Empire of Unreason (34 page)

“They seem well armed. Why do you think they cannot win?”

“Win? What does that mean? We have many weapons I hoped
never to use, things which have not been seen since the days of the
Old Testament. Oh, we have the might to conquer this place, I
think, to crush any armies here. But it’s so big— we could never
EMPIRE OF UNREASON

hold it! And think what taxes they must have levied, in my absence,
what they will continue to bring to pay for this! And, all the while,
as our might and blood is poured on this ground, the Turk waits at
our south, and a hundred barbarian tribes to the east, and still
Charles XII plots against me from Venice. No, this is a plan
calculated for the downfall of all nations, Russia included.”

Red Shoes nodded. “The spirits mean to end us all. I have seen it.”

“An apocalypse? But an apocalypse without God,” the tsar
murmured. His face twitched ferociously. “In any event, I am in
your debt. By extension, I am in the debt of your people. I do not
forget my debts.”

Red Shoes just nodded, and they rode on, each to his own thoughts,
until near sundown.

The leaf canoe flitted here and there on the horizon, but he was
certain that it hadn’t found them yet. That was good.

He drew his horse out of the line. “The rest of you continue on, as
we’ve been going. I have something I have to do—a false trail to lay.”

“I’ll help,” Tug offered.

“No, this is the sort of trail only I can lay.”

“You’ll rejoin us?”

“Yes. After sundown. No matter what you do, stay hidden from the
airship. Don’t let it see you.”

“Goty‘.”

He rode off at right angles, trying to imagine the lay of the land. The
Mongols seemed to be good trackers, and they had a Kansa scout,
but he and the rest had lost them countless times. It was the airship
that always found them again. He hoped this had made the Mongols
EMPIRE OF UNREASON

lazy. Up until now he had done his best to avoid the airship. Why
should they expect he would reveal himself to it?

He hunted for the right sort of spot, knowing he did not have a lot
of time. He found it by moonlight, a well-sheltered campsite in a
hollow, with good prospects for sentinels and a clean stream for
drinking.

Now he let
hoshonti
slip, let the scent of his shadow-children waft
up. Distantly, he felt the cautious triumph of the spirits in the
searching ship.

Now he cloaked himself again, to make it seem a momentary
omission.

It was dark, but the moon would be good for another few hours,
and it was full and silver. His plan counted on several things, now.

It counted on the Mongols continuing until the moon set and the
accuracy with which the ship could guide them to this spot.

Now he went to work. He produced what remained of his shot:
eight lead balls. He had kept them back from the others,
anticipating this. They were out of powder, anyway.

He moved quickly, pressing them into hiding places in the dead
interiors of bushes, in the thatch beneath the grass. The vegetation
was brittle; it had been a dry winter and a dry spring.

Then he remounted and rode back to where he reckoned the others
to be. He found them easily. They hadn’t gone much farther than
where he had left them.

Peter and Tug clapped their weapons when he entered the
campsite, but Flint Shouting chuckled and stepped from the low
forest, arrow fitted to his stolen Mongol bow. It was an odd
weapon, made of laminated horn and wood, powerful, better suited
for firing from horseback even than those of the plains folks.

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“Are we ready?”

“Yes,” Red Shoes said. “This is what we will do. I will use my
shadowchildren to start some fires around their camp. Flint
Shouting and I will try to slip in and cut the tethers of some of their
horses. The fire will drive the horses downwind, and that’s where
the rest of you will be.”

“Ah—won’t the fire drive the Mongols downwind as well?” Tug
asked.

“Yes. But horses run faster than men. Catch a horse or two and go.

Flint Shouting and I will try to get some at the source. The fire will
be causing some confusion by then—they’ll think we’re out in the
woods, setting it.”

“This is a risky plan. I’m not sure that I know much about catching
horses,” Peter said.

“It’s no great thing, Majesty,” Tug said. “I’ll be there to help.”

“/cut tether.”

All heads swung toward the woman. Flint Shouting had been trying
to teach her their lingua franca—which was, fittingly enough,
French—but it had been unclear whether she had really been
paying attention. Now, however, she spoke in understandable,
though heavily accented, French.

“Have you done this before?”

“Yes.”

Was she lying? She had shown herselt both fierce and competent
back on the Russian airship.

“Very well,” Red Shoes said.

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“What happens if all three of you get killed?” Peter asked. “I
certainly don’t know my way in this land. Do you, Tug?”

“Not hardly.”

“Good point. Flint Shouting, you stay with them.”

“No!”

“Yes.” He switched to Mobilian. “I need you with them, Flint
Shouting. Two white men, alone out here? They won’t even be able
to
find
the rest of us. And neither of them has the faintest idea how
to use a bow. It’s important, Flint Shouting, more important than
your honor.”

“I want to kill one of those Monkolas,” Flint Shouting complained.

“What if I never get the chance to kill another one?”

“All the more reason you should not go. This is not a raid for scalps,
just horse stealing. Anyway, I have a feeling that you’ll have more
than ample opportunity to kill a Mongol, my friend. But if we don’t
do things my way, you may never get to brag of it, and that’s the
important part.”

“I can always brag to my ancestors.”

“Not as much fun as bragging to the pretty girls on a summer
afternoon,” Red Shoes said.

“Huh. That’s not a bad point.”

“
Achukma okeh
? It is good?”

“Okeh.”

“Let’s go, then. The moon is set.”

The Mongols weren’t trying to be quiet, so he knew that they had
EMPIRE OF UNREASON

taken the bait long before he reached them. They had camped just
where he hoped.

They separated, Flint Shouting, the tsar, and Tug remaining back
and downwind. He and Grief crept closer.

He summoned
hoshonti,
bending what dim light there was around
Grief and himself. The most sharp-eyed might notice a distortion in
the air, nothing more.

They crept nearer and nearer, until they could see the light of the
fire through the trees, then the faces around the fire. And the
horses, beyond the circle of light.

Red Shoes closed his eyes, wishing he could smoke Ancient
Tobacco to strengthen himself. That might give him away, so he
made do without it, sending off his only other remaining
shadowchild—a little spirit who had but a single ability, an affinity
with the ferment of lead. He commanded the little spirit to find lead
and break it apart, release the fire inside it. It started off. Red
Shoes hoped it survived long enough to accomplish its task, before
the spirits accompanying the Mongols discovered and destroyed it.

If that happened, then even
this
slimmest of hopes was gone.

10.

Suspicions and Ribs

They buried Irena that same day in the cold Siberian soil. They
could not dig very deep, for the earth was frozen, and so they piled
a cairn of stones to keep the wild beasts away. Father Dimitrov—the
EMPIRE OF UNREASON

single priest Adrienne had reluctantly included in the expedition—

conducted the services. His words and motions seemed senseless,
beneath those cold skies. His God—the god of miter and vestments,
who listened to prayer in ornate, close, safe churches—Adrienne
could not imagine him here, in this wild place. Liturgy here should
sound more like the call of a hunting bird, the moan of the wind.

Adrienne wondered if the Tartar woman was watching and, if she
watched, what she thought. How would she bury a murder victim,
that the corpse would not rise to trouble the living again?

Hercule held himself as straight as an ash, the expression on his
face as impenetrable as a figure carved of the same wood.

Other than the priest, no one said much of anything. Afterward,
they boarded the airships and continued on their way.

She had to seek Hercule out, and found him on the bridge,
watching the land unfold beneath them.

He noticed her approaching from the corner of his eye. He still
wore the funeral black. He looked like a Puritan preacher, a
strange and unbecoming fashion on him.

“Hercule, I—”

“I gave it out that she was killed by Tartars,” he said, quietly. “No
one else knows.”

For an instant she was so furious she couldn’t talk. “Why, Hercule?

She did not deserve to die.”

The face he turned to her then was so incredulous he looked like
some sort of ape, pretending to human emotion.

“What?”

“I
saw
you, Hercule—in that quarter of the forest, when you were
EMPIRE OF UNREASON

supposed to be hunting—”

“You think
I
killed her?”

“I—”She hesitated.

“Par dieu,
you
do?”
he exploded. That was loud enough that the
helmsman turned his head. “Lash that and leave,” Hercule shouted
at him. “Now.”

When the fellow was gone, he faced her again. She noticed his eyes
were red. “Understand me,” he said, his voice as low and
dangerous as she had ever heard it. “I did not love Irena as I love
you, but I was not without feeling for her. She was the mother of
my children. She cared for me when your heart was cold. If you
think for one second—”

“I’m sorry, it’s just that I saw you riding in the direction I found her

—”

“So naturally you assume I murdered her. What, because then the
way would be clear to you? Holy hosts, but don’t you think I know
you would never marry me, Irena or no Irena? Haven’t you made
that perfectly known to me? You think I would murder my own wife
and leave my children motherless all because of you?”

His anger made her feel small suddenly, like a little girl being
chastised—like a little girl who deserved it.

“I’m sorry, Hercule.”

“You really don’t know who killed Irena?” he snapped. “Or is this
some vast pretense to keep me from my duty?”

“What are you talking about?”

“To anyone not blinded by your sympathies—” He struggled for
control and found it. “Crecy murdered her,” he said.

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“Crecy?”

“Good God, Adrienne, it’s no secret that Crecy loves you, that she
would do anything to protect you. It’s also no great secret that
Irena made an attempt on your life. Crecy acted to make certain my
poor wife would never threaten you again.”

“No,” Adrienne said, “I don’t believe it. She was as surprised as I.”

The look he gave her was an old one to them both.
This is Crecy,
it
said. Indeed, in the past Crecy had proven quite adept at deception.

In the present, as well, when the target of her lies was their
enemies.

“I still don’t believe it. I saw a Tartar woman—”

“Now you invent monsters in the wood to excuse her? No. It must
have been Crecy.”

“Hercule, do not be hasty.”

He laughed bitterly. “This from the woman who came to accuse me
of murdering my own wife?”

“I’ve apologized for that. It was just strange to see you, riding there,
and then to find her so.”

“I
was
looking for her. We had argued earlier, and I wished to
press an apology. The guards said they had seen her walking into
the forest in that direction.”

“I thought you did it. You think Crecy did it. Crecy thinks I did it.”

“One of us is lying, and if I had to wager on it, I damn sure know
who I’d pick.”

“What will you do?”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“A duel seems appropriate, I think?”

“No. Hercule, she would kill you.”

“I’ve always been touched by your faith in me.”

“And if she doesn’t, you will kill her. Neither prospect pleases me.

Give me some time, Hercule.”

“For what?”

“It may be that none of us is lying. Someone else on these ships may
have had cause to kill Irena.”