Until the Sun Falls (43 page)

Rijart clamped his jaws shut. The knight reached out and pushed him gently to one side, so that he could see Psin better.

“We knew it was you, of course,” the knight said. “But we weren’t sure you spoke Latin.”

“What do you want?”

Vortai said quickly, “Who is this man?”

Psin got up. “Some hireling of the Emperor’s. Rijart let him know who I am. Don’t hurt him. We’ll give him to the Kha-Khan to hurt, when we get back.” He drew a chair over and sat down on it, forcing his mind back to Latin. “If you speak Arabic, that’s better.”

“Yes.” The knight went on in Syriac Arabic. “My master the Emperor received messages recently from your Kha-Khan. Through the Muslims. I have replies.”

“So you said.”

“First, you may tell your superiors that the signs of disunity within the Christian world that you’ve undoubtedly seen are not signs of weakness. We are strong and we will fight to the last man to resist you, if you attack us. You shouldn’t take that lightly. You have fought the Muslims; they are good warriors, and they set you back once or twice. We’ve fought them too, and beaten them as well as you have.”

“I’ve heard. Tell your master that if we had flinched at the thought of hard fighting we would not hold more of the world than he dreams exists. Tell him that his knowledge of my name doesn’t surprise me. His name might be known within his own country, but mine is known from here to China, and I’m not a very important man.”

“You malign yourself.” The knight smiled. He took the silk cap off his head; his pale hair gleamed in the late sunlight. His blue eyes were direct and intelligent. “But you recall the crossbow you shot. With your own bow you were killing deer at a range fully four bowshots longer than ours, certainly, but I doubt I could bend your bow, and I’m accounted a strong man. The bow I showed you how to shoot a woman could handle. And women shall, and children, if you ride against us.”

“They’ll die before they come close enough.”

“Oh? Europe is thick with forest, Khan. West of Hungary is nothing but forest. You’ve hunted in the trees, I’m sure. How often do you get a long clear shot in a forest? The branches deflect the arrow, the trees hide your game. And we need not be strong to kill.”

Psin cocked his brows. “A good point. I’ll think about that. But it is God’s will that the Kha-Khan rule the world. One sun in the sky, and one lord on the earth, no more.”

“God’s will. To rule the world, perhaps. Or, perhaps, to be a terror to it, scourge the peoples for their sins, and afterward to return to whatever the hell you sprang from, to be heard of never again.”

“Who can know the mind of God? You are a good advocate for your Emperor.”

“I? No. I only say what he told me to say.”

Psin started to rise, surprised, but sank back again. He smoothed his mustaches along his jaw. “He told you what I would say, and how to answer?”

The knight nodded. “The exact words of my answers.”

Psin studied him. The knight was not lying. “Rijart said he was a great man.”

The knight’s broad smile flashed again. “Also, he wants to send envoys to your Kha-Khan to discuss an alliance against the Turks.”

“Oh.” Psin shrugged. “We know that the Turks have asked you for an alliance against us. I’ll send that on, but the answer is no.”

The knight nodded. “Your Kha-Khan sent to the Emperor that the Emperor should come in person to Karakorum and make his obeisance. To that the Emperor said, ‘Tell them this: that I think I know enough about birds of prey to serve as falconer to the Kha-Khan.’”

Psin laughed. “Good. Tell him this. From me, not from the Kha-Khan. When we ride into Europe, I will come for him, because I think I would like to talk to him. And that he should wait and not run, when all the cities burn around him.”

The knight rose. “I will tell him.” He bowed. The sunlight lay on his shoulder, across the black emblem of his Order. “I doubt you’ll find our cities burn as well as the Russians’.” To Rijart, in Latin much more fluent than before, he said, “I’m sorry I had to trick you. In any case, I would not have harmed your men. We knew it was he. The description was explicit.” He turned back to Psin and bowed again and left, shutting the door quietly behind him.

“Well?” Tshant said.

Psin nodded. “I saw enough. Where is Sabotai? I didn’t see his banner, when I came through the camp.”

“He’s gone back to the Volga camp until the ice freezes. It’s been quiet. We had dispatches from Karakorum, the usual thing. Everyone is well. Apparently they hadn’t gotten Batu’s letter about Quyuk when they sent them.” Tshant spat. “He’s driving us all wild.”

Psin dismounted, groaning. He did not want to go on to the Volga camp, but if Sabotai was there… “Who, Batu or Quyuk?”

“Quyuk.”

Djela galloped up, whooping, and flung himself out of the saddle. “Grandfather. I knew you’d be back soon. How was Hungary? How do you like my new horse?”

“He looks fast.” Psin glanced at the tall black horse and back to Djela. “God’s name. Have you grown, or have I shrunk?”

Djela grinned. “I’ve grown. Ada says I’m eating him poor.”

Tshant said, “He eats twice as much as I do. Stay here awhile.”

“No. I have to find Sabotai.”

“Well, you’ll stay the night, at least. Go see Quyuk. That’s his yurt. He’ll be there.”

“Take my horses.”

Psin went to Quyuk’s yurt and called through the door. Quyuk’s voice came back, rough-edged: “Come in.”

The yurt was dim and smelled of sweet hemp. The fire cast a red glow over the gold and brocade cushions. Against the wall to the left, Kadan sat, hunched over, his eyes on his brother. Quyuk was pacing up and down the other side of the room.

“And if you will not,” Quyuk said gently to Kadan. “If you will not—Psin. How pleasant. You look disgustingly well. Sit.”

Psin sank down on his heels just inside the door. “If he will not what?”

Kadan said, “The self-proclaimed Successor wants allies against Batu.”

“Oh. Are you still at that?”

“Yes. I’ll still be at it the day before Batu dies.”

“God above. Remind me not to run foul of you. You’re like a jackal with a skullbone worrying out the brains. It must be hard work to be always angry; why don’t you try being sweet and calm, just for the change?”

Quyuk’s ears grew red, and he glared. Psin laughed.

“You might find it restful. Stop looking ugly. I’m not going to be here long enough for you to work any revenge. I hear your father’s well again. Perhaps you’d better court us, instead of bullying everybody you know.”

He got up, nodded to Kadan, and went out into the cool autumn sunlight again. He heard Kadan laugh and Quyuk swear. For a moment he wished he had let Quyuk alone. He glanced back; Kadan was coming jauntily out of the yurt. He waved, and Psin saw the flash of his teeth when he smiled. He waved back. In a way, it made him angry to see ordinary men like Kadan laughing in Quyuk’s face.

He spent the night in Tshant’s yurt and rode on the next morning. The clear chill was turning into the bone-deep cold of the coming winter. When he left the camp, frost lay thick over the dry grass, heavy enough that the horses left sharp prints in it. Tshant had said that the road to the Volga camp was as safe as the streets of Karakorum; Psin rode alone.

He was beginning to feel all the hard riding. His bones grated against one another, and in the cold mornings his muscles twinged. The horses trotted quickly over the frozen ground. The dun horse was hard as horn from exercise and jogged up even with the horse Psin rode. On his dark winter coat the line down his back was blurred.

Tshant had said that now they had more than enough horses to mount each tuman on its own color. Blacks, bays, duns, grays. He reined up on a ridge to let the horses blow, and the dun immediately ducked its head and snatched a mouthful of the crisp brown grass. Quyuk had gotten one of the rare spotted horses from the east; his wife Oghul Ghaimish had sent it to him for a gift. The horse was dark grey, except for the white blanket across its hips covered with big grey spots.

“Skittish,” Tshant had said. “Especially when the light’s bad.”

Psin had never seen a spotted horse that didn’t have bad eyes. Their lashes were sparse and pale. He wondered why he was lonely, out there on the steppe.

He spent the night at the new waystation, exchanged one of his remounts that had gone lame, and left before dawn. When he went back to the Dnepr from the Volga camp he would take his sable cloak. The horses trotted along around him, their round dark eyes on the eastern sky.

That there should be many Kha-Khans made no sense. There was only one God; there could be only one Kha-Khan. For a moment he was frightened; he could see order in the world, and there should be no order, because all the world did not accept the Kha-Khan. He thought, I am guilty. He thought, if I can believe that, I am safe.

Broken light spilled up over the horizon, grey, uneasy. The air turned pale. Low clouds rolled back from the east, and he heard the growl of thunder. The sun grew steadily stronger. He dismounted and paid his homage to it, and remounted. Now he could see the slopes and heights of the heaped clouds. Lightning shimmered there, green-white.

But it was noon before the storm reached him. He slid down from his saddle and stood in the midst of his horses, the reins and leadrope in his fists, while the heavy rain smashed down on him and the wind roared past. He looked up at the sky, letting the rain hammer his face, into the curling clouds. Lord God, Tengri the Eternal Sky. He remembered what the knight Arnulf had said of God’s purpose.

Why us, then? There were other tribes, thousands of them. Everywhere we go we fight a tribe that has been fighting another tribe for generations, east, west, north, south, that we shall have to fight. Each tribe had its own circle of wars, enemies, friends, land to graze, hills to hunt in, forests for hiding: each of them thought its small circle the center of God’s purpose and was surprised to find things happened, far away, beyond their knowledge, that mattered more to them than the quiet events within their own horizons. So far west, who had marked the election of Temujin Kha-Khan?

The storm passed, and he mounted and rode on. The rainwater ran off across the hard plain, pooling in the hollows. He passed a puddle and looked down, and saw reflected in it the grey-black clouds and a streamer of blue sky. Through it, the sun poured, and through it, he could see the white tops of the clouds that looked so black underneath.

The Mongols had cut across the circles, opening them up into one another like a river running from sea to sea. Temujin had said that God meant them to rule. To end the circles, to make all people Mongol. He, who had been born a Merkit, was one no longer, even though he called himself one and the Altun used it to insult him. He thought of the Emperor in the west, who had known without knowing Psin what he would say to the knight’s words.

Under the clearing skies, he rode on, unsure.

When he reached the Volga camp, he went first to the house where Artai and Chan stayed. The slave that took his horse looked grim. He went on into the garden and saw the fires there, tended by slaves, in front of the side door. Before each fire a lance stood tip down in the dirt. His heart contracted, and he almost ran to the main door and threw it open. The Kipchak woman was there, her hands in her lap, and she had been crying.

“Who is it?” he said.

The Kipchak shook her head. She rose and went off. Psin filled his lungs to yell at her, but before he could she reappeared with Artai.

“What’s wrong?” he said. “Is it Chan? The fires—”

“Ana,” Artai said. She put her arms around him, less ardently than usual. “She’s had the baby, and she’s dying.”

The Kipchak sank down in her chair again. One hand groped for her mending. Artai said, “She’s calling for Tshant. He didn’t come with you, did he.”

He shook his head. “He doesn’t know.”

“I sent a message when the baby was born. Six days ago, with dispatches from Karakorum. They went by an arrow messenger. He knows.” She pulled at him, and he went after her down the hall. Her shoulders looked rigid.

“He didn’t know when I left there.” But he must have.

She glanced at him; her face was locked up against him. She jabbed her chin at the door. He hesitated. If Ana died while he was in the house he would be impure for months. Artai glanced at him again, her eyes bright and cold. He went into the room.

Ana lay wrapped in furs, her face whiter than the white bearskin beneath her. Psin strained his ears, but he could hear no baby crying, anywhere. He sank down beside the couch and touched Ana’s face. The skin was rough and parched.

Her eyelids fluttered. “Is it you?” Her voice was so weak that he had to put his ear almost against her lips to hear. “Is it you?”

“Yes,” he said.

Her mouth trembled. She dragged one hand free and put it on his. “I knew you would come.”

He took hold of her hand. Her breathing was shallow, and every few breaths she would try to take in more air, but her throat would catch and sigh. He turned and saw Artai and Chan there in the doorway.

“I’ll be right back,” he said. “Don’t worry.” He put her hand back under the furs and went to the door.

Chan was watching him distantly. He thrust them both into the hall and whispered, “Get out of this house. And take all the slaves with you. Now. Do you hear me?”

Artai said, “Someone has to—”

“I will. Go. Now.”

They went off down the hall. He turned back into the room, frowning. He heard the pale girl on the couch murmur, but he couldn’t hear the words. He went over and sat down next to her.

“I knew you would come,” she said.

He smoothed the hair back from her forehead, said something reassuring, and wondered how he was going to communicate with Sabotai when he was under ban. He felt her fingers, dry as spider webs, touch his, and he held her hand. Her breathing grew fainter with each breath. He was relieved she thought he was Tshant.

“The baby,” she said. She tried to open her eyes. He bent to hear, but she said nothing more. Her lips parted slightly. He thought, I should have gotten here tomorrow. She lay still, but she wasn’t dead. He could feel the tiny wobbling beat in her wrist.