A warrior, no longer suspicious, but increasingly scornful, then came to them and announced that the Khan would see them. He led them to the largest tent of all, fully twenty feet across, and glittering in its costliness of cloth-of-gold. They entered, and their feet sank into rich Bokhara carpets. Along the slanting walls, on carved tabourets of teakwood, porcelain, gold and silver lamps burnt softly. On a couch covered with robes of silk and embroidered wool and fur reclined the old Khan, drinking a goblet of fresh milk.
Temujin entered alone, bidding his followers remain outside. He stood there in the lamplit dimness, weather-stained, dark-faced, tall and resplendent with youth and courage. Toghrul Khan, lifting his eyes with the fatherly smile reserved for visiting little chieftains, suddenly stopped smiling, and he gazed at Temujin with a sudden sharpness. His eyes narrowed. Very slowly, he handed the cup to a kneeling woman-slave, and motioned her from the tent.
Still without speaking, Temujin knelt before the old man and touched his forehead to the floor, without humility, but even with a sort of arrogance. Then he said, lifting his head and looking at Toghrul piercingly:
“Thy son hath come to thee, my foster-father, to swear the allegiance of his father, Yesukai.”
He saw before him a little old man, bald and emaciated, with a smooth and gentle face and tiny vivid eyes, like a bird’s. He saw the golden bracelets on the withered wrists, the many twinkling rings on the gnarled fingers. He saw the richness of the silken robes. But more than all these, he saw the khan, and knew that his prescience had not lied to him. A lesser eye might have seen a little aged man with a sweet expression and a kindly, paternal manner, and no more. But Temujin saw behind all these, and what he saw made his lips tighten grimly and all his senses become acute and wary.
Then, after a long moment, Toghrul Khan extended his hand and said in a voice of great affection and gladness:
“Welcome, my son! Mine eyes are filled with joy at thy coming. Sit beside me at my right hand, and let me have the pleasure of knowing thou art near me.”
His voice was dulcet and caressing. He laid his hand on Temujin’s shoulder, and feigned to be tenderly delighted with him. He asked him if he had partaken of his morning meal. He asked him the details of his father’s death, and shook his head with sorrow and regret. No one could have been kinder. No father could have displayed more affection and interest. But even while he listened to the old man, and felt the weight of his loving hand on his shoulder, Temujin was watching him closely, and knowing moment by moment that this was the most deadly being he had ever encountered, the most avaricious and cruel and treacherous.
All at once, under his watchfulness, he felt a profound contempt. Had the Khan been all he was, and curt and brutal and cold besides, Temujin would have honored him and admired him. But above all things he loathed hypocrisy. To him the foulest of all things was an evil soul that spoke in the sweet words of love and peace and piety.
But he masked his knowledge of Toghrul Khan, and presented him with the sable cloak. At first, seeing all the splendor of the camp and the tent, he had thought that the cloak would be a poor gift. But now he knew that everything was welcome to this greedy Karait vulture. And in truth, it was a good gift, the skins beautiful and soft and full. Toghrul Khan, with little cries of pleasure, sank his fingers in the fur, smoothed it lovingly, lifted a corner and pressed it delicately to his cheek. Temujin, watching him, felt revulsion. There was something unclean in the sight of the dead old fingers lustfully fingering the living warmth of the skins, something repulsive in the vision of them against the sunken old cheek. He remembered how he had last seen the cloak, on the full young shoulders of Bortei, and he experienced a pang of rage and disgust. It were as though the licentious old hands had seized wantonly on the very flesh of Bortei.
And then he knew that Toghrul Khan, for all his wealth and his power, envied him his handsome youth and strength, the color of his young eyes, the leanness of his waist and the broadness and straightness of his shoulders. And he knew that envy is always the twin brother of hatred. He said to himself: I have an enemy.
But he had felt, on the way, that Toghrul Khan would be an enemy. It was his task, now, to appease that enmity, but to make the old man desire him as an ally. Even enmity must step back from the presence of profit.
He looked about him at all the evidences of luxury which the tent contained. He felt no lust for them, and was vaguely surprised at this. He glanced at the old man’s bracelets and robes and rings, and thought to himself how fair they would look upon Bortei. He had seen the fat herds, and desired them for his people. As for himself, he desired something greater.
A vast excitement filled him.
He listened as Toghrul Khan promised him a fine feast. There would be great festivities in honor of his coming.
“I have had no pleasure like this for many days!” said the old man. “But now my foster son hath come to me, and filleth mine eyes with joy. God hath remembered mine age, and hath brought me another son.”
He lifted his eyes reverently, and Temujin, following his gaze, saw that a large golden cross hung over the couch, beautifully inlaid with enamel, and shining and sparkling in the lamplight. Temujin eyed it curiously. One or two of his people were Nestorian Christians, but he had never felt any cleavage from them. Kokchu resented them, but Kokchu always resented anything that might threaten his own influence. Temujin had believed with his father that a man might hold any faith he wished, provided it did not interfere with his loyalty to his leader. But now, strangely, he felt that the golden cross was a very part of Toghrul Khan, and that the old man’s enmity was somehow involved with it.
Toghrul called for one of the servants who were waiting in a smaller tent attached to this large one. He told the servant to lead Temujin’s paladins to other yurts, where every pleasure and comfort was to be given them.
“As for thyself, my son,” he said, turning to Temujin again, and putting his hand lovingly on his arm, “thou wilt remain with me for a while, and tell me more of thyself, and how I may help thee.”
Temujin gazed at him for a long moment, and Toghrul Khan, who made his pleasing and affectionate remark with his usual glib courtesy which meant nothing, was startled, when, looking again at Temujin in the silence, he saw the young man’s strange expression and sparkling emerald eyes. His first uneasy thought, wary as ever, was that Temujin had taken him seriously and might have some disconcerting request to make. His second thought, more uneasy and touched with suspicion, was that he had no request. One of his axioms was that a man must never cease watching other men, and that the clever man watched without giving evidence of his watching. He saw that Temujin was watching him, and was entirely indifferent as to whether he was discerned in this or not. This was not lack of cleverness, reflected the old man with a vague feeling of angry humiliation, but merely a disdainful disregard for the devious craft of such cleverness. All at once, the old man gnawed his under lip with a sensation of hostile helplessness. Then he Smiled again, pressed Temujin’s arm with his hand.
“But I have been remiss!” he exclaimed, with a gay laugh at himself. “My daughter, Azara, should have welcomed thee, at my side! Her mother was a Persian lady, and she, herself, is a follower of the Lord Jesus. But I have had tutors and teachers for the wench, for she is possessed of much wisdom, and I enjoy her presence. Ah, that she had been a man! I shall send for her.”
He called a servant from the other tent, and requested the presence of his daughter. When he had done this, he was surprised and annoyed. He had never expected to display his daughter to this petty and ragged chieftain. But he had experienced confusion, and to cover it, he had called for the girl. He fumed internally, as they waited, and tried to cover his angry discomfiture with renewed smiles and words of affection. He thought to himself: What have I done? Why should I do this, for this mongrel of the steppes, this shabby barbarian of the desert? And then all his annoyance was lost in wonder at himself, and hatred.
The flap o
f the great tent parted and Azara entered. Temujin, always eager for the sight of beautiful women, looked at her and felt a stunning amazement. For never had he seen such a lovely face, such a perfect figure.
For Azara was taller than any other woman he had ever seen, almost as tall as himself. He thought: She is like a young birch tree, white and slender, bending a little in the wind. The girl was clad, below the waist, in some filmy white stuff, almost diaphanous, caught about her narrow hips with a coiling circle of thin gold. Her breasts, high and pointed and virginal, were covered with circles of jewelled gold. Her arms and throat and neck were whiter than milk, and luminous, like pearls. Her face, a pure and delicate oval, covered with the milky mist of her veil, was also pearl-like, and flushed with tender rose upon the lip and cheek. Her eyes, black and sparkling as jet, were fringed in golden lashes, as soft as silk, and her long streaming hair was also golden, but of so pale a tint, and so bright, as to be almost incredible. She was laden with gems, necklaces and bracelets and rings, so that she blazed in the beams of the lamps.
Her manner was calm and dignified, but so remote as to give the impression that she moved mechanically, and in a dream. Even when she smiled modestly, and bowed before her father and his guest Temujin told himself that she was but half awake. His sensation of astonishment increased. He thought: What a prize is this, what glory, what beauty! His heart beat thickly, and sweat appeared on his brow and upper lip.
Toghrul Khan laid his hand lovingly on the head of his daughter and sat her at his left side. He played with the pale golden strands of her silken hair.
“Before the moon has waned, she will be betrothed to the Caliph of Bokhara, who hath heard of her great beauty,” he said, all his craftiness momentarily lost in paternal pride. He looked at her with delight, as one would look at a beautiful mare, who cannot understand the language of men, but is only a comely and submissive beast. The girl bent her head, and a deep blush covered her cheeks and throat and bosom.
Temujin forgot Bortei. All his body swelled and strained in his lust for this wonderful creature. He had heard of the Caliph of Bokhara, an old lecherous man with a huge harem. Suddenly he had a vision of Azara, naked, in the arms of the Caliph, and all his blood rushed to his head so that his face became crimson with rage. His flesh was as hot as a stone under the sun, and yet moist with his sweat. He looked at the girl’s hands, as delicate and white as flowers, and covered with jewels, and involuntarily he remembered Bortei’s hands, short and square and hard, accustomed to the work of weaving and sewing and milking.
The girl breathed as one who sleeps, deeply and slowly, the breastplates barely moving with her breasts. Her head had fallen, also as one who sleeps, overcome with dreams. This seemed no living creature, but a painted vision, hardly come to life. She belonged to the great effete cities, in a silk-hung chamber dimly glowing with lamps, and filled with soft couches. From her body there exhaled an odor of jasmine and rose, intoxicating as strong drink.
Toghrul Khan watched Temujin. He saw the varying shades of red and crimson rushing across the young man’s face as he gazed at the girl and lusted. He saw him suddenly pale, so that he looked like death itself. He saw him tremble, saw him bite his lip so that the blood left it. And then he knew that he had sent for his daughter with a wish for revenge. And he was overcome with astonishment that he could condescend to revenge himself on this miserable Mongol from the burning desert. So astonished was he, so disconcerted, that the fixed smile on his face disappeared, and was replaced with a blank expression of outrage.
He made himself speak, lightly, forcing his smile back onto his lips.
“Tonight, my son, thou shalt tell me what thou dost desire of me, and I tell thee beforehand, that it is already granted!”
He could hardly believe he had said these words, and stood aghast before them, wondering what had made him give them utterance. He had hardly spoken them when his whole soul retreated in confusion to its inner fortress of craft and treachery.
But Temujin, speaking to him but not looking away from the dreaming girl, said: “I want nothing from thee, my father. I have come to give allegiance, and to offer thee any assistance thou dost desire.”
These extraordinary words, spoken in a loud firm voice without arrogance but with limitless strength, aroused Azara. She slowly lifted her heavy and beautiful head, as a water lily lifts itself to the sun. Slowly, over the edges of her filmy veil, her eyes focussed themselves upon Temujin, and then, like the dawn, a light broke over their darkness and she saw him fully.
They gazed at each other in a passionate silence. An expression, startled and frightened, yet fascinated, passed over the girl’s face, like one who has been awakened suddenly from sleep by an exigent and somehow terrible stranger. He saw her rosy lips part, heard the quick inhaling of her caught breath. She paled, and he thought of a white flower in the moonlight. And then, all at once, as she gazed at him so fixedly, tears rose like a mist over her black eyes, and her expression became soft and sweetly alarmed, and poignantly confused. Her breast heaved, then trembled. She smiled suddenly, with a kind of wild and fragile joy, modest, but unbearably beautiful. She seemed like a maiden caught in her virginal bedchamber by one for whom she had dimly longed.
And then, without asking permission, she rose with one movement to her feet. She bent her head, turned, and went, as one fleeing, from her father’s golden tent. She had gone, like a white dove, on silent wings.
Toghrul Khan, who always saw everything, smiled viciously. He was not concerned with his daughter’s emotion, for after all, she was only woman-flesh, and had no real soul. She was but a lovely body, fit for the bed of a Caliph. His only concern was with Temujin, and what he saw comforted and gratified his venomous soul.
And then he stopped smiling, for Temujin had turned to him, and his pale face was fierce, his eyes sparkling with green fire. Never had Toghrul seen such a face and such eyes, and he thought to himself, involuntarily: This is one the like of which I have never seen before, and one who is like a wolf, to be greatly feared. A moment later, he said to himself, with an almost murderous hatred: But he is only a miserable wretch from the barrens, and I shall crush him under my foot like a worm!
He was alarmed. He made himself smile tenderly at Temujin. But over his smile his eyes, in their network of wrinkles, were wicked.
Temujin said calmly, his fierce expression brighter than ever on his face: “Tonight, I shall tell thee momentous things, my father.”
When he had gone, the old khan sat alone, sunken in his thoughts. And then he looked up and said aloud: “Thou shalt never return home, thou insolent son of a starving desert rat!”
And then he stopped, abruptly, and the tent was filled with his brittle and disordered breathing, and his eyes were full of malignant fire.
He glared about him, his nostrils distended. He shrieked for a servant, and demanded wine. When it was brought to him he drank deeply.
The cup shook in his hands.
He wiped his lips with a kerchief of white silk. And then his eyes, raging, fell on the golden cross. He lifted his fist.
“I shall be avenged!” he cried. And then, as though his words were so preposterous even to his own ears, he burst into shrill and discordant laughter.
Chapter 3
Temujin feasted by the side of Toghrul Khan, and looked at all the licentious splendors displayed before him, and thought contemptuously: Do men struggle and die for such things, such softnesses of the body that kill all desire?
He could drink prodigiously, without becoming drunk. Strong drink only intensified the ferocity of his nature, only magnified his colossal will to power. When he drank he knew all things were possible to him. His vision enlarged; his heart beat stronger with fierce resolution. He felt himself more than human. He seemed to stand alone on a mountain top, surveying a boundless realm. All his stonelike implacability grew greater. He knew then, while he drank, that he had always believed that he would be a kha khan, and understood how he had nev
er experienced awe of any other man, or any respect or reverence. He had understood how he had felt only contempt, such contempt as he felt now for the mighty Toghrul Khan, who lusted only for the things of the body and was content with softness under his buttocks. He felt his destiny grow large in him, as a woman feels the enlarging and growing of the child in her womb. He looked about him with inexorable strength, and slowly, like a lion among jackals.
Toghrul Khan, impelled by his hatred, and wishing to awe this presumptuous beggar from the steppes and the barrens, had outdone himself in the splendor and luxury of his feast. Even while he did so, he asked himself, with a frenzied fury and wonder: Why do I do this? Why do I give him what I reserve for princes?
He did not know. He thought that he had degraded himself, and marvelled at his own pettiness. He was like a king who had set himself out to dazzle a mendicant.
The tents, with their flaps open, blazed with lamps. Golden and crystal and silver lamps hung from poles sunken in the pungent grass. Great bonfires, upon which had been flung handfuls of myrrh and sandalwood, burned furiously, filling the clear mountain air with intoxicating scents. Pots boiled on the fires, attended by women clad in scarlet and blue and white. Poultry roasted over spits. Mutton and horse-flesh simmered in rich gravies. Loaves made of flour as white as snow were heaped on silver platters, and other platters were heaped with rare and rosy fruits, like jewels. Jugs and sacks of wine were as plentiful as water. Plates were piled with Turkish sweetmeats, which gave off the odor of roses. Pastries, flaky and delicate, were to be found in endless varieties. Herbs were stewed in fragrant and exotic sauces. There was fish from the mountain streams, dripping with wine. The bowls were of silver, the plates of the most exquisite enamel. Banners, silken and painted with colorful Chinese emblems, fluttered everywhere in the dark mountain wind. There was a constant coming and going of male and female servants, jingling with silver bracelets, and out of sight, a score of musicians played sweetly and entrancingly, and women sang in high melodious voices.
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