The Earth Is the Lord's

by Taylor Caldwell

  He had already decided on his method of attack. He said, looking at the bishop with a frank smile which did not deceive him at all:

  “Thou must wonder why I have come to thee, my lord. But it is to ask thy pardon for any affront I offered thee, and beg indulgence for myself.”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” answered the old priest, very gently. He paused. Now his eyes became piercing from under the jutting shelves of his brows, and he regarded Temujin with a passionate earnestness and sorrow. In himself was a confusion: Men like this are scourges, sent by God. Yet, perhaps I could soften his heart, that terrible heart of the barbarian. But would that not be interfering with the plans of God?

  He knew that signs are always given to those who trust God, so he waited, praying for that sign.

  Temujin’s spirits rose. He had made an auspicious beginning. But as he studied the old man’s yellow face, he hesitated. He could not understand that deep and earnest look, such as a man directs down into an abyss whose bottom is hidden. He could not understand the grave sorrow.

  He assumed an expression of complete candor.

  “I have come to thee for help, my lord,” he said, shrewdly judging the priest.

  “For help?” The sorrow lifted from the bishop’s eyes, and was replaced by the light of simple eagerness. “Be assured, my son, that I shall help thee to the end of my poor power.”

  Temujin shook his head. “It is not a poor power, my lord. And I wish to invoke it. Against Toghrul Khan, who is my enemy, and thine.”

  The bishop’s first expression was amazement, and then distress.

  “I do not think he is my enemy, nor thine, my son,” he said, in a low voice. “But even if he were, no malignity could touch us except by the will of God.”

  Temujin leaned towards him and spoke quickly: “Thou knowest the daughter of Toghrul Khan, Azara. She hath told me that thou didst secretly baptize her into the Christian religion. She hath also told me that she is in despair because of her coming marriage to the Moslem, the Caliph of Bokhara, who hath many wives and concubines. She hath asked me for help.”

  The bishop uttered a faint exclamation of pity and grief, then was silent. His intuition made him fix his eyes upon Temujin, and then he knew all he needed to know.

  He said, still in that low voice: “She hath asked me for help, also. I can offer her nothing but resignation and humility, obedience to her father. I have told her that life is short and bitter, but it endeth like an evil night, and the sun riseth. What doth come in the night is only a dream, and then there is the awakening.”

  Astounded, Temujin stared at the priest. His look of candor and young eagerness disappeared, as though wiped away by a revealing hand. Now the savage face of the barbarian glared out, violent and infuriated, and full of black amazement.

  “Thou wouldst condemn this girl to a life of misery?” he cried.

  “But misery is short, my son,” replied the bishop, with a faint sigh. “And a small payment to make for the glory of the sunrise.”

  Unable to endure this foolishness, Temujin sprang to his feet, and began to walk up and down the room, trying to hold back the flood of his rage and disgust. His veins thickened in his throat. For several moments he thought he would choke. And the bishop watched him as he paced back and forth, and the sorrow returned to his eyes, and with it, great compassion.

  Finally Temujin stopped beside him, and his voice was hoarse and muffled:

  “Thou art a Christian, and Toghrul Khan, on occasion, is a Christian, also. Canst thou not appeal to him?”

  Again the old man sighed. “I have already appealed. But he hath told me that he, too, is helpless. He dare not oppose the Caliph of Bokhara. If he did, he would bring disaster upon his own people.”

  “That is a lie! He exhibited the girl to the Caliph, like a slave-woman! And he is to give her a huge dowry! Azara hath told me that she appealed to him only recently, and he threatened her with death if she spoke of the matter again.”

  The bishop was silent. His face had paled excessively. He clasped his hands together and wrung them.

  Temujin lifted his clenched fist, and pointed with it at the old man.

  “Thy God is a poor God if he cannot rescue this miserable girl!”

  But the bishop said in a voice of infinite pity: “Thou dost love Azara.”

  Temujin replied: “She doth love me, also. I shall not abandon her.”

  The bishop gazed at him and marvelled at the power of love, which could subdue even this terrible barbarian with the violent green eyes. Verily, he thought, love is the mover of men and worlds, and the walls of darkness fall before its singing voice.

  Temujin resumed: “I have never felt impotence before. I feel it now. Therefore, I am forced to appeal to thee. She doth reverence thee; thou darest not betray her.”

  “What can I do?” asked the bishop, lifting his hands helplessly.

  Temujin was suddenly encouraged. He smiled.

  “Much, my lord. I shall take Azara away with me. There will be an uproar. Toghrul Khan will set out in pursuit, for vengeance. Then thou canst tell him he must not lift his hand against us, for it he doth, thou wilt invoke the power of thy brother, the Emperor.”

  The bishop listened, aghast.

  But Temujin had not finished. “Last night, thou didst say I would have the world. But I need time. Thy brother, the Emperor, will listen to thee when thou dost tell him what thou hast told me. He will value a strong ally, such as I, for his empire is rotten, and decaying, and must fall without assistance. It is already threatened, as thou dost know, thyself. But tell him what thou hast told me, and he will rejoice.”

  Still, the bishop could not speak.

  Temujin laughed aloud, exultantly. “I am called a barbarian. Oh, I know what the townsmen say of the desert hordes and clans! We are animals, without civilization, marauders, bandits, robbers, murderers. But I tell thee now that a new civilization shall come out of the barrens, stronger, fiercer, more powerful, more virile, more orderly and invincible, than was ever begotten by the weak loins of the cities in the bed of decadence. Nothing but disease hath issued from this civilization of thine, nothing but degeneracy and wantonness and greed, men like eunuchs, and women like wantons. All your philosophy is only a plaint of impotence; all your religion is only the wail of the slave. Ye preach the creed of hopelessness in your academies. Ye fashion delicate things, which are in themselves shameful and unmanly. There is no health in your institutions.

  “But we are strong and living. We shall conquer. For you of the cities gasp on your fetid deathbed, while we thunder at your doors.

  “Tell this to thy brother, my lord, and he will listen. For he is wiser than thee.”

  The bishop was still silent. Temujin waited. He saw the furrows deepen on the yellow face. He saw the old man become older and more haggard, as though he had just awakened from an appalling nightmare, which he knew was a prophecy.

  Then the bishop lifted his eyes, and Temujin was amazed to see how quiet and still they were, how calm with suffering.

  “My son, I cannot help thee. Even if I could, I would not.” He lay down and turned his face to the wall. “Leave me,” he said.

  Temujin looked at that thin bent back and shoulders, and all at once, with rage, he knew that the body of the old man was a wall he could not scale, a fortress he could not take, a river he could not swim. The power of all the world was in that feeble and dying flesh, and before it he was completely impotent.

  I have failed, he thought. But failure never filled him with despair, but only with anger and greater determination. It was like strong wine which renewed his vitality.

  He left the apartments, not cast down, but only the more resolute, only the more inexorable.

  Chapter 20

  He returned in gloom to his splendid chambers. But Chepe Noyon and Kasar were not there. A slave told him that they were amusing themselves in the garden, with the women graciously assigned to them by their host Temujin stood on th
e open colonnade, and somberly surveyed the greenness and beauty of the gardens. But he did not see them. He saw only Azara. His heart was like a great burning coal.

  Apparently, he admitted, there was no hope. But he did not believe this. Never, in his life, did he ever truly believe there was no hope for him. But he fumed. He bit his lip. He looked at the blue and shining sky, and remembered the evil gods of his ancestors, who lived in the mongke tengri, the Eternal Blue Sky. He remembered the stories of the black and frozen gods, who lived in the kanun kotan, the land of everlasting ice. He invoked their aid, with mingled anger and derision, for he did not believe in them. He wanted only their wicked and mysterious power. He inhaled deeply, feeling that he inhaled with his breath the power of the gods of his people.

  Everything was smooth and quiet and in order. But suddenly he knew that an extensive search had been made of these quarters, minutely, and that Chepe Noyon and Kasar had been lured away so that the search could be thorough. His keen animal instinct smelt the subtle odor of the enemy. He smiled darkly, knowing for what the searchers had been seeking. He put his hand to his breast and felt in it the lock of black hair and the necklace of the Taliph’s favorite. So long as he had these talismans she dared not betray him. But he needed a better hiding place. He might be overpowered in some corridor and forcibly searched by some of the lady’s servants, or he might be drugged, and robbed in his sleep. That night he would give them to Azara, and she would conceal them in her own chamber.

  The thought of Azara came to him like a sharp and bitter pang, compounded of despair and longing and love. He stood motionless, enduring the onslaught of his pain. He tried to reason with himself. She was only a woman. Kurelen had told him that the Chinese regarded women as the world’s greatest danger, an immortal threat to the peace of men and empires. It was said that he who looked too long on a woman’s face lost his manhood, and became, thereafter, a weak slave in silk, her handmaiden. Too, the Mongols despised women, though they lusted after them as no other men lusted. They were valuable only as breeders of men, as servants, as weavers and makers of felt. All at once he had a vision of Azara milking the mares, and the vision was grotesque. He laughed aloud, shortly. She was not even valuable for that small and domestic purpose. If she bore sons, they would be lords of the cities, sitting in their gardens, and watching the sun on their foolish artificial lakes, and listening to music, and delighting in the shameful contortions of dancing women. He felt the hatred and contempt of the desert-dweller for those who lived in the cities, painting flowers and leaves on silken panels, and mouthing their little philosophies of impotence and corruption. “The hat-and-girdle men” were not men, but deformed women dressed in men’s garments.

  He remembered what his father had said: that men should lust for women, but never love them. A man might love his horse, his saber, his strong-bow, his sons, his friends. This love added strength to his strength. But should he love a woman he was lost. His strength left him like water. He was bound with chains of bright hair, and lacked even the will to break them.

  So he reasoned with himself, muttering aloud his disgust for his own folly. Walking up and down the room, his cat-green eyes blazing, he stamped his feet in their boots of hide. He loathed himself for his weakness, for his captivity to a woman, which could bring only death to himself and annihilation to his people. He was a traitor.

  Yet, the great burning coal in him brightened and smoldered only the stronger. The more he argued against Azara, the sweeter and clearer became the image of her face in his thoughts. He was full of helpless and infuriated wonderment. For now he dimly perceived that a man might feel something more for a woman than lust, and this thing he felt was more terrible than an army, more powerful than the gods themselves. It was a mystery, not to be defined. But it was the life-giving air of all the world, the passion before which other passions were small and worthless.

  “I have been bewitched,” he thought, and knew that there was no potion that could relieve his hunger, this sweet and painful thirst of his heart.

  He sat down, and thought with fury. He must take Azara. Without her, there was nothing he desired.

  Once his final decision was made, he felt strength, and was amused. The old men were wrong: those who loved women were made doubly strong, and felt no fear. He would take Azara to his own people, and she would bear his sons. She would learn to milk the herds, and would sit at his left hand, his favorite wife. Bortei would serve her, and his mother. He would heap her chests with treasures. He would cover her beautiful body with the finest furs and the softest silk. He would hang jewelled necklaces about her white throat. Her sons would be his bodyguard, his keshik. The world would give them honor. He would make them kings over many nations. This Persian girl, who was a Christian, would be the goddess of the Mongols, and from her womb would come a race of warriors and khans. He woud guard her like a precious gem.

  He trusted to his destiny. The spirits who loved him would find a way for him. Perhaps in Azara’s body the seed of his first son was already swelling. Her mother was a princess of a noble people, her father a mighty kahn. Destiny had given her to him. Destiny would not betray him, nor mock him.

  The curtain was drawn aside, and Taliph, elegant in a tunic of golden silk and red silken trousers and silver boots, his turban nodding with plumes, stood there, graciously smiling at him. Temujin scowled, then his annoyance evaporated. For he saw, in Taliph’s smile, a strange resemblance to Azara, whose smile was radiant.

  “Greetings, my lord,” said Taliph, his face humorous. “It is sunset. I thought thou mightest desire to accompany me through the city. I love the city at sunset, more than at any other time.”

  Temujin was pleased at his coming. He felt a kindness for the brother of Azara, and a lofty contempt for the man whose favorite wife was a wanton. Kurelen had once told him that the best kindness was that which was tinged with a secret sense of superiority. He was prepared to be amiable.

  He accompanied Taliph to the courtyard, where two immense white camels were waiting, surrounded by servants in scarlet-and-blue garments. The western sky was deepening into a crimson hue. The air was warm, scented with jasmine and roses, and full of voices and bustle. But its perfume, Temujin perceived, was the perfume of the city, compounded of the stench of decay and the odor of sweet corruption.

  They majestically lumbered through the narrow streets, rolling in slow dignity from side to side. They were shielded from the hot late sunlight by small red awnings fringed with gold. About them moved the camel-drivers, uttering shrill or hoarse cries to clear the way, carrying staffs in their hands.

  Temujin stared with interest at the low white houses with their flat roofs, their white walls protecting gardens of which nothing could be seen except the fronds of palms. The sunlight splashed the walls with feathers of orange. Now they were entering the streets of the more luxurious inhabitants. Here the houses were built on the opulent Persian pattern. Black-and-brown pillars, enormous and intricately carved, guarded doors of bronze and bright brass. The walls were low, in order to afford the passerby the glimpse of great green gardens, blue artificial lakes and ponds. But the large latticed windows were all closed to the street. Guards, trousered and turbaned and dark of face, stood by each gate, with bare swords. The air was increasingly filled with flower scents and the clashing of the palm leaves in the wind which was coming strongly from the west.

  Near the western gates of the city was the great bazaar, open to the winds and the burning sunlight. Temujin’s keen nose discerned it by its mighty stench at some distance, long before his sharp eye saw it or his ears heard it. This stench overpowered the sweet odors of the orchards he was passing, the fresh odor of fountains and grottoes. But he was excited by it, for it was pungent and strong, and lusty with life.

  The bazaar, sprawling for many acres, did not disappoint him. He had heard much of the bazaars of the cities, but his imagination had not encompassed them. The noise was deafening, though they were merely approaching the
outskirts. The last sunlight glared down upon it. As though they realized that religion must share in life and lustiness and noise, the colorful vivid bazaar was surrounded by mosques with gilded domes and minarets and the slender towers of the muezzin, the small squat austerity of Jewish synagogues, the curious pagodashapes of the Buddhist and Taoist temples, and the little nondescript churches of the Nestorian Christians. Beyond these crowded temples lay the bazaar, veiled by clouds of golden dust, odoriferous, rowdy, clanging and filled with noise of cymbals and laughter and multitudinous voices.

  The ground was hard-packed clay, beaten into smoothness by thousands of feet. The bazaar seemed a small town in itself, threaded by crooked narrow streets, which were lined with the open booths of busy craftsmen and raucous traders, by tall flimsy structures of cheap gay brothels, by slave markets and horse and mule and camel stalls, by open shops selling carpets, jewelry, poultry, fruit, silken shawls and garments, musical instruments, sweetmeats, wines, military weapons, games, sandals, leather girdles, turbans, fans, and a thousand other articles. The uproar was deafening, the stench overpowering. Flies swarmed in black insistent clouds over displayed dates and figs, grapes and sweetmeats, and other delicacies. The tradesmen, wearing monstrous turbans, their dark faces shining with sweat, their avaricious eyes glinting over the throngs, sat crosslegged in the doorways of their tiny shops, or by their open stalls, haranguing and wheedling or insulting the passersby, and hoarsely laughing at some sally of a neighbor or a young man or impudent girl. Here and there a shouting youth sauntered on the outskirts of the crowds, carrying on his shoulders, his arms, and even his head, brilliantly colored birds, attached to him by strings. The birds squawked, lifted their red, blue, white and yellow wings, flapped them in the faces of unwary passers. Girls, insolently unveiled, or very nebulously veiled, held out baskets of flowers and dates, and called in ribald words to possible customers. Here, too, were snake charmers and magicians and conjurers, and even a whirling dervish.