A Deadly Injustice Read Online Free PDF Page B

thinking about. But since our time in the Mongol Empire I had become almost as at home on the back of the hardy little ponies the Mongols used, as on board ship. Gurbesu could ride like the wind. She had been practically brought up on the back of a horse. Such a life as the one she led would not have suited the Chinee because they placed great store by verifiable virginity in a bride. Sitting astride a horse would not have been conducive to retaining that state. As well as proof by virginal blood, it is said that one of the ways of ensuring the virginity of a bride was by using a pigeon’s egg. If it did not break on insertion – if you take my meaning – then the girl could not be a virgin. Gurbesu would have failed gloriously. Tadeusz could ride reasonably well too, by the way. Which left Alberoni and Lin Chu-Tsai.
    Our Chinee friend hated travelling, and like Alberoni abhorred the back of a horse. So I knew he would arrive in a carriage of some sort. But he would not wish to share it with the friar. In his opinion, we Westerners sweated fearsomely, and did not wash often enough. For my part, I thought the Chinee elite washed far too often, immersing themselves as they did almost every day. I preferred to change my clothes regularly, and keep myself sweet-smelling that way. I say I preferred it. To be honest, it was Gurbesu who had got me into the habit of changing clothes, swearing she would not lie with me if I wore the same clothes more than three days together. I therefore packed my saddlebags with lots of silk shirts and loose trousers in the Chinee style, together with a couple of short jackets and an informal long robe decorated with dragons called a bei-zi . I was quite the dandy in my Chinee clothes. Gurbesu too had her own version of the bei-zi , which was cut to fit snugly round her curves. The thought of how the clothes fitted her so well had me on the verge of suggesting to her that we adjourn to our bedchamber. But just as I was about to do so, we heard the sound of horses’ hooves on the broken cobbles of the old city street where we lived. We were ready to go.
    Lin was not with the horses, but had given the ostler a message that we were to set off and he would meet us soon enough. I pushed and prodded Alberoni on to the back of his pony, which we chose for him as the one looking the most docile, and the rest of us mounted more easily. The friar jiggled the reins, but could not make his steed start, so I moved my pony alongside his and gave it a kick. With a yell of horror from Alberoni, and a look of annoyance from his mount, the two of them moved away in more or less the right direction. The rest of us followed in his wake, keeping up the encouragement that Alberoni was unable to supply.

FOUR
    A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step .
    O ur strange and erratic procession finally came together ten miles west of Khan-balik at the great marble bridge over the river called by some Pulisanghin. It was a big bridge with twenty-four arches and twenty-four piers because the river – that Lin called Hun-Ho – was a very big river that ran all the way to the ocean. The bridge was made of grey marble and ten horsemen could have ridden abreast across it. Our little entourage did not make such demands on it. While Gurbesu and I had ridden fast ahead of the others for the pure joy of it – and in my case to make sure I was well out of the reach of Mongotai – Tadeusz and Alberoni were plodding along at a more sedate pace. We had all arranged to meet up at the bridge, as Lin was to be coming from another direction in his carriage, according to the message sent by the ostler. Gurbesu and I knew we would have a long wait for the others to catch up, so we dismounted and sat in the shade of one of a row of columns along the bridge. Each one was set on the back of a marble turtle and topped by a lion. We sat fondling each other, watching the brown waters surge under the