Chapter Three

MUCH LATER, WHEN ASKED what he remembered of that return from war to the great tent city of the Qubal clans, Mergen would say the barking of the dogs as they ran alongside the horses, nipping at the heels of his soldiers. Proud at the head of his army as they rode down the broad avenue, lined on either side by white felt tents of many lattices, he noticed only in passing the flash of Sechule’s dark hair moving through the crowd. He had set his gaze on the great ger-tent palace at the head of the avenue, its silver embroidery glowing like Great Moon herself to welcome his first return from battle as the khan.

How would his mother greet him? he wondered. She loved him as a son, but he had not been her first choice as khan. That son, that brother, had died and Mergen had survived. Surely survival must mean something to the old ones waiting for an accounting of this foreign war. In the silver cap of the khanate and the lavishly embroidered silk robes he wore, his magnificence must amaze his people crowding either side of the avenue. But vanity didn’t urge him to wonder if he cut a splendid figure on his horse. The clans who had elected him could replace him if they found him lacking.

In such an event, of course, there would be war. The riches he displayed on his horse and his person, the very tilt of his head and the way he held himself in the saddle, warned his adversaries that they had a fight on their hands. Or, if his presence failed to issue the proper warning, assured that they might easily remove him. He had neither the breadth of chest nor the regal stature of Chimbai-Khan who had gone before him, but he believed that the wisdom of his thoughts must show in his solemn carriage. The keen eye he set upon the crowd must prove him a dauntless foe.

If his own looks did not inspire confidence, however, the ten thousand Qubal warriors at his back, and the ten thousand of his conquered enemy who followed in chains, must. Cheered by the solid presence of his armies, Mergen was ready to pay attention to his companions.

Prince Tayyichiut, in the embroidered silks and cone-shaped silver cap of the heir, attended him at his right hand as the youth had so often ridden at the side of his father. The boy had become a hero, but he seemed unable to encompass the thought as yet. He scanned with satisfaction the crowd cheering and throwing flowers as they passed. “The wars have made you popular, uncle,” he said as a bluebell tumbled off his cap.

“It’s not my name on the lips of the clans, nephew.” Mergen had keen hearing, and he knew the limits of his popularity. “The Qubal celebrate their hero-prince.”

“No—” Prince Tayyichiut turned in his saddle as if seeking some other prince, some other hero with his name who had captured their love.

“Salute your people,” Mergen instructed, “for they are yours indeed, and only in my keeping until I can return them to you.”

The dogs running at his side increased the din with their barking, as if in agreement with the khan. The prince seemed less convinced than his hounds, but he’d been raised at the khan’s court. When reminded, he squared his jaw and sat straighter in his saddle, raising his hand to greet the crowd as his horse continued its stately walk down the grassy avenue. He would grow into his fame as a hero must, Mergen thought, while those of more subtle skills accepted the burden of rule and the joy of teaching their successor. The crowd already showed that Prince Tayy would make a popular khan. Mergen had to ensure he became a wise one as well.

He turned to share his doubts with General Yesugei, who rode at his left hand, but the general’s thoughts were elsewhere. His eye followed the movement of black hair slipping through the crowd. Yesugei had one wife and was looking for a second. Mergen doubted the wisdom of the direction his affection was leading him in, however.

“She will never settle for the place of second wife in your tent,” he reminded his friend. Sechule had always put ambition above her heart.

Her beauty had drawn Mergen to her tent against his better sense for more seasons than he cared to think about, so he understood the attraction. But her ambitions had followed Sechule under the blankets, making an uneasy third in their bed. He must put himself forward, she had said; his cunning made him more fit to be khan than his brother. Her complaints had tired him long before their affair had ended.

He could only warn Yesugei, his friend of many battles, what he knew of the woman Sechule. “If the brother of the khan did not satisfy her ambitions, a general who stands a step below the dais can expect to do no better.” One who could offer her only second place in his tent in particular stood no chance against Sechule’s pride.

Yesugei dismissed his concerns with a breezy wave of his hand, as if sweeping pebbles off the board. “I have many herds and flocks,” he reminded the khan. Mergen had served his clan well, but they both knew he had gathered no wealth of his own, increasing his brother’s fortunes instead. “Sechule can have her own house in my camp and rule over it as she wishes. She may even keep her sons with her, though they will be looking around them for wives of their own soon enough.” Mergen’s sons as well, but they would never be called so while they remained unacknowledged.

“She’s a haughty woman,” the khan reminded him. “And cold when she doesn’t get her way.”

“I would never criticize my khan—” Yesugei affected a boastful tone, in jest, “—but some, perhaps, are better at pleasing a woman—her way.”

The khan laughed at the ribald joke as he was meant to do, but still he wondered if his friend had heard any of his warnings.

If General Yesugei heard not enough, Prince Tayy’s wary expression told Mergen that perhaps his nephew had heard too much. He leaned over in his saddle and gave the prince a reassuring slap on the shoulder, a wicked grin held to his lips with determination.

“Matters of the heart,” he said. “You will understand about such things yourself soon enough.”

Tayy returned him an uncertain smile. His eyes roved the crowd, but Sechule had gone.

“Too old for you,” Mergen joked again, though he had no fear for his nephew on that score. Prince Tayyichiut had come back from his journey a great deal braver than when he set out, but no less cautious. He’d lost a father, after all, and a mother at the hands of a monster wearing a fair face and a stolen name. His nephew would not be parted easily from his good sense for a one-sided love.

They had arrived at the door to the white-and-silver ger-tent palace. Mergen alighted, his fist upraised in a salute to the warriors who quickly filled the practice field behind him with their cries and the thunder of horses’ hooves. Prince Tayy and General Yesugei followed amid the recrimination of Tayy’s dogs, who chastised their master with their howling for leaving them behind. After Yesugei came their guardsmen. As he entered the palace, Mergen noted with pleasure how closely his own blanket-sons clung to the prince. Bekter and the prince laughed between them as they held off the dogs from entering with the party of men while Qutula looked on with exaggerated dismay at the noisy beasts.

Already Qutula had gathered some small renown, with followers who pledged to serve the prince in his name. Bekter declared himself ready to immortalize their brave deeds in his songs. Their presence at Tayy’s side assured him that his blanket-sons would bring honor to their family as chosen guardsmen when their cousin took his rightful place as khan. He hoped, with the hope of one who had lost to death the anda of his boyhood, that they would swear themselves friends of the heart to their young khan, binding them in lifelong alliance of friendship and service. He had sworn so to Chimbai, his brother, as Otchigin had sworn himself to Mergen. Both khan and adviser were dead now, murdered, but the ties of anda held fast even in the underworld. Mergen stilled a shiver that traveled up his spine. It would be different for his nephew, who would reign in peace.

Prince Tayyichiut must decide for himself to accept his cousins as anda, but he had confidence in his nephew. A family so united could only grow richer and more powerful. Satisfied that he had done all he could for now to ensure their future, he led the triumphal procession inside.

The ger-tent palace of the khan was much as Mergen remembered it.Where they showed between the rich hangings on the walls, the polished lattices were hung with decorations of bronze and silver and mirrors to frighten away evil spirits. Painted chests scattered here and there displayed their burdens of family heirlooms and clan treasures. Six hundred clansmen could fit at need within the round, felted walls. Less than half that number settled in their places today, but as always the firebox at the center marked the dividing line of rank and station. Above sat the royal family and those of greatest rank, the most powerful of the clan chieftains and the advisers to the khan. Below the firebox, nearest the door, chieftains and retainers of lesser family and lower standing settled themselves by a separate order.

The khan’s guardsmen, and the younger corps who defended the prince, followed only as far as the firebox at the center of the palace. There the greater number split off to take their positions with their backs to the lattices on the perimeter. The chosen few, Qutula and Bekter among them, continued to the dais at a respectful distance. Yesugei at other times had advanced with Mergen’s guard, sitting at the khan’s back to serve him. Their disagreement over the woman Sechule seemed to have made the general sensitive to his other obligations, however. He left Mergen to join the elders and chieftains of the many clans of the Qubal ulus.

This was no time to hesitate, however. As custom dictated, Mergen strode ahead with his heir a proper pace behind him. Each acknowledged the waiting dignitaries with gracious nods to the left and the right until they reached the dais.

Surrounded by those elders most closely tied to them by blood and marriage, the Lady Bortu, his mother, awaited them. She wore a towering headdress of silver horns from which her hair poured forth on either side of her head. Medallions of figured silver hung with many ornaments dangled from her earlobes. Large beads of coral and turquoise and other jewels strung on silver chains spilled like a waterfall to the shoulders of her heavy yellow silk coats, obscuring all but her eyes. Those eyes, however, read to the very heart of her son, offering welcome as she measured the stature he had gained in his position since she had seen him on the eve of battle.

At the dais, he stopped. Prince Tayy stepped up beside him, equals before their Great Mother and neither of them khan in the camp of the Qubal while the Lady Bortu ruled in Mergen’s name. Together they made respectful bows, their elaborate silver caps brushing the soft upturned boots on her feet.

“The sons of the great clans of the Qubal people return to the hearth of the Great Mother,” Mergen recited the formula of return. “We bring you slaves, ten thousand in number, who grovel at your feet—” he meant by that the fallen army of the Uulgar, defeated in the battle for the Cloud Country. “Speak only the word and a ruddy river will spring up to rival the Onga, flowing with the treasure of their spilled blood.”

“Have these slaves sworn an oath to you, my son the khan?” Old Bortu put her hands on his head as she asked the question.

“They have, Great Mother,” he answered. “The evil magician who led them, and the evil demon who held sway over them, have both been destroyed. Their armies have renounced them.”

“That pleases us,” she approved.

From Mergen’s position he could see that she shifted her weight from foot to foot. The right one must hurt where the bunion pinched. She had so formidable a determination he sometimes forgot that age brought with it these small infirmities. Best to finish quickly so that she might sit in comfort among the furs heaped on the dais. She seemed to feel the same, for she stepped back, drawing him with her.

“Assume your rightful place, then, son. The throne is no comfortable seat for an old lady.” Her words put the ulus into Mergen’s hands again.

“And grandson,” she greeted Prince Tayyichiut, “Take your ease with your old grandmother. You will be happy to know that the cooks have watched the dust of your horses drawing nearer since morning!”

As khan, Mergen sat first, one leg tucked up under him and the other with the knee drawn up to his chin in front of him. Prince Tayy followed him and took the heir’s seat at his side. The boy could not help but suffer from the memory of times past when his father sat in Mergen’s place, with his beloved mother to hand as well. Mother and father both lay murdered now, but the ancient Bortu still greeted her grandson with a hug and a kiss for each cheek.

“You must tell me about your adventures,” she said to both her male relatives. “And then we must dispose of these slaves you have brought me. There will be tents in need of men, but not so many. And as you will doubtless soon prove, fighting men require a great deal of feeding.”

As she spoke, she clapped her hands. An army of servants waiting only for her signal marched into the great ger-tent carrying huge trays in their arms. Dish followed dish of the feast prepared for them. Mergen helped himself to sour yogurt made from mare’s milk, and a tangy cheese from the milk of sheep. Tea with butter followed, and Mergen’s favorite kumiss—beer fermented from mare’s milk. When Chimbai was khan, the servants had brought out thick-crusted pies filled with fat from the tail of a sheep first, but on this homecoming his mother had arranged for his own more humble favorites, rich with minced roots and meats, to greet him. Only when he had chosen one to his taste did the servants bring out the others, which Tayy preferred.

Bortu laughed at the hopeful look that the prince was quick to hide. “Can you think the Great Mother of the khan would forget how to welcome a hero?” she asked him.

Mergen was pleased to note that, though he colored like old wine, his heir didn’t hide his face but smiled to accept the teasing of his grandmother. He’d always been a steady boy. Your father would be proud of you, he thought. Your mother would berate me for not protecting you better. But such thoughts were better left for the light of Great Moon Lun, when regrets came home to live in dreams. In the warmth of Great Sun came pies that tasted like all the heavens of Bekter’s tales, and the company of clan and ulus to hold the questions at bay.

As they ate, newcomers arriving from farther down the line of march took their places among the honorable company. Bolghai the shaman scampered down the aisle in the character of his totem animal, the skins of a dozen stoats flying out from around his neck as he danced. Beating a mischievous tattoo on his drum with a stick made from the thighbone of a roebuck, he asked the company a riddle. “A horse with three legs is whole,” he said with a flourish on his drum. The ulus, he meant, crippled without their khan, now healed by his return. Giving Mergen an approving nod, which the khan acknowledged with an answering tilt of his head, the shaman took his place below the dais. There he could enjoy the pies and drink among the second ranks while watching the comings and goings of the court.

Home. Prince Tayy gave Bolghai a preoccupied smile. He owed the shaman a lot—probably his life—but he couldn’t quite shake the conversation he’d overheard on the road between General Yesugei and the kahn.

“Something is troubling you, grandson?”

“Nothing important.” Tayy gave a little shrug, muttering curses in his head where he hoped his grandmother couldn’t hear them. Maintaining his court face while his thoughts wandered where they would used to be as natural as breathing to him. He was pretty sure that he had it in place now—politely attentive, with nothing deeper showing in his eyes than calculating his odds of snagging another pie. Lady Bortu easily saw through the pretense, however.

“You don’t have to talk to me,” she sniffed. “All I’ve done in my life is raise two khans from womb to the dais and lead the ulus in their absence for more years than are decent for an old lady to live. How could I have any comfort to offer a young warrior home from his first war?”

When she put it that way, it really did seem like nothing. But he let his glance drift from the khan to his general, which told the perceptive Bortu all that she needed to know.

“Sechule!” she sniffed. “Those two are worse than dogs after the same bitch. If you have any sense in you at all, and I hope you do, you’ll let the women choose your wives and leave this sneaking into friendly tents to the foolish.”

“We have many allies now. I expect Mergen-Khan will make a political match for me.” He knew better than to mention love. His father had grown to love his mother, but it hadn’t always been like that. He worried more about a match like the Lady Chaiujin.

Bortu had lost a son just as Tayy had lost a father to that demon-lady, and knew where his thoughts had settled. “Your uncle would not let that happen again. But Mergen holds the place of khan in trust for you. He may suggest a match, but will make no demands that cross your own wishes. If you desire a Qubal girl to wed, he will doubtless defer to clan tradition.”

That meant Lady Bortu would put her head together with the Great Mothers of the clans. Between them they would choose a girl who met their high standards for family and form and disposition. And the politics of the ulus, of course. Nothing that happened in the court was free of politics, least of all a royal wedding.

“In the meantime,” Bortu continued, “There is no rush to the marriage bed. You have tales to tell and adventures still awaiting you. And you have only just come home. Allow yourself a little time to enjoy the carefree life of a hero in peacetime before you take on the burdens of husband and khan.”

Lady Bortu was right. His uncle’s woman trouble didn’t seem like much compared to where he had been and what he had seen, the things both wonderful and terrible that had happened to him in the far reaches of the world.

“Home,” he agreed, taking in the huge tent around him. Many of the guardsmen who circled the perimeter of the tent in their deep blue coats and cone-shaped hats had stood guard in just this way when his father had been khan. They hadn’t saved him from the serpent who crept into his bed and murdered him in his sleep. No, carefree didn’t cover it.

Suddenly the walls oppressed him. The riches and heirlooms were like lead weights dragging him down, drowning him in foreboding. Childhood had fled while he schemed to stay alive in this deadly court. Now the ulus needed him to take his place as a man and a hero. His grandmother was right about one thing at least: he wasn’t ready yet to give up his freedom to the responsibilities that had killed his father.

Bortu watched his struggles with an answering sorrow in her eyes. “The prattling of an old woman must be tiresome to the young.”

“Not at all! Believe that I take your words to heart.” He gave an apologetic shrug, unable to share his restlessness with the woman who had lost as much as he and never shirked her duty. “Summer is short.” He offered the distraction of sunshine and long grass as an excuse for his fidgeting.

One might, if one chose, take his words as the simple plea of a very young man who wished to enjoy the rare warmth of the day out of doors. He should have known better than to bandy metaphors with his grandmother, however. Too late to unspeak it he saw how much his answer revealed in its riddle form. Life, like summer, was short, and his own moved too swiftly toward the autumn, as he saw it, of adulthood. Bortu, who lived in the snows of age, let the skin around her eyes crinkle with her black-toothed grin.

“Like young stallions, young men should never waste the sunlight of summer among the toothless,” she agreed.

“I meant no disrespect.” He understood the riddle hidden in her permission to go. A young man’s place was out beyond the firebox of home, winning followers to secure his place among his tents. Tayy had helped to win a war already and now he had alliances to build. He couldn’t do that sitting at his uncle’s knee in the tents of his elders. With a bow to the khan and a kiss on the cheek of his grandmother, he took his leave.

Where once he would have run laughing from the tent he now strode purposefully with his head high and his shoulders set for battle as a hero might. He could have the freedom he wanted for a little while longer, his grandmother seemed to say, provided he acted the part of the hero in a shadow play for the clans. He could do that.

So, with his hand to the hilt of his sword, he made his way toward the door. Below the firebox he picked up those among his own house guard who had accompanied him into the palace, his unacknowledged cousins Qutula and Bekter at their fore. Altan fell in behind them, and Duwa. Others he recognized and some were only lately assigned to fill the places of those lost in the war. Together they made a princely sight, and Tayy thought that Bolghai must approve this change in his bearing. But when he looked to the corner, the shaman encouraged him with a smile more sad than proud. Tayy wondered how he’d got it wrong this time, but he refused to let uneasy questions trouble him. The door was straight ahead.