Chapter Twelve

EVENTS HAD MOVED on in Bolghai’s absence. The prince had killed a bear and the old Tinglut-Khan had sent a messenger sniffing around for a Qubal princess, which complicated things considerably. The messenger had watched the matches from a crowd of lesser notables and then departed with no formal farewells before the feasting that followed the contests of skill and prowess.

The shaman smelled no magic about him, just the skill of a well-traveled spy. The Tinglut could not have seen the trick of light that had raised the serpent over Qutula’s head. As Bolghai did his stoat-dance up the aisle of the ger-tent palace to the foot of the dais, he wondered what the Tinglut messenger might have observed that he himself had missed. He had no time to riddle it out, however. The dais lay before him and he made his bows, first to the khan, then to the Lady Bortu, mother of khans, then to the heir.

“And where have you been traveling, while your khan had need of you and could not find you in the night?” Mergen chastised, more gently than he might have done.

“Among the living, on the business of the dead, or maybe among the dead, on business of the living,” Bolghai answered with a riddle he wasn’t sure he understood himself. While casting his protections over the games that day he had espied the girl Eluneke in the crowd, looking for the young warrior who wore the death’s head to her spirit-sight. He hesitated to speak of it to the khan, however—at least until he figured out the meaning of her visions.

She thought she had strayed in her dream travels. What Qubal warrior would find himself half-murdered as a galley slave tossed on a stormy sea? Only one that Bolghai knew of—Mergen’s heir. That was the past, however; perhaps the girl’s vision remarked a threat already endured and overcome. In his shaman bones and his sharp little stoat teeth, he didn’t think so, but until he knew more, he had nothing useful to tell. Certainly nothing the khan would want to hear. As Eluneke’s father, however, Mergen-Khan would have to be told about the shamanic powers his daughter wielded with such unthought skill. “It seems we have much to say to each other, when the feasting is done.”

“Prophecies from our ancestors?” Mergen’s attention sharpened.

“Possibly. Or young hearts only, and the direction they would take.” Eluneke hadn’t mentioned hearts, but he’d sensed that she’d held back some secret knowledge as troubling to her as that which she’d told him. The riddle was easily solved, of course. She was young and danger always made a young man handsome to women. Romance—and angry fathers—would have to wait, however. It was clear to Bolghai that she exhibited great talent, and that at least for the present, her shamanic abilities would bring her no happiness. Sensible, then, that she had fought them for so long.

She’d found her totem fast enough when confronted with a handsome prince in peril, though he’d swear she hadn’t known the boy was Mergen’s heir. He didn’t think the turn events had taken would please her father. The khan had plans for his daughter, just as he knew the khan’s sons fit somewhere into his political strategies. Unfortunately for the khan, the spirits of the dead made their own plans with little regard for the desires of the living.

Mergen-Khan, no fool, grew suspicious. She was his daughter, after all, and he would have his own spies keeping watch on her actions. “We have much to discuss on the topic,” he agreed.

With a wave the khan dismissed him, and Bolghai took his place among the closest advisers at the side of the dais. Yesugei was there, solid in his loyalty, though Bolghai wondered if the general’s love for Sechule would lead him to betrayal. Bekter, Mergen’s blanket-son, sat among the musicians, preparing for the singing to follow the feast. Bolghai looked around but didn’t see the prince anywhere.

A stir of jokes and laughter rippling up from the doorway heralded a newcomer, who was indeed the khan’s nephew, attended by Qutula, his eldest son. Qutula swaggered to the foot of the dais and gave his father a triumphant bow. Prince Tayyichiut dropped a pace behind to give him the pride of first greeting due the winner of the wrestling matches. The prince watched him with a wary eye, however, and seemed troubled when he gave his own bow.

With a little frown wrinkling between his brows, Bekter reflected the prince’s uneasiness, though perhaps no one would notice but the shaman, who was watching his reaction closely. Very interesting. Bolghai sniffed the air for mysteries, found the scent thick above the firebox of the khan.

“Welcome, good warrior,” Mergen greeted his son. “Take your place beside us on the dais, first among wrestlers and first among the courtiers to my heir the prince.”

“I prostrate myself before the wishes of my khan.” Qutula bowed with exaggerated flourishes, as if the khan’s offer flattered him beyond his rank. His eyes burned with suppressed longing before he wisely lowered his lashes.

Nearby, Yesugei burned with an equal anxiety that the khan paid such honors to Sechule’s son. Sechule still hoped to become khaness through marriage or as the mother of a khan. The general had no place in either plan. Bolghai wondered how Mergen, who showed such cunning in war and such wisdom in statecraft, could be so benighted when it came to those most closely tied to him, his daughter no less than his sons or his generals.

Qutula was smiling when he curled into his place at the prince’s back, but this close, Bolghai could see the muscles bunching in his jaw. If he could figure out what way that storm would break, perhaps he could do something to lessen the blow.

The spirits would know, or have a rumor at least. The trick was getting them to tell him. He thought perhaps Eluneke had a better chance at that than he did. Her inborn talent far exceeded his own. But her father’s wishes might prove an obstacle once he knew what was going on. Bolghai would have to tell him. Not now, though: tonight was for celebrating victories—in the games, in the recent war. But tomorrow . . .

Qutala sat at his side on the dais, lavishly strewn with furs, sampling the many dishes that passed before them, but Tayy ate very few of the morsels his cousin urged on him.

“Eat, my prince, that old shaman is looking this way.” Qutula offered him a broken bit of pie. “If you’re not careful, he’ll set the Lady Bortu on you.”

It was a joke; the Lady Bortu’s interest would include sharp questions he little wanted to answer. It seemed to Tayy, however, that Bolghai’s attention had fallen on his cousin, not himself. He wondered briefly if the shaman had seen Qutula’s hands on his throat that afternoon, but he sensed no urgency in the gaze which quickly moved to a tray in the hands of a servant girl. Free of scrutiny, at least in this, he shook his head, ignoring his cousin’s outstretched hand.

“Kumiss,” he suggested

“As you wish.” Qutula took the first sip and Tayy accepted the richly decorated bowl from his hand. Tipping his head back, he drank a deep gulp that burned like fire going down, but left his throat numb in its wake. Bekter was watching him, a troubled frown crinkling his broad forehead. Probably fretting over a line or the turn of a phrase in a new song.’Tula pressed a morsel on him, and he took it rather than expend more effort fending off his cousin. He choked it down with another swallow of the fermented mare’s milk and grimaced, not sure which hurt worse.

“Are you ill, my prince? Is that why the shaman was watching you?”

Qutula seemed wholly unaware that he had nearly murdered the heir to the khanate that afternoon. Rubbing distractedly at the bruises hidden by the high collar of his embroidered silk coat, Tayy wondered if it were possible to strangle someone without realizing where one’s hands had fallen. It seemed unlikely, which was a disturbing possibility in one so close to him. He doubted that his cousin could be so thankless as to wish him dead for saving his life the day before, however.

“Just some small injury taken in the bouts.” He scarcely recognized the raspy voice, little more than a whisper, as his own.

Qutula was all concern. “You should have the old shaman, then, or my own mother will make you a poultice. She has experience treating wounds.”

Thoughts he’d rather not have stirred at the notion of Sechule’s hands on his body. Here, he imagined, and it aches here most of all. But he shook his head, leaving that spiderweb to General Yesugei and his uncle. “I’ll be fine in the morning.”

“Tell me who did this to you and I will lay my own honor to teaching him a lesson,” Qutula fervently volunteered.

“It’s nothing. I would have no feud in my uncle’s tents.” With you, he kept to himself. I would not set my uncle’s tents against his own children, no matter that he has not claimed you. He could never say as much to Qutula, nor could he say what he believed, that Mergen honored his sons with the love of a father even if he did not name them so. But he could drink more kumiss, and he did, gasping as the fiery relief made its way past the swelling in his throat.

With the feast came singing. First one and then another of the court poets stood up to memorialize the events of the day. Prince Tayy leaned on his cousin’s shoulder as he settled in to listen with the rest of his uncle’s court. The children’s race careened from octave to octave as the singer’s words followed the rough course until, in triumph, the youthful champion claimed his embroidered ribbon from the khan’s own hand.

The game of jidu turned into a comical song, with hand gestures broadly playing out the missed catch, the player unhorsed. No one mentioned the girls who competed, or the champion among them as half the winning team, but pronouns diplomatically shifted to the ambiguous forms.

The archery competition among the seasoned warriors was transformed into a tale of battle so that it was impossible to tell if the winner had claimed victory over his fellow contestants or against the southern Uulgar clans in the recent war. When Bekter’s turn came to memorialize the wrestling matches, however, the poet bowed his head in apology.

“I am not happy with my efforts tonight, and would not put my reputation to the test with these poor words. Perhaps this one will do—

“Like an army rode his hunters after the bright shining one

Seeking meat for hungry soldiers and livers for their manhood.”

The bear. Prince Tayy listened, politely indifferent to the acclaim the hero’s tale heaped in his honor. At his side, Qutula looked as though he’d eaten something unpleasant. Bekter’s song should have memorialized his brother’s victories in the wrestling matches. Perhaps he had been called away on some urgent matter and hadn’t seen them to record in song. Or perhaps he had seen too much. Tayy wondered what he had made of Qutula’s thumbs.

But the song in which Prince Tayyichiut killed the bear had already passed from mouth to ear to mouth again. Chieftains and clan Great Mothers, all the nobles gathered in the ger-tent palace of the khan, clapped their hands in time to the music. The newly blooded warriors among Tayy’s cadre shouted out their allegiance to the Nirun, the bright shining ones. Duwa, Qutula’s follower, answered with the cry, “Durluken!” and his counterparts on the opposing team answered with the same cry, their fists raised to acknowledge their champion’s victory, even if the song did not. Qutula modestly lowered his lashes, but his color did not rise. Not embarrassed by the fuss, then, but wishing to seem so. Tayy thought he would surely feel the same in his cousin’s position, and gave him a friendly punch on the sleeve.

“Savor the praise while you can, my friend—” He could not call him by any closer name, though he muttered the words for his cousin’s ear alone. “—next time, it will be me on the victory stand!”

Qutula turned away his praise. “It was only luck you did not stand there today, my prince,” he said

Mergen smiled, and Tayy knew he’d heard the humble words delivered with proper modesty. He didn’t see the pride in his blanket-son’s eyes, or the hunger, quickly hidden. Tayy hadn’t been meant to see it either.

Bekter had reached the part of the song where Prince Tayy struck the bear with his arrow—

“An arrow fletched with silver wings, flew to his mark with deadly sting.”

Suddenly, Jumal left his place along the perimeter to act out the part of his prince, pulling an imaginary bow and letting fly the imaginary arrow. At the applause of the crowd he cut a jubilant caper, beating his chest and leaping in a victory dance before flinging himself at his prince’s feet.

To all who watched his comic antics he must have seemed very drunk, and no doubt drink had spurred him to action. So close, however, Tayy saw the tension in his eyes, the drape of his hand carelessly, it might seem, near the hilt of his knife.

“You are the prince’s own fool, Jumal!” Acting as drunk as his companion, he leaned over, falling upon Jumal’s shoulder almost as a ruse, although the ger-tent palace spun in lazy circles when he moved his head. They had both drunk too much for court intrigues, he suspected, but still he whispered, “What danger?” as he made a mock struggle to right himself.

Jumal drew his knife then, raised above his head in a dramatic sweep that might have sent flying the noses of anyone who drew too close. Half a hundred swords slid from their scabbards.

“Your Nirun will defend you to the death!” he declared for all to hear, still as if drunk, but the words carried the weight of hands around his throat for Tayy.

“I know you will. Now put away your knife before someone gets the wrong idea.”

For a long moment, it seemed that no one breathed. Slowly, Jumal lowered his knife until the point rested above his own heart. “My life is yours to spend as you please.”

“I am a parsimonious prince,” Tayy told him, lifting the knife gently from his fingers. “And would rather save than spend your life. I certainly don’t want it stolen by some anxious guardsman of my uncle.” He held the knife between his own numb fingers, could feel the blue-coated warriors relaxing in the muscles of his own arms and in his back.

“Nor do I, my prince.” With a gentle smile, Jumal spread his hands wide to show that he no longer held a weapon.

“I think it’s time you went to bed,” Tayy told him. With a gesture he motioned Altan and others of his own cadre to come forward and take their friend away, which they did, scolding him for his foolishness and laughing at his drunkenness. The prince thought he saw something more in their actions, however. He noted that the members of his cadre who had followed Qutula in the Durluken team came forward reluctantly, and only after a gesture from their captain.

Danger, he thought. The Lady Bortu’s eyes were bright with calculation she shared with Bolghai. His uncle, lost in his own concerns, had dismissed the scene for no more than Jumal had intended it to appear—a proper devotion made to look foolish from drink.

Mergen watched with strained good humor as Jumal with his helpers passed the firebox. Jumal’s clans had pinned their hopes for advancement on the coattails of the young warrior. He ill-served them by playing the buffoon and might have cost them everything if an uncoordinated thrust of his knife had injured the prince. But Tayy seemed to know how to handle him.

The khan had his own political mire to navigate, however, and little thought to spare for a drunken youth. When the commotion that had accompanied Jumal’s departure settled, he turned to his generals among the chieftains and nobles. “Tonight we feast our victory over the Uulgar clans and the evil magician who led them,” he declared, setting his features in stern lines as the musicians put away their instruments and the singers found their places among the court. “But justice demands answer before we find our sleep. Bring me the chieftains who will speak for the Uulgar in this place.”