The Tiger Queens (22 page)

“You have a healthy son, Toregene,” she said with a rare smile, placing the child on his mother’s flattened belly.

Toregene marveled at the child for a moment—I refrained from mentioning that his face was mashed flat and his legs bent like a frog’s—then she looked at all of us with glistening eyes. “A son for Ogodei,” she said to my mother, offering her the baby. “Although he has my chin and nose.”

“What will you name him?” my mother asked, wrapping the child in a waiting blanket. I recognized it as one my mother had felted just after Toregene’s announcement that she was pregnant.

“Güyük,” Toregene answered.

“A fine name,” my mother said, giving the howling bundle back to Toregene.

We took turns then, breathing Güyük’s new scent as he drifted off to sleep while my mother poured a bowl of calf’s blood for Toregene—unfortunately not fresh—and my mother delivered the afterbirth. I wondered then what part this tiny child would play in our family’s lives, what roles we women would play.

Only time would tell.

1207 CE

YEAR OF THE RED HARE

T
ime can be an ally or an enemy, its precious moments rushing by or dragging on forever. In the months before my marriage I often wished I could cling to the rare days of spring and summer, yet sometimes I ached to race ahead and greet my future as Beki of the Onggud.

Winter’s brutal punishments had weakened our surviving horses; the animals needed spring’s fresh shoots of grass to smooth their knobby backbones and pad the hollows between their ribs before they could undertake crossing the southern desert of the Great Dry Sea. Summer’s heat rendered the Dead Lands impassible, and only once the days shortened again could we attempt the six-week trek across the barren swaths of heat and emptiness. Each day seemed to stretch for an eternity, but bundled together they passed in a blur, like drops of water in a fast-moving river.

All too soon I was called to a second birthing tent as Gurbesu dropped another girl for my father: Al-Altun. The name meant
Subordinate One
, Gurbesu’s acknowledgment of her position as my father’s last wife and her children’s inferior rank.

That the child was a girl meant my mother’s sacrifice had been in vain, yet now I would make my own sacrifice for our family.

The birch leaves were tinged with yellow, fireweed cotton choked the
air, and the bar-headed geese flew overhead to their winter feeding grounds. It had been almost a year since my father told me of Ala-Qush’s marriage proposal, and now it was time for me to leave.

On the evening before I would depart for the Onggud capital of Olon Süme, I stared slack-jawed at the waiting carts. The line was as long as a water dragon, its belly full of weapons and provisions, silk and silver taken from our vanquished enemies. All this, along with my father’s soldiers, would accompany me to awe Ala-Qush and my new people.

Not wishing to look at the carts any longer, I busied myself with brushing Neer-Gui and inspecting his smooth hooves for the coming journey. I’d chosen not to shear his mane or tail like my father’s warhorse, but instead secured the hair from my gelding’s eyes with a tall leather thong between his ears. I thought he looked rather dashing, but Ogodei had commented that my gelding would end up fighting off the stallions now that he looked like a broodmare.

So it was that Toregene found me that night, water buckets in both her hands and little Güyük drooling in his sleep on her back.

“Where have you been?” she hissed, her eyes darting about nervously as she blew a puff of air at a stray hair dangling in front of her nose. Water sloshed at her feet. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

I jumped back to avoid the water and followed her gaze, but saw only a herding boy returned late for the night. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“I’d rather not have your mother chop out my tongue for this,” Toregene whispered, beckoning me with a jerk of her head. “Follow me.”

The allure of something forbidden called to me. I had yet to pack the felts for my new tent—my mother doubted whether Ala-Qush’s family even knew how to felt, much less whether they’d share their daughter panels with me. Who knew whether I would ever sleep in a
ger
after tonight, anyway; the Onggud built their tents of wood and stone, as solid as the walls that surrounded their cities. The felts could wait.

Toregene’s tent smelled of the late-blooming fireweed stuffed into a jug on her lone table, and it was difficult to remember the scene of bloody struggle that had taken place when Güyük was born. A log popped and the
shadows on the walls jumped, illuminating Sorkhokhtani’s dark form sitting on the ground, where she tended the hearth fire with an assortment of pots and baskets spread behind her.

“Hello, Alaqai,” she said. She shrugged at the question in my eyes and picked at the wool pilling on her sleeve. Perhaps she’d been dragged here, too.

“What’s this about?” I asked, hands on my hips. My frayed temper after a long day threatened to finally unravel.

“I wanted to speak to both of you before you meet your husbands for the first time,” Toregene said, gingerly sliding Güyük from her back. She tied the sling with its sleeping child to the bed. Satisfied that it was secure, she sat on a bright red pillow, stretching her legs in front of her with a ragged sigh. I remained standing.

“I’ve already met my husband,” Sorkhokhtani said. “Tolui and I have known each other for years now.”

“I mean before you greet your men in bed,” Toregene said, as if speaking of the clouds in the sky, or the amount of horse dung she needed for her fire.

“I don’t need that sort of advice,” I said, with a wave of my hand. After all, I was no blushing virgin who’d never taken a man between her legs. “And I have much to do—”

“Alaqai Beki, do you know the way to rule a man?” Toregene asked. She nudged one mud-caked boot off, then the other. “Because it takes more than just pulling up your
deel
for him.”

I’d had plenty of lovers and envisioned my marriage as something akin to taking on a new horse, not an act that warranted deep contemplation. Toregene seemed to read my mind. “Men are simple creatures,” she said. “Not unlike a goat or a yak. But you wouldn’t ride a goat, and you wouldn’t take a yak across the Great Dry Sea. Just the same, each man is different. Take your brother Ogodei, for example.”

I really didn’t care to hear about my brother’s prowess—or lack thereof—as a lover, but Toregene didn’t even give me a chance to cover my ears.

“Ogodei isn’t interested in the finer points of tumbling,” she said, sighing so I wondered if perhaps her Merkid husband had been a more
generous lover than my brother. Again, I pushed the thought from my mind. Toregene had something in her palms—sheep fat from the smell of it—that she proceeded to massage into my hands. Normally I’d have groaned with pleasure, but this discussion made me feel like I was sitting inside a tiger’s mouth. One wrong move—

“Any woman who can brew
airag
and stew a goat will capture your brother’s heart,” she said, flipping her braid over her shoulder. “Fortunately, I happen to be skilled at both, whereas his first wife can scarcely manage to salt horsemeat.”

I wanted to say that there was nothing wrong with almost poisoning your entire family each time you attempted to feed them—after all, I’d done it several times myself—but decided against it.

“You and Sorkhokhtani must discover what your men want,” Toregene continued, “thus assuring your place as their main wives.”

“But we’ll already be first wives,” I said. “My father guaranteed that.”

“But a second wife can easily supplant the first.” Toregene’s gaze dropped out of modesty, but a devious smile curled the corners of her lips as she released my hands to pour us bowls of
airag
. “I did.”

“Yet none of my father’s wives ever supplanted my mother,” I said.

“Your mother and father share a rare bond,” Toregene admitted, sipping her
airag
from an ivory bowl carved with depictions of the Five Snouts. I’d have bet my tiger sword that it was her famous brew, although I couldn’t fathom how she’d managed to hide a jug from Ogodei. “Your parents’ love would stand regardless of how many wives your father took or how many women he has on his raids.”

I’d never thought of my father claiming women after his battles, and I didn’t care to begin now.

“I won’t meet Ala-Qush until almost the day we marry,” I said, feeling irritated. “I can’t anticipate what he’ll want from me.”

“You’ll have to work fast, then,” Toregene said. “Because he’ll want you in his bed that same night.” She turned her attention to Sorkhokhtani. “Now, as for Tolui . . .”

“Tolui likes to drink and to rut,” Sorkhokhtani said, shifting from one hip to the other. “Preferably at the same time.”

My jaw fell open, but Toregene laughed. “Well done, Sorkhokhtani.”

Our future Princess of the Hearth shrugged. “Don’t look at me like that, Alaqai. It’s not as if you haven’t tumbled in the grasses yourself.”

I turned the conversation back on her. “No wonder my brother clings to your shadow.”

Her delicate fingers fluttered in her lap. “I’ve taught him a thing or two, mostly because sinking his spear into me is the only thing that keeps him from crying into his bowls of
airag
.”

I frowned then, thinking of all the times this winter that Tolui had become so sloppy with
airag
and Onggud wine that my mother had ordered him out into the frigid cold to sober him.

“There’s no greater feeling than your blood boiling with lust. Don’t you miss that?” I asked them both.

Sorkhokhtani shrugged. “I haven’t had any man except for Tolui. Our coupling is nothing to make my blood boil”—she raised an eyebrow at me—“but I can tolerate it.”

Toregene only stared into the bowl of
airag
cupped in her hands.
“We’re not all so fortunate to feel passion with our husbands; sometimes we find love instead where we least expect it.” Her sharp glance killed the question on my lips. “You may be lucky and come to love Ala-Qush, but if not, don’t think for a moment that I’m sanctioning you tumbling another man once you’re married. You don’t want your children to end up like Jochi.”

My unfortunate brother with his murky blood. Toregene’s message was clear: I might find love with another man, but I was never to act on it.

Sorkhokhtani shot me a mischievous grin. “Although I’m sure you can make Ala-Qush’s blood boil if you can ride him all night long.”

I laughed at that. I knew not which spirit goaded Sorkhokhtani on, but I would miss this new girl when I left for Olon Süme.

“And you’ll have to deal with Ala-Qush’s other wife, the one he’s been forced to set aside for you,” Toregene said to me. “That will be no small task.”

Her unsaid words hung heavy in the air. That woman would view an untried girl as an easy target. I’d have six weeks in the Great Dry Sea to
ignore the inevitable, but now seemed as good a time as any to start heeding other people’s advice.

I heaved a great sigh and finally sat down, folding my legs under me. “I suppose I can sleep in my saddle.”

Toregene’s smile lit her already lined face and she raised her bowl to me. “There’s a good girl. Perhaps we should start with a discussion of which herbs can harden the softest of male flesh?”

*   *   *

I found myself wishing that night would never end as I joined in the laughter in Toregene’s tent, drinking enough
airag
to set my head throbbing, and sneaking back to my mother’s
ger
with Sorkhokhtani only when the chickadees heralded the coming dawn. In my absence, my mother had rolled and bound my waiting felts, and they stood like dutiful sentinels outside her door. Folded in a pile between them was a new
deel
and trousers dyed with the juice of red goji berries. Tears stung my eyes at the precious gift and the realization that daylight meant the end of this life and the beginning of a new one. It meant leaving my sisters and brothers.

And my mother.

One of Tolui’s snores exploded from inside the tent, like the snort of two great rams poised to smash their heads together. Sorkhokhtani groaned and I clapped my hands over my mouth to stifle my sleep-deprived laughter.

“Between all the sex and the snoring, I’m never going to sleep once we’re married,” Sorkhokhtani muttered.

“Dose him with
airag
and stuff your ears with wool.” I gasped for breath, then pulled her into a heartfelt hug. “I’m going to miss you.”

“And we’ll miss you,” Sorkhokhtani said, her hands fluttering awkwardly against my back. “You’d best go and ready yourself now if you want any peace and quiet,” she said, her gaze straying to the spreading light on the horizon.

“I’ll be back before the sky surrounds the sun,” I promised, giving her another quick hug and grabbing the scarlet bundle my mother had left for me.

The early song of a dun-colored jay accompanied me to the river, its surface shimmering like wet trout scales. I flung off my clothes and dove in as I’d done as a child, when I’d swum naked with Ogodei and Tolui. The river was bitingly cold and I gasped as my nipples puckered and gooseflesh rolled down my skin. To keep from defiling the river, I shivered my way back to the bank and scrubbed myself dry with my old caftan. The new
deel
and trousers were soft against my skin, evidence of the extra beatings my mother had given them, and I took care plaiting my braid down my back. I would bid my mother farewell with a clean body, if not a clean soul.

It seemed the entire sprawling camp had woken while I bathed, and it took me longer to retrace my steps as I bid farewell to childhood friends and women I recognized from drawing water at the river. They patted my cheeks and bid me a long life filled with easy winters and many children. When I finally neared my mother’s tent, my entire family stood ready to see me off. My brothers were closest in line, quaffing from a skin of wine. They bowed their heads to me—the only time I’d ever see them do so—and Ogodei offered me the wine.

I arched my eyebrow and took a sip, feeling it scorch the back of my throat and spread its warmth into my belly. “Feeling generous this morning?”

He tweaked my nose as he had when I was little, offering me his most jovial grin. “Don’t say I never gave you anything, sister.”

Dwarfed beside Ogodei, Tolui sniffed. His eyes glistened so I knew he was already drunk before I hit the wall of alcohol on his breath. Tears and drunkenness were common partners for my youngest brother, although it seemed early even for him to be red-faced with drink. I wanted to shake him by the front of his
deel
, to tell him to start acting like a man, but his lower lip quivered.

“I’ll miss you, sister,” he managed to choke out.

I pulled him to me then, not wanting his last memory of me to be a rebuke. I was sure my mother would fill his ears with reprimands later. “I’ll miss you, too,” I said, shooting Ogodei a meaningful look over my brother’s shoulder. “Listen to Sorkhokhtani,” I said as Ogodei sighed and led him off, hopefully to drop him in a horse trough. “You’re lucky to have her.”