This was just what Kim had hoped to hear, and so he told Hans to wait for him to conclude his business with the turner.
A few more hard-won sentences passed between them, but Kim noted, after a certain point, that he had not heard a word of what the artisan had said to him. Something was troubling his mind. He held up his hand to still the woodworker’s tongue and devoted a few moments to thinking about what Hans had said.
“Did you say that Pius is meeting with this man now?”
“Yes, I saw them talking to each other at the knights’ compound.”
“That is odd,” Kim said, “since I was led to believe that the knights were staying at a place some distance away from here.”
“Oh no,” Hans said, “it is no more than a bowshot from where we are standing.”
“What is the name of this master who Pius is talking to?”
“Dietrich.”
“Not Feronantus?”
Hans looked confused. “Feronantus is the master of the Shield-Brethren. Father Pius is at the compound of the Livonian Knights.”
“Take me to him,” Kim said. He snatched a staff from the woodworker’s supply—not the one he had commissioned, but a stout piece of oak that would do, in a pinch—and hustled after Hans. There was no time to explain to the woodworker that he was only borrowing and not stealing.
But by the time Hans had led him through the maze to the place in question, Father Pius had already finished his conversation with Dietrich and set out northeastward, in the direction of the camp of the Shield-Brethren. This news was given to Hans by a younger boy who was apparently acting as Hans’s deputy. Kim noted with interest and approval that Hans, even at his young age, was already capable of delegating responsibilities to followers. As Hans conversed in the local tongue with the younger boy, Kim scanned the stone building that the Livonian Knights had seized and made into their local headquarters—a building somewhat smaller than the standing church, but like it, in fairly good condition—and observed their sigil on a banner. The symbols were red—that much was correct, at least—but neither was a rose. This was not the standard of the Ordo—what had Hans called them? A simpler name than the impossible one that Pius had used. The Shield-Brethren.
Had Pius betrayed him to Dietrich? Or merely stopped by this building on some unrelated errand before proceeding to the meeting with Feronantus? I might not be able to trust him. Kim could already imagine the conversation with Zug.
There was only one way to be sure: check the seal on the letter.
CHAPTER 22:
TO SAVE THE EMPIRE
Gansukh kept his left hand on the pommel of his saddle and stretched his right hand out in front of him. He looked at his hand against the green of the vast grasslands of the Orkhun River Valley. The width of a man’s hand was called an aid, and it was used to measure everything a man could lay his hands on. Out here, he could measure the height of the grass, the depth of his stride, the length of his horse’s shadow, but all of these things were insignificant against the endlessness of the steppe.
The late-summer pasture grasses undulated like water, revealing the capricious pathways of the wind. The sighing sound of the stalks was a song the Blue Wolf had taught him to hear. He could anticipate the gusts and brace himself against the sudden blows that tried to rock him and his horse.
He closed his eyes and stretched both arms out to embrace the wind; bracing against a strong blast, he squeezed his thighs to stay in the saddle. His horse lowered its head and laid back its ears, groaning deep in its chest. The wind carried the scents of men—smoke, meat cooking for an evening meal, the musky scent of sheep, camels, and cattle—olfactory markers of the pervasive spread of the Khagan’s empire. Along with that came an underlying stink of shit from both beast and man, and abattoir offal, that no city could ever hide—and many didn’t try as hard as Karakorum to hide it.
There are no secrets here.
His nose flared again, and he leaned his head back to draw in more of the cool air—finding other wilder and more promising smells. The scent of rain was faint, the tiniest whiff of the oncoming change in the seasons, that time of year when the clans turned south and east.
?gedei would be leaving Karakorum soon, heading for his winter palace, and while Chagatai Khan had laid no fixed deadline on Gansukh’s task to curb the Khagan’s drinking, he could not escape the feeling that time was running out. Time for what, though? Gansukh had tried to flee that thought since he had visited the Khagan’s chambers, but now, out where no one could see the expression on his face or hear any word that might slip from his lips, he could face it.