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himself, and as lice-ridden in fact he believed the parasites were homing in on him, a source of
untapped, fresh meat. If the food poisoning didn t kill him, he d probably be bled to death.
But Sable said they had to fit in. Look at Yeh-lü, she said. He s a civilized man. You think he grew
up covered in shit? Of course not. And if he can stand it, you can.
She was right, of course. But it didn t make life with the Mongols any easier.
Genghis Khan, it seemed, was a patient man.
Something incomprehensible had happened to the world. And whatever it was had fractured the Mongol
empire, as was shown by the severing of theyam, the great empire-wide arteries of waystations and
couriers. Well, Genghis Khan had built an empire once, and whatever the state of the world, he would do
it again he, or his able sons. Yeh-lü, however, was advising Genghis Khan to wait. It was always the
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Mongol way to allow information to be gathered before determining which way to strike, and Genghis
Khan listened to his advisors.
During this period of deliberation, though, Genghis Khan was aware of the need to keep his troops fit
and occupied. He set up a rigorous program of training, including long forced marches and rides. And he
ordered abattueto be organized. This would be a mighty hunt spanning kilometers, and it would take a
week to organize. It would be an exercise in maneuvering troops, using weapons, maintaining discipline,
communications and hardship. It was a significant event; the hunt was at the core of the Mongols
self-image as well as their military methods.
Sable, meanwhile, explored the yurt city. She particularly targeted the troops, hoping to learn how they
fought.
The Mongol warriors saw Sable as an irritation. Kolya learned that, given that the usual pattern of
courtship here was to kidnap your wife from the yurt of your neighbor, women had surprising influence in
Mongol society as long as they were members of the Golden Family anyhow. Genghis Khan s first wife
Borte, about the same age as the emperor, was a key voice in the decision-making of the court. But
women didn t fight. The warriors were wary of this strange Heaven-woman in her orange clothes, and
they weren t about to submit to her inspections.
The turning point came when one cavalryman, drunk on rice wine, forgot about the power of Heaven
and tried to rip open Sable s jumpsuit. He was a stocky, powerful man, a veteran of the Mongols first
Russian campaign, and so probably personally responsible for hundreds of deaths but he was no match
for twenty-first-century martial arts disciplines. With one pale breast exposed, Sable floored him in
seconds and left him screaming on the ground, with a leg broken in two places.
After that, Sable rapidly grew in stature and in aura. She was allowed to come and go where she
pleased and she took care to ensure that the tale of her victory, suitably embellished, found its way
back to the court. But the Mongols were growing nervous of her, Kolya saw, and that surely wasn t a
good thing.
Come to that,hewas nervous of her. Her fear had long burned away, and as the days wore by, and she
pushed against one barrier or another with impunity, she grew in confidence and determination. It was as
if her stranding in this bit of the thirteenth century had liberated something primeval inside her.
Kolya, meanwhile, spent his time with Yeh-lü, the empire s chief administrator.
Born in one of the neighboring nations, Yeh-lü had been brought into the Mongol camp as a prisoner; an
astrologer by training, he had quickly risen in this empire of illiterates. Yeh-lü and other educated men in
the court had been appointed by a farsighted Genghis Khan to administer the growing empire.
Yeh-lü had used China as his model for the new state. He selected the most able of the prisoners the
Mongols brought back from their raids into northern China to help him in this project, and extracted
books and medicines from their booty. Once, he said modestly, he had been able to save many lives
during an epidemic in Mongolia by using Chinese medicines and methods.
Yeh-lü sought to moderate the Mongols cruelty by appealing to higher ambitions. Genghis Khan had
actually considered depopulating China to provide more pasture for his horses, but Yeh-lü had deflected
him. The dead don t pay taxes, he had said. Kolya suspected his long-term ambition was to civilize the
Mongols by allowing the sedentary cultures they conquered to assimilate them just as China had
absorbed and acculturated previous waves of invaders from the northern wastes.
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Kolya had no idea how his personal adventure would turn out. But if he was stuck here on Mir, in
people like Yeh-lü he saw the best hope for the future. And so he was happy to consult with Yeh-lü
about the nature of the new world, and to draw up plans for what to do about it.
Yeh-lü had been taken by Sable s first attempt to sketch a world map on the dirt floor. He and Kolya
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