The Mongoliad: Book Two

17

Kim grunted as the masseuse worked his shoulders, her fingers digging into the tense muscles. He lay facedown on a narrow platform, his eyes closed, and the scent of the oils she was using took his mind to other places. Guilt and anguish were not his way, nor dwelling on what was gone, but smells and sounds were powerful things, and in an effort to relax, he let himself fall into the embrace of his memory.

Books, he recalled-halls of learning where golden sunlight poured in through the windows, illuminating courtiers draped in silk. Sweat also, and blood, shared by brothers and friends in times of war and peace, and dark caves in the mountains where secrets of a long-hidden brotherhood were passed from generation to generation. The recollections were sweet, better than the reality had been, but that was the nature of memory: the past turned to silver and polish as time went by. A mercy for most, that the hardships faded in time, but when the memory lost its sting, it became something of a torment.

He grunted as she found a particularly hard knot below his left shoulder blade, the exhalation more agitated than the last. Her hands paused and then vanished, and he heard her sharp, shallow breaths. Fear, he thought, fear that her tiny yet muscular hands had injured him.

“Not your hands,” he apologized in the Mongol tongue. He opened his eyes and looked at her. “It is my history that pains me.” She was not Mongolian, and truth be told, he had no idea what languages the girl spoke, but she seemed to understand.

She was a pretty Chinese woman, brought west with the endless train of wagons that followed the great Mongol Horde. Her long black hair was twisted up and held in a bundle by a pair of lacquered sticks, and her face, though downcast, was soft and young. She wore fine clothes and smelled of the oils of her trade. She was part of the comforts he and his fellow fighters enjoyed, fanciful things that were meant to make it easy to forget where he was and why, but her beauty and her scent had the opposite effect, reminding him of what he had lost. She was just another bar in his cage.

He made no move to rise from the platform, and she shifted from side to side in her kneeling position, unsure of what he wanted of her. “Please,” he said, “you need not fear me.”

With a look halfway between relief and resignation, she gestured for him to put his head down again. As if taking permission from his statement, she set her fingers into the work harder, and he clenched his teeth. Some pain is good; some pain is necessary.

Most of the discoloration from his bruises was gone, but underneath, he was still stiff and sore. The beating he received from Tegusgal’s men could have been worse, and the fact that he was allowed the luxury of this massage was a sign of how his punishment had been a matter of formality rather than severity. None of his injuries were permanent or even truly debilitating. It was a warning-a reminder of whom it was that held the key to his cage. The Khan didn’t want his prized dogs made lame. Just disciplined.

Zug was faring better too. The man’s energy was returning, invigorated by recent events. He was not yet ready to fight, but Two Dogs’s strength had rebounded to a level whereby, with an earnest blow, he could send an unready man careening into the wall of their practice yard.

Soon, he thought as the woman worked her hands into his hair. Her fingers kneaded the base of his skull. While Zug regained his strength, the burden of their planning fell on his shoulders, but it would not be much longer before the Nipponese man would be ready to take up his naginata again.

There had been no word or sign from the Rose Knights. He had sent Hans with both his message and the false one written by the priest, trusting that the boy would relate the events at the bridge to the knights. Whilst his punishment had been light for straying farther than allowed, Tegusgal-Onghwe Khan’s senior commander and the man in charge of maintaining the health and safety of the Khan’s violent menagerie-had tightened security around the camp. It was a show of force-mainly for the Khan’s benefit, Kim supposed-but the unfortunate side effect of the increased patrols was that it would be more difficult to get a message in or out of the camp. Nor could Kim leave the camp to return to the woodworker he had stolen the staff from and repay him. It was a regrettable situation, as the craftsman might no longer be inclined to finish the staff he had been working on for Kim, but there was no sense in worrying about what could not be changed.

All he could really do was heal, practice, and be patient.

On the other hand, while a locked and guarded gate could keep men in one place, it did little to stop the spread of rumors, and from these, Kim had caught a few things that let him know his excursion into the city had not been for naught. The battering he’d given the other knights near the bridge-the ones who wore the red cross and sword-had apparently been followed by a fight in the street. There were many variations to these rumors, but the majority of them painted the Knights of the Rose as the perpetrators of this second humiliation.

No message yet, but they had come into the sprawling city. For the time being, patience was all that was required of him.

Tentatively, the woman tapped him on the shoulder, indicating that she wanted him to roll over. As he did, she held up a small clay jar and indicated she wanted to put its contents on his face. The bruising on his torso had gone away, but there were still ugly blotches on his cheeks and around his eyes. Again, no permanent damage had been done, but the face always healed more slowly than the body. He nodded and settled more comfortably on the platform, folding his hands across his midsection.

She had just started smearing the cold unguent on his right cheek-the stuff stank of camphor and mint, and it was chilly on his hot skin-when he heard a gust of noise, so like an ocean wave breaking upon the shore that, for a second, he was transported back to the beaches near Byeokrando. He held his breath, listening for the sound to repeat itself, and when it did, he realized it was human voices he heard. Cheering.

He gently pushed her hand away from his face and slid from the platform. He stretched as he stood up, feeling with some satisfaction that the persistent knot of frozen muscles in his shoulder had been undone, restoring his full range of motion.

He pushed aside the loose flap of the tent and stepped out in the sun. There were no crowds inside the compound, and the sound could not be coming from the arena, as there were still no matches scheduled. The sound came from somewhere else, somewhere close by. The crowd roared again, and he turned his head toward the sound, listening intently to the noise. It wasn’t the roar that was magnified by the walls of the arena, though it had that same sort of swell to it. It was the voice of a smaller crowd, one that gathered in a much more open space.

First Field, he realized. Someone was fighting at the proving grounds.

Since Zug’s defeat in the Circus, First Field had fallen fallow, empty but for the occasional group of fighters battering one another all but senseless. Without any true tournament fights, all the Khan’s fighters had to sustain themselves was a dismal trickle of rumors. Onghwe Khan was bored, some whispered; this land had been conquered too easily, and the fighters who answered the Khan’s call were not good enough for him to even bother throwing them upon the mercy of his Eastern warriors. Other rumors spoke of the main Mongol force at Mohi and how Batu and the other Khans were seizing great storehouses of treasure-jewels and coins and other riches that would never be shared with the dissolute Khan and his men. Others swore that the Khan was more patient than Heaven itself, and he was simply waiting until the Western fighters were in a frenzy to compete, and only then would he start the challenges again. There were other stories, variations of these and even wilder tales; Kim had heard them all, several times over. They were nothing he hadn’t heard before when Onghwe had set up his Circus in other cities.

He started to walk toward the main gate of the Mongol encampment but was brought up short by the masseuse. “Thank you,” he said, “but that will be enough for today.” His pulse beat heavily beneath the hot skin of his cheek. He should let her finish, but the sound of cheering had infused his blood with too much excitement to lie still.

She shook her head, chattering at him in Chinese. She held out a cloth and mimed wiping her face. She hadn’t had a chance to wipe the salve off his cheek, and he gave her a short nod as he accepted the cloth. “My apologies,” he said as he rubbed his face clean. “I will speak well of your efforts when I request you again.” She bowed deeply as he returned the cloth, murmuring something in Chinese that he took to be a blessing on his magnificence and kindness.

Kim took his leave of her company, his feelings somewhat mixed. She was as much a prisoner as he. Previously, he would not have given much thought to the woman’s feelings about his satisfaction with her ministrations-she was, after all, simply doing her job-but here in the camp, they were both trophies belonging to Onghwe Khan. Their shared desire to survive made them compatriots, reliant on one another for basic reminders of their humanity. It was as Zug kept reminding him: how long could they hold out hope of ever being free again, and how much would they have to sacrifice to be so once more?

The guards at the gate were clustered around a runner, a man who had come from outside the Mongol compound. As Kim strolled closer, the runner was waved through the cordon of armed Mongols. One of the guards pointed in his general direction-not at him, but at the sprawl of tents behind him where the men charged with watching Onghwe’s fighters resided-and Kim came to a stop.

The runner came across the compound, and Kim trailed after him like a scavenger following a predator about to make a kill. The man had news of what was going on at First Field, he sensed.

Tegusgal was not available, and so the runner breathlessly gave his report to Tegusgal’s second, a large man whose name was Ashiq-temur. It meant “iron helmet,” and while he had probably been given the name as some sort of ancestral reference, he had truly grown into the name. His girth was mainly due to a bulbous paunch that covered a once-muscular frame; he had no hair, and the skin at the base of his skull was rolled and lumpy with fat. Tegusgal was quick-witted and shrewd; Ashiq-temur was short-tempered and eager to dispense discipline with his hands or with a stout stick.

“A Frank has come to the First Field,” the messenger reported. “He raised his standard and issued an open challenge to any man who would dare face him. He’s knocked down five men already, and he’s started shouting that the Khan has no worthy champions.”

Ashiq-temur, seated on a broad divan, was unmoved by the news. “Let him shout,” he grunted. He idly scratched his broad belly “The Khan will not answer to the demands of a barbarian fighter.” He waved the runner away.

A Frank! Kim stepped forward, thrilled by the possibility that this fighter was a Rose Knight. “Forgive my impertinent interruption, Master,” he said, bowing low to his fat jailor, “but I could not help overhear this conversation, and while I see that you speak with the utmost reverence of our most illustrious Khan, might I offer my services?” Tegusgal was the shrewd one, this argument would never work with him, but Ashiq-temur was more easily swayed. His head was thick, after all; there couldn’t be much room for a brain.

“What do you want, Kim?” Ashiq-temur asked. He spoke familiarly, as if Kim were nothing more than a servant or a house pet. It was a tone Kim had grown inured to, and he no longer bristled at the man’s insulting tone. If anything, the man’s disdain only increased Kim’s desire to convince his jailor of his plan.

“This Frank is a loud-mouthed upstart, and I have no doubt that his prowess is unworthy of the Khan’s attention. Perhaps I could go to the field and engage him.” Kim indicated his face, thankful now that the masseuse had not had a chance to fully work the salve into his bruises. “Look at me. I am ugly and malformed. I cannot possibly be a shining champion of the Khan’s magnificent collection of fighting men. Am I not the appropriate response to this man’s brazen challenge?”

“What if he beats you?”

Kim smiled. “Would I give you the satisfaction of seeing that?”

Ashiq-temur brayed with laughter. “Your arrogance always amuses me, Kim. I will raise a cup in sorrow on the day when it is whipped out of you.” He waved over a pair of nearby guards. “Escort this foolish dog to First Field. We apparently didn’t beat him enough. Let the Frank do it for us for a while, and then bring him back.”