Until the Sun Falls (58 page)

“Have we killed their King?”

Psin shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll look, later. I’m going hunting. Your guard is here.”

“We’ll all meet in front of Pesth. Good luck.” Sabotai lay back again and sighed. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”

Psin laughed at him. He went to the remount herd and collected three horses on a line and started after the fleeing Hungarians.

He headed toward Pesth, gathering Mongols on the way. They found Hungarians hiding in ditches beside the roads, in forests, in small villages, and they killed them all. The villages they left alone. The plundering would come later. The Hungarians seemed to like hiding in churches, and Psin decided that among them, in their own wars, they never killed anyone in a church.

In the evening, he and forty other men rode into a big village with a church packed with runaways from the battle. The villagers fled from them into the fields. On the steps up to the church door armor lay in piles. A man in black coat sat among the heaps, his chin on his hands, and watched Psin ride up.

“This place is sanctuary,” he said, in Latin.

“From me nowhere is sanctuary. Move.”

“I will not.”

One of the men behind Psin lifted his bow and shot. The man in the black coat fell backward with an arrow through his chest. Psin rode his horse up the steps and into the church. The place was mobbed with Hungarians. All kneeling, they prayed in loud voices. Psin turned his horse sideways and drew his bow. They saw him; they shuddered. Tamely they waited for the arrows. His men padded into the church and began to shoot. Psin thought, Isn’t this also blood fever? He took care with his shots, so that no one would suffer. His hands worked independent of his mind. When all the Hungarians were dead he ordered his men out again. He had to ride a little up the aisle to get room to turn his horse. Above the altar hung the symbol of the Christians. If they fought back, he thought, I might have given them mercy.

All the next day they did the same thing, riding toward Pesth. In one village, the women came to plead for the lives of the men taking refuge there. They knelt before Psin, their earnest faces turned upward, and held up their hands to him. He stood still, uncaring, not listening to their voices that he couldn’t understand. When they saw that he was unmoved their voices died away into silence. Their eyes looked like bruises in their white faces. One girl was clinging to his coat. He bent down and loosened her fingers and walked out of their midst. His men had their arrows nocked. He nodded, and they began to shoot down the men before them. The women they left alone. When it was over they rode on.

Tshant said, “Is it all done?”

“All but the plundering,” Psin answered. “You look saddle-sore.”

“I feel as if I’ve never been out of the saddle.” Tshant stretched his legs. “We had some good fighting. Those knights…”

Psin nodded. “I know all about the knights. How is Djela?”

“He’s coming. I told him to fetch your present.” Tshant’s lips spread into a smile.

“What is it?”

“You’ll see. Tell me what’s happened.” He rose and walked around the yurt, flexing the muscles of his back. When he reached the masterpole he took down the kumiss skin and drank.

“We hold all of Hungary east of the Danube River. The whole of it is broken up into sections. Mine is from Pesth to the Szajo River, where we fought the big battle. Batu’s is the stretch south of Pesth. When we’ve stripped our sections we’re to set up some kind of government—waystations, a Mongol officer in each village to collect taxes and keep order, and all the rest of it. The King wasn’t killed and Kadan will go hunting him soon. Batu has already struck some copper money.”

“Where do I go?”

“You are to stay in my section until you’re rested. Kaidu has the section just across the Szajo from me. He’s there by now. When you’re back in condition, it’s up to Sabotai where you go.”

“I’m in condition now.”

“You aren’t. You’re tired. Sabotai was very impressed with what Baidar had to say about your command in Poland. So was I.”

Tshant turned his face toward him. “I may fall on my face and weep with gratitude.”

“I didn’t mean to sound patronizing.”

“You did.” He sat down again.

Psin set his teeth together and frowned at him. “You haven’t changed, have you.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’d thought maybe you learned how to behave, in Poland.”

“I didn’t. Not a bit.” 

“That’s—”

Djela burst in the door, and Psin got up. “Grandfather.” The boy rushed over and threw his arms around Psin. “I missed you. I heard all about your battles.”

Psin held him off, smiling. “You’re stronger, you’ll crush me. Remember my encroaching senility.” He ran his eyes over Djela’s face—the strong bones and the brightness of his eyes. “Ah. It’s good to have you back.”

“I got a new bow, and I escaped from a pack of knights—oh. Here’s your present.” He turned.

A man had come in after Djela and stood beside the door. Psin straightened, frowning, surprised. “Arnulf,” he said.

The knight bowed. In slow Mongol he said, “Psin does me honor to remember me.”

Tshant said, “I took him captive at Liegnitz. He fought very well, and he’d mentioned your name.” He stood up. “I’m going. We’ll talk later. Djela, come along.”

The knight stepped aside to let them pass. Psin gestured to him to come farther into the yurt. “You’ve learned some Mongol.”

“Yes. I can’t understand much.”

“Your accent is terrible. Speak Arabic.” Psin lowered himself onto the couch. “Did the German Khan send you to help the Poles? I didn’t think he would.”

“I was there with my Order. Your army was close to German soil at the time.” He looked relieved to be speaking Arabic.

“Oh. You hold small territories here. They fought you only twenty-two days after Sandomir fell.”

“How wide are your countries?” the knight said, and smiled. “I can’t be a slave. It’s against my nature.”

“What—oh. Don’t worry. All my slaves talk back to me. Get me some kumiss—over there, on the wall. To your left. The cups are in that cabinet.”

“Your son is a great fighter.”

“My son is peculiar.”

The knight took a plain gold cup from the cabinet and looked at it. Across his face a strange look passed. “Do you know what this is?”

“It’s a cup.” Psin peeled off his socks.

“It’s a—” The knight searched for the Arabic word. He held the huge cup as if it were the skull of an ancestor. “Chalice,” he said at last.

“Fine. Maybe I have my kumiss now?”

“But this is a holy object. It’s used in ... in our religion. To hold the blood of Christ.”

Psin shut his eyes. “Put it away and get another one.”

The knight set the cup in the cabinet and bent to look. The lamplight struck the row of cups, so that a patch of gold reflection shone on his cheek. His hair gleamed. He got out a cup with a handle and filled it with kumiss and brought it over.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I forgot that you are heathen.” He laughed. “It’s odd that I should have forgotten.”

“I shouldn’t have told you that all my slaves talk back to me. Dmitri.”

Dmitri came out of the back of the yurt. He glanced at the knight and back to Psin. In Mongol, Psin said, “This man is named Arnulf. He’ll help you. Teach him Mongol.”

“The Khan wishes. Shall I take him with me to the commissary?”

“Yes. He’s been wounded, I think, so don’t burden him. Arnulf.” He dragged his mind back to Arabic. “Don’t try to escape. We kill slaves who run away. And we would certainly catch you. I’ll probably send you as a gift to your Khan before the end of the winter.”

“Why?”

“Why send you?” Psin snapped his fingers at Dmitri and pointed to his boots, and Dmitri knelt to unlace them. “I’d have to feed you if I kept you, and I’ve got slaves enough. Or will have, when my women get here. I’ll find you again, when we take Rome.”

Dmitri drew off the boots, and Psin rose, barefoot. “Go on. Dmitri, give him the bay mare.”

“The Khan wishes.”

All the peasants had fled into the forests and the hills. Psin released the prisoners he had taken from the sacked villages, telling them that any who submitted to the Mongols would have his land back and the protection of the khans. He moved his campgrounds from the open plain to a wood, so that they would have shade in the heat of the summer. Two stone forts held out against his attacks, and he invested them tightly and let them starve. Tshant was not taking orders, as usual; they fought over it halfway through the spring.

Djela said, “Why do you fight?”

“Because he won’t admit that I have authority over him.”

“Oh.” Djela looked at his hands. “Are my fingernails made of hair, like cows’ horns?”

“I don’t know.”

The summer came in, hot and dry. Most of the peasants returned to Psin’s section and rebuilt their villages. Psin rode around to see them all, taking Djela with him. Near each village a hundred Mongols made a camp. The village was to supply the camp with grain and hay, and the Mongols gave over a part of their hunting to the village, when they had more than they needed. Much of their plunder was in cattle and horses, which they herded.

Tshant said, “Sabotai says I am to stay here, with you.”

Psin grunted. “I’ll send him a message. He can put you with Mongke, if he wants.”

“Anywhere but here?”

“Exactly.”

Tshant leaned back on his elbows. “Suppose I don’t want to go?”

Psin’s temples throbbed. “You’ll go. I can’t take too much more of you.”

Dmitri and Arnulf were chopping up lamb’s meat in the back of the yurt, their eyes fixed on the two Mongols. Psin glanced at them and they looked quickly down. Tshant said, “But it’s so dull, Father. And fighting with Mongke hasn’t got the zest.”

“You’ve got your own yurt. Get out of mine.”

“No.”

Psin lunged at him; Tshant bounded up and to one side, his fists cocked. Psin stood up straight and tried to stare down his nose. Tshant was too tall to let the gesture work. “Get out before I call my men.”

Tshant whooped. “Gladly, gladly. Just to hear you admit that—” He dodged Psin’s kick and ducked out the door. Psin hunkered and yelled obscenities after him.

From the slaves’ quarter came a muffled gasp. He looked back and saw the knight laughing, one hand clamped over his mouth. Dmitri was horrified.

“Arnulf,” Psin shouted. “There’s nothing funny about a son’s lack of respect for his father.”

Arnulf collapsed backward, weak with laughter. Psin picked up a bowl and threw it at him. The knight got up, wiping juice from his face.

“I beg your pardon. I wasn’t laughing at you. It was what you said. Your swearing was… imaginative.”

“Oh. Don’t Europeans swear?”

“Yes. But not so well.”

Psin sat down. “Even the Chinese say we’re masters at it. Someday you should teach me your language. German. So that I can talk to your old master when I catch him.”

“He speaks Arabic.”

All the laughter had drained out of the knight’s face; he looked as grave as usual. Psin thought he was wary of being questioned. Psin said, “Tell me about him.”

“I… would rather not.”

“How can it harm him? I’m sending you back to him, aren’t I? You can tell him all about us.”

The knight nodded and smiled. “That’s right.”

“It will make no difference. There is nothing that can stop us.”

“God can stop you.”

The knight used the Mongol word, Tengri, and Psin smiled. “Or God can help us. Without God’s help, could we stand one day against you?”

“Nothing is possible without God.”

“But now we rule Hungary. And well, too. All the peasants are very happy with us, they’ve made no rebellion.”

“Serfs don’t fight. Only knights may fight. Serfs grow food.”

“Oh? You don’t think if we were unbearable masters they would fight us?”

“Perhaps.”

“Rijart, that Englander I had with me when I came to Pesth the first time, he says your Khan is irreligious.”

The knight looked down. “So they say. I don’t know. He likes to frighten people. Perhaps he only pretends. Or sees God differently than the rest of us.”

“You are a priest. How can you follow him?”

“Because I love him. He is a great man. Nothing confuses him.”

“Only God?”

The knight looked up quickly, smiling. “I doubt even God confuses Frederick. He may mislead him.”

Psin smiled. “You’ve learned the language well enough to quibble in it. Maybe Europeans are born to that. We have news from the west that all your khans and noyons are asking each other for help, should we attack them. But they haven’t attacked us. Are they afraid of us?”

“Who is not? Don’t judge them by their words. They are all good fighters. I think sometimes if we had planned our attack better, at Liegnitz, we would have beaten your son and his men.”

“He says you should have—he was taking orders from one of the Altun, you know, and the way he talks the orders must have been terrible. He lost almost all his men.”

Arnulf shrugged. “It’s done and over with. Shall I help Dmitri now?”

“Yes. Go on.”

Psin’s section contained one of the important roads from Europe to the east, and in the early summer merchants began to move along it. He questioned them carefully and gave them safe conducts throughout the dominion of the Kha-Khan, hoping that they would keep coming back with their information. What they told him didn’t please him. There was no steppe to the west, and the forests were thick. Mountains crowded up the countryside. He reported it to Sabotai, who said, “You’ll have to do thorough reconnaissance.”

“Yes. I’ll start in the late fall when the river freezes.”

“When are you going to get to that village?”

“Oh. Yes. Pretty soon.”

There was a village on an island in the Szajo River that hadn’t been plundered, mostly because no one was sure whether it was Psin’s or Kaidu’s, who held the land on the far bank. In the middle of the summer Kaidu sent to Psin that if Psin would give him some troops he would take the village and they would divide the plunder evenly.