by Diane Wilson
Nodding appreciatively, and feigning another long yawn, I gave my bowl one last lick, then rose and limped toward the bed.
“May Tengri watch over your sleep,” Genma called.
I fell upon the bed with a sigh that floated around the room. The dead could be no more tired, I thought, as I turned my back to the fire and pulled a heavy woven blanket across it. But my shoulders hunched instinctively at the loud whispering that erupted behind them and I began to worry again.
I was fairly certain that Genma suspected my identity as an arrow rider, which posed two problems. If she discovered I was a girl, she would undoubtedly take the paiza from me and keep me from riding south. Yet if she did believe I was the Khan’s messenger, she would make me continue riding in the morning on a fresh horse, leaving Bayan behind. Somehow I had to find a way to keep both the paiza and Bayan and still deliver the Khan’s valuables—swiftly!
I sighed once more. How could I possibly ride Bayan so soon? I knew I had pushed her too hard. What if her leg was beyond healing? And what about Bator? What had happened to him?
I heard Genma ask Delger to play the morinkhour, and as he drew out the first hesitant notes, I began forming a plan. Long before dawn, I decided, I would sneak out of the station and place my saddle upon one of Genma’s horses. I would quickly look around for Bator, then lead Bayan as fast as she could travel, hoping that without the weight of a rider she would be able to make it. If she couldn’t, I hoped to leave her in the temporary care of another clan. Then I would carry the Khan’s bags of treasure southward, to the next station and the next. In my grand plans that night I even hoped that Kublai Khan would be so pleased by my prompt delivery that he would reward me with one of his own swift horses. Already I could see myself returning to my ail, with both Bayan and a beautiful, new horse to win the long race. Then I would breed it and raise more swift horses, and every year after, it would be one of my horses that won the long race.
Delger continued coaxing a melody from the strings, the liquid notes fingering up my back and neck, then plunging, warm, to the pit of my stomach. I rolled over to watch him. He knelt, eyes closed, leaning almost affectionately into the horse-headed instrument. Otgon and Davasuren nestled close to their mother, enveloped in her great arms.
And then I noticed the younger son. He was still seated in the corner, legs crossed, just at the foot of my bed. Large dark eyes, kind ones, like those of a cow, stared unblinking into the wall. He was rocking back and forth with the music. I noticed that his wooden bowl of marmot stew sat, still uneaten, in his lap. And then I saw why.
With both hands he would clutch the bowl’s rim but, as he lifted it shakily to his lips, an unexpected twitch in one or both arms would nearly upend it. On his smooth chubby face I saw the raw emotions: the hunger to eat, the fear of dirtying himself, the pain of being different. Oh, how I recognized that pain. And I couldn’t help myself.
Aware that all faces turned toward me, I slipped out of my bed and knelt beside the boy. I placed my hands over his. Looking into his eyes and nodding reassuringly, I helped him guide the bowl to his lips. He slurped hungrily. As we lowered the bowl together, he smiled. I smiled back and we lifted the bowl again.
Crouching in the corner’s shadows then, knee to knee, we both listened, swaying, to the music. And each pull of the bow across the strings was a hard tug at my heart.
In the morinkhour’s haunting melodies I heard the trilling nicker of Bayan’s greeting. Upon its music I was carried back to the windswept hill where I used to sit beside her all afternoon. I smelled the warm dust of her coat, the sage-scented breezes fingering her white mane, my long black hair. I remembered with that sweet yet bitter taste how it was to feel like the only two creatures in this world.
Delger began to hum a tune, his deep voice smooth and soothing. I began to look upon him with new eyes. I admired the roundness of his head, black hair cropped short. My eyes noticed his furrowed brow, lingered upon his full lips pressed thoughtfully together. Then he began to sing. It was a song about a man who had two golden horses with manes of silver. One dark night this man’s enemy crept up to the herd and stole the two horses. A long time passed and somehow one golden horse managed to return to its owner, but only this one horse. The man was very sad, but the horse was sadder.
The night’s cold was pressing upon the room now and since the boy had long since finished his meal, I eased his head from my shoulder and crawled into bed. I listened to a few more songs, letting them fly me to mountaintops or gallop alongside princesses, and soon they carried me off to sleep.
17
Discovered!
Already I was leaping the last creek, urging my horse on with shouts, for I heard the other riders pouring down the hillside behind me. The crowd parted, banners waving, hands clapping, feet pounding, pounding, pounding…
The rhythmic thunder was growing louder and louder. Instinct jolted me awake. Sitting up, confused, I heard the stomping approach. A long grunt broke through my fog, the now-familiar scraping sounds of Genma’s bulk squeezing through the doorway announcing her presence. Blinking the sleep from my eyes, I saw that she was leading the odd boy, stumbling, behind her. And slung over her meaty arm dangled one indignant tiger cat. I moved my mouth, but no words came out.
“Well!” Genma said, a mysterious smile tugging at her lips. “At the very least you haven’t died in my bed.”
Still clutching the chubby hand of her son, she gently released Bator, who scrambled headfirst down the great expanse of berry-colored silk. He padded across the shirdik, loudly meowing his complaints. “Now I’m wondering,” Genma continued, “would this half-starved little creature that my daughters had to scoop from one of the milk bags belong to you?” Bator, by then, had leaped to my side, butting his head against my palm. I briskly rubbed the stiff hairs of his face, moist with droplets of milk. Looking at Genma, I nodded.
“Any other secrets you’d like to share?” The fat woman looked at me with one raised eyebrow while she removed the boy’s soiled del, then guided his hands into a clean one pulled from one of the fancy chests.
Under her gaze I realized the cold morning air was sifting through my cropped hair and chilling my bare neck: my father’s hat had fallen to the floor during the night. And there was a cold spot on my belly as well, an empty place where the leather pouch carrying the Khan’s message was supposed to lie. My searching hands confirmed that both it and the gold paiza were missing. Widened eyes wordlessly told Genma I knew I had been discovered. I slowly nodded again, my heart pounding like that of an animal facing the hunter’s arrow.
Genma led the boy waddling to a corner of the room and set him down, placing his hands around a bowl and large wooden spoon. Immediately he began to rock back and forth, banging out an uneven rhythm.
Then, hands upon her broad hips, Genma came and stood over me. She waited. And words came spilling from my mouth into the empty space between us.
“The pouch…with the Khan’s message…and the paiza…they’re gone!” I croaked. I was surprised to see that when Genma had drawn near to my bed, Bator had jumped down and begun affectionately polishing his coat against the large woman’s del. She didn’t kick him away.
“Now, those words,” she said, not unkindly, “are the truth. And maybe the first true words you’ve spoken to me. But you need not worry. I have them. And as soon as my son Delger returns from the temple, he’ll carry the bags to the next station.”
“But I am the Khan’s arrow rider,” I said, the tone of my voice rising with my growing fear. “He is expecting me to deliver them.”
“He is expecting you—Aruun?” Genma drew out the false name suspiciously. “I don’t know how you came to put a hand on the royal paiza of Kublai Khan, but I’m as certain as salt he is not expecting you. Which makes me think there’s more to your story than what you’ve told us—Aruun.”
My own lie echoing in my ears, I
sighed. “Oyuna,” I corrected, actually relieved to shed my poor-fitting disguise. Red-faced, I picked up my father’s hat and shyly turned my eyes toward Genma. “Was it the hat?”
“Hah!” she snorted, the golden rings of fat jiggling at her neck. “A woman doesn’t bear four children from her loins and not know the difference between the girls and the boys—hat or no hat. Although,” she added shyly, “unfastening your del to get at the message pouch did reveal more than your nakedness.” Annoyance suddenly clouded Genma’s face. “I only took those things because you were dead to the world with sleep and I wanted Delger to ride on with the Khan’s bags. They won’t be delayed at my station.” She snorted again. “But he said it’s an important day at the temple and rode there instead.”
“I’ll ride on with the bags,” I began, but Genma cut me off.
“You’re only a girl and you’ll do no such thing,” she said sharply. She turned to pull bowls from the tall blue cabinet and as quickly as she turned back the irritation in her voice vanished. “Now, then, since I did not get my story last night, I believe I deserve twice the story this morning. And somehow I’m willing to wager I’m going to get it.” She tossed me a sunny smile. “Come, now,” she said. “I have some tea and millet boiled for your breakfast—well, closer to calling it lunch, but we won’t send an arrow rider with that news. What do you take in it? Butter? Milk?”
“Both, please,” I answered, pushing the covers away. A chill air encircled my legs. I wondered why I hadn’t felt its cold last night when the covers had been pulled from me by a stranger. I shivered, for I had never felt so vulnerable, even when I was riding with the soldiers. One hand felt for and found the comforting weight of my lucky gold ornament, still hidden within my del. The fingers of my other hand tentatively tunneled through my short hair, which hung, dirty and unbraided, around my ears. It felt strange, for no woman of my tribe had ever cut her hair short. For a moment, a panicky feeling of not knowing just who I was swept across me.
“Is that the new fashion of the Kerait?” Genma teased.
I squirmed, pulling on my boots. “I must see to my horse,” I said.
Genma ignored me, carrying two porcelain bowls to the fire and lifting the pot from the coals. “To your horse?” she said. “Or the Khan’s horse? Whichever you decide to tell me, the white mare you rode in on is fine. I’ve seen to her already this morning. She’s a bit puffed up on her far hind leg, so my girls are wrapping it in a blue gentian poultice. But you won’t be riding her for a few days.”
“I have to,” I blurted in alarm.
Genma shot me a look while continuing to ladle millet into the bowls. “You won’t,” she said firmly. “The old mare needs a rest. Delger can ride out at first light.” She dropped a chunk of butter into each bowl, then drizzled creamy milk over both. “Come,” she said, waving a hand.
I left my bed to slump beside the cooking fire. Bator followed, flopping across my lap and purring happily. Slipping my hands inside my sleeves, I accepted the delicate bowl. Pale blue horses galloped endlessly around it.
“I must deliver the Khan’s treasure,” I said, eyeing the twin goatskin bags near the doorway. “And swiftly. And I have to take Bayan with me.”
Genma pulled the sturdy orange stool to the fire and, grunting, squatted on it. “Who?” she asked after a sip from her own tea bowl.
“Bayan, my white mare. I have to take her with me. And she is mine,” I said, glaring at my doubter over an outthrust jaw. “My father paid silver coins for her at Karakorum.”
“All right, all right. I believe you.” Genma began to chuckle. “You and your cat there, you both have your stubborn ways. I suppose he has a name as well?” She tipped her head toward the striped cat sprawled belly-up in my lap.
My own lips twitched. “Of course,” I responded. “His name is Bator.”
“Bator? You mean ‘Hero’? That little thing? Hah!” Genma slapped her knee and bounced forward and back. “That’s the start of a good story and worthy of more tea. Please help yourself.”
I poured some more tea atop the remaining millet swirling in the bottom of my bowl.
“My, my, my,” Genma said. “So you gave your cat the name Bator and you gave your horse a name as well. I never heard of such a thing. What was the mare’s name again?”
“Bayan.”
“Yes, Bayan. And why did you give her a name?”
“Because my cat already had a name and I didn’t want to hurt my mare’s feelings.”
I had tried to say those words with a straight face, but already the laughter was bubbling up within me and both Genma and I doubled over in guffaws.
“Hah!” Genma laughed. “Hah! Well, that’s as good a reason as any, I guess, to give a name to something that isn’t a person. I don’t understand it, but I certainly do accept it. But tell me, Oyuna, what is a young girl like yourself doing so far from home with a sore-legged horse and…a hungry cat!” She was set to laughing again, for Bator had suddenly appeared at her side, licking traces of butter from her fingers.
“I told you,” I said, my face truly serious. “I am delivering the Khan’s treasure.”
“Ah, yes. But does the Khan know you are delivering it? In my experience arrow riders, like my son Delger, are all boys. Just how did you come to risk your neck in the name of Kublai Khan? And why do you think I would let this bird-witted venture of yours continue?”
I had no choice then but to tell Genma how I had disguised myself as my stepbrother to stay with Bayan and why I had been given the Khan’s twin bags. Genma listened to my story with respect and I ended up telling her more about the way Bayan spoke to me than I had intended. When I finished, Genma nodded approvingly.
“Well told, Oyuna. I admire your loyalty. And you have earned your dinner.” She smiled. “Marmot again. I hope you liked it.”
I nodded enthusiastically, for my mouth already watered at the thought.
“Now, you may be surprised to hear this,” Genma went on, “but I do believe your mare spoke to you. I won’t run to the mountaintop and shout it to the wind—” She snorted. “Well, that’s a waste of words, for I can’t run anyway,” she said, chuckling a little. “But what I mean to say is, I’m sure most people wouldn’t believe you. And I don’t advise telling just everyone you meet that you carry on conversations with your horse.” She looked at me sternly and I nodded.
“But I do understand,” she said. Bracing her hands on her legs, Genma leaned back. “Over the years I have owned some favorite horses. None that I’ve given a name to”—she cocked her head at me and grinned—“but I felt we were of one spirit. When I watched them gallop, my heart galloped with them. Oh, how I longed to sit upon one’s back and watch the ground fly past me, but”—looking down, she snorted again—“it would take three or more horses harnessed together to carry this body.” The woman sighed, yet a small fire burned in her eyes. “So I worked with them from the ground. I studied their blood, and I chose which mare to breed to which stallion. Very careful was I, not just turning loose my mares, as I have heard they do in the north. I was careful. And I watched to see which stallion could stamp his likeness on his foals and which mare could pass on her steady disposition. I watched, especially, for strong legs—a short cannon and a long forearm—and, of course, small hard hooves. For these qualities make for very fast horses.” Genma sucked in her breath and smiled. “But listen to me prattle on.” She laughed. “Might as well try to tell the stream to stop running once you get me talking about my horses.”
I smiled over my tea bowl, for I understood.
“Tell me one thing, Oyuna,” Genma said, looking directly at me. “You left your family in order to stay with Bayan. Now you have her. Why do you not ride for home?”
I hadn’t told Genma about my bad luck. Maybe if I didn’t speak about it, I thought, or think about it, it wouldn’t find me here. So I said simply, “I’m lookin
g for a swift horse, one to win a race. Someone told me there is a herd of ten thousand white mares south of here. Is it true?”
Genma nodded. “Yes, I have heard that Kublai Khan keeps ten thousand white mares.”
My ears pricked. I was doubly determined to deliver his treasure.
“And he keeps an equal number of white cows,” Genma went on. “He believes the mares carry luck and uses their milk in ceremonies. No one may disturb his herds—even if they are blocking a road, you must ride around them, even if that ride costs another half-day; no one may bother these white animals.” Now Genma turned her head toward the two goatskin bags. She frowned. “The Khan always gets what he wants and he should be getting these right now.” She stamped her leg. “That Delger! Chasing his dreams is going to get us all killed.”
18
Genma’s Dreams
Genma abruptly ended our conversation. A long silence crept by while she stared at the shirdik. Then, keeping her thoughts to herself, she fashioned a sunny smile and asked if I wanted to see Bayan now. Of course I nodded happily and Bator and I followed her out and around the station house to a sheltered meadow. Several horses, hobbled for ready saddling, grazed contentedly amid a small flock of black-and-white-spotted sheep.
Bayan, however, stood apart. Even with both front legs hobbled and a hind leg wrapped in a poultice-stained bandage, she shuffled anxiously from side to side. She was peering intently toward the thicket to the south and I thought at first she was looking for Bator, but when he ran up, she gave him only a quick sniff before returning to her nervous weaving.