Silk Road by Colin Falconer

The Holy Land, 1260: Josseran Sarrazini wants to get away from his past. He knows that the task the pope has set him is impossibly dangerous and will involve unimaginable hardships. He also suspects that he’ll probably never come back, and he doesn’t really care.

It doesn’t help that only a few days into the journey he wants to throttle with his bare hands the man he is sworn to protect with his life. The fact that he’s a priest only makes it worse.

Khutelun is the spirited daughter of a Mongol chieftain. She was raised in the saddle of a horse. She can hit a deer with an arrow at two hundred paces. And she considers no man her equal. But when she is ordered to escort the Christian ambassadors along the treacherous Silk Road, she meets her match in Josseran.

Their journey takes them across baking deserts and icy mountain passes that the Mongols call The Roof of the World. There are kidnappings, tribal feuds and women who drink horses’ blood. And at the end of the journey is the legendary Xanadu and the great Kublai Khan.

That’s when things get complicated.