When he looked her way, she could not meet his eyes.
“We have been seen,” Feronantus said, not ignoring Percival’s statement, but not standing by it either, Cnán noted. “And not by some stripling fool of a Mongol scout, who alone would have been enough to raise alarm. Enough well-blooded warriors have crossed my path to make knowing a wise one easy when I see him. Word of us will travel back to the greater horde, and they will watch us. We need an excuse to be traveling east, so arrayed, one that does not alarm our enemy.”
He leveled world-weary eyes at Percival and for a moment seemed unable to continue. “Percival has spoken to me, of a role required of us in that city, and while I am unable to fully explain the task”—he glanced at Raphael, who nodded slightly, and then looked over at Cnán as if to dare her to speak—“there is another purpose that visiting Kiev may serve; for there, we may learn something of what has been going on in the world as we kept to the wilderness.”
“What task?” Roger asked of Percival.
The knight shook his head. “I do not know,” he said softly, “but I have been given a sign of what it is that I seek.”
“In Kiev?” Roger pressed.
Percival smiled at him, and Cnán’s breath caught in her throat. How could the Norman not see the light shining from his face?
“I still say it’s a mistake,” Roger murmured, still too caught up in his own disillusionment and anger. “If we’ve been spotted, better to put as many miles as we can between them and us. Mongols and their lackeys run thick here, like flies on a corpse.”
“And that will not change from here to the heart of the Khan’s empire,” Eleázar replied in his accented Latin. He had spoken very little since their journey had begun, and Cnán had not gotten used to the quiet way in which he spoke. It was so unlike everything else about him. “I am with Feronantus and Percival—eleven visiting Kiev will be less strange to their eyes than eleven riding east with no reason. Whether or not they guess our errand means nothing. If they follow us closely—and likely they will—we will be slowed regardless of our motives. We must attempt to shake undue suspicion.”
“I can take you there, though I do not know how much we will find,” Illarion said in his low, sad voice. “I have heard only rumors about the fate of Prince Alexander’s city. If they are to be believed, then the city will be little more than a ruin filled with ghosts.” Suddenly a light came to the Slav’s face, and he actually smiled, then nodded toward Feronantus. “I can think of no better place to shake off pursuit.”
They changed their course the next morning. The fresh horses acquired from the fight made travel a little easier, though heat and the humidity evened their score of misery. As day by day they drew imperceptibly nearer to the city, they passed many tributaries and branches of the great Dnieper as it wound along its southern track, toward the Axeinos, as the people of Rus called it. The Unlit Sea.
The heat bore down during the days and only sometimes relented at night. Cnán found herself more than once thankful that she was unburdened by the armor the Brethren wore, weighing down their bodies and damping both energy and patience as they rode. Watching them, she thought of men traveling in their own ovens, slowly steaming to death, all unawares, like the legendary frog in a witch’s cauldron.
At times, the heavens would show mercy, and the skies would darken with rain clouds that poured down some relief. The armor actually steamed afterward, as did the horses, and the riders trailed a thin haze of mist. The water certainly brought welcome coolness, but then they had to deal with the frustrating tendency of steel to rust and with bedrolls soaked completely through. Despite their best efforts, the armor was slowly tarnishing, and rusty streaks even marred Feronantus’s greaves and mail.
Gradually farmsteads, hamlets, and finally villages became more numerous. Many had been burned, however, and most lay abandoned. The absence of people from even the larger villages gave the landscape a ghostly feel, like riding through a place left behind by all who cared, to be observed again only by those foolish enough to pass through forsaken lands.