Gansukh did not join the crowd in their noisy exclamations. Half were cheering the bravery of the pale youth, while others shouted insults at the burly, black-haired man. He started to smile, and as soon as he realized he was doing so, he twisted his lips into a frown and turned away from the spectacle.
It did not matter that they were prisoners taken from foreign lands conquered by the Mongols. They were still men, and no man should be forced to fight for the entertainment of others. If they had refused to fight, they would have been killed. And what galled him further was a recollection of the wrestling match with Namkhai. He had challenged Namkhai, in fact, and not because he wanted to demonstrate his martial prowess, but because he wanted to get the Khagan’s attention. He was a free man, a warrior of the steppes, and yet, he too had fought for the pleasure of the Khagan. How different was he from those men in their cages?
He had sought to anger Munokhoi-and, judging by the Torguud captain’s clenched fists and stormy expression, he had accomplished as much-but this method was not to his liking.
“Young pony,” the Khagan’s voice drew his attention away from Munokhoi and the gamblers. Gansukh tilted his chin up and looked toward the Khagan’s ger. “The pale-haired one is very fierce. You were right.”
Gansukh inclined his head in acknowledgment.
“Would you fight him?”
Gansukh froze. His guts churned, and with a great deal of caution, he raised his head. “My Khan?” he asked, attempting to keep his face calm.
Ogedei stared at him, his eyes unblinking. “Namkhai said he would, and I wonder if you have the same desire.”
“My desire is whatever my Khagan desires,” Gansukh said, his tongue thick in his mouth. He hated saying the words, but he knew they were what Lian would have wanted him to say. It was the safe response, and here-in the midst of a crowd of warriors and courtiers, it was best to stick to the safe answers. Judging by the expression on a few of the faces in the crowd, he had disappointed them. They had been hoping for another replay of the night where he had challenged the Khagan and given him the cup.
Not tonight.
Ogedei grimaced, and raised his cup, draining the last few gulps of wine within. Ogedei too had hoped for a different answer.
As the Khagan’s attention drifted, Gansukh took several steps to his left. He glanced over his shoulder as he slipped into the crowd’s embrace.
Munokhoi was watching him, a feral smile on his lips.
Gansukh hesitated. I am not a coward, he thought. This spectacle wasn’t to his liking. He was tired. He was simply opting to retire early. He wasn’t running away.
“Bring out more fighters,” the Khagan shouted, and the crowd lustily roared its approval.
Gansukh fled, unable-and unwilling-to enjoy the gladiatorial bloodlust of the crowd. As he hurried through the sea of tents, he imagined he could hear Munokhoi’s mocking laughter ringing in his ears.
He fled back to his ger. And Lian.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I am going the wrong way.
Percival’s words echoed in Raphael’s mind as they completed their widdershins circuit of the company’s camp. The night circle watch had been an excuse on Percival’s part to unburden himself of a portion of the mental weight that he carried, and Raphael struggled with the import of what the Frank had told him. Percival had said I, implying that the vision he had received was his alone. What did that mean for the company? Would Percival depart in the morning, heading back toward the West?
That was the direction he had looked when he had said those words to Raphael. The endless sky of the steppes was disorienting, and it was hard to gauge one’s facing, but Raphael knew-with a shivering realization that made him hug himself-that Percival could feel the Grail. He could point to it the way a lodestone pointed north. As the company continued to ride east, Percival got farther and farther away.
Would his visions become more chaotic-more distracting-the farther he got from the source? Would the wheels-the images that Percival feared were signs of impending death-become more forceful in their apparition? Was his continued presence dooming every member of the company on its quest?
Raphael’s mind fled back to Damietta, to Eptor’s anguish. The boy had suffered greatly, and to what end? Raphael had wondered, in the years since, what would have happened if Eptor had simply died during the assault on the stone tower in the Nile. Would the legate have realized sooner the futility of their crusade? Would Francis of Assisi been able to reach a better accord between Christian and Muslim? How many less would have died during the Fifth Crusade?
And Francis himself, sequestered in the ragged shack at the peak of La Verna, receiving the stigmata. It had happened soon after Raphael’s visit to the Franciscan hermitage, and the venerable priest had died a few years later. But had those marks-those symbols of being marked by God-given Francis any solace in his lifelong quest for compassion and unity?
What good had ever come from listening to visions?
The annals of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae were filled with stories of men receiving divine insight. He had, himself, told more than one fable to eager trainees about the blessings offered to the devoted and the pure-hearted by their patron goddess in whatever guise she wore. Athena. Freya. Mary. The name did not matter as long as the men believed their prayers were heard. Those who asked for guidance would be given it. Their mission-as hard and as unforgiving as it was-was not a fool’s errand. They would be rewarded for their diligence. Their lives-and their deaths, especially-would have meaning.
But what of Finn? Of Roger? Of Taran? Of Eptor, and so many others? Victories were won upon the sacrifices of these men, but was the world ever changed for the better?
Cnan quietly listened as the men told their stories. When she had first joined the company, she had sat apart from them during the evening meals and had ignored the way their conversations stuttered to a halt when she wandered into earshot. After a few months, they had grudgingly accepted her presence and no longer treated her as a complete pariah. She was no longer a stranger at their gatherings, and, more often than not, they ignored her completely. She had become invisible, and she was not bothered by their idle dismissal; in fact, such camouflage was part of her Binder training, though she had not had much opportunity to practice it over the last few years. She was, unlike many of the other kin-sisters she had met, a wanderer.
She knew enough to know that she might never fully comprehend the vastness of her sisterhood, but she also realized that knowing was not required in order to fully participate. Wherever she went, she could find signs of other sisters, and that they would welcome her and whatever news she carried. It was comforting, in her isolation, to know that she was part of an extended family. Over time, in the company of these men, she had come to realize she and they had more in common than she had thought.
The men of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae were both knights and vagabonds. Independent, fiercely loyal, and surprisingly intelligent, they were bound by a set of principles that remained unspoken and mysterious to her. Not like the tenets espoused by the zealous Christian missionaries or the mumbled riddles clung to by starved ascetics she had encountered in her travels. The Shield-Brethren, like her kin-sisters, appeared to believe in a grand design, even if each of them, singularly, did not know the full extent of its shape or plan.