“What do you think they may do, those guards?” Dukkai asked, and added before Zangi-Ragozh could speak, “I think they may demand more money to permit us to leave.”
“That is one possibility,” said Zangi-Ragozh. “They may also invent charges to impose upon you and confiscate your trade goods as payment.”
Dukkai took a short while to answer. “That is likely,” she allowed, and started to chant softly.
The inns were little more than two-story mud-brick houses with a number of small rooms protruding in many directions. All three had stables, barns, and paddocks, and all had a bedraggled look about them, testament to the severity of the weather.
“We will need to occupy two of these inns,” Baru Ksoka declared loudly. “Dur Moksal, you and your family, and four other families will go into that inn”—he pointed to the southeast side of the square to a building with a sign that showed a rough-carved bed and cooking fire—“and I and the rest will go to this one.” The inn was on the northeast side of the square, a slightly larger edifice with a sign over the door saying in four languages Travelers’ Rest.
“Which four families?” asked Imgalas, scowling against the wind.
Baru Ksoka considered, then said, “Joutan, Guadas, Rodomi, and Ksai. The rest, come with me.” He dismounted and led his pony to the front of the inn, calling out, “Landlord! You have travelers!”
Dukkai had stopped chanting and was looking out through the double flap. “Is this where we will stay?” she called to Baru Ksoka.
“Yes!” he shouted back. “All of you, turn your animals over to Imgalas, and then go to the inns. Neitis, help Imgalas. You, too, Erasai!”
There was a sudden flurry of activity as the Desert Cats got down from their ponies and wagons and carts and began to gather their animals together. They worked efficiently, each keeping to his assigned task as they did every night making camp. Soon the ponies and goats were separated into two groups and contained with rope enclosures held by the oldest members of the clan while Baru Ksoka sorted his people out for the two landlords who had come out of their inns to deal with the unexpected arrival.
“Where do you wish me to go?” Zangi-Ragozh asked as Baru Ksoka came up to his wagon.
“Since you are treating Dukkai, you had better come with her. She will have a room in the Travelers’ Rest. I have arranged it with the landlord. You and your companion may have a chamber to yourselves.” Baru Ksoka glanced over his shoulder. “The landlord is demanding a silver bar to lodge us.”
“I have enough to pay for it,” said Zangi-Ragozh. “And the other landlord? What of him?”
“He has asked for five strings of silver cash,” admitted Baru Ksoka. “You know what town-dwellers are. What is the use of gold and silver and copper when it is winter? Can it keep you warm? Can you eat it?”
“You must not mind them,” said Zangi-Ragozh. “Most men seek treasure of one sort or another, and gold is sought everywhere.”
“By fools,” said Baru Ksoka. “Still, I am grateful that you have such metals with you. We would fare badly outside the gates.”
“As the Persians are being forced to do,” said Zangi-Ragozh, and changed the subject. “My companion will look after our animals and this wagon, if it is all the same to you.”
Baru Ksoka held up his hand. “I understand. And I am relieved that you are so careful.” He looked at Dukkai. “How do you go on? And how is the infant?”
“It is moving,” she said. “It is eager to get out into the world, and that troubles me.”
“That is why you ride in the wagon,” he reminded her, and gave his attention to Zangi-Ragozh once more. “I thank you for all you have done, and I am sorry that you needed to do anything. I, and my family, and my clan will be obligated to you for at least another generation.”
“There is no need,” said Zangi-Ragozh. “You have helped Ro-shei and me to travel more safely in this terrible year. I am obliged to you for that.”
“You are obliged to Dukkai,” said Baru Ksoka, and started to turn away, but hesitated, saying, “You are to be certain that Dukkai is well. I have a lammergeier claw, to help her gain strength.”
“Why do you not give it to her?” Zangi-Ragozh asked.
“She is the magician, not I.” With that, Baru Ksoka strode off toward the entrance to the largest barn, calling for the goats to be brought “To get them out of the snow tonight!”
Dukkai went back into the wagon. “I don’t like being inside rooms,” she said. “This wagon is hard enough, but to have solid walls!”
“Do walls bother you?” Zangi-Ragozh asked, already aware that they did.
“They trouble me. With a tent, no matter how fine the skins that cover it, it isn’t so very enclosed. With brick walls, a room is more a grave than a room.” She fretted at the edge of her bearskin robe.
“They can seem so,” he admitted apologetically. “I grew up in a stone castle.” It had been not unlike the larger inn, but hewn from living rock high in the fishhook of the Carpathians, more than twenty-five centuries before. “It does not bother me.”
“More of your foreign nature, I see,” she said, and opened the double flap again to stare at the inn.
“If there is a blizzard coming—and it seems likely that there is—you will want to be inside. Mud brick holds out the cold better than a skin-covered tent.” He half-rose, preparing to get down from the driving-box. “I will help you out of the wagon from the rear platform.”
She sighed. “I shouldn’t let you do so much, but I thank you for the care you give me.”
He secured the simple brake and called to Ro-shei, “Will you take the wagon in hand, old friend?”
“That I will,” said Ro-shei, dismounting and coming up to the wagon. He gave Zangi-Ragozh’s cinder-brown pony a friendly pat as he loosened the lead that had kept it following the wagon for most of the day. “I will groom and feed them and be sure they have water. I will come this evening to report on the ponies and the camels.” He stood aside while Zangi-Ragozh helped Dukkai out of the wagon, remarking to her, “You and your clan will be warm tonight.”
“I guess,” she said dubiously.
Zangi-Ragozh got into the wagon, took some more gold and silver from his strongbox, then pulled out a small chest, saying to Ro-shei as he emerged from the wagon, “I believe we could both use a change of clothes—what do you say?”
“I would be glad of it,” said Ro-shei, and gathered the two riding ponies and the three camels together; he led them and the wagon with its two-pony hitch off toward the stable.
The clan was breaking up into two parts, Gaudas, Moksal, Joutan, Ksai, and Rodomi going with Imgalas, the rest following Baru Ksoka into the Travelers’ Rest.
It was a stark place, with an eating room around the central chimney, and three corridors branching out to the various rooms. Two steep staircases gave access to the upper floors. The landlord, engulfed in a wolf-skin cloak, greeted the Kaigan with greedy obsequiousness that would have been comical at a less harrowing time. He promised in three languages to light a fire for his guests, explained that the bath-house was out behind the kitchen, and offered to heat it, as well. “For a string of coppers more.”
“I have already promised to pay you,” said Baru Ksoka.
The landlord cringed even as he insisted, “You have promised payment for a room and for food, nothing more”
“We will do our own cooking,” said Baru Ksoka, motioning to Jekan Madassi. “This woman supervises our meals, and she will do so here.”
“Of course you will do your own cooking,” said the landlord. “You will also pay for the use of the bath-house.”
Baru Ksoka glowered at the landlord. “You are asking too much.”
“I want a bath,” said Zangi-Ragozh calmly from the rear of the group. “I will pay for heating the bath-house.”
Baru Ksoka made a gesture of appreciation, took the string of copper cash Zangi-Ragozh proffered, and pointed him in the direction of the stairs. “Before you bathe, you will want to secure your quarters. I have arranged who is to have which room: your room will be at the end of the upper corridor. There are stairs on the outside of the building, if you would rather go up that way, or so the landlord tells me.”
“I will,” said Zangi-Ragozh, “though I may use the outside stairs to go to the bath-house.” He gave a single nod to the Desert Cats and said to Dukkai, “A bath would do you good. Why not plan to bathe when I am done?”
There was an awkward silence, and then Dukkai answered, “If it will aid my child, I will do it.”
“I think it will,” said Zangi-Ragozh, and took up the chest he had brought from the wagon as he started up the stairs toward the corridor that would lead to the room he and Ro-shei had been allocated.
The landlord took the string of cash and squirreled it away inside his cloak. “I will have the bath-house heated at once.” He studied Jekan Madassi for a short moment, then said, “I will order wood brought for your fires. If you need pots or spits, there will be a charge for them. I will bargain for some of your wolf-pelts.”
“We have what we need,” said Jekan Madassi brusquely, then clapped her hands to summon her family to assist her.
Watching this as he climbed the stairs, Zangi-Ragozh had a sudden pang of sadness as he realized that he would be parting from the Desert Cats in a few days. As he continued westward toward Europe, he would do as he planned and ask about them, but he found he was already resigning himself to their loss. He went down the corridor, noticing how low the ceiling was; occasionally the beams almost brushed his hat, trying not to listen as the voices of the clan faded behind him.
By the time he emerged from the cramped room to go to the bath-house, many of the Desert Cats had made their way to their quarters, and the first aroma of cooking meat was insinuating itself onto the chilly air. Zangi-Ragozh took his change of clothes with him, along with a wide drying sheet. He used the outer staircase, taking care not to slip on the icy treads, and made his way to the stable before going to bathe. He found Ro-shei securing the wagon by the light of two oil-lamps; the ponies and camels had been brushed and fed, and Ro-shei had a scrawny chicken soaking in a bucket. “You found something to eat,” he said in Byzantine Greek.
Ro-shei laughed. “Such as it is.”
“I trust you will enjoy it,” said Zangi-Ragozh.
“I will, more than you will your taste of pony’s blood,” Ro-shei responded.
“Are you planning to bathe?”
“Later, yes, I am,” he said. “When the Desert Cats are done.”
“I have carried the clothes chest to the room.”
“I know,” said Ro-shei. “I saw you take it.” He pulled up a plank stool and dropped onto it. “Are you going to sleep there, or here in the wagon?”
“In the wagon, I think. On my native earth.”
“Do you still intend to let the Desert Cats have it for Dukkai?” Ro-shei asked, although he knew the answer.
“Certainly. In this snow, the wagon would only serve to slow us down, and only one box of jewels and gold is still in it; I will move it tonight.” Zangi-Ragozh regarded Ro-shei for a short, silent while. “You said you thought it was a good idea.”
“I do still,” said Ro-shei. “But I wish we had more pack animals. Two ponies to ride, two to pack, and three camels hardly gives us any margin for losses.”
“Then I will purchase pack animals, tomorrow.” He nodded in the direction of the wagon.
“Good,” said Ro-shei, reaching down for the chicken and beginning to pluck it. “Not much meat on these bones.”
“Be glad there is any,” said Zangi-Ragozh.
“You have not taken anything from the magician, have you.” It was not a question.
“No. She is pregnant, and I do not know what of my nature might pass to her child. There have been times when she has come to me for comfort, and that has resulted in a kind of intimacy; she has given me some of herself then, and that provides a little nourishment, tenuous but real.” He looked away.
“Do you think she would accept you as you are?” Ro-shei asked, trying to wipe away the wet feathers clinging to his hands.
“I have no notion. She tolerates my foreignness, so she might …” He finished his thought with a slight nod.
Ro-shei stopped plucking and looked directly at Zangi-Ragozh. “You are losing flesh.”
“So is everyone else,” he countered, deliberately oblique.
“But you might not have to; we will be going on soon, and she will remain with her clan. Surely she would not begrudge you what you seek?”
Zangi-Ragozh took a little time to answer. “whether she would or not, I will not ask her.”
Ro-shei shook his head. “She might prefer that you let her decide.”
“But what if she does not?” With that for a parting shot, Zangi-Ragozh turned and went off through the densely falling snow toward the bath-house.
Text of a report by Apostle Lazarus in Kumul to Apostle Jude at Cambaluc; carried by Uighurs and delivered six months after it was written.
To my most revered Brother in Christ, Apostle Jude of the Holy Redeemer Apostlary of Cambaluc, the greetings and Kiss of Peace at the Mass of Christ in the 535
th
year of Salvation, from the Apostle Lazarus at Holy Trinity Apostlary at Kumul.