"There is real magic in the world, slave. I have felt it and used it. If your people know anything of the art, your boy emperor will have it in his precious city," he said at last. "A man cannot learn enough in a hundred lifetimes. I want to know every secret your people have found."

"There are many secrets, shaman: from making paper and silk to the powder that burns, the compass, oil that will not go out. What do you wish to know?"

Kokchu snorted. "Do not bargain with me. I want them all. Do you have men who work these arts in the cities?"

The spy nodded. "Priests and doctors of many orders."

"Have them bind their secrets for me, as a gift between colleagues. Tell them to leave nothing out or I will tell my khan a bloody vision and he will come back to burn your lands all the way to the sea. Do you understand?"

The spy freed his tongue and answered, weak with relief. He could hear raised voices somewhere nearby and he rushed along, desperate to finish. "I will make it so," he whispered. "When the white tent is raised, the emperor will surrender." He thought for a moment, then spoke again. The voices outside were louder.

"If there is betrayal, shaman, everything you want to know will go up in flames. There is enough of the powder that burns in the city to tear the stones to dust."

"A brave threat," Kokchu replied, sneering. "I wonder if your people would truly have the will to do such a thing. I have heard you, slave. You have done your work. Now go back to your city and wait for the white tent with your emperor. It will come in time."

The spy wanted to urge the shaman on, to make him understand that he should move quickly. Caution stopped his mouth with the thought that it would only weaken his position. The shaman simply did not care that the people of the city were dying every day.

"What is happening out there?" Kokchu snapped, disturbed by the shouts and calls outside the ger. He gestured for the spy to leave and followed him out into the moonlight. Everyone around them was staring at the city, and both men turned to gaze at the walls.

The young women walked slowly up the stone steps, wearing white, the color of death. They were skeletally thin and barefoot, but they did not shiver. The cold did not seem to touch them at all. The soldiers on the walls fell back in superstitious dread and no one barred their path. By the thousand, they gathered above the city. By the ten thousand. Even the wind fell to a whisper across Yenking, and the silence was perfect.

The walkway around the city was frozen white and hard, fifty feet below where they stood. Almost as one, the young women of Yenking stepped to the very edge. Some held hands, others stood alone, gazing out into the darkness. For all the miles of wall, they stood there, looking down into the moonlight.

The spy caught his breath, whispering a prayer he had not remembered for years, from before he had forgotten his true name. His heart broke for his people and his city.

All along the walls, figures in white had climbed like a line of ghosts. The Mongol warriors saw they were women and called out to them raucously, laughing and jeering at the distant figures. The spy shook his head to shut out the coarse sounds, tears sparkling in his eyes. Many of the girls held hands as they stared down at the enemy who had ridden right to the gates of the emperor's city.

As the spy watched in frozen grief, they stepped off. The watching warriors fell silent in awe. From a distance, they dropped like white petals and even Kokchu shook his head, astonished. Thousands more took their place on the wall and stepped to their deaths without a cry, their bodies breaking on the hard stones below.

"If there is betrayal, the city and everything in it will be destroyed in fire," the spy whispered to the shaman, his voice thick with sorrow.

Kokchu no longer doubted it.

GenghisLordsoftheBow

CHAPTER 31

A S THE WINTER DEEPENED, children were born in the gers, many of them fathered by men away with the generals or one of the diplomatic groups Temuge had sent out. Fresh food was plentiful after the capture of the supply column, and the vast camp enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity they had never known before. Kachiun kept the warriors fit with constant training on the plain around Yenking, but it was a false peace and there were few men there who did not turn their eyes to the city many times each day, waiting.

Genghis suffered in the cold for the first time in his life. He had little appetite, but he had gained a layer of fat by forcing himself to eat beef and rice. Though he lost some of his gauntness, his cough remained, stealing his wind and infuriating him. For a man who had never known sickness, it was immensely frustrating to have his own body betray him. Of all the men in the camp, he stared most often at the city, willing it to fall.

It was in the middle of a night filled with swirling snow that Kokchu came to him. For some reason, the coughing was worse at night, and Genghis had become used to the shaman visiting him before dawn with a hot drink. With the gers as close as they were, his hacking grunts could be heard by all those around him.

Genghis sat up when he heard Kokchu challenged by his guards. There would be no repeat of the assassination attempt, with six good men around the great ger in shifts each night. He stared into the gloom as Kokchu entered and lit a lamp swinging from the roof. Genghis could not speak to him for a moment. Spasms racked his chest until he was red in the face. It passed, as always, leaving him gasping for breath.

"You are welcome in my home, Kokchu," he whispered hoarsely. "What new herbs will you try tonight?"

It may have been his imagination, but the shaman seemed strangely nervous. Kokchu's forehead glistened with sweat and Genghis wondered if he too was falling ill.

"Nothing I have will make you better, lord. I have tried everything I know," he said. "I have wondered if there is something else that prevents you from becoming well again."

"Something else?" Genghis asked. His throat tickled infuriatingly and he swallowed hard against it, the action now part of his usual manner, so that he gulped constantly.

"The emperor has sent assassins, lord. Perhaps he has other ways to attack you, ways that cannot be seen and killed."

Genghis considered this, interested. "You think he has magic workers in his city? If the best they can do is a cough, I will not fear them."

Kokchu shook his head. "A curse can kill you, lord. I should have considered it before this."

Genghis sat back on his bed wearily. "What do you have in mind?"

Kokchu gestured for his khan to stand and looked away rather than see Genghis struggle up.

"If you will come to my ger, lord, I will summon the spirits and see if you are marked by some dark work of the city."

Genghis narrowed his eyes, but he nodded. "Very well. Send one of my guards for Temuge to join us."

"That is not necessary, lord. Your brother is not as accomplished in these matters…"

Genghis coughed, a sound which he turned into a furious growl of anger at his failing body.

"Do as I tell you, shaman, or get out," he said.

Kokchu tightened his mouth and bowed briefly.

Genghis followed Kokchu to the tiny ger, waiting in the snow and wind as Kokchu ducked inside. Temuge was not long in coming, accompanied by the warrior who had fetched him from his sleep. Genghis drew his brother aside where Kokchu could not hear.

"It seems I must endure his smoke and rituals, Temuge. Do you trust the man?"

"No," Temuge snapped, still irritable at being woken.

Genghis grinned at his brother's waspish expression in the moonlight. "I thought you might not, which is why you are here. You will accompany me, brother, and watch him all the while I am in his ger." He gestured to the warrior standing nearby and the man came quickly.