Lords of Grass and Thunder (19 page)

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.”

Chapter Thirteen

A
T THE DOOR, GUARDS who had been waiting for the khan’s call brought forth the prisoners. Three had named themselves chieftains among the Uulgar when taken prisoner. Others surely marched among those of lesser rank, but they would wait to see what happened to these three before they presented themselves for judgment. A wise choice, Mergen thought, lounging as casually as his tension allowed while he waited for the prisoners to make their way down the long aisle to the dais. Although necessary, he didn’t relish the decisions he must now make.

“I would wish for Justice at my right hand today,” he muttered under his breath, and meant more than the wisdom of his own judgment. For a while the clans had ridden with a god called Justice among those foreigners who followed the Way of the Goddess. Little more than a boy, on occasion the god had been clumsy as a colt. At other times, of course, he’d shown great powers of compassion and skill, enough to save the Cloud Country from both natural and unnatural foes. But then he’d disappeared into the mountains, leaving the defeated Uulgar clans to Mergen’s less exalted disposal.

Old Bortu had not traveled with the army, but she’d met this young god and had heard his story. He knew she had an opinion, and no hesitance to tell it to him.

“You fear to judge, believing that Justice has departed the kingdom of men,” she chastised him. “But did the wisdom of the Qubal people follow that young man into the mountains? Did the gates of a foreign heaven lock up the heart of a Qubal khan? Or does justice reside in all of us who see the darkness truly and would find our own path into the light?”

Mergen bowed his head to his mother, recognizing the echo of her words in his own heart. “You humble me with your wisdom.”

“Then I would raise you up again,” she said with a wry smile. “Look into the soul of a true khan for justice. Look into the minds of your enemies and know what you must do. But you already knew that, or you wouldn’t be the true khan of your people.”

The mother of two khans could not have a gentle soul. In the crinkle of her eyes, however, he saw pride as he had not since the death of his brother, Chimbai. She had thought him a poor substitute for the great leader they’d lost. It seemed she’d changed her mind. Or something in him had changed it for her.

He wanted to believe that, especially now as three Uulgar with the braids of chieftains strode toward him between the ranks of gathered nobles. Each carried his chains as if they were the most precious ornaments and each ignored the guardsmen in their blue coats who pricked at them with the points of their spears to hurry them toward the khan.

Locks of hair with bits of skin attached swung from the vests of the two grizzled oldest. Brown- and reddish-hued and black as pitch; a braid, a handful still gathered up into a silver clasp as a woman of the Golden City had worn it, dangled from their bits of flesh to adorn the chests of the chieftains. Raiders, then, and no honorable soldiers. He saw no remorse in their eyes, only arrogance and threat. The one with the broadest chest let his eyes rest on the thin switch of gray hair that flowed from Bortu’s headdress, as if he measured its worth for his own decoration.