“Where did you find a beast such as this?”
I could not help grinning. “I know of places where many strange and wonderful beasts exist.”
He grinned back at me and led me to the piles of pillows where he had been reclining. “Tell me the news from Karakorum.”
As he gestured for me to sit on the pillows at his right hand I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Subotai would have never clasped my arm if he intended to kill me. He was incapable of treachery against a friend. Neither he nor anyone else knew, apparently, that I had assassinated his High Khan, Ogotai, a man who had been my friend in a different life.
While a beautiful young blonde handed me a cup of gold and an equally lovely girl poured spiced wine into it, I told him simply that Ogotai had died in his sleep and that I had seen him that very night.
“He seemed content and pleased that the Mongol Empire ruled almost all the known world in peace. I think he was happy that no enemies stood against the Mongols.”
Subotai nodded, but his face turned grave. “Soon, Orion, the unthinkable may happen. Mongol may turn against Mongol. The old tribal wars of the Gobi may erupt again, but this time huge armies will battle one another from one end of the world to the other.”
“How can that be?” I asked, truly shocked. “The Yassa forbids such bloodletting among Mongols.”
“I know,” replied Subotai sadly. “But not even the law of the Yassa can stop the strife that is to come, I fear.”
As we reclined there on the silken pillows beneath the sorrowful eyes of Byzantine saints looking down upon us from their gilded unchanging heaven, Subotai explained to me what was happening among the Mongol generals.
Simply put, they had virtually run out of lands to conquer. Genghis Khan, the leader they revered so highly that no Mongol would speak his name, had set the tribes of the Gobi on the path to world conquest. With all of China, all of Asia to battle, the warriors of the Gobi stopped their incessant tribal conflicts and set out to conquer the world. Now that world had been conquered, except for dreary dank outlands such as Europe and the subcontinent of India where the heat killed men and horses alike.
“The election of the new High Khan will bring divisions among the Mongols,” Subotai predicted gloomily. “It will be an excuse to go back to the old ways of fighting among ourselves.”
I understood. The empire of Alexander the Great had broken up in the same manner, general battling general to hold the territory already possessed or to steal territory from a former comrade in arms.
“What will you do, my lord Subotai?” I asked.
He drained his chalice and put it down beside him. Immediately one of the slaves filled it to the brim.
“I will not break the laws of the Yassa,” he said. “I will not spill the blood of other Mongols.”
“Not willingly,” said one of the men sitting around us.
Subotai nodded, his mouth set in a tight grim line. “I will lead my warriors westward, Orion, past the river they call Danube. It is a difficult land, cold and filled with dismal forests. But it is better than fighting amongst ourselves.”
If Subotai intended to march into Europe, he would devastate the civilization there that was just beginning to throw off the shackles of ignorance and barbarism that had followed the collapse of the Roman Empire. In another few centuries the Renaissance would begin, with all that it would eventually mean for human knowledge and freedom. But not if the Mongols laid waste to all of Europe, from Muscovy to the English Channel.
“My lord Subotai,” I said slowly, “once you asked me to tell you all I knew of this land where you now camp, and of the lands further west.”
Some of his old vigor returned to his eyes. “Yes! And now that you have returned to me, I am more eager than ever to learn about the Germans and Franks and the other powers of the lands to the west.”