They stood in complete darkness between the gers, hidden from the moon and the feasting warriors.
“Why would a slave follow me, I wonder? You come to me for your master’s paste and your little darting eyes are everywhere, your questions so innocent. Are you a spy for Temuge, or another assassin? If you are, you are a poor choice.”
The spy did not reply, though he set his jaw at the sting to his pride. He knew he had barely glanced at the shaman all evening, and he could only wonder what sort of mind produced such constant suspicion. He felt the knife press more firmly into his neck and blurted out the first words that came to his lips.
“If you kill me, you will learn nothing,” he said.
Kokchu remained silent for an age, digesting this. The spy swiveled his eyes in his head to see the man’s expression and found curiosity mingling with spite.
“What could there be to learn, slave?” Kokchu asked.
“Nothing you would want overheard,” the spy replied. He ignored his usual caution, knowing his life hung in the moment. Kokchu was quite capable of killing him just to deprive Temuge of a supporter. “Let me speak and you will not regret it.”
He felt a shove and stumbled forward. Even in the dark, he sensed Kokchu behind him. The spy considered ways of disarming the man without killing him, but forced himself to relax. He put his hands on his head and let Kokchu walk him forward to his ger.
It took courage to duck low at the doorway with the shaman holding a blade at his back, but the spy had gone too far to pass off his words as a bad joke even then. He knew the offer he had to make. The lord regent himself had met him on the wall on his last report. He took a deep breath and pushed the small door open.
A girl of great beauty knelt on the floor by the open door. A lamp lit her features as she looked up at him, and the spy felt his chest tighten that such a delicate girl should be made to wait on the shaman like a dog. He hid his anger as Kokchu motioned for her to leave them alone. She exchanged one final glance with her countryman as she turned in the door, and Kokchu chuckled.
“I think she likes you, slave. I am growing tired of her. Perhaps I will give her to your Chin officers. You could have a turn when they are finished teaching her humility.” The spy ignored the words, taking a seat on a low bed so that his hands dropped naturally near his ankles. If the meeting went sour, he could still kill the shaman and be back at the walls before anyone else found out. That thought gave him a confidence that Kokchu sensed, frowning.
“We are alone, slave. I do not need you, or anything you have to say to me. Speak quickly, or I will give you to the dogs tomorrow morning.”
The spy took a long, slow breath, preparing words that could mean death by torture before the sun rose. He had not chosen the moment. The bodies in Yenking had done that. Now he was either right about the shaman, or dead.
He straightened his back and rested one hand on his knee, looking sternly up at Kokchu with a faint expression of disapproval. The shaman glowered at the change in the man, going from frightened slave to a dignified warrior in just a moment.
“I am a man of Yenking,” the spy said softly. “A man of the emperor.”
Kokchu’s eyes widened.
The spy nodded to him. “Now my life is truly in your hands.” A sudden instinct made him take the dagger from his boot and place it on the floor at his feet. Kokchu nodded at the act of faith, but did not lower his own blade.
“The emperor must be desperate, or mad with hunger,” Kokchu said softly.
“The emperor is a seven-year-old boy. The general your khan defeated now runs the city.”
“He sent you here? Why?” Kokchu asked him, genuinely curious. Before the man could speak, Kokchu answered his own question. “Because the assassin failed. Because he wants the tribes to leave before the people starve to death, or burn the city down in riots.”
“It is as you say,” the spy confirmed. “Even if the general wanted to pay tribute for the city, the black tent is up before the walls. What choice does he have but to hold out for another two years, or even longer?” No trace of the desperate lie showed on the spy’s face. Yenking would fall in another month, three at the most.
At last Kokchu put away his knife. The spy did not know how to read the action. The lord regent had thrown him to the wolves to make the offer. All he had was an instinct that Kokchu was in the tribes but not of them, a man apart. Such men were ripe for picking, but he knew his life could still be measured in heartbeats. A single spasm of loyalty from the shaman, a single shout, could end it all. Genghis would know he had broken Yenking and the jewel of the empire would be lost forever. The spy felt sweat break out on his skin despite the frozen air. He went on before Kokchu could reply.
“If they have the white tent raised once more, my emperor will pay a tribute to make a hundred kings weep. Silk enough to line the roads back to your homeland, gems, slaves, written works of great magic, science and medicine, ivory, iron, timber . . .” He had seen Kokchu’s eyes flicker at the mention of magic, but did not falter in his list. “. . . paper, jade, thousands upon thousands of carts laden with wealth. Enough to found an empire if the khan desires it. Enough to build cities of his own.”
“All of which he would have anyway when the city falls,” Kokchu murmured.
The spy shook his head firmly. “At the last, when defeat is inevitable, the city will be fired from within. Know that I speak truth when I say your khan will have only ashes and two more years of waiting on this plain.” He paused, trying and failing to see how his words were being received. Kokchu stood like a statue, barely breathing as he listened.
“Why have you not made this offer to the khan himself?” Kokchu asked.
Ma Tsin shook his head, suddenly weary. “We are not children, shaman, you and I. Let me speak plainly. Genghis has raised his black tent and all his men know that it means death. It would cost him pride to accept the emperor’s tribute, and from what I have seen, he would let Yenking burn first. But if another man, one he trusted, could take the news to him in private? He could suggest a show of mercy, perhaps, for those innocents in the city who suffer.”
To his astonishment, Kokchu barked laughter at the idea. “Mercy? Genghis would see it as weakness. You will never meet a man who understands fear in war as well as the khan I follow. You could not tempt him with such a thing.”
Despite himself, the spy felt anger surface at the shaman’s mocking tone. “Then tell me how he can be turned from Yenking, or kill me here for your dogs. I have told you all I know.”
“I could turn him,” Kokchu said softly. “I have shown him what I can do.”
“You are feared in the camp,” the spy replied quickly, grabbing his bony arm. “Are you the one I need?”
“I am,” Kokchu replied. His face twisted at the other man’s relief. “All that remains is for you to name the price for my help in this small thing. I wonder, how much is your city worth to your emperor? What price should I put on his life?”
“Anything you want will be part of the tribute paid to the khan,” the spy replied. He dared not believe the man was toying with him. What choice did he have but to follow where the shaman led?
Kokchu was silent for a time then, weighing the man who sat so stiffly erect on the bed.
“There is real magic in the world, slave. I have felt it and used it. If your people know anything of the art, your boy emperor will have it in his precious city,” he said at last. “A man cannot learn enough in a hundred lifetimes. I want to know every secret your people have found.”
“There are many secrets, shaman: from making paper and silk to the powder that burns, the compass, oil that will not go out. What do you wish to know?”
Kokchu snorted. “Do not bargain with me. I want them all. Do you have men who work these arts in the cities?”
The spy nodded. “Priests and doctors of many orders.”
“Have them bind their secrets for me, as a gift between colleagues. Tell them to leave nothing o
ut or I will tell my khan a bloody vision and he will come back to burn your lands all the way to the sea. Do you understand?”
The spy freed his tongue and answered, weak with relief. He could hear raised voices somewhere nearby and he rushed along, desperate to finish. “I will make it so,” he whispered. “When the white tent is raised, the emperor will surrender.” He thought for a moment, then spoke again. The voices outside were louder.
“If there is betrayal, shaman, everything you want to know will go up in flames. There is enough of the powder that burns in the city to tear the stones to dust.”
“A brave threat,” Kokchu replied, sneering. “I wonder if your people would truly have the will to do such a thing. I have heard you, slave. You have done your work. Now go back to your city and wait for the white tent with your emperor. It will come in time.”
The spy wanted to urge the shaman on, to make him understand that he should move quickly. Caution stopped his mouth with the thought that it would only weaken his position. The shaman simply did not care that the people of the city were dying every day.
“What is happening out there?” Kokchu snapped, disturbed by the shouts and calls outside the ger. He gestured for the spy to leave and followed him out into the moonlight. Everyone around them was staring at the city, and both men turned to gaze at the walls.
The young women walked slowly up the stone steps, wearing white, the color of death. They were skeletally thin and barefoot, but they did not shiver. The cold did not seem to touch them at all. The soldiers on the walls fell back in superstitious dread and no one barred their path. By the thousand, they gathered above the city. By the ten thousand. Even the wind fell to a whisper across Yenking, and the silence was perfect.
The walkway around the city was frozen white and hard, fifty feet below where they stood. Almost as one, the young women of Yenking stepped to the very edge. Some held hands, others stood alone, gazing out into the darkness. For all the miles of wall, they stood there, looking down into the moonlight.
The spy caught his breath, whispering a prayer he had not remembered for years, from before he had forgotten his true name. His heart broke for his people and his city.
All along the walls, figures in white had climbed like a line of ghosts. The Mongol warriors saw they were women and called out to them raucously, laughing and jeering at the distant figures. The spy shook his head to shut out the coarse sounds, tears sparkling in his eyes. Many of the girls held hands as they stared down at the enemy who had ridden right to the gates of the emperor’s city.
As the spy watched in frozen grief, they stepped off. The watching warriors fell silent in awe. From a distance, they dropped like white petals and even Kokchu shook his head, astonished. Thousands more took their place on the wall and stepped to their deaths without a cry, their bodies breaking on the hard stones below.
“If there is betrayal, the city and everything in it will be destroyed in fire,” the spy whispered to the shaman, his voice thick with sorrow.
Kokchu no longer doubted it.
CHAPTER 31
AS THE WINTER DEEPENED, children were born in the gers, many of them fathered by men away with the generals or one of the diplomatic groups Temuge had sent out. Fresh food was plentiful after the capture of the supply column, and the vast camp enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity they had never known before. Kachiun kept the warriors fit with constant training on the plain around Yenking, but it was a false peace and there were few men there who did not turn their eyes to the city many times each day, waiting.
Genghis suffered in the cold for the first time in his life. He had little appetite, but he had gained a layer of fat by forcing himself to eat beef and rice. Though he lost some of his gauntness, his cough remained, stealing his wind and infuriating him. For a man who had never known sickness, it was immensely frustrating to have his own body betray him. Of all the men in the camp, he stared most often at the city, willing it to fall.
It was in the middle of a night filled with swirling snow that Kokchu came to him. For some reason, the coughing was worse at night, and Genghis had become used to the shaman visiting him before dawn with a hot drink. With the gers as close as they were, his hacking grunts could be heard by all those around him.
Genghis sat up when he heard Kokchu challenged by his guards. There would be no repeat of the assassination attempt, with six good men around the great ger in shifts each night. He stared into the gloom as Kokchu entered and lit a lamp swinging from the roof. Genghis could not speak to him for a moment. Spasms racked his chest until he was red in the face. It passed, as always, leaving him gasping for breath.
“You are welcome in my home, Kokchu,” he whispered hoarsely. “What new herbs will you try tonight?”
It may have been his imagination, but the shaman seemed strangely nervous. Kokchu’s forehead glistened with sweat and Genghis wondered if he too was falling ill.
“Nothing I have will make you better, lord. I have tried everything I know,” he said. “I have wondered if there is something else that prevents you from becoming well again.”
“Something else?” Genghis asked. His throat tickled infuriatingly and he swallowed hard against it, the action now part of his usual manner, so that he gulped constantly.
“The emperor has sent assassins, lord. Perhaps he has other ways to attack you, ways that cannot be seen and killed.”
Genghis considered this, interested. “You think he has magic workers in his city? If the best they can do is a cough, I will not fear them.”
Kokchu shook his head. “A curse can kill you, lord. I should have considered it before this.”
Genghis sat back on his bed wearily. “What do you have in mind?”
Kokchu gestured for his khan to stand and looked away rather than see Genghis struggle up.
“If you will come to my ger, lord, I will summon the spirits and see if you are marked by some dark work of the city.”
Genghis narrowed his eyes, but he nodded. “Very well. Send one of my guards for Temuge to join us.”
“That is not necessary, lord. Your brother is not as accomplished in these matters. . . .”
Genghis coughed, a sound which he turned into a furious growl of anger at his failing body.
“Do as I tell you, shaman, or get out,” he said.
Kokchu tightened his mouth and bowed briefly.
Genghis followed Kokchu to the tiny ger, waiting in the snow and wind as Kokchu ducked inside. Temuge was not long in coming, accompanied by the warrior who had fetched him from his sleep. Genghis drew his brother aside where Kokchu could not hear.
“It seems I must endure his smoke and rituals, Temuge. Do you trust the man?”
“No,” Temuge snapped, still irritable at being woken.
Genghis grinned at his brother’s waspish expression in the moonlight. “I thought you might not, which is why you are here. You will accompany me, brother, and watch him all the while I am in his ger.” He gestured to the warrior standing nearby and the man came quickly.
“You will guard this ger, Kuyuk, against anyone who might disturb us.”
“Your will, lord,” the warrior replied, bowing his head.
“And if Temuge or I do not walk out, your task is to kill the shaman,” Genghis said. He felt Temuge’s gaze on him and he shrugged. “I am not a trusting man, brother.”
Taking a deep breath of the freezing air, Genghis stifled his twitching throat and entered the ger of the shaman, Temuge behind him. There was barely room for three in that tiny space, but they sat on the silk floor with their knees touching, waiting to see what Kokchu could do.
Kokchu lit cones of powder in gold dishes on the floor. They sparked and spat, producing a thick cloud of narcotic smoke. As the first wisps reached Genghis he doubled over in a fit of coughing. Every gasp made it worse and Kokchu grew visibly nervous that the khan would collapse. At last Genghis took a clean breath and felt coolness in his tortured throat, like stream water on a hot day. He to
ok another breath and another, rejoicing at the numbness that flowed in him.
“That is better,” he admitted, staring at the shaman with bloodshot eyes.
Kokchu was in his element, despite Temuge’s hard gaze on him. He produced a pot of the black paste and reached out to Genghis’s mouth. He jerked as a hand snapped around his wrist.
“What is that?” Genghis said, suspiciously.
Kokchu swallowed. He had not seen him move. “It will help you to break the bonds of flesh, lord. Without it, I cannot bring you onto the paths.”
“I have had it,” Temuge said suddenly, his eyes brighter than before. “It does no harm.”
“You will not, tonight,” Genghis replied, ignoring his brother’s disappointment. “I want you to observe, Temuge, that is all.”
Genghis opened his mouth and endured the shaman’s black-nailed fingers rubbing the paste into his gums. At first there was no effect, but as Genghis began to mention this, he noticed the dim light of the shaman’s lamp had become brighter. He stared at it in wonderment and the light swelled to fill the little ger, bathing them all in gold.
“Take my hand,” Kokchu whispered, “and walk with me.”
Temuge watched mistrustfully as his brother’s eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped. Kokchu had closed his own so that Temuge felt oddly alone. He winced as Genghis’s mouth flopped open, made black by the paste. The silence stretched and Temuge lost some of his tension as he remembered his own visions in that small ger. His gaze drifted to the pot of black paste, and with the two men deep in a trance, he replaced the lid and made it disappear inside his deel. His servant Ma Tsin had secured a regular supply for a time before the man vanished. Temuge had long ceased to wonder where he had gone, though he suspected Kokchu had some hand in it. There were other servants to be found among the Chin soldiers Genghis had taken in, though none were as adept.
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