The Mongoliad: Book Three

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

After reuniting with Istvan, Feronantus called for a kinyen. “For all of our company,” he said, “both present and fallen.” Cnan felt both honored and troubled by the elder knight’s words. Nor was she alone in her feelings, judging by the expressions on the faces of some of the others. But they all fell to preparations nonetheless, building the illusion of a communal feast hall on the open plain.

She found a shallow depression, deep enough to provide some shelter from the wind. From its center, she could almost pretend the horizon was hidden beyond a gentle ridge. It must have held water once, as there was more wormwood clustered within the bowl than the surrounding area. The brush would burn after a fashion, sticky and smoldering until it dried out, and then it would flash with heat and light. Eleazar set to cutting down a supply of fuel for the fire.

Two hunting parties ranged north and south from the depression, engaged in an unspoken contest to see who could provide the best meat for the evening meal. Cnan privately thought neither team would find much, and her stomach grumbled noisily when Vera and Percival returned a few hours later with a pair of scrawny rabbits. However, when she spotted R?dwulf and Yasper a while later, her excited shouts brought the rest of the company running.

R?dwulf was walking beside his horse, who had been conscripted into pulling a makeshift travois that had been assembled from cloaks, rope, and one of Finn’s hunting spears. Sprawled on the makeshift frame was a deer with a spread of velvet-covered antlers. Cnan’s mouth watered at the sight.

“There are more out there,” Yasper announced with a grin, “but figuring out how to carry one back to camp was hard enough.”

“One is more than sufficient to best our paltry rabbits,” Percival said.

“I like rabbit,” Istvan pointed out.

Everyone ignored the Hungarian. Very little of what he had said since he returned had made much sense, and they could all see that he was lost in the throes of a freebutton mushroom madness. Though, how he had found them on the plain was a mystery no one had been able to explain.

“There’s a herd about an hour north of here,” Yasper explained, “And water too, I think. We could smell it, but didn’t have a chance to find it. These deer spooked at the sight of us, but didn’t run far.”

Feronantus grunted slightly at the unspoken details of Yasper’s report. A wild herd that knew enough of mounted riders to be wary, but not so much that they would abandon the sanctuary offered by running water.

Yasper slapped the side of the dead animal. “Tarandos,” he pronounced, winking at Raphael. “Aristotle’s stag. We must be at the edge of the world when we start finding the beasts of legend.”

Cnan guffawed at the lunacy of this statement, but the alchemist’s mood was too infectious to be deterred.

Fresh vegetables were in short supply. Most of what the company carried was dried or salted-the meager rations a soldier ate without noticing taste or texture-but Yasper, once he had convinced Feronantus that he wasn’t going to make the deer burn with witchfire, managed to blend together a paste that he threw on the fire at regular intervals as the deer cooked. It should have been slow-roasted, cut steaks buried in a bed of white coals, but their stomachs all growled so loudly-and so constantly-as R?dwulf was skinning the deer, that they decided to erect a makeshift spit and cook the meat as quickly as possible.

The fire was going to be visible for many miles, and the smell of cooking meat would spread for a similar distance. They couldn’t hide on the steppes, and given everyone’s exhaustion, Raphael didn’t think such obscurity was high on anyone’s mind. Better to fight with a full belly than to be denied one final, solid meal.

They gathered around the fire as Feronantus cut heavy chunks of steaming meat from the cooked deer. Squatting, lying, standing, kneeling-none of them went far-they fell upon the meat with the appetites of doomed men. Even Cnan, who typically ate very sparingly, like a tiny bird pecking at seeds, attacked a piece of meat with both hands, eagerly licking at the juices as they ran down her arms.

We needed this, Raphael thought, his belly groaning as it stretched around the weight of deer meat. Yasper had produced a pair of skins filled with the Mongolian liquor-arkhi-and Raphael intercepted one as it came past him. He had not gotten any more used to the pale liquid, but he drank it readily enough. He coughed, his nose and eyes watering, and he passed the skin on to a laughing R?dwulf.

“Breathe in more slowly,” the big Welshman chuckled as he tipped back a portion nearly double the size Raphael had taken. R?dwulf grimaced and belched, eliciting a cheer from Eleazar on the other side of the fire. The Spaniard raised the other skin of arkhi in salute.

“I have drunk many strange things in my travels,” Raphael admitted, “but this drink of the Mongols is difficult to acquire a taste for.”

“I’ve had worse.” R?dwulf offered the skin, but Raphael begged off. “That tree sap in Greece, for instance.”

“Retsina,” Yasper moaned. “Oh, the Greeks know many things, but it is a pity that they could not apply the same rigor to the crafting of wines as they do to the natural sciences and philosophy.”

“Philosophy cannot solve every riddle, my friend,” R?dwulf said.

“Making a decent spirit is not that hard of a riddle,” Yasper countered. He received the second skin from Eleazar. “Do you know how the Mongols make this? They prepare the ingredients and attach it to their saddles. As they ride, the heat of the sun and the movement of their horse create a perfect environment for the spirits to arise.”

“It sounds like you admire them,” Istvan slurred from his semi-supine position next to R?dwulf.

Yasper shrugged. “Each of them is entirely self-reliant. They carry food and drink. Tools to mend their clothes and their weapons. Furs to sleep on. They can shoot from horseback, without any care as to the direction they face. A single Mongol could ride from one edge of the world to the other, and never suffer from any want. One man is dangerous, but when you field thousands of men like this, they become unstoppable.”

Raphael glanced around the fire, and based on the expressions on the faces of the others, judged that few of the company shared the alchemist’s admiration. Yasper, becoming aware of the silence in which the crackling shift of fire-glazed wood was overloud, lowered his eyes and struggled to find the words to repair the damage he had done to the mood.

“A woman’s touch,” Istvan croaked.

“I beg your pardon?” Raphael asked, eager to welcome the distraction.

“That’s what they’re missing.” The Hungarian waved a hand toward the shadowy shapes of their hobbled horses. “Where would you put a whore?” He shrugged, the answer seemingly self-evident-even in his demented state. “They can’t ride forever,” he said. “A man can eat and sleep in his saddle, take a piss, and shit, even. Eventually he’s going to have to stop.” His head lolled back and he stared, unseeingly, at the night sky.

Eleazar guffawed, and when Raphael realized the Spaniard was looking at him, he felt his face redden. He tried very hard not to steal a glance at Vera, who sat between Yasper and Percival. Separate from him, but not that far away.

“Finally, something you and I agree on,” Eleazar said, nodding toward Istvan. “What is the point of riding across the world if you don’t get to enjoy the array of riches it has to offer you?”

Vera spat a hunk of gristle into the fire where it snapped and sizzled. Percival shifted awkwardly and leaned forward as if to come to her aid in the conversation, but Vera stilled him with a steely glance. “No,” she said, “the man with the huge sword speaks true. Were I as well-endowed as he, I would make sure to sheath such a weapon in every town I conquered. ’Tis only the basic rule of rapine, is it not? Take what isn’t yours. At sword point no less.”

“Eh,” Eleazar blanched, refusing to meet Vera’s intense gaze. “That is not what I meant. I only-”

“My Shield-Maidens and I were in Kiev when the Mongols came,” Vera snapped. “It had been more than ten years since rumors of this invincible army had reached the city-ten years of waiting, of living in fear that the stories we had heard from the Cumans about the battle at the Kalka River were true. The Ruthenian nobility dismissed these stories, lying to themselves that they had been victorious at Kalka, that they had driven the horde away. They fought among themselves, ignorant children squabbling over lies of their own making, and when the horde came back-and it most certainly did-none of them were prepared.

“Refugees from the cities conquered by the Mongols streamed into Kiev. Our wards filled with wounded, women and children who had not been so badly maimed that they couldn’t still walk tens and hundreds of miles to our citadel. These were the lucky ones, and though we did what we could for their physical wounds, each was deeply scarred by what they had seen, by what had been done to them. We could not help them. We could only offer prayers that their suffering would be eased.”

Tossing her gnawed bone into the fire, Vera got to her feet. “By the time the Mongol army actually appeared outside the gates of Kiev, we were numb from the stories we had heard. From our citadel, we can see beyond each of the gates, and we watched the plains fill with enemy soldiers. Kiev had been besieged before; it was a jewel each of the Ruthenian princes longed to possess. But this army was different. The Khan-Batu-did not want to take Kiev as a treasure; he wanted to destroy it. Utterly.”

Tears streamed down her face, and she angrily swiped them off her cheeks. Her eyes were bright with firelight. “I would submit that Kiev was one of the grandest cities in the world. I had watched it welcome all of the lost refugees from the surrounding principalities. It clasped all of these frightened people to its bosom and found places for them within its walls. It was a haven. It was home. And the Mongols burned it all, simply because they could.”

After a long silence, Eleazar shifted awkwardly and opened his mouth to speak, but Vera cut him off with a savage slash of her hand. “They are monsters,” she said, her voice hard. “Just as the men of the West have been monsters as well to those who they strive to subjugate, and I am not such a fool to think that all men are monsters, but by the blood of the Virgin, I will not ride with men who cannot remember the sanctity of their oaths or how to honor those whom they have sworn to protect.”

Eleazar lowered his gaze. “I have erred greatly by insulting you, lady of the skjalddis,” he said. His face was flushed, ruddy even, in the firelight. “It burdens my heart greatly to think that you might remember me by the ill-formed speech, and I hope that the words I have spoken this evening may, someday, be erased from your memory.”

A wry smile tugged at the corner of Vera’s mouth as she nodded, her hands unclenching. “I have heard tales from some of my more traveled sisters of the sweet-tongued men from Iberia,” she said. “Though your speech is rough-hewn, Eleazar, I know it to be from your heart, unlike the words you spoke earlier, and for that I am thankful.”

She turned her attention to the other side of the fire where Istvan lay, his head still thrown back. His mouth was open, and he shuddered and gurgled when R?dwulf kicked his leg. The Hungarian raised his head, closing his mouth and working his tongue against his teeth. “What?” he asked, blinking like a surprised doe.

“The lady finds you offensive,” Percival said quietly.

Istvan stared up at Vera for a second, and then idly waved a hand in her direction. “Of course she does,” he muttered. “She’s one of you.” He let his head slip back, and his attention wandered back up to the scattered stars across the wide night sky.

Yasper was the first to laugh, a dry chuckle that slowly worked its way around the fire, increasing in volume as each member of the company joined in, allowing a little levity to escape.

Vera threw a small stone at Istvan, who flinched as it bounced off his chest, flapping a hand as if he was brushing away a fly. She sat back down, and as she did so she met Raphael’s gaze.

He returned it, having gotten much better about not looking away when she looked at him, and he found himself inordinately pleased that she appeared to be comforted by his presence.

While R?dwulf was telling a war story that seemed as if it would last longer than it would take for a man to fetch back one of the Englishman’s longest arrow flights, Raphael excused himself and wandered off to piss. He walked downwind until he was at the edge of the fire’s light, and after kicking the scraggly bush in front of him to make sure there was no nocturnal creature hiding in it, he stood and watered the plant.

As he finished, he heard the soft slap of a leather boot against the hard ground, and a hand fell on his shoulder. “A moment, brother,” Percival said. Raphael nodded, and kept his gaze directed outward as Percival watered the next bush over.

“Tarry with me a while,” the tall knight suggested as he finished. He pointed to his left. “Let us make the night circle,” he said, referring to an old technique of nighttime patrolling. Two men would walk widdershins around a camp-one directing his attention to the ground before them, the other keeping his eyes trained outward. The outward-looking man would not have his vision spoiled by firelight from the camp, knowing that his companion was keeping him on the correct path.

“I have been troubled as of late,” Percival said after they had walked awhile. Raphael grunted at this, but kept his eyes turned toward the emptiness beyond the camp. It was no mystery that the Frank shouldered a weight none of the rest of them wanted to-or could, for that matter-carry. It was not just Finn’s death, or the fact that Percival had had the watch when Graymane had approached. It went back further than that. Roger had fallen in Kiev, a stop they had made at Percival’s insistence.

“I know the others are disturbed by my visions,” Percival said. “But you have been in the presence of those who have been recipients of the Virgin’s Grace; you know how it changes a man. We cannot refuse what she gives us, even if we do not understand what it means.”

“We rarely do,” Raphael murmured, thinking of Eptor, the young brother in Damietta. Wounded in the horrific assault to take the city’s guard tower in the Nile, Eptor had been shaken to the core of his being by the Virgin’s Grace. He had seen ghosts-both companions who had fallen during the endless siege and other apparitions. The legate, Pelagius of Albano, had tried to turn Eptor’s visions to his own end, even though he had no power over the Shield-Brethren. Conditions were horrendous at the camp, and most of the men were so sick they could barely stand, which was the only reason the Shield-Brethren had not abandoned the Crusaders. They would not leave behind those who could not defend themselves, no matter how contrary to their Christian virtues they acted.

Knowing that Eptor trusted Raphael, the legate had demanded Raphael make the boy acknowledge the vision the Church wanted. Raphael had refused and been flogged for his insubordination. Pelagius tried to coerce Eptor during Raphael’s punishment, and the legate’s brutish insistence only frightened the sensitive boy.

By the time Raphael recovered from his punishment, Eptor had become lost in a squalid terror in his own mind. He had seen something while mentally fleeing the legate’s demands, and this dreadful vision devoured his spirit. The end came quickly. He was feverish in the morning, his condition worsening with each hour; by nightfall, he was raving. He screamed most of the night, and shortly before dawn, he died.

Raphael had been with him during the last hour, waiting for sunrise. Waiting for the life to leave the tortured knight’s body. His throat raw from screaming, he could only make tiny rasping noises like the sound of a knife being drawn against a leather strop. Raphael had sat as close as he dared, his head lowered toward the other man’s lips, listening to Eptor’s prayers. He only wanted to understand why the Virgin had chosen him.

“I have seen wheels in the sky,” Percival was saying. “Circles of flame and smoke that are not really there. I saw them in the woods when I laid Tonnerre to rest, and though I did not realize it at the time, I saw them again the morning Finn died. I was on watch, Raphael, my eyes did not stray. I am a knight initiate of the Shield-Brethren. We do not shirk from our duties. We do not fail to protect our brothers-in-arms.”

“We were tired,” Raphael interjected. “None of us would have been any more alert that morning.”

“I would have been,” Percival insisted, and the conviction in his voice stilled Raphael’s further comment. Percival laid a hand on Raphael’s arm, and Raphael turned his head slightly, trying to see the Frank’s face without spoiling his night vision. “I would have been,” Percival repeated. “And I was. I watched the sun come up. I watched Finn leave our camp to go fetch water. I saw him find the ravine and climb down. I waited for him to come back.” Percival’s grip tightened. “The next thing I knew the sky had been blotted out by the spinning wheels, and Vera was shouting at me. I wanted to look away; I wanted to know what had caused her alarm. But I could not tear my eyes away from the wheels.”

“What are they?” Raphael asked.

Percival dropped his hand and continued his slow course around the camp. “I do not know. They are both terrifying and beautiful. I find myself yearning to see them again, and I have never felt such desire as this before. Not even-no, I have never felt such conviction. And what is it that I desire? The sight of these wheels accompanies the death of those whom I love. What does the Virgin want of me? Am I to become a monster that puts his friends in danger so that he may receive a glimpse of Heaven?”

“No,” Raphael countered. “That is not what she wants of you. You simply don’t-” He paused. What could he tell Percival? What did he truly know of visions, of what they meant?

“But that is not all,” Percival said. “When we were in the tomb of Saint Ilya, I had a different vision. One I felt I had had before. In the woods. It was not the wheels that drove me to Kiev, it was the other vision. The one of the cup.”

Raphael inhaled sharply, but kept his tongue silent. The true vision, he feared.

“I saw a grave, a tomb of a great man. Resting on top of it was a flat plate and a gold cup. I saw my hands reach out and touch the plate, but I knew that was not what I sought. As soon as I had that thought, I felt myself put the plate back, and I reached for the cup instead. I used both hands, and they were not these hands…”

Raphael risked a glance over his shoulder, blinking as the firelight filled his left eye. Percival had raised his hands, staring at them as if he did not recognize them.

“… but they were my hands,” Percival continued. “I picked up the cup, and I thought it was empty until I looked inside. And that is when I saw the wheels.”

He stopped walking. Forgoing his night vision, Raphael stopped as well, turning to face the other man. “What is it?” he asked, sensing Percival had not yet spoken what was truly on his mind.

Percival raised his head and stared off into the night. He looked with such intensity that Raphael turned his head and tried to spy what Percival saw in the night. There was nothing but darkness beyond the camp, and Raphael shivered.

Percival was staring at something. It was not visible, and Raphael had a suspicion that even were the sun to be overhead, driving every shadow into hiding for a thousand miles, he would still not see what Percival saw.

“I’m going the wrong way,” Percival said softly.