CHAPTER 1

Mikail

The young political officer had a girl in the village. He had metKarita a year ago when he had visited Sapoda to talk to the headmanabout smuggling. Close to the main road running through the neutralzone between the Roman and Mongol empires and only ten miles fromthe Mongol border, the village of Sapoda was a natural way-station forsmugglers. Mikail had been spending most of his time on smugglingcases for no better reason than that his chief thought them important.No one else did; the Zone had always been a haven for smugglers.

The Sapoda headman was also the local man of substance. Heowned the mill, some other property, and The Blonde Horseman, theonly tavern in the village. His daughter Karita, a very young widow, wasnot on good terms with her stepmother; she managed the tavern andlived on the second floor. When the headman housed him there, Mikailhad noticed the petite blonde waiting on him when her clever handsmade a show out of deboning his fish. He spent the evening flirtingwith her. For her part, Karita seemed to like what she saw. Mikail deRuyter was six- feet tall with dark brown hair, blue eyes, and a trim littlemustache anchoring his sunburned face. He had given his dinner orderin Ukrainian, the language of the western provinces of the MongolEmpire, and she came over to his table, bringing a bottle of wine. Shesurprised him, first by sitting down, then by unexpectedly speakingLatin. "The Inn's very best," she said with a friendly smile, uncorking thebottle. Surprised and delighted, he showed it by smiling and thankingher for the wine in the courtliest Latin he could command, adding, "Icould listen to you all night. I had almost forgotten how lovely my ownlanguage sounds until I heard you speaking it. How did a girl like youget here?"

"I was born here," she said. "My parents moved to Imponza whenI was a baby. When I was seven, my mother died, and we moved back.Father remarried, but my stepmother and I do not like each other. Weall agreed I would be happier with my uncle and aunt in Imponza, onthe other side of the river. I went to school there in the Empire and cameback here to get married. My husband died within a year, and I've beenrunning the tavern ever since."

"My sympathy on your husband's death," Mikail said.

"It was an arranged marriage. My father thought he was doing theright thing, but it was a terrible mistake." She paused and studied hisuniform, "What brings you here, red jacket?"

Mikail laughed, "Your father and my uniform. I'm here to talk aboutthe smuggling problem with the headman of Sapoda while I drink hissour Dragonhead leaf tea, because I hope to be a diplomat some day. Thesmuggling is upsetting my chief, and I can't see why. If you live here, youhave to know that everybody in the Zone is involved. Yet, your fatherinsists with a straight face, there is no smuggling here."

Karita made her face look angelic. "Smuggling? Here? How couldthat ever happen?"

"Besides making my day a lot brighter, whatever are you doing inSapoda?"

"I really don't know," she sighed, "although making your daybrighter sounds like a good idea."

The bottle of wine had launched his best evening in a very longtime. She so obviously enjoyed stretching her spirit's limits and showinghow pleased she was with their encounter, that he found himself talkingto her seriously. There were plenty of blonde beauties in the Zonevillages, but no lively, articulate girls. He told her how lonely andbored he was, how his chief's patronizing ways irritated him, and howuncomfortable he was about his prospects for advancement. Officersof the Political Department were supposed to collect information andincrease Roman influence, if they wished for promotion to the eliteDiplomatic Service. He had liked George Hoffman, his sector officer,but George had unkindly returned the favor by dead-ending Mikail ata desk, fussing over trivia. That was no way to build a record for transferto the Diplomatic Service.

As Mikail opened up to her, Karita responded. She felt that she hadbeen nowhere and done nothing since her schooling had ended. Herbrief, arranged marriage with a rich old man from the next village hadended after a year when his horse had fallen on him. Karita did not missher husband, but she was lonely. She hadn't grown up in Sapoda anddidn't have a single friend there. The men were clods, and the BlondeHorseman bored her. Her stepmother was a figure out of a nasty fairytale. She yearned for a better life in a bigger world.

He commiserated. She was too pretty and vivacious for a small townin the neutral zone between Rome and Mongolia. After three hours,Mikail felt happier than he had been for a long time and told her sobefore he finally dragged himself upstairs.

Not long after, there was a knock on his door, and in she slipped,pink and blushing, barefoot in a lacy white chemise. When morningcame, Karita went downstairs to make a hot breakfast and brought itto him. Afterwards, they sat on the bed, arms around one another, andtalked for hours. Mikail marveled; this girl was a laughing brook in astony desert.

As he left, she stood on tiptoe to tell him with her parting kiss,"Thank God you came, I was going to run away next week. I hadalready started to pack."

That had been exactly a year ago. Since then, he had seen her asoften as he could get to Sapoda.

He had written Karita to say he would stop by on Thursday andstay over before going on to his monthly meeting with his sector officer,but here he was on Tuesday, two days early, to surprise her with a one-yearanniversary present, a turquoise necklace that echoed the colorof her eyes. Mikail wasn't at all sure what her father knew (and if hedid, whether he wanted others to know) about his daughter's lover. Sorather than wearing his uniform, he was dressed in a peddler's hoodedcoat that cast his sharp features into shadow, a costume he often hadoccasion to wear; not everyone in the Zone wanted to be seen talkingwith the Emperor's political officers.

Mikail put the necklace into his pack, tied up his horse in thewoods a mile from the tavern, and sauntered down the road, enjoyingthe hundred shades of green in the first blush of the Moldavian Spring.He began to think about putting the necklace around her smoothlovely neck that night. He would wait until she was naked to have thepleasure of seeing it hanging between her generous breasts. The thoughtof bedding her caused him to whistle in anticipation. Certainly, she wasthe best thing that had ever happened to him, and he kept thinkingahead to the night's pleasures, but—a dash of cold water—it had tocome to an end. The Political Service might ignore an officer's affairwith a Zonian—its junior officers were young, unmarried men withhealthy appetites and that was how the Service liked them—but Karitawas an extreme conflict of interest made lovely flesh.

Nor would his family be of any help. His father was long dead,and Lucas, his ambitious older brother, was head of the family. Lucasloved Mikail, mentored him, had gotten him this job, and still was hismost important supporter, but he insisted so often and so vehementlythat he was not a stuffed shirt that he ended up proving the contrary.Worse, Lucas and his wife, especially his wife, would consider Karita anembarrassment to Lucas's own career. As the head of a Roman family,Lucas had a legal right to prevent an unsuitable marriage. Still, Mikailfelt that he and...