Kurelen had known. He had tried to make his sister understand, when she had demanded of him that he teach Temujin to read and to write. But she, too, was egotistic, and for a long time there was the most acrimonious dispute between the brother and sister because of Kurelen’s refusal.
“Thou dost teach that pale-lipped Jamuga, that white-faced camel!” she would cry, hotly. “But my son, my Temujin, thou wilt not teach.”
And he said to her, over and over: “Houlun, Temujin hath no need for written words. There is in him such a thing that words would despoil. He is greater than words, more powerful than written folly. I dare not teach him.”
And he added, often: “Take thy son behind the walls of Cathay, to those who make eunuchs of men. And then I will teach him.”
Kurelen thought again of this, watching the violent play of crude light and shadow on Temujin’s face, as he listened to his uncle’s accounts of the weakness and impotence and splendor of the mighty empire of Cathay. He thought to himself, wryly: I am the only one who remembereth the prophecies that attended his naming, and I, at the last, am the only one who believeth in them. For surely, on this youth’s high broad brow, in his restless and rapacious eyes, the color of granite, in his mouth, with its protruding under lip, in all his expression, at once savage, wild and cold, in his voice, not loud but strong and measured, was something greater than other men, something which made small souls uneasy and afraid, and which made larger souls even more uneasy and more afraid. This uneasiness was always present in Jamuga’s face, when he spoke or turned his eyes in the direction of his beloved anda, and he tried to hide it in an assumption of indulgent superiority, or, at times, in captious irritability.
Turning from these two, as he related his stories, Kurelen found it some relief to gaze at Kasar, Temujin’s younger brother. Here was such a simple, uncomplicated spirit, without the dark chasms in that of Temujin’s, and the petty fastidiousness of Jamuga’s. Short, broad, powerful and direct, this was a youth upon which one could look with a sensation of restfulness, for there was no rapacity in him, no envies, no uneasiness, no lusts except those of the animal-body, no seekings, no miseries of the mind. He loved his mother and his brother, Temujin. He hated Bektor, because Bektor hated Temujin. He loved Kurelen because Kurelen loved Temujin. He was the enemy of the Shaman, because he had discerned that the Shaman disliked Temujin. It was all as simple as this, to this loyal and simple youth. There was only one deviousness in all his emotions, and that was his emotion for Jamuga, who was more beloved of Temujin than himself. For Jamuga he had a hatred as pure and primitive as a beast’s. But he hid it deeply in his heart, fearful that Temujin would cast him out if he discovered this.
His face was as full and flat as the full moon, and as faintly yellow. Above the wide shelf of his broad cheekbones were set his fixed black eyes in their slanting sockets. His nostrils were so broad, his nose so shallow, that he had a slightly porcine look. His wide mouth was full and red, and somewhat sullen. This unoriginal boy, with the doglike heart, had only one originality: he cut his coarse black hair closely to his big round skull.
Jamuga wanted to know more of that mysterious continent to the west, from which his father had come. Kurelen had to draw much on what he had heard to enlarge the little he had seen. But he had the gift of winnowing the false from the true and his stories were strikingly accurate. Moreover, Jamuga, who knew nothing beyond the desert and the mountains of the Gobi, had the incomprehensible faculty of discerning falseness, without experience. So Kurelen, who might have colored his narrative with fantasy for the sake of Temujin and Kasar, found himself adhering to what he believed to be the truth.
“Jamuga Sechen,” he said, “thou art a hole in the sand, which is never filled. The stories I have told thee are all I know.”
Jamuga smiled his faint and frigid smile. “Tell them again, Kurelen. Know that I could hear them hourly, and still be unsatisfied.”
Kurelen shrugged his shoulders with resignation. Temujin frowned slightly, and then listened attentively. Kasar yawned, investigated Kurelen’s pot for left-over morsels. He thrust his finger deeply into the pot, secured some fragments of meat and gravy, and licked his fingers with simple and unaffected appreciation. Chassa was with the other women tonight, so Kasar stood up on his strong short legs and replenished the dung fire. Kurelen cast him a grateful glance, glad to rest his eyes upon him as a relief from the exigent Jamuga Sechen. The fire replenished, Kasar stood near it, his legs spread out, his hands on his hips, an expression of boredom on his features. The red fire was like a fan of light radiating up Kasar’s body, its extended circle ending just below his eyes which glistened like those of a mountain wolfs. His long full robe of coarse gray wool was banded at his thick waist with a belt of red leather, in which were thrust a curved Turkish scimitar and his short dagger. He looked only at Temujin, and there was a doglike devotion on his face. The wind sounded like muffled drums on the walls of the yurt.
Kurelen spoke mechanically: “It is a strange land to the westward, Europe, a land of many nations, and many climates. But more fertile than High Asia, it is said. There are forests there, of trees such as we have never seen, and mountains as high as ours, and blue as the twilight, each gazing over the other’s head, and crowned with snow. There are steppes like ours, countless leagues of them, and then there are rivers that never end, as green as grass or golden. And lakes like seas of flat silver. There are places that are dark and gloomy, filled with giants with yellow hair and eyes like hawks, men as untamed as eagles. There are nations that are hot and languorous, full of odd fruits and laughing people. There are many cities scattered in those lands, but none so fair, so beautiful, so gracious as the cities of Asia. They are cities of gray stone and mud and rotting wood, filthy beyond imagination. And those who live in them are as crude as their cities and as ugly and dirty. I have this on the best authority. They have no civilization, these people, and their stupidity and ignorance are matched only by their craftiness and cowardice. Their temples are reflections of their souls, and are uncouth and peculiar and squat. The cities are far apart, and there are no fine courier-roads between them, but only thorny wilderness and black forests and malignant rivers. Each people struggles with another people, and all their battles are marked by the most virulent hatred and treachery and cruelty. The Turkomans would disdain their crudities and violences. There is no generosity among them, no honor, no loyalty, no friendship. Look not incredulous, Jamuga Sechen. I know all this to be true. Most of them are followers of Christianity, which must be a parlous creed, in truth, if it breeds such monsters. As for their women, it is said that they are bowed of leg and rotten of teeth, and have a most insupportable stench.”
The young men laughed. Kasar, standing over the fire showed his wet white teeth.
“They have no music, no culture, no men of learning, no philosophies and no academies of any moment,” went on Kurelen. “The meanest slave in the streets of Cathay would spit at them contemptuously. Their poetry is the boasting of pusillanimous children, and their songs are the crude strumming of wandering minstrels. Their kings cannot compare with the sultans of Persia and Bokhara and Kunduz and Balkh and Samarkand, for they are like bears that walk about on their hind legs, and roar thickly. Before the servants of Islam, before the Persian imam and sayyid, the priests of these Christians are mumbling and dirty clowns, without learning or knowledge. At times they have had the audacity, I am told, to send some of their priests to the splendid courts of Cathay, where the emperor, a man of folly in that he believed in kindness and tolerance, received them with fool’s courtesy. And there they would sit, these barbarians in their rope-belted robes of cotton and wool, their dirty feet laced with leather thongs, their beards and hair swarming with lice, their breath as foul as that of a carrion bird’s, and gaze about them arrogantly, condescending to the high-born ladies and lords of the emperor’s court, shedding their vermin on rich carpets, laying down their filthy bodies on couches of silk and cloth of gold,
thrusting their unclean fingers into porcelain bowls. Indeed, the emperor was a fool! But I have already told ye how these priests betrayed the emperor.”
“I have never seen men from those strange lands,” said Temujin. “But I despise them.”
Kasar yawned. He lifted the flap of the yurt and gazed out. “Chepe Noyon and Bektor are wrestling,” he said, eagerly. “Bektor is not obeying the laws. He is trying to kick Chepe Noyon in the belly.”
Temujin rose to his feet with one swift unfolding of his legs. He peered over Kasar’s shoulder, and shouted. “The offal! It is so, Kasar. Let us go out and teach Bektor the first rule of good manners.”
The two youths sprang out of the yurt, leaving Jamuga and Kurelen alone. Kurelen wiped his hands, and remarked that he had nothing more to tell. Jamuga regarded him gravely, his distrust and dislike of Kurelen chilling his eyes with reserve.
“There is but one more thing, Kurelen, that I wish to know. What was the name or rank of those men of whom my father was a brother?”
Kurelen chuckled. “They called themselves Crusaders, or rescuers. They would bring to Asia, they said, the ennobling beauty of their creed, the civilizing gentleness of their god. They brought nothing, but they did not return empty-handed. They took the Saracens’ disease to their wives, and to the beds of all their women.”
Chapter 10
Chepe Noyon, a sweet, brave but fiery youth of passionate tempers and erratic emotions, was much beloved of Temujin, who regarded him as a younger brother. He was somewhat small and delicate and wiry of body, and had the bright innocent face of a child, with laughing mouth and dancing eyes. He was noted for his wit and his gaiety and his love for the maidens. Temujin frequently swore that Chepe Noyon understood the language of the horses, for he had but to approach them for them to neigh at him eagerly, their eyes glittering and rolling. He apparently gave them no audible commands, yet they obeyed instantly, moving as though part of his small body. Because of his wit, which could be as sharp as a sliver of crystal ice, he was not a favorite with all his tribe, and especially not with the jealous Jamuga, who tolerated him because of Temujin, but distrusted him for his laughter and his tongue. But he was admired by all men for his prodigious courage, amazing in so slight and feminine a body, and for his unerring aim with the bow, and his mad ferocity in a battle or a raid. Though still very young, he could astonish the old men with his craftiness and his knowledge. He was beloved of the women, for he deigned to be aware of them, and flattered them, and he would be certain at all times that his mother and sisters and their friends would reserve for him the choicest morsel from the pots.
Bektor, Temujin’s half-brother, hated Chepe Noyon as he hated all that loved Temujin and was beloved of him. He was a strong, square, dark-faced youth, with overhanging brows, triangular cheekbones, and thick sulky lips. Though he was a bully, he was no coward. His dark body was the body of a wrestler and a warrior, and there was a primal splendor about him which fascinated even his enemies, of which he had no small number. There was none he loved, except his younger brother, Belgutei, who at times displayed a disconcerting admiration for Temujin, and a desire for his company. None saw the pathos of Bektor’s love for Belgutei, and the sullen eagerness he displayed for Belgutei’s careless affection. Somber, short of speech, irritable, formidable of face and expression, splendid and without fear, his heart was full of bitterness and hatred, especially for Temujin. It was he, he thought, that ought to have been the first-born of his father, Yesukai, and not this gray-eyed, red-haired son of Houlun, who mocked him at every encounter. For each knew what was in the heart of the other, and knew what an adversary he had.
He had no friends. Not even Belgutei was his true friend, for Belgutei disliked darkness and gloominess, and preferred the gaiety of those who surrounded Temujin. But Belgutei was an affable and generous youth, amiable and accommodating, and at all times not to be trusted overmuch. He was too selfish. He would remain devoted and loyal to a leader and a victor, and even sacrifice his life for such a man. But let that leader and victor be once defeated, and Belgutei would be among the first to aid in his destruction. Though he was still a boy, he would speculate reflectively upon the merits of his brother, Bektor, and his half-brother, Temujin, and wonder to whom he would eventually dedicate his final loyalty. In the meantime, he was friends with both, and was much liked by Temujin.
When Temujin and Kasar hurried to the central campfire, they learned, through the huge laughter of the old men and the warriors who were watching, that Chepe Noyon had been tormenting Bektor for his lack of popularity with the maidens of the tribe, and had been giving him some ribald advice. Bektor, admitted the happy watchers, had withstood the gibes nobly, until at last his black patience, had broken, and he had attacked Chepe Noyon, who was much his inferior in weight and skill.
It was not good to the Mongols that a stronger should attack a weaker, and there had been a murmur of anger. But after a moment, they ceased their murmuring, and shouted with delight. For Chepe Noyon, recovering from the first assault, had returned Bektor’s blows courageously, fighting like a small fox against the onslaughts of a wolf. Bektor was disconcerted. Only the Shaman saw that he had been moderating his blows, and that it was only his rage which gave him so formidable an aspect. Finally, in order to end a combat which he knew would be unequal if he exerted himself, he had lifted his foot and plunged it into Chepe Noyon’s belly. It was this gesture which Kasar had seen, and which had aroused his passionate indignation. By the time he and Temujin arrived, Bektor, in haste to end the struggle, of which he was already ashamed, had seized Chepe Noyon about the waist and was bending him backwards. The small youth’s backbone had begun to crack. An expression of agony distorted his girlish but fearless face; there was an intense look of concentration in his tormented eyes, as though his will alone was resisting death. He had thrust his thumbs into Bektor’s nostrils, and thin trickles of blood glittered in the firelight as they ran down Bektor’s chin and lips.
Temujin, after a swift glance, uttered a loud shout and sprang upon his half-brother. He struck down Bektor’s arms; Chepe Noyon fell in a heap at his feet. Some one dragged the halfconscious youth from the fire. An utter silence fell on the assembled warriors and old men. Yesukai fixed his eyes sternly upon his two sons, and bit his lips. Beyond the range of the men’s heads the faces of women and children appeared, open-mouthed and open-eyed. Houlun was there, and beside her stood the Karait woman, the mother of Bektor. Between the two women was the most venomous enmity, and as they gazed upon the two youths facing each other like colored and barbaric statues, bending forward from their hips and their teeth sparkling, their nostrils distended, their hands flexed into claws, each woman held her breath and prayed to her particular spirit for help for her son. No one noticed Kurelen limping up, nor Jamuga, silent and still, his pale face paler than ever as he watched.
Wild and somber black eye gazed savagely into wild and dilated gray eye. They could smell each other’s hot breath. The firelight gave them a violent and beastlike aspect. Bektor’s distorted face, filled with hatred and rage, was dark as midnight, his lips drawn back over his teeth in a soundless snarl. Temujin’s face was the color of Chinese lead, his eyes the hue of silver with lightning upon it. Kurelen reflected that here was primitive beauty at its most perfect. Both youths were tall, though Bektor was larger and broader than Temujin. But Temujin was quicker and fleeter. They were well matched. And between them was a hatred that was as pure as the hatred of one animal for another, free of subtlety and treachery.
They faced each other, waiting for the first move, and no one spoke nor moved. Every warrior’s brow wrinkled eagerly with expectation. Every nostril drew in a hot breath. There was no sound but the crackling of the high and blazing fire. It was soon evident that Bektor would not strike the first blow.
Then, almost too quick for eye to follow, Temujin sprang upon his enemy. He seized him about the waist. He intended to hurl him into the fire. Fury like a black storm swirled i
n him. Chepe Noyon was forgotten. The festering detestation of years swelled in his heart, poured its poison into his brain. There was in him an exultation, the passionate lust to kill. After the first onslaught, they stood motionless, locked in each other’s arms, their feet sunken into the gravelly earth, their muscles rising all over their bodies. Face was thrust into face; they could see each other’s shining pupil swimming in the glistening iris. They could see each other’s wet teeth, feel each other’s scorching breath. As they gazed like this at each other, each felt that there was nothing else in the world but this combat, and only they two were alive in a dead universe. They forgot where they were, and who they were. They were elemental forces in the midst of a static chaos. They felt only one lust, one desire: to kill.
But they were so evenly matched that they stood as motionless as stone. But no one was deceived; every man knew that here was a. gigantic struggle. They saw the two young faces slowly turn purple with exertion. They saw the veins rising on forehead and neck. They saw the glare slowly turn to flame in the eyes which saw nothing but the other eyes. They saw how white as chalk became the fingernails, and how the feet in their sandals arched and flexed. Kurelen thought: They should be painted on porcelain, in raw red and black and white and yellow, with the scarlet firelight outlining them, and filling every furrow of skin and gray robe. But no: not on porcelain, glazed and delicate, but on smooth stone, set in the desert, surrounded by pink hills and sand the color of bone.
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