When I met Batu at the kitchen door, I brought Mucker with me. His exhales were billows of white, and he leaned his head against me like an enormous cat. Titor, but I love that beast.
"I'll ride the yak to the gate," I said.
I didn't say that I hoped riding a yak, Titor s favorite animal, might grant me a kind glance from him, because Batu didn't seem to believe in "mucker faith."
And I didn't say that I wanted to put my fingers on an animal's neck to feel some steady comfort or I was likely to break down and sob like a newborn. I certainly didn't say that.
Batu led the yak through the streets. The ways were narrow, clogged with the ghers of refugees, and by the time we reached the east city gate, the sun had cleared the horizon. I couldn't feel its heat. The air was ice that seemed ready to break under my fist. My hands were shaking like to come off my arms, though I don't think I can blame the shaking on just the cold.
Batu spoke to the gate guards, and they inched the gates open. Two arrow shots away, Khasar's warriors camped. They resembled ants in an anthill, for all that I could ever hope to count their number.
Batu put his hand on Mucker's neck. "Are you certain, my lady? There's little chance Khasar will keep his word once he has you."
"I'm wagering on the god of tricks today," I said.
"That's a poor wager," one of the gate guards muttered.
I slipped off my boots then slid off Mucker's back, and the moment my bare feet touched earth, they went numb with cold. I patted Mucker's nose once before beginning the walk across the empty field toward Khasar.
How can I say what it was like? Cold. Long. Lonely as ghosts. I guess it was about the worst moment of my life, almost as hard as singing my mama into the next Realm --and much colder. Khasar and his men were so far off it felt like forever to get there, and even though I wasn't eager to arrive, the journey itself was misery. Does fright hurt?
It did then, it did for me, in my stomach and in my limbs. And it didn't help that my feet were so frozen I couldn't sense where they ended and the ground began, twice causing me to trip. I'd really rather not have fallen on my face in front of thousands of warriors who were waiting to kill me. Under seemed to be playing tricks on me, and I began to doubt that I'd any hope. But by then I was already there.
"Lord Khasar!" I shouted. At least that part of my plan worked. I'd intended to shout his name and it actually came right out.
"Khan Khasar, you meant to say." He stepped out of his gher but stayed so far back, I couldn't make out his face. I knew his voice, of course. It was turning my bones to soup. "I'm letting you live for the moment because I'm curious about this girl who crosses my battlefield. Just what are you offering? I won't pay."
His men laughed roughly. Khasar lifted his sword, making some call I didn't understand, and two dozen of his men moved into a half circle between me and Khasar, fully armored, bows pulled back, swords bare.
"Take another step and I'll show the Eternal Blue Sky the color of your liver. If Tegus thinks to use an assassin, he'll not fool me by sending a woman with a poisoned dagger."
I stopped walking, gripping my cloak tighter. The cold was slithering up my bare legs.
"Chinua, check her," said Khasar.
"Show me your hands," said a man to Khasar s right, a tall, thin man. I figured this was Khasar's war chief, the one who'd taken Saren to watch Khasar become a wolf.
I raised my hands and for some wild reason, I found myself remembering how Tegus had once called them beautiful. Spared from the scrubbing waters of late, they've softened, though if Khasar looked too closely, he'd see the scars and calluses.
"Now deliver your message before I gut --"
"My lord, it's me, Lady Saren." My voice went soft. I was ashamed to tell a lie right beneath the Eternal Blue Sky. Lies are for dark holes and rooms without candles.
"Speak up!"
"I'm Lady Saren," I said, louder.
"Lady Saren." He snarled a laugh. "I knew that khan wouldn't be able to resist breaking you out. Take off your hood, I want to see your scared cow eyes."
I pulled my hood back. My hair hung down, the sun was behind me, and I hoped he was still too far back to see. I thought I should say something quickly to prove I was Lady Saren, something true, before he could see in my face who I was not.
"The day you threw flames into the tower," I said, "the day you tried to smoke me like winter meat, I guess I've never been so scared in my life."
He laughed. I hate his laugh.
"All you are is fear," he said.
"I believe that was also the day you bathed in my waste," I couldn't help adding.
I was happy to see him flinch. I guess he didn't much like my mentioning that in front of his men.
"You told me you'd only take me if I came willingly," I said. "And here I am."
I started toward him, but three of his men moved to block my way.
Though he thought me the frail Lady Saren, he still wouldn't let me near. He was too clever to risk the chance I might have a hidden weapon. This morning before going out, that possibility had haunted me, so I'd disrobed completely under my cloak. I'd been praying since that I wouldn't have to take it off, but that ultimate submission seemed to be the only way he'd think me harmless, the only way to get near enough to sing.
I shut my eyes as I unhooked the neck clasp and let the warmth fall to the ground. Winter blasted my skin, and the cold shot up from my feet through my entire body.
Khasar stared, suddenly with nothing to say.
"You see I'm hiding no weapons, my lord." I tried to sound brave as gentry, but I was shivering so hard, my voice warbled like a bird's, my words knocking against each other. I had to bite my tongue to bleeding to keep from picking my cloak back up, wrapping it around myself, curling up to hide. "You see I submit to you. I'm here of my own will, as you wanted. I'm sacrificing myself for this realm. If you are a man of honor, before the Ancestors, under the Eternal Blue Sky, you'll keep your word. Take me and leave this realm in peace."
He didn't say anything. He stared at me. His men looked away, at the ground, at the clouds. Though hard warriors, I think they couldn't help being embarrassed for the poor naked girl. There was some revenge in this, I realized, remembering how Lord Khasar had stood naked before my lady. But I couldn't glory in it. The shame hurt me like the cold, and I trembled inside and out and winced when tears burned my eyes.
"Please don't make me stand here like this," I said, my words shaking. I didn't mean to beg, but there it came.
"Please say you accept my sacrifice and let me put my cloak back on. Please."
He started walking toward me now. Slowly. His men stepped aside.
"You surprise me, Lady Saren."
He kept coming nearer.
"I never expected you to do anything but tremble and cry. Though I see you're trembling, where are the tears?
Ah, I think I see one. That's better."
And nearer. My stomach quivered, my blood was hot. This was the moment. I bowed my head, as if meekly.
The sunlight was strong behind me, Evela was smiling on my hope, but I knew the moment he saw my face, he'd kill me. He was near enough now that through my hair I could make out his own features. I can't say if he was handsome or ugly. He looked like pain to me. Then I noticed one detail--he had three thin white scars down his cheek, like the marks a cat might leave. It seems My Lord had drawn some blood that night he escaped the wolf's jaws. The thought gave me a gust of warm courage.
Before Khasar's hands reached me, I had to act.
"Witness all!" I lifted my arms and knelt, the frosty grass snapped like glass under my knees. "See Lady Saren surrender to Khan Khasar. I sing the song of submission."
Here was the trick. I don't know a song of submission. Instead, I began to sing the song of the wolf.
"Yellow eyes, blink the night," I sang. "Two paws in, two paws gone," while praying that there were no muckers among his warriors, that they wouldn't know what it was I sang. I remembered the voices of my brothers chanting those words, yelling them at the night to save the sheep, felt that childhood tune hum inside me now as if in harmony. I reached forward, I touched Khasar's boots, hoping the contact would make the song stronger.