The Mongoliad: Book One

CHAPTER 17: THE MYSTERY OF THE ASSASSIN

As Munokhoi and the other riders approached, Gansukh got to his feet, the tip of the sword reminding his captive to remain still.

Munokhoi reached the pair first. He looked like a hungry wolf, relishing the moment before he sank his teeth in the throat of a mortally wounded deer. “Caught in the act,” he said, though he didn’t clarify what act he was referring to.

“She’s my prisoner,” Gansukh said.

The other riders formed a semicircle around Munokhoi, dust from their horses’ hooves rolling across Gansukh and the woman. By the white fur trim on their deel, they weren’t Night Guard, but Torguud, Day Guard. Members of Munokhoi’s jaghun.

Munokhoi leaned against his saddle. The torchlight made shadows scurry across his face. “She?” he said. His tongue touched his lips as if he were savoring the word, and Gansukh regretted having spoken. Munokhoi slipped out of his saddle and approached the pair. “She is a prisoner of the Imperial Guard, pup.”

Gansukh bristled at the derogatory word, more so because he knew Munokhoi said it to engender precisely the reaction he was having. He wasn’t much younger than the other man, but “pup” implied a vast difference between them. Gansukh swallowed the angry words in his throat, realizing they would do nothing but give Munokhoi the excuse he clearly wanted.

Munokhoi pulled a long blade from his belt and looked down at the captive. He toyed with the tip of the knife with an unconscious familiarity. “Step back, pup,” he said to Gansukh, his attention fully on the woman.

The woman was staring up at Gansukh, blinking heavily—whether from fear or from the dust that had settled on her, Gansukh couldn’t tell. Her mouth was open, and she was breathing rapidly. He knew what she was going to do as soon as he moved the point of the sword away from her back.

“Very well,” he said, and he lifted the sword.

She sprang up, like a deer bolting from brush, and sprinted away, trying to disappear in the darkness beyond the torchlight. One of the men on horseback dropped his torch as he scrambled for his bow, and sparks scattered on the ground, startling the horses. They moved, jostling each other, and the men started shouting at the one who had dropped his torch.

Munokhoi threw his knife, almost lazily, and from the darkness, Gansukh heard a squeal of pain and then the sound of a body falling. “Hai!” Munokhoi shouted at his men. “Control your horses.”

The riders brought their mounts under control, moving them away from the guttering torch on the ground, where a tiny grass fire was starting to spread. As the animals calmed down, Gansukh heard a guttural moaning from beyond the circle of torchlight.

Munokhoi glanced at him, his face suffused with the feral grin again.

“Now she has your knife,” Gansukh said, enjoying the change in Munokhoi’s expression that his words caused.

Munokhoi stalked over to the fallen torch. He stamped out the grass fire and scooped up the torch. “Careful, pup,” he snarled. “When I get it back, I might use it on you.” Munokhoi walked quickly in the direction he had thrown his knife, and after a moment, his torch swept down as if he were sweeping a stone floor clear of debris. The woman screamed, a long wail that collapsed into a sob.

Who is she? Gansukh hadn’t had a chance to consider the woman’s claim that she wasn’t an assassin. If what she said was true, then what had she been doing in the palace? Was she a thief? What had she stolen?

They needed answers, and the discovery of the woman and subsequent chase had been fraught with confusion, including, Gansukh realized, some of the guards mistaking him for the woman’s companion.

He glanced at Munokhoi’s men, his throat suddenly tight. Even though the men were Torguud, sworn to protect the Khagan, they were Munokhoi’s handpicked warriors. We’re far from court, he thought, away from the eyes of the Khagan. It would be easy for there to be an accident. No one would claim otherwise.

“She’s not an assassin,” Gansukh shouted. “How can we protect the Khagan if we don’t learn what she was doing at the palace?”

Two of the riders stiffened in their saddles, their body language changing with Gansukh’s reminder of the Torguud’s primary purpose. He had just bought himself a little breathing room. As long as he kept their focus on the woman, the rivalry between him and Munokhoi would be an awkward distraction to the issue at hand. His men wouldn’t tolerate Munokhoi indulging in petty revenge.

Exhaling, Gansukh turned away from the riders and strode toward Munokhoi’s now dancing torch.

Munokhoi was struggling to control her. Hampered by both torch and knife, he couldn’t hold her still. There was blood on her shoulder, a wet darkness made slick by the torchlight, and the aroma of burnt hair filled Gansukh’s nostrils as he got close. She spotted Gansukh approaching, and her movements became even wilder, clawing and scratching at Munokhoi. She hit his left arm—the one holding the torch—and the fire danced dangerously close to his face; when he jerked his head back, she pulled herself free of his grip.

She ran—not into the darkness, but straight at Gansukh. Surprised, he lowered his sword so she couldn’t impale herself on the blade (if that was, indeed, what she was trying to do), and she didn’t slow down. She collided heavily with him, and he staggered, trying to keep her from attacking his face or grabbing at his sword. She did neither, and for an instant her hands were pressed hard against his chest, and then Munokhoi was on them.

He grabbed her hair, yanked her head back, and slipped his knife under her neck. Gansukh flinched at the approach of the blade, but he couldn’t get free of the woman. Her hands pulled at the cloth of his deel as if she could rip it open and hide inside the voluminous garment, and it was only after Munokhoi applied a little pressure to his blade—drawing a thin bead of blood on her exposed neck—that she relented.

Munokhoi glared at Gansukh from behind the woman as he wound his hand more firmly in her hair. “She’ll talk,” he laughed. “I’m very good at not killing people.”

She shivered uncontrollably, and the wild look in her eyes reminded Gansukh of an animal that saw its death approaching.

“She’s my captive,” Gansukh said, not giving any ground.

Munokhoi snorted. “I command a jaghun of the Khagan’s Torguud,” he said. “You are nothing but a lapdog of the Great Khan’s brother. Your word means little in Karakorum.”

But it means something, Gansukh thought, which is why you have only threatened me out here, far away from the ears of men whom you don’t command. Gansukh stared at Munokhoi for another second or two, and then he looked away. He stepped back and to the side, relinquishing his claim on the woman. For now.

Munokhoi grunted, assured of his superiority in this situation, and he marched the captive—his captive now—past Gansukh. “Tie her up,” he called to his men. “Let’s take her back to the city.” He shot Gansukh one more contemptuous glance.

Gansukh watched the men tie the woman’s hands together and then lash her across the saddle of Munokhoi’s horse. In a few minutes they rode off, quickly dwindling to fireflies before disappearing entirely.

Gansukh retrieved the torch Munokhoi had dropped, and as he was stomping out the fire it had started, he realized the woman had slipped something into his deel.

Gansukh returned to Karakorum as quickly as he could, but it took some time to find his horse, even with the assistance of the weak torchlight. As a result, he reached the palace after dawn—dusty, aching, worn out, and irritable. Even the respite of a morning breeze licking his face as he dismounted in front of the palace did nothing for his mood.

The large doors of the palace were shut, the imposing motifs of carved dragons thrust out at the world. A quartet of guards stood in front of them, dressed in the ornate bronze armor and pristine white lamb furs of the Day Guard. They were stoically formal as Gansukh approached, unmoved by his approach or his mood.

“I have important information for the Khagan,” said Gansukh, “about the intruder last night.”

“The intruder has already been interrogated,” one of them said.

Gansukh thought about the tiny box the woman had given him. Nestled against his undershirt, it was rectangular, lacquered black, just big enough to fit into his palm, and without a visible seam. When he had shaken it, he had heard something rattle.

“I was the one who captured her,” he said. “The Khagan will want to hear my report.”

“Torguud commander Munokhoi captured her,” countered the guard.

Gansukh stepped closer to the man, and behind him, two of the other guards dropped their pikes to form a barrier. “Are you calling me a liar?” he said, putting his face very close to the other man. “I am the envoy of Chagatai Khan, and I have been sent to personally report to the Khagan. If you do not step aside and let me in the palace, I will…”

The guard tried to call his bluff. “You will what?”

“I will bury my knife in your guts.” Gansukh pulled his lips back from his teeth. “Your companions will probably kill me, but then they will have to tell the Khagan who they have killed, and why. Do you think they are willing to do that for you? Perhaps the Khagan will even let them live long enough to tell Chagatai Khan himself what they have done.”

Behind the guard, the pikes rattled as they were withdrawn. The guard heard the noise and blinked heavily.

Gansukh shoved past the nervous guard and hauled open one of the heavy doors. He stalked through the narrow opening, hiding the sudden sweat on his palms and forehead beneath a battlefield swagger. But he was bolstered by the affirmation of what he had realized on the plain: his word did have weight. Munokhoi certainly did outrank him within the palace hierarchy, but he was under direct orders that came from the Khagan’s brother, orders that even the Khagan himself couldn’t completely ignore.

He swept into the throne room, his pace and bearing made strong by this realization, and pulled up short.

The long chamber was nearly empty. There were no ceremonial guards, no throng of obsequious courtiers and provincial administrators. A number of servants labored on the floor, scrubbing the tile clean with wet cloth and pumice stones. The only other individual in the room was Master Chucai, who stood near the Khagan’s enormous throne, lost in thought.

“What…?” Gansukh started, and then he realized what the servants were attempting to scour away. His throat closed spastically, and his bluster deflated. There was no mistaking that smell—still so fresh in his head after having smelled it on the plain—even under the masking aroma of the scented water and the incense that had been burned earlier. “What happened?” he asked, even though the answer was obvious.

“An interrogation,” Master Chucai said. He approached Gansukh, his face drawn tight by exhaustion—both physical and mental. He hadn’t slept either. “The jaghun commander, Munokhoi, has a certain facility to old techniques, ones the empire wished it could forget.” He shrugged. “But sometimes, it is best—”

“She was my prisoner, Master Chucai,” Gansukh said, interrupting the Khagan’s advisor. “I could have made her talk with less”—he stabbed a stiff finger at the scrubbing servants—“with less cruelty.”

“Cruelty is sometimes necessary to running an empire,” Chucai explained. He showed no reaction to the younger man’s interruption. He spoke in calm, measured tones. “Regrettable as it may be, an application of intense force can be used to reveal threats to the Khagan and to the stability of his rule.”

“Was she a threat?” Gansukh demanded.

Chucai’s gaze focused on Gansukh, his eyes narrowing. “An enemy is an enemy,” he said, his voice even more flat than before.

“That isn’t what I asked you,” Gansukh replied. “On the steppe, my clan always treated our enemies with respect, even those who came at us with swords and bows. She was unarmed. This…this was butchery.”

“She had no weapon,” Chucai agreed. “But you are being naive to think that she could not wield one.”

“Was that what she was doing here?” Gansukh asked. “Did she tell you she sought to assassinate the Khagan?”

Chucai looked at him quizzically. “Is that what she told you?”

“She didn’t tell me anything,” Gansukh replied quickly.

“You are a bad liar, Gansukh,” Chucai said, his gaze intensifying. “Has Lian taught you so little?”

“This isn’t about…” Gansukh started, a flush rising in his cheeks.

“What were your instructions from Chagatai Khan?” Chucai asked. “Were you supposed to go chasing after thieves? To interrogate foreign spies? Or were you just supposed to keep an eye on the Khagan’s drinking habits?”

Gansukh kept his mouth shut, biting back the torrent of words in his throat. He knew Chucai wasn’t interested in hearing them.

“What this woman wanted—what she sought to accomplish—is none of your concern,” Chucai said, dismissing Gansukh with a wave of his hand. “I have placed Lian at your disposal so that you may learn the ways of court—simply so that you may more readily accomplish your mission. Chasing after an intruder like you did last night is the hotheaded behavior of an uncivilized nomad from the steppes.”

“Uncivilized?” Gansukh snorted. “I wouldn’t have tortured her.” And he spun away from Master Chucai, leaving the Khagan’s throne room and its blood-tainted floor behind.

He didn’t like running away, but he had learned something from Lian: to know when he had lost the advantage. Master Chucai had twisted their conversation around to focus more on Gansukh than on what the woman had wanted. He didn’t dare push back. Chucai would see that he did know more than he was letting on.

Though did he know more?

He slipped a hand inside his deel and touched the lacquered box.