A Deadly Injustice Read Online Free Page B

Most still remained to the south, and that is where we were living. Like most of the foreigners in the Great Khan’s empire.
    My little entourage was made up of Gurbesu – the Kungurat Tartar girl from the North, Tadeusz Pyka – a Silesian Pole from Breslau, and Friar Giovanni Alberoni – a Venetian like myself. He and I had come together in strange circumstances, each drawn to the pole star that was Kubilai Khan. Friar Alberoni had picked me up out of the gutter in Sudak in an area some call Crimea. I had been going through a bad patch in my life, forced out of Venice through little fault of my own. Missing my lover, Caterina Dolfin, I had for once made a mess of my business dealings, and had resorted to the consolation of the bottle. Though I would not admit it to him, Alberoni saved me from myself, and offered me a job as bodyguard for his trip to the furthest edge of the world that was the Mongol Empire. The friar was an odd cove who had set his heart on chasing a myth, though he didn’t see it that way. You see, things had seemed to be going from bad to worse in the Middle East. Saracens were grabbing chunks of the Holy Lands back from Crusader knights, who had taken their eyes off the prize, and set themselves up as mercenary kings and counts of various tracts of God’s country. The successes of previous crusades were therefore crumbling away. Suddenly, there was a tale circulating of a great Christian king in the East, who would save Christendom in its hour of need. He went by the name of Presbyter, or Prester, John. Alberoni wanted to do something about it by seeking him out and pleading for his help. I thought he was wasting his time, as to me it was all a scam relying on people’s yearnings for a saviour, who would descend from the heavens at the final moment. Such miracles did not occur in my world. But the trip to Xanadu drew me, and I agreed to help him. Predictably, our initial search failed dismally. But then, just as we were about to give up, we had come across stories of Nestorian Christians in Kubilai’s empire. And in Xanadu, we had encountered an old man, a prisoner who had been long incarcerated by Kubilai’s family. He could have been the man Alberoni was looking for. The trouble was he had disappeared as mysteriously as he had appeared to us. One moment, there he was in his cell, the next moment he had slipped into the shadows like a will o’ the wisp. Alberoni’s search had thus come to an end. But it was what had brought him and me to Xanadu in the first place. And led me to be Kubilai’s hunter of murderers.
    Gurbesu, we had met on the way to Xanadu. As I told you, she was with a bunch of young girls intended to be Kubilai’s virgin brides – part of an annual tribute from their tribe. Unfortunately for Kubilai, Gurbesu had been wilful enough to respond to my seductive manner. She had also been wild enough to escape from the harem, and take up with me. Her black, oiled hair, and shapely curves were in complete contrast to the willowy figure of the blonde-haired Cat, who I had left behind in Venice. But I didn’t know if I would ever see my Venetian lover again. So who could blame me for taking up with Gurbesu? I certainly didn’t feel guilty, especially when Gurbesu’s dark-skinned arms were wrapped around me.
    The final member of our group was Tadeusz Pyka. He had experienced a more turbulent means of reaching Kubilai’s court. More than twenty-five years earlier, in 1241, the Tartar hordes had swept across Europe. They had seemed like a terrifying army of the Devil, killing all Christians in its way. And indeed, Tadeusz had been lucky to survive the devastation of his home town of Breslau. What had saved him was that he was a silversmith. The Mongols were beginning to see the value of skilled men, and he had been brought back to Xanadu in chains to ply his trade for the benefit of the Great Khan. Twenty years on, he had no