The Mongoliad: Book One

CHAPTER 5: THE KINYEN

Despite Raphael’s ministrations, two more days passed before Illarion’s fever broke and the Ruthenian recovered strength enough to sit up and speak coherently.

Cnán did not begrudge him the time, since she herself spent most of it sleeping and eating. Afternoons she sat in the middle of the clearing, well beyond the graveyard wall, out in the summer sun, mending her travel clothes and watching the Shield-Brethren train. More arrived every day from all over Christendom. As her body regained strength, her mood also improved—and she began to take a more sanguine view of their prowess as fighters.

They fought in pairs over and over, pausing in the middle of the fracas to pick apart each move into smaller elements that they then practiced again and again. She could not fit their halting exercises into any sensible program. How would they ever put the fragments of action together again—learn to face the chaos of a true battle, where nobody pauses, nobody has a second chance? It all seemed like a silly game.

But when they actually sparred, swinging and moving for long minutes at a stretch, strength against strength, they proved capable of feats that astonished Cnán. And studying their determination and their skill, she saw more clearly the weakness in her own training. She had been taught to travel under all manner of cloaks, never to reveal her true self, to bear messages while hiding in plain sight of enemies and friends alike. And always to cross back and forth over the wide, endless, ravaged land, never staying long in one place—like a bird doomed never to nest, never to understand the wisdom of sitting still.

Watching these men, these warriors, assemble into a team, under the constant tutelage of Taran and the watchful eye of Feronantus, made her feel a new kind of loneliness and, with it, a sort of bereavement.

After noon of the second day, Feronantus put out word that, tomorrow, the junior Brethren would stand sentry around their encampment while Kinyen—the Order’s communal mess—was held at the great table of the chapter house. Cnán knew that Kinyen was an ancient tradition, one they took most seriously. The camp grew busy with preparations: A wild sow was spitted and splayed over a bed of banked coals to slow cook. The beams were stripped from the monastery and hewn and pegged into makeshift benches so that there would be room for all of the warrior monks—a full two dozen now, even when ten or so initiates were left outside to stand guard—to sit around the edges of the hall.

The Shield-Brethren stayed up late that night drinking and singing and telling long stories of their exploits and adventures in various parts of the West. Cnán mostly stayed outside, in her tent—ignored, she hoped; unwanted, she suspected.

It was during a particularly long tale told by Raphael, about sewing up Crusaders and Moors alike, that she heard a solitary man emerge from the chapter house. An unevenness in his gait told Cnán that he was reeling slightly. The wind came from behind him and she smelled several horns of mead on his shuddering, belching exhale.

“Why alone?” he called. It was Haakon.

“Why so loud?” she countered, in as low a voice as she thought might be heard. The knights, wise though they might be in hand-to-hand, were less than cautious about alerting gleaners to their presence. Perhaps they felt they lived under the charms of their Christian God, or their warrior gods—whichever commanded the daylight of Feronantus’s faith. Or perhaps they just believed they now had sufficient numbers to kill anyone short of a Mongol army.

She heard him stumbling over the leaves and the beaten dirt of the fighting field. His moon shadow loomed across the canvas of her tent, leaning one way, then another.

“It isn’t natural,” he said. “A woman…a man…about to die. You think I’m going to die, don’t you?”

Indeed, Haakon seemed the one having the greatest difficulty duplicating Taran’s exacting moves. He hesitated, as if thinking everything through twice—and then he swung, or parried, taking sharp, bruising blows as a result. Taran afforded him neither pity nor time to recover.

“You have the best trainer I’ve seen,” Cnán said, surprising herself by this admission. “You’ll live if you listen and learn.”

“Easy for you to say. You aren’t fighting.” Haakon dropped to a cross-legged squat beside her tent. He seemed content to talk through the canvas, like a Christian giving his confession through a screen. “I’m brave. I’m good in battle. Steadfast. The greatsword—my weapon. I know it like a friend. Yet whatever I do…whatever I do…” He stopped; slapped a few bugs. “Tell me about yourself.”

“I’d rather sleep,” she said, truthfully enough.

“I could keep you company. Warm you.”

“The nights are warm enough,” Cnán said.

She considered it a victory of sorts that she did not actually laugh. She was not above lying with a man now and then, when it pleased her to do so, but she hadn’t come here to be wooed—and certainly not by one who was supposed to be a celibate monk!

Suddenly she felt a pang of both sympathy and suspicion. Perhaps the youth wasn’t as stupid as she thought. Haakon must have caught her out, seen something in her face that she had been trying to hide from herself and the others…

“Go away,” she said.

If she were going to break any man’s celibacy, it would be Percival’s, but Percival did not look on her that way.

Haakon got up, then bent to brush a few fallen leaves and twigs from her tent—as if conveying some clumsy affection to her shell, her hiding place. “All right,” he said. “No harm. A marvelous night. I feel ready…for…for anything. Just thought…”

He left his words hanging and wove his way back to the chapter house, leaving Cnán sadder and lonelier than ever.

What was it a man and a woman were supposed to do, when they weren’t in constant flight, running on the leading edge of the voracious Mongolian army? Haakon’s clumsy words were as close to a kind of courtship as she had ever experienced—and she had bluntly sent him on his way, no thanks, no sympathy.

Haakon was the first that night, but not the last, to approach her refuge and try to make loose conversation. All celibate, all clumsy, all drunk—and not one was Percival. Nor Raphael, of course, who seemed steeped in other, more urbane techniques; the Syrian did not bother her either.

She stayed out of the embrace of any and all drunken monks that night and woke late the following morning, arrayed herself in tunic and doeskin, and when summoned, walked to the chapter house to attend the Kinyen.

The knights, after an hour or two of sleep, had recovered enough from their drunken feats of bravado to open another barrel and resume.

In the gloom of the old monastery’s refectory, lit by a dusty shaft of daylight through the broken roof and a scatter of short candles, she saw Feronantus sitting at the head of a large table, with Illarion on his right. The shaft of light fell between the two, highlighting their shoulders and hands and brimming cups. The rest of the knights sat in degrees of candlelight and shadow, murmuring to each other and passing bread and slopping flagons. They drank like fish. Most knights drank heavily, now that Cnán thought of it. Likely all that celibacy weighed on them.

The table had originally been rectangular, but they had enlarged it by throwing rough-sawn planks over its top and, in the process, made it somewhat round. The shape surprised her, and she wondered at its significance.

Illarion was almost unrecognizable, so dramatically had the swelling of his face gone down. He had shaved off the dark beard. Food and ale had put color back into his face, and when he spoke, his thoughts were clear and his voice firm. But for the missing ear and the perpetually gloomy mien, one might never guess all that he had gone through in the last few months.

Cnán looked around at the room full of Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae and again felt that disturbingly unfamiliar sense of safety. She shook this off and spited herself as a fool, certain that these knights could not hold out against a storm cloud of Mongols for more than a few minutes. Barring ghostly luck, of course.

Feronantus introduced the Kinyen to the one-eared Ruthenian ghost himself and motioned for him to speak.

“What I will say now, I said to Feronantus when I arrived,” Illarion began, “but at his request, I now tell you directly: all of you have come to this place on a fool’s errand.”

Feronantus, a little taken aback, rested an affectionate hand on Illarion’s shoulder and explained, “I had hoped you might supply a fuller explanation.”

“The arena that the Mongols are building at Legnica, on the outskirts of their tent warren, is but a prefiguring of a thing I have seen before, near the gates of Lodomeria, my own city,” Illarion said. “A city that no longer exists. Only I survived. Consider that as you prepare for the competition to which Onghwe Khan has summoned you and the other great warriors of Christendom.”

Having got their attention, Illarion whetted his whistle with a long, foaming swallow of ale before going on, in a less plangent tone. For a moment he’d seem to fear his counsel might not be respected. But something in Feronantus’s face and in the attentive manner of the assembled monks gave him heart.

“The armies of Onghwe Khan laid siege with cannon and towers, pushed down our sunrise walls, and then captured the eastern quarter and laid it to waste—a story no different from thousands of others ranging from our very doorstep to the eastern ocean. The rest of the city expected to die, and we were ready for it. But then, at the end of the seventh month, as our serfs were starving, as disease coursed through our streets and the barrows went from door to door, something unexpected happened: a magnanimous gesture from Onghwe himself. He summoned me to the south wall, our strongest wall. He knew my name and those of my generals. He had spies in our midst—fur traders, I suspect. Need I say what his offer was?

“He reminded us that our city was at his mercy and that with a wave of his hand he could destroy us like the others.

“He claimed that, contrary to the terrifying rumors that went before him, he was no monster, but a proud warrior of an old and honorable line.

“As such, he was presenting us with a choice. Of course, there is always the choice to surrender or fight. But he could see with his own eyes that we had already chosen the latter, for which he respected us. And rather than defeat us and put us all to the sword, he called us to send forth our greatest warriors to do battle in single combat against his own champions, in an arena that he would build before our city gates. If our champions prevailed, his armies would depart and leave us in peace, with one caveat, which I shall explain. If our champions went down in defeat, we would surrender the city to plunder, but the people would be suffered to live.

“Seeing no alternative, we accepted his offer. I caused a training ground to be cleared in the square before our cathedral. I and the other leading knights of the city spent every day training there—conferring our skills, as best as we were able, on the younger men-at-arms who volunteered to fight in Onghwe Khan’s arena.

“During the evenings, we would go to the watchtower above the city’s main gate and watch the arena a-building, so close that we could throw stones down into it. A tunnel was dug, leading from our gate directly to the arena’s western entrance. On the other side, a similar entrance was prepared, leading in from the camp of the besieging host, and it did not require great shrewdness to see that Onghwe Khan’s champions would be entering from that direction. There was, however, a third entrance to—or rather, exit from—the arena. It was on the southern side, below a high platform that was prepared for the Khan to sit upon. As we now understood, these competitions were for him a kind of sport, like bear baiting or falconry, and their entire purpose was to give him pleasure. The exit tunnel beneath the Khan’s platform was cloaked by a scarlet veil.

“Messengers came into the city to acquaint us with the rules and traditions of the contest. They explained that, from time to time, after a bout had been decided, the Khan might gesture to the victor, signifying that he should leave the arena, not through the tunnel by which he had entered it, but by passing through this Red Veil, into whatever fate might await him there.

“So the thing took shape, and our chosen champions trained as hard as any men could, knowing that the fate of all who lived in the city rested on their feats of arms. In the end, we chose three and sent them down the tunnel to fight their duels before a howling audience of Mongols and the less honorable scum who follow their camp.

“Our first champion, who I believed to be the best of the lot, was struck down and beheaded in a few moments by a demon with a curved sword. I never heard where that demon came from. I had never seen nor heard of his like before.

“The second was a wrestler, a Mongol, I think—who, to my surprise, was defeated by our champion. I believe that the Mongol was over-proud of his abilities and that my man took him by surprise and got him down and dazed before he could enter into the full spirit of the battle. He had been a favorite, it seemed, and when our champion won, the crowd was not very pleased.

“It then came down to me. For I was the third champion. I fought with a lance against a Kitayan man. I will not pretend to make the story suspenseful, since you can see that I am here. He was good with the point, and his weapon was lithe and fast, being hafted with some species of hollow reed. But his insistence upon using the sharp end gave me the idea he might not be so clever in the use of the butt, and so by closing in, I was able to clear his steel out of my way and bring the blunt end of my weapon around smartly and take him along the side of the head.”

The knights nodded and murmured approval. Cnán rolled her eyes.

“He fell and did not rise. I turned to regard Onghwe. This was the closest we ever came. I could have hurled my lance at him with even odds of putting it through his chest. While this would have been satisfying, it would have condemned my city to destruction, and so I did not do it. Never have I seen a more villainous face. He considered me for a few moments, then nodded toward the western tunnel from which I had issued a few minutes earlier.

“I went back into my city. The Mongols tore down the arena, which was cleverly devised so that it could be pitched and struck in a short time, like a tent. They struck their entire camp and went away.

“Three days later they came back and destroyed us.”

Illarion took another long draught of ale and allowed that to sink in.

“I could tell stirring tales of our defense and our defeat,” Illarion said, “and even more stirring ones of what came after.” He reached to his chest and made a fist around a locket that he wore, containing, Cnán knew, a tiny rendering of the wife and child who had been trampled to death next to him, beneath the planks. “But I do not wish to distract you from the main point of the story.”

“Which is?” Feronantus asked, though it was clear from his expression that he already knew.

“That I did just what you lot are preparing to do at this very moment…and the place and people I defended were made desolate and slaughtered regardless,” Illarion said. “The invitation to which you have responded is a farce. The only difference is in the stakes. For, unless I have been wrongly informed, you are here as the champions, not just of one town in the middle of Ruthenia, but of Christendom in its entirety.”

Feronantus spoke: “The offer that Onghwe Khan proclaimed, not just to us, but to every king and bishop and pope of every land not yet fallen to the Horde, was precisely as you have described it. Instead of offering to spare one city, he offers to spare all of Christendom, provided Christendom sends its champions to the arena you saw being erected near Legnica. Because of the great distances involved, he has granted those kings and bishops and popes several months to respond.”

“And need I tell you,” Illarion asked, “that he has not done so to be fair or merciful? He has done so because this entertainment, the Circus of Swords, is nothing more than a stalling tactic that he and his brother Khans use to divert the attention of their prey, while the Mongol armies are maneuvered and supply lines laid down for the next onslaught.”

“Did you truly believe it?” asked a voice.

Cnán and several others turned to find its source: Roger, the Norman who had come up from Sicily with Percival.

“When you were training in the square before your cathedral, did you believe that Onghwe Khan would honor his word?” His voice was skeptical. He was irritated by Illarion’s tone.

Illarion bristled at first, but then looked away, conceding the point. “Of course I asked myself that question every day,” he said. “But what choice did we have?”

“Exactly,” Roger said. “And do you keep in mind that, during those months of delay, it is not only the Mongols who are maneuvering their armies and preparing their supply lines.”

“Would that it were true!” Taran barked. “But Christendom has nothing like the Mongol’s unity of purpose. Frederick and the Pope are at war over the Italian peninsula. They don’t care what happens farther north.”

“It is still better to be attacked later than now,” Roger said.

“Not if the outcome is foreordained,” said Raphael. “It seems that nothing will stop these Khans except the waves of the western ocean lapping against their ponies’ hooves.”

And here the conversation shattered into at least half a dozen fragments as groups of three or four men fell to disputing one detail or another. But as far as Cnán could make out, all they were doing was finding new ways to agree on the utter hopelessness of the situation.

“How do they do it?” Feronantus demanded, silencing the table. He groped about with his eyes until his gaze found and fastened upon Cnán. “We know so little about them. Only you, Vaetha, have traveled into the eastern lands from which the Mongols issued. At first, there was only the one—the great one—Genghis. Now there are several. His son Ögedei in the center. Ögedei’s son Onghwe. His nephew Batu. Others, I suppose, whose names I do not know. How do they coordinate their movements? How can Ögedei control subordinates who are thousands of leagues away?”

Cnán was impressed by how much Feronantus had already learned. Other Binders may have brought him messages before her, but more likely he had bartered information with traders or captives sent to the Roman Emperor Frederick—perhaps the envoys of the Ismaelis, poor pagan bastards that they were. The Ismaelis, broken remnants of the assassins who had plagued Saladin, Caliphs, and Seljuks alike, had also hired Binders to guide them west.

“The answers to your questions could fill days,” she pointed out. Perhaps she did have information they needed, after all—information that might suit the purposes of the Bindings, as well as of the Skjaldbræður.

“Is there nothing else in the minds of these Khans,” Feronantus asked, “other than to go on conquering until, as Raphael put it, the ocean washes their ponies’ hooves?”

“In large part, they have a free hand, as must be obvious to you,” Cnán said, “but they obey commands from the center, and they compete against each other.”

“What sort of competition worthy of the name can exist between one Khan and another who is on the other side of the world? Their domains seem to be clearly marked out; one never sees two Khans trying to conquer the same place.”

“You misunderstand,” Cnán said. “When I speak of competition, I do not mean to say that they compete for the same spoils. For a man of such wealth and power, there is only one prize remaining that is worth attending to, and that is to become the next Khagan—the Khan of Khans.”

A silence fell around the table as this was considered. “The wisdom of this messenger boots us nothing of consequence,” someone complained. “What good does it do us to know that several Khans dream of succeeding Ögedei upon his death?”

“I would hear more,” Feronantus demurred. “How is this Khagan chosen? Does he select his own successor? Or is it determined by a law of succession? And if there is any such fixed procedure, do they respect it? Or ignore its dictates and fight amongst themselves?”

“The Khagan makes his successor known, and upon his death, the choice is ratified by the kuriltai.”

“And what is that? Some sort of high priest?”

Cnán shook her head. “They do not have priests like you are accustomed to, much less high ones. The kuriltai is a high council of Khans. They all come together in one place to decide some important issue—in this case, the identity of the next Khagan.”

“Does the kuriltai happen according to some regular schedule?”

“No. It happens when the Khagan wills it.”

Feronantus looked disappointed. “So we cannot predict when the next one might happen?”

“No.”

“I beg your pardon, but I’ve a question,” said a new voice. It was Yasper, the Dutchman whom Cnán had seen drinking with Raphael on the day of her arrival. Not a member of the Shield-Brethren, he was respected nonetheless as some sort of alchemist.

Feronantus nodded assent, and so Yasper went on. “You say that the kuriltai ratifies the successor to the Khag—this Khan of Khans.”

“Yes.”

“But you have also said that he is the only one who can summon a kuriltai.”

“Yes.”

“Do you see the contradiction?”

Cnán smiled in spite of herself. “There is another rule I neglected to mention,” she admitted, “which is that the death of the Khagan causes a kuriltai to be called immediately.”

Yasper nodded, satisfied by the answer. Which seemed to settle the matter for everyone, save Feronantus. He mulled it over and held up a hand to silence the next person who tried to speak.

“And a kuriltai means that all of the Khans must go without delay to the same place?”

“That is what a kuriltai is.”

“And can it be convened anywhere, or—”

“Unthinkable,” Cnán said. “They have a superstitious reverence for certain magic places in their homeland. Only there could a kuriltai be convened.”

“So you are telling me,” Feronantus said, now staring at her intently in a way that made her not altogether comfortable, “that if Ögedei, the Khan of Khans, were to die, then all of the other Khans—Onghwe, here in Legnica, and Batu, down in Hungary, and all of the others wherever they are—they would all have to drop what they were doing immediately and travel back to Mongolia?”

“That is correct,” said Cnán, uncertain why Feronantus seemed to be so fascinated by this hypothetical punctilio of Mongol tribal law. “If they wished to become the Khagan. And they all do.”

Feronantus seemed enormously relieved all of a sudden. A piercing glint came into his eyes, and he clasped his hands in front of his knees. He looked around the room at his smartest tacticians: Raphael, Finn, Rædwulf, Taran. “Well, our path is perfectly obvious, then!” he announced. “We will no longer become one, but two. We will split our group, and our efforts, and teach these Devil’s horsemen to respect the butt as well as the blade.”

The silence in the room, and the expressions of all who stared at him, made it clear that she was not the only one who failed to see his plan. He threw up his hands, exasperated by their inability to see what, to him, was so obvious.

“Some will fight in the circus. That will give us cover and diversion.”

Cnán gaped, but turned her gaze immediately to Haakon, who seemed oblivious. She felt ill again, as if looking at Raphael’s bloody pincers—or smelling the rot around Legnica.

Feronantus, she knew, had just sealed the young Viking’s doom—Haakon would die first, along with his younger and least experienced brethren.

The Order was about to throw their children from the walls.

The Kinyen was still silent, waiting for Feronantus to explain the other half of his plan.

“And the rest,” Feronantus said, “shall ride into the East, passing over the Land of Skulls and into the sacred heartland of the Mongols, and find the Khagan. And kill him.”