I walked between the two bonfires and stood patiently while the guard at the entrance to the High Khan’s tent searched me for weapons. It was no perfunctory search; I have had medical examinations that were less thorough.

Finally I was allowed to enter the tent, my four escorts walking with me, two ahead and two behind. I was either an important guest or a dangerous captive; I imagined that Ogotai and his aides had not yet decided which.

The tent was much larger than Hulagu’s or any other I had seen. Carpets from China and Persia covered the ground. Silks and tapestries hung along the felt walls. To one side stood a long table of what appeared to be solid silver, laden with mare’s milk, fruit, meat and salt: a symbol of the nomad’s generosity to guests. Warriors stood at either end of the table, and more were posted at the various entrances to the wide, long tent. Up ahead of me, on a one-step-high platform, sat Ogotai, the High Khan, flanked on his left by half a dozen of the most beautiful women I had ever seen, and by twenty or more Mongols who could only be generals and other warriors, on his right. I recognized only Ye Liu Chutsai, standing in a splendid robe of sky blue and gold, to the High Khan’s immediate right and slightly behind him.

Ogotai reclined on cushions. He had no throne. He was a solid, chunky man, in his early fifties, I judged, with an open, curious expression on his round face. He was getting fat, but he did not seem to care about that. In one hand he held a wine goblet of gold, encrusted with jewels. Well behind him stood a Chinese boy, holding a gold pitcher — the Khan’s wine steward.

As I marched in step with my four escorts toward the Khan’s slightly raised dais, I scanned the big tent for a sign of Ahriman. I could not see him. That was all to the good, I thought.

The warriors brought me to a stop three paces in front of the High Khan. I bowed from the waist, then straightened up. I had no intention of falling on my face in obeisance. I was an emissary, not a slave.

“Most High Khan,” said Ye Liu Chutsai as I stood before Ogotai, “this is the man Orion, an emissary from the land far to the west, beyond the mountains and plains and even the wide sea.”

Ogotai glanced over his shoulder and the wine steward hurried forward to fill his goblet. The High Khan took a deep draft from it, then smacked his lips and gave me a long, careful study. He looked me up and down, then suddenly burst into uproarious laughter.

“Look!” he said, pointing at me. “He has no shoes!”

The whole tent burst into shrieks of laughter, all except Ye Liu Chutsai, whose usually impassive face looked upset and embarrassed.

I was still wearing my travel-stained sandals, and they must have looked quite incongruous, in the eyes of the Mongols, with the handsome outfit that the mandarin had sent to me. Liu had included a pair of leather boots, but as usual they were too small for me. The shirt and vest were tight across my shoulders and short in the sleeve, but I had managed to get into them. The shoes had proved impossible.

Ogotai was almost hysterical with laughter, and the other Mongols joined in heartily. The High Khan might have been half drunk before I entered; I saw nothing so very funny about the condition of my footwear.

“I never saw a wizard walking around with his toes peeping out!” Ogotai gasped. And that sent him into another round of boisterous guffaws.

I felt both embarrassed and relieved. At least, it seemed to me, the High Khan was not terribly worried about me. A man does not laugh until the tears flow down his cheeks at a suspected assassin or supernatural danger.

At last Ogotai’s laughter subsided and the tent grew fairly quiet once more. The guards who had been pointing at me and doubling over with glee straightened up again and grew silent. Ye Liu Chutsai stared off into a distant nowhere. Ogotai raised his cup and the wine boy hastened to fill it.

“Baibars,” the High Khan called, after another draft of wine.

A young man rose from his pillows and bowed to Ogotai.

“Baibars, find a shoemaker and see to it that our guest gets a proper set of boots.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

“Now then, man from the West, come and share some wine with me. Your people do drink wine, don’t they?”

Half a dozen slaves sprang from behind the High Khan’s dais and arranged big, boldly colored pillows for me to sit at his right hand. A wine goblet appeared, almost as precious as the one Ogotai held. I sat, took the goblet, raised it in thanks to him, and sipped the deep red wine.

“The wine of Shiraz,” Ogotai said. “A country not far from where you encountered my nephew Hulagu.”

I said, “It is a rare treat. Even in my faraway land, the wine of Shirazis spoken of highly.” This was the wine, I knew from my twentieth century reading, that Omar Khayyam praised in his Rubaiyat.

Lazily, almost indifferently, the High Khan said, “I was warned against you. I was told that you are a powerful wizard — and an assassin.”

I glanced up at Liu, who remained standing two paces behind his Khan.

“I am a man, my lord High Khan, not a wizard. I am an emissary from a far-distant land, not an assassin. I carry no weapons…”

“But you need none,” Ogotai interrupted. “You kill armed warriors with your bare hands. You catch arrows with your teeth.” He grinned. “Or so I have been told.”

“I defend myself as best I can, O High Khan. But if a warrior shot an arrow at me, the chances are I would stop it with my flesh, the same as any other man.”

“That is not what I was told.”

I took a deep breath, stalling momentarily as I wondered how far I could trust his good humor.

Finally I answered, “Most High Khan, surely you have heard more wild tales of fabulous things than any man living. You know how the truth becomes exaggerated each time it is retold.”

He laughed. “Yes, yes. My own prowess in battle grows with every day that I sit here! The armies I beat are larger with each telling, and the numbers that I slaughtered grow like a column of smoke rising to the sky.”

“My lord High Khan,” said one of the Mongols seated a few places away from us, “let us not depend on this stranger’s words alone. Let us test him.”

He had the gruff look of a policeman to him; probably he was the Mongol responsible for Ogotai’s security.

“What do you propose, Kassar?” asked Ogotai.

“Stand him up,” the Mongol waved to the open area in the middle of the tent, “and let a few of the guards fire arrows at him. Then we will see if the tales we have heard are true or false.”

Ogotai looked at me before answering, “If the tales are false, we will have killed an emissary.”

“Better a dead emissary than a live wizard,” the man called Kassar muttered.

“Or give him a sword and let him fight Chamuka!” said another Mongol. “That would be lively.”

“Or a wrestling match!” called still another.

The High Khan listened and sipped at his wine. Ye Liu Chutsai stood over us impassively, gravely, and said nothing.

I knew that if they tried to shoot me with arrows or match me against a swordsman, I would have to defend myself. That would mean showing them that the tales they heard about me were not such exaggerations, after all. Then what would happen? A wrestling match might not be so bad, but I seemed to remember that a man might have his neck snapped or his back broken in a “friendly” Mongol match.

Ogotai looked into my eyes from over the rim of his goblet. I wondered how much of his wine drinking was a masquerade, a prop he used to give himself time to study the situation and think.

He put the empty goblet down on the carpet at his side. As the Chinese lad hastened to refill it, the High Khan silenced the tent with a single uplifted hand.