Iron Winter

54

Having ridden all day, now they rode through the night back to the capital. Avatak wondered how many plans were being curtailed and abandoned like this, around the world, because of the weather.

It was almost morning again when the van of the hunting party approached the gate in the southern wall. That great plume of smoke from the north loomed taller than ever, and flames leapt high in the dawn light. As they neared Daidu the Khan’s caravan had to battle through a thickening crowd of nestspills pouring south from the city, a flood compared to the trickle they’d overtaken yesterday. Some of the nestspills actually jeered at the Khan, and shook their fists. All of these were Cathay, Avatak saw. But the protestors melted into the crowd when the Khan’s guards drew their weapons.

At the city gate, the soldiers gathered around the Khan as he was lifted down from his litter, and formed a tight party around him as he was hurried through the outer wall. Behind him, the great column broke up into smaller parties, each noble with his own little band of warriors.

‘Stay close to the Khan,’ Uzzia said to Avatak.

‘Why?’

‘Because each of these nobles has his or her little pack of retainers. We have none. Best we are protected by the Khan’s own men, if we can manage it. I have this.’ She pulled Pyxeas’ golden paiza, his safe-conduct pass, from the neck of her tunic; she wore it tied to a thread. ‘It ought to get us inside the palace.’

‘And then?’

‘We find Pyxeas.’

‘Yes, and then?’

‘I’m making this up as I go along, boy. Wait and see.’

They hurried after the Khan, through the city. Even inside the palace compound there was pandemonium, courtiers and warriors running everywhere. In the palace itself, one of the Khan’s senior advisers was waiting for him at the door, a slender Cathay who trembled with fatigue and terror as he prostrated himself before the ruler. The Khan kicked the man to his feet and stalked on into the heart of his palace, with the guard from the hunting party following. Maybe the Khan trusted them more than his palace guard at this moment, Avatak thought. The Khan was unmistakable in his brilliantly coloured silk hunting gown, and the soldiers, grimy from the march, were dark, lumpen figures in the palace’s brightly lit opulence. Avatak noticed racks of the soft white slippers you were supposed to wear to protect the carpets; now they were ignored, and trails of muddy, dusty footprints were everywhere.

All the way the adviser jabbered to the Khan in rapid Mongolian.

Uzzia murmured, ‘I can’t hear it all. He’s talking very softly, very fast, and these warriors around us aren’t exactly keeping quiet. It sounds as if it’s all falling apart. The smoke we saw to the north, the flames-’

‘Yes?’

‘Warriors from the steppe. More nomadic horsemen. I can’t make out if they are Mongol or not. I don’t suppose it matters. They got through the border walls, and here they are at the gates of Daidu. Some of the men are muttering that the city walls have already been breached.’

‘No wonder the people are running away.’

‘Yes. Those that aren’t rising up. That’s the other thing. The Cathay are taking the opportunity to rebel. The Mongols are marauding conquerors, after all. Some of the soldiers around us are muttering about conspiracies, maybe the Cathay rebel leaders have been in touch with the nomads. But there are more unpleasant surprises for the Khan to come, I think. I keep hearing a name: Kokachin, who they call the Wind-Rider.’

‘Kokachin’s a woman’s name. A Mongol woman’s.’

Uzzia grinned. ‘So it is.’

They turned corners, following the increasingly agitated Khan, until Avatak was quite lost in the belly of the great building. They came to a tremendous hall, yet another of this palace’s gigantic chambers, packed with milling people. And, under a roof of lacquered blue, he heard the hooves of a horse, oddly muffled. A horse?

The Khan ascended a podium on which stood a huge, elaborately carved throne. He glared down the length of the room — and faced a rider sitting boldly on a horse, Avatak saw now, a short, squat beast, one of the Mongols’ own tough ponies from the steppe. The rider was a woman, wearing light Mongol armour, a chest plate of boiled leather stitched with metal pieces, a small bow slung on her back. She wore no helmet, so all could see her face. She was handsome, severe, her straight black hair pulled back from her brow. And she was laughing as she turned the horse around, making it prance and nod.

Around her men were gathered, on foot, warriors all, brandishing weapons, spears and swords and axes. One of them was waving a bit of smashed furniture at the Khan, carved wood and pale pink silk, a ragged scrap of a chair that must once have been exquisite. At least as many men surrounded the Khan, many from the hunting party. Cowering from these posturing warriors were courtiers, Mongol grandees with their shining cloaks and tonsured scalps, nervous-looking Cathay officials in silk gowns. There were hundreds of people all jammed in this one huge room together, and their voices rose up like the cawing of gulls on a cliff face.

‘Oh, dear,’ Uzzia said, looking at the mounted woman.

‘What?’

‘The Mongols are horse warriors. I’m guessing that to ride your horse into another man’s yurt is a grave insult.’

‘So, along with the assault by the steppe warriors, and the Cathay uprising in the city-’

‘Yes. Now the Mongols are turning on themselves.’

There was a hiss, a soft impact. A single arrow had been shot into the air to thud into the roof, high above. The woman on the horse had fired it. The clamour in the room stilled, and all eyes turned to her. She sat straight on her horse, and spoke directly to the Khan, in rapid-fire Mongol. For his part he replied angrily. Their two voices filled the room.

Uzzia murmured, ‘She says she is Kokachin, called the Wind-Rider. He says he knows who she is; she is a niece gone to the bad. (Not a niece — something like that.) She says he has shown his weakness by allowing the brutes from the steppe to penetrate the empire. He tried to buy them off, it seemed; it did not work. He says matters of state are not hers to judge. She says her own father was disinherited by the Khan’s father, who was a camel turd. (A Khan cannot accept such insults! Ah, that’s the nub of it. It’s a family dispute. The descendants of Genghis Khan are as numerous and as disputatious as the royal family of New Hattusa.) The Khan is offering a conference to settle it. (That’s what the Mongols do, the clans gather on the steppe and talk it out.) She says the time for talking to the likes of him is over. He is demanding she kowtow-’

‘Look! There is Pyxeas, with Bolghai.’

The two scholars stood together, Pyxeas frail but defiant, Bolghai agitated. The Mongol was clutching the Northlander’s sleeve, as if for protection.

‘Come.’ Uzzia slipped through the crowd towards them.

By the time they reached the scholars the Khan and his niece were shrieking at each other, and their followers were growing restive, their voices a rumble. Bolghai was murmuring to himself, distracted. Pyxeas was dismissive. ‘What a scene! What savages these fellows are, under the veneer of civilisation they stole from their Cathay subjects.’

‘That’s as may be, scholar,’ Uzzia said, ‘but a small war is about to erupt in this room, and we don’t want any part of it. We are going to get out of here, and fast.’ She pointed. ‘That door.’

Avatak nodded. ‘Why that one?’

‘Because it’s the quickest way to the city’s south gates. We have the paiza. If we move fast enough, maybe we can beat the spread of the bad news from Daidu.’

‘And then?’

She was distracted by the gathering row, tense, nervous herself. ‘It’s always “and then” with you, isn’t it, Coldlander? And then we will get out of this insane place and find a way to get the two of you home.’

Kokachin jumped up onto the back of her pony. Standing straight on the stolid beast, she called out, waving her bow in the air.

‘ “To me, to me,” ’ translated Uzzia. ‘ “To me, my cousins!” This is it. Now the barons and the rest of the Mongols have to choose, Khan or challenger.’

Bolghai hid his face in his hands. Then he straightened up, looked regretfully at Pyxeas, and walked towards Kokachin on her horse. He had made his choice, Avatak realised; at heart he was a Mongol like the rest.

The fighting erupted. It broke out across the whole room, all at once, as if somebody had given a signal. Suddenly there were struggling figures everywhere, screams, and blood splashed on the rich carpets.

And a warrior took a measured stride towards Bolghai, swung an axe, and beheaded the scholar with a single stroke.

‘No!’ Pyxeas rushed forward, but Avatak held him back. ‘No, no! That such a scholar, such a mind, should be destroyed like this-’

Uzzia held his shoulder. ‘He was a Mongol, and he died a warrior’s death. His children will laud him for it. Come now, we must go-’ She grunted, staggered, her eyes wide.

Avatak said, ‘Uzzia? Are you all right?’

She straightened up, determined. ‘Go, go! Get Pyxeas out of here.’

So they hurried for the door, Avatak using his broad shoulders to push through the crowd. Once out, Uzzia led them through the network of corridors and rooms. Warriors and courtiers ran both ways in the corridors, drawn by the clamour of the battle in the great hall, or fleeing from it. And Avatak started to hear the rumour, spread in a dozen languages, some of which he understood: ‘He is dead! The Great Khan is dead! Buyantu slain, and so is the she-wolf who challenged him. .’

They reached the gate in the palace wall. Already small battles were breaking out in the city beyond. And now they were out in the open air, Avatak noticed for the first time the short Mongol arrow that stuck out of Uzzia’s shoulder.