eBooks Base 2000

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 bad 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.


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