Ruler of the Sky: A Novel of Genghis Khan

by Pamela Sargent

  The bier dwarfed the carts around it. Its wooden wheels were each as tall as a man, its platform so wide that twenty camels were needed to pull it. Trunks filled with treasure sat on the platform, and a white canopy on golden poles fluttered above it. Under the canopy, on a bed heaped with cushions, the Great Khan was being borne home.

  Yisui glanced up at the body and repressed a tremor of fear. The Khan was propped up by felt cushions, his helmet on his head. Under his breastplate, he wore a blue silk robe; one hand clutched a sword, the other a silver goblet, and his bowcase and quiver lay at his side. His skin, dried by the desert air, was drawn so tightly over his face that she could see the bones beneath it. She imagined him suddenly downing his drink, then shaking his sword as he shouted commands, shrugging off death as he had every misfortune. His eyes would open, and find her.

  He would wait for her. She had hardly believed he was gone, not when the shaman left his tent to cry out that he had flown to Heaven, not even when two shamanesses had led her between the fires. She would always feel him near her, waiting to clutch her to him once more.

  His death had spared him the knowledge that his old friend Borchu had fallen in a skirmish against the Kin only a few days before. The two, so close in life, would be companions forever.

  The Khan had also not learned of the command she had given in his name. She had told his generals that the survivors in Ning-hsia were to be spared, that Temujin had decreed it before sending her from his side. For an instant, she had felt a thrill at defying him, at knowing he was powerless to prevent her act of mercy. She had seen relief in the eyes of the men; weary of carnage, they were willing to obey. There had been enough death; Heaven had ordered the Khan to show mercy, and she was only obeying Heaven's will.

  But she had not obeyed Temujin. After it was too late to call back her words, she had seen what lay before her. She would fear her own end for the rest of her life. Death would come for her, and the Khan would be at Death's side; his spirit would punish her for her defiance. Her ghost would flee from him, racing across the steppe in the body of a wolf, hiding in the darkness of a northern forest in a leopard's form, trembling at the sounds of the hunter pursuing her. She would never escape him.

  The waters are dried up, she thought; the most beautiful gem is shattered. Subotai had said the words after the funeral feast. “Yesterday, O my Khan, you soared over your people like a falcon. Today, as a young horse after a run, you have stumbled, O my Khan.” The general had slashed at his face; the guttural wails of the men had nearly drowned out his speech. “How can it be, O my Khan, that after sixty short years, Heaven has taken you from us?” Subotai had thrown himself against one of the great wheels, as if wanting the bier to crush him.

  Yisui brushed sand from her face. Her sleeves fell back, showing the scars on her arms. She had slashed herself so deeply with her knife during the mourning that a shaman had been summoned to tend her wounds. If the Khan's spirit saw her grief, perhaps he would forgive her.

  An axle creaked; the giant bier shuddered to a halt. The drivers on the platform lashed at the camels; two men jumped down to look at the wheels. The dunes in the distance became a moving pattern of light and shadow as the wind rose.

  Yisui's driver drew his reins taut. Subotai shouted to the men around him; soldiers leaped from their steeds to secure the horses against the rising wind. Others surrounded the bier and dug at the sand around its wheels. Tolui trotted towards the bier, followed by Khubilai and Mongke. Yisui heard voices in the wind, the spirits of the desert calling to the Khan. If the sky darkened and the spirits sent a storm against them, the shamans might not be able to turn it back.

  Subotai dismounted and approached the bier. He knelt, pressed his forehead against the ground, then looked up to where the Khan sat under the canopy.

  “O my Khan,” the general shouted above the wind, “do you wish to depart from your people? Will you abandon us now? The country where you were born, your noble and wise Bortai Khatun, your empire, your Yasa, your people in the tens of thousands—all await you, O my Khan.”

  Subotai's grief had given him eloquence. He lifted his arms, pleading with the spirit of the one he had served so loyally, and the wind seemed to retreat from him. “Your beloved wives,” he continued, “your great tent, your just realm, the spirits of the comrades who loved you—all await you, O my Khan. Because this country is fair, because the Tanguts are now yours, do you wish to remain behind with the ghost of their beautiful Queen and abandon us, O my Khan?”

  Yisui drew her scarf across her face. Some said that the dead Queen had cast a spell on the Khan. The men wanted to believe that only powerful magic could have taken his mighty spirit from them.

  “We can no longer protect your life!” Subotai flung his arms wide. The wind died suddenly; men pried at the bier's wheels with poles. “I beg you to let us take the jade jewel of your body home to the noble Bortai Khatun and your people!”

  The camels bellowed; the bier lurched forward. Subotai stumbled to his feet as a man brought his horse to him. Yisui huddled against the seat of her cart. Even the desert spirits could not hold the Khan. His spirit would remain with his people, and with her.

  She thought of Yisugen, as she had not for some time. Once, she had yearned to be with her sister again, but felt no longing now. Her love for Yisugen had been the only deep feeling she had allowed herself, before pity for the Tanguts pierced her armour. The frayed bond with her sister had finally unravelled, and the great tree that had sheltered them both was gone. Better, she thought, if Yisugen had forgotten her instead of begging the Khan to find her. Yisugen had wanted her safe but could not protect her against the ghost that would always haunt her.

  124

  In autumn, when ice was forming on the Kerulen, a herdsman rode to Bortai's ordu to tell her that a wing of the Khan's army bearing his standard had been sighted a few days' ride to the south. She questioned the man, found he knew little more, then sent him away.

  No courier had come to her with a message from Temujin. Perhaps he meant to surprise her again. She had heard reports of his victories, and had expected him to press on with his war against the Kin. Now, without warning, the army was returning.

  The dread Bortai had felt when he left her gripped her once more. The night before, she had dreamed that she was alone in a dark pine forest. Temujin had called out to her, shouting as he had when she was fleeing with the Merkits in the night. She had run through the forest crying out to him, awakening before she could find him.

  “Bortai, Bortai!” His voice was in the wind that whistled past her tent. She went to the doorway, almost expecting to see him outside. The sky was growing dark; snow had dusted the ground lightly. Dogs barked as women herded sheep towards the yurts. The soldiers stationed at her tent leaned against wagons, waiting for the night guard to relieve them; children scurried by with baskets of dung. The camp along the Kerulen was filled with the noise of people and animals preparing for night.

  He needs me, she thought. Temujin might be injured or ill; if so, he would have crossed the Gobi in secret before his enemies could learn he was stricken. She refused to think of other reasons for secrecy.

  She descended the steps and beckoned to a captain of the guard. “A dream has come to me,” she said. “The spirits have told me to travel to my husband, and welcome him home. Send a rider to Ghagadai's tent, to tell my son that I wish him to accompany me. Bring ten of your best men with you when we leave at dawn.”

  “Yes, Honoured Lady.”

  She climbed the steps. Khadagan stood in the entrance; Bortai caught her hand. “Don't leave me,” Bortai whispered, suddenly filled with foreboding.

  Bortai left the camp with Khadagan in an ox-drawn cart. Except for two wagons carrying a few servants, provisions, and the panels of a yurt, she brought no other retinue. Chadagai was waiting for her outside her camping circle; he scowled as the men with him greeted her guards.

  People had gathered at the edges of the camp to watch he
r pass. Chagadai rode at the side of her cart, glowering at her in silence. He would be thinking that travelling this way was not dignified, that she should have brought her great tent, more servants and slaves, more guards, more splendour. She gazed at the tents along the river and the animals grazing beyond the wagons; she would not see the last of the great camp before sunset. The cloudless blue sky promised a fine day. Had harm come to Temujin, surely Heaven would have darkened, and sent a harsh wind filled with the voices of grieving spirits.

  Chagadai leaned towards her from his saddle. “Mother, it isn't fitting.”

  “Don't scold me, Chagadai.”

  “You might have brought a driver, at least.”

  “I could handle five oxen in harness when you were still sucking at my breast,” she said. “I can manage one beast. Bringing more with us would only slow our pace.”

  “Rushing to him this way.” Her son shook his head. “It was in my mind to forbid you to go, but it would hardly be suitable to argue openly on the eve of Father's return. You're stubborn enough to have gone anyway, and then—”

  “Chagadai.” She drew on the reins, then stared at him until he looked away. “I'll hear no more of this from you. You can be as unyielding as a stone. Have some consideration for your old mother, who may have need of you.”

  They followed the Kerulen south for three days. On the fourth, they stopped in the flat yellow land that bordered the desert. At dawn, Bortai left her tent and gazed towards the distant rocky massif that loomed in the south. A mass of milling dark shapes was moving towards her across the land; a wide platform with a broad white canopy seemed to float above the dust clouds raised by the procession's movements.

  Her eyesight had grown less keen. She squinted, and thought she saw her husband's standard among the men's banners. Under the canopy, she glimpsed a seated man.

  The others gathered near her. Chagadai was the first to cry out. “Father!” One of his men caught him in his arms. “Father!”

  “The great eagle flies no more!” another soldier shouted. “The mighty Khan has fallen!”

  Khadagan shrieked, tore at her head-dress, and clawed her face with her nails. The men grabbed at one another, filling the air with lamentations. Bortai continued to stare at the massed forms moving against the veil of dust, willing them to be a mirage, one that would disappear from view. The platform was a bier, but the man sitting under the canopy, wearing Temujin's gold-studded helmet, clutching a sword with bony fingers, could not be her husband.

  A man with the Khan's broad-shouldered body was riding ahead of the procession. But the bier did not vanish, and then she saw that the man galloping towards her was Ogedei.

  “He has left us,” a guard near her said. “What will become of us now?”

  Bortai leaned against a cart. Her heart went on beating; she was dimly surprised that it could. The others would be wondering why she showed no grief, how she could stand there so calmly when the centre of her life was gone, but if she gave in to her grief now, she would never stop weeping.

  At last she went to Chagadai and took his hands. “Your father called to me in my dream,” she said, “and the spirits sent me to him. We must guide him back to his people.”

  Rows of soldiers stood on either side of the bier; the camels pulling it had been led away. Two fires burned in front of the bier, and nine shamans sat there, beating their drums as Ogedei led Bortai and Khadagan to the platform.

  Khadagan leaned heavily against Bortai as they knelt; Chagadai was sobbing behind them. Bortai looked up at the wasted, bony body under the canopy. That husk, with its thin grey beard and withered face, was not her husband; his spirit still lived in his sons, in all his people. He had made them what they were, and would watch over them. Then she remembered that she would never feel his arms around her, or look into his pale eyes again, and her sorrow nearly overwhelmed her.

  A shadow fell across her; she looked up as Yisui bowed, then knelt next to her. The other Khatun's black eyes darted restlessly, and her lips were bitten raw.

  “I was his shadow.” Yisui clutched at Bortai's sleeve. “I didn't leave his side, dear Lady, not until his death was nearly upon him and he ordered me from his tent.”

  “Did he say anything to you towards the end?” Bortai whispered. Were there, she thought, any words for me?

  “Sometimes he muttered words I couldn't understand,” Yisui said, and Bortai wished she had been there to capture them. “His will was clear at the end. Your two youngest sons came to him, and the scribes were able to record his decrees.”

  “I know.” Ogedei had managed to tell her that much. The Khan had been failing throughout the campaign, but his men were so used to obeying him that they could not have refused his orders even to save his life.

  “I was his shadow,” Yisui said, “I kept my promise to you.”

  Bortai rose, then helped the other two widows to their feet. She longed for the release of tears, but grief had dried the spring within her.

  Ogedei would send couriers to every camp and city in the Khan's realm. Noyans and chiefs would stream to the great camp along the Kerulen to pay their last respects. The Khan's body would rest outside her ordu and the tents of the other Khatuns while they held their feasts; his spirit would hear the songs and praise of his people. Even when he was laid to rest, her work would not be done, for she would have to watch over his ulus until Ogedei was proclaimed Khan.

  But she had done her duty before, looking after his people until he returned to her. This would not be so different. She had only to wait a short time before her ageing body failed and they were together once more, never to be parted again.

  The silence woke Yisugen. She had thought the wailing might never stop, but the camp was still.

  The Khan's bier had been brought to Bortai's circle of tents and then to Yisui's ordu. Noyans and soldiers, sons and daughters of the Khan's minor wives, and chiefs from camps between the Altais and the Khingans had come here to say their farewells. Some climbed upon the bier to toast the Khan, pour drink into his cup, sing favourite songs, and cry out their grief. Had their tears fallen into the Kerulen, the river would have swelled to its springtime height, but they had mourned for over a month now, and their tears flowed less freely. The mourners in her tent that evening had even managed weak smiles as they told their cherished tales of their Khan.

  Yisugen had not seen Bortai weep, but the Khatun's tormented eyes revealed her suffering. At times, she thought that Bortai longed for the grave herself, but the Khan's first wife had never failed him, and would not do so now. Bortai kept near Ogedei at the feasts, and was at his side during audiences with the Noyans. Ogedei would be Khan because his father had decreed it, but also because Bortai's counsel had shown him ways to give the Noyans confidence in him.

  Yisugen slipped from her bed, pulled on her boots, then covered herself in a sable coat. Her three youngest children slept on; her oldest son, too drunk to ride back to his own tent, stirred on his cushions. She crept past the sleeping slaves at the entrance and descended the steps, motioning to the guards to be silent as they saluted her.

  The bier sat in a wide space in front of her tent; a few men huddled around the fires near the platform. The canopy was silvered by the moonlight; the Khan's body, heaped with furs, was hidden in the darkness.

  She approached the bier, pulled her coat tightly around her, and knelt on the thin layer of crusty snow. Her mother's ghost had sent her to him, and her plea had brought her sister to his side. She had escaped death by joining her life and Yisui's to his, and the years had freed her of the dreams that once troubled her, of small boys dying at the hands of his men and of headless bodies kneeling before the Khan. She had saved her sister, and having Yisui near had helped her conquer her fear of the man to whom they were bound. She had lived her life honouring her old oath to her sister, trying to forget the carnage that had reunited them.

  The Khan was gone, and she and Yisui would not be parted, yet it seemed that he had taken her
sister's spirit with him. Yisui stared at the other mourners with empty eyes as they feasted, drank, sang, and wept; she left her tent only to attend sacrifices to the Khan's spirit, or to present herself at another funeral feast. Yisugen had expected her sister to turn to her for comfort, but Yisui did not seek her out, and had told her nothing of their husband's final days. Yisui shivered and made signs against evil whenever she passed the bier; she had surrounded herself with shamans and the children she had always ignored before. She lived amid chants and spells, appeasing the spirits and warding off whatever unseen evil she feared.

  Yisugen looked up at the Khan. If Yisui's despair deepened, she would lie with him before long. The Khan had won a victory over them both; his death had severed their bond. She covered her face, torn by her loss.

  Khulan's son was the last mourner to leave her tent. Kulgan embraced her at the entrance, then tottered awkwardly down the steps to Nayaga, nursing his bad leg. The two men threw their arms around each other and mumbled drunken laments.

  Khulan watched them from the doorway. She had mimicked the grief of others, wailing as she circled the bier, cutting at her arms with her knife, but the cuts were barely more than scratches. Her tears flowed more easily when she thought of the lives the dead man had taken, the victims who had suffered so much at his hands.

  A boy brought Nayaga a torch. The general and Kulgan weaved their way towards the horses. The wind rose, lifting the snow until they were hidden by a white veil. The Khan had decreed that she would have no other husband, but her love for Nayaga had long been a desert, and his for Temujin ruled him even now.

  Two men climbed on to the bier, one holding a torch as the other tightened the ropes binding the canopy to the poles. The light flickered over the face of the corpse; the cold had preserved the body, but the skin was drawn tight, giving the dead man a grisly grin. The snow was falling more heavily, and soon she could no longer see the bier.