Silk Road by Colin Falconer

flap of the yurt and found Khutelun curled up beside her brother, fast asleep. He rushed in and carried her out,wailing in despair, thinking that now he would lose a daughter as well as a son. But Khutelun did not fall sick.
    Instead, Tekudai began to get well.
    It was after this that she began to have visions. One day she went to her father and told him not to hunt that day because she had dreamed of a monster eating him. He had laughed away her protests. But that same afternoon, while he was retrieving his arrows from a fallen ibex, he was attacked by a bear. It ripped four great slashes in his chest and when they brought him home there was scarcely breath in him.
    Khutelun stayed with him all through that night, sucking the clotted blood from his wounds. When her father survived, the other shamans came to her and told her she had the gift.
    An old woman, Changelay, and a man, Magui, taught her the sacred rites and from that moment on Qaidu always consulted her whenever there were important decisions to be made.
    But for Khutelun the gift was sometimes a burden. There were occasions when her knowing tormented her, as when she dreamed that one of the men of the tribe was bulling another man’s wife. She kept her silence, but was haunted by it until the man was killed in a battle with the Kermids.
    She did not want this gift. She wanted to be free, like her brothers, to ride the steppes and gallop with her father.
    But in the smoky dark of the night the spirits would talk to her and transport her across the steppe. At first these visions lasted no longer than a splinter of lightning in the mountains at night. But as she grew older she stayed longer and longer in the Otherworld, could sometimes glimpse to the very horizon of time. When the spirit was strong in her she could fly through the whole valley and see into everyone. But it was a dizzying experience and it left her exhausted.
    Tonight she streaked across the Roof of the World with the barbarian with the fire-blond beard, twisting the shifting axis of the hours to see what lay ahead for her and for him. It was a terrible prescience, for the future that lay below her in the panorama of the seasons was too frightening to contemplate.

XXVII

    J OSSERAN WOKE TO the sound of a commotion outside. He got up and pushed aside the heavy flap at the entrance. A crowd had gathered on the plain, just beyond the first line of wagons. It was clear something of import was about to happen.
    ‘Some viciousness, no doubt,’ William said behind him.
    Josseran threw on his furs and boots and set off. William hurried after him. The ground was hard, and dusted with snow.
    Hundreds of Tatars, men, women and children, had gathered in a circle. The mood was festive. He had seen such flushed expressions before, at public executions in Orléans and Paris.
    A woman stood in the centre of the circle, holding a plaited leather horsewhip in her right hand. She was young and sturdy, and there was a knife thrust into her belt.
    A young man rode out from the camp and the crowd parted for him. His trousers were tucked into his leather boots, in the fashion of the people of these mountains, but his chest and back were bare.
    ‘What are they doing?’ William whispered.
    ‘I don’t know.’ Josseran turned, saw Khutelun standing a few yards away, her eyes bright with excitement.
    The man rode slowly, circling the woman, who hefted the whip in her right fist, testing its weight. What was happening? Was this some sort of tribal punishment? If it was, the victim seemed cheerful enough.
    ‘He is going to let her whip him,’ William said, with sudden realization.
    Josseran nodded. And then he added mischievously: ‘It is not too late for me to find you a horse. Perhaps you could join in.’
    He left him and went to join Khutelun. As he turned his back he heard the whip crack.
    There was such a look of savagery on her face. Not a woman at all, as I have known them, he thought. She is a primitive. A true