The Tiger Queens (51 page)

“Sorkhokhtani Beki.” Batu Khan’s voice boomed out across the night, and I looked up to see him dressed in simple felts and furs, his only adornment the House of Batu’s great copper dragon insignia on his belt. He grinned under a thick beard in the Rus style and his strong hands whisked me down as if I were a young girl, reminding me of when I’d greeted the Great Khan for the first time. Batu chuckled under his breath as a crowd gathered round. “Your arrival tells me that I won’t spend this winter building my capital and tending my herds.”

“Life on these steppes is never dull,” I said, keeping my voice light. I was old enough to be Batu’s mother, but the man would have made my blood run hot in my youth. With shoulders wider than an ox’s, a crooked grin, and a shock of hair as black as a bear, the man had his share of female
admirers, but he remained faithful to his wives. Despite that, the men held him in as high esteem as they had his grandfather. It was only due to his father’s dubious parentage that Batu could never seize power himself, for no man would ever follow a man with Jochi’s muddied blood.

Jochi.
Guest.

Not for the first time, I wondered at Genghis Khan’s wisdom at saddling his firstborn with such a name. Things might have been so different if Jochi had been named Khan instead of Ogodei, if Güyük had never sat upon the Horse Throne.

Men might not accept the Khan’s helm on Batu, but they’d go where he led.

“Alaqai and Shigi,” Batu said, acknowledging the remainder of Genghis’ family. Beneath all the dust from the road, Shigi wore the blue that denoted his station as supreme judge and scribe of the Golden Family. Next to him, Alaqai’s white hair was twisted under a headdress shaped like two yak horns and dangling with gold coins and carnelian beads. She looked so much like Borte that for a moment I thought I viewed a glimpse of the spirit world. “I’m pleased to see you join us,” Batu said.

“You should be,” Alaqai said, looping her arm through his. “As we’ve come to rid our empire of the scourge of Toregene’s son.”

I followed them into Batu’s Great Tent, feeling the heat radiate off my nephew like a small sun in the dark. His first wife scurried about like a plump brown shrew, offering us cups of salt tea and bowls of steaming stew. I forced myself not to wave her away, and instead accepted the meal on a wooden tray carved with wildflowers.

“You should eat,” Batu murmured when I didn’t touch the food. “Milk paste and raw meat softened under a saddle grow old after only a few days.”

“We scarcely stopped even for that,” Alaqai said. “Sorkhokhtani sets a hard pace.”

“Your wife’s cooking is renowned,” I said, giving Batu a pointed look. His mouse of a wife still bustled around, but he quickly caught her attention and sent her outside with an excuse that our horses needed tending.

“We’ve just come from Karakorum,” I said, once the door was closed. Propriety demanded that we eat first, and then discuss the meaning of our
journey, but decorum would have to wait until after the empire was righted. “Güyük requires your presence in his capital.”

Batu laughed at that, a deep, booming sound that made the walls of his tent flutter. “And if I refuse the imbecile’s demands?”

I shrugged. “Then he’ll march against you.”

Batu set aside his soup. “I’m no fool. Güyük will either march against me or he’ll greet me with an army outside Karakorum. It was always going to come to this.”

“Of course he thinks to fight you,” I said, although I didn’t mention that I hoped that wouldn’t happen. “Better to draw the bear out of his den, don’t you think?”

Alaqai snorted at that. “Güyük is no bear. More like a saw-toothed weasel.”

“I shall be happy to meet Güyük on a field of my own choosing.” Batu ground one fist into his palm, and I could well imagine what went through his mind then.

“And after?” I asked.

Batu relaxed but leaned forward so his elbows rested on his knees. “I keep my promises, Sorkhokhtani. Möngke fought well with me on the Ryazan campaign and I swore a blood oath that I’d support your sons in a
khurlatai
. Tell me you wish to gather the clans for Möngke’s nomination, and the Golden Horde will be there.”

I filled my lungs with my nephew’s scent, then pressed my forehead to his for a moment. “Thank you, Batu,” I said. “I can never repay you.”

“Don’t thank me until the Khan’s helm sits upon Möngke’s head.” He chuckled. “Although I will say, you and I make a decent team for the son of a bastard and the widow of the drunken Prince of the Hearth.”

“You are a good man, Batu Khan,” I said, brushing off the skirt of my
deel
to hide the heat in my cheeks. I was overcome with weariness, yet there was still much to do. “When will your army be ready to move?”

Batu’s teeth gleamed in the firelight. “They’d march tonight if I told them to.”

I chuckled. “Tomorrow will suffice, Batu Khan.”

Tomorrow I would ride with Batu’s army toward this empire’s destiny. By this time next month I might be the mother of the next Khan.

Or I might be a corpse, sharing a grave with those who surrounded me this night.

*   *   *

The army’s pace was almost relaxing after our furious push from Karakorum, laden as we were with reserve horses and Batu’s ten thousand men. As we realized that the coming battle would be the decisive fight, the sun seemed suddenly brighter, the wind crisper, and the calls of the cranes overhead sharper.

We gathered my sons and their smaller contingents of soldiers from their wives and hearths, and I watched in silent pleasure as Batu and Möngke greeted each other like reunited brothers, roaring with happiness as they clapped each other on the back, comrades in arms from the siege against Ryazan. Together, our expedition passed the three
ordus
that Alaqai and I had erected, and halted the entire army so that Batu, Möngke, and Kublai could seek blessings of our family’s matriarch. My throat tightened when each of Batu’s soldiers bowed their heads as they passed the three tents.

Shortly after, we entered a town where I’d funded the building of a Saracen school and were received warmly by the governor. I’d appointed many officials during my time as regent of Tolui’s lands, and those officers now clamored to see my son on the throne. However, we learned as we changed horses that Güyük had left Karakorum and was preparing a great army to meet us outside the city.

“Güyük is smarter than I thought,” Batu said from his saddle, a piece of art with its golden-clawed dragons. “He must have realized I’d refuse to greet him without a fight.”

“Move slowly,” I counseled Batu. I knew not whether Oghul Ghaimish traveled with her husband, but I wished to allow her every opportunity for revenge before our two sides clashed on a battlefield. So few of us were left who recalled the early days of the Blood War, before Genghis Khan’s own
khurlatai
. I remembered, though, and I had no wish to water the steppes with the blood of the Thirteen Tribes.

Only Güyük’s.

*   *   *

We waited for word from Güyük, but Karakorum was strangely silent. The reason why was revealed soon afterward, as a lone rider galloped from the direction of the capital, sending up puffs of fireweed cotton in the wind. News of our army had certainly reached the Golden Ordu by now, but at the sight of us the rider hauled back on his horse’s reins so hard that the animal reared up.

“I’ll go to him,” Alaqai said. “No one will fear an old woman.”

Kublai chortled. “He should when that woman could hit him with an arrow from a hundred paces.” Alaqai gave a bark of laughter, but her lips curled up in a proud smile.

“I’ll join you,” I said, nudging my horse’s ribs before my sons could protest. This messenger likely carried news about Güyük, and I wished to be among the first to hear it.

Alaqai was right—the rider urged his horse forward, then dismounted and fell to his knees at the sight of the Khatun of the Onggud and the Princess of the Hearth. I recognized him as one of Shigi’s slaves, left behind in Karakorum. He wore a gold medallion at his throat now, marking him as a slave of Güyük’s house.

“What news have you from Karakorum?” Alaqai asked.

The rider looked up with bloodshot eyes and a face creased with black grime from many days on the road. Whatever message he carried must be an important one. “I have word of Güyük Khan, son of Ogodei Khan and grandson of Genghis Khan,” the slave said, his hands trembling in his lap.

“Does the Khan wish to negotiate with us?” I asked, gripping the horn of my saddle. “Or shall we meet in a field of blood?”

“Neither, Sorkhokhtani Beki,” the man said. “The Great Khan is dead.”

“Dead?” Alaqai glanced at me. “How can that be?”

The man bowed his head again. “Güyük Khan stopped with his army to hunt. They took down a great herd of deer, but after the feast that night, he fell ill. He lingered for a day in great pain, and then his spirit flew to the sacred mountains.”

I turned my horse, ready to gallop back to Batu and my sons with the news of our victory, yet there was one more thing I needed to know.

“And Oghul Ghaimish?” I asked over my shoulder. “Did the Khan’s first wife travel with him on his expedition from the city?”

The messenger nodded. “She did. It was the Great Khatun who sent me to ride for your army, to thank you for the gift you gave her, and to spread news of her ascension to the Horse Throne.”

I whirled around at that, my horse prancing beneath me. “What did you say?”

The slave cringed at my tone. “Oghul Ghaimish has claimed the green headdress of the Great Khatun and the regency as well.” He rifled through his saddlebags, then produced a crumpled paper. “She’s proclaimed the family of Tolui to be outcasts of the Golden Family and offers a reward for anyone who would bring the heads of Möngke and Kublai to her.”

My heart ceased beating and ice flowed through my veins. I glanced back to where my sons waited with Batu. Only Möngke and Kublai might challenge Oghul Ghaimish’s right to rule, or her sons’ eventual succession, so of course she would seek to rid herself of that threat. “Then you’ve come to kill my sons?”

The slave shook his head. “I served Shigi and Toregene Khatun faithfully, and witnessed the purges ordered by Güyük Khan and the glee with which Oghul Ghaimish carried out his commands. I wish only to continue in peace with the rest of my mission.”

“And what might that be?” Alaqai asked.

“I’m to travel west with the proclamation of Oghul Ghaimish’s coronation, and from there to the court of King Louis IX, to demand that the French king come to Karakorum to surrender to her, and to bring crates of silver and gold to ensure her goodwill.”

I laughed aloud at the audacity of the mad bitch and the lunacy of her demands of the far-flung kingdom of France. It would take years for the slave to deliver his message to King Louis and return with an answer. No wonder he was content to leave us and continue on his way.

Next to me, Alaqai snorted in derision. “You’d best go, then. Be well, messenger.”

The slave mounted his gelding, offering bows to both Alaqai and myself before kicking his horse and galloping onward.

“What do we do now?” Alaqai asked.

I stared in the direction of Karakorum, where a crazed woman now sat in the Golden Ordu.

“We call a
khurlatai
,” I said. “And then we ride on Karakorum and remove Oghul Ghaimish from my son’s throne.”

*   *   *

We made good time as we took a circuitous route back to our homelands, following the network of supporters I’d carefully cultivated over the years. As word of the impending
khurlatai
spread, in each camp I was hailed as the mother of the future Great Khan. Most of the
gers
held felt effigies of Genghis Khan, and it was a simple matter to remind the people that the great conqueror’s blood ran in my sons’ veins. The years of bowing my head and trying to remain unnoticed disappeared into the past, and instead I sang Möngke’s praises until he might have rivaled Abraham, Christ, or Muhammad. I never spoke Oghul Ghaimish’s name aloud, but it was a simple matter to place the blame for our crumbling empire squarely on her lap by raising questions about the sharp rise in our tribute taxes while spreading word of her involvement in Güyük’s bloody purges.

It was with a glad heart that I oversaw the preparations for the
khurlatai
. Our paddocks were overrun with animals, most of which would be slaughtered to feed the visiting guests. Girls worked under the stars to prepare vats of fermented mare’s milk, uncaring of whether the colts cried for lack of their mothers’ tits. Within a few days both would be butchered, and blood and milk alike would feed the earth again. A new wrestling ring had already been constructed and targets had been drawn and stuffed with fresh hay for the archery competitions. I imagined a similar
khurlatai
presided over by another mother. Borte Khatun had been mother to the Golden Family and also to the People of the Felts. Now, I, the lowly Princess of the Hearth, would repair this shattered jade realm. All that remained was for the guests to arrive, to cast their vote with their presence and proclaim my firstborn as the new Great Khan.

The first to appear were the twin crones, Yesugen and Yesui, ignored
wives of Genghis Khan. Dressed in matching yellow cashmere
deels
and flowing robes of leopard and tiger skin lined with sable, bent and stooped with hands like claws, Yesugen had grown half-deaf and Yesui was as blind as a newborn pup. Their lands had long ago been confiscated by Ogodei, but they were the last of the old generation of the Thirteen Tents.

“Mother Yesui.” I clasped her hands, gnarled with brown spots like rotted berries but with nails neatly trimmed. “And Mother Yesugen. You honor us with your presence.”

“Horse manure,” Yesugen said, almost shouting. “We came to see the end of this saga.”

“
You
came only for the food,” Yesui said to her sister, her rheumy eyes staring past me. Her clawlike hand clasped my forearm and she pulled herself taller so she might whisper in my ear. “I came to see Oghul Ghaimish swept from the Horse Throne.”