Silk Road (59 page)

He knew he could not catch her. His little pony was fighting for every step on the loose rock. If he pushed him too hard he would eventually stumble and send them both sliding to their deaths down the side of the mountain.

He had reached a broad ledge, and between the walls of the gorge he could make out the dun-coloured steppe and the black yurts of the Tatar encampment. A stream rushed down the mountain, foaming into a black pool far below. The sedge at the lake’s edge was still hardened with the night frost; the surface of the lake was black, afloat with sheets of ice. Patches of hardened snow clung to the hollows of the tarn where the sun could not reach.

He peered over the lip of the cliff, heard the clatter of hooves echoing from the rock face on the trail below him. Khutelun’s voice echoed along the valley: ‘Get away, Joss-ran! Go back!’

Go back. Go back with the mark of my whip on your face, Jossran. Go back without me, wonder about me for the rest of your life.

‘Better to drown in that cold black lake than boil in your damned father’s pot,’ Josseran said, aloud. He dug in his heels and tried to spur the pony towards the ledge. He would not move. So he took his dirk from his boot and slammed it into the pony’s rump.

A wild leap into space.

As they tumbled through the air Josseran threw himself from the saddle, still clutching the goat’s carcass in his right fist. He thought he saw the shadow of rocks hidden beneath the surface. He hit the water feet first. If death it was, then by some mercy he prayed it would be swift.

There was horror in such spectacle, but wonder as well; wonder at his courage and his pride. One moment she had been staring upwards, shielding her eyes against the glare of the sun, thinking he was gone. Then suddenly there was a great mushrooming of water in the tarn below as the pony disappeared into the black water, and another, smaller splash as Josseran followed.

Khutelun gasped. She had never imagined he might do something like this. The shock waves from where horse and rider had plunged in rushed towards the rocky shallows, where they lapped and foamed.

How could anyone do such a thing?

The pony’s head broke the surface first, and it swam desperately
for the far bank. It struggled out of the water on tottering legs, blood streaking down its flank from a dagger wound in its rump.

Still no sign of Josseran though. She choked back a cry of grief.

A
ND THEN SHE
saw him.

His head bobbed to the surface, streaked with blood. He struck out for the bank with his good arm. He dragged himself from the water and lay gasping on the rocks. He still clutched the goat carcass to his body in the crook of his injured arm. Then he dragged himself back to his feet, reclaimed his horse’s reins, and scrambled back into the saddle. The pony, defeated by this madman, shocked and probably in pain, was compliant as a lamb.

Khutelun cursed under her breath. It would have been better for them both if Josseran had died. Now there was no hope for him, or for her.

She could try and swim across the tarn, or she could ride around it; whatever she did he had an unassailable advantage. So instead she just walked her horse along the trail, knowing she could not catch him now.

Josseran was slumped over the poll of his horse, blood streaked down his face from a new laceration on his scalp, fresh blood dripping from the tips of his fingers where the wound on his shoulder had opened again. He was shivering so that his teeth chattered, soaked from the icy waters of the tarn. His horse, too, had blood streaked along its rump, and a mist of steam rose from its flanks.

He walked the pony through the human corridor the Tatars had formed on the plain, directly to the doorway of Qaidu’s yurt. The silence was deadly and complete.

Qaidu was pale with shock. His daughter had never been bested
before. Now she had been defeated by the one man it was impossible for her to marry. Hers was a tiny figure, still two hundred paces away across the plain.

Josseran threw the goat carcass at Qaidu’s feet. ‘The race is mine,’ he said.

Qaidu nodded to his bodyguards. They dragged Josseran from his horse.

‘You cannot marry my daughter,’ Qaidu said. He turned to his soldiers. ‘Take him away. Put him back in the cangue. Tomorrow he dies.’

And he stormed back inside his yurt.

‘Y
OU HAD THE
chance to escape. Why did you not take it?’

He did not answer her.

They were alone in the yurt, the wind hurling itself against the walls of felt. His head was bowed by the weight of the cangue. They had betrayed him. They had both betrayed him.

He bears his pain without murmur, Khutelun thought, as a man should. Her whip had laid open the flesh on the back of his left hand and at his temple. He had injured his left leg when he hit the water, and his knee was swollen to the size of a melon. His shoulder, too, had opened again and there was a fresh clot of blood around the wound.

But his trials had won him only an appointment with Qaidu’s executioner.

The spirits of the Blue Sky had indeed had their joke at her expense. Finally she had found a man who had proved himself to her, who had bested her on horseback, and now he was to die. She knelt in front of him, cupping a small wooden basin of water in her hands. She dipped a cloth into it and started to clean his wounds. ‘Why did you not take the chance to escape?’ she repeated.

‘Let me ask you this first,’ he said. ‘Did you know what your father was going to do?’

‘I am the daughter of a khan. I cannot marry a barbarian.’

‘And so you thought I would run to save my own life rather than stay and fight for you.’

‘Any sensible man would have taken his chance when it was given him.’

‘A sensible man would not be sitting on this godforsaken plain thousands of leagues from the place where he was born. A sensible man would not have sold his lands to serve five years as a monk and a soldier. A sensible man would not run a fool’s errand across half the world.’ He blinked slowly, as if waking from a dream. ‘But you did not answer my question. I asked you if you knew what your father planned.’

‘Of course I knew.’

She slipped the scarf from her face. She ducked her head and put her mouth over the wound on his shoulder and started to suck at the clotted blood.

‘What are you doing?’ he whispered. He felt her teeth pull at the flesh of the muscle, small trembling tugs like a child at the breast. Her mouth was moist and hot.

‘It is to clean the wound.’

‘Please don’t,’ he said, his voice hoarse.

She pulled away again and looked up at him, puzzled. There was a brightness in her eyes that had not been there before. ‘But the blood will turn bad.’

‘Just leave me.’

‘Is it what you wish?’

‘No, but leave me anyway.’

There was blood on her lips. The smell of her stirred him, not sweet perfumes and ointments, but blood and leather and sweat.

‘You cannot marry a Tatar princess,’ she said.

‘How does your father intend to kill me?’

‘The traditional way for men of high birth and great valour. You will be rolled in a carpet and trampled by horses. That way your blood cannot be spilled on the ground and bring the tribe bad luck.’ She unexpectedly reached out a hand and touched him, just below the heart. ‘You are too brave. You should have run when you had the chance. That was my plan; my father conspired with me on it. I did not want this.’

He was not listening. Even now all he could think about was her breath, her heat, her eyes and, as he had so often wondered about, her body. The look in his eyes again betrayed his thoughts.

‘It cannot happen,’ she said.

‘Please,’ he said.

For a long moment neither of them spoke. Then she stood up and went to the doorway of the yurt. He thought she was about to leave. But instead she turned down the flap of the tent and came back.

K
HUTELUN REMOVED HER
boots and heavy felt trousers. She unfastened her coat and let it fall open.

He held his breath. His mouth was as dry as it had been at any time during their crossing of the desert. If this is to be my last night on earth, he thought, then I do not care any more. This is enough. His desire overwhelmed even the agonies of the cangue, the terrible pain in his shoulder, the dread of dying.