Basil was bright, his mind flexible—Kolya supposed he wouldn’t have made it so far if not—and it took them only a couple of hours to build up a reasonable understanding.
Basil said he was a trader, come to the capital of the world to make his fortune. “The traders love the Mongols,” he said. “They’ve opened up the east! China, Korea—” It took a while to identify the place names he used. “Of course most of the traders here are Muslims and Arabs—most people in France don’t know the Mongols even exist! …” Basil had his eye on the main chance, and he began to ask questions—where the cosmonauts had come from, what they wanted, what they had brought with them.
Sable intervened. “Listen, pal, we don’t need an agent. Your job is to speak our words to—uh, the tall man.”
“Yeh-lü,” said Basil. “His name is Yeh-lü Ch’u-ts’ai. He is a Khitan …”
“Take us to him,” Sable said simply.
Though Basil argued, her tone of command was unmistakable, even without translation. Basil clapped his hands, and a chamberlain arrived, to escort them into the presence of Yeh-lü himself.
They walked through corridors of felt, ducking their heads; the roofs were not built for people their height.
In a small chamber in a corner of this palace of tents, Yeh-lü was reclining on a low couch. Servants hovered at his elbow. Before him on the floor he had spread out faded diagrams that looked like maps, a kind of compass, blocks carved into figures that looked vaguely Buddhist, and a pile of small artifacts—bits of jewelry, small coins. It was the stock in trade of an astrologer, Kolya guessed. With an elegant gesture Yeh-lü bade them sit down, on more low couches.
Yeh-lü was patient; forced to speak to them through an uncertain chain of translation via Basil and Kolya, he asked them their names, and where they had come from. At the answer that had become their stock reply—from Tengri, from Heaven—he rolled his eyes. Astrologer he might be, but he was no fool.
“We need a better story,” Kolya said.
“What do these people know of geography? Do they even know what shape the world is?”
“Damned if I know.”
Briskly Sable got to her knees and pulled aside a felt mat, exposing dusty earth. With a fingertip she began to sketch a rough map: Asia, Europe, India, Africa. She stabbed her finger into the heart of it. “We are here …”
Kolya remembered that the Mongols always oriented themselves to the south, while Sable’s map had north at the top; with that simple inversion things became much clearer.
“Now,” said Sable. “Here’s the World Ocean.” She dragged her fingers through the dust beyond the continents, making a ridged circle. “We come from far away—far beyond the World Ocean. We flew over it like birds, on our orange wings …” It wasn’t quite true, but was close to the truth, and Yeh-lü seemed to accept it for now.
Basil said, “Yeh-lü is asking about the yam. He has ordered riders out along all the main routes. But some are broken. He says he knows the world has undergone a great disturbance. He wants to know what you understand about this strangeness, and what it means for the empire.”
“We don’t know,” said Sable. “That’s the truth. We are just as much victims of this as you are.”
Yeh-lü seemed to accept this. He stood languidly, and spoke again.
Basil gasped with excitement. “The Emperor himself is impressed by your gift, the orange cloth, and wants to see you.”
Sable’s eyes hardened. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
They stood, and a party quickly formed up, headed by Yeh-lü, with Sable, Kolya and Basil at the center, surrounded by a phalanx of tough-looking guards.
Kolya was rigid with fear. “Sable, we have to be careful. We’re the Emperor’s property, remember. He will speak only to members of his family, perhaps a few key aides like Yeh-lü. Everybody else just doesn’t count.”
“Yeah, yeah. Even so. We’ve done well, Kolya. Just a few days here and we’ve got this far already … Now we just have to figure the angles.”
They were taken into a much grander chamber. The walls were hung with rich embroidery and tapestry, the floors covered with layers of rugs and carpets so thick they were soft to walk on. The place was crowded. Courtiers milled and beefy-looking soldiers stood around the walls, laden with weapons, glaring at the cosmonauts and everybody else—even each other. In one corner of the yurt an orchestra played softly, a harmony of lutes. All the instrumentalists were beautiful, all very young girls.
And yet for all its opulence this was still just a yurt, Kolya thought, and the prevailing stink, of greasy flesh and stale milk, was just as bad as in Scacatai’s humble home. “Barbarians,” he muttered. “They didn’t know what towns and farms were for save as sources of booty. They plundered a world, but they still live like goatherds, their tents piled with treasures. And in our time their descendants will be the last nomads of all—still trapped by their barbaric roots—”
“Shut up ,” Sable hissed.
Following Yeh-lü, they walked slowly to the center of the yurt. Around the throne that was the focus of this wide space stood a number of smooth-faced young men. They looked similar: perhaps the Emperor’s sons, Kolya thought. There were many women here, sitting before the throne. All were handsome, though some looked as old as sixty; the younger ones were quite stunningly beautiful. Wives, or concubines?
Yeh-lü stepped aside, and they stood before the Emperor.
He looked about sixty. Sitting on his ornately carved throne, he was not tall. But he was slim, upright; he looked very fit. His face was full, his features small—very Asiatic—with only a trace of grey in his hair and neatly groomed beard. He held a swatch of parachute cloth in his hand, and he regarded them steadily. Then he turned aside and muttered something to one of his advisors.
“He has eyes like a cat’s,” said Sable.
“Sable—you know who this is, don’t you?”
“Of course.” To his astonishment she grinned, more excited than fearful.
Genghis Khan watched them, his black eyes unreadable.
21. Return to Jamrud
At dawn Bisesa was woken by the peals of trumpets. When she emerged from the tent, stretching, the world was suffused with blue-gray. All across the river delta the trumpet notes rose up with the smoke of the night’s fires.
She really was in the camp of Alexander the Great; this was no dream—or nightmare. But mornings were the times she missed Myra the most, and she ached for her daughter, even in this astonishing place.
While the King and his advisors decided what to do, Bisesa, de Morgan and the others had spent the night at the Indus delta camp. The moderns were kept under guard, but they were given a tent of their own to sleep in. The tent itself was made of leather. Battered, scuffed, it stank, of horses, food, smoke, and the sweat of soldiers. But it was an officer’s tent, and only Alexander and his generals had more luxurious accommodation. Besides, they were soldiers, and used to roughing it, all save Cecil de Morgan, and he had learned better than to complain.
De Morgan had been quiet all night, in fact, but his eyes were alive. Bisesa suspected he was calculating how much leverage he could apply in his new role as an irreplaceable interpreter. But he grumbled about the Macedonians’ “barbaric” Greek accent. “They turn ch into g and th into d. When they say ‘Philip’ it sounds like ‘Bilip’ …”
As the day gathered, Eumenes, the Royal Secretary, sent a chamberlain to Bisesa’s tent to communicate the King’s decision. The bulk of the army would stay here for now, but a detachment of troops—a mere thousand!—would make their way up the Indus valley to Jamrud. Most of them would be Shield Bearers, the shock troops who were used on such ventures as night raids and forced marches—and who were entrusted with Alexander’s own safety. The King himself was to make the journey, along with Eumenes and his favorite and lover, Hephaistion. Alexander was evidently intrigued by the prospect of seeing these soldiers from the future in their bastion.