*
At a certain point, perhaps three centuries ago, the Khazars had converted to Judaism. Lacking rabbis, they had sent some of their young men down into Jerusalem, Baghdad, and Cairo to study at the great yeshivas. The intention, of course, was that they would return home once they had completed their studies. And, indeed, that was how it happened during the first century or two, when the Khazars’ empire had stood at its zenith. But the decline of their power had led to gradually increasing emigration and reduction of the populace.
Jewish Khazars, dispossessed of land by the empire’s shrinkage and decline, or simply feeling insecure about the stability of the place, had traveled south with what possessions they could carry. The tiny colonies of Khazari rabbinical students in the great cities of the west and south had swelled into neighborhoods, clearly defined at first, but growing more diffuse with time as the descendants of the first waves of emigrants had intermarried with the indigenous Jews. Still, they could be identified, if you knew what to look for, as a small but distinct minority.
During his travels through the Islamic world, Raphael had seen traces of them as far west as al-Andalus. In Toledo, he had befriended a young man of Khazari descent named Obadiah. Raphael’s curiosity about the Khazars’ past had earned him an invitation to Obadiah’s home for a Passover seder at which he had plied Obadiah’s incredibly ancient great-uncle with endless questions. From this and other researches, he had learned that the Khazars’ wealth and power had derived largely from their position astride the Silk Road and that, during their heyday, it had been considered no great thing for a Khazari trader to range over a territory bounded on the east only by the ocean that washed the shores of China and on the west by the capitals and trading cities of Christendom. They had been so pleased to meet a young Christian who actually cared about their history that they had, in truth, burdened his mind with far more information than he really desired. For Raphael, in those days, had been curious about everything, not just the Khazars, and Obadiah had been only one of a number of friends he had pestered with innumerable and sometimes impertinent questions.
Recently, though, he’d had cause to wish that he’d consumed a little less wine at that seder and listened more carefully to Obadiah’s great-uncle. For the company of Shield-Brethren had a problem, which was that summer was already drawing to a close, and still they had a vast distance to cover and little time in which to cover it. Without Cnán’s guidance, of course, they would have traveled even more slowly. But even with her help, they were not moving nearly fast enough. Raphael had conceived an idea that they might get across the steppes more quickly and more safely if they could form some sort of alliance with traders going into the East to trade for silk. People, in other words, who actually knew what they were doing—who took those routes routinely, for a living.
So it was that, the day after the conversation in the hut, they rode up a winding path into dark hills that brooded over the east bank of the Volga. They were dark because they actually had trees on them—not everywhere, but in their declivities and on sheltered slopes. The few people eking out livings in those hills were a far cry from the generally prosperous and well-fed urbanites Raphael had known in his youth, but certain details in their appearance, their clothing, and their language made it clear to him that he was looking at the last of the Khazars and that this godforsaken range of hills was the rump of their empire, the final refuge into which their beleaguered ancestors had retreated hundreds of years earlier. Like everyone else, they must be paying tribute to the Mongols, but the Mongols seemed to be leaving them alone, and no wonder, since the wooded hills were not well suited to their ponies.
Vera pointed out that she had ceased to be useful to them some days ago and was about to become a positive impediment, since if these Khazars knew anything of their own history, they would remember that women of her order had marched in the invading army of Sviatoslav.
Feronantus reluctantly agreed and detailed Finn, R?dwulf, and Eleázar to escort her back to the bank of the Volga so that she could buy passage across and be reunited with Alena and the others. The rest of them said their good-byes, and Raphael found himself powerfully affected, knowing how unlikely it was that he would ever again look upon this handsome woman with whom he had fought back-to-back in the tunnels. They embraced front-to-front, and then he turned away from her before the pain in his face became too obvious.
That contingent rode away in the company of their guide, who had been paid the agreed-on amount by Feronantus.
Feronantus, Raphael, Istvan, Yasper, Percival, and Cnán now began what they assumed would be a slow and halting project of making themselves known to, and trusted by, these last remnants of the Khazar Empire. Even Raphael, who had come up with the idea, gave long odds that it would work. But they had to cross through this territory, or other territory like it, in order to get where they were going anyway, and they could not move too quickly lest they make it impossible for Vera’s escort to reconnect with them. No harm in being friendly with the locals en route.