Silk Road (61 page)

Qaidu stood at the doorway of his yurt, Khutelun beside him. Nothing moved in that black and terrible cold.

‘He made his escape?’ Qaidu asked her.

‘He has a horse and provisions and furs. And he is a man of many resources.’

‘Indeed,’ Qaidu murmured. ‘What about the guard?’

‘He has recovered, though I fear he will bear the scar for the rest of his life as testament to his carelessness.’

‘I should punish him, or some will suspect I had a hand in this.’

The vapours of their breath drifted on the wind.

‘I shall curse the day he ever found his way to the Fergana Valley,’ he said.

The silence was uneasy testament to his daughter’s feelings.

‘If he had been a Person and not a barbarian, you would have married him?’

‘He was a man.’

‘I concede he had courage,’ Qaidu grunted. ‘But then one may find courage in a horse also.’

‘I had a dream last night,’ Khutelun said.

‘What was in your dream?’

‘I dreamed that I saw him again.’

‘It is impossible.’

‘It was my dream.’

Qaidu shook his head. It would not do. He could not have her moon-eyed for a barbarian. ‘You did the best thing for the clan,’ he said. ‘Now you must forget this ever happened.’

As if she ever could.

L
ATE SUMMER IN
Kashgar and the streets were filled with dust and flies, black swarms that crawled over the sheep’s heads and fatty lungs for sale in the street. Tajiks with beards like fine wire and slant-eyed Kirghiz cracked sunflower seeds between their teeth as they swaggered through the bazaars, or lolled on wooden divans in the
chai-khanas
, sipping green tea spiced with cinnamon from cracked china pots.

The market stalls groaned under the weight of the late harvest: peaches, watermelons and figs, melons, grapes and pomegranates. The alleyways were ankle deep in melon rind. But with the fruits of summer came the harbingers of winter. Donkey carts clattered through the dusty streets, loaded with bundles of twigs and logs, fuel for the fires.

There was snow already in the foothills below the Roof of the World.

Josseran opened his eyes. He was aware of a pulsing ache in his shoulder, a searing pain in his skull. His mouth was gummy and dry. As he came awake his nostrils twitched at the aromas filtering into the room: fresh-baked flat bread, charcoal, roasting meats; all the familiar smells of the bazaar.

‘So,’ a voice said, ‘you are alive.’

A face swam into his vision. William. He tried to speak but no sound came. William raised his head and brought a cup of water to his lips. It was ice cold and tasted to Josseran as delicious as wine.

‘Where . . . am I?’

‘You are not in heaven, if that is what you were expecting.’

‘When I saw you . . . I knew assuredly it was not heaven.’ He was lying on a thick bed of carpets. It was a
khang
, a raised brick platform heated from below by a fire, and soothingly warm on his back.

‘Where am I?’

‘We are in the fort at Kashgar. You were brought here three days ago by Tajik tribesmen. They found you half-delirious and wandering in the mountains on a Tatar horse. You have two wounds to your head and an arrow wound in your shoulder that was greatly inflamed. However, it is now mending, no thanks to these Tatars. They wanted to send in their filthy shamans to practise their sorcery on you but I dissuaded them. I said prayers for your benighted soul and I bled you. I believe my physic and God’s grace has made you well again.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Do not thank me. Now I am no longer in your debt.’ William stood up. ‘You should give thanks to God for your deliverance. I thought not to see you again.’

‘That would have disturbed you very greatly?’

William leaned closer. ‘What happened in those mountains, Templar?’

‘When my captors saw the
paizah
and learned I was a Christian ambassador with the sanction of Khubilai, they released me. They have great regard for the lives of envoys in these parts.’

‘Then where is the
paizah
?’

‘I must have dropped it.’

‘Who were they?’

‘Bandits. They attacked us hoping for profit, nothing more.’

‘I thought I saw the witch among them.’ William said.

Josseran shook his head. ‘You were mistaken,’ he said and turned his face to the window. ‘Sartaq and his Tatars have treated you well?’

‘He has not cut my throat and boiled my innards for his supper and for that I give thanks to God.’

‘I feared you had moved on to Khotan or Osh.’

‘After the ambush Sartaq ordered us to return to the fort. Since then we have remained here, behind these walls, but I have no idea why. Perhaps it was to await your safe return. Since these people cannot speak the language of civilized men and only gibber like monkeys, it is impossible for me to know. Sartaq wishes to speak with you, by the way, as soon as you are recovered.’

‘I am tired. I will see him tomorrow. For now I just need to sleep.’

‘Then I shall leave you.’ William paused at the door. ‘When they brought you here you were in a delirium. You babbled like a child.’

‘What did I say?’

‘It was something about your father,’ he said. He went out, the heavy door shutting behind him.

It was not until the next day, when Josseran was recovered enough to receive a visit from Sartaq, that he learned the real reason the Tatars had returned to the fort. After the ambush Sartaq had sent a message to Bukhara, asking the regent of the Chaghadai khanate, Organa, to reinforce his escort. While he waited at Kashgar for a response, he received a message on the
yam
that Organa had been deposed by Ariq Böke’s ally, Alghu, and was given orders from Khubilai himself to remain where he was until the situation was resolved.’

‘So who laid the ambush, Barbarian? Whose soldiers were they?’ When Josseran hesitated, he answered for himself: ‘Qaidu sent them.’

‘Yes.’

‘What happened to the others who were taken with you?’

‘They were executed.’

‘Did they die well?’

Josseran wondered how he should answer him. Would a Tatar consider boiling a good death? ‘They were beheaded. It was quick.’

‘You are sure?’

‘I saw it with my own eyes.’

Sartaq seemed relieved. ‘That is at least a blessing. Dai Sechen,’ he said, using Drunken Man’s real name, ‘was my brother-in-law.’

‘He died like a man,’ Josseran said and looked away. It was kinder than telling him they had made soup out of him. It was a falsehood, but then there were some truths it was better not to know.

Kashgar to Bukhara
in the year of the Hejira 638, and the year
of the Incarnation of our Lord 1261

T
HE CRISIS IN
the Chaghadai khanate had trapped them in Kashgar for the winter. Now Sartaq told them it might be years before they were able to safely cross the Roof of the World. But arrow riders of the
yam
continued to appear at the fort almost every day on their way to and from the east. It was not difficult to imagine the plotting now taking place in Qaraqorum and Shang-tu.

One day Sartaq confided to Josseran that the Son of Heaven had found a way around the impasse. ‘There is a caravan on its way to Bukhara from Ta-tu,’ he said. ‘Alghu has promised to send soldiers as escort. We will join the caravan when it reaches here. But we will have to wait until spring to cross the Roof of the World.’

‘So Khubilai has reached an accommodation with the Chaghadai khan?’

‘In secret.’

‘What is in the caravan? Gold?’

Sartaq smiled. ‘Gold can be spent. It is a woman. One of the Emperor’s daughters is to marry Alghu. A judicious alliance, for it will ensure harmony between the house of the Emperor and that of the Chaghadai khanate.’

‘What is the princess’s name?’ Josseran asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.

‘It is Miao-yen,’ Sartaq told him. ‘Princess Miao-yen.’

To the north the mountains, barrier to new and undiscovered lands; to the west the medinas and murmuring poplars of Samarkand and Bukhara; to the east the pavilions and rustling bamboo of Cathay; to the south the howling winds of the
Taklimakan. And here, at Kashgar, crossroads of the Silk Road, the paths of his life converged.