This cheered her a little, and she took another bite. “Collected their horses and rode away. Do you have beer?”
The knights looked at each other and smiled as if at a secret. Raphael poured her a glass of the foaming sour stuff they had been drinking. It tasted like beer but was as strong as mead and made her head swim.
“Since Illarion still lives, I cannot simply dismiss the story,” said Feronantus, after thinking about it for as long as he wanted to, “but I suspect it to be half true and half nonsense.”
“Plank as quarterstaff,” Taran said, tugging mightily at his beard and screwing up his face. “Difficult to get a proper grip.”
“Illarion was always good with a staff,” Feronantus reminded him.
“I doubt that the ear-taker woke him,” Raphael said. “He was probably lying in wait, feigning death.”
“His ear is definitely gone,” Cnán announced. “His right ear.”
“We needn’t resolve such questions now,” said Feronantus, as Taran seemed about to voice a new objection. “You say he is alive, and nearby.”
“Barely, and in a manner of speaking,” said Cnán. “Two days’ ride under normal circumstances.”
“I love Illarion,” Feronantus admitted freely, “and would do almost anything for him. But there are only a few of us, and we are here for another purpose.”
“He said you would say that,” said Cnán, “and you should come and get him anyway, and that you would understand when he got here.”
Feronantus looked mildly put out. He gave Cnán a searching look. “You would lead us to him?”
“Of course, if you let me finish this bread. And give me more beer.”
“Please, eat your fill. Raphael, will you go and tend to Illarion’s wound?”
“Of course.”
“Take Finn and, in case there’s trouble, Haakon.”
“We might need Haakon here,” Taran warned. Cnán wondered why they needed the boy. He was feckless and clumsy looking. She almost felt sorry for him.
“Raphael will bring him back safe and sound,” Feronantus returned, shifting his gaze to the Syrian.
CHAPTER 2:
THE KHAN OF KHANS
?gedei, Khan of Khans, third son of Genghis the Great Conqueror, sat upon his throne. His mighty frame was draped in fine robes—delicate embroidery depicted clouds and dragons in pure-gold thread on a sky-blue background. Around him were the lavishly painted walls of the Great Palace of Karakorum. The lilting music of zithers filled the room, and lithe girls danced about the tall throne, their sheer silk sleeves twirling red spirals in the air. ?gedei divided his attention between listening to the petitions of the bureaucrat prostrated before him and playing with his empty cup. He spun the cup deftly in his broad right hand, tracing the delicate silverwork with his fingertips. The cup was empty. He did not wish it to remain empty.
“O Khagan, Master of the World,” said the Shanxi provincial sub-administrator, his fat forehead firmly planted against the floor, “I bring myself before you today to humbly request that the grain taxes for Xieliang County be lowered from one in twelve bushels to one in fifteen…” The beaded tassels on the top of his cap dangled back and forth as he talked, and ?gedei found the motion mesmerizing. He was well into the embrace of the wine, and his mind was easily snared.
Weak, he thought, staring at the tassel-topped sub-administrator. A life hunched over books and papers. Any simple peasant among his subjects could subdue him and choke the breath from his throat, yet he governs them completely. He studied the man, his ludicrous hat, his soft, fat hands. One blow, he reckoned, I could split his head in two with one stroke, and then he could bother me no more. ?gedei sighed and looked away. One hand idly stroked his mustache, while he traced the grooves and ridges on the cup with the other. But another would just take his place, and after him, another. Like swatting at a swarm of flies.
The Shanxi provincial sub-administrator twisted his neck to look up at the Khagan, expecting an answer to a question ?gedei had only half heard. He grew pale, seeing the twisted line of ?gedei’s mouth, and he started to stammer, the tassels bobbing up and down.
?gedei cut him off with a grunt and a wave of his hand. “Let it be thus,” he said.