The front steps seemed to be largely taken up by shamans and sorcerers.
At least, Matt assumed they were sorcerers, by the zodiacal signs and alchemical symbols embroidered onto their robes. There were also a fair number of Ahriman’s priests, to judge by the dark blue robes and bulge-cone hats. It bothered him that some of the men were both priests and sorcerers. The shamans were easier to identify—they were still dressed as plainsmen in furs and leather, faces painted or masked with ornate, terrifying leather creations, adorned with feathers and beads. If shamans they were, they were dressed for business.
“I don’t think Prester John lives here anymore,” Matt said slowly.
“Stand aside!” Lakshmi laid a hand on his arm, pulling him out of the way as a squadron of Polovtsi warriors came stamping their way behind a gaudily caparisoned officer.
Matt stepped lightly and quickly to his right.
So did the officer. Matt sidestepped again, and the officer swerved again. Matt decided not to try for the charm and faced the music, or at least the officer.
The barbarian marched up within five feet of him and stamped to a halt; his squadron did, too. “You are not the mere merchants you seem,” he accused. Translation spell or not, his Persian had an atrocious accent.
“Uh, just tourists,” Matt ad-libbed, hoping the spell wouldn’t give him such a horrible lilt. “Wanna see the sights, you know—and that castle sure is a big building.”
“Do not play the fool!” the officer snapped. “You will come with us!”
“You hoped not to be a guest—but I think we have been invited,” Marudin said.
CHAPTER 26
Matt glanced at him and noticed the soldiers had spread out to encircle their little group. Speaking Merovencian, he said, “Why not? We can leave whenever we want to, can’t we?”
“If they keep us together, yes,” Lakshmi told him.
“I’ll stick to you like glue.” Matt glanced surreptitiously at the ground and was glad not to see a little calico cat. “Thanks for your kind invitation, hetman. I was wondering where we were going to sleep tonight.”
Not that they had time for sleep, of course. After the steps, all hundred of them—with Marudin grumbling under his breath about less taxing modes of transportation, and Matt hissing at him not to say that nasty word “tax”—they were ushered down a series of corridors until they stepped into a room elaborately decorated with frescoes and mosaics showing scenes of heroes fighting monsters, and furnished with Chinese lacquer, Russian inlays, and Persian carpets. The hetman brought them before a barbarian seated cross-legged on top of a desk, leafing thoughtfully through the piles of documents around him. He was such a perfect picture of uncouth ignorance of civilized ways that Matt had to suppress a laugh—until the man looked up and met his eyes. Then the laugh stopped, for the eyes were hard, piercing, and shrewd. Matt realized that this was going to be no easy match, that he would have to talk his best to keep this plains-rider from seeing through him.
“I am Tarik, governor of this city,” the official said. “Who are you?”
Matt decided ignorance was the best excuse. He spread his hands, looking lost and shaking his head. “I don’t understand,” he said in Merovencian.
Lakshmi and Marudin looked just as lost, but without having to fake it. Matt thought it interesting that they, who knew so many languages, hadn’t learned Mongol—even Marudin, who had unwillingly been in their service.
Tarik, irked, beckoned a secretary from a desk. The heart-shaped face and golden skin told Matt he was looking at a local, not a conqueror. Again, that sense of familiarity haunted him, but refused identification.
The secretary’s hunched posture and subservient bow said quite eloquently that he was one of the conquered. “What do you wish, Excellency?”
“Tell me what language this outlander speaks,” Tarik commanded.
The secretary turned to Matt—and the quiet competence of his gaze made Matt suspect that he was determined to make the subservience temporary. “Hail, outlander!” he said in Hindi.
Matt shrugged and shook his head, and the secretary tried Persian, Russian, and several other languages that Matt didn’t recognize. When the man hit on Arabic and Lakshmi and Marudin looked up in surprise, Matt decided he had stretched the ruse about as far as it would go. “Hail, Honored Sir,” he said, with a small bow.
“Be welcome in Maracanda,” the secretary said with relief, then turned to Tarik. “They are Arabs, Excellency.”
“Very good,” said Tarik. “Ask them why they have come.”
The secretary turned back to them. “I am Cheruk, secretary to Tarik, the Mongol who sits on the table governing this province.” He managed to keep the contempt out of his voice, but Matt saw it in his eyes. “What brings you to Maracanda?”
“A wandering minstrel I,” Matt ad-libbed, “scratching out a living along the caravan routes by singing for my supper, and seeking to exchange songs for stories and news—but I have seen no caravans since Samarkand, and there were no Mongols in this city when my father brought me here as a boy. What has happened?”
Marudin stared, but Lakshmi gave him an elbow in the ribs. Cheruk noticed and asked, “What of your companions?”
“They are jewel merchants,” Matt explained.
“We have no jewels,” Marudin interrupted. “Bandits fell upon us, and I gave them my diamonds and emeralds so that they would not take my wife.”
“Commendable, I’m sure.” But Cheruk’s look said he didn’t believe it for a minute. He turned back to Matt. “If you are a minstrel, where is your instrument?”
“Oh … uh … the bandits took it,” Matt said lamely.
“What do they say?” Tarik asked.
“That the small one is a minstrel, and the tall one a gem merchant.” Cheruk turned back to his master. “Bandits took the jewels but left him his wife, and took the minstrel’s instrument, too.”
“Perhaps we can find him another,” Tarik said.
Matt’s stomach sank. He might have been able to fake on a guitar, but he’d have been lost on anything else.
“What does he seek here?” the governor continued.
“Money for his singing, and new songs and news,” Cheruk said. “His companions must live off what he can bring, I suppose.”
Marudin and Lakshmi were frowning, unable to follow the dialogue in Mongol, so Matt frowned, too, with apprehension.
“They may ply their trades in the bazaar,” Tarik decided. “What news have they of the lands through which they have traveled?”
By the time Cheruk was done repeating the question, Matt had decided what the governor wanted to hear. “The citizens are happy with the peace and prosperity the gur-khan’s governors have brought, and would not seek freedom if they could.”
“That is not true,” Cheruk said evenly. “Have no fear, none others of these can speak your language. Tell me truly what happens.”
Matt stared a moment, then shifted gears. “Actually, the people of Samarkand are going about warily, and the women are hiding their faces whenever a squadron of barbarians passes, so the Persian veil is becoming very popular. The caravans have had to find a southern route.”
“We have noticed their absence here,” Cheruk said grimly.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Matt pointed out. “What happened here in Maracanda?”
“The armies of the Great Khan conquered us,” the secretary replied, “some fifteen years ago—your father must have left with you shortly before the Mongols attacked.”
“Only the Mongols?” Matt asked in surprise.
“Only them,” Cheruk confirmed. “We were the first city they attacked, since our armies had always held the wild tribes at bay.”