The Khan Series 5-Book Bundle: Genghis: Birth of an Empire, Genghis: Bones of the Hills, Genghis: Lords of the Bow, Khan: Empire of Silver, Conqueror (210 page)

“It is almost time for my morning tea, Rukn. Will you join me?”

“Of course, father,” Rukn replied. He had not heard the woman
approaching and his eyes swiveled to her in surprise as she entered with a heavy tray. At times, his father’s talents seemed to approach the mystical. Certainly he knew everything that occurred in the fortress, from the smallest whisper to the skills and training of each of the men.

Hasan turned quickly as he heard her step. Kameela meant “most perfect” in Arabic and she was as beautiful as her name suggested, with black hair and smooth olive skin. Her hips swayed as she walked and Hasan could not take his eyes from them.

Suleiman chuckled at the sight of Hasan so entranced. It had been a whim two years before to give her to Hasan as his wife. Suleiman had enjoyed the confusion and terror in the fool as he understood the gift. Hasan had not been with a woman before and it had amused Suleiman greatly. If he had one area of expertise, it was in finding the weak points of other men. Hasan could be made to do anything for fear Kameela would be hurt. At times, Suleiman could treat his pain almost as artistry, with the fool as his canvas. He recorded much of what passed between them, for the edification and instruction of future masters of the order. There were few such detailed records in existence and it pleased him to add to the world’s knowledge.

Kameela served tea to him without once looking at her husband. Suleiman watched her self-control in delight. A dog could be taught only simple tricks, but people were wonderfully subtle and complex. He knew she dared not acknowledge Hasan in his presence. Suleiman had thrashed him bloody at her feet on a number of occasions, for just a word or a smile. He had known the fool would fall in love with the beautiful young woman, but the miracle had been that she seemed to return his affection. Suleiman cradled his tea in his skinny hands, watching over the rim as he inhaled the delicate scent. If only he could make the Mongol generals dance as easily as his servants.

As Kameela bowed, Suleiman reached out and ran a finger slowly along her jawline.

“You are very beautiful,” he said.

“You honor me, my lord,” she said, her head still bowed.

“Yes,” he replied. Suleiman showed his yellow teeth as he drained his tea. “Take Hasan with you, my flower. I must talk to my son.”

Kameela bowed at the dismissal and Suleiman watched as Hasan shambled after her, his hands shaking. He was tempted to call them back, indeed had intended to do so, but Rukn-al-Din began speaking again before he could. His son’s eyes were irritated.

“The Shirat fortress could be taken down, as some proof of our resolve. The place is unsafe as it is, full of lizards and cracked stones. If we made a show of destroying Shirat, it would buy us another year at least. Perhaps by then, the Mongol armies will have moved on.”

Suleiman regarded his son, wishing once more that he had managed to sire a man of intelligence. For years he had hoped to produce an heir in his own image, but those hopes and dreams had long been ashes.

“You do not placate a tiger by feeding it your own flesh,” he snapped. Hasan and Kameela had made their escape and he was angry with Rukn for interrupting his pleasures. “If such an abomination is to be my legacy, he will have to drag it out of us. We must find what this general wants and pray he is not like his grandfather Genghis. I think not. Men like that are rare.”

“I don’t understand,” Rukn said.

“No, because you are a man of weakness, combined with appetites, which is why you have a belly and must visit my doctors to burn the warts off your manhood.”

Suleiman paused for a beat, waiting to see if his son would dare respond to the insults. Rukn-al-Din stayed silent and Suleiman made a sound of derision before he went on.

“When Genghis came to my father’s home, he desired only destruction. The khan cared nothing for wealth and looked to himself for power and titles. Be thankful the world has not seen too many of such men, my son! For the rest, there is always something. You have offered this Hulegu peace and been refused. Offer him gold now and see what he says.”

“How much should I take to him?” Rukn said.

His father sighed.

“Not a single coin. If you return to him with carts of jewels, he will wonder how much we have kept back. He will struggle all the harder to see our fortresses brought down. Even Genghis took tribute from
cities, because those around him enjoyed the glitter of fine metals and rubies. Offer … exactly half of everything in the treasury here, so that we may double the offer when he refuses.”

“You would have me give him everything?” Rukn asked in amazement.

His father slapped him viciously across the face, making him fall back in pain and shock. Suleiman’s voice was utterly calm as he continued to speak.

“What comfort will it be to have gold in our pouches if Alamut and Shirat are gone? In all the world no one dares threaten us but these. The Mongols must not come here, my son. No fortress can stand forever, not even Alamut. I would offer him the clothes from my back if I thought for a single instant that he would leave us in peace. Perhaps he can be bought with gold. We will find out.”

“And then? If he refuses, what then?” Rukn said. His cheek was flaming from the blow.

“If he refuses gold, we will make rubble of Shirat, once a jewel of our possessions. Did you know I was born there, my son? Yet I will give it up if it saves the rest.” He shook his head in weary cynicism. “If the Mongol prince demands still more, I will have no choice but to send our best men to poison his food and wine, to strike down his officers, and to murder him as he sleeps. I have tried to avoid such a course, my son. I do not want to enrage this destroyer of towns, this slaughterer of women and children.”

Suleiman clenched his fists for a moment. His father had sent men against the great khan and they had failed. The result was a whirlwind of destruction that had left cities ruined and a swath of death across the region. There were deserts where Genghis had passed, to that day.

“If he gives us no other choice, I will take his life. The man who threatens our very existence is no greater than the goatherds tending my flocks. They can all die.”

HULEGU WATCHED THE CORPSES SWINGING GENTLY IN THE
breeze. Mongke would be proud of him, he was certain. He had shown
no mercy as he drove south and west of Samarkand. The word would go out that there was a new khan and that he should be feared. Hulegu understood his task and he relished earning his older brother’s approval. Only nine young men remained from the town after Hulegu’s warriors slaughtered every other living thing. The river was running red as bodies in the water were drained by the tugging current. Hulegu was pleased at the sight, imagining that the color would be carried for a hundred miles, bringing fear to all those who saw it. There would be no gates closed to him as he marched, not again.

He had burned three small cities and a dozen towns as he moved west, killing few, but leaving the inhabitants destitute and hungry, with every loaf and jar of oil or salt taken for his men. He did not know the name of the walled town which had tried to resist, barring their gates with iron and retreating into the cellars while their soldiers held the walls.

It had fallen in just a day. Though he did not have the numbers of cannon that Mongke had given Kublai, there were still enough. In a line of eighty, the polished rock balls smashed open the gates with two blows, but he had not paused to assault the town. Instead, he had ordered the guns to keep firing, cracking the stones to rubble and sending defenders flying in sprays of blood. The tumans had watched indifferently, waiting for his orders.

Only the thought that he should not waste his dwindling store of black powder made Hulegu call the halt. He enjoyed the thunder he could bring with just a wave of his hand. It was intoxicating to say “Fall” and have a city wall hammered to pieces before his eyes. He sent his men in that evening, loping on foot as they rushed to be first to loot the town.

Young women were raped, then tied together in weeping groups, ready for the gambling and bargains that would follow. Children and the elderly were killed as they were found. As with the battered men of the town, they were of no value. Gold and silver items were stripped from each house and piled in the central square to be weighed and assessed. Hulegu had his own forges with him. His habit was to melt the precious metals, skimming off the impurities and alloys as they rose out of the denser gold. Persian chemists directed the work, sending
ancient items to feed the flames. They were allowed to keep a tithe of all they collected, one part in a thousand to split between them. Already they were wealthy men and Hulegu had been forced to cut hundreds of trees and wait as the new timber was made into carts to carry the wealth.

Many of the defenders had fallen as the walls collapsed, coughing and choking on dust. Some tried to surrender, and for those Hulegu had only contempt. He stared with pleasure at the swinging bodies. He did not hang them by the neck, to die quickly. A few were hung by the feet, but most were held by ropes under their armpits and gashed across their stomachs to bleed to death. They lasted a long time and their cries could be heard across the hills.

When the town was burning, Hulegu signaled to General Ilugei to cut the bonds holding his prisoners. They were all men who had fought with courage and been battered to the ground. From a town of ten thousand, it was a pitifully small number, but he could at least have the glimmerings of respect for those few. He watched in stern silence as they stood and rubbed their wrists. Two of the nine were sobbing, while the rest stared at him in mute horror and impotent rage. He felt it like good wine in his mouth, making him strong.

He did not speak the local tongue, so he had his words repeated by one of the chemists, a turban-wearing Moslem named Abu-Karim.

“I will give you horses,” Hulegu said. “You will go ahead of my warriors, my carts and guns. Ride west and south and tell them I am coming. Tell each man you meet that he must open his doors to me, that he must give me his wives and daughters to be mine and his wealth, which will also be mine. He may keep his life. Tell them that if a city, or a town, or a single home bars its doors to me, I will visit destruction on them all, until the earth itself cries out in pain.”

He turned away then, not bothering to wait until the translator was finished. Baghdad was to the southwest and the caliph there had sent more blustering threats and lies. To the north, Hulegu felt the pull of the Assassin strongholds. He grunted in irritation at being caught between the two desires.

KUBLAI COULD SEE A MULTITUDE AROUND HIM, FROM THOSE
digging toilet pits, to warriors leading horses and women tending cooking fires for their husbands and sons. He had never known the life of a moving tribe, but something in him found peace in it. Looking into the distance, he wondered again at the veritable nation he had brought south. There must have been half a million souls in the column that rode down the border of Sung lands. He was not even sure of the true number.

He stretched his back with a soft groan as his wife and son prepared his ger for him. Not that little Zhenjin was much use, he noticed. Mongke’s orders had not extended to his family and the eight-year-old still wore a Chin silk tunic and leggings, down to a pair of soft sheepskin boots. His topknot of black hair flicked back and forth with every movement. Kublai tried not to laugh as he saw the boy sneak a handful of steaming meat scraps from the pile that Chabi was working into pouches. She had only looked away for a moment, but the boy had quick hands. Zhenjin had stuffed his cheeks before she turned back. It was bad luck that his mother chose that moment to ask a question, or perhaps not. Chabi adored and spoiled her firstborn, but that did not mean her instincts were blunt. As Zhenjin
struggled to reply around a mouthful of hot meat, she poked him in the stomach and he sprayed bits of food, giggling.

Kublai smiled. He could still be surprised at the strength of his emotions when he looked over his family. It wasn’t just that the boy delighted him, but a moment with his family could bring sudden understanding of his own parents. His father had given his life to save a khan, and Kublai finally appreciated the scale of that sacrifice. The man had acted for the nation, knowing he would never see his sons or his wife again. In a strange way, it left a debt to be paid by all of them, as well as a sense that however they lived their lives, they could not equal their father’s final act. Kublai sensed Mongke struggled with the same burden. His older brother was trying to fit an ideal, but he would never know peace looking for the approval of the dead.

At least Mongke had not stinted in men or supplies. With Uriang-Khadai as orlok and Bayar as his senior general, Kublai traveled with two hundred iron cannon and thousands more carts filled with gunpowder and equipment under heavy tarpaulins. He had a staff of ninety-four men and women to handle the moving nation. As he stood there in his reverie, he could see some of them close by. When he had eaten, they would come to him with the details, plaints, and problems of so many. He sighed at the thought, but the tasks were not beyond him, not yet. He crashed into slumber each night, yet still rose before dawn and practiced with the sword and bow. When the armor had begun to feel light on him, Kublai could even imagine thanking Mongke for the changes he had wrought. The khan knew more about being a warrior than his brother. Unfortunately, it was all he knew.