The Tiger Queens (20 page)

That meant my horse wouldn’t end up in Boroghul’s stewpot, so I supposed it was a fair trade. But my wrestling days were over, and that made my mood blacker than usual.

Tolui leaned against Sorkhokhtani, asleep with his mouth open and an empty jug tucked into the crook of his thin arm. Even now, she managed to look as delicate as a red-crowned crane, the firelight accenting the sheen of her complicated hair knot. She shrugged and offered me a wan smile as Toregene took her place beside Ogodei, Shigi sitting opposite them with an inscrutable expression. I knew I should join my brothers and sisters, but Toregene’s question rattled in my mind, begging for an answer. Did I want to remain the same and enjoy the carefree and privileged life I’d always lived? Or did I wish to change?

Only a day before I’d have answered without hesitation. Now I no longer knew.

*   *   *

Gurbesu accepted my father’s proposal, as we’d all known she would. I wondered if she relished the idea of her new position or saw this as her only route to survival.

There was little extravagance to the marriage ceremony, rushed as it was to occur before the clans left the
khurlatai
. Gurbesu had no family tent for her husband to collect her from, so my mother had offered her own. I’d seen my proud mother leave at dawn, hiking in the direction of the empty
gers
near the forest, the ones belonging to her own mothers. I thought to follow her but guessed she’d scold me and send me back. Instead, I joined Toregene and Sorkhokhtani to help ready Gurbesu, as she had no female kin to braid her hair and tie her sash. Sorkhokhtani played her horse-head fiddle, ostensibly so she was spared having to speak to our new mother, and Gurbesu chattered louder than a magpie as she stained her lips with berry juice until they gleamed as red as blood. We all bowed our heads when my father appeared at the entrance of my mother’s
ger
, my scowling brothers trailing him like a cape. Yesui and Yesugen remained in their tents outside camp, but my mother now stood with the men, her very presence sanctioning this marriage. Her grass-green
deel
matched her headdress, yet her lips were tight and her eyes remained flat even when Gurbesu gave her an impetuous hug.

“Thank you, Borte Ujin,” I heard her whisper. “We are truly sisters now.”

My mother’s lips grew thinner, but she still bent down and placed the traditional polished rock at the bride’s feet. This was typically done in the wedding tent, but I doubted my mother wished to see the tent my father would now share, or worse, the marriage bed.

“Our family is like this rock,” she said, her voice carrying and silencing the crowd of nobles that had packed themselves between the
gers
. “Sturdy and powerful, building mountains and empires. May you, too, be powerful as stone, and make our family ever stronger.”

She murmured something in Gurbesu’s ear, then pressed her forehead
to her friend’s. My mother was the most important woman on the steppes, and possibly beyond, but she sacrificed her happiness now to secure my family’s power. I wondered if she thought it a fair trade.

My father clasped Gurbesu’s hand and led her the short distance through the two purification fires to the small
ger
across the way. He lingered outside to cast a glance at my mother, then slipped inside after his fourth wife. The crowd of his handpicked ministers and generals jostled forward, all eager for salt tea and the opportunity to rib my father with their coarse jokes. In the shuffle, I lost my place near my family and found myself next to Teb Tengeri.

My mother despised the shaman, but I was apathetic toward the crippled old man in his blue
deel
that smelled as if it had gone unwashed since before I was born. Still, despite the press of warm bodies all around us, I felt cornered by my father’s seer when his penetrating brown eyes snared me. My heart lurched when his hand brushed against mine with a rattle from the beads on his robe, ivory and glass trinkets earned from each of his supposed visions. His might have been an accidental touch had it not been for the way his thumb pressed against the pulse in my wrist. Just as quickly, he recoiled from my touch.

“You carry death in your heart, just like the vermin you’re named for,” he hissed, tucking his hand into his wide sleeves as if scalded. His expression contorted as he eyed the sword in my belt. “Death’s own foot soldier.”

I touched the tiger sword—my mother insisted I wear it while foreign clans surrounded us for the
khurlatai
—but Teb Tengeri ducked his head and pressed forward then, leaving me to puzzle over his words. Moments later, Shigi filled the empty space left by the shaman, flanked by Tolui and Sorkhokhtani. My youngest brother would soon marry his betrothed, yet I’d noticed Tolui seek out Sorkhokhtani several times during the
khurlatai
. Once they were married, I’d be the only one of my mother’s children left unwed, a thought that made me lonely and exultant at the same time.

Shigi scowled at the seer’s retreating back. “What did Teb Tengeri want?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “He mumbled something about me being
vermin.” I squinted at the shaman as Gurbesu’s
ger
finally swallowed him. Teb Tengeri would bless her marriage bed tonight, nothing my family or I cared to see. “I think his horse bucked him onto his head one too many times.”

“Or that’s what he wants you to think,” Sorkhokhtani said. I mulled over her words—Sorkhokhtani rarely offered her opinion, but she was typically correct when she did.

I caught sight of my mother then, retreating into the privacy of her tent. As first wife, her white
ger
maintained the camp’s easternmost position, with its the first glimpse of the sun, and now Gurbesu’s smaller tent stood to the west behind it, like the tail of a bearded star. Sorkhokhtani whispered something in Tolui’s ear and parted from him, motioning for me to follow. Toregene waved to us from the crowd and together we followed my mother inside. She had already removed the tall headdress with its feathers and beads, and her green
deel
lay in an uncharacteristic pile on the ground. She stood with her back to us, dressed only in her undertunic, bereft of all the other armor of the khatun. Then she turned and, for the first time in my memory, I saw tears running unchecked down her cheeks.

“I’ve never let them see me cry, not even when he married Yesui and Yesugen,” she said to us, her voice trembling as she touched the scar on her lip and lifted her shoulders in a gesture of helplessness. “Remember that when you rule over your own camps: Your people must never see your weakness.”

I stood rooted to the spot, rendered immobile. My mother possessed the power of a khatun and the wisdom of a mother, but also the frailty of a simple woman who loved a man. My mother’s love for my father—and even for us, her irresponsible brood—gave her strength but also left her vulnerable.

It was Toregene who moved first, followed by Sorkhokhtani, both of them gathering my mother into their arms. I stepped forward hesitantly, unsure how to act toward this mother who was suddenly so human.

She pulled me to her and enveloped me in her crisp smell, like the earth after a spring rain. “One day you’ll all be wives, and your husbands will break your hearts,” she told all of us, drawing a shaky breath. “But you
must remember that love is the only thing that makes this life worth living. And I love all of you.” She squeezed us tighter. “So very deeply.”

She released us and wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Let’s have some yogurt and go to sleep,” she said, and I marveled at her ability to pack away her momentary frailty, to act as if nothing unusual was happening while her husband bedded another woman in the next tent over. My father had married Yesui and Yesugen, but they’d always been removed from our lives. Gurbesu would be impossible to ignore.

We drank our yogurt, filling the air with idle gossip to keep my mother’s mind from wandering to what lay beyond the threshold. Finally, after the camp had grown silent and the light of the moon filtered through the top of the tent, we pulled the grass-stuffed mattresses from their wooden frames and shoved them together, lying side by side like sisters.

It was only after Toregene and Sorkhokhtani had settled into sleep that I felt my mother’s lips brush my forehead, as delicate as the flutter of a moth’s wings. “I love you, Alaqai,” she murmured. “You are the only daughter of my womb, and nothing can ever change that.”

My eyes burned then, and I shifted closer to her, wondering if she knew I’d overheard her comment about my wildness. But then, my mother knew everything. I found the place on her shoulder where my head had always fit so perfectly, and tucked my feet under her legs as I always had when my father was gone and dreams of rearing horses and lightning had woken me as a child.

“I love you, too,” I whispered.

T
he last of the clans finally left the
khurlatai
,
taking with them the warm weather and leaving in their place the persistent morning dew that heralded an early frost. Over the following weeks, my father sent men to drive the herds to the southern river, hoping for extra time to fatten the animals before the Slaughter of the First Snows. Winter was a long siege against death for us; the slaughter would claim the geldings—my father still promised Neer-Gui’s safety—and the old animals when they were at their fattest to keep us from having to feed them during the long months of snow and ice. The butcherings of that lone day would keep us in sausage and dried meat until spring’s thaw.

Our entire family gathered inside my mother’s tent to eat together for the first time since the
khurlatai
; the smoke hole was open wide to the twinkling stars and a healthy fire crackled on the hearth. The fresh air and skins of
airag
going around flushed our cheeks and loosened our tongues.

My father sat between my mother and Gurbesu, a strange juxtaposition of two women who could not have been more different. My mother looked aged beyond her years, but her childhood friend might have passed for my older sister, especially in the firelight. Where my mother was tall and lean, Gurbesu was short and didn’t own a straight line on her body, made even more curvaceous because my father’s seed had taken root in her belly. We’d learned of this only a few days ago, and now she looked wan, and often excused herself, presumably to heave into the bushes. Perhaps a
difficult pregnancy would be the payment for her easy life and the disruptions she’d caused our family.

Gurbesu still managed to smile and defer to my mother, who had outdone even herself with the spread of boiled mutton, salted cheeses, and fresh yogurt before us. All my mother had done since the announcement of Gurbesu’s pregnancy was pound butter and hold court over her stewpot. We could all plan on becoming very fat over the coming years if Gurbesu’s womb proved as fertile as it appeared.

My father left his place by the fire to sit by me, laying his bow across his lap and the empty pot from our recent meal of horsemeat stew at his elbow. I stood practicing my aim with a spear, shifting my balance while attempting to skewer a nearby sheep skull through the eye with varying amounts of success. I should have smelled the snare being set when my mother didn’t scold me for putting several holes through her rugs, but I realized too late that the tent had fallen silent, everyone’s backs to us so the only sounds were those of the crackling fire.

“I’ve had a message,” my father finally said, working the leftover stew grease into his bowstring. “From Ala-Qush of the Onggud.”

“The Onggud?” I asked when no one else spoke, retrieving the spear I’d just thrown. “Were they threatening to kill you?”

The Onggud had lent their support to my father at his
khurlatai
, but only because they realized that, as our neighbors to the southeast, my father would soon cast his gaze to their lands. In truth, they despised us, ruled as they were by Ala-Qush’s ancient lineage, and they often referred to us as wandering, bloodthirsty heathens. The city-dwelling Onggud, also known as the People of the Stone Walls, were our opposites in every way, living behind high walls in crowded cities that smelled of human waste, and growing their food so their bodies were eternally weak from the lack of meat and white foods. The journey to the Onggud territory took at least six weeks over the inhospitable Great Dry Sea, and many who undertook the trip never returned. Still, they were luckier than those who were forced to reside in such miserable conditions.

“Nothing so dramatic as plotting my assassination.” My father smiled
then, but he avoided my gaze. “The Onggud are pragmatic. They realize I’ve targeted their Tanghut neighbors for a winter conquest.”

My mother gave a loud exhale then. “All because your father sent them a message after his
khurlatai
telling them so,” she added, her back still to us as she patched a hole in an old
deel
. There was no such thing as a private discussion in a
ger
, but I could have done with fewer ears listening to this conversation. “The Tanghut of the Great High White State have the iron, silk, and silver your father craves for his growing empire.”

“Won’t the Tanghut hide behind their stone walls?” I asked.

“The strength of a wall depends on the courage of those who defend it.” My father gave an evil grin. “The Tanghut will quake with fear before they even see my army.”

All else I knew of the opulent Tanghut was that they mainly worshipped the seated Buddha, and, as the main manufacturer of all manner of manuscripts and texts, Shigi often extolled their academic virtues. They sounded like a people in need of conquering.

“I’ve scarcely unified the Thirteen Nations; without a common enemy they might turn upon themselves again. The Onggud don’t wish to fight us,” my father continued. “Ala-Qush seeks an alliance so we will bypass his people on our way to the Tanghut.”

“That’s convenient for Ala-Qush,” I said, throwing the spear again. It knocked against the arch of the sheep’s eye bone, but no thrill of victory ran up my spine as it had before. Instead I felt a shiver of foreboding.

“The alliance is also convenient for us,” my father said, setting aside his bow and standing beside me. “I need the Onggud if I’m to conquer the Tanghut. If the two allied against us—”

“It would mean another great war.” I retrieved the spear. “Congratulations on your alliance, then.”

“Alliances are not simply agreements,” my father said brusquely, adding his hands to mine along the shaft of the spear. “They must be sealed with more than words.”

And I knew then what he would say, what he had offered Ala-Qush. The realization must have dawned on my face, for my father nodded.
“Ala-Qush has agreed that you may take the place of precedence on the north side of his Great House, facing the door.”

The place of the senior wife. My mother’s place in our tent.

“But he’s already married.” I wanted to add,
and he’s twice my age
,
but held my tongue for once.

My father tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I won’t force you into this marriage,
tarvag takal
,” he said.

“But you need the alliance,” I said, seeing the map in my mind, even as I set down my spear. Shigi had often tried to teach me to read, but the foreign symbols cluttered my thoughts until I could hardly think straight. However, I’d grown up watching my father scratch battle plans into the ashes of our hearth, and now I could envision the entirety of his empire and those that lay beyond his reach. “And you need someone to supply your arrow messengers when you campaign against the Tanghut.”

“It is an important mission,” my father said. “One I cannot trust to anyone else.”

My chest felt empty, as if my heart and my very breath had been stolen from me. I had no wish to stay forever under my mother’s
ger
, but my marriage was no simple matter. When I wed, I would gain a new husband and family as any woman did, but also a new people to rule. If not Ala-Qush and the Onggud, then some other ruler and his petty kingdom. Yet this was what my father asked of me.

I stared past him then, to the southeast where my fate waited, like a panther ready to spring. “I’d like some time to think about it,” I said.

“I knew you would,” my father said. “But Ala-Qush must have an answer before the snows make the journey to Olon Süme impossible.”

My mother finally stood then, setting aside the
deel
she been pretending to mend and placing her palms on my shoulders. “No one can take your place here, Alaqai, but you would make a good
beki
for Ala-Qush.” The Onggud had forever been a vassal state and now they would bow a knee to my father, but I might be their princess, their
beki
. My mother pressed her forehead to mine, her quivering voice dropping to a whisper. “You would make us so proud.”

It was suddenly difficult to swallow as I looked around through bleary
eyes, realizing that everyone was watching me. All the treasures in my life were in this
ger
, and I might soon leave them far behind, carrying only memories and the weighty expectations of my family on my back.

*   *   *

“We need your help,” my mother said one morning only a few days later. From my bedding, I peered through one eye to see her dressed in a stained
deel
, frayed along the sleeves, and her hair pulled back in a simple braid. The way the meager fire cast her in shadows, she might have been a girl again. “It snowed while you slept and the men have arrived with the geldings.”

The Slaughter of the First Snows.

Panic tightened my throat; already the time for my decision was trickling away. I covered my eyes with my arm, but my mother flung off the blankets. The new chill in the air would remain until the spring thaw, icing over our water buckets at night and finally freezing the meat we’d need to survive the long winter that yawned before us.

“Get up, Alaqai.” Her tone was the same as when she’d ordered me to gather dung as a girl. But I wasn’t a child anymore.

I didn’t answer.

“If you want to eat this winter,” she said, “you’ll help us with the slaughter. Either you walk into the blood tent yourself or I can drag you there myself for everyone to see.”

I rolled over to gauge if she was serious. She was, of course.

“I don’t want to work in the blood tent. I’ll lasso the geldings instead.”

But my mother shook her head. “I told your grandmother Hoelun and the other widows that you’d help them. They need a girl with a strong back.”

“More like they need a girl who hasn’t gone deaf yet to listen to them complain about their aches and pains.”

“You might one day be
beki
of a great nation, Alaqai. You must start acting like it.”

“When I’m
beki
of a great nation, I’ll have someone else stuff the sausage for me.”

She waved away my words. “You cannot climb a mountain without taking the first step.”

I rolled my eyes at the oft-quoted proverb, used for everything from urging me to milk the goats to shearing uncooperative sheep. Still, the slaughter meant plenty of tidbits of meat to nibble on all day, a thought that made my stomach rumble in anticipation. With any luck, I might nab a fire-seared goat tongue.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll help, but only for a little while.”

I was slow to dress, despite my mother’s urgings, so by the time we stepped outside, geldings screamed and goats brayed as they ran from the boys who chased them with knives.

Men wielded axes over the carcasses of animals already dead, hacking off heads, hooves, and legs to the sound of cracking bones. Women and children scuttled about to spread skins over the snow to dry, the steam from the fresh hides rising into the chilled air while blood seeped into snowy footsteps.

And the smell: everywhere the stench of meat and death.

And life.

I offered up the traditional prayer to the spirits for this great gift, without which we’d all die during the winter. And tonight we would feast on the oily meat, stuffing our stomachs until we could no longer move.

I gripped my mother’s hand, suddenly remembering. “Neer-Gui?”

“Your horse is safe,” she said. “Your father ordered Sorkhokhtani to pen him with his warhorse.”

I sagged with relief, but it was short-lived.

From the outside, the blood tent looked like any other
ger
, but inside the humid cloud of tainted air and scarlet-stained earth assaulted my senses. Fresh horse heads lay piled in the center, their dull eyes open and severed necks covered in clumps of black blood. A girl-child stood with a leather swatter, ready to crush any flies that threatened to land and lay their eggs. Wooden troughs were piled high with hindquarters and chunks of meat, and trays of red muscle and white ribs hung from the ceiling beams like ladders to the sky, adding the occasional drip of blood to the mess of death already underfoot.

“Send the girl for Toregene if you get too tired,” my mother said, indicating that I should join a cluster of squinty old women squatting over
bowls of entrails and wielding sharp knives. At my grandmother’s feet were ropes of yellow intestines, like piles of oversized snakes.

I turned to tell my mother I’d changed my mind, but she’d already disappeared, perhaps anticipating my sudden weakness. I remembered her words in our
ger
, but this was no great obstacle I had to overcome, only a mountain of intestines and chopped meat. With a long-suffering sigh, I shuffled to the wooden seat.

It was my job to rinse and stuff the intestines, to fill them with the tiny chunks of meat and brains that the old mothers’ deft fingers had already minced. Once I had shoved enough meat inside, the intestine was tied off with a bit of sinew and thrown over a tall pole. I was soon covered in blood and stained with offal while a veritable forest of sausages grew around us.

I lost myself in the monotony of the work, my thighs burning from squatting while I concentrated on the movement of my fingers and listened to my grandmother complain about her latest bout of indigestion and the other crones commiserate about their stingy daughters-in-marriage, who didn’t offer them enough butter from the household churns. Several of the women filched raw meat, grinning at me while mashing the tidbits between pink gums.

Finally the tent was too full to hold another horse head or string of sausages. My shoulders ached and my mind was numb by the time I stumbled out into the early dark of a winter night.

Toregene and Sorkhokhtani met me then, as if they’d been lurking outside the blood tent waiting for me to appear. Toregene raised her brows and plugged her nose, coughing dramatically. “Alaqai Beki,” she said, “you smell terrible. And you look like you’ve been stuffing sausages all day.”

“You don’t look so fresh yourself,” I said, nodding at the animal blood that stained her
deel
. “And I don’t smell any worse than you usually do with all your potions.” In truth, I enjoyed the earthy scent that clung to Toregene from the herbs she gathered and brewed into poultices: the yellow pasqueflower for upset stomachs, burnet roots to suppress bleeding, and globeflower for chest pains. I’d asked once where she’d learned so much about medicine, but my mother had sent Toregene out for freshwater
before she could answer. As soon as the door shut behind her, my mother had reminded me that Toregene had lived a life before she’d come to us.