Neal Stephenson - The Mongoliad - Book One

An eddy formed in the mob, and enough space opened that she could see the gates clearly. Her heart sank. A trio of guards stood at stiff attention on each side, and the six men scanned the faces of the crowd coming and going with hawk-like intensity. If she put the hood of her cloak up, she would only draw attention to herself and thusly be remembered.

Chucai’s eyes were everywhere. He would know.

One of the guards looked in her direction and she quickly turned away, her hands tugging at the neck of her cloak—fighting the urge to pull up the hood. Her pulse roared in her ears.

It had been a faint hope that the main gate wouldn’t be well guarded, and she hadn’t been surprised to see the vigilant guards. She had needed to silence that part of her that dreamed of an easy escape. It will be difficult , she thought to herself. I have to be steadfast. Otherwise I might as well confess everything to Chucai. I might as well give up.

There had to be other routes—the palace walls, for one. They were not that high. Gansukh—and the thief—had climbed them that night weeks ago; perhaps she could too. She let the next surge in the crowd carry her back toward the palace, slipping away at the first chance into an alley behind a white-painted stone house.

The celebration faded, the crowd’s cacophony dulling to persistent grumbling, the wild light of the fire pits dimming to pale flickering tongues of light dancing along the edges of the roof tiles. She leaned against the wall of the house, letting her eyes adjust to the shadow-filled alley. It was three times as wide as she, the stones dusty with accumulated sand, and the wall of the house was plain stone, featureless save for small window slits. There was nothing to help her scale the outer wall here, but as she started to explore the alley, she noticed a small handcart resting against the rear wall of the next house over. If she stood on it, she might be able to grip the top of the palace wall.

As she passed the corner of the first house, a man’s boisterous, drunken laughter startled her. She ducked back into the alley and pressed herself against the wall. Once her heart stopped pounding, she sidled up to the corner and peeked around.

There, in a small space between the two houses, squatted a trio of soldiers, rolling knucklebones in the dust and swigging from earthenware bottles. Their faces were weather-beaten and scarred.

One of them glanced in her direction, and she tried to duck back out of sight without being spotted, but she knew, even before she heard him call out to his companions, that she hadn’t been successful. “Don’t be shy ,” one of the men shouted in wine-fueled good fellowship. “Come on over here.” His words were followed by peals of laughter from the others.

Instinct told her to run, but cold, pessimistic reason told her that running would dare them to pursue her. She understood in that instant what men most loved in hunting—the chase. They wanted their prey to flee, to show spirit—to challenge their skill. Their drunken skill…

Her lips curled and she drew in her breath.

Instead of running, she smoothed her robe, pushed her hair back from her face, and stepped boldly out from her hiding place. She walked toward the men, smiling demurely, but making sure to make firm eye contact—glazed and wandering as all their eyes were—with each of them.

“Well, a pretty Chinese doll,” smirked the one who had spotted her. He grinned, yellowed teeth dull in the flickering light.

“What are you doing back here, girl?” asked another. “Something we could assist you with?”

“I was merely taking a shortcut to bypass the crowd,” she said.

“A shortcut? Where to?” The first soldier staggered closer, and she feared he might try to grab her robe.

“It is none of your concern.” She held her chin high, trying to appear haughty and noble.

“Maybe you don’t have any place in mind,” suggested the third soldier, a man who looked and smelled as if he never bathed in his life. “Maybe you should stay with us. Tarry a while. Try your luck with the bones. And my bones…” He wiggled his fingers suggestively and laughed—awful and snorting.

“Come on, doll, stay a while. We’ll treat you good. Have a drink with us.” The second soldier held up one of the reddish-brown bottles. Lian gagged slightly as she imagined what fermented animal sludge might be inside.

“I am not a cheap whore,” she said, offering them the obvious in case they were too drunk to notice. “I belong to a rather august person, one who has the Khagan ’s ear.” She intoned each word carefully. There was a way to extricate herself from this situation, if she could find the right gambit. Wasn’t she always telling Gansukh something similar? There is always a solution to any problem. However, she didn’t want to invoke Chucai’s name; that would be the equivalent of summoning him.

“Do you think the Khagan would be pleased to know you men are not at your posts? That you are gambling in this back alley?” Since she had begun training Gansukh, she found herself starting to think of conversation in terms of combat. It gave her rhetorical victories a certain rousing flair. She snapped the edge of her cloak, as if to suggest their presence was dirtying her, which was not far from the truth.

“Who’s to say that we’re even on duty?” The second soldier stood up, the humor fading from his face. A scar ran across his chin, and without his open-mouthed grin, he was even uglier. His face, with its wandering, half-sunken eyes, looked like the puffed-up visage of a poorly treated corpse.

“I doubt you even know what duty is,” she retorted. A risky response—such flippancy of the tongue—and it might provoke them, but showing fear would invite a response. Half of combat is causing your opponent to think you are stronger than you are , Gansukh had told her.

Scarface’s expression tightened, making his mouth gape even more. “Sharp tongue,” he said, his hand dropping to the hilt of the knife in his sash.

“Sharper than your knife,” she retorted, edging a step backward.

“Shall we see?” the man replied, half pulling his knife from its sheath.

“And then what?” she snapped. “Will you gouge out my eyes so that I won’t be able to point you out later to the Khagan ’s Imperial Guard? Or will you just cut my throat and leave me here for the stray dogs to find?”

The man paused, her words cutting through the alcohol-suffused fog in his brain. His tongue poked at the edge of his lips, like a pale worm peeking out of a ragged crack in the ground. He glanced at his companions, who were no longer supporting him with their laughter.

“I can scream very loud,” Lian said. She made a show of inhaling deeply.

“Run along, bitch,” Scarface spat. He slammed his knife back into its sheath. The others glowered at her, their mood dark, but no longer ugly.

“Very well. I will take my leave of you, then.” She bowed slightly, keeping to her masquerade as a highly regarded companion of an important official. “If I pass this way again tonight, I hope I do not see you here.” She marched off, her steps a firm, rhythmic mince, miming a purpose she did not feel.

“Better you don’t pass this away again,” Scarface shouted after her. “Next time, it will cost you.” The men laughed, prompted by some physical action of Scarface’s, but she didn’t look to see what it was. She had a fairly good idea.

Let them laugh , she thought as she strode away. Let them think they got the better of me. Most importantly, let them not remember me.

The chaos of the festival might make it possible for her to escape, but it had its risks too. An unescorted female might be too much of an allure to drunken men. In the tumult of revelry, it wouldn’t matter if she was seen by someone who would tell Chucai. Much worse things could happen to her.