Chartres, winter, 1325–1326 The forest had given way to rolling fields of stubbled grain. At noon Shasha said, “What’s that?” and they followed her pointing finger to the massive stone spires rising up from the horizon, as if to knock at the very doors of heaven itself. “That would be the cathedral,” Alaric said. Chartres…
Lombardy, summer, 1324 Alaric spat. “Mongols,” he said, the word itself an epithet. “Never trust them.” Jaufre thought of the Mongol Baron Ogodei, and didn’t disagree. “Yes, well, when the Mongols didn’t come, Robert told us it was over.” His smile was wry. “We didn’t believe him, of course.” “Wilmot did,” Alaric said. “But you…
Lombardy, summer, 1324 THEY SOON DISCOVERED that travel in Europe was nothing like travel in Cathay, or in Persia for that matter. The Road was marked by steles built by the Great Khan. Each of the cities along its many routes had clean, well-maintained caravansaries for travelers and their livestock, or at the very least…
Venice, spring, 1324 Both of them turned to see Donata Polo standing there in her luxurious dark robes with not a fold out of place. She was attended on her right by a serving woman who looked every bit as censorious as her mistress and on her left by the man who had shut the…
Read more “I will say what pleased your father and what did not!”
somewhere in the Hindu Kush, summer 1323 They had had considerable difficulty in finding exactly the right village to help them. Many were too small, without enough men. Others weren’t poor enough, having staked out the only arable land in a day’s walk and therefore capable of feeding themselves and their families without resorting to…
Balkh, summer 1323 A scream from the hollow below spun her around. She leapt down the loose scree of the knoll and slid into camp in a scatter of loose gravel, barely managing to stay upright. There she found Hayat and Alma clinging to each other as they watched two young men, ragged and dirty,…
Kabul, spring 1323 “LAPIS LAZULI,” JAUFRE said. “Emeralds,” Shasha said. She hesitated. “Copper? I’ve never seen so much copper for sale in one place as I have here in Kabul.” “Heavy,” Jaufre said. “Depends on how much copper and how far we have to carry it. We should take counsel of Grigori the Tatar.” “One…
Read more “Even the priest has succumbed to our wicked influence.”
Talikan, spring 1323 “How soon will they get here?” the sheik said. The first scout exchanged a glance with his peers. “An hour, my lord,” he said. “Perhaps two. No more.” They stood on the wall next to the great eastern gate, watching Ogodei’s army spill from the hills onto the verdant plain between the…
Kabul, spring, 1323 IT TOOK A month for Jaufre to force himself back into health, or enough so that he could walk some distance mostly without aid. He never sat where he could stand, never stood where he could walk, and if he could only run ten steps before he had to stop, breathing hard,…
Read more “He is sulking,” Shasha said, and stalked from the room.
Kabul, spring, 1323 IT HAD BEEN a cold winter, one snowstorm after another, followed by thaws and rain, followed by freezing temperatures that turned everything to ice, followed by more snowstorms. The people of Kabul emerged from their homes like pale, thin ghosts of themselves, blinking dazedly in the sunlight of longer days, not quite…