Josh touched the barrel of the gun cautiously. Ive never seen such a weapon.
Its a Kalashnikov. An antique in my daya weapon left over from the Soviet invasion, which is to say maybe fifty years before our time. Still works fine, I should imagine. The hill fighters always loved their Kalashnikovs. Nothing so reliable. You dont even have to clean it, which many of those boys never bothered to do.
Twenty-first-century killing machines, Ruddy said uneasily. Remarkable.
The question is, Bisesa said, what to do with this stuff. Could we justify using twenty-first century guns against, say, an Iron Age armyno matter what the odds?
Ruddy peered at the gun. Bisesa, we have no idea what waits out there for us. We did not choose this situation, and whatever manner of creature or accident has stranded us here did not take much notice of our welfare. I would say nice moral questions are beside the point, and that pragmatism is the order of the day. Wouldnt it be foolish not to preserve these muscles of steel and gunpowder?
Josh sighed. Youre as pompous as ever, Ruddy, my friend. But I have to agree with you.
Alexanders army unit set up its camp half a kilometer from Jamrud. Soon the fires were lit, and the usual extraordinary mixture of military base and traveling circus established itself. That first evening there was a great deal of suspicion between the two camps, and British and Macedonian troops patrolled up and down an implicitly agreed border.
But the ice began to break on the second day. It was Casey who started it, in fact. After spending some time in the border zone, facing down a short, squat Macedonian veteran who looked about fifty, Casey, with gestures, challenged him to a milling. Bisesa knew what this was about: a tradition among some military units where you joined in a one-minute, no-rules, no-holds-barred boxing match and simply tried to beat the living shit out of your opponent.
Despite his aggression, it was obvious to everybody that one-legged Casey was in no shape for such a contest, and Corporal Batson stepped into the breach. Stripped to trousers and braces, the Geordie might have been a twin of the squat Macedonian. A crowd quickly gathered, and as the contest was joined the baying of each side for its champion rose up. Get stuck in, Joe! Alalalalai! Casey timed the contest, breaking it up after its regulation minute, by which time Batson had taken a lot of blows to his body, while the Macedonians nose looked broken. There was no clear winner, but Bisesa could see a grudging respect had been established, the crude regard of one fighting soldier for another, just as Casey had intended.
There was no shortage of volunteers for the next match. When one sepoy came away with a broken arm, the officers stepped in. But a new sporting contest began at the Macedonians suggestion, this time a game of sphaira. This Macedonian tradition turned out to be a game played with a leather ball, a pick-up-and-run affair a bit like British rugby, or American footballbut a lot more violent. Again Casey got involved, marking out the pitch, agreeing to rules, and acting as referee.
Later, some of the Tommies tried to teach the Macedonians the rules of cricket. Bowlers hurled a hard cork ball, battered by overuse, down a strip of dirt marked by sets of improvised stumps, and batsmen swung homemade bats with abandon. Bisesa and Ruddy paused to watch. The game went well, even if the rule of leg-before-wicket was a challenge to the Tommies miming skills.
All this went on right beneath a floating Eye. Ruddy snorted. The human mind has a remarkable capacity to swallow strangeness.
One wild drive sent the ball flying into the air, where it collided with the hovering Eye. It sounded as if the ball had hit a wall of solid rock. The ball bounced back into the hands of a fielder, who raised his hands in triumph at his dismissal of the batsman. Bisesa saw that the Eye was quite unperturbed by this clout.
The cricketers gathered into an arguing knot. Ruddy pulled his nose. As far as I can tell, they are arguing about whether a bounce off the Eye constitutes a valid catch!
Bisesa shook her head. I never understood cricket.
Thanks to all these initiatives, by the end of that second day much of the tension and mute hostility had bled away, and Bisesa wasnt surprised to see Tommies and sepoys slipping into the Macedonian camp. The Macedonians were happy enough to exchange food, wine and even souvenirs like boots, helmets and Iron Age weapons for glass beads, mouth organs, photographs and other trinkets. And, it seemed, some of the camp prostitutes were prepared to offer their services to these wide-eyed men from the future for no payment at all.
On the third day, Eumenes sent a chamberlain to the fort, who summoned Captain Grove and his advisors into the presence of the King.
22. The Map
It was the dirt that Kolya hated most. After a couple of days in the tent city he felt as filthy as a Mongol himself, and as lice-riddenin fact he believed the parasites were homing in on him, a source of untapped, fresh meat. If the food poisoning didnt kill him, hed probably be bled to death.
But Sable said they had to fit in. Look at Yeh-l, she said. Hes a civilized man. You think he grew up covered in shit? Of course not. And if he can stand it, you can.
She was right, of course. But it didnt make life with the Mongols any easier.
Genghis Khan, it seemed, was a patient man.
Something incomprehensible had happened to the world. And whatever it was had fractured the Mongol empire, as was shown by the severing of the yam, the great empire-wide arteries of waystations and couriers. Well, Genghis Khan had built an empire once, and whatever the state of the world, he would do it againhe, or his able sons. Yeh-l, however, was advising Genghis Khan to wait. It was always the Mongol way to allow information to be gathered before determining which way to strike, and Genghis Khan listened to his advisors.
During this period of deliberation, though, Genghis Khan was aware of the need to keep his troops fit and occupied. He set up a rigorous program of training, including long forced marches and rides. And he ordered a battue to be organized. This would be a mighty hunt spanning kilometers, and it would take a week to organize. It would be an exercise in maneuvering troops, using weapons, maintaining discipline, communications and hardship. It was a significant event; the hunt was at the core of the Mongols self-image as well as their military methods.
Sable, meanwhile, explored the yurt city. She particularly targeted the troops, hoping to learn how they fought.
The Mongol warriors saw Sable as an irritation. Kolya learned that, given that the usual pattern of courtship here was to kidnap your wife from the yurt of your neighbor, women had surprising influence in Mongol societyas long as they were members of the Golden Family anyhow. Genghis Khans first wife Borte, about the same age as the emperor, was a key voice in the decision-making of the court. But women didnt fight. The warriors were wary of this strange Heaven-woman in her orange clothes, and they werent about to submit to her inspections.
The turning point came when one cavalryman, drunk on rice wine, forgot about the power of Heaven and tried to rip open Sables jumpsuit. He was a stocky, powerful man, a veteran of the Mongols first Russian campaign, and so probably personally responsible for hundreds of deathsbut he was no match for twenty-first-century martial arts disciplines. With one pale breast exposed, Sable floored him in seconds and left him screaming on the ground, with a leg broken in two places.
After that, Sable rapidly grew in stature and in aura. She was allowed to come and go where she pleasedand she took care to ensure that the tale of her victory, suitably embellished, found its way back to the court. But the Mongols were growing nervous of her, Kolya saw, and that surely wasnt a good thing.