed once. She was the kind ridden by the Arabs.”

  “Ah! My uncle rode against the Arabs in the west. He fought in Persia.”

  “Then he must have seen the same breed.”

  “He must have.” The Mongol shrugged. “Is this inn crowded? We seek Chinese wine. I prefer it to our koumiss.”

  “Uh, no, it’s not crowded.”

  “Good.” He swung out of the saddle, and his companions did likewise. Without even looking at the hostler, he gestured for the old man to take their horses. He turned to Steve. “You will come and drink with us as my guest.”

  “Well, I have ordered dinner for my friend and me,” said Steve uncertainly.

  “Do what he says,” Marcia muttered quickly in English. “Keep him happy. But they know a decent woman won’t drink with them, so I’m going up to my room. Bring me something to eat when you can, okay?” She took the cloth bag from him.

  “All right,” said Steve. He didn’t know what else to do. “But what’s koumiss?”

  “Fermented mare’s milk.” Marcia hurried into the inn ahead of them.

  Steve grimaced at the idea of that, then turned to the Mongol leader, speaking in Mongol again. “Thank you. I will be honored to join you.”

  The Mongol clapped him on the shoulder. “Wine and food for all of us,” he called to the innkeeper in his accented Chinese. “Your best.”

  The innkeeper bowed deeply and rushed away.

  The Mongol leader led the group to the table closest to the fireplace and gestured for them all to sit down.

  15

  Steve sat down with the Mongols, smiling at each one with a nod of greeting. When he got the chance, he would ask the innkeeper to take Marcia’s dinner up to her. Right now, he felt it was wise not to remind the Mongols that she was up there.

  “What is your name?” The Mongol pointed to himself. “I am Timur.”

  “Steve.”

  “Ss—teve. The sound is unusual to me. But of course, my Chinese is not so good.”

  The other Mongols introduced themselves in turn, but Steve could not understand the unfamiliar names he heard. He decided not to ask that they repeat them. Instead, he simply nodded again courteously.

  “So, you must be a rider,” said Timur.

  “Not like you are. I saw you from the gate, riding on maneuvers. I could never ride that well.”

  “I am curious about you, Steve. I never met a Chinese man who had bothered to learn our language before. Tell us more about this other breed of horse.”

  “Uh, well, the Arabians were bred to the southern deserts, at low altitude, near the sea.” Steve was no expert on the history of Arabians, so he dropped that approach. “My best horse had a sharp, delicate nose and a small body. She was very hardy. I remember, she never even seemed to notice if the wind was blowing up a sandstorm or if it was raining. All weather was the same to her.”

  “A sandstorm?” Timur asked. “You rode her in the desert, then?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “This must have been the same time when you learned our language, eh?”

  “Yes, it was.” Steve hesitated, glad to see the innkeeper come hurrying out with a piece of candle and wine and wine cups. A younger man followed him with bowls of noodles and strips of meat. Steve did not want to be drawn into questions about how he had learned to speak Mongol. As soon as the innkeeper had lit the candle and poured wine for them all, Steve lifted a cup. “I toast my new friends.”

  “Ah!” Timur grinned and held up his own. His friends joined in and they all drank.

  Before Timur could ask more questions about Steve’s experience among Mongols in the desert, Steve turned to one of the other Mongols. “Tell me about your experiences in the battalion. Have you fought anyone recently?”

  “No, I have not had the chance.” The man shook his head as he started eating.

&n
bsp; “We are too young, all of us,” said Timur. “We missed the great wars of conquest by the khakhan, which were finished before we came of age.”

  “But we are ready,” said another, “and eager for the chance. We must prove ourselves every day and hope that our battalion will be sent to a distant land someday,”

  “It would be very exciting,” Steve said carefully, as he began eating his own dinner. He tried to think of another question that would keep the conversation away from his own life. “You’re off duty tonight? Why isn’t the whole battalion coming to drink? Only a few of you came through the gate.”

  Timur laughed. “No, no, you don’t understand. Those of us who came through the gate all have sentry duty tonight, to begin when the torches are doused and the camp sleeps. We have some free time before then.”

  “I see.”

  The Mongols ate and drank eagerly, without speaking further. Steve decided he could take the time to eat his own dinner. Timur’s curiosity about him seemed satisfied.

  Everyone finished eating without more comment. Steve hoped he could take some food up to Marcia soon, but that would have to wait until the Mongols had left. However, Timur leaned back with another cup of wine and looked up at Steve.

  “Which tribe did you ride with?” Timur asked.

  Steve froze. He thought he remembered Marcia mentioning something about Mongol tribes, but he could not recall what she had said. Maybe he was mistaken about that.

  “What’s wrong?” Timur studied his face.

  “I, uh, rode with friends. That’s all.”

  “Friends? But you must have lived on the grasslands, didn’t you? If you rode out in the desert at times.”

  “I was a loner.”

  Timur shrugged. “About these Arabian horses. Can they carry a man day and night, across deserts and mountains? When we are on the march, we push our horses to the point of dropping, but they carry us where they must.”

  Steve almost asked him how he would know, since he had never been to war, but he knew better. It would only anger them. “I am sure you have the finest horses in the world. Everyone knows that.”

  Timur nodded, and drained his wine cup. “We must return to the camp to begin sentry duty.” He glanced at his companions. “And no mention of how much Chinese wine we have drunk, eh?” He grinned at Steve. “The punishment for falling asleep on watch is death.”

  Steve wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he said nothing. When the Mongols rose from their chairs, he did, too. Timur tossed some coins to the innkeeper.

  “Farewell on your travels, Steve. Show us one of those horses one day if you can—or maybe we’ll ride to Arabia and see them for ourselves!” He laughed and led his companions out of the inn.

  “Farewell,” Steve called after them.

  When they had gone, he drew in a deep breath and let it out. He only realized now how tense he had been throughout the dinner, concentrating on his company to avoid offending them. Now just beginning to relax, he turned to the innkeeper, who was clearing the table.

  “Bring out dinner for my friend,” Steve said in Chinese, picking up the candle from the table. “I’ll go up and ask her to come down.”

  “Very well. I showed her to the first two rooms on the left.” The innkeeper hustled away with an armload of dirty dishes and cups.

  Steve grinned slightly as he climbed the stairs to the second floor by the flickering light of the small candle he carried. He was sure Marcia would be amused by the story of his dinner with the Mongols. Since he had managed to avoid angering them, and had somehow survived the question of how he could speak Mongol, it would make a funny anecdote.

  He rapped lightly on the door of one of the two rooms they had taken.

  “Marcia? Steve. The Mongols have left. You can come downstairs for dinner now.”

  When he received no answer, he knocked on the door of the other room. “Marcia? You awake?” After a pause, he tried the door, expecting it to be barred. Instead, it was open. The room was empty.

  He moved back to the other room and tried the door. Also unbarred, it swung open easily. The cloth bag Steve had carried on his horse with their changes of clothes lay on the bed. Marcia was not here, either.

  Worried, he looked down to the far end of the corridor. To his right, another staircase led down. He walked down the hall for a better look. Down the stairs, he could see one doorway that led down the corridor on the ground floor and another that led outside. Maybe she had just gone out to the latrine and had taken the back stairs to avoid passing the Mongols.

  Steve decided he would wait for a minute to see if she returned. It was time to try calling Hunter again, anyway. He walked back to the room and switched on his lapel pin. Before he could speak, however, he heard the hoofbeats of several horses coming through it.

  Alarmed, he listened carefully. The hoofbeats were cantering, too many for him to hear how many horses were present. The sound was clear, with minimal static, meaning that Marcia’s lapel pin was still nearby. No one spoke. However, he knew what it meant; like Jane when she had been kidnapped, Marcia had managed to turn on her lapel pin so it could transmit whatever sounds occurred around her.

  Some people had kidnapped Marcia, apparently by using the back stairs and the rear entrance.

  Hunter would also be listening to it, wherever he was. However, with Marcia’s lapel pin switched on, Steve could not call Hunter without being heard by the people who had taken Marcia. Steve could only assume they were the same group he had seen at the other inn, who had kidnapped Hunter and Jane. He had mistakenly believed that when he had stuck his head in the door and seen a couple of them that they had not seen him.

  Exactly why they had taken Marcia remained a mystery, but it did not matter right now. He grabbed the cloth bag and hurried back downstairs. At the sound of his feet pounding on the steps, the innkeeper rushed around the corner to find him.

  “Something wrong?” The innkeeper asked.

  “My friend is gone. Who came in the back door while I was having dinner? Did you see them?”

  “No. I heard some people come in, but I have other guests here. I thought they had gone out to the latrine and come back. I did not look to see who they were.”

  “Yeah, all right. Hold her dinner. And our rooms. I expect to be back.” Steve strode out the front door into the chilly mountain air again.

  A single paper lantern swung in the breeze over the stable. Under it, the tall, gaunt hostler sat on a wooden chest, bundled in fur robes. He took a swig of something from a narrow earthenware bottle.

  “Saddle my horse, please,” Steve said.

  At the sound of his voice, the hostler jerked in surprise. His eyes widened fearfully as he recognized Steve in the moonlight. He said nothing.

  “Come on. I’m in a hurry.” Steve reached into his leather pouch for a couple of small coins and started to toss them to the old man. Then he saw that the hostler had made no move to catch them.

  “What’s wrong?” Steve asked. “I need my horse.”

  The man just stared at him, quivering.

  “What is it?”

  The old man tightened the fur robes around him.

  “Look—did you see some people leave by the back door a little while ago with my friend?”

  The man still just looked at him. Over his head, the paper lantern swayed gently. Finally, as Steve glared at him, he nodded slightly.

  Steve remembered turning over the reins of their horses to him when they had arrived. At the time, the hostler had acted as though doing his job was just a tiresome chore. He had shown no interest in Steve or Marcia personally at all.

  “Tell me what happened,” Steve demanded angrily, stepping forward. “I want to know where my friend went.”

  The terrified old man shook his head, dropping the earthenware bottle slowly to the ground with a thud.

  “Did someone speak to you? Tell me what happened!” Steve shouted.

  The hostler was scared beyond the ability to s
peak. Shadows shifted across his face as the lantern swung back and forth. He stared at Steve, motionless.

  Steve fought to control his anger. He took a deep breath and stepped back. Shouting would not get him anywhere. He could saddle his own horse, of course, but now he had to know what had scared the hostler.

  “Why are you scared of me? I won’t hurt you.” Steve took several more coins out of his pouch. Holding them in this open palm, he slowly walked toward the man and dropped the coins on his lap. Then he backed away again. “Did someone tell you I would hurt you?”

  The old man looked down at the money, then up at Steve again. Slowly, he moved one hand to cover the coins. Then he eyed Steve again.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Steve said gently. “I just want to find my friend.”

  The old hostler studied his face for a moment, then looked around in the darkness nearby. He swallowed and picked up the coins in one hand. Then he fumbled around for his earthenware bottle.

  Steve stepped forward and picked it up. He brushed off some bits of dirt and broken straw and handed it to the old man. Then he moved away again.

  The hostler took a long drink. He lowered the bottle, wincing, and let out a long breath. He looked up at Steve again, less frightened than before.

  “What happened to my friend?” Steve asked.

  “You act like an ordinary man.”

  “Yeah, I guess. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “They told me you deal with evil spirits,” he muttered, looking away.

  “What? Who told you?”

  “Some men from another inn,” he said quietly. “They said you and your woman deal with evil spirits.”

  “Look, it’s not true. We don’t deal with evil spirits. It’s a misunderstanding.”

  “They seemed so sure. And some of them are educated young men.”

  “It’s not their fault.” Steve struggled to hide his impatience. “Another man has fooled them. But I have to help my friend. Tell me what happened.”

  “They paid me to show them the back door and to saddle her horse while they were inside. Then they carried out your friend. When they left, they said they would come back for you.”