Ruler of the Sky: A Novel of Genghis Khan

by Pamela Sargent

  “This man is a Khitan,” Shigi Khutukhu murmured, “and claims descent from the royal house of Liao.”

  The Khan smiled. “Then tell him this. The House of Liao and the House of Kin were enemies. Once his people ruled, and the Kin took their realm from them. I am his avenger. Surely he should rejoice that he no longer has to serve his enemy.”

  The Khitan raised his brows as this was translated. “I cannot lie to you, Majesty,” he said. “My grandfather, my father, and I have always served the Emperor of the Kin. From the time I was born, I was taught to serve my sovereign. To betray one's king only creates disorder. While my Emperor dwelled in his palace, my duty was to him, and when he left us, my duty was to his city.”

  These were not words to say to the Khan. Surely the scholar knew that he risked the Khan's anger.

  “You speak truly,” the Khan said. Ch'i-kuo concealed her surprise. “A man who would betray his master is of no use to me. Tell him this—his King has fled, and he is in my hands now. I would have him serve me with his knowledge.”

  Ye-lu Ch'u-ts'ai was silent for a long time. His eyes met Ch'i-kuo's for a moment; she thought she glimpsed despair.

  “I shall serve you willingly, Majesty,” he said at last. “I can say that because your words show me you are wise, and that is part of the truth, but not all of it. Serving you is also the only way I can serve my people now.”

  The Khan laughed. “He's honest,” he said. “This Khitan will do better serving me than he did serving the Kin.”

  Ch'i-kuo lowered her eyes as another scholar was brought forward. Of course the Khitan would serve the Khan, if only to save his own life.

  Ch'i-kuo sent for the Khitan scholar two days later. She greeted him in her tent, surrounded by her women, with two Mongol guards posted inside the entrance.

  Ye-lu Ch'u-ts'ai murmured a greeting. The women ushered him to a cushion; Mu-tan stood behind him with a fan as two others brought him tea.

  “Do you still paint, Highness?” he said. “I ask because I see that you are keeping your hands supple.”

  She curled her fingers around the jade ball she used for that purpose. “I have done a few pictures. They are not the same as the ones I used to paint.”

  “I am certain they are most pleasing to the eye. To be in your presence again is most welcome, Highness.”

  “I asked my husband if I might speak to you.” She tossed the ball lightly, then caught it. “He has most graciously allowed us to meet.” She rolled the jade ball against her palms. “It pleases him to allow us to talk together of what is lost, of what he took from us. Let us speak frankly, Wise Scholar. Whatever we were before, I am now a wife of the Mongol Khan and you are well on your way to earning his respect. I didn't look back when I left our city, but I shall tell you what I often paint now. I paint the bone-filled fields I saw, and the hills of heads, and the despairing captives who know they are going to die. Such subjects present their own challenges to the artist.” She shook her head slightly. “I asked you here, Learned Brother, because I wish to hear of what the Khan's armies brought upon Chung Tu.”

  “It is a sorrowful tale, Highness.”

  “I did not expect it to be otherwise.”

  “By winter, we were starving,” he said. “In the city, there were rumours of people eating the dead. Soon, it was said that many weren't waiting for others to die before feeding on them. Towards the end, Wan-yen Fu-hsing pleaded with Mo-jan Chin-chung to open the gates and challenge the Mongols in battle—we couldn't go on as we were. They quarrelled so violently that we feared their men might war among themselves. Chin-chung fled to K'ai-feng, and Fu-hsing killed himself in his despair. It's said that he wrote a fine poem before he died, accusing Chin-chung of treason.” He paused. “Chin-chung had promised to take the princesses left in Chung Tu with him, but abandoned them instead. They also killed themselves rather than be taken by the Mongols.”

  Ch'i-kuo closed her eyes for a moment. The other women wept softly.

  “The gates were opened,” Ch'u-ts'ai continued. “The officers surrendered to General Ming-an, who had deserted us for the Mongols. The enemy soldiers slew so many in the city that the bodies clogged the streets—even a rat couldn't have found a path through them. They looted, and ravaged anyone in their way, and set fire to the buildings, for some were still trying to resist them. There is a story that the Mongols set fire to the tails of cats and dogs and the feathers of birds before turning them loose to burn the city.”

  The Khitan took a breath. “Many were dying of starvation or disease, and more would have lost their lives even without the fire. Perhaps the Mongols wanted to cleanse the city with fire. Perhaps they were simply in a rage after besieging it for so long. Chung Tu is a blackened ruin, Lady. The Imperial Palace burned for nearly a month, and is no more.”

  She thought of the paintings she had left behind, now only ashes. Perhaps it was fitting that they had not survived the life they had recorded.

  “I saved what I could,” Ch'u-ts'ai murmured. “I used what herbs I had to ease the ill before the Mongols found me.”

  She said, “Now I know why the Khan refused to ride to the city. He has what he wanted from it. Grass will grow amid Chung Tu's ashes, and someday his horses may graze there. That is his vision of the world, Honoured Scholar and Adviser to the Khan. We shall see him turn everything under Heaven into a pasture for his herds.”

  “Perhaps that is what he sees now, and yet he has ordered his men to guard my books and to see that I have everything I need. I can help our people only by serving him.”

  “You speak of our people,” Ch'i-kuo said, “but surely you mean only your Khitans. The Khan will gladly reward them for assisting in the destruction.”

  He said, “I was speaking of your people, and mine, and the Han as well—perhaps even the Mongols among whom we must live. It may be that I can bring the Mongol Khan to see that he can gain more by preserving what he wins.”

  “You say that even after seeing what he brought to our city? Accept what he is, Honoured Adviser, and live in his world. To hope for anything else is futile.”

  “I see a man who reaches out for what lies beyond him. Am I to respond to that by building a wall between his world and mine? That would be an easier life for me, to accept his world while holding myself apart from it, or to see it as an illusion that will soon pass, but I cannot live that way.” He paused. “I have obligations to others. That is why I served the Emperor, and why I must now serve the Khan. I think you see this, whatever you say. It may be why you paint the pictures you do.”

  “You are mistaken. It's simply that I am often unable to paint anything else. Once, such pictures angered my husband, and now he's indifferent to them. The Khan tires of his new toys quickly.”

  “Yet he doesn't forbid you to paint them,”

  “He prefers to know what those around him are thinking. He enjoys seeing my thoughts, desolate as they often are.” She waved a hand. “You may leave me, Adviser to Genghis Khan. Our master may have need of you.”

  The Khan sat on Ch'i-kuo's bed. He had stripped to the waist against the heat. They would go north soon, to wait out the summer in cooler lands before crossing the desert.

  He was gazing at a painting she had done a few days after speaking to the Khitan. It showed a burned wall, with a tree in front of it; a misty rain was falling from a grey sky.

  “What is this picture?” he asked.

  “There was such a wall in the palace,” she said, “and a tree much like that one.”

  “Your picture lies,” he said. “My men told me that not even that much remains of the palace, and the tree would have burned as well. Your paintings are deceitful, wife. You show none of the joy of war.”

  “I am only a woman, and blind to such joys.”

  “Only a woman, but I had thought you weren't a fool. Every man I kill gives me a little more space for my tents, a bit more land for my herds, a longer future for my people. A man's work is war, and I take joy in my wo
rk, as any man must if he is to do it well. I won't mourn the dead. What were they before I came? People who dug at the ground and put walls around themselves.”

  Ch'i-kuo sat at his feet. “Yet you have found some of those people to be of value.”

  “A craftsman who can make a fine sword or a goblet, or a man learned in the lore of the stars—that's of use. But I saw many of the people of your cities, and they made nothing except children as useless as themselves.” He sighed. “Your pictures of death grow tiresome, wife.”

  “The one you hold is the last such picture I shall paint.”

  “I am pleased to hear it.” He glanced up at Lien, who was standing behind him with a fan. “The Princess speaks my tongue well now, and has little need of you. Perhaps I should put you among those of my women who haven't yet learned it.”

  Ch'i-kuo stiffened. Lien lowered her eyes as she continued to fan him. “If that is your wish,” she said softly.

  “You wouldn't be unhappy at losing your cherished royal playfellow?” he asked.

  “It is you I could not bear to lose, my Lord,” Lien replied. “Do what you like with me as long as I am still yours.” She lifted her head.

  “It's good you're with child. Otherwise, I would have given you to Mukhali—he admits to admiring your beauty when he's drunk.”

  Lien's eyes glistened. “I could not bear being sent from your ordu, my Khan.”

  Lien had spoken the truth, Ch'i-kuo realized; their moments together were only a diversion to Lien. The Khan had hurt her, as he had intended, and shown her how easily he could destroy her refuge by depriving her of Lien. It did not matter. The woman's reply to him, her admission that it was he whom she loved, had destroyed it already.

  The Khan set down the painting, then picked up another. His eyes widened. “You have painted me upon my throne!”

  “Yes,” Ch'i-kuo murmured.

  “But who are these others in the picture?”

  “The woman by the mulberry tree is watching a silkworm weave its cocoon, the man by the wagon has brought in a harvest of grain, and the boy is gathering grapes.”

  “How obvious you are, wife. I see so easily what you're trying to say—I hear it from my Khitan adviser, of how I might gain more by ruling cities instead of razing them. It's a better subject for a painting, but it doesn't show the skill of the others. You paint me as though you're uncertain of what you see.”

  “I know.” Hope had blurred her vision; to hope that she could touch what Ye-lu Ch'u-ts'ai believed was inside him had only made her brushstrokes more tentative. She prayed that the ruler was there, the man who could do more than destroy. If he were not, her hand would falter; the scrolls would be as empty of hope as the world he might create.

  100

  To the west of the encampment, black cliffs jutted towards the sky. Between the mountains and the flat yellow grassland were a few barren hills. A white canopy trimmed with gold had been raised on the south-east slope of one hill; the Kin princess sat in its shade with several of her women.

  Gurbesu's horse slowed to a trot as she neared the three wagons at the bottom of the hill. The Kin woman had left her tent at dawn to come here. One of the boys watching the princess's wagons reached for Gurbesu's reins as she dismounted. Gurbesu's son was about to follow her; she motioned to him to remain with the horses, then climbed the small slope.

  The princess sat behind a low table, a brush in her hand; small flat stones and coloured sticks lay by her scroll. A blue silk scarf covered her glossy black hair. Lien was with her, as always, and Mu-tan stood behind them with a large painted fan. They were so small and delicate, these women; they fluttered through the camp like birds.

  Gurbesu bowed. “I greet you, Honoured Ladies.” The princess murmured a greeting; Gurbesu settled on a small cushion near her. The other women were sitting to the left of the table, murmuring in their strange musical tongue at the two little boys who were the sons of the princess and Lien.

  “I see you are making another picture,” Gurbesu said.

  “It is almost done.” Ch'i-kuo set down her brush. The picture was of a bamboo stalk, with painted lettering beside it. The woman painted them often; they all looked the same, feathery strokes surrounded by emptiness.

  “You are skilled, Ujin,” Gurbesu said.

  “Perhaps I shall paint some horses next, or the Khan hunting with his hawks. Our husband prefers such pictures.” Ch'i-kuo squinted slightly as she turned towards Gurbesu; labouring at her art had to be making her short-sighted.

  “Our husband's armies,” Gurbesu said, “have defeated another old enemy.”

  “So I was told.” The Princess's fine-boned face was still. “I heard that a messenger carried the news to you immediately after leaving the tent of Bortai Khatun.”

  “The Khan knew I would be interested in the outcome.”

  “How is that, Lady?”

  “The enemy defeated by Jebe and our ally Barchukh,” Gurbesu said, “was Guchlug, the son of my former husband Bai Bukha. He fled to Kara-Khitai some years ago, after the Khan triumphed over my husband's armies.”

  Ch'i-kuo's lovely dark eyes were expressionless. She had dwelled here long enough to know of Gurbesu's past; her apparent ignorance of the lives of those around her had to be a mask. But perhaps not. The invisible wall around the woman seemed as high and thick as the one that bordered her old land. They were all barbarians to her—Naimans, the Muslim traders that came to the camp, even the Uighur scribes.

  “Do you mourn for this man, Lady?” the Kin woman asked.

  “No. He fled from the battlefield and abandoned us to the Mongols. When he took refuge in Kara-Khitai, their Gur-Khan welcomed him and gave him his own daughter in marriage, but my former stepson Guchlug wasn't content with that, and seized the throne of Kara-Khitai for himself.”

  Ch'i-kuo picked up her brush and added another stroke to her bamboo. “It seems he has the distinction of having lost two lands to the Khan.”

  “Guchlug was foolish,” Gurbesu said. “He became a follower of the Buddha when he wed the Gur-Khan's daughter, and his new faith turned him against his Muslim subjects. By the time Jebe and Barchukh rode there, the people of Kara-Khitai were ready to welcome them as saviours. That's why our victory was so swift, Honoured Lady. It's said the people there rejoiced when Guchlug's head was carried through the streets of their towns.”

  Ch'i-kuo lifted her head. “That our husband has a victory pleases me,” she said. “I shall tell him, when he honours me again with his presence, that I heard this story from you. That will save him the trouble of recounting his army's exploits to me himself.”

  The woman cared about nothing, as long as she had her scrolls and paints. Perhaps that was why the Khan was losing interest in her; there were certainly enough other women to beguile him.

  Gurbesu gazed towards the camp. The Orkhon River was a thin blue ribbon near the horizon; the tents of the Khan's four favourite wives sat to the east of the great tent where his standard stood. Each tent was at the head of a circle of smaller tents that housed minor wives, concubines, servants, and slaves, and there were other minor wives in other camps.

  She wondered if Temujin would remember how many wives he had, or how many children, without his Uighur scribes to keep a record. More women arrived, captured or given as tribute, each year, to be turned over to one of the households each of the four Khatuns supervised. Each woman remained a concubine unless a son was born to her, when she was raised to the status of minor wife and given her own tent and slaves. The fortunate ones were kept in the Khan's main camp, while the less favoured raised their yurts in other regions and watched over the flocks and herds assigned to them. Most were his bedfellows for only a night or two, and none had become a favourite. That honour still belonged to Bortai, the two Tatar sisters, and especially to the still beautiful Khulan.

  Gurbesu's tent belonged to Bortai's circle, as did Ch'i-kuo's. She was grateful for that. If she was never to be a favourite again, she preferred bein
g here to living in an outlying camp, where other minor wives did their work, loaded wagons with the shares of wool, milk, hides, and meat owed to the four Khatuns, and waited in their tents hoping that the Khan might stop with them for a night.

  Gurbesu glanced at Ch'i-kuo, who was still studying her painting. “As it happens,” Gurbesu said slowly, “I didn't come here to speak of battles. There's something else I must say. Please believe that I have only your welfare at heart.”

  Ch'i-kuo raised her thin brows. “What do you wish to tell me?”

  “Perhaps I should say it out of earshot of your women, Ujin. This concerns you and the Lady Lien.”

  The princess waved a hand. “I have no secrets from Mu-tan, and the others cannot understand this tongue.”

  “Perhaps they understand more than you know,” Gurbesu said. “I've heard rumours of things you might wish to keep secret, which means Bortai Khatun is likely to hear of them before long. She would be most offended, and the Khan would surely punish you if he knew. I do not want discord under his tents.”

  Ch'i-kuo and Lien exchanged glances. “We have done nothing to offend either the Khan or the Khatun,” the princess replied.

  The woman was making what she had to say even more difficult. “We are virtuous women,” Gurbesu said. “That should be evident to you, since you've lived among us for almost three years. I beg you both to consider the wisdom of behaving virtuously yourselves.”

  Ch'i-kuo was smiling, but her dark eyes were blank. “I don't know what you mean, dear Sister.”

  “I'm speaking of what you and the Lady Lien do together.” Gurbesu flushed. “You often keep her in your tent at night, and not because you have need of another servant.” She took a breath. “You lie with each other—that's what is said. Maybe you thought your secret was safe, but—”

  Ch'i-kuo threw back her head and laughed; Lien giggled behind her hand. “That?” the princess said. “But why should that remain a secret?”