What should he do about it? According to Munokhoi’s somewhat fragmented story, they had been discovered together on the steppes during the attack. Gansukh had been a prisoner of the Chinese and Lian had claimed to have killed one of their commanders in order to rescue Gansukh.
If true, this would help deny the charge that Gansukh had abandoned his duties during the attack to help Lian, but it would not dispel Munokhoi’s accusations entirely.
Munokhoi saw both Lian and Gansukh as threats, and he had tried to convince Chucai the pair was a threat to the Khagan and not to his own personal advancement. The Torguud captain clearly hated the Chinese teacher and it did not take much imagination to see why he hated Gansukh. A hatred that would only increase as it became obvious to others that Gansukh’s knowledge of steppe fighting might be more useful than Munokhoi’s own experience. Regardless of what Chucai commanded of him, Munokhoi would continue to look for opportunities to do both of them harm.
Knowing that, it was foolish for Lian to sleep alone. In fact, Chucai concluded, it might be safer for both of them to stick together.
And that was not entirely a bad situation. In fact, if Gansukh knew something about the Spirit Banner—if he had whatever had been cut from the wood—then Lian might be the only one who could get it from him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rough Beasts
Lakshaman lived because other men bled. His world, the gilded prison of Onghwe Khan’s menagerie, had been reduced to this axiomatic definition. He could no longer recall a life before the Khan’s arena—not that such a life mattered to him any more, anyway. He had seen the light go out of a man’s eyes more than a hundred times, and each time, the cessation of the other’s breath and heartbeat simply validated the primal truth of Lakshaman’s existence.
Did he secretly yearn for something else? Some life that was not filled with the torpid stickiness of blood or the putrefying stench of fear? Did he look at his hands and wonder if they were meant to hold something other than his cruel knives? When he was led into the dark tunnel that led to the arena, did he gaze into the darkness and wonder if, perhaps, there was no end to this tunnel? Maybe it went on forever, and eventually, he would stop and look back and not be able to see where he came from. There would be no point in continuing, and so he would sit down in the darkness. Maybe he would even lie down and rest. If the fundamental truth of his existence was no longer valid, would he close his eyes and simply stop breathing?
The islander had asked him questions like those, recently. The one who called himself Mountain of Skulls. After Zug’s defeat in the Circus, he had become oddly reflective and was prone to fits of introspection like this. As much as Zug’s questions seemed to be the addled nonsense spewed by an idiot, Lakshaman had found himself unable to simply ignore them, and so he said they were silly questions. There was always an end to the tunnel, he told Zug, and at the end, there would be a man waiting to die.
The Khan’s stickmen surrounded him as he strode through the tunnel. They stank of fear, even though they were many and Lakshaman’s hands were bound. They walked stiffly, the tension in their arms and legs announcing their discomfort more loudly than a hungry baby’s wail. Lakshaman gave them as little thought as he had Zug’s philosophical questions. They were like the flies that swarmed horse shit.
He may even have said as much to the Flower Knight, Kim Alcheon, when the Korean had come to talk of rebellion. They are flies on shit, he may have said.
Does that make us the shit? Kim had enquired. He had been amused by Lakshaman’s words, and for a moment, Lakshaman had felt a twinge of something deep within his brain, an unfamiliar emotional response.
If you wish to think of yourself that way—certainly, he may have said to Kim, ignoring the man’s humorous query. The Korean had been spending too much time with Zug, and had picked up some of the Nipponese man’s annoying habits. They’re just flies. I can swat flies.
The gate at the end of the tunnel opened as it always did, and the channeled sound of the audience swept over him. Several of his Mongol guards hesitated, and Lakshaman found himself idly thinking about pulling the wings and legs off some flies as he stepped out of the dim tunnel. He blinked in the sunlight, and took a deep breath, inhaling the fecund aroma of the arena’s sand, the sweat of his guards, and the stink of the massed audience. The familiar smells.
Soon there would be the scent of blood too.
One of the guards stepped forward to undo the bindings on his hands, and Lakshaman stared unblinkingly at the top of the man’s head. The guard fumbled with the knots when he saw another of the guards placing Lakshaman’s knives in the dirt—just out of reach, but still too close for the man’s comfort. The Mongol nervously licked his lips and tugged hard on the last knot, trying not to be distracted by the presence of the knives.