“Your opinion matters in all things, Master,” she said, lowering her gaze to her hands. Her fingers were knotted in her lap, and with some effort, she extricated them from one another.
Chucai chuckled. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it does. In some areas, my opinion is all that is required. What I think is best is what is done. And what is done by my command causes ripples. Like a stone dropped into a pond. The frog, thinking it is safe from predators, may suddenly find its protective lily pad disturbed. Removed from beneath it, even.”
“Am I the frog?” she asked.
“Are you?” Chucai raised his hand and mimed dropping a heavy stone. He leaned forward as if he was examining the results of his action.
“Munokhoi fears change,” Chucai said after staring at the results of his imaginary stone. “He does not like being outside the city walls. Too provincial. Too many wild animals, untamed creatures like… ponies.” Chucai laughed. “Yes, our brave Torguud champion is afraid of a young pony.”
The serpent twisted even higher up Lian’s spine. The young pony, she thought, and in thinking of him, was afraid for his safety. And hers, as well.
“What is to become of me?” she heard herself asking.
Chucai raised an eyebrow as he sat back in his chair, running his fingers through his long beard. “What should become of you?” he asked in a somewhat bored tone.
And she knew, in that instant, that Chucai was done with her. The failed escape attempt, the relationship with Gansukh, the threat of Munokhoi: these were all matters he no longer wished to concern himself with, and he had, in fact, realized a simple solution to all three. When she walked out of Chucai’s ger, it would be for the last time.
She should have been more thrilled. Chucai had, in effect, freed her, but where could she go? They were days from Karakorum, and if she tried to ride off again, Munokhoi would relish the opportunity to hunt her down. And Gansukh. Would he follow her? Would he protect her against Munokhoi?
She put her hand over her mouth to stop a half sob, half giggle from escaping. After all these years, what she had yearned for was being offered her, and all she could think of how to reject this freedom. How could she restore her usefulness to Chucai?
At least until the Khagan’s caravan returned to Karakorum.
“The Chinese,” she started, grasping at a fleeting memory from the night of the attack. “While I was being held captive by the Chinese, I heard one of their commanders talking about…”
The Khagan’s advisor remained slumped in his chair, but his fingers were no longer idly stroking his beard. “Go on,” Chucai said carefully.
“He spoke of a sprout, and… and a banner-”
Chucai leaped out of his chair, startling her into silence. He leaned on his desk, looming over her. “What did he say?” Chucai demanded, his voice sharp.
Lian swallowed nervously, her hands fluttering in her lap. The change in Chucai’s demeanor was not what she had expected, and she squirmed under his intense gaze. Her mind raced, trying to recall the conversation between Luo and the other Chinese man. “They… they said they wanted a sprout-that was why they attacked the Khagan’s caravan, but… but they were not able to find it. And so they tried to steal a banner instead.” She sat up, realizing which banner Luo and the other man had been referring to. “The Khagan’s Spirit Banner,” she breathed.
“Hssssst,” Chucai uttered, slamming himself back into his seat.
Lian fell silent. She kept her gaze on her lap, mentally calming her fingers and her breathing. Now was not the time to speak. Whatever she had heard from the Chinese meant something to Master Chucai; it was best to let him tell her, versus her trying to puzzle it out.
For now, at least.
“A sprout,” Chucai said eventually.
Lian let her gaze flick up, but Chucai was staring into the space over her head and did not notice. “Do you know what he was talking about? Have you seen such a twig?” he asked.
Lian shrugged. “A twig, Master? I have seen many twigs.” She felt unduly coy in saying it, but sensed a change in Chucai’s mood. If there was a way she could benefit from this change, she had to try to take advantage of it. “Perhaps you could enlighten me a little more.”
Chucai snorted and shook his head. “You would know it if you had seen it,” he snapped. “I’m not talking about the sort of branch of flowers that Jachin has her handmaidens bring her. This would be…” He waggled his fingers at her, glowering.
Chucai doesn’t know either, she realized. She dropped her gaze so that he couldn’t read her expression. “I have not, Master,” she said. “Though I would be more happy to keep an eye out for it, while I…” She left her sentence unfinished, hoping he would fill it in for her.
“While you what?” Chucai asked, his demeanor returning to its previous stony state.
The panic returned, squeezing her body. She was like the frog, swimming frantically in an enormous pond, with no shelter in sight. No lily pads. Just open water.
“While I… do nothing, Master,” she ended lamely. Her dreams of freedom were nothing more than childish whimsy.
“Exactly,” he replied with finality.
The frog, waiting for the stone to drop.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Tegusgal was not the most physically imposing of men, but there was a quality in his gaze that Dietrich found both refreshing and worthy of a modicum of respect. They sat across from each other in a tent in the Mongol compound, separated by a narrow table on which a small pitcher of airag and two cups sat, both untouched.
To one side stood the priest, Father Pius, a nervous look on his face as he waited to translate for whomever would speak next. His eyes darted between the two dangerous men, looking rather like a mouse caught between two cats.
“Will he take the deal?” Dietrich asked when the silence overtook his patience. The priest turned and spoke rapidly to Tegusgal in the Mongol tongue. As he did, Dietrich loosened the pouch from his belt, laying it on the table with a jingling sound that no man, no matter his creed or homeland, could fail to recognize. The Fratres Militiae Christi Livoniae had lost many things, but its wealth was still in some part preserved, and Dietrich had brought enough coin with him to finesse certain situations.
Tegusgal reached for the leather pouch, loosening the string and digging out a single coin. He held it aloft between callused fingertips, and his eyes were dark and hooded. He flipped the coin and caught it, then said something in his own language.
The priest nodded in his nervous way, then translated. “He wishes to know why.”
Dietrich frowned, suddenly in muddy waters where the stones on which to put one’s feet could not be seen. A clumsy answer could upset everything the coin was about to purchase. Still, the coins were already on the table. It was too late to turn back.
“Because there are times,” Dietrich said, “when a higher purpose must be put before all other things. When honor must be defended, even if doing so seems mad and foolish.”
That was the truth of it. There were other benefits to this arrangement-matters which Tegusgal could ascertain for himself easily enough-but the settling of accounts was of paramount import to Dietrich. His return to Rome would not be coated in shame. His masters would not be able to accuse him of failing in his assignment or speak derisively of his efforts at protecting the honor of his battered order.