Percival turned to look at the source of the jest, and un-feigned delight spread over his face. “Taran! I hoped you’d be here.”
“I heard you might come,” said Taran, “and knew you’d need whipping into shape before the contests begin.”
“Taran you know,” said Feronantus, “and this dark, splendid fellow is Raphael, our physician. There is much we might speak of greetings and tales, but, Roger and Percival, you have interrupted me en route to a meeting, one I’m assured is too important to be delayed.”
Eyes went to Cnán, then back to Feronantus.
“This is our swift-footed guide and messenger,” Feronantus said. “Her name is not important—for now.”
Taran muttered something about Bindings, and then wary interest chased the confusion out of their faces.
“Where did I come from? Places of which you have never heard the names. So there would be little point in my reciting them,” Cnán said, in answer to Feronantus’s first question.
Amusement around the table, only a little strained. She was nervous that the one named Raphael, with the close-cropped black beard and the Syrian look, might call her bluff. A Crusader, she guessed, born and bred in one of the few surviving fortress-cities that the armies of the West still garrisoned in the flyblown hellhole that they styled the Holy Land. But such a man might know the deep parts of Asia better than, say, Taran, who was Irish and probably considered Dublin to be part of the exotic Orient.
Or perhaps she was being unkind. Hunger, and being hunted like an animal, had a way of shortening her temper. She tore into a piece of bread while the three senior knights enjoyed a chuckle.
“But most recently,” she went on, chewing and talking at the same time, “in the last few days, I have traveled from Czeszow. East of here.” She swallowed. “In the forest.” And again. “Where Mongols don’t like to go. There is a man there, a Ruthenian of noble birth, from the city of Volodymyr-Volynskyi—you probably know it as Lodomeria. He says he knows you.”
A serious, pained look came over Feronantus’s face. “Illarion,” he said.
“A member of your Order?”
“No,” said Feronantus, “but he could have been, were it not for…religious controversy.”
“Wrong kind of Christian?” Cnán asked, still chewing.
“Yes. Please go on. Illarion is alive, you say?”
“You seem surprised,” Cnán observed, “which tells me that you must have heard tell of what happened at Lodomeria.”
Feronantus’s silence implied assent. But Taran only looked provoked. “I have not heard,” said the Irishman.
“Briefly, the same as happened to all other cities that stand in the way of the Mongols. Perhaps worse than usual.”
“How did Illarion escape? He is not the sort to run away.”
“Aye, your judgment of his character is sound,” Cnán said. “He stood and fought. Was captured, along with many others of that city’s noble class, as well as clergy, merchants, and so forth. Mongols do not like to shed the blood of captives. It’s fine on the battlefield, of necessity, but they prefer to put prisoners to death bloodlessly. If it’s only one, or a few, they bring out a wrestler who breaks the spine. But that’s too slow for large numbers. So they bind their captives and force them to lie down in an open field, like a human carpet. While the poor people moan and plead, over this the Mongols throw planks, making a heaving floor. Then they ride their horses up onto the floor—though the ponies like it not a whit—and ride them back and forth…over and over…until the crying and moaning stops. The Mongols bray and babble and toast each other with their foul milk. Their young watch and dance like imps in hell. It’s a fine party,” she spat, and her eyes darted around the astonished circle. She put down her bread. “By the time the party’s over, most of the prisoners have been trampled to death. The ones who survive are too broken to move. Mostly dead, mostly broken,” she added, fingering the bread again. Her stomach twitched and she shook her head. “Enough.”
“This happened to Illarion?”
“Yes. And his wife and daughter. The next morning, while Onghwe Khan and his men were sleeping it off, a few black bones came around—”
“Black bones?” Feronantus asked.
“Mongols of lower caste. Tartars, Turks, some Ruthenians. They came to pull up the planks and take ears.”
“Ears?” Taran asked sharply.
Raphael explained, “It is how they count the enemy dead.”
“Most of us have two ears!” Taran protested.
“It is always the right ear,” Raphael said gently.
“When they cut off Illarion’s right ear, he woke up,” Cnán said. “Reached up like a demon out of the muck, snatched the knife from the ear-cutter, twisted it around, and gutted him. A few other black bones bandied their bowlegs his way. He picked up a plank and used it like a quarterstaff. Brained them one by one. Killed them all.”