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.