‘Did you have a reason to visit us on this cold morning?’ Batu said suddenly.
‘I came to welcome Baidur to the camp,’ Kachiun replied. ‘I was away when he brought in his father’s tuman.’
‘His own tuman, general,’ Guyuk said immediately. ‘We have all been raised by the hands of our fathers.’
He did not notice how Batu stiffened. His father Jochi had done nothing for him, yet he sat with the others, cousins and princes, as strong and perhaps harder than they were. Kachiun did not miss the flicker of emotions that played across the younger man’s face. He nodded to himself, silently wishing them all luck.
‘Well, I cannot waste a morning sitting here,’ Kachiun said. ‘I have to walk this leg, I’m told, to keep the bad blood moving.’
He clambered painfully to his feet, ignoring Guyuk’s outstretched arm. The useless thing was throbbing again, in time with his heart. He would go back to the healer and endure another knife in the flesh to release the brown filth that filled the thigh. He frowned at the prospect, then inclined his head to the group as one, before limping away.
‘He’s seen a few things in his time,’ Guyuk said wistfully, looking after him.
‘He’s just an old man,’ Batu replied. ‘We will see more.’ He grinned at Guyuk. ‘Like the bottom of a few skins of airag, for a start. Bring out your private store, Guyuk. Don’t think I haven’t heard of your father’s packages to you.’
Guyuk blushed to be the centre of attention, as the others clamoured for him to bring out the drink. He rushed away to fetch the skins for his friends.
‘Tsubodai told me to report to him at sunset,’ Baidur said, his voice worried.
Batu shrugged. ‘And we will, though he didn’t say we had to be sober. Don’t worry, cousin, we’ll put on a show for the old devil. Perhaps it’s time he realised we are the princes of the nation. He is just an artisan we employ, like a painter…or a maker of bricks. Good as he is, Baidur, that’s all he is.’
Baidur looked uncomfortable. He had joined the army after the battles around Kiev and he knew he had yet to prove himself to his cousins. Batu had been the first to greet him, but Baidur was enough of a judge to see the spite in the older man. He was wary of the group, for all they were his cousins and princes of the same nation. He chose to say nothing and Batu relaxed back into a pile of grain sacks. It was not long before Guyuk returned, bearing fat skins of airag over each shoulder.
Yao Shu had put a lot of effort into being ready for the meeting of Sorhatani and the khan’s wife. The summer palace on the Orkhon river was barely a day’s ride away for a scout, but the khan’s wife had never travelled at that sort of speed. For all her apparent urgency, moving her staff and baggage had taken the best part of a month. Yao Shu had enjoyed the secret pleasure of watching Sorhatani’s strain grow daily as she bustled about the palace and city, checking the tallies in the treasury and coming up with a thousand things for which she might be reproached in her care of the khan.
In that time, with just a few letters and messengers, he had won back the freedom of his office. No longer was he troubled by Sorhatani’s constant enquiries and demands on his time and resources. No longer was he summoned at all hours of the day and night to explain some matter of policy, or some aspect of the titles and powers she had been granted in her husband’s stead. It was a perfect application of power, he decided: the minimum force to achieve the desired outcome.
For the previous two days, the palace corridors had been scrubbed by an army of Chin servants. Anything made of cloth had been sent to the courtyard and beaten free of dust before being carefully replaced. Fresh fruit had been packed in ice barrels and brought to the kitchens below ground, while cut flowers were placed in such profusion that the entire building was heavy with their scent. The khan’s wife was coming home and she must not be disappointed.
Yao Shu strolled along an airy corridor, enjoying the weak sunshine on a cold, clear day with blue skies. The joy of his position was that no one would challenge the khan’s own chancellor if he chose to be there when Torogene returned. It was almost his duty to welcome her and there was little Sorhatani could do about it.
He heard a horn blow from the outskirts of the city and he smiled to himself. Her baggage train was in sight at last. He had time to go to his offices and put on his most formal robes. His current deel was grubby and he brushed at the cloth as he jogged to his work rooms. He barely noticed the servant prostrating himself at the doorpost as he passed. He had clean robes in a chest. They would be a little musty, but the cedar wood should have kept the moths at bay. He crossed the room with quick steps and was bent over the chest when he heard the door swing closed behind him. As he spun round in surprise, a click sounded, then the scrape of a key in a lock.
Yao Shu forgot about the chest. He crossed to the door and tried the handle, knowing it would not open. Sorhatani’s orders, of course. He could almost smile at the woman’s sheer effrontery to lock him in his own rooms. It was all the more irritating that he was the one responsible for introducing locks to the doors of the palace, at least those which guarded valuables. The lessons of the long night had been learned, when Chagatai had sent men into the palace to spread terror and destruction. Only good doors had saved the khan then. Yao Shu ran his hands over the wood, his calloused skin making a sibilant sound. He matched it with a hiss of air through his teeth.
‘Really, Sorhatani?’ he muttered to himself.
He resisted the pointless urge to rattle the handle or call for help. The whole palace was busy that morning. There could be servants rushing by outside, but it was more than his dignity would take to have to be rescued from his own rooms.
He tapped the door with the palm of his hand, testing its strength. From childhood, he had conditioned his body to hardness. For years he had begun each day with a thousand blows on his forearms. The bones had cracked in tiny fissures, filling and growing dense so that he could unleash all his strength without fearing his wrists would snap. Yet the door felt depressingly solid. He was no longer a young man and, smiling ruefully to himself, he put aside the young man’s response of force.
His questing hands moved to the hinges instead. They were simple iron pegs, lowered onto rings of iron, but the door had been put into place while it was open. Now that it was closed, the frame prevented him from lifting it. He looked around his offices, but there were no weapons there. The chest was too heavy to be flung at the door and the rest – his inkstone, his pens and scrolls – were all too light to be of any use. He muttered a curse under his breath. The windows of the room were barred in iron, high and small enough so that the winter wind did not freeze him as he worked.
He felt his anger growing again, as all his attempts at reason failed. It would have to be force. He rubbed the two large knuckles on his right hand. Years of the striking post had given them a sheath of callus, but the bones underneath were like marble, cracked and healed until they were a mass of dense bone.
Yao Shu removed his sandals and stretched his legs for a moment. They too had been hardened. Time would tell if he could break through a door with nothing else.
He chose the weakest spot, where a panel had been fitted into the main frame. He took a deep breath, readying himself.
Sorhatani stood at the main gate to Karakorum. She had fretted for some time over where to receive Ogedai’s wife. Would it seem like a challenge to force her to come all the way through the city to the palace before they met? She did not know Torogene well enough to be certain. Her main memory of her was a motherly woman who had remained calm on the long night when Ogedai had come under attack in his rooms. Sorhatani told herself she had done nothing wrong, that she could not be reproached for her care of the khan. Yet she knew well enough that a wife’s feeling about a younger woman was not always a rational thing. No matter how it went, the meeting was going to be delicate, to say the least. Sorhatani had prepared herself as best she could. The rest was up to the sky father and earth mother, and Torogene hers
elf.
The retinue was an impressive sight, with outriders and carts stretching back along the road for almost a mile. Sorhatani had ordered the city gates opened, rather than insult Torogene, yet she feared that the khan’s wife would just sweep by her as if she did not exist. She watched nervously as the first rows of riders passed under the gate and the largest cart trundled closer. Pulled by six oxen, it moved slowly and creaked loudly enough to be heard some distance away. The khan’s wife sat under a canopy, with four poles of birch supporting a silk roof. The sides were open and Sorhatani twisted her hands together at the first sight of Torogene returning to her husband and Karakorum. It was not reassuring, and Sorhatani felt the woman’s eyes seek her out at a distance, then rest on her as if fascinated. She thought she could see the gleam of them and knew that Torogene would be seeing a slim and beautiful woman in a Chin dress of green silk, her hair tied with a silver clasp as large as a man’s hand.
Sorhatani’s thoughts raced as the cart came to a halt just a few paces away from where she stood. Status was the issue and the one thing she had not been able to decide in the days previously. Torogene was the khan’s wife, of course. When they had met last, she had been Sorhatani’s social superior. Yet in the time since, Sorhatani had been granted all the titles and authority of her husband. There was no precedent in the short history of the nation. Certainly no other woman had ever had the right to command a tuman if she so chose. It was a mark of the khan’s respect for her husband’s sacrifice that he had made the ruling at all.
Sorhatani took a deep, slow breath as she saw Torogene was moving to the edge of the cart, extending her hand to be helped down. The grey-haired woman was older, but the khan’s wife would have bowed to Tolui if he had been standing there. The khan’s wife would have spoken first. Without knowing how Torogene would react to her, Sorhatani didn’t want to throw away her sole advantage. She had the status to demand respect, but she did not want to make an enemy of the older woman.
The moment when she would have to decide came too quickly, but her attention was dragged away by the sound of running footsteps. Sorhatani and Torogene both looked up at the same time as Yao Shu came through the gate. His face was stiff with anger and his eyes glittered as they took in the scene. Sorhatani caught a glimpse of bloody knuckles before he clasped his hands behind his back and bowed formally to welcome the khan’s wife.
Perhaps it was his example, but Sorhatani stepped aside from her new-found dignity. As Torogene turned to face her, she too bowed deeply.
‘Your return is welcome, lady,’ Sorhatani said, straightening. ‘The khan is on his way to health and he needs you now more than ever.’
Torogene relaxed subtly, a hint of tension vanishing from the way she held herself. As Yao Shu watched in anticipation, the older woman smiled. To his fury, he saw Sorhatani echo the expression.
‘I’m sure you’ll tell me everything I need to know,’ Torogene said, her voice warm. ‘I was sorry to hear about your husband. He was a brave man, more so than I ever knew.’
Sorhatani found herself blushing, relieved beyond words that the khan’s wife had not snubbed her, or begun hostilities. She bowed again on impulse, overcome.
‘Join me on the cart, dear,’ Torogene said, fitting her arm through Sorhatani’s. ‘We can talk on the way to the palace. Is that Yao Shu I see there?’
‘My lady,’ Yao Shu murmured.
‘I will want to see the accounts, chancellor. Bring them to me in the khan’s rooms at sunset.’
‘Of course, my lady,’ he replied.
What trickery was this? He had hoped for two cats spitting rage over Ogedai, and instead they seemed to have assessed each other and found something to like in just a glance and a greeting. He would never understand women, he thought. They were life’s great mystery. His hands ached and throbbed from hammering through the door panels and he was suddenly tired. He wanted nothing more than to return to his offices and settle down with something hot to drink. He watched in numb frustration as Sorhatani and Torogene were handed up onto the cart and took seats next to each other, already chattering like birds. The column moved off with cries from the drivers and warriors riding escort. It was not long before he was standing alone on the dusty road. The thought came to him that the accounts were in no state to be perused by anyone apart from himself. He had a great deal of work to do before sunset, before he could rest.
Karakorum was far from quiet as the riders and carts made their way through the streets. The khan’s own Guards had been brought out from their barracks to man the roads and keep back crowds of well-wishers, as well as those who just wanted to catch a glimpse of Torogene. The khan’s wife was seen as the mother of the nation and the Guards were hard-pressed. Torogene smiled indulgently as they wended their way through the streets to the golden dome and tower of the khan’s palace.
‘I had forgotten there were so many people here,’ Torogene said, shaking her head in wonder. Men and women held children out to her in the vain hope that she would bless them with a touch. Others cried her name, or called out blessings of their own on the khan and his family. The Guards linked arms at crossroads, struggling to hold back a tide of humanity.
When she spoke again, Sorhatani could see a faint flush in Torogene’s cheeks.
‘I understand that Ogedai is much taken with you,’ Torogene began.
Sorhatani closed her eyes for a moment of irritation. Yao Shu.
‘Looking after him gave me something to do while I bore my own grief,’ she said. Her eyes were clear of guilt and Torogene regarded her with interest. She had never been as beautiful, even when young.
‘You seem to have offended my husband’s chancellor, at least. That says something for you.’
Sorhatani smiled. ‘He feels the khan’s wishes should have been respected. I…did not respect them. I think I irritated Ogedai into taking a grip on his duties again. He is not fully well, my lady, but I think you will see a change in him.’
The khan’s wife patted her knee, reassured by Sorhatani’s babbling. By the spirits, the woman had secured her husband’s titles with just a few ruffled feathers! If that was not enough, she had nursed the khan back to health, when the man was refusing to see his wife or his chancellor. Some part of her knew Ogedai had chosen to die alone in his palace. He had sent her away with a sort of cold resignation she could not pierce. Somehow, she had thought that to defy him would be to see him break down completely. He had not allowed her into his grief. It still hurt.
Sorhatani had done what Torogene could not and she silently thanked the younger woman, however she had achieved it. Even Yao Shu had been forced to admit Ogedai was in better spirits. It was somehow good to know Sorhatani could be as nervous as a girl. It made her less frightening.
Sorhatani regarded the motherly lady at her side. It had been a very long time since anyone had shown her that sort of affection and she found herself liking the woman more. She could hardly express her relief that there was no bad blood between them. Torogene wasn’t the foolish sort to come storming home. If Ogedai had the sense of a marmot, he’d have had her close from the moment he returned. He’d have healed himself in her arms. Instead, he’d chosen to wait for death in a frozen room. He’d seen it as refusing to flinch in the face of death, she knew now. He had tormented himself with past sins and errors until he could no longer move even to save himself.
‘I am glad you were there for him, Sorhatani,’ Torogene said. The colour in her cheeks deepened suddenly and Sorhatani prepared for the question she knew would come.
‘I am not a young girl, a blushing virgin,’ Torogene said. ‘My husband has many wives…and slaves and servants to attend to every need. I will not be hurt, but I do want to know if you comforted him in all ways.’
‘Not in bed,’ Sorhatani said, smiling. ‘He came close to grabbing me once when I was bathing him, but I hit him with a foot-brush.’
Torogene chuckled. ‘That’s the way to deal with them, dear, when they get warm. Yo
u’re very beautiful, you see. I think I would have been jealous of you if you had.’
They smiled at each other, each one realising she had found a friend. Both women wondered if the other valued the discovery anywhere near as much.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Tsubodai moved slowly west over the following spring and summer. Leaving the Russian principates behind, he reached the limits of his maps. His scouts spread out ahead of the tumans, ranging in unknown territory for months at a time as they sketched valleys and towns and lakes, putting together a picture of the land that lay before him. Those who could read and write made notes on the strength of armies they encountered, or the moving columns of refugees fleeing before them. Those who could not write bound sticks in bundles of ten, with each ten representing a thousand. It was a rough system, but Tsubodai was content to move in summer and fight each winter, playing to the strengths of his people. The lords and nobles of these new lands were made weak by such an approach to war. As yet, they had shown him nothing that could threaten his horse warriors.
Tsubodai assumed he would eventually face armies the equal of those wielded by the chin emperor. At some point, the foreign princes would join forces against the sweep west. He heard rumours of armies like clouds of locusts, but he did not know if it was exaggeration. If the foreign lords did not join together, they would be taken one by one and he would not stop, would not ever stop, until he saw the sea.
He rode to the front of a column of the closest two tumans, checking on the supplies Mongke had promised to send after a lucky find. Just keeping so many in the field forced them to move constantly. The horses needed vast plains of sweet grass and the sheer number of ragged foot soldiers was becoming a greater problem every day. They served a purpose when used ruthlessly. Tsubodai’s tumans sent them in first, forcing the enemy to use all their bolts and arrows before they met the main Mongol forces. In that way, they were valuable enough, but anything that lived or moved had to be shot to feed the men – not just herds of cattle and sheep, but foxes, deer, wolves, hares and wild birds, anything they could find. They scoured the land, leaving almost nothing alive behind them. He thought the destruction of villages was something like a mercy. Better a quick death than being left to starve, without grain or meat for the winter to come. Time and again, Tsubodai’s tumans had found abandoned villages, places filled with ghosts from years back, when plague or starvation had forced the people to leave. It was no wonder they gathered in great cities. In such places, they could pretend they were safe and find comfort in numbers and high walls. They did not yet know how weak those walls were for his tumans. He had brought down Yenking, with the Chin emperor inside it. Nothing he had seen in the west could match that stone city.
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