Erdeni's Tiger

by Pamela Sargent

  Bortai laughed. “You're right. Maybe I should be grateful Mother sent me out with the sheep.”

  “She spoils you, Bortai,” Ardai said, “and after you keep ruining your father's chances at more prosperity. You'll never find another suitor as rich as your last one was.”

  “Oh?” Erdeni lifted her brows.

  “It was just before Jirghadai brought you here, Erdeni Ujin,” Bortai's cousin went on. “A Noyan, the son of a Kereit chief, rode here from the lands to the west. You wouldn't believe what he offered my uncle Dei for Bortai—horses, camels, falcons, jeweled goblets, so many sable pelts they couldn't be counted—enough wealth for a Khan.”

  Bortai blushed. “Ardai, you stretch the truth. He didn't offer that much.”

  “He offered the largest bride-price I'd ever heard of,” Ardai said. “Said he'd ridden all that way because he had heard that the most beautiful of maidens could be found here.” She wrinkled her nose at Bortai, who blushed still more. “Uncle Dei could have been rich, and Bortai the wife of a great Noyan with many servants and slaves, but she wept and cried and begged her father not to give her to that man. So here she is, still herding Uncle Dei's sheep.”

  Bortai narrowed her eyes. “You know why I couldn't accept him.”

  “Oh, I know.” Ardai was a pretty, copper-skinned girl, but there was jealousy in her black eyes as she gazed at her beautiful cousin. “You were promised to someone else. You don't even know if your betrothed is still alive, but you keep thinking he'll come back for you.” Ardai glanced at Erdeni. “Suitors have ridden here to ask for Bortai ever since her thirteenth year, and she'll have nothing to do with any of them. I would have accepted any one of them, but once they see Bortai, they won't look at any other girl in this camp.”

  “I made a promise,” Bortai said, drawing herself up.

  “You know what will happen?” Ardai leaned toward her. “One of your suitors will get impatient and ride here with his comrades to carry you off. Uncle Dei won't have any bride-price for you then, and some of our men may be lost fighting for you, and it'll all be your fault.” Ardai shook back her masses of braids. “Or else your beauty will fade, and then your father will be lucky to get a couple of fallow mares and a few sheepskins for you. You're sixteen, Bortai. Your beauty won't last forever.”

  “Ardai,” Erdeni said, “some of your sheep are straying.” As the wife of a Bahadur's son, she had some authority over the two unmarried girls, even though Bortai and Ardai were her age. She gestured toward the river, where a few of Dei's sheep had wandered so far up the bank that they were small white clumps in the distance. “Take one of our dogs with you. Bortai and I will watch the others.”

  Ardai sighed, then left them, one of the black dogs nipping at her heels.

  “Every spring and summer,” Bortai murmured, “it's the same. Men ride here and ask Father for me, and the other girls mock me afterward for not accepting one of them. But how can I, when I've been promised to someone else?”

  “A dream,” old Chelig said behind Erdeni. “A dream foretold her betrothed's coming. Dei Sechen had a dream, and the next morning, there were a boy and his father, riding to us from the west. The man didn't wait long to ask Dei if their children could be betrothed. He rode back to his own lands afterward, the boy stayed with us for a few days, and then a comrade of his father's came to fetch him back to their camp. That was the last we ever saw of him. It all happened six years ago.” The old woman hobbled toward the small, sandstrewn hill near them and sat down.

  “He'll come back for me,” Bortai said, in a low hard tone. “I know it.”

  Erdeni said nothing. Sometimes a father would pledge his daughter in marriage during her childhood, then keep her betrothed in his camp as a servant until it was time for the two to wed. Perhaps Bortai's betrothed had forgotten the child he had known so briefly long ago, and taken another wife, even if she were unlikely to be as fair as Bortai.

  “Temujin,” Bortai went on. “That is his name. Temujin, son of Yesugei Bahadur, who was grandson of one Mongol Khan and nephew of another. Yesugei was a Kiyat, a bone of the Borjigin clan of the Mongols, and was chief in his camp.” Bortai's brown eyes shone; she hid her face behind her sleeve for a moment. “Temujin was quite proud of their lineage.”

  “Yesugei Bahadur,” Erdeni murmured, remembering how often her grandfather had cursed the name. Yesugei and his Mongols had been enemies of the Tatars for years. There was even a story, which she did not believe, that a band of Tatars had treacherously poisoned Yesugei when he had stopped at their camp to claim the hospitality owed to all traveling strangers.

  She reminded herself that these old Tatar grudges were no longer her own. Her loyalties now lay with the Onggirats.

  “I had a dream foretelling Temujin's arrival.” Bortai pushed one of the lambs gently toward a ewe. “That's how I knew he was no ordinary boy. I was standing alone on the steppe, and saw a bright light. A white falcon flew to me with a flaming light in one claw and a pale light in the other, dropped the lights into my outstretched hand, and told me that he had brought me the sun and the moon. And the falcon's eyes were brown and green and gold.”

  “Go on,” Erdeni said.

  “I told my father about my dream the next morning. He had dreamed the same dream. That very day, Yesugei Bahadur came to our camp with his son, and I saw that Temujin had the eyes of the falcon in my dream. Our dreams, Father's and mine, were omens. We dreamed of a falcon bringing us the sun and the moon, and a Bahadur of a Khan's noble lineage had ridden to us, seeking a wife for his son. Within two days, Temujin and I were betrothed, and Father became Yesugei's khuda, bound to him by that promise of marriage.”

  “And then?”

  “Yesugei left Temujin with us and rode back to his own lands. A comrade of his rode to our camp some days later, saying that Yesugei missed his son and longed for him. Temujin left with the man, but swore to me that he would come to claim me as his bride, and I promised that I would wait.” Bortai gazed past Erdeni. “We learned later that Temujin's father had passed away, and that Temujin's mother and all of her children had been abandoned by their people. Temujin was too young to lead and others wanted to claim his father's place as chief.”

  “His mother might have found a protector,” Erdeni said. “Maybe he's only lying low until he can claim his rightful place.”

  “We've heard nothing of him since.” Bortai's eyes glistened. “But if anyone could survive such hardship, Temujin could. If he were dead, I would know it, I would feel it.”

  “Then you should honor your pledge.” What she said to Bortai did not matter. Bortai's betrothed would either come to claim her, or Dei Sechen would finally lose patience and marry his daughter to someone else. Erdeni could not change that, but she could at least be kind to Bortai in the meantime. The girl probably needed some kindness, with no news of Temujin and jealous cousins and friends calling her a fool for holding to her promise.

  Chelig was still sitting on the small hill. Erdeni wandered back toward the old woman, Bortai trailing after her. Chelig's head jerked up as they approached.

  “You look frail, young Erdeni,” the old woman said, grinning. Despite her age, she still had most of her front teeth. “Fragile. Thin-boned. Even Bortai's bones aren't so bird-like as yours.”

  “My grandmother had bones like mine. She was from the land of the Kin.” Erdeni did not like speaking of her grandmother.

  “Your grandmother was from Khitai?” Bortai asked, obviously interested.

  “My grandfather and his men sometimes fought for the Kin. Fighting for them was more profitable than raiding their villages, and they were rewarded well for the work. My grandmother was one of my grandfather's prizes. He brought her back to our camp and made her his second wife. He used to call her his jewel, his piece of precious jade.” Erdeni swallowed hard, recalling how her grandmother had called herself his prisoner. “My father became our chief because my grandfather's sons by his first wife had fallen in battle.” Some had whis
pered that her grandmother had laughed after hearing that her stepsons were dead, that she had wished their deaths on them.

  Chelig showed her teeth again. “So it is your grandmother who lives in you, young bride. Yes. I thought I saw—”

  “My grandmother no longer lives in this world. She went to her end willingly. No part of her is in me.” The words sounded more violent than she had intended; Bortai was looking at her strangely. Erdeni walked away quickly, to clear more sand from over the grass for the grazing sheep.

  * * * *

  Erdeni shared a meal of meat and curds with Doghuz that evening, then sat outside with her to sew until the sky darkened. “Take Chelig-eke with you,” Doghuz said as they stood up. “This will be your first night in this camp without my son at your side. You may be glad of some company.”

  “I'm grateful, Doghuz-eke.”

  The old woman followed Erdeni to her yurt. As Erdeni stepped over her threshold, Chelig lingered outside for a moment. “A strange night,” Chelig murmured, sniffing at the wind. “A good night for any spirits who haven't found rest to wander. Not that I know all that much about the ways of most spirits.”

  “You're an idughan, Chelig-eke, so you must have mastered some of the shamaness's lore.”

  “I have little power. I learned that long ago.” The old woman came inside and helped Erdeni lower the flap over the doorway. “But you may have more. I wonder—”

  “I have none,” Erdeni said quickly.

  Chelig made a bed for herself with a hide and two felt cushions as Erdeni stripped down to her silk shift. She felt exhausted as she got into bed and drew the blanket over herself, yet sleep did not come. She wanted Jirghadai here, safely at her side, instead of out guarding the horses.

  “Erdeni.” Someone was calling to her. “Erdeni.” This voice was not the quavery one of Chelig, but another voice, an oddly familiar voice. “Erdeni.”

  I am dreaming, she thought. She could not be hearing this voice. I am dreaming, she told herself again, clinging to that thought. Then invisible hands seized her and pulled her into the dream.

  * * * *

  “Erdeni,” her grandmother said. “Jewels. That is what your name means in your tongue.”

  “Of course,” Erdeni replied. “Maybe the shaman guessed I would be Mother's last child, and chose that name so that she would treasure me all the more.” She was seven, and her mother had sent her to her grandmother's tent to sit with her as she sewed. Kuan was her grandmother's name, a word like the sound of a goose honking.

  “Jewels,” Kuan said again. “What a strange name for such a wretched little girl-child.”

  Erdeni kept her eyes on her sewing, not wanting to meet her grandmother's cold gaze. Kuan could silence anyone, even her husband and grown son, with her long cold eyes that were as black as kara stones. Erdeni thought of how, whenever she and her parents dined in her grandfather's tent, he would look from his first wife to Kuan, almost as if he were afraid of his second wife. Sometimes his fingers would flutter in a sign against evil, as though he were warding off a curse. A few in the camp whispered that Kuan knew magic. How else could she, the mother of a man nearing his fortieth year, still have the form and the face and the black hair of a girl?

  “You resemble me a little,” Kuan said. “Perhaps you are not quite as wretched as you seem.”

  Erdeni drew her bone needle through the soft deerskin. She did not want to be here with her grandmother, whom she avoided as much as possible. Kuan did little of a woman's work except for some embroidery. She never tended the sheep, butchered carcasses, cured hides, or gathered dung to dry for fuel, and her two old servants did all of her cooking. Whenever they moved camp, Kuan packed her belongings in her trunks and then sat under a shelter of hides to shield her from the sun and wind as her servants took down her yurt and loaded its felt panels and wicker frame onto a wagon.

  “Do you know why I live among your people, Erdeni?” her grandmother asked.

  “Of course.” Erdeni looked up from her sewing. “Because you were given to my grandfather by the Kin, and he fell in love with you and brought you here.”

  Kuan's lips curved in a cold smile. “There is more to the story than that.” Her voice was high and light, and she often seemed to sing words as she spoke. “Your grandfather was a thorn in the side of Khitai, with his raids and his thievery and his slaughter of peasants. A Kin commander bribed him and his warriors to fight for them instead. Now your grandfather leads his men against other horsemen and no longer ravages Khitai. The Kin would rather have all of you barbarians fighting one another, you see—it keeps you weak and less of a threat to the land they rule.”

  Erdeni bent over her sewing again.

  “I belonged to the Kin commander once. He had tired of me, so he gave me to your grandfather. The commander had found me in a brothel. Do you know what a brothel is, child?”

  “No.” Erdeni waited for her grandmother to tell her.

  “It is a place where women welcome men to their beds for silver. I earned much silver for my master there. I cannot even remember how many men came to my bed before the commander bought me.”

  Erdeni wanted to stop up her ears. She did not understand all that Kuan was telling her, but knew her grandmother should not be speaking of such things.

  “I told that to your grandfather,” Kuan continued, “as soon as I learned enough words in your tongue to tell him. He said it did not matter, that I was his now, but I saw him swallow his rage. Your grandfather is a stinking barbarian.”

  Erdeni tensed.

  “And I am cursed, having to live among such people.”

  “Grandfather loves you,” Erdeni said, finding the courage to speak. “He treats you kindly, he gives you whatever you wish.”

  “Yes, he does.” Kuan tilted her head. “That is why I do not torment him too greatly. It does not take very much to wound him—only a show of disdain for a gift, or a warm enticing glance at one of his men. But I will not distress him too often as long as he lets me have what I want.” Her pale face was as still as a carving of white jade.

  The scene changed. Erdeni was older now, sitting close to her grandmother's hearth fire. Even in the warmth of the yurt, Kuan was wrapped in a long fur coat. “You look a little like me,” Kuan said. “I can sometimes pretend that you are one of my own people.”

  Erdeni did not know how to feel about this unexpected praise. There were times when she longed to see one of Kuan's smiles, or to hear a few of her rare kind words. At other times, she shrank from going anywhere near her grandmother.

  “Your father has nothing of me in him,” Kuan went on. “I look at his bowlegged form and his ugly flat face and wonder that I could ever have given birth to such a son. My daughters are as big and clumsy as my husband's children by his first wife. But you, Erdeni—you might have been my child, even my sister.”

  “I'm not like you,” Erdeni said. “My brothers say that my aim with the bow is nearly the equal of theirs. At the last obo festival, the horse I rode beat all the others in the children's race.”

  “I must admit,” Kuan murmured, “that I have never had much skill at such pursuits as archery or horse races.” The way she spoke, in a voice like shards of ice, made Erdeni's accomplishments suddenly seem small.

  “I must go, Grandmother,” and Erdeni found herself creeping out of the tent into the winter wind, hating Kuan and yet sick at heart because Kuan would never love her.

  And then she was lying under the tree where the spirits had carried her. She sat up slowly, feeling at her limbs, remembering how the spirits had torn at them. How long had she been here? She could not tell. She had lain in her bed for days, oppressed with what seemed all the sorrow and despair in the world, certain that she would die and hoping that death would come. The spirits had granted part of her wish, and had sent her wandering among the dead, but now she was here, her life restored to her.

  “Tengri,” she cried, praying to the Eternal Sky overhead. “Etugen,” she whispered
to the Earth, the Mother of all.

  The sky was reddening in the east. She wondered how long she had been here, lying under this lone tree. To her right, there was a hill with an obo, a shrine made of seven piles of stones with a spear jutting from the stones in the middle. Perhaps the spirit living in the hill was watching over her.

  She could not see her camp anywhere. The grassy sand-strewn steppe stretched before her, vast and empty, and she felt what it would be like to dwell alone in the world.

  Erdeni narrowed her eyes as the sun, the Eye of Tengri, peeped above the horizon, then saw the tiny black form of a rider in the distance. By the way he rode, she knew that the rider was her father, and remembered who she had seen among the dead in her vision.

  “Father,” she called out to him when he had ridden closer.

  Goghun Bahadur dismounted and hastened to her, crushing her in his strong arms as she pressed her face against his coat. “Erdeni. I thought—” He was trembling. “Even the night guard didn't see you leave the camp.”

  “Spirits brought me here.”

  “I've known of spirits that can get into a person and send him howling into the night. I have seen spirits harry a man into running on all fours, baying at the moon. I've heard of those who can change a man's body to that of a bird. That's the only way you could have come here, daughter, flying as powerful shamans are said to do. I've been searching a day and a night for you.”

  She was still clad only in her shift. Goghun took off his coat and draped it over her, then lifted her to his horse. “Father,” she said, “I was roaming among ghosts. I—I—”

  “Say it,” her father grunted.

  “Grandfather was with them.”

  Goghun gave a great shuddering sigh. “We were about to ride to you together. He saddled his horse, then fell to the ground in a trance. Some of the men pitched a tent outside the camping circles and carried him there. The shamans were tending him, keeping everyone away from the evil spirit that had entered him, when I rode out to find you. Now you tell me that he's gone.”

  “He is,” she whispered, knowing it was true.