She met his gaze and started again. “Why didn’t you shoot the crossbow as ?gedei Khan requested?”
His face darkened and he chose to focus on the task of retrieving the arrow for a little while longer before answering. “There’s a difference between hunting,” he said as the arrow popped out of the tree, “and slaughter.”
“You killed your deer with a bow,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “With my father’s bow. And ?gedei appreciated the significance of my choice.” He dropped the arrow in the quiver. “After the hunting was done, we walked in the garden together for a little while. He told me a story about hunting with his father, the Great Khan, when they were on campaign together.”
She was surprised. The serving woman had failed to mention that the two men had had a private moment together. “Excellent, Gansukh. That was beyond my expectations. You are proving to be a good study.”
They retraced their steps to the aspen grove.
“I need to be,” Gansukh said as they walked. “I may have impressed the Khagan, but I fear I made Munokhoi even more my enemy.”
“Any time spent trying to curry Munokhoi’s favor is not only futile but dangerous,” Lian pointed out. “It is wiser to focus your energy on the Khagan.”
Gansukh nodded thoughtfully. “I think you’re right.” They reached the tree with Lian’s arrows in it, and he plucked them out with a sharp twist of his left wrist. “Enough archery for tonight,” he said, changing the subject. “How about some basics in hand-to-hand…”
Lian raised an eyebrow. “I think all this archery has worn me out.”
Gansukh laughed. She liked his laugh, low in timbre and from the belly. His eyes nearly disappeared when he laughed, much like her father’s.
“Next time, then,” he said. He slung the bow across his back and indicated the path toward the servants’ quarters. “Let me walk you back to your chamber, at least.”
She accepted his offer and kept the notional pleasure of more physical contact with him to herself.
The sun had departed, and the palace was transitioning to its nighttime activities. Voices could be heard from the main palace, and servants carrying dirty dishes and piles of clean linen scurried around Gansukh as he ambled toward his own chamber. He stepped aside for a group of concubines. They glided past with effortlessly small steps, their elegantly coiffured heads bowed down in polite deference, leaving a scent of flowers in their wake. Groups of dark-cloaked Khevtuul were out there in the gloom, patrolling the grounds.
Near the garden gate, Gansukh encountered a familiar imposing figure. Gansukh bowed respectfully. “Master Chucai. Good evening.”
?gedei’s chief advisor responded with a slight nod. “I trust the evening finds you well.” His robe and beard were dark spots in the gloom, making the man seem like an apparition, a floating head come to haunt him.
“It does,” Gansukh replied. “I was just getting some fresh air. This first hour of nightfall has a splendid quality to it.”
“You have been keeping up on your reading?” Chucai smiled. “Or I should say, has Lian been reading you up?”
“Yes. She’s a talented young woman, as far as the Chinese go,” Gansukh said. “The scrolls are boring, but she certainly gives me something to look at.”
Chucai looked at him shrewdly. “I heard about the hunt today,” he said.
Gansukh nodded and waited for him to continue.
“Karakorum is different from anywhere else in the empire. We are transformed by it, would you not say?” Chucai pursed his lips. “No, that’s not correct. We are revealed by it.”
Gansukh shrugged, mainly to hide the shiver that ran up his spine at Master Chucai’s words. He was spared from replying by a crashing sound behind him. He turned, and for a second, he couldn’t place the source of the sound, but then he spotted the broken tile on the ground. His pulse racing, he immediately looked up at the roof of the palace, and a flash of movement caught his eye.
“Intruder!” Chucai shouted behind him.
An assassin, Gansukh thought. Here to kill the Khagan.
“Guards!” Chucai continued to raise the alarm.
The figure had disappeared already, and Gansukh glanced around wildly for any sign of the Khevtuul.
Too late, he thought. He started to run toward the back of the palace—in the direction it seemed the figure had been moving. By the time the guards arrive, he’ll be gone.
It was up to him to catch the assassin.
CHAPTER 11:
THE BANKHAR