The Mongoliad: Book Two

30

Andreas sat on his pallet with a grunt of pain. The stone walls were a mercy during the rain and the wind, but in the murderous heat of summer, they made little difference, especially when it was a gray heat-a steaming, sunless heat. There was no breeze without or within, and little for him to do other than sweat.

In all the stories singers told of heroics and of battle, they rarely, if ever, spoke of the waiting or the coming down afterward. Unless it served the story, they didn’t speak of the wounds either. He tried to straighten his aching back and felt muscles move beneath skin so tight from exertion that he wanted only to fall into a deep slumber and never move again.

The bruises he had received on the First Field overlaid their own dull throbbing upon previous layers of older pains. Battle rush and focus on opponents permitted a man to ignore these irritations, but after battle, they came rushing back with an angry vengeance.

At Petraathen, Taran had taught them numerous exercises designed to drive away fatigue, as well as stretches that kept abused muscles and ligaments from seizing up, and he would need to do more of those soon or else suffer the consequences.

Still, Andreas sat, feeling the sweat pour down his face, acutely aware of his own mortality.

The fight against the Flower Knight a week ago had taken more out of him than it should have, and now he was staring at his sword hand, listening with a grimace as the finger bones clicked uncomfortably as he opened and closed his fist. That’s new, he thought.

“You look like hell,” Rutger said from the doorway. Even against the gray of the outside, the quartermaster was a dark silhouette. “I warned you this was dangerous.”

“Someone has to reap what I sowed,” Andreas replied with a rueful attempt at a smile, quickly distorted by a grunt of pain. Unless he got up and did his exercises, come morning he would barely be able to move at all. “Better the consequences fall on my head,” he said.

“You sound like Percival,” Rutger chuckled, pulling up a chair.

“Percival? God and the Virgin, I hope not,” Andreas laughed in return. It hurt the tensed muscles in his midsection. Everything hurt just then. “Was he here before I arrived? Did he go with the others?”

Rutger nodded.

“Ach, I am sorry to have missed him,” Andreas said, “more so because we could use his sword arm right about now.” He leaned back and raised his own sword arm experimentally. The knuckles clicked again. Cracking roasted pigs’ feet-that’s what his knuckles sounded like. “At least now I can rest for a little while.”

Rutger shifted in his seat. His worn expression immediately told Andreas that something was wrong. “I don’t like that look, Rutger,” he said. “That look says no sleep and no food for a week, or worse. What’s happened?”

“We’ve just had word from Hunern,” Rutger sighed. “Your show of audacity has sufficed to intrigue the Khan. The gates to the arena open tomorrow.” He paused. “Your name is on the lists-high on the lists.”

The news hit Andreas like a fresh punch to the stomach. He stared blankly for a moment. He’d known in the back of his mind that this might happen, but somehow it hadn’t occurred to him that it could happen before he’d had the opportunity to get any real rest.

Andreas started to laugh. That hurt as well, and for a moment, he tried to hold it back, but to no avail. His shoulders quaked, and his abdomen spasmed as he shook with grim mirth at his circumstances. Then he threw his head back and laughed at the ceiling. Tears flowed from his eyes before he mastered himself and wiped them away. “God indeed pays the foolish their due,” he said after he regained control of his voice. Now he took a deep breath, and that hurt as well. “So be it.”

“You damn fool.” Rutger shook his head. “You’re in no shape to fight.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said, pushing himself once more to his feet and stepping around like a drunken crane. His legs burned, but if there was real need, he could fight-perhaps even manage a burst or two of speed, if danger pressed. He’d regret it afterward, but this was no time for conserving strength. He had attracted the Khan’s attention, and if he was in the ring, perhaps those tiger eyes would not look so sharply upon the rest of his order.

“You’re pushing yourself too hard,” Rutger said again, more quietly. “You’re one of our best, but even the best can be broken and beaten. Be careful in the lists, Andreas. We can’t afford to lose anyone.”

Andreas flashed a rueful smile. “We’ll all be putting everything on one line of battle or another, sooner or later…I just need to live long enough to see it.” He laughed and felt a cough travel upward, doubling him over, which hurt even more. The injuries were piling up. He’d yet to break any bones or rip out hamstrings or sinews, however, which was a godsend.

“Look on the bright side,” Andreas went on. “Our plan worked. The arena is open and the bouts will begin anew. All eyes will be on the Circus.” And I will fight again, and harder, against opponents as dangerous as the Flower Knight-and he didn’t even want to kill me.

Rutger seemed to guess his thoughts. “I warned you about this,” he said. “Be cautious.”

“Caution won’t get us victory or success.” Andreas dropped forward onto his hands and flung his legs out behind him. He began his exercises against the protest of every muscle in his aching limbs and torso. Bruises cried out, innards rebelled at the sudden upset of their brief, cherished balance.

But his arm went beyond complaining and nearly folded under him. It had still not recovered enough. Don’t grumble. Plug on, he thought.

Rutger watched him for a long moment in silence.

He could feel the older man’s eyes on his back.

“There is a difference, Andreas,” he said, “between walking on the edge of a blade and dancing merrily across it like some caperer in a great hall. Do not mistake foolishness for courage.”

Andreas didn’t pause in his exercises. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

When he had finished, and his body was aflame all over, he sat back down gingerly on the pallet. Rutger handed him a cup of water. He downed it, thirsty as if he might never drink again.

“There is a boy called Hans who passes messages back and forth between myself and the Flower Knight,” Andreas said after a moment. Normally, he wouldn’t pass this on, as there was no need for anyone but himself to know. “Whatever happens here, I want him taken to Petraathen when this is over by whoever amongst us survives.” It was a grim thought, but he wanted the boy to have the chance, if that was what he wanted.

“You have my word,” Rutger said quietly.

In Hunern, the rats went unnoticed, and that was their strength. In the streets, Hans was invisible, and so he was left to his own devices. He was waiting right now at the base of the tree, the one place he knew would grant him a momentary sense of safety. It wasn’t much, but beneath these branches there was peace.

Hans had shown Andreas this tree, and the big knight’s reaction had confirmed its importance in a way that he had suspected on some level, but not understood, truly, until then.

Several other children were sleeping nearby, and Hans had taken care not to wake them. One of them was the last boy he had sent running to the fighter’s camp. The boy had taken a bad clout on the ear that had left the ear swollen like a vegetable, surrounded by a green, brown, and reddish bruise.

Hans watched him as he rested. He felt guilty about the boy’s injury, but getting the messages back and forth was important. Brother Andreas had told him so, and he was a good man.

The plan was actually very simple and was based on how Hans and the other children had gone about making sure they all had food during the bad times: send a different boy each time, each with a different story, bring the prize back, and divide it among all of them. While the Mongols closely watched the gate to their camp, they seldom interrogated the children who went in and out, running this or that little errand for the people inside. Sometimes they brought ale; other times they delivered something purchased from the local craftsmen.

Making sure that the boys knew which tent they were supposed to find, and remembered the words they were supposed to say, was not hard, because each boy didn’t have much to remember. “How many flowers?” they would ask, and Kim would tell them. The boy would return and tell Hans, and he would pass the news on to Andreas. It was simple, and so far, it had worked, but there was always the chance of something going wrong, and so Hans waited nervously beneath the tree, trying to comfort himself in its presence.

When Andreas had bid him run off behind the alehouse, he’d also worried and had come here, like now, to comfort himself. It was only later that the sounds of the fight at First Field had summoned him to witness Andreas’s duel with the Flower Knight.

It was after that that Andreas had asked him to organize the boys and run these messages-but not without obvious reluctance. He is afraid for me, Hans had thought with an unexpected glow of pride. But I am not the one facing the swords. Fearless for oneself, fear for others-that must be what it means to be a hero.

Knowing that he would have soon aroused suspicion if he did all the delivering himself, Hans had turned to the other rats of Hunern to help him, creating the system they used now. It had held up for a week, so far-and none of the boys had gotten hurt or captured.

It had occurred to Hans every time he worried for one of the children that they were safer than most of the adults, if only because they were beneath notice, but that did not make him worry less. I make them do dangerous things. If any of them gets hurt or killed, it will be my fault.

The sound of footsteps. Someone was coming. He shifted.

A boy stepped out of the shadows cast by the overhanging roofs. He was shorter than Hans, with sun-darkened skin and brown hair.

“Tamas went into the camp. I saw him walk past the guards,” the boy said, grinning. Usually, Hans asked at least one other boy to watch and make sure the messenger got through. This doubled as assurance that any obstacle could be related back to him and as a dry run where the boy who watched could see how it was done. The next time, the watcher would become the messenger.

“Did you see how he did it?” Hans asked. The boy nodded.

“Do you think you can do it next time?” He tried to keep the urgency from showing. The rats had to learn everything the hard way. Rats rarely got a second chance if they made a mistake.

After a moment’s pause, the boy looked at him with narrow honesty and eagerness. “Yes.”

Hans stood. There was a difference between thinking you were ready and knowing it. The boy knew it. He gave a slow nod. “In two days, you’ll go.”

The boy grinned again and folded his arms around himself, and Hans saw the mix of pride and fear in his eyes that he himself felt. Next time, the youth would risk everything so that the channel of communication could stay open, and Hans would wait for news and worry again beneath the tree.

Rats so seldom knew love. These boys knew his love, but not his guilt.

Kim sat outside his tent, listening as a singer performed in a language he didn’t understand. Still, the song stirred him. A man did not need to understand the words to know what was being said. Music, like violence, crossed all languages. These were the oldest and most complete ways of communicating that people possessed.

Kim was waiting for the boy. He credited the youth named Hans for devising a means to pass their messages back and forth, and also felt gratitude and admiration for the courageous youths who came to him every few days to inquire of his progress, to pass on information, and to take his own messages back.

He always knew a messenger; the same phrase was used, and Hans sent only boys who spoke the Mongol tongue. Hans was a most discerning and clever lad, wiser than Kim had initially given him credit for.

He raised a cup of water to his lips and drank, taking a mental tally of those they’d managed to bring into the fold since the last time he’d sent a message. When he lowered it, a dark-haired youth stood before him. He smiled nervously.

“Do you enjoy the shade?” the boy asked.

Kim smiled. “Even on gray days it is a relief, like the branches of a tree.”

The youth took a breath and asked, “Have you found any flowers today?” The boy’s grasp of Mongol speech was not exceptional but would not arouse suspicion.

Kim reached for a small wrapped bundle of cloth beside him and unwrapped it, revealing four blossoms. He put them in the boy’s hand. “Four, this time. Next time, there will be more.” He hoped.

The boy smiled. “I will take them back, thank you.” He turned to go, and Kim moved his attention back to the empty cloth in his hand. There had been no breeze, which reflected his own sense of stagnation, even as events began to move forward.

But then he felt the first stirrings in the air. Looking to the grass beyond the edge of his tent, he saw that the blades were bending back and forth as the first cool breath of wind whispered through the camp. Above came a distant groan and then a roar of thunder.

The storm was finally coming. As he rose and turned to enter his tent, the first drops of rain began to fall.