He saw Sorhatani walking with two of her maidservants and had a moment to appreciate her before she noticed him. Her posture marked her out, a woman who walked like an empress and always had. It made her seem much taller than she really was. Four sons she had borne and yet she still walked lithely, her oiled skin gleaming with health. As he stared, the women laughed at something, their voices light in the cool corridors. Her husband and eldest son campaigned with the khan, thousands of miles to the east. By all accounts they were doing well. Yao Shu thought of a report he had read that morning that boasted of enemies piled like rotten logs. He sighed to himself at the thought. Mongol reports tended to lack a sense of subtle understatement.

Sorhatani saw him and Yao Shu bowed deeply and then endured her taking his hands in both of hers, as she insisted on doing whenever they met. She did not notice the heat in the broken finger.

'Have my boys been working hard for you, chancellor?' she asked.

He smiled briefly as she released his hands. He was still young enough to feel the force of her beauty and he resisted as best he could.

'They are satisfactory, my lady,' he said formally. 'I took them into the gardens for exercise. I understand you are to leave the city.'

'I should see the lands my husband has been given. I can barely remember them from my childhood.' She smiled distantly. 'I would like to see where Genghis and his brothers ran as boys.'

'It is a beautiful land,' Yao Shu admitted, 'though harsh. You will have forgotten the winters there.'

Sorhatani shuddered slightly. 'No, the cold is one thing I do remember. Pray for warm weather, chancellor. And what about my husband? My son? Do you have news of them?'

Yao Shu replied more carefully to the innocent-sounding question.

'I have heard of no misfortunes, mistress. The khan's tumans have secured a tract of land, almost to the borders of the Sung territory in the south. I think they will return in a year, perhaps two.'

'That is good to hear, Yao Shu. I pray for the khan's safety.'

Yao Shu responded, though he knew it amused her to goad him on their religions. 'His safety will not be affected by prayers, Sorhatani, as I'm sure you know.'

'You do not pray, chancellor?' she asked in mock amazement.

Yao Shu sighed. She made him feel old, somehow, whenever she was in this mood.

'I do not ask for anything, except more understanding, Sorhatani. In meditation, I merely listen.'

'And God, what does he say when you listen?'

'The Buddha said, "Gripped by fear, men go to the sacred mountains and sacred groves, sacred trees and shrines." I am not afraid of death, my lady. I need no god to comfort me in my fear.'

'Then I will pray for you too, chancellor, that you find peace.'

Yao Shu raised his eyes, but he bowed to her again, aware that her maids were watching with amused interest.

'You are very kind,' he murmured.

Her eyes were twinkling, he saw. His day would be full of a thousand details. He had the khan's army to supply in the Chin lands, another in Khwarezm under Chagatai and a third under Tsubodai ready to strike further into the north and west than the Mongol nation had ever ventured before. Yet he knew he would spend much of the day thinking of the ten things he should have said to Sorhatani. It was simply infuriating. Ogedai had not brought the war to Suzhou. The city lay beyond the Sung border, on the banks of the Yangtze river. Even if it had not been in Sung territory, it was a place of extraordinary beauty and he could not see it destroyed. Two tumans rested outside the city walls, while only a jagun of a hundred accompanied the khan.

As Ogedai walked with two guards through an enclosure of ponds and trees, he felt at peace. He wondered if the gardens in Karakorum would ever equal such a beautifully planned wilderness. He tried not to show his wistful envy to the Sung administrator who trotted nervously at his side.

Ogedai had thought Karakorum a model of the new world, but Suzhou's position against a great lake, its ancient streets and buildings, made his capital look rough, unfinished by the centuries. He smiled at the thought of his father's response to such inequity. It would have amused Genghis to take their creation and leave it as smoking rubble, his personal comment on the vanities of man.

Ogedai wondered if Yao Shu had come from a place like Suzhou. He had never asked the monk, but it was easy to imagine men like him walking the perfectly clean streets. Tolui and Mongke had gone to the market square, looking for gifts for Sorhatani. They had just a dozen warriors with them, but there was no sense of threat in the town. Ogedai had passed word to his men that there would be no rape or destruction. The penalty for disobeying his edict was clear and Suzhou remained terrified, but untouched.

The khan's morning had been filled with wonders, from the municipal store of black firepowder, where the workers all wore soft slippers, to the astonishment of a watermill and huge looms producing cloth. Yet they were not his reason for taking his tumans into Sung territory. The small city had storehouses of silk and every one of his warriors wore a shirt of that material. It was the only weave capable of trapping an arrow as it twisted into the flesh. In its own way, it was more valuable than armour. Ogedai could not guess how many lives it had saved. Unfortunately, his men knew its value and few of them ever took off the silk shirts to wash them. The smell of rotting silk was part of the miasma that hung around the tumans, and as the cloth crusted with salt and sweat, it lost its pliability. He needed the entire output of Suzhou and other places like it. Destroying the fields of ancient white mulberry bushes that fed the grubs would end production for ever. Perhaps his father would have burnt them. Ogedai could not. He had spent part of the morning viewing the vats where the grubs were boiled in their cocoons before being unravelled. Such things were true wonders. The workers had not stopped as he passed, pausing only to chew the latest grub as they revealed it to the air. No one went hungry in the silk sheds of Suzhou.

The khan had not bothered to learn the name of the little man bobbing and sweating at his side, struggling to keep up as Ogedai toured the water gardens. The Sung administrator chattered like a frightened bird when he was asked a question. At least they could communicate. Ogedai had Yao Shu to thank for that, and years spent learning the language.

His time in the water gardens would be brief, he knew. His tumans were restless among such prosperity. For all their discipline, there would be problems if he kept them near the city for long. He had noticed the men of Suzhou had the sense to remove their women from sight, but there were always temptations.

'One thousand bolts of silk a year,' Ogedai said. 'Suzhou can produce that much, yes?'

'Yes, lord. High weight, good colour and lustre. Dyed well, without spotting or tangled threads.'

The administrator nodded miserably as he spoke. Whatever happened, he suspected he was ruined. The Mongol armies would go and the emperor's soldiers would arrive to ask him why he had brokered trade deals with an enemy of their master. He wanted nothing more than to find a quiet place in the gardens, write his last poem and open a vein.

Ogedai saw the man's eyes were glassy and assumed he was terrified. He made a gesture with his hand and his guard stepped forward and took the administrator by the throat. The glassy look vanished, but Ogedai continued talking as if nothing had happened.

'Let him go. Are you listening now? Your masters, your emperor are not your concern. I control the north and they will trade with me, eventually.'

Ogedai's chest was hurting him and he walked with a cup of red wine in his hand, constantly refilled. With the foxglove powder, it eased the ache, though his senses swam. He drained the cup and held it out. The second guard stepped forward instantly with a half-full skin of the wine. Ogedai cursed as he spilled some of the dark liquid on the cuff of his sleeve.