All at once the earth and the sky were blighted in a darkness that was like the dropping of a veil. And then into this intense night sprang a colossal and blazing moon, seemingly from behind a western hill, without warning, without the milklike diffusion attendant on moons of more humid climates. Earth and sky were illuminated in sharp spectral light, colorless but intense; distances lost vagueness, advanced into the foreground, distinct and imminent. Ranges of chaotic and broken hills, scores of miles away, seemed but a few moments’ walk. Every pebble, every piece of gravel, on the desert floor, gleamed in a frail and bitter radiance. Huge globular stars appeared within reach of a horseman’s hand; their fiery shining was not dimmed even by the moon. In this universe of blackness and blazing whiteness, these transparent grays and sharp-edged shadows, the dung-fires, orange and red, were little fantastic banners. And again, the ice-laden winds fell upon the earth, hollow-voiced, laden with mysterious echoes, blowing with moonlight, coming winged with awfulness from heaven.
Men were already laughing hoarsely about the fires, for this was to be a noble ikhudur, the finest festival in many a day. The superstitious Mongols were greatly excited over the story of the congealed lump of blood in the fist of the first-born of Yesukai. Clearly, it was a sign from the spirits of the air and sky. Clearly, it indicated that this was no ordinary child of a chieftain. This was to be some great Khan, perhaps a kha khan, who would win enormous pasturage for his people, and humble the fat townsmen to their knees. Warriors, completely armed with bows and arrow-cases, short curved swords and lances, dressed in thick felt coats and sheepskins, tanned leather jackets, lacquer breastplates, their lean dark faces coated with grease, were drinking heavily and excitedly laughing, or repeating the story of the lump of blood. Old men wandered from fire to fire, playing on one-stringed fiddles, and droning tales of mighty heroes and tribal forebears in thin and wavering voices. Cups of rice wine were lifted to them as reward, and they drank, wiping their wet beards with the backs of their gnarled hands. All was blackness and moonlight beyond the fires, but here the orange fires were rudely carved on dark and savage cheek and lip, on a jut of chin, in the sockets of fierce and open eyes. Here the crude colors on a round lacquered shield of leather suddenly were revealed to the minutest detail; here the blade of a scimitar or a sword blazed; here there was a glitter and flash of white teeth. Beyond the fires were the smooth black beehive mounds of the yurts, through the flaps of which the women came and went, laden with wine and mutton and sweetmeats. The women were allowed to sit behind the warriors near the fires, but the young children skirmished and fought, and struggled with each other and the dogs for morsels of food. The uproar and the laughter and music assaulted the dark arching caverns of the limitless skies, and the winds answered, thundering, and tossed the fires.
It was very cold, and almost time to move on to winter pastures. The dung fires had to be continually replenished, and the warriors put on extra coats of embroidered felt, and rubbed their hands. Cattle and sheep and camels and horses, disturbed, could be heard in their uneasiness.
The songs of the savage and wild were rarely songs of love, but songs of courage, of heroes, of valiant deeds, of the friendship of man for man. To these the warriors listened, sometimes joining in the chorus with hoarse and exultant voices. Near one fire an old man, strumming on his fiddle, sang:
“Khan of forty-thousand tents is our noble lord.
Son of the blue wolf is our khan, the blue wolf
Who ran on the white steppes like a shadow, voiceless.
Who shall defy our lord, he who stands before the moon,
Brighter than the moon, with his lance and his banners?
Who shall defy his son, the beloved of his people?”
And the warriors shouted exultantly:
“Who shall defy our lord, and the son of our lord?
His eyes are the color of the gray desert. His heart
Is iron. Who shall defy the lord, the kha khan?”
Kurelen, squatting in his sister’s tent while she wrapped the baby in some soft silken stuff, sewn with precious stones, helped himself to Turkish sweetmeats from a silver box. The sweetmeats were made of the fragrance and substance of roses, and they filled the fire-lighted yurt with heavenly odors. Kurelen, appreciative, licked his fingers, ate some more. He began to hum in his singularly beautiful voice:
“Who shall defy our lord, and the son of our lord?”
And burst out laughing, shaking his head, stuffing his mouth.
Houlun frowned. In the past it had not displeased her for Kurelen to mock Yesukai. In fact, she had laughed also; but now she was displeased. Her eye gleamed angrily as she glanced at her brother. She said:
“Thou art disturbing the child, Kurelen, with thy noise.”
Kurelen grinned at her, raised his eyebrows. “Surely not,” he said mockingly. “What a superb song that is: Hark:
“‘Khan of forty thousand tents is our noble lord.
His tents are full of riches and beautiful women.
His cattle roam the plains and the cloud-touched hills.
Great is the lord, the kha khan, the blessed of heaven!’”
Houlun affected to be absorbed in wrapping the boy. “Thou art so silly, Kurelen,” she remarked, without looking at her brother. “Besides, why art thou always eating?”
Kurelen, grinning again, shrugged. “What else is there left in the world for a sensible man?” And he sucked his fingers with a loud noise.
He looked about for something more to eat. There was a silver plate of boiled mutton and herbs. He picked up a large section and ate it with relish, biting at it with his long white teeth. Houlun stopped her work to stare at him distastefully, then, catching his teasing eye, she was forced to laugh herself. She put down the child, and, still sitting, reached over to a tabouret and poured her brother a cup of rice wine, and thrust it at him indulgently. Her long black hair fell across her bare arms; her beautiful gray eyes were full of love. He took the cup, but did not drink. An inscrutable shadow fell across his face as he contemplated her. Lying beside his mother on the bed, the baby kicked furiously at the confining swathes of the gleaming silken stuff. There was sudden silence in the yurt, but the songs and the laughter and the shouting outside were louder than ever. The yurt trembled in the gales of wind.
Then Kurelen looked at the baby and seemed to muse. “Ah, yes,” he said, softly, “it is indeed a fine fellow.”
Houlun, startled, turned her head slowly and regarded her son. A slow and ineffable smile touched her lips. She lifted him in her arms and pressed him against her breast. The swaddling clothes had been intended for a Turkoman princess’s wedding gown; they were the color of roses, and had a petal-like gleam. The gems with which they were embroidered glittered red and blue. The hems were sewn with pearls.
“No doubt,” said Kurelen, “it will be a kha khan.”
The intelligent Houlun was no longer intelligent. She gazed at Kurelen with brilliant eyes. “Oh, dost thou think so, truly?” she cried.
Kurelen was about to laugh again, but the laugh died, aborted. His eyelids drew together. He nodded. “No doubt,” he repeated, and his sister did not hear his irony.
Yesukai and his warriors were coming for the child for the naming ceremony. Houlun was not to be present, not only because she was a woman, but because she was still weak from the birth. The child was closely swaddled now, and red in the face with infantile rage. Houlun wrapped him in a short coat of sables, to protect him from the night air. Yesukai, drunk and excited, wild-eyed, young and glorious, appeared at the flap, and shouted for his son. He wore the treasured sable coat of his father; beneath it he wore a white woolen coat, richly embroidered with red and blue. The flaps of his fur hat were turned upwards, and Kurelen could see his sweating forehead.
He took the child from Houlun’s arms. She surrendered the infant as though the gesture wounded her. Yesukai ignored Kurelen. He was at the door when he heard Kurelen’s mild ingratiating voice:
/> “I have said the child will be at least a kha khan, Yesukai.”
Yesukai turned. His handsome and simple face lighted with ecstasy and pride. “Dost thou think so? But what else could be expected of a son of the gray-eyed men, Kurelen?”
Kurelen rose indolently. He scratched his chin, and affected to be engrossed in studying the infant, who had begun to bellow.
“Ah, yes,” murmured Kurelen. He seemed to be struck with a thought. “I had a strange dream last night. I saw a man on a golden throne, sitting in a great yurt, surrounded by hundreds of noble warriors with circlets about their heads. At his side sat princesses of Cathay and Samarkand. It was the greatest of all khans. And I knew it was thy son, Yesukai.”
Yesukai beamed. He seemed to swell with egotism. He jiggled the child in his arms. He could hardly contain himself. He made a faint deprecating sound. And then he started to go again. And again Kurelen’s voice halted him.
“Yesukai, one of thy captives is a priest, and another a holy man from Cathay. I saw the priest haranguing some of thy people. This is very bad. It will create dissension. Tell those two to close their mouths on pain of death.”
Yesukai frowned haughtily. “My father had many religions among his people, without harm.”
Kurelen shook his head gently. “But not this kind. I have seen them in Cathay. What dissensions they created! The emperor was courteous and tolerant, for he was a wise man. But wisdom is sometimes mistaken for weakness by arrogant men. It was necessary for the emperor to resort to massacres to put down those of his people incited against him by the Christians. It is said he wept. Then, I was in Samarkand, and there I saw, too—”
“Thou hast seen too many things,” interrupted Yesukai rudely and went out with his son.
There was a little silence in the tent. Then Kurelen, as though remembering the last words of Yesukai, said gently and musingly to himself: “No doubt. No doubt.” And shook his head, and smiled, mockingly.
Kurelen wandered about among the yurts and the fires, looking for a space where he could secure warmth and food and wine. But as he was so disliked, no one made room for him, but instead, closed up what little space there was. The women grimaced at him, for they were concerned only with comeliness of the body, and they believed, too, that Kurelen despised them. He limped from fire to fire, shivering in his felt coat, the hood pulled about his long dark face with the long white teeth and the glittering, cynical eyes. Finally, he came on the smallest dung fire of them all, and here, practically deserted, crouched the priest, Seljuken, and the Buddhist monk, Jelmi. A pot of boiling horse meat was on the fire, and there was a plenitude of wine, for the Mongol law of hospitality was an important one. Seljuken was eating sullenly, tearing the bits of meat from the bone with a vicious air. But Jelmi drank only a small quantity of wine. He sat, gazing with gentle melancholy into the fire, and seemed to have forgotten where he was. At intervals he sighed, rubbed his torn and swollen feet. Seljuken ignored him, kept leaning rudely across him to fill his cup from the sack of kumiss.
Kurelen squatted on the other side of the fire, and greeted the two holy men with friendly words. Seljuken grunted over stuffed jowls, but Jelmi answered the Merkit’s words with great courtesy and gentleness. His melancholy lightened; he smiled. When Kurelen began to speak to him in the language of Cathay, the thin tired face of the monk beamed with delight, and his eyes filled with tears.
Kurelen spoke to him of Cathay, of its temples and its bells, its mighty buildings, its streets, its scholars and its great learning, its philosophers and musicians and teachers, its academies and its palaces. Jelmi glowed with pride; his tears fell. “My father was a friend of the old emperor,” he said, “and his manuscripts are still the treasures of the palaces. He was a poet. His name was Ch’un Chin.”
“Is that so, in truth?” exclaimed Kurelen. “I know many of his poems. Was not one called ‘The Polished Bowl Upturned’?”
Jelmi smiled deprecatingly and shook his head. “My father was a great cynic. And a great lover. He believed nothing, not even that he believed nothing. One must make allowances —”
Kurelen chuckled, in remembrance. “The Persian poets cannot equal him. The Persians declare that nothing is of importance. But only the Chinese believe that. Poetry without belief is only strings of bright and empty beads strung on worthless gut. They shine and attract the eye, but are without value.”
Seljuken, listening to this extraordinary conversation in the voiceless immensity of the Gobi desert, stared, his mouth open, his teeth slowly chewing. An expression of contempt finally came over his face, and he dismissed these imbeciles with a shrug. He thought to himself with pride: My father is a prince.
Kurelen continued to converse with the monk. He laughed continually, and his teeth glistened; his shoulders rose about his ears. His hands flew about, with vehement gestures. There was a singular vitality about him, which manifested itself in the thin acrid smile, the sudden gleam of his sardonic eyes. Jelmi laughed softly at Kurelen’s witticisms; his melancholy lifted, and as is the way with all scholars and wise men, he forgot the misery of his present state in the exaltation and ecstasy of words that emanate from the brain and not the belly. He might have been in his father’s house again, a house filled with ivory and teakwood, with precious rugs and silken stuff, with gold-encrusted ceramics and jade and incense, and Kurelen might have been one of those gay and cynic philosophers of whom his father was so fond.
He cried at last: “But how strange for thee to remain here, in this wilderness, when thou art so learned!”
Kurelen grimaced. “I am not so learned. I have merely a facility for words, a quick mind that has memorized the gestures and the phrases of wisdom. But I have no real learning. I am too lazy. I prefer to eat,” and he helped himself to a tender morsel on Jelmi’s plate. Nevertheless, he was pleased. Jelmi shook his head with gentle denial of Kurelen’s deprecating assertions.
Kurelen, his mouth full, regarded the monk thoughtfully. “But I have one word of wisdom, however, for both of you. Our Chief Shaman, Kokchu, is a vengeful man. I observed him watching you today, with no pleasant expression, when ye were speaking to our people. I advise you to remain subservient to him. He has knowledge of many poisons.”
Seljuken snorted disdainfully. “We Christians are bidden to go to the ends of the world, and dispense the words of the Lord, even though threatened with death and torture.”
Kurelen raised his eyebrows. “Speak not so loosely about torture. Thou dost not know the inventiveness of the Shaman. Nevertheless, I have warned thee.”
“I shall dispense the truth!” said Seljuken, angrily, though he glanced about him with an uneasy eye.
Kurelen chewed meditatively, and when he replied, he looked at Jelmi, dismissing the priest as an unlearned man. “Truth,” he said, “wears many different coats, and is the harlot of many masters. One of thy father’s poems, I remember, was a rollicking affair about truth, which he declared was the mercenary of any prince. I trust thou, at least, wilt confine thy version of the truth to thine own thoughts.”
He made a sweeping gesture, indicating the many fires, and the throngs of warriors sitting beside them.
“These are strong men, my friend, and rude, and savage. They do not discourse; they take. What need have they for logic, or philosophy? They live these things; they do not converse about them.”
“But thou,” said Jelmi, with a sweet smile, “dost converse about them.”
Kurelen shrugged, swallowed some wine. “I have told thee, my friend: I am lazy.”
“But why dost thou not return to Cathay?”
“In Cathay,” replied Kurelen, grinning, “I am a fool among wise men. Here, I am a man among beasts. The beasts feed me. In Cathay, they are wiser.” He licked his fingers appreciatively, and then smiled blandly at the monk. “Do not forget: I have said they are beasts. Their beasthood is predictable, but civilized men are unpredictable, except in their villainy. Expect evil of every man, and thou wilt not be d
isappointed.”
The uproar about the fires became louder, so that voices were drowned out. Kurelen rose. “My nephew,” he said, “is about to be named. I must join the ceremonies.” And he walked away. Jelmi watched him with his melancholy eyes. But the priest had eyes for no one; he was pleasantly drunk. Jelmi had not touched the wine in the cup which he held in his hands. The priest rudely took the cup, drank the contents, exhaled noisily, wiping his beard. Jelmi did not notice. His face fell into deep sadness.
Kurelen advanced upon the great fire where Yesukai stood, the infant in his arms. The Shaman was examining the child, and exclaiming over its beauty, and prophesying. When the two men saw Kurelen, they scowled, but said nothing.
The Shaman was saying that as Yesukai’s biggest loot had been taken on the day of the child’s birth, he ought to be called by the name of the chief that Yesukai had conquered and killed. The name was Temujin. Yesukai was delighted, and the child was immediately named Temujin. The warriors crowded about to look at the little one, and marvelled at his thick golden hair, his fierce gray eyes. The Shaman, excited, promised that that night he would summon a spirit from the Blue Sky, and proffer the child for its custody and protection. Kurelen began to laugh, and the Shaman regarded him with black hatred.
“The last spirit thou didst conjure up, Shaman, appeared in the form of a bear, and killed two handsome children.”
The Shaman turned his back on the scoffer, but Yesukai became uneasy. He rewrapped the infant in the sable cloak, and seemed uncertain.
“Perhaps,” said Kurelen, who was slightly drunk, “we ought to have other conjurers, too, on this momentous occasion. Call the monk and the priest to attend. Perhaps their spirits will be less murderous.”
Yesukai thought this an excellent idea, and sent a herdsman to bid the captives to attend. While they all waited, Kurelen turned to the Shaman. He spoke with cynical ingratiation: “I have warned Yesukai that he must not allow these two holy men to distract the minds of our people with strange doctrines.”
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