The Tiger Queens (38 page)

I stared for a moment, horrified and entranced as I recognized the woman, her head thrown back in ecstasy.

Toregene. And Shigi.

It took a long moment to realize the emotion that stabbed my heart and ripped the breath from my lungs.

Jealousy.

I ducked behind an alder bush, hiding like the humiliated carpenter in my father’s illuminated book of fables, concealed under the bed while he listened to his wife and her lover above him. I wanted to scream at Toregene, the woman who had saved me from death and who now dug her fingers into Shigi’s back as his lips brushed the hollow of her neck. The depth of my envy and loneliness made me moan aloud, the black emotions overwhelming the walls I’d erected around my withered heart. I’d dared to dream of happiness while allowing Toregene’s and Shigi’s kindnesses to chip away at my defenses, but now I was betrayed.

Not betrayed, some small voice reminded me. Neither Shigi nor Toregene knew of my feelings or my hopes. I recalled their closeness on our return from Nishapur, the way Shigi sometimes lingered when he brought Toregene rare herbs purchased from passing caravans and how they often laughed at some secret joke, their heads bent together.

I pressed my fist to my mouth, turned on my heel, and raced back up the path. I was almost to Toregene’s tent when Ogodei emerged from a copse of trees, retying the belt on his trousers amidst the smell of fresh urine.

“The Rose of Nishapur, returning from a midnight tryst?” The moonlight reflected off his crooked grin.

“Ogodei,” I stammered, resisting the urge to look over my shoulder. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“This is my
ger
.” He glanced beyond me, and for once I couldn’t smell any alcohol on his breath. “Where is my wife? I’ve become accustomed to seeing you in her shadow.”

My heart stalled and I shook my head, seeing again the terrible image of Toregene entwined with Shigi against the tree. I was glad for my veil when Ogodei’s eyes narrowed to slits. The man was a drunk, but he was no fool, and he would be the next Khan. “I believe Toregene is sitting with Borte Khatun,” I said.

Ogodei’s grin widened. “My wife has found a faithful servant in you, Fatima, but you need not lie for her. She’s not with you, so that means she must be with Shigi just now.”

I stared at him, dumbstruck. “I don’t know what you mean,” I stammered.

He tsked me under his breath. “You can’t fathom the idea that I might know of—perhaps even condone—my wife’s love of another man, can you?”

He was right. In Nishapur, a woman caught with a man other than her husband would be publicly stoned to death for adultery. And yet here even Ogodei knew of Shigi and Toregene’s relationship, while I alone had been blind.

“I was once infatuated with Toregene, caught under the spell of her strange eyes,” Ogodei said, running a hand over his thinning hair. “But that was many years ago. She gave me the heir I needed and runs an
efficient camp while I drink and carouse. In return, I allow her happiness with our family’s very talented scribe.”

“You are indeed generous and magnanimous,” I muttered. My soul was stained with my mother’s death and my lust for Al-Altun’s blood, but just when I thought I’d discovered the furthest limits of these heathens’ degradation, they surprised me yet again.

Ogodei laughed at my sour expression. “And you, Rose of Nishapur, were it not for my wife’s protection, would find yourself the subject of my ardent pursuit.”

“What?”

He chuckled, but then sobered. “Toregene tells me your heart will be forever buried with your husband.” He reached out as if to touch my veil but dropped his hand. “He was a lucky man to have inspired such devotion from such a woman as you.”

“I—”

I couldn’t find the words to agree with or rebuff Ogodei, or anything else for that matter. He gave me a sad smile. “Have no fear, Rose of Nishapur. I’ve never taken an unwilling woman to my bed, and I’m too set in my ways to start now. You’re safe from me, and from any man, as far as I’m concerned.”

After a moment, he gave a harrumph and adjusted his belly over his belt. “Tell Toregene when you see her that I seek her advice,” he said. “And I don’t care to wait long for it.”

He lumbered back up the path, and I stood staring after him, my jaw slack.

Why was nothing about these Mongols as it seemed?

*   *   *

“When were you going to inform me of your relationship with Shigi?” I glowered at Toregene, fists on my hips as she closed the door behind her, filling her tent with the scent of the crisp night air and something else that almost brought me to my knees.

Happiness.

She shrugged out of her fur wrap and busied herself unlacing her boots. “The cold must have addled your mind,” she said, but I cut her off.

“I saw you with him tonight.” My tone was biting, petulant even to my own ears as I threw off my veil and the tiger comb. “I’d like to think you both drank too much wine out of grief and realized afterward the weight of your mistake, but I doubt that’s the truth.”

“I’m sorry, Fatima.” She heaved a wretched sigh. “I thought about telling you several times, but I couldn’t bear to hurt you.”

“Hurt me?” Was it possible my thoughts toward Shigi had been so transparent? “What do you mean?”

Toregene traced the spine of my thick blue record book, identical to the one Shigi used to record his version of the Golden Family’s history. “I believed you might have feelings for Shigi. I didn’t wish to cause you pain, but Shigi and I . . . We’ve loved each other for a long time.”

“I see.” I wanted to howl with my suffering, but instead my eyes burned with unshed tears and I cleared my throat. “How long?”

“Since almost the day Genghis brought me to the Golden Family.”

“What?” Such a revelation was almost more shocking than what I’d seen tonight in the woods.

“Borte took me in, but it was Shigi who helped me see the sunlight in each day after all the darkness I’d witnessed during the Blood Wars. We never acted on our feelings, for I knew Borte wished me to marry one of her sons. I married Ogodei and then Genghis took Shigi on the campaign against the Tanghut.”

“Because he suspected you?”

She shrugged. “Perhaps. Yet I was a good wife to Ogodei, running his household and giving him Güyük. It wasn’t until more recently that anything happened.”

My hands fluttered helplessly at my sides; I didn’t care to listen to the details of Toregene’s love for Shigi, but she looked beyond me now. “Shigi first kissed me one night not long after Nishapur,” she said, tucking loose strands of hair behind her ears, her expression taking on a dreamlike quality. “I thought everyone would know my heart didn’t belong to Ogodei then, but no one noticed, or if they did, they didn’t care. We tried to fight our feelings for a long time, but . . .”

She shrugged and I thought then of one of my favorite verses in the
beloved old volume of ancient poetry I’d left behind in Mansoor’s library, wondering if perhaps it was still there now, forgotten beneath a layer of dust or perhaps long since burned in some marauder’s fire. I spoke aloud:

“Did my Beloved only touch me with his lips,

I, too, like the flute, would burst out in melody.

But he who is parted from him that speak his tongue

Though he possess a hundred voices, is perforce dumb.”

Toregene smiled at my recitation. “I knew you’d understand.”

I swallowed a swell of sadness, struck silent at how I’d misread the entire situation. Perhaps I did understand Toregene, but only because I’d experienced such a love with Mansoor. My own battered emotions aside, she was still Ogodei’s senior wife and a member of the Golden Family. “Don’t you worry what people will think?” I asked.

“People see what they want to see. No one expects a woman with gray in her hair and a face as plain as sand to love the Tatar brother of Genghis Khan.”

“Ogodei knows.”

That seemed to catch her attention. “Does he?”

“It doesn’t seem to bother him.”

She offered me a meager smile. “Ogodei ceased caring for me once my mismatched eyes and the curves of my body lost their newness. But Shigi loved me long before I married Ogodei. He’ll love me until the day I die.”

My brittle heart threatened to crack at her words, but I gave a weak smile, until her next words stole away my breath.

“Enough of all this talk of love,” she said. “We have much to do to prepare for their arrival.”

I blinked hard. “Whose arrival?”

“I saw the riders on my way back from the . . .” Her voice trailed off and she had the decency to look embarrassed. “Alaqai and Boyahoe will be here tomorrow. Al-Altun won’t be far behind them.”

Al-Altun.

I’d thought that perhaps I might fill my life with love, but I recognized this sign from Allah. With tonight’s discovery, I now knew it would not be love that gave my life meaning, but something else entirely, something I’d silently nurtured as I had the narcissus bulbs, and that now overshadowed my desire for love.

Revenge.

*   *   *

I avoided Shigi in the days to come, reconciling myself to the fact that he was a man I might have loved had I been given a chance. Yet that was never to be. Sleep eluded me as I imagined Al-Altun’s return, and I wove plot after plot to ensure my success. When I did sleep, it was to dream of my father and Mansoor, their eyes hard and accusing after all the years I’d squandered without avenging them.

One raw and soulless night, I dreamed of my mother, blood dribbling from her lips. “Kill Al-Altun as you killed me,” she whispered. “Give her the narcissus bulbs as you did me, and end her life.”

I woke from that dream gasping and with tears streaming down my face. The shadows under my eyes deepened to the color of fresh bruises, so it was the first thing Alaqai mentioned as she dismounted her red-and-white horse.

“Has Toregene been beating you?” she asked gaily after she’d greeted Toregene, crushing me in a hug that threatened to break my ribs. “Or merely keeping you up all night working on her ledgers?”

“It’s my own fault.” I waved away her concern, feeling both Toregene’s and Shigi’s gazes heavy on my back. “Too many thoughts in my head.”

“You must learn to think less, then,” Alaqai said, releasing me. “And learn instead to enjoy life.”

Boyahoe had already dismounted and was speaking in earnest with Ogodei, although the future Gur-Khan only roared with laughter and clapped Alaqai’s husband on his back, gathering the tall young man at his side into his free arm and tousling his hair. Toregene clasped her hands before her and smiled. “It seems you and your family have found happiness once again, Alaqai.”

Alaqai’s gaze strayed to her husband and the boy who bore a striking
resemblance to her. Her eyes sparkled. “I never expected it, but I think Jingue’s spirit would smile upon us.”

“The Khan always said Boyahoe made a fine soldier,” Toregene said. “I’m glad to hear he makes a good husband as well.”

Alaqai laughed at that. “Boyahoe is more my son than husband, but he’s as fine a father to Negudei as I could ask for.”

Toregene glanced at Boyahoe, then back to Alaqai. “Then you’re not . . .”

“By the Earth Mother, no.” Alaqai made a face. “Boyahoe has his other wives for all that, and ruling the Onggud and raising my wild hellion leaves me no time to ponder my cold bed.”

A smile played on Toregene’s lips. “I’d have thought a cold bed would have been a greater hardship than you could bear.”

“And once I would have agreed with you.” Alaqai laughed. “Yet most nights I fall asleep before my head hits my pillow. I don’t know how my mother managed with all of us.”

“Borte Khatun will be pleased to see you,” Toregene said. I hoped she was right, for since the Khan’s death, Borte had scarcely left her tent. In truth, I’d avoided the Khatun these past days, terrified that she might see into my shriveled heart and discover the hot fire of revenge burning there.

Toregene gestured to the path leading to Borte’s tent. “I’ll take you to her.”

Alaqai followed but paused before me and clasped my hands. “I meant what I said,” she whispered. “We widows can choose the easy path and allow grief to consume us, or we can find a new purpose in this life, Fatima of Nishapur. Our hearts are forever scarred, but in living life we might honor our husbands.”

I stared at her, Mansoor’s final words expanding and filling my mind as Alaqai squeezed my hands. She kissed my veiled cheek, then swept away like a hot desert wind.

Live for both of us, Fatima, and I’ll meet you in the gardens of Jannah.

Yet I was never destined for the paradise of Jannah, not after I’d helped usher my mother to her death.

Alaqai didn’t need to know that I’d already found a new purpose in life.

*   *   *

Al-Altun didn’t make it to the Khan’s deathbed, but Ogodei ordered a feast in her honor when the Khatun of the Uighurs arrived at our temporary camp at the base of the Altai Mountains, come to pay her respects to the man who had sired her. My hands trembled as she approached on horseback, only growing calm when I touched the silk bag of narcissus bulbs hidden within the folds of my robe.

Patience is bitter, but it has a sweet fruit.

And tonight, under the silver light of the moon and the golden glow of countless cook fires, I would have my revenge.

The Khatun of the Uighurs hadn’t changed since I’d seen her at Nishapur, and my throat tightened at the remembrance of her on my city’s walls, grinning wildly at the carnage spread before her. My gaze lingered on the gleaming hilt of the sword slung in Ogodei’s belt, and I wondered if perhaps the price of slitting Al-Altun’s throat in full view of the Golden Family might be worth the consequences.

I knew what I had to do. And I wouldn’t allow myself to fail.

Most of the Golden Family had already disbanded and left the Altai Mountains, deciding that the arrival of Genghis’ youngest daughter wasn’t incentive enough to linger away from their homelands any longer. Alaqai and Boyahoe cited their need to return to the Onggud before the snows flew, and Borte remained in her tent, claiming Al-Altun could meet with her later that evening if she wished.