Everything Under the Heavens (Silk and Song) (27 page)

The baron looked at Jaufre, who nodded. The baron said, “But Wu Li lived beyond his accident, did he not?”

“He did, my lord. Too long, as it happened, because Gokudo and Dai Fang grew impatient, and smothered him in his bed.”

Gokudo had managed to work his gag free. “Bitch! No one will believe your whore’s words!”

“As attested to by my aunt,” Johanna said steadily.

The baron looked at Shasha, who nodded in turn.

A murmur ran through the crowd, soldiers and merchants alike. Wu Li was well known to the Road, and those who traveled thereon. The baron suppressed a sigh. “So it is death you ask for, Wu Li’ s daughter?”

“It is death I am owed,” she said. “And not just any death.”

“Oh god, Johanna, no,” Jaufre said beneath his breath. Next to him Shasha closed her eyes and shook her head. Félicien looked at Firas, whose countenance was more than ordinarily mask-like.

“Give him the death of the carpet, lord,” Johanna said clearly, raising her voice so that it could be heard.

There was an immediate tumult, not least of which came from Gokudo, who called her names until at a gesture from the baron one of his guards gagged him again.

The baron in turn rose to his feet. “It shall be so,” he said, and the crowd, pausing only long enough to hear the words, shouted their approval, over and over again.

There wasn’t a great deal of ceremony to it, and no waiting period. Gokudo was hustled to a flat space beyond the camp. Mongol soldiers mounted their horses and formed two lines with a clear lane between. A carpet was brought, the very carpet that had supported the baron’s couch. Gokudo, cursing and struggling, was swallowed up by Mongol soldiers and when they saw him again he was rolled into the carpet. All they could see of him was a topknot of black hair.

The carpet was laid between the two rows of horses. The baron stood at one end and raised his arm. Another company of soldiers waited at the other end of the lane. When the baron’s arm fell, they kicked their horses into a gallop. They thundered down the lane and over the rolled carpet. The noise was so loud from the crowd and the soldiers that nothing could be heard from inside the carpet, although Jaufre would have sworn he heard the man scream.

The baron’s arm raised and fell again, and again the company of horses thundered down the lane and over the carpet. Again, the arm fell, and again the horses galloped, and again, and again. Red began to seep through the carpet, and they paused to unroll it to see if Gokudo was dead. He was unrecognizable by now, a mess of blood and splintered bone wrapped in a mass of quilted black cloth, but unbelievably the blood pulsing from many wounds indicated that he was indeed still alive.

Ogodei shouted something and his soldiers cheered and banged their bows against their shields. Two held open Gokudo’s mouth and a third rammed it full of horse manure, of which there was by now a plentiful supply. The broken body jerked in a horrible, boneless struggle. They rolled him back into the carpet and thundered the horses over him another three times.

This time when they unrolled the carpet he was definitely dead.

The baron beckoned to Johanna, and she marched toward him on stiff legs, her back very straight, her chin very high, her face like stone. She wanted to spit on Gokudo’s remains, but she could not bring herself even to look at him, and her mouth was too dry for spitting anyway. “Lord?”

“Is your call for justice satisfied, Wu Li’s daughter?”

“I have received the justice of the Khan,” Johanna said steadily, “and I am satisfied.”

“And the sheik and his son, Wu Li’s daughter? The samurai’s co-conspirators? They have also gravely offended you. What to them?”

“I leave them to your good judgement, my lord,” Johanna said. “So far as I know they are only thieves.”

The expression on the sheik’s face indicated that he did not view her words as a compliment, but he said nothing, and he stopped his son from speaking as well. He’d had dealings with Mongols before this, and he knew how little the Mongols wished for trouble with the Persians. They had other fish to fry.

“Thievery,” Ogodei said pensively. “For a first offense, that usually means the sacrifice of the right hand.”

Johanna swallowed hard, and repeated, “I leave their punishment to your good judgement, lord.”

The baron approached her and bent his head so that his lips were next to her ears. “Did no one warn you, Wu Li’s daughter, that vengeance can be as bitter on the tongue as it is sweet?”

By unspoken agreement Johanna and her party took their leave of the rest of the caravan, packing and riding away from that place of horror as quickly as they could. As they were leaving camp Fatima ran up. “Johanna!” She reached up and clasped Johanna’s hand between her own and looked deeply into her eyes. “Thank you,” she said.

Tears stung Johanna’s eyes. “I’m so sorry about Azar,” she said.

“He is avenged,” Fatima said simply, and ran back to her parents.

The trailhead down was reached in less than an hour and Johanna was grateful that it was another narrow trail, so that they would have to go single file and she didn’t have to talk to anyone. She had to stop once to vomit, and Shasha, who was behind her, said nothing.

Johanna wiped her mouth. “You should have told me.”

“Before we left Cambaluc, do you mean? And what would you have done? Killed Gokudo? Killed Dai Fang? Tell, me, Johanna, would we now be a thousand leagues from Cambaluc if you had done so? Or would we be locked in the same dungeon your grandmother died in?”

“You should have told me,” Johanna said fiercely. “I am no longer a child, Shasha. You are no longer allowed to protect me from harsh realities of our lives.”

Shasha threw up her hands in disgust and climbed back on her horse. Johanna grabbed a handful of North Wind’s mane and threw a leg over his broad back, and they moved rapidly down the trail without another word.

That night they made a cold camp beneath the evergreen trees that had reappeared along the trail. No one spoke very much or slept very well.

At noon the next day the sheik and his men materialized out of the forest, surrounding them.

Johanna, too tired to be afraid, said, “Sheik, you are beginning to annoy me.”

“He let you go,” Shasha said. “Ogodei just—let you go?”

Félicien looked frightened and clung tight to his donkey. Hari said in a sterner voice than any of them had heard before, “Your god is named Allah, is he not? Would he approve, I wonder, of your attacking and robbing innocent travelers on the road?”

Firas said nothing and did nothing, sitting immobile on his mount.

The sheik ignored them both. “I will take the horse now.”

Johanna laughed, an edge of hysteria to her voice. “Have you learned nothing, sheik? He will not go with you!”

“And I will take the woman as well,” the sheik said, “since the horse will not go anywhere without her.”

“No, you will not!” Jaufre said, reaching for his sword.

“I am sorry,” Farhad said from beside him, and drove his sword into Jaufre’s back.

He heard Johanna scream. Heard Shasha cry out. Heard Félicien say, “No no no no no!” Heard Hari om.

Felt himself falling.

Twice in two days, he thought.

Johanna, he thought.

And then the black rose up to engulf him and he thought no more.

“You are a samurai, are you not?” the baron said. “More specifically, a ronin, I believe it is called? A samurai who answers to no lord?”

Gokudo, bound hand and foot but demonstrably alive, gave a curt nod. His topknot was missing, as was his quilted armor, leaving him dressed in trousers and a simple tunic.

“I thought so,” the baron said. “We tried invading Cipangu. Twice. You defeated us, both times.” He smiled. “It takes a great warrior to defeat a Mongol army.”

Gokudo, who had been shown the body of the hapless soldier who had been substituted for his own, said through dry lips, “Thank you, my lord.”

“Yes,” the baron said, “indeed, you owe me gratitude for your life. Such a bloodthirsty child she is, the daughter of the honorable Wu Li.”

Gokudo spat out a hate-filled curse and called the ancestry of Wu Li’s daughter into serious question.

The baron strolled forward and leaned down to say in Gokudo’s ear. “The honorable Wu Li of Cambaluc was my very good friend.” He stood straight again and kicked Gokudo once, very hard, between his legs. The guards standing around the inside of the ger laughed heartily.

Gokudo’s mouth opened in a silent scream and he doubled up on the baron’s carpet, scrubbed not entirely clean of blood.

“That is the last time you will insult him in my presence,” the baron said pleasantly, “is that understood?”

Gokudo managed a nod.

“Good. I have no doubt his daughter was perfectly right. Such righteous wrath! She was a torch lit from within. If she were anyone else’s daughter…” He looked down at Gokudo again. “No, you killed him, that much is certain, and your life is forfeit thereby. So is the so honorable Dai Fang’s, if it comes to that. I shall have to see what I can do about that when next I return to Cambaluc.”

The baron sighed. “There is an ineradicable stain on my own character for sparing you, and for sparing the Sheik Mohammed, who conspired with you, and indeed for sacrificing of one of my own men in your place.”

It did not appear as if that stain weighed heavily upon him.

“However.” The baron’s flagon had been refilled and he drank deep. He looked again at the bound man trying not to choke on his own vomit on the floor of the baron’s ger. “It may be that I have a use for you.”

“I cannot return to Cipangu, lord,” Gokudo said, gasping for breath. “I will be slaughtered by my enemies the instant I step foot on shore.”

Ogodei waved this comment away as inconsequential. “You have skills I believe I will find useful in many places,” he said. “Come, get up.”

A nod and Gokudo’s hands and feet were free and he was assisted roughly to his feet, where he stood, swaying. “Thank you, lord,” he said, bowing as deeply as he was able without falling over.

Ogodei nodded, accepting fear and deference as his just due, and smiled. “You are ronin no more,” he said.

“No, my lord,” Gokudo said.

My profound gratitude to Michael Cattagio, reference librarian, retired (not so much). No one has ever been quicker on the draw when I ask for information I need right now.

Thanks also go to freelance editor (and author, see
her Amazon page here
), Laura Anne Gilman, who coped womanfully with a manuscript delayed when I fell off a ladder in my garage and sprained my wrist so badly I couldn’t type for three weeks. That will interfere with the story going forward. I can’t believe I made my deadline. I wouldn’t have but for Laura Anne’s willingness to work nights and weekends. She also brags on Twitter (
@LAGilman
) when she gets to read a new Stabenow book before anyone else.

You know when an author realizes she has reached the ne plus ultra of her profession? When she discovers a cartographer among her fans. Dr. Cherie Northon (and I bet Thom had a hand in it, too), take a bow for the terrific map.

And didya see that magnificent cover art? Gere Donovan Press, people. S’all I’m sayin’.

Balasaga
An historical province of Iran.

Bao
A personal seal. Chinese.

Beda
Bedouin.

The
Silk and Song
Bureau of Weights and Measures
No two nations back in 1322 measured anything the same way, so here for the sake of narrative clarity and my sanity
time
is measured in minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years, and no notice is taken of that error in Julius Caesar’s 45 BC calendar that wouldn’t be corrected until 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.

Travel is measured in
leagues
, about three miles or the distance a man could walk in an hour. Fabric is measured in
ells
from China to England. Smaller lengths are fingers (three-quarters of an inch) and hands (three to four inches).