The road grew more rugged less than an hour out of Khanbaliq. Tall trees shaded the road as it began to wind up the slope of the foothills. Two riders passed them on the way south, as did one large wagon full of firewood, but traffic was light.
On the road itself, the ground was dry and dusty. Many hooves, wheels, and feet had left their imprints, but to Steve’s eye, a few fresh tracks of horses and wheels overlaid the older ones. They had been left by the people who had most recently preceded them. He assumed that some of the tracks had been made by the Polos; he hoped that at least one set were MC 5’s. If the team was on the track of MC 5 already, this mission could be really short.
At intervals, Steve offered the buns and a quick drink of water to the others. In order to close the gap between themselves and the people ahead of them, they stayed in the saddle and kept moving.
The air grew cooler as they rode higher into the mountains. Late in the afternoon, Steve paused to put on the long coat he had bought; Marcia and Jane decided to wear theirs, too. The shade of either the trees or the mountains covered them most of the time at this hour.
Finally they rounded a bend and came to an inn. Steve dismounted and asked if any foreigners had stopped for the night; in exchange for a coin, the innkeeper told him that none had. The team rode on.
A much larger inn lay a short distance up the road from the first one. Steve decided that the two inns had been been positioned about a day’s ride from both Khanbaliq and the Great Wall. Night was falling quickly now, and the air at this altitude was chilly. He reined in and turned to Hunter.
“See the stable here? This inn has quite a few guests. And it’s getting cold pretty fast. I think we should spend the night here, whether the Polos are inside or not. If they found another inn up the road, we can start early tomorrow morning and try to catch them on the road.”
“I agree,” said Hunter.
“I’ll be glad to quit riding for the day,” said Jane, “Marcia, how are you?”
Marcia started to dismount, then paused with a grimace. “I think I need help getting down.”
Hunter dismounted quickly and reached up to lift her off. He gently set her on her feet. “Are you injured?”
“No. Just sore.”
A hostler came out of the stable and Steve arranged for him to take care of the horses. Then they went inside the inn. Entering last, Marcia walked stiffly but without help.
Inside the door, Steve found a large room with a fire roaring in a stone fireplace set into the opposite wall. People were seated around several tables near the fire, eating and drinking. To the left of the door, a slender man with gray hair looked up from the counter where he was carefully writing with a narrow brush.
Steve identified himself again as a scholar seeking an appointment. He requested two rooms for the team as two married couples. The innkeeper took them up to the second floor and showed them the rooms, which were across the hall from each other. They were small but clean and tidy.
Each room had two beds, a large pitcher of water, wash basins, and a chamber pot. Steve glanced at each of his companions; they all nodded. Hunter paid for the rooms.
Then Hunter remembered the group of people sitting near the fire. “Do you have any foreign guests tonight?”
“Foreign guests? No, sir. Not tonight.”
“Are all your guests right here?”
“No. A few have finished their dinners already and gone to their rooms.”
“I see. Are there other inns nearby?”
“One small inn lies south of here a short distance. The lodgings there are not nearly as comfortable as ours, however, and-”
“We saw it on the way. Are there others?”
“Not within half a day’s ride.”
“All right. We will be right down in a minute to have dinner for four.”
The innkeeper bowed and went back downstairs.
“I’ll just leave the bag of clothes up here,” said Steve. He tossed it onto one of the beds. “Let’s go get some hot food. I’m starved.”
8
As they descended the stairs, Steve glanced over the other travelers seated at the tables. He had no idea what their clothing signified, except that all of the other patrons appeared fairly well-to-do. Certainly none of them were peasants.
Steve found an empty table in the comer. The other patrons had taken tables closer to the fire. In a moment, the innkeeper hurried out to bring them a pot of tea and teacups, pouring for all of them.
“Are all of these people Chinese?” Jane asked. “Or are some of them Mongols?”
“I don’t see any Turks in this group,” Steve said with a grin. “At least I can tell that much.”
“I would say by their clothing that they are all Chinese,” Marcia said quietly. “Here along the border, a lot of genetic mixing has taken place over the years, so you can’t really tell by personal appearance.”
Steve inclined his head toward a couple of men who wore swords in scabbards at their belts. “Soldiers?”
“Yes,” said Marcia. “But they’re Chinese soldiers in the army of the Chinese empire, not Mongols.”
“What about the others?” Hunter asked. “How much can you tell from their appearance?”
“The three men in plain black silk robes are probably government scholars,” said Marcia. “Or the youngest one might still be a student. The men in the colorful silk robes with all the embroidery are most likely rich merchants.”
“I know we’ve talked about it before, but I feel so much safer in this society than I did on our other missions,” said Jane. “Even in a place like this. In Port Royal, an inn like this would have been full of buccaneers ready to fight at a moment’s notice. Here I feel that we can just eat dinner and go to sleep.”
“And those dinosaurs won’t show up to trample us, either.” Steve laughed.
“It fascinates me,” said Marcia. “After so many years studying this era-”
“You just can’t believe you’re really here,” Steve finished for her.
“Well, yes,” Marcia said stiffly, glaring at him. “something wrong with that?”
“Of course not,” said Jane. “It’s just that all the historians we’ve worked with said something like that at one time or another. But I know you mean it.”
“Take this inn for instance,” said Marcia, turning to Jane. “Many Chinese folktales are set at roadside inns just like this one.”
“Really?” Jane asked, sipping her tea.
“Some were fairy tales about ghosts, spirits, and monsters; others told of mysterious disappearances.” Marcia smiled. “I guess these inns weren’t completely safe.”
“The people in those stories didn’t have positronic robots guarding them under the First Law,” said Steve.
Stiff and uncomfortable, Wayne sat in an old, worn saddle on a weary horse, with Ishihara riding behind him on their mount’s bare rump. Their peasant friends had somehow bought the horse for them and the saddle and bridle, as well. They were following Hunter’s team on the road north out of Khanbaliq. When Hunter’s team had first bought their horses, Xiao Li had hidden nearby and watched.
Ishihara had suggested that they let Hunter and his team leave Khanbaliq while they stayed behind to look for MC 5 in the city. However, Wayne had insisted that this kind of logic had ruined his plans before. As soon as Hunter found out that the Polos had not taken the road north, he would come right back. This time, Wayne wanted to sabotage Hunter’s team more thoroughly, but he did not know how yet.
The peasants had volunteered to come with them, wanting to earn the goodwill of the spirits they had befriended. Ishihara would not allow it, feeling that a trip of that length would be too disruptive to the village. Wayne wanted their help, but he understood that arguing with Ishihara over this particular interpretation of the First Law was a waste of time.
In the end, Wayne and Ishihara had hidden with Xiao Li to watch Hunter’s team ride out of the city. After that, Wayne and Ishihara had waited for Hunter’s team to get a head start before following them. They did not want to risk being seen. Ishihara tracked them, instead.