His uncle, Ernust, peered under the dirty tarp that hung over the narrow entrance to the tree’s tiny enclave. Ernust’s face was streaked with dirt and soot and a stain of something darker-blood? Hans’s brain offered an idea-and then refused to speculate further-about the source of the smear.
“Boy,” Ernust said. “Are you hurt? You came running in here so fast, it was if the Devil were…” He dismissed the rest of his observation. “Are you hurt?” he repeated.
Hans shook his head.
“Yesterday…” his uncle began. The portly man sighed, at a loss for how to finish his thought, and ran his hand across the rounded dome of his head. His eyes flicked over Hans-head to toe and back-and the boy read all the unspoken words in his uncle’s restless gaze. “It is time to go, Hans,” he said. “There is nothing left for us here, and the Mongols won’t wait for the mob to find its strength. They’re going to ride out-soon-and kill all the knights. Not just the Rose Knights-though they will be first-but every man who can possibly lift a sword. It will be just like-”
“A Livonian killed him.” Hans barely recognized his own voice-flat, echoing with exhaustion. He wanted to lie down beside the tree and cover himself with one of the dusty blankets used by the Rats. He wanted to lie down and let the bleak despair of his words flow throughout his body. Let it fill him until he drowned. “Not one of the Mongols. He was killed by one of us.”
“No, boy,” Ernust said sadly. “They’re not like us. None of them are. They fight for their own causes, for their lords and at the whims of their lords. Never for us. We are nothing to them. We board their animals. We feed them. We give them shelter. We care for them, and they do not think of us. They think only of themselves.”
“Andreas didn’t,” Hans countered.
Ernust shook his head. “The others are preparing to leave. There will be no one left to drink our brews-no one who will give us coin for it, anyway. We have to go with them. Back to Lowenberg.” He let loose a hollow laugh. “Not that we’ll be safe there for-”
“I’m staying,” Hans said, tightening his arms around the tree. His fervor surprised him, as did his certainty.
His uncle’s face lost its doughy softness, and he fixed Hans with an intent stare that was supposed to be intimidating. “He’s dead, Hans. I know he offered to take you with him, but he can’t. And the rest won’t keep his word. If they even survive. We have to survive, and that has little to do with waiting for a hero to rescue you.”
Hans flinched at his uncle’s words, but his initial reaction passed quickly, and he stared silently at his uncle. Ernust sighed, and ran a hand across his head again, looking down after at the smear of dirt and blood on his palm. Neither said anything, and the narrow sanctuary filled up quickly with a portentous silence.
His uncle was a prudent and savvy man, the sort who could see past the tragedy of the Mongol invasion and realize the opportunities present in the ragged tent city of Hunern. During his short stay with Ernust after his mother’s death, Hans had heard stories about why his uncle had left the family enclave in Legnica for the untrammeled landscape around the new settlement of Lowenberg. The forest needed to be cleared, fields planted, and houses built: all thirst-making work. The same was true for Hunern, albeit work of a bloodier sort. And what his uncle said was true: the brewers-as well as the carpenters, millers, smiths, leatherworkers, cooks, whores, and all the rest-served at the whim and mercy of the knights. When the knights were gone, the rabble dispersed as well.
Think of the living, boy.
Why wait? This was his uncle’s sensible suggestion. There was no shame in leaving. They weren’t combatants. They were merchants, brewers of ale and spirits. The market in Hunern was drying up. Why wait to be the last to leave?
Andreas’s face came to Hans. Not the gap-mouthed rictus nailed to arena wall, but the calm visage that the Rose Knight had worn as he had walked onto the sand. The knight had not been afraid. He knew his duty, and he approached it with honor. In the end, when he had turned his back on the Livonian to throw his spear, he had not hesitated. He had not fled. He had not turned away from his true purpose.
“No,” Hans said quietly. “I can’t leave. They need me.”
Ernust closed his eyes. Overhead, the sun slipped out from behind a cloud, and the tree’s shadow reached across the sanctuary, the branches seeming to grab for his uncle’s feet.
“You’re daft, boy,” Ernust said, squinting at Hans. “Who needs you? The knights? They already know they are in danger.”
“The others-the ones the Khan keeps in cages-I can help them.” I need to help them.
“What can you possibly do?” Ernust asked.
He had had a lot of time to think about what Kim and the Rose Knights were up to. The messages passed back and forth had been purposefully cryptic, but it had been clear to him that their plan was to defeat the Mongols. He wasn’t sure how killing the Khan would have accomplished that goal. As important as Onghwe was, he was only one man; the rest of the Mongols wouldn’t simply run in terror if their Khan died.
“The knights are going to fight back,” he explained. “They don’t have any other choice. They won’t run. It is not in their nature to run.”
Ernust raised his shoulders and sucked at his teeth. “That is why they’ll die,” he said with some frustration. “That is why everyone will die. That is why we have to go.”
“But they’re not alone,” Hans said. “They have allies.” He smiled. “Friends who can strike at the Mongols from behind.”
“No,” Ernust shook his head, understanding what Hans was suggesting. “You can’t do that, boy.”
“I have to,” Hans insisted. “Otherwise-” his voice broke, and he shook his head angrily. “I can tell them where the cages are. I can tell them how to free their friends.”
The city was eerily quiet. The aftermath of the riot following Kristaps’s fight with the Shield-Brethren had imbued the entire settlement with the gravid sense of an impending storm. A stillness hung over every street, ramshackle house, and building like a smothering blanket. Even the priests and monks remained hidden as he and his men had stopped by the church to retrieve the terrified Father Pius.
It would not do to find himself unable to communicate with the Khan’s commander when the need was most great.
They did not reach the Mongol compound. Dietrich heard the horses coming before he saw them, felt his own steed stir at the vibrations that were sent through the earth when many hooves pounded it in unison.
The Mongol host flowed through the streets like water around rocks, blending together in a mass of maille and lamellar-armored bodies, the fletching of innumerable arrows protruding from quivers in a plethora of varying colors. Dietrich also saw spears and curved swords, as well as many, many faces glaring at the four of them with naked hatred.
Dietrich raised his arms away from his weapons as they approached and quietly instructed Burchard and Sigeberht to do the same. Pius trembled beside him, and he hissed at the priest, telling him to remain still. “Translate what I say,” he instructed.
Tegusgal rode at the front of the host, a tall banner rising from the back of his saddle. His lamellar armor was painted red, and around his neck was a thick necklace of gold links, the only marking that distinguished him from the mob of mounted warriors.
“I am not your enemy!” Dietrich called across the open space between them, and he waited nervously, his right palm itching to touch his sword hilt, as Pius stuttered a translation.
Tegusgal stared flatly at Pius, giving no indication he had understood the priest’s words. Pius started muttering under his breath, a Latin prayer, and just as Dietrich was about to command him to be silent, the Mongol commander responded.