Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Ganbold. Warrior. Hunter.
Ganbold was huffing through a little village somewhere north of the Tian Shen mountains.
After killing the merchant who had sold her, Ganbold had continued along the same road.
He thought he was close to the woman when he reached the Bukhara outpost. People had seen the blonde woman with the Frenchman there, but Ganbold could not be sure which way they went after.
He had a choice—he could take the northern or southern route.
Ganbold, knowing that the northern trail would lead into the mountains, chose to go south.
A Frenchman would surely choose the easier path.
Ganbold was wrong. No one saw the woman along the route he chose. He lost their trail.
This made Ganbold very angry—anger in his eyes, in his chest. Ganbold poured tea into the ground as an offering, asking the ancestors why they favored the murderous woman over him, a warrior.
Their voices did not answer him. Ganbold turned his path then and cut his own way through the mountains that separated him from the northern route he should have chosen.
The ancestors may be laughing at him, but he would change their minds when they saw how determined he was.
Ganbold. Warrior. Hunter. Ganbold. Warrior. Hunter.
Ganbold did not know the name of the village he’d entered that afternoon, but he found the marketplace at its center.
He stood at the edge, scanning the stalls, looking for someone who may speak his language.
This land had been of his people many generations ago.
Now it was Ganbold who was the outsider.
It angered him that his people, the people of his great ancestors, had bartered it away for comforts.
Comforts that led his people to become lazy and weak.
Comforts that made women think they deserved more than their husbands chose to give them.
As Ganbold moved his eyes over the little square, he thought of the crime of the woman.
Ganbold had watched the wedding from where he slept outside the camp.
He watched later as the woman entered the yurt with the other wives.
He watched when the wives left and then her new husband, Ganbold’s kinsman Bataar, entered.
The pair would not emerge until the morning, and Ganbold had turned away, disgusted at the union.
The evening of the wedding, Ganbold did not return to his sleeping mat.
Instead, he slept on the ground with no blanket or warmth, wanting to see the couple emerge in the morning.
He woke before the sun and circled around the back of the wedding yurt, looking for the best angle to see the pain in the woman’s face, as was common in the new brides.
He waited there for many hours, but they did not come out of the yurt.
At first, Ganbold could hear the laughter from the neighbors, joking that the new couple was exhausted from their activities in the night.
Waiting, Ganbold paced. As morning became late morning, he walked through the high grasses to burn off his energy.
His only solace in this union would be to see that Bataar had taught her that she was subject to him, that she would not influence this tribe.
At almost midday, Ganbold discovered a small piece of fabric that had caught on a tree stump.
He picked it up and examined it, just as he heard a scream peal across the plains.
Ganbold shot up to see Bataar’s first wife at the entrance of the yurt.
Her screams called the other wives, who went into hysterics as well.
Ganbold watched as, one by one, the elders entered, as well as the Il-khan.
Someone had died, he understood. Someone else was missing.
At first, the words he heard did not make sense, and Ganbold thought Bataar had killed his bride.
Ganbold felt pride—in his chest, in his cheeks—for his tribesman who refused this woman from the soft tribe.
But why would Bataar run away and not share the decision with his tribe?
Then he saw the elders carry the body of Bataar out of the yurt and heard the confusion as they searched for the woman, worried for her safety.
Ganbold looked down at his hand and realized the fabric he held was from her wedding deel.
The woman had killed Bataar and escaped while the tribe slept.
Anger shook Ganbold’s body—his feet, his fists, his chest, his shoulders.
He ran in the direction of where he had found the fabric to follow her path before the tribal leaders fully understood what had happened.
Now Ganbold was very far from his home, in a place that should still belong to the tribes but no longer did.
He walked through the marketplace, listening to the ugly rhythms of words he did not understand.
Finally, he stopped at a stall with a man who looked very scared to talk to him. “Woman,” Ganbold choked out the word.
The scared man said some words. Ganbold shook his head.
“Brothel?” asked the skinny man again, this time the language enough like his own that Ganbold understood.
“No,” Ganbold said. “Woman. Light hair. Tribal like me.” He tapped his face.
The man quaked before him, saying more words in the language Ganbold knew. “Yes, yes, I saw that woman.”
“When?”
“Three days? Yes,” he said. “Three days ago.”
“Where did she go?”
He said more nonsense. Then Ganbold understood a word: “Samarkand.”
Ganbold grunted and turned away. The ancestors favored him once more by guiding him to this information.
Michel and his crew traveled the next few days without incident.
Though he felt that they had escaped any immediate danger, he would rest easier when they got off the open road and reached Bukhara, where he could speak with his contacts and reconnoiter.
He hoped that seeing that man had been a fluke.
He feared, however, that whatever was coming for Eve would be bigger than he could handle quietly.
She had said she had murdered her husband and then said no more. Leaving Michel with questions overflowing.
In his years of business and politics, he had learned that he had to trust his instincts about people. He knew tribal politics to be rudimentary, physical, brutal. He did not know Eve well, but he did not believe she would do something unfounded. He so badly wanted to understand her.
And, of course, he knew how angry the tribes would be if they knew he was harboring her.
But he had committed to her. He wouldn’t turn her away at the first confidence she gave him. Though this new knowledge of her certainly did not ease his mind.
The crew would reach Bukhara later that evening.
The landscape had already begun changing as they had gone deeper into the river valley.
Ancient earthquakes had carved steep hills into the area, while the river provided the arid desert with enough moisture to cover the ground in thick, green underbrush.
Now, they were coming through a rocky passage which cut a wedge between two hills.
The men had slowed. Michel turned scenarios in his mind while listening to snatches of conversation echoing up the high rocky walls.
A wheel may need replacing soon. A story of a girl at home. A missing pipe. A song.
Michel hulked in his saddle. He was still agitated, every new sound causing him to think they were under attack. The horses’ hooves crunched through the slate. Another man behind him laughed and said he’d lost a razor too.
Michel thought for a moment, keying in more closely to their conversations. It had also been a while since he’d seen his pen knife, he thought.
“Goddammit,” he growled suddenly. He nudged and called his horse to stop before climbing off. Behind him, the men bottlenecked, coming to abrupt stops of their own. Eve looked on as he stalked back down the line.
Michel locked onto Terence. The youth’s hazel eyes grew wide as he sat up straighter on his horse. Michel approached him, grabbed the boy by the shirt, and jerked him off the horse.
“Monsieur!” Terence cried. “What—what have I done?”
Michel didn’t respond, but tipped Terence up by the back of his pants until he was almost upside down.
From his pockets tumbled a selection of items: a compass, a ring, a scattering of coins.
Michel let Terence right himself, but he didn’t let the boy go.
Michel reached for the saddlebag that carried Terence’s knapsack. Michel dumped it as well.
“My razor!” shouted the man who, moments before, had been complaining. Several of the others murmured as they began to see their own materials, patting themselves down for confirmation that things had gone missing.
Michel dropped Terence in a heap, and the boy scrambled up. He held up his hands, “I don’t know…” he started. “I didn’t…”
Michel pointed at him. “You’re done.”
Terence froze. “You’re not gonna leave me here?”
Michel grabbed him by the back of his shirt again and threw him over the saddle of his horse.
“Not here,” Michel said. He stroked the muzzle of the horse with one hand and then led the horse to the front of the procession.
“When we arrive in Bukhara, I will arrange your return to France. You are too young to be this far from home.”
“Monsieur, please,” he sputtered, “I’m useful. I’m strong. I can speak dialects the rest of you can’t—”
“I don’t want to hear anymore. I don’t have time for this,” Michel said. He tethered the horses. “Keep your mouth shut, or I’ll kick you off the horse, and you can find your own way home.”
Terence—now covered in reddish dirt from being dropped in the road, his cropped hair a mess—closed his mouth, but Michel saw his eyes blacken with anger.
“I don’t intend to strand you, boy, but don’t press me,” Michel said, hoisting himself on his saddle, irritation, anger, and frustration warring inside of him.
The party entered Bukhara in the late afternoon, just before the dinner hour.
Eve had not been through Bukhara, but as it had been settled by a Mongolian Khan less than a century ago, there were people here who shared her same lineage.
Bukhara housed massive buildings made of pale brickwork that blazed yellow in the last rays of the day’s sunlight.
Huge mosques and temples with domed roofs covered in turquoise tiles towered over shaded streets that cut between the thick, tall walls.
Enormous rectangular iwans pushed far above the courtyard walls that contained them, showing off intricate and colored tile work.
As they walked through the streets, Eve felt as tiny as a fly on the tail of a camel amongst the structures. It seemed a city built for giants.
Michel led them through the city to the northwestern corner, just outside another massive, earthen building—the city’s citadel—with walls that seemed to stretch to the clouds.
Here, they would set up their yurts and housing since this would be their base for a stretch of time.
Once Michel spoke with the town officials, he turned to the men and hollered at them to start setting up the campground.
Eve stepped forward and put her hand on his forearm. He stopped yelling to look down at her hand and then to her eyes.
“It’s my job,” she said. “I will oversee the camp preparations.” Then she nodded toward Terence, who was kicking rocks into the wall. “You have other things to take care of.”
He held her eyes for a moment, then nodded and indicated with his hand that she should go ahead.
Satisfied, Eve called out to the men, who were already unloading their materials.
“Look at me, please,” her voice rose above them as she cut through the space.
The others paused the preparation of their own spaces—some setting up yurts, others preferring their tents—to look at her.
“We will have one main campfire at the center,” she called out, turning her body to make eye contact with each man.
“It will be where I am standing,” she called out.
“Iman,” she leveled her eyes on him, “please find the stones and the starters in the wagons and bring them to me now.”
Iman hesitated for a moment before nodding. “My lady,” he said as he moved to retrieve the materials.
Eve continued. “We will eat together, and you will be one with us for as long as you continue on this journey.” She looked at Iman.
“This will help to squash any disagreements.” She nodded at the resolution.
“Those of you departing here, please see me before leaving. If you are awaiting a payment, I will take care of that as well.”
By now, the men stood still, awaiting her next instructions.
Eve put her hands on her hips. “Get to it,” she called out.
“You don’t eat until your yurt is set up.
” She toed a circle in the dirt where the cooking pit would be.
“Make sure the entrance faces south, or you will most certainly do it again.”
Across the space, at the edge of their camp, far from the center where she stood, was Michel, standing with Terence. Michel watched her with amusement on his face, and for some reason, it caused her insides to flutter.