Until the Sun Falls (37 page)

“Gold, probably. It’s heavy enough.”

Tshant stretched out his legs. “Your pet is not fit for human company.”

“Who?”

“Quyuk.”

“God. He’s not my—”

“He’s roaring drunk all the time, and he does nothing but shout about what he will do when he’s Kha-Khan. Mostly kill us all off. Incidentally, messages have come. Kerulu says Ogodai is much better. He wrote to Quyuk and I guess they’re nearly reconciled.”

Chan with two of her women came out into the garden; three cats trailed them. Chan sat down, her back to Psin. Tshant was watching her. “Buri is supporting Quyuk against all comers. There are plenty of comers, too.”

“Who?”

“Kadan. When he’s sober, which is rare. Baidar. Is he older than I am? He acts it. Kaidu—he’s gotten ambitious, Kaidu. He talks about his grandfather’s chances of being elected Kha-Khan.” He lifted his voice. “Good day, stepmother.”

Chan ignored him. Tshant snorted. “Anyway, everyone’s been saying that Quyuk will have to shout a little softer when you get here.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Psin tried to catch Chan’s eye, but she was resolutely staring off. She called to Ana and sent her after something, which was what Psin had wanted her to do in the first place. When Ana was gone, he said, “You know that Ana’s pregnant.”

Tshant frowned. “I didn’t. Is it yours or mine?”

“It’s yours. I’ve never touched her.”

“I suppose not. You’ll have to give her back to me, then.”

“I will.”

“She gets along very well with Djela. Doesn’t she?” He reached out and ruffled Djela’s hair.

“Yes.” Djela’s head bobbed. “I like her.”

“It could make trouble.” Tshant looked back at Psin. “Your face has healed.”

“I’ll have a nice set of scars, though.”

Tshant looked at Psin’s right hand. Across the knuckles scar tissue grew like a shield, slick and paler than the other skin. He had almost told Psin that he was relieved that he was in the Volga camp. That surprised him. He’d been drinking all day, but he hadn’t realized he was drunk.

Ana said, “They were sitting very amicably in the garden, the last time I saw them.”

“It goes like that,” Artai said. She passed the knife swiftly around the edges of the pattern and laid it aside. “They don’t fight all the time, they have to work themselves up to it.”

“Have they always fought?”

“Ever since Tshant was old enough to talk.” Artai sank back on her heels. “He was such a little boy—I was afraid he’d die before he grew up. And full of mischief. The other two boys were much older than he—Tulugai and Kinsit.”

“I didn’t know you had other children.”

“Tulugai and Kinsit are dead. My daughters are all married.”

Ana picked up the felt to cover her surprise. Psin had once mentioned his other sons—somehow she hadn’t connected them with Artai.

Artai said, “Tshant would break something, or get in someone’s way, and Psin would roar at him. You know how loud his voice is when he’s angry.” 

“Yes.” She remembered him shouting, when he was sick in Susdal.

“Tshant always roared back. The other two… never did. I thought when they died that Psin would die. He and Tulugai were… He and Tshant have always fought.”

She was staring off, and her mouth twisted unhappily. Ana said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you remember.”

“I remember every day.” Artai smiled and patted her hand swiftly. “Don’t be sorry.”

She got up stiffly, and Ana gathered the cut pieces of felt. Artai said cheerfully, “So you finally thought to come see me.”

Ana turned; it was Tshant. He hugged Artai, but his eyes were on Ana. He said, “Mother, will you keep watch on Djela while I talk to Ana?”

“Of course,” Artai said, surprised. She turned and beckoned to Ana.

I don’t want to go, Ana thought. The big room, full of other women, seemed a haven against Tshant. But she went over toward him, and he said, “Come along. I want to talk to you.”

“What—”

He took her by the arm and steered her out the door and across the corridor into the room opposite. There was no one else there. He let her go, and she went immediately to the couch at the far end of the room, wheeled, and said, “What do you want? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I know. Don’t fidget.” He shut the door. “My father says that you’re pregnant.”

For a blind moment she thought he meant to kill her, to hide it. “Please, don’t—”

“What’s wrong? Are you afraid of me? I’m not going to hurt you. Sit down. Are you going to have my child?”

“Yes.” She sat down, short of breath.

He came farther into the room. “I can’t take another wife. Kerulu, the one I have, is a granddaughter of the Ancestor and reasonably proud. I’ll give you your own yurt and slaves, and you’ll have the same rank as my brother’s second wife.”

“You don’t have a brother,” she said.

He stopped in the middle of a stride and turned to face her. “What?” 

“Your mother says—”

“Oh. I mean my half-brother. Chan’s son.”

She gulped. Suddenly it occurred to her that he was offering to take care of her and the baby. That surprised her as much as his summoning her. She looked at the carpet in front of her, confused.

“The baby will have the same rank and privileges as Djela. If I am the Khan when my father dies, which is likely, your son will come first after my sons by Kerulu. You are entitled to a fifth of my plunder in a war and a third of my herds and the spoils of my hunting. There’s a lot else, too, but that’s the most important.”

All through his speech she had been concentrating on the idea of Chan’s having a son old enough to be twice married. She looked up.

“It’s very generous.”

He shrugged. “It’s in the Yasa. Do you want to come to my house tonight or tomorrow?”

“I want to stay here.”

He said nothing. He was in front of her, and she lifted her face toward him.

“I’m not ungrateful,” she said. “You’re being kind. But I like it here.”

He sat down on his heels. “There’s no place for you here.”

“I can help. I—”

“What is my father going to do with a woman who can’t be a slave and who isn’t his wife, and who will have a child not his—You are under my protection. You can’t stay here.”

“Isn’t there any—” She stood up. “I’ll stay a slave. I don’t—”

“You can’t. It’s against the Yasa.” He rubbed his face. “Every person has a place. Your place is in my camp.”

“But—”

She stopped. He was shaking his head, slowly, and he looked angry. He said, “Women. I will leave you here until the child is ready to be born. You have to have it under my roof. It’s the law. Do you love my father?”

“No.” She laughed, uneasily. “No.”

“Tell him to tell Chan that the child is mine, or Chan will make you miserable.”

“She’s very nice. She—”

“She’s jealous. And whose could it be but his?” He got up and prowled around the room. “Chan is… different than most women. Don’t think she’s just what she acts like.”

“Oh,” Ana said. “I’ve discovered that. She and the Khan were by the river one day, and they came back soaking wet and muddy and laughing like children.”

“Hunh.” He wheeled back. “Do you understand? About why you must come with me.”

“Yes.” She would ask Artai.

He sat down next to her, and she shrank away. He picked up one of her hands and closed his fingers over hers. “You’re acting like a little girl. I won’t hurt you. I won’t sleep with you unless you want me to.” He put her hand in her lap and stood up. “Don’t be afraid of me. I don’t like that.” He left the room.

She sighed. Once she’d gotten over being surprised, she decided, she hadn’t been afraid of him. But she didn’t want to go live with him. There had to be a way to avoid it. She would ask Artai. Rising, she crossed the room to the door and went out into the corridor.

Psin put his feet up on the table. “Kadan, you stink.”

Kadan howled, tiptoed like a girl, and plunked into a chair. “Psin Khan, it’s the very b-best perfume—my Russian woman wears it and I go mad.”

The Altun rocked with laughter. Buri picked up a pear and hurled it at Kadan, who ducked. The pear splashed on the far wall.

“Stop wrecking my room,” Batu called. “And quiet down. How can we play—”

Buri gathered up two more pears and hurled them at Tshant and Batu, crouched over the chess board. Tshant threw up one hand and knocked one pear off course. “Check.”

Mongke walked past Psin, paused long enough to say, “Look at Quyuk,” and moved on. Psin looked over at Quyuk, who was sprawled on a couch. Across Quyuk’s slack face the expressions marched: surprise, momentary fright, and intense pleasure. His eyes were unfocused. Psin put his feet down and stood up.

“Don’t go near him,” Baidar said. “It’s the hashish.”

“He’s fun to watch,” Mongke said. “And it keeps him quiet.”

Kadan shouted, “That is our next Kha-Khan.”

Quyuk looked over, smiled beatifically, and spoke a long sentence of gibberish. He lay back.

“If Sabotai were here,” Mongke said, “things would be much less merry.”

“You are so right,” Kadan shouted. He blinked. Mongke winced away from his voice; Kadan was right beside him.

“You needn’t yell. I can hear—”

“I’m not yelling,” Kadan yelled. He reached for his cup.

Psin put his feet up again. He thought of Temujin, of Temujin’s harsh law against drink. But even Temujin hadn’t considered hashish. Slaves trotted in with huge platters of meat, and the Altun attacked them before they could set the food on the table. Psin dove into the tangle and emerged with a roast pigeon. He retreated to one end of the table, near Tshant and Batu, and with his dagger cut up the bird. Tshant said, “And check.”

“Hmmmm,” Batu said.

Psin glanced over at them. Tshant hadn’t told him what had come of the talk with Ana, but Artai said that Ana didn’t want to move into Tshant’s house.

Kadan was shouting at Mongke. Mongke sat back and listened, half-smiling, as if Kadan were making sense. His eyes danced with amusement. Psin looked over at Quyuk again, and saw that he was still in the hashish fog. His lips moved soundlessly. Psin got up and went around the table to Mongke.

“If you’d moved the horse here,” Batu was saying comfortably, “I’d have had a great deal more trouble—”

“Oh, shut up,” Tshant said.

Psin knelt by Mongke’s chair. “What’s he like when he recovers?”

“Who? Oh.” Mongke glanced at Quyuk. Kadan went on shouting, his eyes shut. Mongke said, “He’ll be groggy and bad-tempered and nervous. He’s no trouble.”

“Then I’ll leave.”

“If anything happens I’ll send for you.”

Psin nodded and got up. A platter of meat had spilled and the floor was covered with juice and bits of roast animal. He stepped on a chicken wing, slipped, caught himself, and went out the door. In the corridor the noise from the room was only a muted rumble.

Sentries jerked up their lances in salute when he passed, and two of them pulled the front door open for him. He stepped into the cool night air, breathed deep, and started off toward his own house.

In the middle of the night Chan woke up from a bad dream and lay, soaked in sweat, and cried. When she couldn’t cry any more, she curled up with her face buried in the covers, afraid to go back to sleep. Two of her cats slept in the hollow behind her knees. The other usually slept on the windowsill, but now it leapt down, walked across the floor, and jumped up beside her to lick her face. She stroked it, and the cat arched its back, purring.

She couldn’t remember the dream. She thought it had been of monsters. She pulled the cat under the covers and the cat immediately struggled out again.

Across the house, Psin slept with his arms around Artai, his face against her skin. Chan felt the tears harsh in her eyes. Artai was old and ugly, but Psin still went to her, once out of every two nights.

When I am old, she thought, he will not come to me.

She wondered if that were really so. He was fond of her, she was sure of that. But he did not love her the way he loved Artai.

The cat walked up and down her back, purring, and eventually curled up against her and went to sleep. Through the window the moonlight tumbled onto the rug, onto the couch; the bright colors of the daylight vanished into blue-silver and black. She threw the covers off and got up.

It was cold. She pulled her cloak over her shoulders, shivering, her hands frozen. The cats were lumps on the rumpled covers. She went into the antechamber, moved softly past the three women sleeping there, and slid between the lattice screen and the wall, through the door.

The corridor was empty. She ran down it, her bare feet soundless on the timber floor. Through one window she saw the garden under the moonlight, like a blasted city—the stone benches, the stark black shrubs. Ash heaps. Somebody was coming. She pulled the cloak tight around her and waited.

It was a sentry; he stopped and said, “Who is it?”

“Chan Khatun. Let me pass.”

He pressed himself against the wall so that she could get past him without touching him. She caught a glimpse of his face, young, the eyes round with awe. She walked away with all the dignity she owned, turned the corner, and ran. The door to the garden was bolted. She swore at it, using a curse Psin sometimes used, and climbed out the window.

Artai’s window was straight across from this one. She went along the edge of the garden, avoiding the places where the brick in the walk was loose. Her feet were cold. At Artai’s window she stepped in among the tended plants and rapped lightly on the shutter.

Silence. She shivered. Something moved in there, and she tensed to run away. She shouldn’t be here and he would beat her, probably. Most likely. The shutter opened swiftly inward, and Psin with a dagger in his hand looked out.

He stared at her, and she stared at him, until she wondered if he thought he was dreaming. Finally he put one finger to his lips, nodded at the couch, and climbed out the window, naked.

“What’s the matter?” he whispered.

“I had a bad dream.”

“Oh.” He looked around. “Well, wait here.”

He climbed back into Artai’s room. She heard Artai say something in a sleepy, comfortable voice, and he said, “I’m just going outside. I’ll be right back.” Artai mumbled and rolled over. Psin crawled out the window, his coat loosely wrapped around him. He took Chan by the hand and led her toward the far door.