Ruler of the Sky: A Novel of Genghis Khan
Page 53
“What treachery is this?” he whispered.
“You'll do nothing,” Ogin said as another man bound Jamukha's legs. “You'll go on this way until death finds you.”
Jamukha twisted against his bonds. “You dare to raise your hands against me?”
“We don't mean to kill you,” Ogin said. “You're still of some use to us alive. We'll take you to Temujin. He'll have your life, and we'll have our reward for bringing you to him.”
“He won't reward you for this,” Jamukha said. “I don't doubt that he'll take my life, but he won't honour you for giving me to him. Go to him, surrender and offer him your oath, but free me. It will be enough for him to know I've lost everything.”
“We're finished with listening to you.” Ogin kicked him in the belly; Jamukha groaned. Ogin went to the pot. Jamukha lay there as the others tore at the meat.
Jamukha was thrown across the saddle of his horse and bound to the stirrups. The men said little as they rode. Perhaps he was wrong, and his anda would reward them, savouring his victories all the more at seeing Jamukha brought so low. Perhaps the Khan would torment him before finding a way to kill him that would not violate their anda oath.
His body ached with bruises from the ride. Whenever they stopped to rest, the men gave him only enough water to keep him alive. They came to a Kereit camp, and Ogin told the men there of his prisoner. A few Kereits joined them as a guard while a messenger rode ahead to Temujin's camp.
Jamukha supposed that he would be taken to the Khan's ordu, where Temujin's wives and sons could gape at the captive, but more soldiers met them and led them in the direction of the Kentei massif. The Khan was hunting with some of his men, and would meet them there.
As they walked between the two fires outside the camp, Jamukha, weakened by the ride, struggled to keep on his feet. A circle of field tents sat on the steppe below the mountains. They were led to the nearest tent; before the guards outside could call out a greeting, Temujin stepped through the doorway.
Jamukha, his arms still bound behind him, forced himself to raise his head. Temujin gazed at him steadily; thin lines marked the skin around his pale eyes, and his shoulders sagged under his fur coat. Jamukha waited for his anda to laugh, to order some new humiliation—a beating with sticks, a yoke around his neck.
Others left their yurts to gather around the Khan. There was old Munglik, his loyalty bought with marriage to Temujin's mother, and Jurchedei, who had once followed Jamukha. Borchu and Jelme, their faces older and browner now, were still Temujin's shadows. There was Khorchi, who had served Jamukha until a dream told him that Temujin would be the Mongol Khan. Khasar stood among the men; Jamukha looked away from him. All of them would be happy to see him die.
Ogin stepped forward. “We come in peace, O Khan.”
Temujin's eyes narrowed. “You carried the words of my anda to me before. I wish to hear why you have brought him to me now.”
“We can stand against you no longer,” Ogin replied. “All of Jamukha's men have abandoned him. We served this man, and he led us to ruin. We wish now to offer our swords to you.” He bowed; Jamukha stared at the younger man's back, imagining Ogin's insolent smile. “We beg for nothing more than to serve you, but it's said that Genghis Khan is a generous man. Perhaps the Khan whom we'll serve now will show his gratitude to us for bringing this enemy to him.”
“I shall reward you as you deserve,” Temujin murmured.
“We ask for nothing,” Ogin said hastily, “but should you see fit to—”
“These vultures have captured a bird,” Jamukha said. “Servants have lifted their hands against their master.”
Ogin looked back at him, then turned towards Temujin. “We owe him nothing now,” another of Jamukha's men said. “He's no more than a bandit living on what he can find. Do what you wish with him, my Khan—I'll offer you my pledge.”
“They fell upon me,” Jamukha said. “I told them they could forget their oath to me if they wished to join you, but they chose to break it instead.” His eyes met Temujin's. “My anda knows what such men deserve.” He expected no mercy for himself; it no longer mattered what he said.
Temujin glanced at his men. “You've heard me say this before,” the Khan said. “How can we trust such men? How can we have any faith in those who would betray their own leader?” He motioned with one hand. Ogin stumbled back as two soldiers seized him; others quickly surrounded his four companions. “Such men must die.”
The five were dragged forward; the swords fell swiftly. Blood spurted over the ground near Jamukha. Temujin gazed at one of the severed heads, then kicked it aside.
Jamukha was about to kneel when Temujin waved an arm. “Free my anda from his bonds.” A man cut at the thongs binding Jamukha's wrists. Jamukha shook himself, bewildered. Jurchedei frowned; Khasar seemed about to protest. “Jamukha and I swore a sacred oath long ago,” Temujin continued. “We promised that nothing would come between us, and now my anda is with me again.”
Temujin came to Jamukha and threw his arms around him. Jamukha froze, too startled to respond. “I want to talk to him alone,” the Khan said. Before anyone could speak, he was guiding Jamukha inside his tent.
Temujin settled him in the back, then sat at his side. The Khan was silent for a long time. His anda, Jamukha thought, would toy with him before uttering his sentence.
“Jamukha.” Temujin leaned towards him; his pale eyes glistened. “We swore an oath. Once we were like the two wheels of a cart. Even when we parted, I didn't forget my anda, and how close we once were. When I fought against you, the thought that you might die grieved me. Even when we were enemies, you sent a messenger to warn me of danger. I never wanted to fight you.”
Jamukha could not speak.
“My greatest wish now,” Temujin continued, “is that we might be brothers again, that you might be one of those closest to me, one to advise me of what I might forget. You were my friend when I had no one, you joined me when Merkits forced me to flee from my camp. I have many Nokors now, yet none has grown as close to me as we were when we were boys. A Khan can often be a lonely man, even amid his army of comrades in arms. I can still wish for my anda to ease my loneliness.”
Jamukha's heart throbbed painfully. Once, he would have rejoiced to hear these words, but too much had passed. Temujin's forgiveness seemed as cruel as any revenge.
“I swore to be your anda when we were boys.” Jamukha's voice caught on the words. “We renewed our pledge under the great tree where Khutula Khan once danced, and shared one blanket between us, and then others made us doubt each other and slashed at the bond that bound us. Shame has burned my face more than the fiercest of winds, and I was ashamed to show my face to you in defeat. Now you tell me you can forgive all that.”
“I have forgiven you, my brother, and also long to spare you, but I cannot.”
Jamukha looked away. “Oh yes,” he said. “Now that you've grown greater than Khutula and any Khan who's ever lived, now that you've made an ulus of all the tribes, I'm of no use to you. Your thoughts would be troubled by day, and your dreams by night. I would be an insect biting you under your collar, or a thorn pricking you under your shirt.”
“We were brothers.” Temujin clutched at his arm, then let go. “I left you because I feared you would turn against me, and you left me believing we couldn't lead our people together. We were young then, and ruled by the passions of younger men, and I tell myself it might be different now. I want my anda at my side. To know we could be friends once more would give me more joy than all I've won, yet I know it cannot be. Others would come between us again.”
“I expected you to torment me when I was brought to you,” Jamukha whispered, “and your forgiveness is as burdensome as any yoke.”
“I don't say these words to torment you.”
He still had a trace of that weakness Jamukha had glimpsed in him long ago, that hesitation, a reluctance to be as hard as a Khan had to be. Yet he would harden himself for what had to be done.
“Jamukha!” His voice was harsh.
“Your mother is wise, you have your brothers, and many brave men ride with you. I lost my parents as a child, have no brothers, and couldn't trust the men who followed me. It's clear that Tengri always favoured you.”
Temujin took his hand. “I would have shared everything I have with you, had you given me your oath.”
“And you would have called me brother, but I would have been only your servant. There's no place in your world for men who won't bow to you.” Jamukha drew his hand from his anda's, and got to his feet. “I tire of life in the world you will rule. I ask only this of you, that I be allowed to die without having my blood shed. I also make you this promise, Temujin. When my bones have been buried, my spirit will watch over you. My ghost will remind you of what you lost to gain your triumphs. A ghost is not so easily cast aside.” He chanted the words, as if uttering a curse.
Temujin stood up slowly. The lines in his face, even in the shadows, seemed deeper, his eyes duller. They left the tent together. The bodies of Jamukha's betrayers had been dragged away, but their heads still sat on the ground. The men near the tent rose; Borchu and Jelme hastened to Temujin's side.
“My anda left me, spoke against me, and fought me, but I won't believe that he ever truly sought my death.” Temujin's voice shook. “He tells me he's weary of life, yet I fear to order his death—he's my anda, and I'd be cursed for taking his life.”
Jamukha said, “When I first rode against you, I forgot my oath to you.” He would not beg for his life now. “It can be said I deserve punishment for that.”
“That is so.” Temujin seemed to be forcing the words from himself. “When Jamukha's cousin Taychar stole the horses of one of our men, and the owner took them back, Jamukha forgot our anda bond and attacked me. Perhaps that's enough reason for him to die now.” He lifted a hand. “Let Jamukha die as he wishes, without the spilling of his blood. We'll bury him on a high cliff with all honour, and his spirit will watch over our descendants.”
Men surrounded Jamukha to lead him away. He heard a moan as Temujin sagged against Borchu and pressed his face against the other man's coat.
The air was sharp and clear. When they were outside the circle of tents, one of the men with Jamukha took a silken cord from his belt. Temujin would remember him, and mourn for him. That was the only revenge left to Jamukha now.
A hand pushed him forward. The man holding the cord stepped behind him. Jamukha was smiling as the noose tightened around his neck.
91
Kokochu had flown to Heaven and returned to Earth. The voices that had murmured to him were now silent, but one presence was still near, hovering just behind him. He turned his head and thought he glimpsed a shadow. Kokochu was certain the lingering presence was a ghost, but it had not yet chosen to reveal itself to him.
Above the mountain, the vast bowl of the Eternal Sky was clear and blue; below, the snow-covered ground was nearly as blinding as Heaven's light. The yurt near the mountain was a black spot against the whiteness; the two shamans Kokochu had brought with him would be inside, waiting.
Kokochu got to this feet and moved slowly down the slope, feeling the invisible presence following him. His muscles ached; he had been locked in his trance, unable to move. Teb-Tenggeri, everyone called him, the All-Celestial; they would never know what his arts had cost him, how the spirits that lifted him to ecstasy still tore at him at other times.
His calling had come when he was a boy. The spirits had driven him from his father's tent into a forest, and Kokochu had died there, under the trees, crying out as his body was dismembered by monstrous birds before his eyes and his spirit sent wandering among the dead. The ghosts of ancestors had shrieked at him, and then the spirit of a shaman had led him to a great tree. He had climbed the limbs to Heaven and embraced a spirit-wife before returning to his body and finding himself whole again. His father Munglik had discovered him there, and had wept as he lifted Kokochu to his horse.
Kokochu had known what his visions meant, that he would have to follow the shaman's path. The ghosts of past shamans would plague him with dreams of death and torture him with despair unless he accepted his calling. Demons would drive him into madness if he refused to bow to his fate.
Three white horses were tethered outside the yurt. The steeds were gifts from his stepbrother Temujin, part of Kokochu's reward for the omens he had read that past autumn. Kokochu had noted the fractures in the burned bones before assenting to the Khan's campaign against the Tanguts of Hsi-Hsia.
That autumn, a wing of the Mongol army had crossed the Gobi and attacked Hsi-Hsia in the south, following a route earlier raiders had used. Their horses, fattened from grazing, fed on the tufts of yellow desert grass that sprouted on the hard flat surface. In Kansu, amid the sand and desolation of the surrounding lands, they came to the oases marking the trade routes caravans travelled. There, among green willows and poplars, people who dwelled behind walls and tended fields lived along the canals that fed their towns.
The army stripped the fields of corn and millet, feasted on fat melons that had ripened on flat rocks, and seized the white camels the townsfolk possessed. Following their Khan's orders, they pressed on to the Yellow River and the city of Ning-hsia, but the Tanguts retreated behind the city's walls. Without an army riding out to meet them, the Mongols had no way to fight, and finally withdrew.
As Kokochu had predicted, the Khan had won no true victory, but that had not been the foray's purpose. The Mongols had gained booty, disrupted some of the trade on which the Tangut cities depended, and were learning that prolonged warfare against settled people would have to be conducted in a different way. They returned to their camps with captives, among them fair Tangut girls, craftsmen to use as slaves, yellow-robed men with shaven heads who spun wheels when they prayed, and herdsmen to look after their beasts. Mongol tents were filled with white camel-hair garments, jars of grain, black kara stones to be burned as fuel, delicate plates smoother and finer than stone or wood, and ornaments of jade. What they had taken made them anticipate winning even more. The Tanguts were wounded; ways could be found to bring them to their knees. A way to the richer lands of the Kin would be opened when Hsi-Hsia bowed to the Khan.
Kokochu had been given his share of the spoils, and knew that some whispered he served the Khan only for such rewards. They did not understand. The falcons, the jewels, the herds that grazed outside his camp and the girls he brought to his bed could not repay him for the torment, the trances that came upon him unbidden, the spirits that entered him and forced him to speak their words. His possessions could not give him the ecstasy of riding to Heaven, of feeling God's presence inside himself. There were shamans who did not suffer as he did, who could return from their spirit-journeys and live easily among their people, but he was not one of them; his afflictions were signs that he was destined for a harder and lonelier path.
If he could not have love, he could still ease himself with slaves; if he could not have true friendship, he would settle for the respect born of fear. Without his rewards, those who feared him would only come to scorn him; if the Khan did not honour him, others would believe that the spirits had abandoned him, and no longer truly spoke through him. Many might envy him, but none of them would have chosen his path. A man or woman marked as a shaman, having to learn spells, healing, and all the lore a shaman had to master, was one set apart. Others needed his skills, but Kokochu also sensed the resentment in their gratitude and the hatred behind their smiles. Those who knew little would always hate those who knew more; those who feared the spirits would resent a man who could summon them.
Kokochu's dreams had shown him Temujin's destiny. Tengri would not have used Temujin to unite all the tribes only to sheathe that mighty weapon. The Khan knew God meant to bring
more lands to the great Mongol ulus he had forged, yet there were those who might lead Temujin away from his trail. Kokochu was Temujin's shield; even those closest to the throne could not be allowed to stand in the Khan's way. The spirits would compel Temujin to follow his path, as they had forced Kokochu along his own. The Khan would rule all, and Kokochu would rule through him.
Something cold touched his face. He was about to enter the yurt when the ghost took possession of him. Kokochu fell; his arms flailed against the snow before his body stiffened, and then he suddenly knew whose spirit had entered him.
When Kokochu came to himself, he ordered his two companions to saddle the horses. They rode swiftly in the direction of Temujin's camp, slowing to a trot only when they saw a few field tents in the distance and the mottled mass of a horse herd beyond.
The ghost was still inside him, but Kokochu could subdue it now. A small band of men, the Khan among them, were riding towards the tents, a few dogs trailing them. Temujin carried a golden eagle on his wrist; his hand, covered in a gauntlet, rested against a forked stick attached to the saddle to support the great bird's weight.
The Khan called out as Kokochu approached. “Greetings, brother Teb-Tenggeri,” Temujin said. “We've been hunting a pack of wolves that's preyed upon my horses. My bird and the dogs made short work of a few—they won't dine on horseflesh again.”
“I must speak to you,” Kokochu said. Temujin handed the eagle to the man nearest him, then dismounted. The other men were silent as Temujin led Kokochu to a tent.
“What is it?” Temujin asked when they had settled by the hearth. Kokochu gazed at his stepbrother, noting the tension in his face. This was another sign of his power, that the Khan would never turn him away or refuse to meet with him.
“I am with you again,” Kokochu said, but the voice was not his own. “I speak to you now through your shaman Teb-Tenggeri.” Temujin's eyes widened as he made a sign. “You wanted me at your side, even as you ordered my death, and I haven't forgotten my promise to you.”