Neal Stephenson - The Mongoliad - Book One

A little lightheaded from the mint oil, Cnán focused on the tiny shantytown nestled between the hill and the river. Several wooden docks sprawled along the water’s edge, and boats were moored to its length by any available means. Makeshift hovels and stalls were arranged in no clear order, seemingly erected wherever two pieces of wood could be leaned together to make the semblance of a wall. The tiny hamlet along the river appeared haphazard and carefree, as if the residents built and crafted what they needed from their surroundings without much worry about permanence or protection from marauders. An attitude, she realized, that wasn’t entirely unexpected in the wake of what the residents had survived. What else could the Mongols do that they had not already done? Killing them might even be a blessing.

Without intending to, Cnán fell into a despondency of memory, and her head filled with the scents and sounds of the burning village where, so long ago, she had lost everything. Somewhat dazed, she swayed in her saddle and would have fallen off her horse had someone not placed a hand on her arm. She turned her head, opening her eyes, and flinched when she saw Yasper’s concerned expression.

Mistaking her reaction, Yasper let go. “Breathe through your mouth,” he said gently. “The scent can be too strong at first. Breathe slowly—not through your nose—until the dizziness passes.” He demonstrated.

“I’m fine,” she said, more curtly than she had intended, and then, “I am sorry, Yasper. You are only trying to help, and I have spoken rudely.”

“It is of no consequence,” he grinned. “These are rude times, and the only true incivility is that which is not recognized as such.”

“Speaking of which…” Rædwulf interrupted, drawing their attention toward a trio of scruffy natives who were approaching their party. To say the three men were dressed would be to call the scraps of cloth and twine and bits of fur that partially covered their gaunt bodies clothing . They shuffled slowly, bent at the waist, their grimy hands raised in supplication. The foremost one, pressed by the other two to be their spokesperson, babbled at them in Ruthenian.

“Cnán,” Feronantus called, “do you ken his words?”

She let her horse wander closer, her head cocked to the side as she tried to follow the man’s discourse. There was a repetition to his cadence that made it a little easier for her to pick out words she knew. “He’s saying the same thing over and over,” she reported. “Something about gifts , I believe. No, tribute .” She interrupted him with a few words of Tartaric.

One of the other two men shrieked and fell to his knees, groveling in the dirt. The spokesperson’s mouth hung open, but words no longer spilled from his blubbering lips.

“Well now,” Yasper opined as he joined Feronantus and Cnán, “that is a mighty invocation. Mayhap you could teach it to the rest of us…”

“I just asked him if he understood what I was saying,” Cnán pointed out.

“In the Mongolian tongue,” Feronantus reckoned. When Cnán nodded, he squinted at the shantytown, looking for movement among the hovels and detritus. “They’re terrified of us,” he said. “But we are clearly not Mongols…”

Off to their right, Istvan snorted noisily, and the attention of the three men darted to the Hungarian. His scowling visage only engendered more fear, and the kneeling one tried to press himself even lower against the ground.

“Finn,” Feronantus called, not taking his eyes off the shantytown. “We are not alone, are we?”

“Aye,” the hunter responded.

Cnán looked around for Finn. He was crouched a ways off, examining the track of the road they were on.

“Horses,” he said, pointing at the dirt. “Shod, like ours. Less than a day ago.”

“The red cross and sword. I thought the Livonians were no more…” was Roger’s response upon recognizing the sigil on the dead knight.

“Hell could not hold them,” Raphael suggested.

“Or simply found their company tedious,” Roger scoffed.

“Whatever their reason for straying into Rus,” Illarion said, “it is gratifying to see that one, at least, found the fate he deserved.”

“Which leads to the question, are there others?” Raphael said. “For this one is comparatively fresh, and the Shield-Maidens—if my guess is correct as to who yonder women are—seem to be expecting more of them.”

The question was an important one and caused all four men to take their eyes from the red cross and sword for the first time since they had seen it. Instinctively they formed up in a loose circle, facing outward, scanning the ruins around them and the jumbled slope below for any signs that they might have been followed. Hands strayed to sword hilts and ax handles. But they saw nothing untoward.

“Brother Raphael speaks correctly,” Percival said, “when he says that we must learn—and soon—whether there are other Livonians nearby. But there are only four pairs of eyes among us. Those eyes are peering through burnt vines and rubble piles over a new and unfamiliar landscape. Behind us, many more eyes, used to this place, scan the city from a better vantage point, and so the quickest way for us to learn the answer is simply to approach the gates, state our business, and ask the Shield-Maidens to share what they know.”

“Good luck with that,” Roger muttered.

“I shall go alone,” said Percival. This was an ultimatum, not a suggestion. Again that light seemed to play about his face. Raphael wished it would stop; it was most unsettling. Perhaps it came from a withdrawal of blood from the knight’s already pale skin.

Percival removed his sword and scabbard and handed them to Roger, then turned about and began walking directly toward the gates that barred their passage through the inmost and highest of all the priory’s walls.

The Shield-Maidens on the battlements above were divided in their response. Nearly all of them were speaking in the local tongue, and so Raphael could not make out what they were saying, but half were merely derisive, while the rest seemed nearly out of their minds with rage. As Percival strode the last hundred paces to the gate, the surrounding rubble heaps suddenly came alive, like a nest of ants disturbed by the blade of a plow, as ordinary persons—mostly wretched sorts, unarmed, not so much clothed as bandaged in improvised swaddlings of gray blankets and rags—scurried out of makeshift shelters that they had erected along the approaches to the priory and abandoned cookfires that they had kindled along the way. Percival turned his head from side to side, observing this curiously, and Raphael sensed from his posture that he was slightly offended by the refugees’ obvious fear of him.

“Are they afraid of Percival?” Roger asked. “Or of what is about to happen to him?”

“Either would suffice to make such people get well clear of the man,” Illarion said.

Percival found himself standing in a clear space before the gates, gazing directly up at the Latin-speaking woman who had addressed him earlier; she was looking down on him through a crenel on the fortification above the portal. Perhaps feeling that it was not the act of a gentleman to go helmed when he addressed a lady whose own helmet was tucked under her arm, he reached up, lifted his own helmet from his head, bent down, and set it on the ground before his feet, then stood up and raised his chin, tossing his hair back away from his face and gazing directly up at his interlocutor.

All of the ladies went silent for a moment.

“Bastard!” Roger muttered.

The Shield-Maidens’ voices were resurgent, not as loud as before, and in a different tone: some of them even more furious, others mock flirting with him, and perhaps a few of them flirting quite sincerely.