Lords of Grass and Thunder

by Curt Benjamin

  “Spoor, longer than a hunter’s stride marked the trail Where trees, plucked twiglike by their roots, tumbled. What monster lay in wait upon that path?”

  The tale sounded rough in some parts. Bekter’s playing left much to be desired. But Qutula saw that his brother held the whole palace—court musicians with perfected skills as well as the chieftains and warriors—tethered to his words as the hunters fanned out in search of the monstrous creature. As always, the poet had added an oasis of comedy. Putting himself in the role of the buffoon, Bekter set his audience at its ease, only to whip them into a frenzy of anxiety as the hero engaged once again in life-threatening battle. Already the mythic bear had grown tall as the towers of the Golden City of legend. When Qutula threw his spear, it fell in the tale like a splinter pricking the hairy hide. Then the arrow of the prince, whom the song named Nirun—Son of Light—plunged through the mad red eye to bury its iron tip in the beast’s brain.

  As the great black bear faltered and died, the gathered company gasped a pent-up sigh of relief. All but Qutula, who ground his teeth in silent frustration. With a bashful grin, Bekter took his bows to uproarious applause from above the firebox and below. He had made Prince Tayyichiut a hero, dwelling on the prowess of the heir and galloping right over the little detail that the bear had nearly killed Mergen’s own son. If Mergen-Khan hadn’t been watching him with that narrow-eyed analytical stare, Qutula might even have believed they’d gotten away with it.

  “A bear of legendary stature,” Mergen praised the singer when Bekter had put down his lute. “And a hero to stand the test of many singings,” he added with a slap to Prince Tayyichiut’s shoulder.

  “I hope so, my lord.” Even his low bow could not hide the blush of pleasure on Bekter’s cheeks.

  Tayy matched the singer for the deep purple that rose on his cheeks, but he protested the praise lavished on his own part of the tale. “Not so much a hero,” he assured his uncle. “You know how tales grow in the telling.”

  “And yet, this mythical beast out of our singer’s imagination has left his liver behind for the strong of heart to enjoy.”

  Mergen gestured at the servants who had returned with the first crisp slivers of liver for the warriors. As he had with all the other morsels presented to the prince, Qutula took the sliver from Tayy’s plate and bit into the rich meat before passing it on.

  His father the khan looked like he’d scented prey and was on the trail of the truth missing from the tale the hunting party had agreed upon. Fortunately, the honor of a khan would prevent him from questioning his heir’s guardsmen, some of whom might have crumbled under such an interrogation. He didn’t think his own peril would distress the khan, but the danger to Prince Tayy had been almost as great, and unnecessary. He might have kept his soldiers around him for protection. A khan as wise as Mergen always did that. Or, he might have crept away again, saving himself while the bear busied himself murdering Qutula. Neither course would have made the prince a hero sung in all the camps of the Qubal, however, and already he heard Bekter’s lines murmured among the guardsmen.

  Mergen smiled and led the gathered courtiers in their applause. The song would need polishing, of course, and he could not praise his blanket-son’s skill on the lute. But already the tale had captured the hearts of the court. Tomorrow the khan’s musicians would have mastered the melody and soon he would hear Bekter’s words throughout the camp. Mergen looked forward to acknowledging this clever son. He would show the clans that a khan—if only a former khan—could value the talent of a poet in one son every bit as much as he valued the prowess of a warrior in the other. Now, however, it was the warrior son who concerned him. Qutula had a dark and brooding look as he sampled his prince’s food and drank from his cup.

  At present the service posed no real threat to the safety of either young man. Among his own people, Prince Tayyichiut had no enemies; the Qubal loved their hero-prince. Politically, the clans were at peace with their neighbors and the reputation they had gained in the recent wars would assure they remained so, at least until his young heir had gained enough experience to lead his people. The Tinglut already negotiated a closer relationship with the Qubal. More to the purpose, the Tinglut emissary lodged under the watchful eye of the army for the night. The only other strangers in the camp were prisoners brought back with them from the war. No foreign hand had access to the prince or his food.

  Qutula wasn’t worried about someone poisoning the prince’s dinner. Mergen figured his son still brooded over his near brush with death that afternoon. The bear’s liver was large, testifying to a beast that would have towered over his son. Bekter’s song had exaggerated some facts and obscured others, but Mergen had stalked game in the woods himself, and could well imagine what had happened. It would have rankled that Qutula couldn’t take the bear on his own, and even more that having enraged it with a wound, he needed the help of his companions to avoid murder by claw and tooth. He required something to take his mind off his close call. For that matter, so did his father.

  Lady Bortu seemed to feel the same. She drank from her own kumiss bowl and passed it to her grandson the prince with an indulgent smile, far too innocent in its apparent intent to take at face value. Qutula held a bland smile on his face as his grandmother praised her first son’s heir through her commentary on the song they had just heard. “An excellent tale,” she judged, “And an excellent hero, one who surely earns the loyalty of his followers.

  “But,” she interposed with one gnarled finger raised before her, almost as if the question were an afterthought, “are the heir’s defenders themselves strong enough to stand against the thunder?”

  Her words echoed a riddle that had more to do with loyalty than strength of arms. He wondered what she was up to. Qutula’s face had suffused with blood at the remark; Mergen had to take the heat out of the moment or risk losing his blanket-sons to blood feud with their own grandmother.

  “There’s only one way to find out—we must have a competition of games tomorrow!” the khan declared, deliberately misunderstanding his mother’s meaning in his reply. He’d had, perhaps, a bit more kumiss than usual and so the gathered courtiers would blame his dulled wits on drunkenness and custom.

  In times of peace, the games offered the young warriors a chance to learn each other’s skills. Their elders took the opportunity to look over the contestants as prospective husbands for the daughters who cheered their brothers on or, sometimes, wore their brothers’ clothes to enter the contests themselves.

  In the aftermath of a war as they had lately fought, the games were a chance to celebrate victory and show off some of the very skills that had brought the warriors home. They also gave the horde a way to keep its skills sharp while releasing the tensions that grew between young men still nerved for battle. So the courtiers took up the call for the games while the “shussshh” of swords half raised from scabbards let him know the warriors who lined the walls were eager to demonstrate their worth as guardians of the khan.

  Prince Tayyichiut quickly joined in the scheme. “We need two teams to test their strength against each other.”

  His follower Jumal, who had carried the trophy of the day’s hunt, dropped to one knee with his hand to his heart. “I would be honored to serve my prince as first among the Nirun,” he said.

  Mergen felt the chill of fate run up his spine, raising the hairs on his neck. Others among the prince’s followers quickly joined in the chant of “Nirun! Nirun!” The Sons of Light, that was, taking up Bekter’s song as they formed their army under the banner of the heir.

  Another young soldier strode forward, whom Mergen recognized as Duwa, a childhood friend of his blanket-sons. Duwa had returned with the hunting party but had kept to his place among the lower ranks until now. Dropping to one knee as Jumal had done, he declaimed his own allegiance.

  “And to oppose, in honorable mock combat, I put my spear and sword and the muscle of arm and shoulder at the service of the guardsman, Captain Qutula!”
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br />   Bekter, who had cozened another pie and a bowl of kumiss from one of the servant girls, looked up from his second dinner with shock and dismay. Mergen thought that Qutula would himself object, offering his sword to defend the heir’s honor in the games. Though his son looked surprised, however, the flesh firmed around his eyes and his jaw tightened with a challenge.

  “Someone must, I suppose,” he said, carefully considering the matter as he spoke. “And what better way to show not only my willingness to serve my prince, but my strength of arms to do so, than by testing them against that very prince.”

  The Lady Bortu’s riddle had clearly smarted. Tayy’s grandmother, she was, and Qutula’s, too, though like Mergen himself, she had never shown by any public word or action that she recognized his bastard children.

  “And if Prince Tayyichiut should lead the Nirun, Sons of Light,” Qutula declared, “then we who oppose, even in mock battle, must be Durluken, the Sons of Darkness.”

  To his son’s followers, he thought the name carried no weight to burden the soul. They were just the opposing team—the dark to the prince’s light and no more. But Qutula looked like something had settled in his soul; a missing piece of his understanding of himself had found its place, boot to stirrup.

  That look slid over Mergen’s skin like the earth of a living grave. The clans didn’t bury their dead, except as the most dire punishment, to trap their souls with their bodies in the hell of the living grave. Mergen remembered a time when he’d threatened a man with that worst of all deaths— to slice him open crotch to gullet and bury him alive with his entrails in his hands. He felt like that was happening to him now, and didn’t know why, except that his son, whose birth remained buried from the world, proposed to ride in the morning under the banner of darkness.

  Where was Bolghai when he needed him? Mergen would have stopped his blanket-son, begged him to change his mind, to find a name for his team that could not be misconstrued. Led by Duwa, however, the young warriors who gathered under Qutula’s banner had begun to chant their own name—“Durluken! Durluken!” as if they might drown out Jumal and the supporters of the prince.

  If he spoke up now, Mergen would draw unwanted speculation to his son, so he kept quiet. But he wished Bolghai were here. The old shaman would have no qualms damping the enthusiasm of young warriors if he feared they might disturb the underworld with their games. But Bolghai’s place at the side of the dais remained empty.

  Clutching the broom that had once set a god-king on the path of his destiny, Eluneke danced in the grass. Little moons Han and Chen had long since chased the sun below the horizon. Great Moon Lun rose and began her descent, casting a ghostly white light on the grasslands. Still, Eluneke danced.

  And still, nothing happened.

  After a while, her teacher Toragana came out to watch. Bolghai followed. He tapped his foot to catch the rhythm and set a fiddle under his chin, playing a tune in time to her dancing. Toragana added the beat of her drum. Still no change came over Eluneke.

  “Not a large animal,” Bolghai said, and Toragana, nodding in agreement, shifted to a stately rhythm on her drum. Bolghai added the sweeping rise and fall of a bird’s wing to the song of his fiddle.

  Eluneke’s stomach growled with hunger. She imagined her feet turning purple from the constant beat of the dance against the grass. But nothing happened.

  “Not a hawk, then,” Toragana said.

  Bolghai agreed. “Perhaps an eagle?”

  But she wasn’t an eagle either, or a pheasant or a magpie or a lark.

  Chapter Eight

  IN THE DARKENING shadows of the fading lamplight, Mergen called for more music. Bekter looked up from where he sat with the court musicians, reviewing the new tale one more time as they quietly followed his direction. Although his own play did not match theirs, the musicians would always find a way to include him if he wished, for the sake of his songs. If the light and airy tune clung a bit more tenaciously to the ground, he repaid them with the sure flight of his words.

  But tonight he left the second act to the masters. The epic singers came forward to recite the heroic tales of long ago and then, as the lamps began to flicker, the gathered company of the court made their bows and wandered off to their own tents to sleep.

  Qutula was among the first to leave. With a smile that hurt his face he waved away another bowl of kumiss. Yawning was easier and, he realized, he didn’t have to fake that at all. “If I may be permitted, I would find my rest, the better to acquit myself with honor on the field tomorrow.” His bright and hopeful grin gave away more pleasurable plans.

  “Rest indeed, but in whose arms?” Mergen guessed, as Qutula had meant him to do. With a laugh the khan warned him, “Don’t stray far from camp. You don’t want to miss the call to the games.”

  “Great Sun won’t find me sleeping,” Qutula promised, and let his smile slide into a knowing smirk.

  “Then go,” the khan urged him with a wave of his hand, “I’m sure greater rewards await you in the dark!”

  Qutula gave a final bow before he made his swaggering exit from the ger-tent palace of his father. He carried himself with the fierce bearing of a warrior as he passed through the chieftains and advisers gathered under the khan’s roof. His thoughts, however, already flew to the lady whose mark on his breast burned anticipation in his veins.

  Later, when Bortu and the prince left him to find their respective blankets, the khan quietly bid his general Yesugei to attend him.

  “Find out what you can of the life of this girl we saw when we returned from hunting. I don’t want her to know she is being watched, but report her actions to me, and in particular if she should meet with the prince.”

  “As you wish.” With a bow Yesugei withdrew to obey his khan’s command.

  That would have to do for now. Tomorrow, he would talk to Qutula and Bekter about keeping a similar guiding watch on the prince. Which reminded him of Qutula’s own boastful withdrawal. When had his son found his way under a friendly blanket? He would have to uncover how serious the connection was, and how suitable the girl to make ties within the palace. At the least he must find a way to warn Sechule against arranging wives of her own choosing for her sons. When Tayy became khan, he would have his own ideas about the alliances he would bind with his cousins’ marriage beds.

  Like so many of the matters that preyed on Mergen’s mind, this one must wait for events to develop. Lying awake fretting like an old woman wouldn’t help. A snore off to his left reminded him that not all old women let such cares disturb their sleep. Lady Bortu would have advice of her own—might already have plotted a path for her grandsons through the tents of their allies. Such decisions were the province of women anyway. Prince Tayyichiut, with his uncle’s guidance, might point in the direction politics would take them, but the grandmothers would decide which young men and women would seal the treaties with their bodies.

  Bortu hadn’t approved of Chimbai-Khan’s instructions that Mergen wander through the tents of the Qubal clans, offering no promises but making the tenuous connections that Chimbai-Khan required of them all. She would advise Tayy against such a policy for his cousins as well. Qutula and Bekter must marry, but carefully. With that last thought for the well-being of his sons, Mergen rolled over in his blankets and went to sleep.

  Qutula found his horse waiting nearby in the care of his followers.

  “Company, Captain?” Mangkut, one of his own since childhood, had taken guard duty outside the palace. At his master’s appearance, he came forward into the light.

  “I think I can manage on my own.” Qutula lifted himself into his saddle and demonstrated his meaning with a rude hand gesture that earned him a chuckle.

  Mangkut returned the gesture. “Just the kind of duty I would have asked for! But captains have a habit of reserving for themselves even the most dangerous missions where women are concerned!”

  “Initiative,” Qutula advised in jest. “A man who conquers the mountains may rest in the valle
y!”

  “But first he must elude the barking dog at the door!”

  Qutula laughed at this reference to a potential mother-in-law. He had seen no signs of such a barking dog complicating his current interest.

  She had not come to him since that one meeting in his war tent, but the tattoo on his breast tingled promisingly. The memory of her touch drew him like a hawk to its prey, though he couldn’t say how he knew she would be waiting. With a last farewell to his fellow guardsmen, he turned his horse about, and headed down the wide allée to the river, far from the tents of watchful aunts and mothers. Sechule would want to hear his plans, but that could wait until tomorrow. His breast burned and he kicked his horse to greater speed.

  Sechule examined the chains of silver-and-turquoise beads that framed her face in the mirror that hung from the wall of her ger-tent of two lattices. The tent was larger than those of her lesser neighbors but in no way as ostentatious as it should be to shelter the sons of the khan. As she ran an elaborately carved comb made of bone through her long dark hair, she brooded on the unhappy fate that Mergen’s fickle attentions had left to her. She still looked younger than her years. Her hair had remained thick and unstreaked by gray, so she had no need to increase its volume with strands pulled from a horse’s tail as many women did. No evil surprises for her lovers, she mused, when the headdresses of a matron came off. Not that she had many lovers, of course—she didn’t need that sort of reputation attached to her sons. Mergen must have no excuse of paternal confusion by which to reject his own offspring.