The Horse Road Read Free Page A

fermented mare’s milk, she would be smiling the rare, gracious smile that wiped the queenly sternness from her face.
    We unbridled, then hobbled the horses and left them wrenching greedily at tall grasses. Gryphon ate so fast that half-chewed grass fell out of one side of his dark, wrinkled mouth. He was always an eager, impatient animal. I smiled and followed Batu’s shoulders up the ravine. Stones clattered beneath my second-best pair of riding boots. Their feet were of red leather, while the tops, rising to my knees, were of yellow leather decorated with appliqués of more red leather cut into the shapes of rams’ horns. I admired them as I climbed, bent over, trying to ignore the throb in my leg muscles.
    The sun rode higher as we struggled upwards. I thought of my father’s Greek god of the sun, Helios, driving westwards in his chariot pulled by horses as golden as Gryphon. Sweat ran down inside the legs of my trousers with their embroidered stripes of brown and red. My embroidered tunic stuck to my back.
    At last, we reached the ridgeline, and Batu edged along its sharpness, craning for a view of the eagle. I glanced downwards to where the horses grazed; theyseemed contented in the grass and summer herbs, their backs gleaming. I straightened and looked to the south where the Pamir mountains rose in a vast wall, rumpled between us and the country called India. To the north, further away than I could see, lay the land from which my mother had come, a place of grass and tribes and the mighty Volga River. To the west lay deserts, and trading cities, and the bright Mediterranean Sea, and the land of Greece which my father had left when he was a young man filled with the spirit of adventure. And here I stood now, in the heart of all this world. I smiled to myself, and tipped my face towards the afternoon sun.
    Then I inched forward to where the ridgeline fell away in a long drop into a deep valley. My head spun. I lay on my belly and peered over. For a moment, all I saw was miles of shimmering summer air, rocks, trees. Then movement caught my attention. I stared, knuckled my eyes, stared again.
    No! It couldn’t be!
    I froze. Even my breathing became shallow with terror.
    â€˜Batu!’ I whispered urgently. ‘Batu, come here!’
    Then I stared again, down into that valley where the track from the east trickled over the mountains towards Ferghana, my home and the heart of the world.
    Batu dropped down beside me. ‘Who is it?’ he whispered harshly.
    I scrutinised every detail: the foot soldiers marching doggedly along with light shining on the tips of their spears, the cavalry units on their small horses raising a pall of dust, the donkeys and black yaks and brown camels laden with boxes and bales of supplies, the loaded ox wagons lurching over stones. Above the army fluttered bright red banners made of the cloth called silk, the marvellous cloth that came from far away, in the east, and that my father longed to trade for. But to his frustration, our king in Ershi would not consent to trading agreements with the east; he was said to hate the emperor who ruled that foreign place.
    â€˜It’s the Chinese,’ I breathed. ‘My father has described them to me. They are sending another army to attack Ershi.’
    â€˜For the horses?’ Batu muttered.
    â€˜They want our Persian horses,’ I agreed. ‘Don’t you remember? Years ago, they sent an ambassador over the roof of the world to ask the king of Ferghana for horses. But the king wouldn’t give them any of our horses, and the ambassador and his men were attacked and beheaded.’
    â€˜Then what happened?’ Batu asked, swivelling to look at me, his dark eyes serious.
    â€˜Then the Chinese emperor was very angry, and two years ago he sent an army over the mountains, a march of many starving months, but the army was defeated in the land of Osh, high above the valley ofFerghana. Now, he is sending