Lian stood like a statue—one eyebrow raised, one finger poised on the scroll—waiting for him to catch his breath. When he finished wiping the water from his eyes, she continued. “‘He should not indulge in reckless reviling or derisive laughing.’”
Gansukh let one of those laughs fly, and he slapped the water. “This is nothing but a book of rules telling me how to live my life!” he complained. “I already know how to live! Are the Chinese so stupid that they need instructions telling them how to do everything?”
“Are the Mongols so stupid they do not recognize the value of moral rectitude?”
Gansukh raised his gaze toward the ceiling. “Put the scroll aside,” he said. “This is wearying and useless. Come join me in the water instead.”
“Master Chucai instructed me to teach you how to behave in polite society.” She lowered the scroll and gave him a dismissive look—the sort an aristocratic lady might have given to an ignorant servant. “Behavior that includes learning how to respect women.”
“I respect fighters. I respect those—men and women—who prove their worth to their clan. You Chinese women sit around in gardens all day reading books and eating… I don’t know what you eat. Flowers, I suppose. Mongol women ride and hunt and fight until their skin is rough and tanned. What good is ‘culture’ if it makes you weak?”
“Were I a less cultured woman, I would not have fared so well when I was captured,” Lian pointed out. “Master Chucai recognized my value, at least, even if the Mongols never appreciate the things I have to teach.”
“And if you were a stronger woman, perhaps you wouldn’t have been captured at all.”
She looked away, and Gansukh felt a strange thrill in his belly. It wasn’t the same sensation he got on the battlefield when he killed a man, but it was similar—close enough that he felt both elation and confusion. But we aren’t fighting. Glancing down, he realized his body was also reacting to this commingling of emotions, and he pawed the water, disturbing the pool.
Her robe still clung to her body. It was distracting.
“How long have you been in Karakorum?” she asked.
“Not even a day,” he admitted, glad to talk about something else.
“You have much to learn,” she said, and her tone had none of the brittleness he would have expected from such a statement. “There is more to life than fighting.” She swallowed heavily and went to hug the scroll to her body, but demurred at the last second, sparing the scroll contact with her wet clothing. “Yes, I will admit there is value in knowing how to fight, but not all combat is with spear and arrow. The court can be as dangerous as the battlefield, if you don’t know how to conduct yourself.” She plucked at her robe, pulling it away from her skin.
Gansukh mulled this over, ignoring a twinge of disappointment at her ministrations to her clothing. Master Chucai had said that he had had to teach both Ögedei and his father how to conduct themselves. Did he respect them any less because they knew how to behave at court? Would he not follow them into battle without reservation? “Yes,” he said, nodding slightly. He walked backward until the edge of the pool pressed against his back. “So I am naked at court.” He raised his arms and rested them on the edge. “I have no armor. I have no weapons. I am like you were, once upon a time. Teach me how to survive. Teach me what I need to know to be strong.”
Lian regarded him, her head cocked to one side. She bit her lower lip as she lowered the scroll and let it fall to the ground. She walked forward and, to Gansukh’s surprise, didn’t stop at the edge of the pool. She disappeared under the water with a small splash, and he watched her slim shape glide through the water toward him. She surfaced not far from him, and he held himself still as she floated closer. She stopped when she was close enough to reach up and put her hand on his forearm. He felt her legs, constricted by the wet drapery of her robe, caressing his. Her breath was on his face, and he found himself staring at her mouth.
“You prefer your women strong, don’t you?” she whispered.
“Yes,” he muttered, the word getting caught in his throat.
“But you don’t think I am strong.”
It wasn’t a question, but Gansukh felt like he should answer anyway. He shook his head, not trusting that he could form the word.
“Teach me,” Lian said. “Teach me to be like your Mongolian women. In return, I can teach you how to survive here at court.” She moved closer to him. “A warrior does not learn from reading; a warrior learns from action, from using his hands and his heart. Can you show me that?”
Gansukh stared at her slender neck. Her pulse was visible under her pale skin. She was frail, and he wondered if she’d ever had a violent thought in her life. There was little chance this delicate Chinese flower could become the equal of a Mongolian woman, but it would certainly be amusing to watch her try. She and Master Chucai were right, though: he did not understand the ways of court, and if he had any hope of succeeding at his mission, he needed Lian’s help. It was better to submit to the offer of this strange and alluring Chinese woman than run back to Chagatai like a whipped dog.
Gansukh nodded. “I will teach you how to fight.”
She nodded curtly and pushed away from him. He grabbed for her, but his hands found nothing in the warm water. She swam to the edge of the pool, and in a smooth motion that suggested she was more fish than woman, she levered herself to the platform. He caught a quick glimpse of her breasts, outlined quite distinctly against her wet robe, and then she swiveled around, curling her legs around her like a flower closing for the night. Her back to him, she picked up the heavy robe that lay on the platform and slipped it over her wet clothing.
She retrieved her discarded scroll. “We will begin our lessons tomorrow,” she said with a final appraising glance over her shoulder.
It was only after she left that Gansukh realized she had taken the robe the servants had meant for him.
CHAPTER 5:
THE KINYEN
Despite Raphael’s ministrations, two more days passed before Illarion’s fever broke and the Ruthenian recovered strength enough to sit up and speak coherently.
Cnán did not begrudge him the time, since she herself spent most of it sleeping and eating. Afternoons she sat in the middle of the clearing, well beyond the graveyard wall, out in the summer sun, mending her travel clothes and watching the Shield-Brethren train. More arrived every day from all over Christendom. As her body regained strength, her mood also improved—and she began to take a more sanguine view of their prowess as fighters.
They fought in pairs over and over, pausing in the middle of the fracas to pick apart each move into smaller elements that they then practiced again and again. She could not fit their halting exercises into any sensible program. How would they ever put the fragments of action together again—learn to face the chaos of a true battle, where nobody pauses, nobody has a second chance? It all seemed like a silly game.
But when they actually sparred, swinging and moving for long minutes at a stretch, strength against strength, they proved capable of feats that astonished Cnán. And studying their determination and their skill, she saw more clearly the weakness in her own training. She had been taught to travel under all manner of cloaks, never to reveal her true self, to bear messages while hiding in plain sight of enemies and friends alike. And always to cross back and forth over the wide, endless, ravaged land, never staying long in one place—like a bird doomed never to nest, never to understand the wisdom of sitting still.
Watching these men, these warriors, assemble into a team, under the constant tutelage of Taran and the watchful eye of Feronantus, made her feel a new kind of loneliness and, with it, a sort of bereavement.