"I thought all of you sat in your temple and meditated," Bayalun commented, brushing a wisp of hair from her eyes. The shaman to Koja's right broke into a fit of coughing. Bayalun pursed her lips and waited until he was done. "If you are a teacher, you must stay and instruct me in the ways of your temple."
Koja swallowed uncomfortably, unwilling to offend the second empress with a direct refusal. He was not here, however, to teach, even if it might spread the belief of Furo to these nonbelievers. "I will certainly be happy to teach you of our ways while I am here, illustrious empress, but I must carry messages back to my prince in Khazari." He bowed slightly as he spoke.
"I understand," Bayalun said, relenting. She leaned back with a sigh, stroking her eyebrows carefully. Koja detected a note of disappointment in her voice. "So when you summon him, does Furo lay waste to your enemies?"
Koja started at the boldness of the question. "It is said, Mother Bayalun, that he is both wondrous and terrible, but we do not summon him. We live to serve our god, not to have him come at our beck and call." A tone of chastisement unavoidably crept into the lama's voice.
"I see," said Mother Bayalun, turning away from Koja. "At this time the interview is over. It is our misfortune that you are unable to stay and instruct us. But I am sure your pressing duties need your attention. You may leave." Koja bit at the inside of his lip, frustrated by his own indiscretion.
The chamberlain came forward and touched Koja on the shoulder, motioning the priest to rise. Koja hoisted himself to his feet and backed out of the tent, bowing as he went. The priest, bewildered by the strange meeting, was led back to his waiting horse. Only one man from his original escort remained. The two of them rode back toward his tent, once again following the roundabout way they had taken earlier.
"Why do we go this way? It is shorter that way," Koja said, pointing along a route that would lead them past the front of the royal enclosure and Yamun's bodyguard.
"Orders."
"Oh," the lama answered. The white-kalated guard trotted his shaggy-maned horse forward, expecting the priest to follow along.
Koja, inattentive to his riding, urged his horse forward, giving it what he thought was a gentle kick. The mare set off at a full gallop. Koja was slammed forward into his saddle and then toppled backward, barely keeping his hold, as the horse leaped over a cooking fire. The lama only had time to glimpse a flash of startled faces. Panicked, he dropped the reins and used both hands to cling to the saddle arch. There was another hard jolt, and his feet flew from the stirrups.
"Haii!" shouted the guard, wheeling his horse around to pursue. The man leaned forward onto the neck of his pony, slashing its haunches with his three-thonged knout. "Haii! Haii!" he cried, trying to warn everyone out of his path. The guard could see Koja bouncing and tumbling about on his saddle, feet flying in the air.
"Stop! Stop!" Koja screamed to his horse as it took a tight turn past an oxcart. He managed to knot one hand into the pony's mane while his other arm flailed about. The horse's hooves clattered and thundered, pounding over the icy ground and meager grass. Koja tossed to the right, lurched forward, cracked his spine in a hard jolt against the saddle, then felt his legs fly backward, almost up over his head. The wind whipped at his robes as the pony galloped onward.
From behind Koja there was a chorus of shouts, cries, and yells. Suddenly, a man's scream came from in front of him. The horse answered the scream and reared, almost throwing Koja off its back. The mare's breath was labored, coming in snorting pants. There was a sharp crack as its hooves hit the ground.
The jolt snapped the priest forward, flipping his body over the front of the saddle, one hand still tangled in the mare's mane. In an instant, Koja slammed to the ground, thrown completely over the head of the panting steed, a hank of mane in his hand. As he hit, Koja's head struck a stone.
"Haii-haii-hai," the breathless guard hoarsely shouted as he leaped from the saddle of his still-moving steed. He sprinted over to where the runaway horse pranced. Under its hooves was the priest, a huddled form of tangled robes. From the nearby tents ran the black-garbed men of the khahan's guard.
* * * * *
Yamun paced back and forth along the dusty streambed; it was the only action that could contain his frustration and anger. Several times he stopped to slash an offending tuft of grass with his bloodstained knout. At one end of his pace was the guardsman of the second empress, Koja's escort, spread-eagled on the ground. The man lay staked out on his back, his head pressed into the dirt by a cangue, a heavy, Y-shaped yoke that was lashed to his neck by twisted thongs. The guardsman had been stripped naked and was bleeding from several lash marks.
At the other end of Yamun's stride was a pallet bearing the unconscious priest. Huddled around him were three shamans, wearing their ritual masks. A piece of white cloth, set with a silver bowl of milk and bloody sheep bones, was spread at the head of the pallet. Encircling everyone was a wall of Kashik dayguards, their backs turned so that they faced away from Yamun and the shamans, forming a living wall. A strong wind whipped their kalats about their legs. In the distance, the smoke of Quaraband curled over the dim shapes of the tents.
Yamun stopped at the prisoner. "Why did old Bayalun summon the Khazari?" he demanded, towering over the bound man.
The prisoner, choking from a parched throat, barely gurgled a reply. Infuriated, Yamun whipped him with the knout, leaving more bloody wounds.
"Why did she summon him?"
"I—I—don't know," the guardsman rasped out.
"What did they talk about?"
The guard gasped as Yamun struck him again. "I did not hear!"
Disgusted, Yamun strode to the other end of the little compound, where the shamans worked. "Will he live?"
"It is very difficult, Great Prince," spoke one of the three. He wore a crow mask, and his thin, creaky voice echoed hollowly from it. Horse-mask and Bear-mask kept to their work.
"I don't care. Give me an answer," Yamun snapped.
"His gods are different from ours, Khahan. It is hard to know if our healing spells will have power over him. We can only try."
Yamun grunted. "Then you'd better try very hard." He turned to resume his pacing.
The wall of Kashik parted to allow a mounted rider to enter. The man, a commander of a minghan in the Kashik, slid quickly off his horse, ran to Yamun, and knelt before the khahan.
"Get up and report," Yamun ordered.
"I come from the tents of the Mother Bayalun, as you ordered, Great Lord."
"And what did she have to say?"
"Mother Bayalun says she only wanted to learn more of the world," the officer quickly answered as he looked toward the prisoner on the ground.
Yamun gripped his knout with both hands. "And what's her excuse for the guards?"
"According to her, the orders she gave were not followed. She commanded the guards to escort the priest to and from his tent, and to make sure that he was not hurt," the commander explained. "She ordered an arban of men to go as escort, but they did not obey her orders."
"Then you must ride back and tell her to choose a punishment for the nine that deserted their posts," Yamun ordered. He impatiently scuffed at the ground with his toe.
"She has anticipated your desire and has already given her judgment. They are to be sewn into the skins of oxen and sunk into the river, as is by custom."