by Megan Bannen
Khalaf as usual is far subtler than I would have been. I just glare at Timur even as I marvel at his pride. Honestly, can’t we just eat one decent meal before he invites someone else to kill us? The tent is enormous, but I feel cramped and panicked.
“By the way, Prince Khalaf,” Qaidu drawls casually, “you should know that I swore to grant to the man who found my bird whatever two things he might ask. You have only to tell me what you desire, and if what you ask for is within my power, I will grant it to you.”
It was relatively quiet before, but now a hush falls over the room. Maybe this is why the Mongols have comported themselves so softly this evening. Maybe this is the moment they’ve been waiting for.
Timur leans across Khalaf and says, “That’s very generous.”
“Thank you, cousin,” Qaidu replies, “but with your forgiveness, this offer is for your son alone, since he is the one who found the falcon.”
Timur falls silent. It must be killing him to keep his mouth shut.
Khalaf glances around the tent at the rapt audience. He swallows his mouthful of game bird. “With your permission, my lord, I’d like to think on this gift before I answer.”
“That’s fine, but don’t put your request off too long or I won’t be drunk enough to remember that I offered it.”
Khalaf laughs along with everyone else, but his eyes aren’t in it. “Tomorrow morning, then, my lord,” he says.
23
IN OUR NEW GER LINED WITH gold brocade like a much smaller version of the khan’s ger back in Sarai, I try to block out Timur’s voice as he plots what to do with Khalaf’s wishes. With a stomach full of food and a new blanket furnished by Qaidu, I feel sleep close in on me.
“We should think about asking for horses,” he says. I look at him with bleary eyes from across the coals and will him to shut up.
“Do we have to talk about this right now?” Khalaf asks as he crawls under his own blanket.
“Or we could turn the tables on him and ask for his army. Serve him right for letting Hulegu Il-Khan trample all over the Kipchak Khanate. I can’t believe how quickly that gutless, milk-blooded bastard wrote us off. After years of alliances, he didn’t even try to stop Hulegu. We should get out of here. I don’t trust him.”
“I’m going to bed,” Khalaf says.
“We could just ask for money, I suppose. How much do you think he’d be willing to give? How much is that falcon worth?”
“Can we please just go to sleep? I’m exhausted.”
Timur breathes out through his nose. “Fine, but let me be clear on one point. We might go to Khanbalik and seek an audience with the Great Khan, but you are not going to Khanbalik to face Turandokht. Is that understood?”
The old goat has finally laid it all out, the thing I’ve been worried about since Rasht. Suddenly, I’m awake and alert, listening carefully.
Khalaf sits back up and pushes the blanket away. “With all due respect, my lord, we are quickly running out of alternatives.”
He as good as admitted it.
I’ve already lost my family and my home, and now, just when I’ve let myself fall in love with Khalaf, I’m about to lose him, too.
To her.
“Lamb’s balls,” says Timur. “I knew it. I knew the second Abbas’s slave starting blathering on about Turandokht back in Rasht.”
“Just hear me out,” says Khalaf.
“There is nothing to discuss. You are not going to stake your life and the future of the Kipchak Khanate on some ridiculous riddles.”
“The Kipchak Khanate needs us. Now. You heard Qaidu. You heard what the il-khan is doing to our people. We’ve run far enough.”
Khalaf’s logical arguments line up behind him like good little soldiers, although his demeanor lacks the passion I would expect from him in a moment like this. His focus never veers from Timur, and I get the feeling that he is very distinctly not looking at me. “Perhaps God has given us a means to an end,” he adds.
“Exactly. Turandokht is the means to your end.”
I am nodding emphatically in agreement with Timur—much good it does me since Khalaf won’t even glance in my direction. His determination to face Turandokht—to marry her—cuts me like a dagger.
“You keep talking about raising armies,” says Khalaf. “You think we can only see our way out of this mess with war. But what if I have something else to offer, a better weapon?”
“What, your philosophy? Is that going to get us back to the Kipchak Khanate? Your poetry? Are you going to recite your way into the Great Khan’s coffers? Are you going to woo his generals with fine rhetoric? Bribe his ministers with the stars in the heavens?”
“If that’s how you think of using one’s mind rather than one’s bow, then yes, I am speaking of my mind.”
“Your mind,” Timur scoffs.
“Am I or am I not an educated man?”
“You are a spoiled child, and you are going to get yourself killed.”
“This isn’t helpful, my lords,” I interject from my bed on the other side of the fire, trying to put the brakes on a conversation that’s veering toward calamity.
“You keep out of this,” Timur fires back. “You’ve caused enough trouble already.”
For the first time since the discussion began, Khalaf lights up, only this time, it’s with anger. “This is between you and me. Don’t you dare go after Jinghua.”
“Oh balls, this again? Please. She’s a slave. You’re a prince. You know this. She knows this. You want to bed her? Fine. But that is the one and only possibility of what could happen between the two of you.”
Timur’s brutal honesty freezes me with humiliation. I don’t know where to look or what to do in response. Khalaf goes completely silent. I can’t bear to look at him.
“And when you’re finished with that,” Timur continues, “we will still need to get down to the business of figuring out how we’re going to use Qaidu and his wishes to our advantage.”
“I’m only saying this one more time,” Khalaf rasps at his father. “Leave Jinghua out of this. This has nothing to do with her.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Of course it doesn’t,” I whisper, heartsore, but of course, no one hears me but me.
Khalaf rises to his feet so he can exit both the ger and this disaster of an argument.
“We’re not finished here,” says Timur.
Khalaf’s hand already is on the door, but he stops and faces his father. “You were the one who had me tutored, who sent me off to be educated in Isfahan, and now you don’t want me using the education you took the trouble to give me. You were the one who wanted to marry me off to Turandokht in the first place, but now when the decision is mine to make, you don’t want me to marry her. Tell me, my lord, is there one thing I can do that will meet with your approval?”
“You can start acting like my son and heir. That would be a nice start.”
“Ugh,” I direct into the air to any god in the vicinity who might be listening.
“Oh, warmongering, you mean?” Khalaf says, his voice dripping with uncommon irony and blatant anger. “Because that seems to be your definition of what it means to be a great man. Would you really rather I die in some pointless battle like my brothers? What exactly did their deaths accomplish? They died. They gave their lives for you, and for what? So that we can skulk across the countryside while Hulegu Il-Khan takes whatever he wants? Is that glory? Is that honor?”
“My lord,” I say, sitting up. I may not love his father, but I don’t relish watching Khalaf stoop so low.
“You shit,” Timur says thickly. “You ungrateful little prick.”
Khalaf nods. “That’s right. I know what you think of me.” He turns and pushes through the door and out into the night.
Timur and I sit in silence on opposite sides of the fire until I say, “That could’ve gone better.”
“Go suck your used tea leaves.”
“Why do you have to be like that with him? It’s like y
ou’re deliberately pushing him in the wrong direction. You may as well pack his bags for him.”
“What should I have said? Son, stay here and marry a slave and live in squalor all the days of your life?”
I hate how he can see through me, right into the dark, sorry places in my heart. It’s like he’s found a sharp stick and is now prodding at all my tender, pointless desires with it. I glare at him across the fire. “You might have mentioned that you care about him. You might have mentioned that while you’d love him to rule the empire, it’s slightly more important to you that he live. That would have been a lot more persuasive than criticizing a girl he’s never looked at twice.”
“And you say I’m blind. Fine, then. You talk him out of this holy quest of his, if you’re so smart. But I’d lay even money that you won’t be professing your undying love for that ungrateful brat either, coward.”
I glower at him and start to bury myself in my blanket.
“Well?” asks Timur.
“Well, what?”
“Go on.”
“What? You really want me to go talk to him? Now?”
He stares off to the side as if he can’t look me in the eye, and he nods.
“What good will that do?”
“We need to stop him before he does anything rash, and the state he’s in, he’s far more likely to listen to you than to his own father, the idiot.”
“Oh, thanks for that.” I wonder if Timur will ever manage to put two words together that don’t comprise an insult in my direction.
“Please,” he says.
Please? From the khan of the Kipchak Khanate? That I was not expecting.
Timur is still gazing off to my right. I used to think of him as a statue, a carved slab of stone, but seeing him now with his bluster all melted away, he seems to be an actual human being, and one who cares about his son as much as I do. So I rise and wrap the blanket around my shoulders before going after Khalaf.
Outside, the cool night air is a slap to the face even though it’s late summer. Khalaf is nowhere in sight. At first, I try to follow his tracks in the broken grass, but after a while, I give that up as futile and head back to our ger to wait for him.
And there he is, sitting on the ground just outside the door with his knees pulled up to his chest. He looks small, childlike, curled into himself like a ball. When he sees me, he raises a hand in greeting and says, “Hăo jiŭ bú jiàn, Quiet Flower.”
“My lord,” I say in a way that communicates many things, like Why are you sitting out here? and This is annoying and Go to bed.
He shakes his finger at me and says, “Khalaf.”
“What are you doing out here?”
“I am sitting upon my throne and thinking the great thoughts of a mighty prince.” He makes a sweeping gesture with his right arm. “Behold my power and tremble.”
This is when I spy a skin flopped on the ground beside him. The telltale odor of qumiz cuts through the crisp air.
“Wait. Are you drunk?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You?” I laugh, because seriously I never could have imagined this. “You’re drunk? You’re drunk?”
He picks up the skin and raises it in toast. “That I am, Quiet Flower. That I am.” He drinks, and when he pulls the skin away, he says, “Beautiful Jasmine Flower.” His voice is throaty, husky. He draws out the last syllable like a long sigh after a hard day.
“I didn’t know you could drink that stuff. I thought it was . . .”
“I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘haram,’ and you would be correct.”
I crouch down beside him, but he stares straight ahead. “This isn’t like you, my lord.”
A bitter and very un-Khalaf-like laugh issues from his qumiz-dampened lips. “This is exactly like me. Abandoning the field of battle? Haram. Disrespecting my father at every turn? Haram. Listening to you sing? Haram. Other things I don’t care to mention? Haram. I am haram on two legs.”
I feel very careful of him suddenly, as if he were a fine vase placed dangerously close to the edge of a table.
“You really are going to Khanbalik, aren’t you? You’re going to face the gods know what in the Yuan on the off chance that you might—might—solve those stupid riddles.”
“Well, when you put it like that . . .” He turns back to me to give me a rueful grin. “Did my father really stoop to sending you to talk me out of it? He’s been lecturing me on acting like a prince for years, and now when an opportunity presents itself, he backs down. And here you are, supporting him and not me.”
“I don’t think this was the opportunity either one of us had in mind,” I tell him.
“This is exactly the opportunity my father had in mind. You?” He tilts his head, his eyes narrowed and a bit glassy with drink. “I have no idea what you have in mind. I can’t even begin to fathom what you want.”
I guess that makes two of us.
“What I want doesn’t matter,” I tell him.
“It matters to you.” He opens his mouth as if he’s going to add something to that, but he thinks better of it and takes another drink instead.
This is the exact conversation I cannot have with Khalaf, because one of the things I want very badly is him. I also want very badly to go home, or at least I did at some point in time. I can’t have either one of those things without losing the other. I certainly can’t have both. And since this conundrum is a nonstarter, I remind myself to focus on the issue at hand.
“What about what you want?” I press him.
He shrugs.
“You don’t want to be khan of the Kipchak Khanate, much less the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. You never have.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you doing this?” Desperation has started to seep into my voice.
“Because I have to. Don’t you see that?”
“No, I don’t.”
He slumps back against the felt wall of the ger, brings the skin of qumiz to his mouth, and takes another swig.
All at once, I feel hollowed out with exhaustion. I’m sick to death of standing out here in the dark as I try to reason with a drunk philosopher. At the end of the day, he won’t disobey his father. I’m certain of it. So I dust off the snow that’s fallen onto my shoulders and reach a hand down to Khalaf to help him up. “Look, just come inside. We’ll sort it out in the morning.”
He stares at my hand but makes no move to take it. I sigh with impatience and shake my hand at him. When he finally reaches for me, his grasp is surprisingly warm. We don’t progress beyond this. He doesn’t use my grip to leverage himself to his feet. He just sits there, studying our joined hands. His thumb brushes over the tops of my knuckles, slowly, touching each hill and valley of my hand, first in one direction, then the other.
Gods and ancestors help me.
He looks up at me and says, “Why don’t you want me to go to Khanbalik, Jinghua?”
“Get up. Please, my lord.” I tug at his hand, and this time he lets me pull him to his feet, which is awkward given that I’m on the tiny and bony side and he’s on the tall and muscular side. Even so, he’s remarkably steady for a drunk man, and now he’s standing very close to me, all height and broad shoulders and distinctly male.
Beautiful.
“Give me a reason to stay,” he challenges me, still holding on to my hand. He focuses on me with all his distinctive intensity, and my mind goes as white and empty as the Kipchack steppes in winter. The only thing I can think to say is “Come inside.”
“The fate of my khanate rests on my shoulders. If I can answer Turandokht’s riddles, I can take back everything and return my father to his rightful place. I could rule the empire. Give me one reason not to try.”
“There are plenty of reasons,” I say. “Lots of reasons.”
“All I need is one.”
I can’t bring myself to look away. He moves in just a little closer. A bare inch separates the toes of our worn boots. The qumiz on his breath tinges t
he air with its sweet and sour scent. I don’t know how to handle this, how to handle him. My heart swells large and fills the back of my throat with the threat of tears. I try to pull my hand free of his, but he holds tight to me, and I only manage to pull him closer. My eyes can no longer focus on any one part of his face. There’s just an expanse of Khalaf and nothing but Khalaf before me.
“Come inside,” I plead with him.
He leans in, bends down. His lips brush the corner of my mouth, and I freeze like a rabbit when the fox gets too close.
I want this.
I want this.
I know I can’t have it, but I want it—him—with an iron will, a longing so strong and hard I could pound it with my fist and break my fingers on it.
He kisses me.
His lips against mine are dry and soft.
And I want more.
I want.
He kisses me again.
His lips against mine flood the world with possibilities, what-ifs that have nothing to do with riddles or khanates or disapproving parents.
When he kisses me a third time, I respond at last, kissing him back even though I have no idea what I’m doing. Instinctively, I make the embrace deeper, opening my lips to his, and he moans into my mouth. His hands cup my face so that he can kiss me even better, even more deliberately.
My blanket falls to the ground around my ankles, and I’m kissing him and kissing him as my fingers twine through the hair at the base of his neck. And it isn’t awkward, and I don’t mess it up. His hands feel warm and rough against my skin. His thumbs brush my cheeks. I slide my hands down to rest over his chest, where I feel his heart beating inside him.
There are entire lives in this one kiss, a river of futures that could belong to both of us.
Suddenly, he jerks his head back, taking his lips from mine. He grasps my hands in his, pulls them off his chest, and pushes me back. I stumble over the blanket at my feet as he gazes at me in stunned horror.
“I’m sorry,” he gasps, letting go of me. He gapes at me as if I’ve sprouted horns out of my head. I feel like I’ve been slapped across the face. Mortification sears me to the point where my ears start ringing.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”