Until the Sun Falls (36 page)

“I’m not hungry,” Chan said. She put her plate down, and the Kipchak woman came for it. “You haven’t enough slaves.”

“I’m a man, I don’t need more than two or three. You’ll have to bear up until your own get here.”

“Am I to sleep all alone in a strange yurt?”

Tshant pretended to choke. Psin said softly, “Sweetness, I’ve got you so hedged around with guards and slave women a charge of Russian knights couldn’t reach you.”

“Quyuk is right next to us,” Tshant said to Artai. “And Quyuk is moderately fond of looking at her.”

Psin slid off the chest he’d been sitting on. Chan rose, turned, and shot a look at Ana. She started out, and Psin went after her and took her by the hand.

Artai said, “Ana, will you take Djela home and put him to bed? Thank you.”

Ana stood and with Djela’s hand in hers went off. Just before she stepped out of the light she heard Artai say, inside, “Now what have you done, Tshant?”

Artai said, “Tshant says you fought.”

“Meddling old woman.” Psin sat on the couch to take off his boots. Artai squirmed over to the inside of the couch and smiled at him.

“Is it so impossible for you to get along with him?”

“Yes.”

Ana came in and lowered the flap over the door. She looked shyly in their direction, murmured something, and slipped behind the curtain into the slaves’ quarter of the yurt.

“She’s a pleasant girl,” Artai said. “Where did you get her?”

“Tshant took her in Susdal.” Psin stripped off his tunic and slid under the light cover. “She fell in love with him, and naturally he got himself another woman in the next city, and she was miserable, so I told him to give her to me.”

“This must have been during a calm spell. At least you don’t always fight.”

Psin put his head down on her shoulder. “Not always. I’m glad you’re here.”

Her arms pressed him against her. “You make me very happy.”

“Good.”

“Sometimes.”

Batu had gone back to the Volga camp; his two younger brothers were in command of the garrisons in the north. Most of the Altun followed him immediately. Sabotai suggested that Psin go as well, to keep watch on Quyuk.

“When we were fighting it was different. If he left his assigned post he was liable to punishment, and he knows it. But now…”

“That I should live in cities in the winter is almost unbearable,” Psin said. “But in the summer—”

“He’s restless.”

Psin cast around. The cattle herds stamped over the plain past the horizon, with more being driven here every day. Sabotai had sent out orders for horses to be rounded up, broken, and conditioned, but the first herds hadn’t arrived yet. “Who is to command the camp, if I go?”

“I will. Am I so old I can’t handle a handful of yurts and a few—” 

“Twelve full-strength tumans. Their women, their slaves, their—”

“Well.” Sabotai shrugged. “The Kha-Khan’s orders were to you, not to me.”

“Hunh. The orders came from Jagatai, not Ogodai. My women won’t like it. They came out here just a few days ago.”

Sabotai’s horse stamped, and he reached down to crush the fly clinging to its neck. “If anyone had told me that you, of all men, should be worried about—”

“I’ll go,” Psin said. He gritted his teeth.

Tshant had already packed up his yurt and his slaves and rumbled off to the Volga. Djela had stayed behind with his grandparents, and Psin gave him three horses and a pack of food enough to banquet on and sent him on the two-day ride to Batu’s city to tell Tshant they were coming. Djela, flushed and strutting, galloped off the morning before they were to leave.

Ana stood looking after him from the top of the platform; the laundry was drying on the wood behind her. Psin narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, studying her figure.

“Isn’t he young to be riding off alone?” she said.

“He’s a Mongol. Are you practicing for motherhood, girl?”

She blushed and hurried back to her work. Psin grunted. The Kipchak was right.

Chan came out of her yurt and sat down in the warm sunlight. A cat curled limply in the crook of her arm. Psin watched her through the tail of his eye. She wore a gown of the light cloth he’d taken from Moskva, and against the pale yellow her skin glowed. One of her women sat down behind her and began to brush her hair. With each brush stroke Chan’s head lifted. The cat began to lick its paw, rolled deftly onto its tail, and slung its right hindleg up past one ear.

Psin went over to her. The cat lifted its head and watched him, its pupils narrow as lances. Chan said, “If I had known we were only to go back to the Volga I would never have come.”

He sat down cross-legged in front of her and rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. “I know.”

“It’s very hot. This is a terrible country.”

The cat flopped over on its side and yawned. Psin poked it with one forefinger and the cat slapped at his hand. “If it’s so hot, go inside.”

“I like the sun too much.”

Psin laughed. “Would you like to ride?”

“Ride? Where?”

“Khan,” Artai shouted, “will you come help me?”

“Later,” he called. He straightened up, smiling down at Chan. “Down by the river. Come on.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “you should help your first wife instead.”

“Perhaps I should not. Come on.”

She stood up, and the cat bounded away. Within the loose robe her body moved like the cat’s inside its skin. She gave Psin a long, reckless stare and went into the yurt to change her clothes.

Beneath the trees by the river, it was cool, and the wind stirred the branches so that the dappled sunlight on the ground glittered and blended into patterns like a carpet’s. The river ran almost silently. Half a day’s ride down, it met the Don River, which Psin said was as wide as the Volga. They had passed a few people fishing.

She let the horse graze and watched the river slide between its banks, dark brown water over furry brown stones. A bird was singing on the far side, low and warbling, as if it had taken the river’s voice.

Within days they would be back in the Volga camp. She frowned at the river. It would be happier to live here, to have a little yurt on the plain she could see boiling in the sun just beyond the trees, to have some cattle and a few sheep and horses, and to spend all day lying beside the river and thinking. Artai could take care of the yurt and she would think. She thought about getting off the horse and trailing her fingers in the smooth water.

She turned her head and looked up the ridge; Psin was there, the dun horse massive in the half-shade of the trees. His bow jutted up from the sheath on his saddle. He had said there might be enemy Kipchaks or Alans around, spying on the camp. His face was in shadow, but she knew he was looking at her.

Toy, she thought. I am a toy.

She brought the whip down hard on her horse’s barrel, and it bolted. Ahead the trees grew down thicker around the bank, and she collected her reins, steadied the horse, and sent it plowing through the underbrush. She crouched down over its neck to keep from being raked off by the branches, heard the dun cantering after her, and kicked her heels into her horse’s sides to keep it running. The trees were so close together her knees rasped against them. She glanced back, saw no sign of him, and jerked her horse to a stop. He was coming, but more slowly—bigger horse. She dismounted and lashed her horse across the flank. The horse pounded off through the trees. She crouched down in the midst of some high sweet-smelling bushes.

They had thorns, and the branches crackled if she moved. She held her breath. Hard, unripe berries hung before her nose. The dun jogged up toward her, and she heard Psin’s soft curse.

The dun stopped dead, and Psin yelled her name, furious. She wrapped her arms around her booted legs. He passed so close she could have touched his stirrup, and she had to bite her lips to keep from laughing. She drew a soft breath, inhaling the smell of the horse, the smell of Psin himself, and covered her mouth with her hand.

He went on by. A little farther down the bank, he shouted again, and this time his voice sounded worried. He had seen her horse with the empty saddle.

He was coming back. The brush crackled and swayed. She pushed deeper into the berry bush, hoping the sound of his horse would cover the noise she made. He was shouting with every breath, so that the trees rang with his voice. She crouched on knees and elbows.

“Hunh.”

He was right opposite her. She held her breath. Through the screen of thin stems and leaves she saw him bend out of the saddle to look at the ground, and his eyes moved, following her track, until they stared directly at her. His hand on the reins lifted, and the dun whirled. She crawled backward, careless of the thorns tearing her arms. The dun was pounding into the thicket.

Under her weight the ground crumbled, and she fell rolling into the river. She yelped, and the water flooded into her mouth. Her feet struck the bottom. The water was as soft as milk, warm, gentle. She stood up to her waist in it and scowled at the bank. Psin on the dun horse began to laugh; his eyes squeezed shut and his chest bounced with laughter.

“You dog,” she said.

He gasped out some words, but she couldn’t understand. The dun horse, to his belly in the tangled underbrush, shifted and started to back away from the bank. Chan waded to the edge and dug mud out of the river bottom. She took two steps backward, molding the fine silt in her hands, and flung it at him.

He stopped laughing. The mud splattered his shoulder and the bad side of his face, and he scraped it off, sputtering. She put her hands on her hips.

“Help me up the bank.”

He brushed off most of the mud; his mustaches were caked with it. She saw him start to dismount and went nearer to the bank. He dropped his reins, walked to the edge, and bent, holding out his hand. She grabbed it and jerked him in.

He yelled in midair and made a splash that got the dun horse wet. She scrambled away from him, upriver, flailing at the water with her hands. Losing her footing, she went under and tasted the softness of the water again and pushed herself up.

He stood dripping in the middle of the river, glowering at her. He hated water. She laughed.

“Come here,” he said.

She drove the heel of her hand into the water, so that it splashed him. “No.”

“This is ridiculous.”

She laughed again. “You are, certainly.” The water streamed down his face, and his hair was plastered to his head, his clothes stuck to him. “You look like an angry panda bear.”

“I am angry. I’ll beat you.”

She splashed him again. “You can’t catch me.”

He plunged after her, clawing at the water with his hands, and she backed away. She made for the other bank and he plowed after her. She scraped up another handful of mud, feinted to throw it at him, and when he ducked hurled it at the dun horse.

Psin howled. The horse reared up, whirled, and galloped off, crashing through the brush. They heard him neigh once, and after that only the diminishing thunder of his hoofs.

“Now I am angry,” Psin said.

She mimed terror. He started after her, and she vaulted easily up onto the bank. He lunged. She danced back out of the way, grabbed a long branch, and poked it at him.

“Stay there until I am ready to let you out,” she said.

He stood still, watching her. He chewed on his mustache. She saw him dart a glance upstream, toward the camp, from under his sodden brows. “You’re making a fool of me,” he said.

She nodded happily. He started up the bank, and she stabbed at his face with the branch until he backed off again.

“Chan. Let me up.”

“What will you give me?”

“I’ll break my hand over your backside.”

“I want two cream-colored ponies and a cart with gold trim.”

“No,” he roared. “I’m your husband. Let me up.”

“And I want a big dog. Black as jet, with a white face.”

He charged up the bank. She clubbed him with the branch; his arms fended it off. When she hit him over the head the branch broke. She whirled and ran. The brush blocked her way, and he was right behind. She swerved, ducked behind a fat tree, and looked for a trail. Just two strides away was a little clearing. She leapt for it, but he caught her ankle and she fell, hard.

When her eyes had cleared she was stretched face down on the ground and he was lying on top of her, pinning her. “Hah,” he said in her ear.

She twitched, experimenting, but she was flat on her face and couldn’t move. Her nose pressed into the soft earth. She said, “I am tired. Take me home.”

“Beg.” He got off her, one knee across her back.

He would spank her. He had before. She screwed up her face, squeezing out two tears, and looked up over her shoulder at him. “You’re hurting me.”

He looked dubious, but he eased his weight off the knee in her back. She squirmed around, sat up, and put her arms around his neck. “Please take me home, husband.” She burrowed her face into his neck.

His arms tightened around her, and he laid his cheek against her hair. “You’re silly.”

She leapt up and dove for the brush, but he had her by the wrist. “Oh, no.” He dropped her flat on her back. His weight descended on her. “Not yet.”

Through the branches over their heads the sun’s rays shot like staircases. He pulled at the laces of her shirt.

“I worked hard enough,” he said. “Don’t I deserve a reward?”

They reached the Volga camp five days after Djela. T
shant
had gotten a house for them, next to his and Mongke’s, and across from the wall around Batu’s palace. Tshant deposited himself in a chair in the garden and watched while the slaves carted goods and furniture through to the rooms. Djela was with him, full of stories about his ride from the camp to the city.

“The Russian princes have been coming in since the thaw,” Tshant said. “They’re making their submission. Batu is enjoying himself tremendously. What’s that?”

Psin looked; four slaves were lugging a closed chest through the gate. Artai walked briskly beside them, directing them.