Chapter Twenty-seven

“ CAN I COME with you?” Daritai closed his eyes against the importunate twelve-year-old voice at his back. The sounds of the camp preparing to ride faded into the background like the wind tangling the braids below his princely silver cap. He’d left the boy sleeping in his tent, had almost made a clean escape across the field where the horses and riders were gathering for the hunt, because he didn’t want to answer that question. No, he wanted to say. It’s too dangerous.

But Tumbinai, his eldest son, had hunted with the warriors for over a year now. To leave him behind would signal to his own men too many of his secret thoughts. There was more going on in the Qubal camp than Mergen-Khan let on. More, probably, than the gur-khan knew himself. How he might use to his advantage the unrest—the veiled hostilities—he had sensed in the tent city Daritai hadn’t quite figured, but he knew the boy was his own weakness. Mergen might mean the Tinglut clans no harm, but factions in the Qubal court might see in his youthful heir a weapon to use against him as a hostage, or worse. And yet, what better show of peace than his unblooded son at his side in the enemy camp?

He’d feel better about the whole mission if he could figure out why his father had insisted he bring the boy in the first place. Hulegu already held Daritai’s seat on the dais. He didn’t think Tinglut-Khan meant to wipe out his line to ensure the new heir’s position, but he couldn’t entirely dismiss the thought. If that were the case, then perhaps his father didn’t expect him to return at all, let alone with a treaty-bride.

The endless possibilities for betrayal on this mission almost paralyzed him in front of his own son, in the face of the simplest question—“Can I come with you?”—that he should have answered differently a hundred and more li back, in his own tents. He couldn’t answer as his heart wished now, however: Take half a hundred of my most trusted guardsmen and go home, as fast as horse may carry you, into the arms of your mother and stay there until I come for you, be it through storm and blood and murder. Whatever the game, he had to play it out to the end.

“Of course, you must attend me and make your courtesies to the foreign khan,” he agreed.

“Thank you, Father! I’ll get my horse . . .”

“Yes, go. Don’t let manners keep you!” He drew his lips back in a wooden smile at the familiar joke that Tumbinai, clever boy, might have seen through on another day. But on this morning, with the clear blue light of Great Sun filling his heart with anticipation, he turned his back on the bleeding anxiety in his father’s eyes, running to ready his mount with innocent joy.

“Stay with him,” he instructed a guard who followed at his elbow. “Make sure that no harm comes to him.”

“With my life, my prince.” The man asked no questions, not even with a furrowing of his brows. He bowed deeply to bind the vow and went after the young princeling.

Time to go. Daritai found his own mount readily enough and greeted his closest guardsmen who had accompanied him to victory and defeat through all the years of his youth and adulthood. Too soon to have saddled the horse after their conversation, Tumbinai joined them, nudging seasoned warriors out of his way to take his place at his father’s side. He was trying, Daritai noted, to retain a serious and regal mien, but in his excitement a grin kept escaping the boy’s control.

Let him survive, he begged the spirits as they rode to meet the Qubal gur-khan. The appointed place of that meeting, the shrine of the murdered Chimbai-Khan, now lay fractured by storms, an ill omen if ever he’d seen one. He doesn’t have to be a prince, he thought, just let him live to be a man.

Mergen waited until his scouts told him that Prince Daritai’s party had arrived at Chimbai’s shattered shrine before he led out his own hunters. Scouts had also reported sighting Jochi’s returning party in the distance. Their large central tent flew a banner in Chimbai’s colors to show that a member of the royal family resided within. He’d had success in finding the Princess Orda, then, for all the good it would do them now. Daritai didn’t want the girl and he wondered what success Prince Tayy had had in finding their next offering to the Tinglut-Khan for peace between them. If Tinglut had any sense he’d have taken the little girl to raise her in a tent friendly to his interests. But the old ram had other plans for his dotage.

The party he’d sent to bring back the hope of that compromise was approaching with the speed of a summer squall. Let the Tinglut prince wait, he thought, while he gathered his own younger generation about him: his heir and the young warriors who would form their own phalanx in defense of their prince. And the princess, his daughter, summoned from whatever shamanic ritual Bolghai had set her. He knew he ought to be hoping that Eluneke did nothing to dissuade the emissary. He found himself wishing instead that she might confound this Daritai with some shaman’s trick that sent the Tinglut prince home with his jaws agape and his face pale from terror. So much for peace.

But Qutula greeted him at the head of that party, with news he could have done without. “We saw no sign of the princess, though Prince Tayy seemed certain that she would come to him if he waited. He refused our company, however, afraid our presence would frighten the girl away, and said the steep slope of the dell and the Onga River itself provided all the protection he needed against any attack.”

Qutula must have seen the anger gathering in Mergen’s eyes, because he added in his own defense, “I convinced him to keep Mangkut on guard with the horses. And I confess I disobeyed his direct order, though I hoped to win your pardon for my crime. I left another guardsman from among my own cadre hidden within the trees.”

“You have my pardon, and gladly,” Mergen assured his son, letting go a little of the tension that had built between his shoulders when he saw neither prince nor princess returning with the others. He gave the signal to move out and asked, “You haven’t found the girl, then?”

“Not yet.”

In her serpent form, the false Lady Chaiujin slithered through the grass. She didn’t think she needed Sechule’s help persuading Qutula to murder the girl. He’d already shown himself willing. That was before he knew her as his sister, of course, but family feeling hadn’t extended to his cousin, the prince. She didn’t think the girl would stir any greater love. It seemed he used his heart to course blood through his veins but for little else. In this he reminded her of a serpent. She felt the egg taking shape in her belly, and tingled in anticipation of the moment when her child would quicken in his shell. But not yet. Not quite. There were murders to perform, and a lover to cajole.

She thought of his breast and formed the desire to rest there, to sink her inky teeth into his flesh and hold fast to him with his desire matched to hers. In her demon thoughts she made her desire real.

Qutula sidled his horse in between the khan and his age-mates who guarded him. Restlessly his hand went to his breast, returned to his side under his control again. The lady of his mysterious nights burned her impatient message over his heart again and he welcomed the pain as a reminder of the deeds he had promised her. Soon, soon.

Chahar, Bolghai’s son and the warrior who rode closest to the khan in Jochi’s absence, made room for him, but the guardsman’s expression was troubled. He had grown up in a shaman’s tent and had a subtlety that bore careful watching. Killing, if necessary, though a murder so close to the khan would heighten the vigilance of his guards. Letting no part of his thoughts show, Qutula shrugged a shoulder to disavow his next words. “The prince thinks she’ll come to his call if there aren’t a lot of people around to frighten her.”

“Let’s hope so,” Mergen agreed, riding comfortably, it seemed, with his own son at his side. Qutula kept a triumphant smile from his lips with difficulty. Soon, Mergen would be forced to acknowledge him as he had the girl Eluneke. He would ride at the side of the gur-khan as his right. Then a terrible accident, and the gur-khan would follow Chimbai and his heir. He might, with cunning, avoid a war altogether. Qutula would take Mergen’s place at the head of the clans.

Perhaps he would bring the Tinglut under the Qubal sway as Mergen himself had swept up the Uulgar. He would rule the grasslands from the valleys of the Shan Empire to the mountains of the Cloud Country. He said nothing of this, however, as the gur-khan’s hunting party stopped to greet the Tinglut prince—auspiciously for his plans, he thought—across the ashes of the murdered khan.

“ ’I ve lost too much already to let you go as well.” Tayy buried his face in his hands. However lost she became in her initiation rites, he didn’t think Eluneke would forget him, but he was afraid to look and find that it was so.

“Ribit.” A little toad with a high, rusty voice like a badly hung gate plopped on his boot. “Ribit!”

“Eluneke?” Tayy leaned far over so that he stared eye to eye with the toad that perched on his upturned toe.

“Ribit!” she answered, sounding more desperate than she had a moment before. She bobbed her head in a little dance but didn’t turn back into the girl he knew.

Suddenly, plop, plop, plop, toads were tumbling all around him. A great rain of toads spilled out of a sky as clear and blue as the silk of his best court robes. As they fell, the wood filled with the sounds—high and deep, croaking and bellowing—of their voices. With their return the crickets and cicadas came to life, mosquitoes bit, and flies lit on his arms. The little toad on his boot looked hungrily at a fat insect that flew too close, but she refrained from eating it. Tayy was glad of that, since it was hard enough to harbor romantic feelings for a toad. He might have to resort to keeping her fed on such fare if she didn’t find her own true form soon, but for now he’d rather not think about such things.

“Don’t worry,” he soothed her, though his own heart trembled in his chest. What would he do if she never remembered how to become human again?

Daritai sat his horse at the center of his five hundred and waited for the gur-khan’s hunting party to draw near. In the aftermath of the rain, no dust blurred the Qubal approach, At least a thousand in that line, he guessed. They had all—Qubal and Tinglut, too—come from battle too recently for any easiness with the sight. Like a nervous habit, his hand shifted to his bow. Others among his picked guard did the same but none was so ill-trained as to set an arrow. At least, not in the front ranks. His men would take nothing for granted in this meeting.

Tumbinai, smart boy, nudged closer on his mount. Given the choice, he would have sent the boy to the lower ranks with instructions to stay out of sight. The Qubal-Khan might take affront if he found out that the Tinglut emissary felt a need to hide his children from his allies, however. That meant his son front and center, at his side, preferably not shifting quite so wildly between excitement and terror.

“The gur-khan has no reputation for serving leg of visitor baked in coals,” he said, trying to settle the boy. “Be polite, try to look stupid if he asks anything you shouldn’t answer, and beyond that, you’ve been to court. I trust you to know how to behave.”

“He guts his enemies and buries them alive so that the horses beat the dirt down on top of them,” the boy muttered with a shiver.

Daritai had heard the same rumors, had also heard they weren’t true. Having met the man, he wouldn’t put it beyond him at great need, which was better than he could say for the boy’s grandfather, whose enemies were better off plunging the dagger into their own livers. He didn’t plan to offer the gur-khan a reason for displeasure and felt confident in reassuring his son, “Stories for stormy nights. Mergen Gur-Khan is an honorable man and would never harm an unblooded youth.”

Unlike your grandfather, he thought, who might want to clear his own ger-tent palace of too many heirs. He couldn’t think of that, however, not and do the job required to keep them all alive at home. The Qubal party had neared enough that he could make out the features of the gur-khan at their center. Daritai nudged his horse forward to greet his host, his son following a few paces behind. He didn’t look back, just hoped the boy had smeared an appropriately friendly expression on his face.

Mergen stepped out of his line as well, to face him with a welcoming tilt of his head, no more for a lesser son. Prince Tayyichiut wasn’t there, and for a moment Daritai’s heart turned over. Treachery, he thought, and would have sent his own son flying. But it was too late, the boy was too exposed. What have I done? I’ve killed my son . . .

“The prince has a sore head, but will join us shortly,” Mergen lied with a tip of his hand to pantomime a cup. Drunk, then. His ironic smile shared the lie between them with no expectation of belief, just reassurance that the prince’s absence meant nothing in the scheme of Daritai’s mission. Or so he meant his adversary to believe.

The guardsman who had ridden at the gur-khan’s right hand set his unblinking gaze on Tumbinai. He might have been a viper coiled upon the saddle. Qutula, his name was, and dependable report said the gur-khan’s blanket-son. Did the absence of the old khan’s prince mean a change in the royal succession in the wind? The young guardsman didn’t take the place of the heir in the greeting as Tumbinai had done. Resented it, too, by the look of him. Not the danger he’d anticipated but more, perhaps, than he had counted on. He didn’t think this one would stand on honor to preserve his father’s agreements. Daritai was glad he’d rejected the old khan’s child, but he wondered if any bride Mergen offered would serve for more than warming old Tinglut-Khan’s bed.

He kept his thoughts to himself when he greeted the gur-khan however. “A fine day for a hunt!” he said, his face turned with proper appreciation into the wind-drenched sunlight.

“A fine day, indeed,” Mergen Gur-Khan answered. “Would you have a wager?”

“First shot,” Daritai agreed, meaning the first game brought down between them. The Qubal hunters outnumbered his own by too great a number for betting on the greatest catch.

“Done.”

With the wagers between the first of the hunters concluded, the lesser members of each party broke into their own groups and pairs, setting wager against wager with a low roar like distant thunder.

So the Tinglut prince had brought a ready-made hostage with him. As he listened to his father make the first wager, Qutula set a cold and thoughtful eye on the boy, Tumbinai, who looked back with a combination of terror and fascination difficult to resist. Whose idea were you? he wondered, half aloud.

At his breast, his lady whispered “Fathers, sometimes, wishing to be rid of troublesome sons, invite their enemies to feast on kinship’s bones.”

She could have meant the Tinglut prince, or his own father for that matter, but he didn’t think so. He wasn’t the one who had fallen under Mergen’s displeasure this time. As for the Tinglut pup, Qutula saw the moment of panic when Papa Daritai counted up the players and realized the Qubal heir hadn’t added into the sum while his own offspring was flying in the breeze, a banner to be taken in the games of statecraft. He ought to be able to make something of that. Tilting his head at a regal angle he’d seen Tayy pull off far too often, Qutula let the Tinglut wonder why he rode at Mergen’s side. Look your fill, he thought. Soon enough the contest will come to us two.

A line opened then to let the beaters and the handlers through with the dogs, who milled about baying and nipping at each other in their own drawing of ranks. Just like their human counterparts, Qutula observed, they jockeyed for position. And like the old dogs, the older guardsmen had settled their places in the pack long ago; Mergen’s followers rose among the ranks while Chimbai’s found themselves drifting to the rear or, like General Yesugei, sent away where he could have no influence on the court.

Qutula’s own Durluken guardsmen followed the lead of their elders, crowded at the right hand of the khan. The absent prince’s Nirun muttered blackly under their breath to see their adversaries hold the place they had claimed for themselves as the heir’s favorites. Altan, the prince’s own, nudged his horse closer to the khan as if he might preserve his prince’s place with his own person, but Duwa pushed him back. Words were spoken. Altan set hand to his dagger and in the same breath, Duwa had cleared his own sheath. Neither moved then, as if the seriousness of what they had done in the gur-khan’s presence paralyzed them in their saddles.

Qutula saw the displeasure his father otherwise hid from the hunting party.

“Save the daggers for the conies, we do not need them between friendly rivals,” Mergen chided the young guardsmen. Each dropped his head in shame to have brought censure on Nirun and Durluken both, but satisfaction gleamed in the eye Duwa turned on his captain. Qutula knew better than to share with his followers his private plans for the khanate, but it seemed that if he chose to fight, he would have willing accomplices. Good. With no outward sign that he approved his henchman’s actions, he gave his full attention to his father’s speech.

“Instead of bickering uselessly among yourselves, turn your rivalry into meat for the cook pots,” Mergen proposed. “Whichever team brings in the greatest catch will win for their captain the praise of the singers of the royal court. Bekter himself will compose a ballad in the winner’s honor. Is that not so, good poet?”

Bekter, who had ridden with little attention to his place in the line of the gur-khan’s hunting party, worked his way forward at the mention of his name. “Of course,” he said, bowing from the saddle with all show of acquiescence though Qutula was certain he hadn’t heard what Mergen had promised in his name. It was enough to cool the hot heads among the younger guardsmen, however.

“Do something,” the snake tattooed on his chest whispered in Qutula’s ear. Mergen had turned the confrontation into a formal contest; now he could show his appreciation for Duwa’s silent promise with his own reward. “And to sweeten the pot, a coral bead the size of the knuckle on my right thumb, to the Durluken who brings down the first branchy game.” Buck or roedeer, he meant by that, game worthy of a prince.

A shout went up among the Durluken, who raised their bows above their heads to salute the prize. Then Bolghai came forward with his rattle and his drum, singing the low ululation that called the game. The stoats at his throat flying about him as he whirled, the shaman danced with little hops to signify the conies and jerboa, and all the small animals who scurried close to the ground. With swoops and the flapping of his arms he mimicked the birds and with huge gallops summoned the greater game, the roe deer and wild ram and other fleet, four-footed prey.

The blessing ended and the beaters took up their own drums and clashing bells, surging forward with their wild and terrifying noise. The master of the hunt, with horns blowing, set the order of the day for the waiting hunters. The lake formation, as in battle, would sweep across the grasslands. The gur-khan’s party, with the Tinglut prince beside him, would lead from the center where they would find the best hunting. His guard captains, acting for his absent generals Yesugei and Jochi, would take the wide sweeping arms on either side, encircling their prey and driving it toward the waiting arrows of the royal huntsmen.

When each knew his place in the order of march, the hunt moved out