Chapter 195: Greed and Contraband
The fire was going well, and Süke had adjusted something inside his coat twice since sitting down.
Köge, sitting across from him without looking up from the coals, said, "You’ve checked it twice."
"I’m keeping track of it," Süke said.
"Stop touching it in front of the camp."
Arsu had been watching this with a particular worry on his face that had been there since before the fire was lit. "If they find us," he said, "they take a hand from each of us. I’d end up with the one that’s already fucked and they’d take it too."
"Nobody’s finding anything," Süke said.
"If you stop fidgeting with it."
"Shut up."
From his position near the fire, where he had not moved since sitting down, Yasa said, "The distribution riders are still making their rounds." He said it without inflection, adjusting the wounds on his body. "I saw two of them near the north camp when we came through."
"They’re checking supply loads," Süke snorted. "They’re not looking under a man’s coat."
"They’re not looking yet," Yasa retorted.
Köge said nothing to that.
Süke looked at him. "What?"
"Nothing," Köge said. "Go on."
Arsu had taken out his right hand and was looking at the cut across the palm, which had been healing for some time and which he had not stopped remembering them since Džuketau.
"My concern," he said, "is which hand it’d be. This one’s already done for."
"Ask how his side is," Köge said, and pointed at Yasa.
Arsu looked at Yasa. "How’s your side?"
Yasa said, "It’s there. The physician said nothing vital was reached. He packed it and told me three weeks of slow movement."
He shifted slightly in his sitting position, felt something in the movement, and held still.
"Breathing from the left side hurts a bit."
"My hand’s getting better," Arsu said. "The physician said another week and the stiffness-"
"Fuck off, Tasa had a spear through his side," Köge snickered.
Arsu looked at him. "I know he did. I’m talking about my hand."
"We don’t need a daily report," Köge said.
Yasa looked at the fire and said, in a dry tone, "The hand reports are important, Arsu. Keep them coming."
The camp noise in the distance had been going since the city fell and were lower now, the hour getting late enough that the celebration was running out of energy.
Süke looked at the coals and then said, "Džuketau was different. Before Bulgar."
Yasa snickered, "That’s a nice way to say you were wrong about Džuketau."
"Džuketau is not richer than Bulgar. I was right about that."
"But you were wrong about how many riches we would get here," Arsu shrugged.
"Fuck, that’s not on me. I thought the distribution would be as lax as the White Horde’s."
Süke threw his hands in frustration. "Orda let us plunder and take any share worth the extra trouble. That’s fair. Here the Khan has men counting everything, damn, even now there are riders with felt tallies at every camp."
Yasa nodded, "Orda got us to Džuketau , burned what needed to burn, and moved on. That’s what you want from a commander raiding into open country."
"He doesn’t spend time on the useless records," Süke said. "That’s the steppe way."
Köge exhaled, "In the end, Džuketau was worth more because we kept what we took. Here, we had more in our hands but they took most of it away."
"That’s what I said," Süke nodded fiercely.
He looked at the fire. "And the fight here was more brutal too."
Arsu added, "The barricade in the market square was taller than I expected, the carts on their sides with grain sacks stacked on top. You couldn’t see over it at mounted height."
"It wasn’t there for you to look over," Süke snorted.
"I’m saying it surprised me."
"Most things surprise you," Yasa complemented from his position.
"The fight went well enough until we pushed through the barricade," Arsu said.
Köge grunted, "They waited until we were committed to the barricade and tried to block our way into the gap. The timing was theirs."
Yasa said, "The guy with the spear came out nowhere. I was working the flank of the gap and he came at me from the other side."
He adjusted one hand on his knee before continuing.
"I had the horse turning and couldn’t bring it around before he was inside my reach."
Nobody added to that.
After a while Süke moved on, "When we march west, there are river stations between here and the Sura river. Merchants on those routes move goods without asking questions."
Köge added, "Heard there’s a network that made a deal with the Khan."
Süke looked at him.
He continued, "The merchants on the stations are reporting commercial transactions to Sarai. Whatever we sell there will be known by them."
Süke sat with this for a moment. "Shit," he said. "You’re sure about that?"
"The supply riders confirmed it," Köge nodded.
Arsu scratched his chin, "So the merchants we’d use are exactly the ones who write things down."
"That’s the problem," Köge said.
Yasa grunted in annoyance, "The Khan’s building a city here, the sorta that doesn’t ever move. The bigger Sarai gets, the harder it’ll be to move anything on these roads without it ending up in a felt somewhere."
Arsu looked at his right hand. "I had one worry and now I’ve got two."
"Make it three then," Yasa said.
"I’m going to lose this hand."
"Nobody’s losing anything," Süke said. "We go further west to sell it."
"That’s past the Sura," Arsu stared at him. "Closer to the Rus."
"There are markets between here and the Rus," Süke said.
Arsu looked at him for a moment. "I’ll tell you what I think. I think if one of us gets caught, it’s going to be you. You walk straight at every strongbox in every building from here to wherever we ride."
"That’s why I’m richer than you," Süke retorted.
"We’ll deal with it on the road." Köge ended the discussion.
Nobody argued with that.
The fire went lower. The camp in the distance had its last sounds, the celebration having run its course, the arbans settling toward sleep.
Arsu had lain back on his saddle with his right hand resting on his chest and was looking at it against the sky. Yasa had not moved from his position. Köge had his eyes on the coals.
Süke eventually spoke, "There’ll be a market before the Rus. We’ll sell it there."
