Authors: Conn Iggulden
“I never thought he’d go before me,” Khasar murmured.
Temuge looked sharply at him and Khasar caught the glance. He shrugged.
“I’m an old man and the lumps on my shoulder are getting bigger. I didn’t expect to see the boy die before it was my time, that’s all.”
“You should get them cut out, brother,” Temuge said.
Khasar winced. He could no longer wear armor that pressed against the painful spots. Each night it seemed the growths had swelled, like grapes under the skin. He did not mention the ones he had found in his armpits. Just to touch them was painful enough to make him dizzy. The thought of enduring a knife sawing at them was more than he could bear. It was not cowardice, he told himself firmly. The things would go away in time, or kill him; one or the other.
“I was sorry to hear about Kachiun,” Temuge said.
Khasar closed his eyes, stiff with pain. “He was too old to be on campaign; I told him that,” he replied. “No pleasure in being right, though. God, I miss him.”
Temuge looked quizzically at his brother. “You’re not becoming one of the Christians now, are you?”
Khasar smiled, a little sadly. “It’s too late for me. I just listen to them talk sometimes. They curse a lot, I’ve noticed. That heaven of theirs sounds a bit dull, from what I’ve heard. I asked one of the monks if there would be horses, and he said we wouldn’t
want
them; can you believe that? I’m not riding one of their angels, I tell you that now.”
Temuge could see that his brother was talking to cover the grief he felt over Kachiun. Once more he looked for it in his own heart and found an emptiness. It was troubling.
“I was just thinking of the cleft in the hills, where we all hid,” Temuge said.
Khasar smiled and shook his head. “Those were hard times,” he replied. “We survived them, though, like everything else.” He looked at the city behind the furnace that hid the khan’s body. “This place would not exist if it hadn’t been for our family.” He sighed to himself. “It’s a strange thing to remember when there was no nation. Perhaps that is enough for one man’s lifetime. We have seen some good years, brother, despite our differences.”
Temuge looked away rather than remember his dabbling in the darker arts. For a few years of his youth, he had been the chosen apprentice of one who had brought great pain to his family, one whose name was no longer spoken in the nation. Khasar had been almost an enemy for those years, but it was all far away, half-forgotten.
“You should write this down,” Khasar said suddenly. He jerked his head to the funeral pyre. “Like you did for Genghis. You should make a record of it.”
“I will, brother,” Temuge said. He looked again at Khasar and truly saw the way he had withered. “You look ill, Khasar. I would let them cut you.”
“Yes, but what do
you
know?” Khasar said with a sneer.
“I know they can dose you with the black paste so you don’t feel the pain.”
“I’m not scared of pain,” Khasar said irritably. Even so, he looked interested and shifted his shoulders with a wince. “Maybe I will. I can hardly use my right arm on some days.”
“You will need it if Chagatai comes to Karakorum,” Temuge said.
Khasar nodded and rubbed his shoulder with his left hand. “That’s one man I’d like to see with his neck broken,” he said. “I was there when Tolui gave his life, brother. What did we get for it? A few miserable years. If I have to see Chagatai ride through those gates in triumph, I think I’d rather die in my sleep first.”
“He will be here before Guyuk and Tsubodai, that’s the only thing we know for certain,” Temuge said sourly. He too had no love for the lout his brother had fathered. There would be no grand libraries under Chagatai’s rule, no streets of scholars and great learning. He was as likely to burn the city as anything, just to make a point. In that regard, Chagatai was his father’s son. Temuge shuddered slightly and told himself it was just the wind. He knew he should be making plans to remove the most valuable scrolls and books before Chagatai arrived, just until he was certain they would be honored and kept safe. The very thought of a Chagatai khanate made him sweat. The world did not need another Genghis, he thought. It had barely recovered from the ravages of the last one.
• • •
Köten of the Cumans crossed the Danube in a small boat, a wherry with a surly soldier on the oars who made it fairly skim across the dark water. Köten wrapped himself tightly in his cloak against the cold twilight, lost in thought. He could not resist his fate, it seemed. The king had every right to ask for his men. Hungary had given them sanctuary, and for a time Köten thought he had saved them all. Once the mountains were behind them, he had dared to hope that the Mongol tumans would not run so far west. They never had before. Instead, the Golden Horde had come roaring out of the Carpathians, and the place of peace and sanctuary was no refuge at all.
Köten seethed as he saw the shore approach, a dark line of sucking mud that he knew would pull at his boots. He stepped out into shallow water, wincing as his feet sank into the stinking clay. The oarsman grunted something unintelligible and examined his coin closely, a deliberate insult. Köten’s hand twitched for his knife, wanting to cut a scar on the man that would remind him of his manners. Reluctantly he let his hand fall. The man rowed away, staring back at him with a curled lip. At a safe distance, the man shouted something, but Köten ignored him.
It was the same story across the cities of Buda and Pest. His Cuman people had come in good faith, been baptized as their lord ordered and made every attempt to treat the new religion as their own, if only for their survival. They were people who understood that staying alive was worth sacrifice, and they had trusted him. None of the Christian priests seemed to think it strange that an entire nation would suddenly feel the urge to welcome Christ into their hearts.
Yet it was not enough for the inhabitants of Bela’s cities. From the first days, there had been tales of thefts and murders by his men, rumors and gossip that they were behind every misfortune. A pig couldn’t take sick without someone claiming that one of the dark-skinned women had cursed it. Köten spat on the pebbled shore as he
trudged along it. The previous month, a local Hungarian girl had accused two Cuman boys of raping her. The riot that followed had been put down with ruthless ferocity by King Bela’s soldiers, but the hatred was still there, simmering under the surface. There were few who believed she had been lying. After all, it was just the sort of thing they expected from the filthy nomads in their midst. They were rootless and they could not be trusted, except to steal and kill and foul the clean river.
Köten disliked his hosts almost as much as they apparently hated him and the presence of his people. They could not take up less room than they did, he thought in irritation, seeing the city of tents and shacks huddled along the river. The king had promised them he would build a new city, or perhaps expand two or three of those already there. He had talked of a ghetto for the Cuman people, where they could live safely among their own. Perhaps Bela would have kept his word if the Mongols had not come, though Köten had begun to doubt it.
Somehow the threat of the Mongols had only increased the tension between the local Magyars and his tribe. His people could not walk down a street without someone spitting at them or jostling the women. Every night, there were dead men left in the gutters, their throats slit. No one was ever punished if they were Cuman bodies, but the local judges and soldiers hanged his men in pairs and more if it was one of their own. It was a poor reward for two hundred thousand new Christians. There were times when Köten wondered at a faith that could preach kindness and yet be so cruel to its own.
As he made his way along the shit-strewn shore, the smell made him gag. The wealthy people of Buda had fine drains for their waste. Even the poor quarters in Pest had half-barrels on the corners that the tanners would collect at night. The Cuman tent-people had nothing but the river. They had tried to keep it clean, but there were just too many of them crowded along too short a stretch. Already there were diseases ripping through his people, families dying with red marks on their skin he had never seen at home. The whole place felt like an enemy camp, but the king had asked for his army and
Köten was honor-bound, oath-bound to him. In that one thing, King Bela had judged his man correctly, but as Köten kicked at a stone, he thought there were limits even to his honor. Would he see his people slaughtered for such a poor reward? In all his life, he had never broken his word, not once. At times, when he was starving or sick, it was all he had left to feed his pride.
He made his way into the town of Pest, human excrement and clay making his boots heavy. He had promised his wife he would buy some meat before he came back to her, though he knew the prices would be hiked as soon as they recognized him or heard him speak. He tapped the hilt of his sword as he increased his stride and stood tall. He felt like a dangerous man to insult on that day. No doubt the next day would be different, but for a while he would let in a little of his anger. It kept him warm.
As Köten clambered up a muddy rise that opened onto the line of merchants’ stores that formed a street, he heard something crash to the ground nearby. The wind was in his ears and he turned his head to listen. There was a lamp in the front of the butcher’s shop, he saw, but the wooden shutters were already coming down over the serving hatch. Köten swore to himself and broke into a run.
“Wait!” he shouted.
He did not notice the men struggling together until they collapsed almost at his feet. Köten drew his sword in reaction, but they were intent on punching and kicking each other. One of them had a knife, but the other had his hand in a tight grip. Köten knew neither of them. His head came up like a hunting dog as more shouting sounded nearby. The voices were angry and he felt an answering anger. Who knew what had happened in his absence? Another rape, or simply the accusation of one against his brothers? While he hesitated, the butcher finally succeeded in heaving his shutters down, shoving a bar through them from the inner side. Köten hammered on the shutters with his fists, but there was no answer. Furious, he turned the corner.
Köten saw the line of men, no, the crowd of men, stalking down the muddy street in the darkness toward him. He jerked back round the corner in two quick steps, but they had seen him outlined
against the setting sun. The howl went up instinctively as they saw a frightened figure run from them.
Köten moved as quickly as he could. He had lived long enough to know he was in real danger. Whatever had brought the men out as a mob could end with his head being crushed or his ribs broken. He heard their roar of excitement and he ran, heading back toward the dark river. Their boots sounded on the wooden walkway, thumping ever closer.
He slipped, his mired feet skidding on the wet ground. His sword vanished from his hand, falling on mud so soft that it made no sound at all. Someone crashed into him as he rose, and then they were on him, taking out their rage on the shadowy stranger who had shown his guilt by running. He struggled, but they kicked and stabbed with short knives, pressing him down into the filthy mud until he was almost part of it, his blood mingling with the blackness.
The men stood clear of the lifeless body on the bank of the river. Some of them clapped others on the back, chuckling at the justice they had meted out. They had not known the name of the broken thing that lay there. In the distance, they heard the shouts of the king’s officers, and almost as one they turned away and began to disappear into the shadows of the merchants’ quarter. The nomads would hear and be afraid. It would be a long time before they walked without fear through the cities of their betters. Many of the men were fathers and they went home to their families, taking the back alleys so that they would not come across the king’s soldiers.
The army that assembled in front of the city of Pest was vast. King Bela had spent days in a sort of frenzy as he came to appreciate what it took to field so many men. A soldier could not carry food for more than a few days at most before it slowed him down and made it harder to fight. The baggage train had taken every cart and workhorse in the country, and it spread across almost as much land as the massed ranks before the Danube. King Bela’s heart filled in his chest as he surveyed the host. More than a hundred thousand
men-at-arms, knights, and foot soldiers had responded to the bloody swords that he had sent racing the length and breadth of Hungary. His best estimates were of a Mongol army half the size or less than the one he had been told to expect. The king swallowed yellow bile as it surged into his throat. He may have been facing just half the Golden Horde, but the reports coming to him from the north were of destruction beyond belief. There would be no armies coming to his aid from Boleslav or Henry. From everything he had learned, they were hard-pressed to survive the onslaught of the tumans raiding there. Lublin had certainly fallen and there was a single report that Krakow had followed it into flames, though Bela could not see how such a thing was possible. He could only hope that the reports were exaggerated, composed by frightened men. It was certainly not information to share with his officers and allies.
At that thought, he looked to the Teutonic Knights on his right, two thousand of them in their finest battle array. Their horses showed no sign of the mud churned up by the army. They shone in the weak sunlight and blew mist from their nostrils as they pawed the ground. Bela loved warhorses and he knew the knights had the very best bloodlines in the world for their mounts.
Only the left wing caused him to pause in his proud assessment. The Cumans were good horsemen, but they were still seething about the death of Köten in some grubby river brawl. As if such a thing could be laid at the king’s feet. They were an impossible people, Bela acknowledged to himself. When the Mongols had been sent back over the mountains, he would have to give more thought to the practicalities of settling so many Cumans. Perhaps they could be bribed to find a new homeland where they would be more welcome and less of a drain on the royal purse.