Iron Winter (Northland 3) (40 page)

‘And then?’

‘We find Pyxeas.’

‘Yes, and then?’

‘I’m making this up as I go along, boy. Wait and see.’

They hurried after the Khan, through the city. Even inside the palace compound there was pandemonium, courtiers and warriors running everywhere. In the palace itself, one of the Khan’s
senior advisers was waiting for him at the door, a slender Cathay who trembled with fatigue and terror as he prostrated himself before the ruler. The Khan kicked the man to his feet and stalked on
into the heart of his palace, with the guard from the hunting party following. Maybe the Khan trusted them more than his palace guard at this moment, Avatak thought. The Khan was unmistakable in
his brilliantly coloured silk hunting gown, and the soldiers, grimy from the march, were dark, lumpen figures in the palace’s brightly lit opulence. Avatak noticed racks of the soft white
slippers you were supposed to wear to protect the carpets; now they were ignored, and trails of muddy, dusty footprints were everywhere.

All the way the adviser jabbered to the Khan in rapid Mongolian.

Uzzia murmured, ‘I can’t hear it all. He’s talking very softly, very fast, and these warriors around us aren’t exactly keeping quiet. It sounds as if it’s all
falling apart. The smoke we saw to the north, the flames—’

‘Yes?’

‘Warriors from the steppe. More nomadic horsemen. I can’t make out if they are Mongol or not. I don’t suppose it matters. They got through the border walls, and here they are
at the gates of Daidu. Some of the men are muttering that the city walls have already been breached.’

‘No wonder the people are running away.’

‘Yes. Those that aren’t rising up. That’s the other thing. The Cathay are taking the opportunity to rebel. The Mongols are marauding conquerors, after all. Some of the soldiers
around us are muttering about conspiracies, maybe the Cathay rebel leaders have been in touch with the nomads. But there are more unpleasant surprises for the Khan to come, I think. I keep hearing
a name: Kokachin, who they call the Wind-Rider.’

‘Kokachin’s a woman’s name. A Mongol woman’s.’

Uzzia grinned. ‘So it is.’

They turned corners, following the increasingly agitated Khan, until Avatak was quite lost in the belly of the great building. They came to a tremendous hall, yet another of this palace’s
gigantic chambers, packed with milling people. And, under a roof of lacquered blue, he heard the hooves of a horse, oddly muffled. A horse?

The Khan ascended a podium on which stood a huge, elaborately carved throne. He glared down the length of the room – and faced a rider sitting boldly on a horse, Avatak saw now, a short,
squat beast, one of the Mongols’ own tough ponies from the steppe. The rider was a woman, wearing light Mongol armour, a chest plate of boiled leather stitched with metal pieces, a small bow
slung on her back. She wore no helmet, so all could see her face. She was handsome, severe, her straight black hair pulled back from her brow. And she was laughing as she turned the horse around,
making it prance and nod.

Around her men were gathered, on foot, warriors all, brandishing weapons, spears and swords and axes. One of them was waving a bit of smashed furniture at the Khan, carved wood and pale pink
silk, a ragged scrap of a chair that must once have been exquisite. At least as many men surrounded the Khan, many from the hunting party. Cowering from these posturing warriors were courtiers,
Mongol grandees with their shining cloaks and tonsured scalps, nervous-looking Cathay officials in silk gowns. There were hundreds of people all jammed in this one huge room together, and their
voices rose up like the cawing of gulls on a cliff face.

‘Oh, dear,’ Uzzia said, looking at the mounted woman.

‘What?’

‘The Mongols are horse warriors. I’m guessing that to ride your horse into another man’s yurt is a grave insult.’

‘So, along with the assault by the steppe warriors, and the Cathay uprising in the city—’

‘Yes. Now the Mongols are turning on themselves.’

There was a hiss, a soft impact. A single arrow had been shot into the air to thud into the roof, high above. The woman on the horse had fired it. The clamour in the room stilled, and all eyes
turned to her. She sat straight on her horse, and spoke directly to the Khan, in rapid-fire Mongol. For his part he replied angrily. Their two voices filled the room.

Uzzia murmured, ‘She says she is Kokachin, called the Wind-Rider. He says he knows who she is; she is a niece gone to the bad. (Not a niece – something like that.) She says he has
shown his weakness by allowing the brutes from the steppe to penetrate the empire. He tried to buy them off, it seemed; it did not work. He says matters of state are not hers to judge. She says her
own father was disinherited by the Khan’s father, who was a camel turd. (A Khan cannot accept such insults! Ah, that’s the nub of it. It’s a family dispute. The descendants of
Genghis Khan are as numerous and as disputatious as the royal family of New Hattusa.) The Khan is offering a conference to settle it. (That’s what the Mongols do, the clans gather on the
steppe and talk it out.) She says the time for talking to the likes of him is over. He is demanding she kowtow—’

‘Look! There is Pyxeas, with Bolghai.’

The two scholars stood together, Pyxeas frail but defiant, Bolghai agitated. The Mongol was clutching the Northlander’s sleeve, as if for protection.

‘Come.’ Uzzia slipped through the crowd towards them.

By the time they reached the scholars the Khan and his niece were shrieking at each other, and their followers were growing restive, their voices a rumble. Bolghai was murmuring to himself,
distracted. Pyxeas was dismissive. ‘What a scene! What savages these fellows are, under the veneer of civilisation they stole from their Cathay subjects.’

‘That’s as may be, scholar,’ Uzzia said, ‘but a small war is about to erupt in this room, and we don’t want any part of it. We are going to get out of here, and
fast.’ She pointed. ‘That door.’

Avatak nodded. ‘Why that one?’

‘Because it’s the quickest way to the city’s south gates. We have the
paiza.
If we move fast enough, maybe we can beat the spread of the bad news from Daidu.’

‘And then?’

She was distracted by the gathering row, tense, nervous herself. ‘It’s always “and then” with you, isn’t it, Coldlander? And then we will get out of this insane
place and find a way to get the two of you home.’

Kokachin jumped up onto the back of her pony. Standing straight on the stolid beast, she called out, waving her bow in the air.

‘ “To me, to me,” ’ translated Uzzia. ‘ “To me, my cousins!” This is it. Now the barons and the rest of the Mongols have to choose, Khan or
challenger.’

Bolghai hid his face in his hands. Then he straightened up, looked regretfully at Pyxeas, and walked towards Kokachin on her horse. He had made his choice, Avatak realised; at heart he was a
Mongol like the rest.

The fighting erupted. It broke out across the whole room, all at once, as if somebody had given a signal. Suddenly there were struggling figures everywhere, screams, and blood splashed on the
rich carpets.

And a warrior took a measured stride towards Bolghai, swung an axe, and beheaded the scholar with a single stroke.

‘No!’ Pyxeas rushed forward, but Avatak held him back. ‘No, no! That such a scholar, such a mind, should be destroyed like this—’

Uzzia held his shoulder. ‘He was a Mongol, and he died a warrior’s death. His children will laud him for it. Come now, we must go—’ She grunted, staggered, her eyes
wide.

Avatak said, ‘Uzzia? Are you all right?’

She straightened up, determined. ‘Go, go! Get Pyxeas out of here.’

So they hurried for the door, Avatak using his broad shoulders to push through the crowd. Once out, Uzzia led them through the network of corridors and rooms. Warriors and courtiers ran both
ways in the corridors, drawn by the clamour of the battle in the great hall, or fleeing from it. And Avatak started to hear the rumour, spread in a dozen languages, some of which he understood:
‘He is dead! The Great Khan is dead! Buyantu slain, and so is the she-wolf who challenged him . . .’

They reached the gate in the palace wall. Already small battles were breaking out in the city beyond. And now they were out in the open air, Avatak noticed for the first time the short Mongol
arrow that stuck out of Uzzia’s shoulder.

The travellers left Daido almost as lightly equipped as when they had arrived. They used some of Uzzia’s money, Mongol scrip acquired by selling her own gems and gifts
from the court, to purchase a small cart and three horses. Even Pyxeas had sensed trouble coming; he had already packed up the essentials of his work with Bolghai in a trunk, along with personal
effects.

Before noon on the day of the rebellion they were already out of the city and heading down along the road they had just travelled, south towards the Khan’s hunting grounds once more. Uzzia
drove the cart behind two of the horses, with Pyxeas and their gear. Avatak rode the spare horse. He wondered what would become of the mule, and wished he had had time to say goodbye.

Only when they were well clear of the city would Uzzia permit a stop so Avatak could treat her wounded shoulder. Pyxeas remained in the cart, sipping sullenly on a skin of wine. He had barely
spoken since the death of Bolghai; he seemed in deep shock.

Avatak plucked out the arrow, making Uzzia wince. She said she was lucky; it had not penetrated deep enough for the barbs to dig into her flesh. But she warned him against touching the
arrowhead, or the brown stuff smeared on it. She loosened her tunic, and let Avatak dab cleansing unguents on her broken flesh with scraps of cloth. The medicine’s scent made his nose
wrinkle. The wound was not deep, did not need stitching, and the blood was already clotted. But there was a patch of discoloration around the wound, not purple like a bruise but an ugly, faintly
green colour.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Uzzia said when he described this. She pulled up her tunic. ‘We must get on. The sooner we can put some distance between us and Daidu the
better.’

‘Heading south.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why not west? That’s the way we came – the way back home.’

‘But we can’t go back that way.’ She sighed. ‘Look at Pyxeas, Avatak. Do you imagine he could stand another journey like that? Even if it could be made at all, after
another year of his longwinter!’

‘South, then. How?’

‘By ship. We’re heading for a port called Quinsai, a few days’ ride from here. There we’ll find a ship. You’ll sail home in comfort.’ She wiped sweat from her
brow, though the air was far from warm. ‘You’ll like Quinsai. It’s just like Hantilios.’

So they hurried on.

Beyond the Khan’s hunting grounds the country changed, becoming more dominated by farmland, and Avatak stared out curiously at wide flooded fields where the people waded amid their crops
of rice. Towards the end of the day they found a way station, deep in the old heartland of Cathay, a handsome wooden building with dry, comfortable rooms. Avatak thought they would not have stopped
at all if Uzzia had had her way. But they had to rest the horses, and they were all exhausted; even before the rebellion Uzzia and Avatak had ridden through a day and night with the Khan. So they
stayed the night. They were served country food of rice, meat, freshwater fish and molluscs – delicious, at least compared to the over-elaborate concoctions of the Mongol city to the north.
Avatak concluded that the Mongols had poorer tastes than their subjects.

Pyxeas barely ate. He did as he was asked, he looked after his own personal needs. But he seemed to have withdrawn deep within himself, to a place where, perhaps, he felt safe. Uzzia grew
weaker. She would not let Avatak look at her wound again. But she was pasty, pale, sweating.

She roused them all at dawn, and drove them on.

Thus was the pattern of their days, until, ill, bedraggled, withdrawn, bewildered, they arrived at Quinsai.

They found rooms on the outskirts of the city, for an exorbitant rent, and they got a lousy price when they tried to sell their horses. Avatak concluded that despite their
haste the rumours about the Khan’s fate had reached this city, and things were falling apart. Uzzia disappeared to find a ship. Pyxeas withdrew to his bed in the rented room.

Avatak cautiously explored Quinsai.

Yes, it was like Hantilios, as Uzzia had promised, but so overwhelmingly larger in scale it made comparisons with that city seem specious. Like Hantilios, Quinsai was built on a lagoon strewn
with islands. Canals ran everywhere, crowded with waterborne traffic and crossed by many bridges. These canals were straight and clean, with none of the fetid stink of Hantilios. A freshwater lake
embraced one side of the city, and a river to the other side kept the canals clean of stale water.

The city itself was an artificial landscape of wide squares, and broad, straight streets paved with baked brick, and magnificent houses, most of them built of wood. There were pavilions,
temples, palaces. Every day the great squares were full of market stalls where you could buy foodstuffs, clothing, heaps of shoes and bales of silk and wool, racks of jewellery – and full of
crowds, Cathay and Mongols and many others, Persian, Muslim, Carthaginian, Rus, even Northlanders, and exotic folk Avatak had never seen before, perhaps from further east. And full, too, of
entertainers, jugglers and magicians and acrobats. Avatak heard a rumour of a man who had trained a
fish
to wear a hat and perform various tricks, but never saw him.

Far though he walked in his brief time in Quinsai, Avatak knew he did not get a sense of its true scale. He suspected that a western city like Hantilios could be lost without trace here.

‘Of course it is beautiful,’ Pyxeas whispered when Avatak described all this in the evening. ‘A beautiful and ancient city built by a beautiful and ancient people. This is how
Cathay was, before the Mongols came along to build their temples to vulgarity and greed, like Daidu. And of course it is crowded. We are a good way south of Daidu – that much further south of
the eventual march of the ice. This place will not be spared –
nowhere
will be spared – but comparatively, Quinsai may prosper, and so people will flock here like migrating
birds. But this is an occupied city despite its beauty, as you can tell from the number of soldiers on the streets – Mongols all, I’ll wager.’ And he fell silent again, retreating
inward to his own inner mesh of calculation.