The pair of archers stationed farther away finally heard the shouted command to hold. The crowd was turning into a clashing sea of opinions: some were chanting Zug’s name; some were raising a cry for clemency; others were chanting for blood, anyone’s blood; and a small part of the crowd was starting to get angry. Down below the Livonians, near the wall, a fight broke out, and from this grunting mass, a body was ejected over the rail.
The body—a Northerner, judging by the pale color of his hair—collapsed bonelessly on the sand. There was blood on his face. His limbs twitched; he was still alive, but knocked senseless by the blow that had catapulted him into the arena. What happened next was not his fault, but he was the one who opened the floodgate.
Two Mongols dropped to the sand, and while one hunched over the supine Northerner to finish him off, the other scrambled across the arena floor, heading for the knight’s discarded sword.
Having scared the two remaining pole-wielding guards back as far as the eastern gate (which had been summarily closed behind them as soon as Zug had attacked the first of the four and which wasn’t being opened no matter the pleas they made to the men on the other side of it), Zug charged back toward the center of the arena, and his pole-arm caught the running Mongol in the back, nearly severing his legs from his trunk.
More bodies dropped into the arena from several locations, and Dietrich realized they weren’t all Mongolian. The archers began shooting. The audience—no longer giving vent to a cry of “Zug! Zug!”—were now responding with fear and anger. They started hurling their own missiles—rocks, mostly—and some were directed down at the men in the arena, but a larger number were directed at the archers and the occupants of the pavilion. The archers responded, turning their attention toward the surging masses around them, shooting into the mob.
Sigeberht pulled at Dietrich’s arm, a clear signal that it was time to leave. Somewhat reluctantly, Dietrich allowed himself to be pulled away from the chaos of the rioting audience. “Fascinating,” he murmured as Sigeberht shoved his way through the crowd, clearing a path toward the stairs at the back of the stands. An idea was beginning to suggest itself, an answer to his nightly prayers to God for insight.
For all their bluster and military superiority, the Mongols were still men. Men who were far from their homes, occupying a foreign land. These men—the fighters who would be doing the bloody work of the Khan—were starting to lose their edge. The army was getting tired, and a tired army was more readily frightened.
Yes, he thought, and frightened men lash out at the things they fear. Dietrich saw the standard of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae in his mind’s eye, snapping in the wind above the ruined monastery, and he smiled.
CHAPTER 19:
MY FATHER’S LEGACY
Lian found Gansukh in the garden, stripped to his light pants, practicing his swordplay against a hapless tree. Such practice was technically not allowed in the Khagan’s garden, but Lian had sensed the young man’s fury as soon as she heard the sound of metal against bark. The gardeners were equally sensitive, and they were scarce from this corner of the garden. Cut leaves and branches were strewn all over the ground, and with each flashing stroke of the blade, another flew off. He stopped when he saw her coming, planted the tip of his sword against the short grass, and leaned on it, panting and sweaty.
“I have heard…stories…from some of the servants,” she said.
He grunted wordlessly and turned back to the tree, intending his brusque attitude to be read as a dismissal.
“I heard it was a woman,” she said.
He stood still, sword in hand. “Did they tell you what happened to her?” he asked.
She shook her head and took a few steps closer. She could almost touch his naked back. “No,” she said, which wasn’t entirely true. The servants had been reluctant to speak clearly about what had happened in the throne room, which spoke quite plainly about what had happened.
With sudden rage, he jabbed his sword into the heart of the tree. His fury startled Lian, made her jump back like a frightened animal. “What am I doing here?” he said, whirling on her. His face was distorted by his anger and confusion.
Lian chose her words with care. “You were sent by the Khagan’s brother, to help the empire.”
“How?” Gansukh demanded. “By becoming a lapdog of the Khagan’s court? Am I supposed to be more like…like him?”
“Munokhoi?” Lian shook her head. “No. You are nothing like him.”
Gansukh yanked his sword free of the tree and, somewhat ruefully, ran his fingers along the edge, checking for nicks. “What am I, then?” he mused quietly. “Chucai admonishes me for being a hunter. Am I supposed to set aside everything that I have done, that I have learned, so that I may be more likable to the Khagan? How does that help the empire?”
Lian approached him and placed a hand on his bare shoulder. He almost shuddered at the touch, as if he had been expecting her to attack him. His muscles were tense, his bare skin hot beneath her hand.
He completed his examination of his sword. “If the Khagan is all-seeing and wise, then why does he not see Munokhoi for the sheep-killing dog he is?” he wondered. “And Master Chucai. He taught the Khagan’s father so much, and the Khagan does not…” Gansukh abruptly stopped, and when he glanced back at Lian, he couldn’t hold her gaze. She sensed he was holding something back.
“What?” She tried to draw him out.
He shook his head, and she didn’t press it further. The trust between them was still too tenuous. She couldn’t afford to lose it. Not now…
“It’s all wrong.” He made a sweeping gesture, indicating the palace. “I was sent here to help the Khagan find his strength, but no one here thinks it is missing. Instead of being a strong warrior, I am being taught how to bow and crawl on my belly for his amusement. When a threat against him is exposed, it is simply silenced as if it never existed. This whole place is an illusion, and I am the only one who can see it for what it truly is. What can I do?”
She slid her hand down his arm, stood beside him, and grasped his hand tightly. When he looked at her, when he squeezed her hand, she fought hard to keep her face expressionless, to keep the flush from rising in her cheeks. So lost, she thought. So earnest, but without knowing which way to go.
“What you know is right,” she heard herself say, and she was quietly surprised to realize she meant every word.
The sun had crossed the sky and begun to slip behind the mountains by the time Gansukh managed to talk his way into the Khagan’s private quarters. He had spent the day tracking down all the Khagan’s personal advisors—other than Master Chucai, whom he carefully avoided—and he had even gone to several Torguud noyon before, finally, one of his wives— Mukha—agreed to speak to the Khagan on his behalf. She had confided to him that his humor was “most black,” which Gansukh took to be her euphemism for “drinking heavily.” As he approached the portal to the Khagan’s sitting room, he noticed the lanterns in this corridor smelled like oranges rather than the musty smell of beef tallow so prevalent in the rest of the palace.