The Tiger Queens (8 page)

“Our family is strong as this stone,” she said, a temporary hush falling over the merriment. “May you be blessed with the strength of the sacred mountains and the fertility of the Earth Mother.”

Then Mother Khogaghchin tweaked my nose, laughing so I was made dizzy by the smell of
airag
on her breath.

“Out!” Temujin roared with laughter, ushering everyone to the door as he tossed off his headdress. Most of the men took up singing bawdy songs of encouragement that made my cheeks flame. Yet one man didn’t raise his voice in song.

“Jamuka!” Temujin yelled too loud. Jamuka had been almost outside, and he turned slowly now, his face a mask. “No well-wishes from my
anda
?”

“You’ve been showered with many blessings today,” Jamuka said, although his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I pray that you enjoy them.”

“You need more
airag
, my friend.” Temujin clapped Jamuka on the back. “Rest well and perhaps I’ll see you in the morning.”

Jamuka’s jaw clenched as he glanced at me, as if he couldn’t bear to be within sight of me. I wondered at his animosity, whether he believed like so many others that I had doomed his
anda
. I tossed my head in defiance and waited for the tent flap to fall behind him before turning back to my husband.

As I watched Temujin pull off his boots, the tent felt suddenly too hot and too cold at the same time. I craved fresh air but shivered so the beads on my headdress rattled, like the voices of ancestors long since dead. My head pounded in time to my heart so it was all I could do to keep my stomach calm.

I tugged at the bone toggle on my red felt cloak, but the
airag
made my fingers slip. Temujin suddenly stood before me and covered my hands with his.

“Let me help,” he said.

But instead of pulling off my cloak, he removed the wedding headdress and tossed it unceremoniously to the ground. I couldn’t stop the sigh of relief that escaped my lips, and his mouth curved into a smile. His fingers undid the intricate braids my mother had toiled over and then wove their
way through my hair, kneading my scalp and soaking up the tension of the day. The hammers in my skull gradually lessened, but my heart still pounded a steady beat. I knew the tactic, the same used to relax an animal before its slaughter.

But I would grasp this destiny I’d chosen with both hands, uninhibited and undaunted.

I pressed my body against his and caressed the scrape on his shoulder, my fingers coming away with a smear of his blood. The hardness of his desire didn’t shock me, but instead made me bold. I kissed him then, relishing his groan as his lips parted under mine. He picked me up and spread me over the black sable coat, covering me with his body. I felt his inhale, the way his soul spread its eager fingers into mine. “I am indeed a lucky man,” he said, his voice rough with emotion as his lips brushed my ear.

“The luckiest of men,” I murmured, feeling wanton as my skirt bunched up around my hips. Only the thin fabric of our trousers separated us from each other.

He laughed then, and I smiled, my cheeks warming. Outside there was a shout for us to get on with it, then a roar of laughter.

“We’d best do as they say,” I murmured.

Temujin pulled me to him. “Do you always do as you’re told?”

“Rarely.” I worked off his belt and tossed it aside. “You’d best enjoy it while you can.”

*   *   *

I awoke the next morning, heavy limbed and sore at the cleft between my legs, but finally free from the worries that had circled over me these past weeks. I noticed for the first time the bristly back of a hedgehog’s hide tied over the door for good luck, and wondered at my fortune this far, pondering for a moment whether it would last. I tried to untangle myself from Temujin without waking him, but he reached out and clasped my wrist.

“Stay,” he said.

“You don’t need me to milk the goats?” I teased. “Or gather dung for the fire?”

“Not today,” he said, his fingers moving to caress the underside of my breast. “Perhaps never if I can keep you right here instead.”

My body responded to his touch and it didn’t take long before my husband was inside me again, both of us gasping at our release. He lay next to me for a moment, then swung his legs over the bed and stretched, every muscle in his body chiseled like the boulders of the sacred hills.

“I leave for Ong Khan’s today,” he said, shrugging into his leather breeches.

“We won’t observe the eight days?” Wedding celebrations traditionally lasted eight full days before the bride’s family deserted her. If Temujin left, there would be no reason for my mother to stay any longer. My family was here now, in this tiny tent.

“I must deliver the sable,” he said. The stubble of his cheeks scratched my skin as he trailed kisses down my neck. “Don’t tell me you’ll miss me.”

I shrugged, unsure of the answer. “Perhaps I should come with you.”

He seemed to consider it as he tied his belt, but then he shook his head. “It’s a dangerous journey for any woman, especially you.”

I scowled. “I wouldn’t slow you down—”

Then I realized what he meant, that he was unwilling to tempt any clans along the way into stealing me and inciting a war. My shoulders slumped, the worries from before settling onto their old perches in my soul.

Temujin kissed my nose. “My brothers and Teb Tengeri will join me to see Ong Khan, but Jamuka will remain here. He’ll keep you safe.”

I let my husband of one night leave me then, ignoring his brothers’ ribald teasing as he kissed me from the door of our
ger
. He walked away with Jamuka, their heads bent in the ever-important discussions of men, while we women remained behind.

I’d done my best to avoid Jamuka since he’d brought Temujin back into my life. Now I’d have to face him whether I cared to or not.

*   *   *

My mother disappeared with Temujin over the horizon that afternoon, for my husband had offered to accompany her cart home to my father before he continued on to Ong Khan. I missed her already, and so it was that Jamuka found me shaking wooden buckets of goat milk and salting the curds with my tears.

“Greetings, Borte Ujin,” he said, his voice strangely formal. I recalled the conversation we’d shared on the mountaintop and the way the moon had lit his face, but now I dragged my sleeve across my eyes at his approach.

His easy elegance was out of place in this crude camp, the fine cut of his
deel
and his chiseled features, yet his easy manner now seemed forced, his shoulders squared as if for battle. “I came to see how you fared.”

“I’m happy among my new family.” I gestured to the bedraggled tents that surrounded us, longing instead to see the bright
gers
and familiar mountains of home. Jamuka studied me and I ducked my head so he wouldn’t see my blotchy face.

“You seem as happy as a lost crane,” he said. “Just like that night on the mountaintop—”

I held up a hand. “That night never happened.”

He stared at me for a moment; then his face hardened. “I see.” He straightened and brushed his fine tunic free of imaginary dust. “As you have no need of me here, I’ll return to my clan.”

“But I thought Temujin asked you to remain—”

“Temujin will return in a few days. Until then you shall have Khasar for protection.”

A lone boy to protect me, three old women, and a little girl.

“Does my husband know you would leave his wife and mother to fend for themselves?” I aimed the barb at his retreating back. As much as I preferred Jamuka gone for my own peace of mind, I didn’t relish the idea of being left unprotected and surrounded by unknown clans.

He didn’t spare me a final glance, as if he couldn’t bear to look at me. “My
anda
will understand.”

I went back to straining the goat curds and was startled when Hoelun touched me on the elbow, peering through squinted eyes at Jamuka’s shrinking silhouette.

“Jamuka leaves our camp in a hurry,” she said, both a statement and a question. He took only his horse, leaving the tent he’d shared with Teb Tengeri as the only testament to his existence. “Jamuka has never before gone against his
anda
’s wishes.”

I shrugged. “He claimed Temujin would understand.”

She stared at me overlong, then turned and shuffled toward the
ger
. “I doubt he would,” she said, casting a wary glance at me over her shoulder. “At least not yet.”

*   *   *

I wiped the sweat from my brow, bent over the fragrant goat-meat-and-onion stew boiling over the cooking stones outside while Hoelun and Mother Khogaghchin worked to stretch the skin of the freshly slaughtered goat. Temujin had returned a week after Jamuka’s retreat—puzzled and then annoyed at his
anda
’s disappearance—and we’d fallen into a comfortable routine as I learned that my husband had an insatiable appetite for everything: horses,
airag
, wrestling, hunting. And me.

Ong Khan had received Temujin warmly, exchanging the black sable coat for promises that he would protect Temujin’s people. Flush with his victory, Temujin pulled me onto his blankets each night, both of us so eager for each other that we’d often wake throughout the night to rouse the other. I was well loved, and surprised to find I enjoyed my husband’s thorough attentions.

“My son uses you well,” Hoelun said, straightening to stretch her back. Temulun played at her feet, her fingers tangled in a skein of brown yarn. In the distance Temujin and his younger brother, Khasar, practiced shooting arrows at a bag of feathers strung from a tree. The occasional lucky shot would send a puff of white feathers into the air, like downy leaves twirling to the earth.

“We use each other well,” I said, flushing and adding a bit of precious salt to the stew. My arms ached from a morning spent churning butter, turning blocks of fragrant white cheese in the sun, and mixing a cauldron of salt tea with Hoelun’s giant iron ladle. Other parts of me ached pleasantly from my night spent in Temujin’s arms.

She chuckled. “I pray you will always bring such joy to him. We all hope you will soon gift him with a strong foal.”

I’d just buried the bloody rags from my monthly bloods; unclean blood was never burned inside a
ger
because it would offend the spirit of the fire. Hoelun and I both knew there was no child in my womb yet. Hoelun rose
then and shuffled past Mother Khogaghchin. “A woman with your gifts would be a prize for any man. A child of Temujin’s would mark you as his so other men would be less tempted to lay claim to you.”

Mother Khogaghchin raised an eyebrow at me while Hoelun made a great show of sorting through her meager box of dented and mostly broken skinning tools. I ducked my head, recalling the way she’d watched Jamuka ride off only days ago.

I knew then that I’d have to watch myself around my new mother. Hoelun’s eyes missed nothing.

W
e made plans to break camp and leave the barren cliffs of the Sengur River in search of fresh summer pastures for the animals. The few sheep in Temujin’s pitiful herd were sheared, the carts packed, and all the tents save the largest lay dismantled in preparation. We would drink traditional salt tea in the morning before packing everything—including the
ger
poles and the weakest lambs and kids—on the backs of our strongest animals to travel south. I was among the last awake on that fateful night, tormented by the others’ snores and the constant pressure of Hoelun’s eyes on me.

I drifted toward the world of dreams until a woman’s high-pitched scream ripped me back to reality.

At first I thought it was Temulun screaming during a child’s nightmare, but then I realized it was Mother Khogaghchin, frantic, her white hair streaming loose behind her like tendrils of the wind.

“Get up,” she shrieked. “They’re coming to kill us!”

I heard the rumble of approaching horses then, felt the fearful shudder of the Earth Mother. Temujin’s enemies had raided his clan countless times during the years we’d been separated, but I’d assumed the alliance with Ong Khan would protect us despite the clans’ constant jostling for control of the herds and the spoils of war that would help them survive each winter. My knees trembled as my bowels threatened to turn to water.

“Don’t stand there, girl,” Khogaghchin yelled, shaking me. “The Tayichigud will slaughter us in our beds!”

Hoelun leapt from her blankets, and our meager army of men and boys snapped awake in the face of an assault. The Tayichigud had attacked Temujin before our marriage and weren’t likely to forget the insult of his escape from bondage. Temujin slung his bow and arrows over his back, tucked a knife into my boot, and shoved me toward the herds. “Get to the horses!”

I pulled Sochigel toward the wide-eyed animals. The horses pawed nervously at the ground, throwing their manes and snorting as Teb Tengeri pulled himself onto his thick-legged mount without a thought for anyone else. Still running, I realized that Hoelun had fallen behind, dragging Temulun after her. The girl’s face was red, and tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Sochigel—”

The old woman nodded, released my arm, and hobbled toward the horses as fast as her old legs could carry her. I ran back to help Temulun, tucking the girl under my arm so Hoelun could clamber onto a dun-colored mare. I passed her daughter up to her.

The first hint of daylight formed a golden backdrop for the growing haze of dust in the east. I turned to find my mount, then gasped at the awful realization.

There weren’t enough horses.

“Borte,” Temujin hollered, offering his hand. “Let’s go!”

“No!” Hoelun yelled, her horse prancing and straining against the reins. “The Tayichigud are after us. They’ll steal her if they catch us, just as your father did me!”

“I’d hunt down every last one of them if they did,” Temujin shouted.

Cold dread spiraled down into my stomach and filled my mouth with the metallic tang of fear as Temujin echoed the words of my curse. War—and the prophecy of blood and death—would be inevitable if Hoelun spoke the truth.

A silver-white gelding stepped between us, and its rider addressed Temujin, his voice crisp and steady amidst the chaos.

“Your wife will return to you.” Teb Tengeri placed one fist over his heart. “I swear it.”

“No!” Temujin shouted, shaking his head. His warhorse sidestepped the shaman to stand before me. “My wife comes with us, or we stay and fight.”

Nothing in the bones could have prepared me for the decision I now had to make. I couldn’t watch Temujin and his family being slaughtered before me, their blood feeding the grasses and their eyes glassy with death.

Bells tinkled behind me and I turned to see Mother Khogaghchin harness a speckled ox to a rickety old cart loaded with wool.

“Borte is safest if she’s not with you,” she said. “I’ll hide her. No one will search an old woman’s cart.”

“Leave me,” I said to Temujin, shocked at the evenness of my voice. I stepped back, lengthening and filling the space between my husband and me with cold air. “I’m safe with Khogaghchin.”

The battle in Temujin’s heart was written plain on his face. I’d slow his horse if I went with him, and then be forced to witness the inevitable bloodshed. If I stayed behind, at least there was hope for everyone else.

“I won’t leave you.” He leaned down from his mount, grabbed my hand, and tried to haul me onto his horse’s bare back, wasting precious time.

I stood on tiptoes and clasped his forearm. “Everyone here depends on you.”

He glanced at his family waiting on their horses, the resolve crumbling on his face. “Wait for me at the Tungelig River,” he said, the words hot in my ear as he crushed me to him from atop his horse. “I promise I’ll find you again.”

My eyes stung, but I took a deep breath of man, earth, and horses. The scent of my husband of only a few days, and the last piece of his soul I might ever possess.

He squeezed my hand, and I felt his deep inhale in my hair. “I love you, Borte Ujin.”

“Go!” I choked on the word. “I’ll see you soon.”

My husband kicked his heels and tore toward the forest with the rest of his family, leaving me alone with an old woman and a speckled ox.
Sochigel already lagged far behind the others, and I offered a quick prayer to the Earth Mother for her protection. Temujin glanced back once and for a moment I both hoped and feared he’d return for me. Instead, he spurred his horse in the ribs and galloped away.

“Hurry, girl!” Mother Khogaghchin waved me toward the cart. “Hide under the wool!”

I dug my way down into the pile of downy wool, as soft and warm as a womb, just as the cart jerked into motion in the direction of Temujin and his family.

“Not that way!” I shoved the wool from my face. “You’ll lead the Tayichigud straight to everyone. Go toward the raiders!”

Khogaghchin gaped at me as if I’d lost my mind. The dark dust cloud aimed at us grew bigger, hundreds of horses headed toward us as if chased by wolves. “It’s their only chance,” I said. “Please.”

The old woman gnawed her lip with fleshy gums, then flicked the reins. “You’re mad as an ibex in mating season,” she said. “But you may be right.”

The cart turned in an agonizingly slow circle, pointing away from my husband and into the unknown. I ducked under the wool, my heart threatening to break loose from my chest when the thunder of hooves finally surrounded us.

“What’s in the cart?”

My throat constricted at the man’s accent, the words broken and bent in at least three places. These were not the Tayichigud, but the Merkid, blood enemies of my husband’s family and the same people from whom Yesugei had stolen Hoelun. Yet there were three clans of Merkid; I could only hope this wasn’t the one Yesugei had wronged.

“Who are you?” the leader shouted. “And where are you going?”

“I’m an old servant of Temujin’s mother, with one foot already in my grave,” Khogaghchin said. “I helped shear his sheep, and now I’m returning home with my portion of the wool. That is, unless one of you boys would care to remind a dried-up old woman what it’s like to have a young man between her legs.”

The soldiers laughed and I choked on my shock. “We heard Temujin just filled his bed,” the man said. “Is that true?”

“It is, although the girl has the face of a horse.”

I scowled at that but bit my tongue.

“We’ve come to revenge the kidnapping of Hoelun by Yesugei the Brave,” the leader said. “Is that Temujin’s tent over there?”

I would have snorted had I not been so terrified, but I managed to curse the spirits that these weren’t the other two camps of Merkid. Hoelun’s kidnapping had likely taken place before these men were born; this was simply a convenient excuse for a raid to steal horses and exert their strength over a weaker clan.

“It is.” Khogaghchin smacked her gums and the horses pawed the ground. “I left before the others woke, having helped myself to some extra wool.”

The men laughed again and the leader gave the command for them to spread out to find Temujin. Khogaghchin waited until the raiders were behind us to whip the ox. My stomach lurched along with the cart. There were only two remaining outcomes once the Merkid discovered the empty tent: They’d follow Temujin’s trail or come back for us. Or both.

I mumbled prayers to the Eternal Blue Sky and the nearby mountain spirits, tasting the wool amidst the smell of my own fear. This was no usual raid. It was revenge.

We heard Temujin just filled his bed
.

And I was the target.

There was a delicate balance of power on the steppes that was upset when men from the lesser clans thought to grab power from those with better grazing lands and stronger herds. It was an unfortunate and terrifying truth that women were often stolen along with the horses they’d once herded, and were raped and forced to live as wives to the thieves who had ripped them from their hearths and families. Yesugei had raided the Merkid years ago to steal Hoelun and had set into motion a spiral of revenge and hatred that continued even now that his bones had turned to dust.

These men came to avenge Hoelun, yet it was she who had suggested Temujin abandon me. I wondered for a moment which trickster spirit had a hand in this game, but there was a crack and the cart lurched again. I
swallowed my scream, wondering if the Merkid had redoubled to attack. Mother Khogaghchin’s blood might be feeding the grasses of the steppe now.

“Horseshit!”

My relief at Khogaghchin’s curse was short-lived. I peered through the downy cloud of black wool and moaned in horror at the sight before me.

Dawn was beginning to stretch fully across the sky, illuminating the hopelessness of our situation. Built for strength and not for speed, the rickety old cart had snapped its axle. The crossbar had splintered and one wheel was askew.

Before us lay the open steppe, and behind us, the abandoned tents and the raiders. Beyond that was the security of the forest. We might as well wish for a friendly north wind to swoop down and carry us to safety.

There was only one choice, impossible though it was.

I clambered out of the cart. “We’ll have to run for the woods.”

Khogaghchin squinted in the direction of the mountains and gave a strangled laugh. “These old legs of mine won’t make it halfway there.”

“I’ll carry you.”

It was hopeless and we both knew it, but perhaps some ancestor spirit would send the Tayichigud in the opposite direction if we made a wide enough circle. It was the only option save waiting for their inevitable attack.

The old woman stared at me in disbelief. “The face of a horse and stubborn as a goat. I don’t know why Temujin married you.”

I crouched and motioned for her to climb onto my back. “We don’t have much time.”

The storm of hooves and dust changed direction, doubling back toward us.

“Too late,” Khogaghchin hissed, throwing wool at me. “Get back in the cart and don’t make a sound.”

I huddled down into the wool, breathing in the heavy scent of lanolin and my own terror. The rumble of horses surrounded us, and then came the muffled grunts of a struggle.

“I told you—I’m just carrying wool,” Khogaghchin said, but panic threaded her voice.

The man from before barked at his men. “Get off your horses, you lazy yaks, and see what—or who—is in there.”

Men dismounted and stomped toward me. The cart door creaked and hands pulled off the precious wool, as if digging me out of a cave. But instead of the light of freedom, they pulled me into the darkness of the enslaved.

“She’s here.” Greedy eyes and two lines of brown teeth leered at me. The soldier yanked me out by my hair, but I gritted my teeth against the pain. I would never let them see my fear.

Another raider held Mother Khogaghchin, her spindly arms pinned behind her back. A third woman was slung over a Merkid horse, her feet hanging down so I could see her beaded moccasins. Silent Sochigel, so proud of her needlework.

“Two old women and a useless slave,” I lied, stumbling as the brown-toothed raider pushed me from the cart into the dirt. I scrambled to my feet. “I hope you’re proud of yourselves.”

Three men looked down at me from their horses, their feathered helmets and tasseled gold belts proclaiming their positions as chiefs. “I am Toghtoga, chief of the Merkid,” one said. His nose was big and flat, as if he’d been hit in the face with a heavy pan, and his belt was decorated with the imprint of golden arrows and tied with thick knots of black leather tassels. “Long ago, Yesugei the Brave stole Hoelun from our brother Chiledu. It’s taken a generation, but we’ve finally found revenge on the clan of Yesugei and Temujin.”

“I care little for the history of your clan’s petty squabbles,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “Only that you release us.”

His grin made me shudder.

“No slave speaks with such fire and surety.” The flat-faced chief leaned down to caress my cheek, ignoring my recoil. “You were Temujin’s wife, at least until today.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m still Temujin’s wife.”

“Not anymore, girl,” he said. “Now you belong to the Merkid.”

*   *   *

They gave me to a thick-necked warrior named Chilger the Athlete.

He was the youngest brother of Chiledu—Hoelun’s first husband, whom she’d been stolen from—so the Merkid claimed that justice had been done as they bound my wrists and gagged me with a horsehair rag. Chilger plucked me from the ground onto the saddle before him and backhanded me when I struggled, leaving me with white spots in my eyes and a ringing in my ears. “You’re a sweet little thing,” he said, squinting so his eyes gleamed like black beetles. He twisted my hair around his hand like a guide rope, as the other slipped to my breast and gave it a painful squeeze. “I’ve a mind to brand you right now.”

“Enough, Chilger.” The flat-nosed chief glared. “We don’t have time for games. You can enjoy your prize later.”

Mother Khogaghchin was flung over a horse as well, claimed as a slave like Sochigel, and together we set off in Temujin’s direction again, galloping so that my backside rubbed against the hardness of Chilger’s desire.