rts
greater than all Europe and over mountains so high and icy that birds
are frozen in the crossing. And a word in your ear, my lord. The Ilkhan
permits few to cross his eastern marches. Beware of treason, I say. Your
companions are the blood-thirstiest of the royal guards."

But from the Genoese he obtained a plan of the first stages of the road,
and one morning in autumn he set out from the Tartar city, his squire
from the Boulonnais by his side, and at his back a wild motley of
horsemen, wearing cuirasses of red leather stamped with the blue wolf of
Houlagou's house.

October fell chill and early in those uplands, and on the fourth day
they came into a sprinkling of snow. At night round the fires the
Tartars made merry, for they had strong drink in many skin bottles, and
Aimery was left to his own cold meditations. If he had had any hope, it
was gone now, for the escort made it clear that he was their prisoner
Judging from the chart of the Genoese, they were not following any road
to Cambaluc, and the sight of the sky told him that they were circling
round to the south. The few Tartar words he had learned were not enough
to communicate with them, and in any case it was clear that they would
take no orders from him. He was trapped like a bird in the fowler's
hands. Escape was folly, for in an hour their swift horses would have
ridden him down. He had thought he had grown old, but the indignity woke
his youth again, and he fretted passionately. If death was his portion,
he longed for it to come cleanly in soldier fashion.

One night his squire disappeared. The Tartars, when he tried to question
them, only laughed and pointed westward. That was the last he heard of
the lad from the Boulonnais.

And then on a frosty dawn, when the sun rose red-rimmed over the
barrens, he noted a new trimness in his escort. They rode in line, and
they rode before and behind him, so that his captivity was made patent.
On a ridge far to the west he saw a great castle, and he knew the palace
of Houlagou. His guess had been right; he had been brought back by a
circuit to his starting-point.

Presently he was face to face with the Ilkhan, who was hunting. The
Greek scribe was with him, so the meeting had been foreseen. The King's
face was dark with the weather and his stony eyes had a glow in them.

"O messenger of France," he said, "there is a little custom of our
people that I had forgotten. When a stranger warrior visits us it is our