Raphael risked a glance over his shoulder, blinking as the firelight filled his left eye. Percival had raised his hands, staring at them as if he did not recognize them.
“… but they were my hands,” Percival continued. “I picked up the cup, and I thought it was empty until I looked inside. And that is when I saw the wheels.”
He stopped walking. Forgoing his night vision, Raphael stopped as well, turning to face the other man. “What is it?” he asked, sensing Percival had not yet spoken what was truly on his mind.
Percival raised his head and stared off into the night. He looked with such intensity that Raphael turned his head and tried to spy what Percival saw in the night. There was nothing but darkness beyond the camp, and Raphael shivered.
Percival was staring at something. It was not visible, and Raphael had a suspicion that even were the sun to be overhead, driving every shadow into hiding for a thousand miles, he would still not see what Percival saw.
“I’m going the wrong way,” Percival said softly.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Andreas and Styg stood in the heart of the raucous audience, watching as the dead Livonian was dragged away. The Khan’s man, a ferocious fighter who had beaten considerable odds, had been driven out of the stadium by men with padded sticks. Men who were clearly terrified of the man, even though he was wounded. He had heard stories from the others about the riot that had followed Haakon’s fight, about the demon warrior with the pole-arm who had slain a number of Mongol guards before they had subdued him. Clearly, this man was of the same ilk, and Andreas found it fascinating that the Mongols were so cowed by their prisoner.
But it was more than just the guards’ trepidation toward the captive warrior. There was a restless uneasiness among them as well. Looking at the seething mass that filled the arena, Andreas began to understand the source of the Mongolian unease. They were mobile warriors, used to fighting their wars on horseback, skilled at covering great distances and making war as far away from their homeland as their great mobility permitted them.
Horses were more of a liability than an asset within the confines of a city, or even the close-knit environs of a forest. He recalled his own ride to the arena, through the throngs of the crowds and the narrow alleys. The Mongols were not weak, but they were not in their place of strength. On some level, they were aware of their reduced capabilities, but they couldn’t do anything about it. Onghwe Khan’s degenerate obsession with blood sports kept them here; but every day they remained, their confidence waned a little more. He could see it-plainly now-in how they handled the volatile assets that were at the heart of their leader’s diversion. They’re as much a prisoner as the men they keep caged, Andreas thought, and it’s starting to become apparent to them that they’ve locked themselves inside the cage with those who have every reason to want to do them harm.
Even as this realization struck Andreas, so too did the urgency of this knowledge. While the Mongols still ran the Circus, their control was less absolute. Order in Hunern was precarious now, and the tiniest nudge was probably all that was required to make it slip, to let chaos in, and then devastation would visit Hunern again.
If I’ve noticed this, then others must have as well. Moving quickly through the crowd, Andreas forced his way out of the stands, Styg at his side. He had shown himself at the arena, letting the people take note of his presence, and he had witnessed for himself the type of fighters that the Khan had at his disposal, and now it was time to report back to Rutger.
To say that the situation had ever truly been under control was to lie, but the calm that had settled over Hunern in the wake of this seeming return to routine was a sham. Violence simmered beneath the surface of the city, waiting for the slightest provocation. Waiting to erupt.
“That man,” Styg said, “was amazing. Call it luck, or call it fortune, but I’ve never seen such odds so quickly reversed.”
“He wanted to live,” Andreas said as they reached the stairs and began to descend into the dim tunnel beneath the stands. “The Livonian didn’t understand what happens when you corner a wild beast, no matter how strong his advantage might have seemed.” He paused, and with a touch, brought Styg to a halt as well. “Remember that, Styg. There are few advantages that can’t be tipped when your opponent wants victory more than you do.”
Styg nodded. The implications seemed to chill him.
Arvid and Sakse were waiting with the horses, and with the eagerness of unblooded youth, they wanted to hear about the fight. Andreas let Styg tell the tale, falling slightly behind the three men as they rode out of town. He prayed-fervently and silently-that the Virgin would hold back the waiting deluge of violence just a little longer. Once it started, it would not be controlled or stopped. At best, it could be channeled; if they were lucky, they might be able to turn it in the right direction.
Otherwise, he feared, the Shield-Brethren would be its first victims.
Dietrich punished the pell until the rope suspending the wooden block from the rafters snapped. The wood thudded to the earthen floor, and Dietrich stared at it for a long moment, furious that it had the audacity to lie down on him. Breathing more heavily than his pride wanted to acknowledge, he sheathed his sword and glanced around for something to quench his overwhelming thirst. Something to drown the fury still within him.
His man should have won the fight today. The Khan’s man should have been the one bleeding out in the sand, not his knight. Yet another embarrassing incident for the Livonian order. His knight had been better armed and had worn maille that protected him from the other man’s inferior weapons. But it hadn’t been enough. It hadn’t been nearly enough.
To make matters worse, the fight came on the heels of the meetings with the other militant orders-meetings that had ranged from frostily standoffish to downright disastrous. The other Grandmasters had, as a whole, been indifferent to his charges and his concerns. They all had been circumspect in their language and demeanor, but Dietrich had spent enough time at royal courts to read the unspoken distain and dismissal in their carriages.
No wonder they think I am a fool, he thought. The best man I can field for the arena turns out to be an incompetent corpse.
He had seen the fight from his usual place at the top of the stands, watching his man stumble instead of seizing opportunities. The hatchet in the back should have ended the fight, but instead the heathen bastard had plucked the weapon free and used it against his Livonian opponent. His man had given the enemy his weapon! The whole fight could have only been more embarrassing if the knight had fallen on his weapon and killed himself.
Moreover, he had seen the two Shield-Brethren knights in the audience, and with a creeping, seething certainly, he knew the audience was imagining how the fight would have gone if one of them had been down on the sand. The knights of Petraathen would have been victorious.
The rotting timbers of the old barn did little to keep out the noise of the Livonian compound, and he could hear the din of his soldiers doing their drills. Gritting his teeth, he cursed his current accommodations and how they denied him the slightest solitude. The echo of steel against steel sounded so timorous that each clash fouled his mood even more.