‘So that Bolghai himself does not have to travel. I suspect Bolghai has more pressing business in Daidu. Most people do.’

‘Not the Khan, it seems.’

‘No. Not the Khan.’

The procession was a great crowd, trailing the Khan on his boulder-beast. The ride continued through the morning, across a landscape of woodland and open plains, a land dotted with farms – though the plain looked parched, many farms abandoned, the woodland hacked for firewood. Twice the progress was interrupted for hunting. Horns sounded, scouts rode off – and then the animals would appear, to great excitement. The first was a band of wild boar, ugly, bristling creatures that ran squealing across the road. The Khan had his curtains thrown back so he could see, and allowed his barons to run down the boar. Then a magnificent stag was sighted. A cage was revealed on a cart, and opened to release a hunting animal, a lithe cat that Uzzia believed had been brought from Africa. The cat was ferociously fast, and Avatak saw the Khan stand up in his pavilion so he could see it chase down the stag.

Uzzia was not impressed. ‘I spoke to the attendants. They go ahead into the country, hunters, beaters, trappers. They flush out the game, round it up. They even cage the beasts to be released when the Khan rides by. This is not true hunting. This is a rich man’s indulgence. This particular Khan is a man of civilisation, of letters, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But he plays at being what his ancestors once were, a wild man of the steppe. I hope he remembers his limitations.’

As noon approached there was a commotion ahead. The progress of the caravan was not slowed, but Avatak heard shouting, brisk, impatient commands, and the unmistakable ring of swords being pulled from scabbards.

He saw a band of people beside the road, adults, old folk, children, families. Some of them had carts or mules laden with carpets, furniture; others carried goods on their backs. Avatak saw one thin old woman in a neat floor-length silk gown, expensively made but very dusty, with a bird in a bronze cage perched on her head. To let the Khan pass they had been cleared from the road.

‘Nestspills,’ Uzzia murmured.

‘From where?’

‘Daidu, of course. Or its suburbs. Where else? There have been rumours about this all winter, in the taverns and the suburbs, that as soon as the winter relented half the population would be off, heading south.’

There were cries of ‘Crane! Crane!’