The Mongoliad: Book Two

20

During the night, Raphael feared that Vera-like Alena-was taking a turn for the worse. Her wounds seemed to be winning; her fever spiked, her skin grew pale and damp, and her eyes fluttered whenever she managed to come up out of a sleep very near to death itself. The change in Vera saddened Raphael greatly. He knew he should not allow himself to be so troubled by her condition. This was not the first bedside vigil he had kept, and he knew the danger of the bond that could be created between two people. Death was seldom just or predictable when it came to loved ones.

Still, he remained, renewing candles as they guttered and died, and fading in and out of his own napping reverie, but with a hand always on her wrist and another at her forehead. To his surprise, as night merged into early dawn, there came a scuffling noise before the door of the drafty old house-then, a mouse-gentle knock. Feronantus answered and led in a group of men and women-Khazars who lived in the neighborhood. They brought in two generous bowls draped with woven cloths and containing rich broth and gruel, which Raphael gratefully accepted. Feronantus thanked them for their help and led the curious group of five back to the door, managing to persuade them through signs that it was best if Vera was not disturbed.

Raphael found their visit remarkable. A much safer course would have been for the Khazars to turn them over to the Mongols, for Graymane’s jaghun would not have stopped at the Volga. They likely had crossed at the nearest convenient ford and even now were hunting them, or else preparing another ambush.

Raphael fed broth in measured spoonfuls to the Shield-Maiden. Her lips opened, and by slow degrees, she consumed a third of the bowl, but when he tried some gruel, she swung her head aside and almost knocked the bowl from his hand-a sign he found encouraging. He put aside both bowls and resumed his vigil, until a thin shaft of sun through a far window struck his eye-and simultaneously, the woman stirred and spoke.

“Graymane’s Mongols must have guessed our plan,” Vera said. With his aid, she sat up, looked around with half-focused eyes, and then motioned with a raised hand not for broth this time, he determined, but gruel. “They scouted the ground and laid their ambush well.” She ate sparingly of the pasty mixture, then turned her full attention to him. “I thought it was you. Always…”

Feronantus, straddling a stool beside the cot, folded his arms and looked at Raphael with a slight smile.

“It is my duty,” Raphael said, and immediately felt awkward. Both Vera and Feronantus knew otherwise; straightforward and direct, she possessed neither the guiles nor the protections of Raphael’s own civil manners.

“We changed course to avoid their first patrol and rode directly into a canyon with no exit,” she continued. “We should have seen it coming, but they had already slain Sister Sofiya, our forward scout…” Her voice trailed off, and she devoted a few moments to staring dully into empty space-something she did whenever she spoke of her sisters who had fallen in battle.

Which now meant all of them, for during the early hours of the night, the red lines creeping up Alena’s arm from her infected wound had reached her armpit and then, Raphael guessed, her heart. She had died in a series of backbreaking convulsions so terrible that Raphael knew he would replay them in nightmares for weeks to come. Lockjaw was not such a bad way to die if it affected only the muscles of the jaw; what horrified Raphael was its effect on the great sinews of the spine.

“The details are unimportant…I cannot recite them anyway without turning this conversation into a funeral mass…and that would last the whole day long,” Vera finally said.

Feronantus and Percival exchanged a look. Raphael knew what they were thinking: Good, the poor woman is coming around; she understands the danger and the need for haste.

Vera took more broth and a little more gruel. Her face recovered some of its color, and her hands took up the wooden spoon so she could feed herself, but Raphael leaned in close so that she did not have to raise her voice to be heard.

“Rather than let ourselves be cut to pieces at the Mongols’ leisure, we mounted a charge into what seemed the weakest part of their force,” she said.

Raphael found himself wishing he could have been there to witness the foolish and beautiful glory of that charge.

“Once we made contact,” she said, oblivious to his gaze, “we were able to cut our way through, killing perhaps a dozen. Escape to the west was impossible. They could retreat at will and shoot arrows at us. Only by confining them against the river could we fight at close quarters. So we continued making that way, losing Shield-Maidens one after another, and defeated all who stood between us and the water. It was an effective way-the only way-to inflict losses upon Mongols.

“But they were too many. In time, it became clear we would not be able to scatter them completely. The river, then, became our only hope. We broke through their line once more and made a leapfrogging retreat to a place where trees and shrubs grew dense along the bank. Toward the end…all became confused. There were six of us, then four…” Her eyes closed. “My Shield-Maidens submitted to the sword of a sister, who then cut her own throat, rather than be harried and tormented by prancing, grimacing Mongols.”

She lay back and stared up at the ceiling. Bowl and spoon clattered to the floor before Raphael could catch them. “At the end, it was just Alena and me, concealed in the bushes. We stripped off our armor. Darkness came, a mercy. We slipped quietly into the Volga and swam. The current carried us miles downstream before we could cross and fetched us up near a village. The adventure that brought us from there to here would make for another interesting story, but-”

“But the only part of it that matters,” Feronantus said, “is whether you were able to cover your traces. Graymane would have crossed the river at first light yesterday.” He glanced toward a rude hole in the wall where a window had once stood. The pink light of dawn was warming to gold. The Mongols had been on this bank of the Volga for twenty-four hours. “His blood is up, and having gained the Vor, he is not the sort of man to release it until he has put us all in the ground.”

“I would say we took reasonable precautions to cover our tracks,” Vera said, “but we had to get bandages. Those we obtained from village women going down to the river in the morning to draw water and wash clothes. And so all depends on whether Graymane is interrogating those people.”

“We must move as soon as you are able,” Feronantus concluded.

“I will only delay you,” Vera returned. “You must go without me.”

“That is noble of you,” Feronantus said, “but you are assuming that the Khazars will allow you to stay.”

Here Feronantus was alluding to developments that Vera could not have known about.

Since the startling arrival of Vera and Alena yesterday afternoon, the behavior of the Khazars had been complicated enough to arouse Raphael’s curiosity. No people could have been more hospitable in bringing all sorts of aid and succor to the wounded Shield-Maidens. But it would be a mistake to draw too many conclusions from this alone, for these were mountain tribesmen, and such people always extended hospitality toward guests. More telling had been the behavior of the rabbi, Aaron, and the merchant, Benjamin, with whom they had been talking when Vera and Alena had arrived. Aaron seemed greatly troubled by the news that the two wounded Shield-Maidens might have led a Mongol unit directly here. Which only proved that Aaron was an intelligent man.

No visible crack had yet appeared in his facade of hospitality, but his anxiety was obvious. To judge from the lights in the windows of his home, he had spent much of the night awake, talking to Benjamin, who, at first light, had begun making preparations to leave.

Finding himself somewhat useless for the time being-since Vera seemed on the mend and there was nothing to do in her case but wait-Raphael excused himself from the tumbledown house and strolled through the half-abandoned village to the more modest but better-maintained structure, less than a bowshot away, where Rabbi Aaron dwelled.

Benjamin was pacing about restlessly in the stable yard, keeping an eye on a pair of servants loading goods and luggage onto a short train of packhorses. Benjamin saw Raphael approaching, and guessed his intentions. But he was polite enough to begin the conversation by expressing condolences over the death of Alena and inquiring after the state of Vera’s health.

They were speaking in the lingua franca, which Benjamin knew well. In his younger days, he had lived in Byzantium, and there had transacted a considerable amount of business with merchants from the great trading cities of Italy. Speaking it seemed to remind Benjamin of more pleasant and prosperous times, and so he and Raphael tended to use it instead of Hebrew.

At their introduction, Raphael had assessed Benjamin as too old and fat to accompany them on such adventures. At each subsequent encounter, however, he had lowered his estimate of the Khazar’s age and finally saw that what he had at first taken for fat was just an uncommonly stocky build padded by heavy clothing. Benjamin had probably not yet reached the age of fifty. He carried himself well and was as capable as any man of undertaking the journey they now contemplated.

Raphael badly wanted not to lose him.

“You could be thinking,” Raphael ventured, with a nod toward the packhorses, “that the obvious attractions of doing business with us might not make up for being hunted across the steppe by a force of joyless Mongols.”

Benjamin did not laugh-he was far too reserved and formal for that-but he did reveal a bare trace of dry amusement. “Perhaps if we knew each other better,” he said, “I would be willing to partner under such ominous circumstances. Or perhaps, if I could make any kind of sense out of your errand…I would find some way to align our interests. But neither condition pertains.”

Before Raphael could respond, they were interrupted by the voice of Percival, rising over the wooden fence that surrounded the stable yard. He was but a few yards away.

“Allow me to help settle both matters with a few words,” he said. A moment later, he appeared in the gate and entered the yard.

Reacting to the annoyance on Raphael’s face, Percival continued. “I was following Cnan-not eavesdropping. But I’m afraid I’ve lost her.”

“What is she up to?” Raphael asked, with a glance at Benjamin.

“At the end of Vera’s narration, she slipped away.

” “I was unaware of that.”

“As no doubt she intended. But I was not so distracted and happened to catch sight of her borrowing one of our ponies.”

“Or stealing it.”

“No, she will return,” Percival said, with that placid confidence which alternately fascinated and infuriated Raphael.

During the side conversation about Cnan, the Shield-Brethren had veered into Latin, and Benjamin might have understood a few words. But Benjamin was not interested in Cnan. He was far more intrigued by Percival’s first remark.

“What did you mean,” Benjamin said, returning to the lingua franca, “when you spoke of settling both matters with a few words?”

“In order that you should better know us and see how our interests align, it is simplest for me to tell you what we are doing,” Percival said.

Raphael naturally assumed that Percival had come up, on the spur of the moment, with some clever stratagem. The Frank was going to tell Benjamin some plausible-sounding cock-and-bull story about their errand, innocuous enough to assuage all the Khazars’ fears.

And so it was with a light heart and giddy expectation of quick success that Raphael now rounded up Feronantus and Rabbi Aaron and got them all together in the latter’s little house, with Percival standing before them, ready to spring his clever tale.

As soon as Percival opened his mouth, however, Raphael saw it had been a terrible mistake. He knew this even before Percival uttered a word. He knew it because of the look on Percival’s face: the utterly open, childlike guilelessness-and that weird effulgence that surrounded him whenever he was seized by whatever angel or demon took delight in toying with him.

“Weeks ago, I had a vision,” Percival announced, “that we should set our course for Kiev, where we would find something of inestimable value, without which our quest was doomed.”

Benjamin shifted and threw Raphael an irritable look. His instincts were clearly telling him to run away. The packhorses were neighing restlessly in the stable yard. Yet here they were, trapped in a conversation with a Frank who suffered from supernatural visions.

Feronantus had little choice but to play the role of the dignified leader and see this through as if he had expected it all along.

All unaware of this prickly dynamic, Percival continued. “I assumed, at first, that this benison would be some sort of holy relic. And when Vera told us of the tunnels and catacombs below the city, filled with treasures, I naturally assumed that what I sought would be found there. Instead, we uncovered nothing but a few odds and ends, and I lost my best friend in battle.”

Percival’s face darkened-literally. The effulgence took on a grayish hue, which Raphael observed with both alarm and deep curiosity. He threw a glance at Benjamin, who had cocked his head to one side, mouth open a little, eyes searching. Their gazes met. Raphael gave the merest shrug.

“In the weeks since,” Percival said, “I have prayed and meditated upon these events, imploring God to send me understanding. This morning, God answered my prayers. The object of our quest to Kiev was not some artifact but the Shield-Maidens themselves. Vera’s return to our group is confirmation of God’s will. She was destined all along to join us and ride with us into the East.”

Benjamin seemed embarrassed. “You have too many quests for me to keep track of,” he muttered.

Percival shook his head forbearingly. “For us, there is only one,” he said.

“The one that takes you into the East, following the caravan trails?”

“The same.”

“And what, pray tell, might be the object of that quest?”

“Don’t!” Feronantus sat forward and stretched out an arm toward Percival. But it was too late.

“We will ride into the heartland of the Mongols’ empire. We will find the Great Khan, and we will slay him.”

Feronantus burst out with a long oath in his native Gothic, not at all becoming of a monk. Raphael was able to make out the names of at least two pagan gods.

The little meeting had become a Tower of Babel. Benjamin spoke to the nonplussed rabbi in Khazar Turkic, presumably translating Percival’s words, and they went on to conduct an agonizingly long discussion in that tongue, perfectly opaque to Raphael.

Finally, as Feronantus buried his head in his hands and sank back in gloom, Benjamin looked at Raphael. His cloudy scowl faded, he lifted his shoulders, held out his hands-and smiled.

“Why not just tell us that in the first place? I cannot speak on behalf of my cousins who dwell in this little village, of course. But as far as I’m concerned, anyone as determined as you seem to be to kill the Great Khan, and throw his empire into disarray, is brethren to us all in this terrible time foretold by the Nevi’im, and there is almost nothing I won’t do to help further your quest.”

The rabbi ran his fingers through his beard, as was his habit when deep in thought.

“I felt confident you’d see it that way,” Percival said, breaking into an amazed silence.

“This all came to you in a vision?” Benjamin asked.

Percival looked up and smiled. The light on his face was again apparent. Raphael was almost certain the others saw it as well. There were so many reasons for living, breathing, sinful men to feel uncomfortable around Percival.

“You are indeed a holy fool,” said Benjamin, “for I am a strange man, and not one merchant in a thousand would respond as I have.” Benjamin now turned to address Raphael in Hebrew. “Please say to the others that I commend you all for your bravery and wish you the best of luck on your quest. But we who must remain here are in grave danger. We can only assume that the Mongols will search tirelessly for the surviving Shield-Maidens.” Raphael quickly translated.

Feronantus’s response was immediate and simple. “We will draw them away from you,” he said, “and destroy them.”