“Yes,” Kim interrupted, “I know the one.”
Zug nodded. “Go and find him and ask him to write out a message in one of the languages of Christendom and deliver it to the Monks of the Red Plum Blossom.”
“I might not be able to trust him.”
“Of course not. But is there someone you could trust more?”
Kim stalked out of the cage in a state of considerable irritation. No one could make the anger rise up in his face the way Two Dogs could. He did not like being sent out on errands, but he could not defeat the riddle Two Dogs had posed to him, nor could he argue against the simple truth of all that Two Dogs had said.
He had been told never to stray from the immediate vicinity of the Mongol compound and the arena. But Kim knew that this rule would never be enforced so long as he remained in the Khan’s good graces. He had tended to remain close to home anyway. He had been provided with a private ger that was of adequate size, clean, and comfortably furnished. Its situation in the heart of the Mongol encampment meant that it was well guarded at night so that he could sleep soundly. Food, drink, women, and massages were available to him. He did not avail himself of these quite so lavishly as Zug. Yet the mere fact that he could get them gave him little reason to wander past the camp’s defensive lines and out into the slum that had sprung up, like toadstools on a stump, around the arena during the months that the circus had been in operation.
He now disguised himself by casting a hooded cloak over his shoulders and went out into it.
The disguise, of course, would not fool the Mongols guarding the camp’s exit. They knew perfectly well who he was. His reasons for donning it were twofold: one, to show a decent respect for the Khan’s order that he not go out, and two, to prevent himself from being recognized immediately by the young aspirant fighters who had flocked to the arena from all over the known world when Onghwe Khan had sent out his call for combatants. This slum was in large part the monument that such men built to themselves when they tried to settle in one place. Compared to any other city it was oversupplied with adventuresome and cocksure young males, prostitutes, bladesmiths, armorers, and drinking houses. It was lacking in sanitation, cultural refinement, officers of the peace, and decent women. Those who arrived soonest and defended their turf with greatest ferocity ended up in possession of the permanent structures, which, here, were the old stone and wattle-and-daub buildings of a tiny village, burned out and gutted some months ago, now supplied with improvised roofs and doors. The slow and the weak had ended up living in shanties and lean-tos constructed from rubble that had been hauled in from the nearby ruins of Legnica, or mere tents. These had been piled up willy-nilly.
There were no real streets, just wandering and forking paths paved with the shit of humans and beasts. Every time Kim ventured into it, it was bigger and dirtier. Every time he was reminded why he had no inclination to leave the comfort of the camp and his ger. The squalor he could tolerate; what made it truly insufferable was the young fighters who wanted to challenge him. They came to this place because they believed they knew something about fighting and imagined they would find opportunities to prove as much. What they found was an arena to which they had no hope of gaining admission, save as spectators, once a fortnight, when the Khan held his great competitions. At other times there might be preliminary bouts, used by the organizers of the circus to choose the fighters deemed worthy to appear in the next great competition. But these were by invitation only. The way to get invited was to know someone, to bribe someone, to have been noticed in battle, or to distinguish oneself in the informal fights that were staged in a few makeshift dens that had been constructed in the slum by extremely unsavory characters who knew how the system worked and how they could profit from it. It was these places more than anything else that drew in the rootless and damaged young men who believed that they had a future in the Circus of Swords.