Silk Road by Falconer Colin

Author:Falconer, Colin
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Corvus
Published: 2011-03-20T16:00:00+00:00

LXV

LATE ONE AFTERNOON, they stopped at a remote post house and were unsaddling their horses when he saw a horseman approaching from the north. Josseran heard the plaintive whine of a post horn. As the rider galloped into the yam, a groom appeared from the pens leading a fresh horse, already saddled, resplendent in scarlet halter and saddle blanket. Without a word the rider leaped from one mount on to the other and rode on.

Josseran caught just a glimpse of him; his torso was strapped with leather belts, his head wrapped in swathes of cloth. There was a large gold medallion around his neck. Then he was gone, leaving the groom holding the reins of the steaming and exhausted horse. Within minutes he was a distant speck on the plain, heading west, the way they had come.

‘Who was he?’ Josseran asked Angry Man.

He spat on the ground and walked away.

Sartaq overheard his question and walked over and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘That was an arrow rider. One of the Emperor’s messengers.’

‘What is an arrow rider?’

‘They carry urgent despatches to and from the imperial court. They are expected to ride at full gallop for the entire day. That way they can travel perhaps eighty leagues a day, changing horses at every post house. If it is an emergency they may even travel at night, and footmen will run in front with torches.

‘Every hamlet, every town must provide horses for the yams, so it costs the Emperor nothing. He provides horses only for those stations on the steppes or in the desert where no one lives.’

‘Why was he wearing all those belts?’

‘They help keep him upright in the saddle. The scarves around his head protect him against the wind and the flying stones.’

‘And the gold medallion?’

‘It is a paizah, the seal of the Emperor himself. If his horse goes lame he can empower any man to give up his own horse for him, on pain of death. You look surprised, Barbarian. Do you not have anything like this where you come from?’

Josseran did not know how to answer him. I have never seen anything like this, he thought. But how much should I tell these Tatars about us? They already call us barbarians.

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