Authors: Conn Iggulden
“Only the young can be so careless with their lives,” Sansar said, “as to risk insulting me in my own home.” His gaze dropped to Koke and sharpened at the sight of the twin swords.
“What can a mere raider offer me for one of the Olkhun’ut women?” he said.
He did not see Arslan close his eyes for a moment, struggling with indignation. The sword he carried had been with him for more than a decade, the best he had ever made. They had nothing else to offer. For an instant, he wondered if Temujin had guessed there would be a price and chosen not to warn him.
Temujin did not reply at first. The bondsmen at Sansar’s side watched him as a man might watch a dangerous dog, waiting for it to bare its fangs and be killed.
Temujin took a deep breath. There was no choice, and he did not look at Arslan for approval.
“I offer you a perfect blade made by a man without equal in all the tribes,” he said. “Not as a price, but as a gift of honor to my mother’s people.”
Sansar bowed his head graciously, gesturing at Koke to approach him. Temujin’s cousin covered his smile and held out the two swords.
“It seems I have a choice of blades, Temujin,” Sansar said, smiling.
Temujin watched in frustration as Sansar fingered the carved hilts, rubbing the balls of his thumbs over bone and brass. Even in the gloom of the ger, they were beautiful, and Temujin could not help but remember his father’s sword, the first that had been taken from him. In the silence, he recalled the promise to his brothers and spoke again before Sansar could reply.
“As well as the woman I was promised, I need two more to be wives for my kin.”
Sansar shrugged, then drew Arslan’s blade and held it up to his eye to look along its length.
“If you will make me a gift of both blades, I will find your offer acceptable, Temujin. We have too many girls in the gers. You may take Sholoi’s daughter if she will have you. She has been a thorn in our side for long enough, and no man can say the Olkhun’ut do not honor their promises.”
“And two more, young and strong?” Temujin said, pressing.
Sansar looked at him for a long time, lowering the swords to his lap. At last, he nodded, grudgingly.
“In memory of your father, Temujin, I will give you two daughters of the Olkhun’ut. They will strengthen your line.”
Temujin would have liked to reach out and grab the khan by his skinny throat. He bowed his head and Sansar smiled.
The khan’s bony hands still fondled the weapons and his gaze became distant, as he seemed almost to have forgotten the men who stood in front of him. With an idle gesture, he signaled the pair to be removed from his presence. The bondsmen ushered them out into the cold air, and Temujin took a deep draft of it, his heart hammering in his chest.
Arslan’s face was tight with anger and Temujin reached out to touch him lightly on the wrist. The swordsmith seemed to jump at the contact, and Temujin remained still, sensing the inner force of the man as it coiled and uncoiled within him.
“It was a greater gift than you know,” Arslan said.
Temujin shook his head, seeing Koke come out behind them, his arms empty. “A sword is just a sword,” he replied. Arslan turned a cold expression on him, but Temujin did not flinch. “You will make a better one, for both of us.”
He turned to Koke then, who was watching the exchange with fascination.
“Take me to her, cousin.”
Though the Olkhun’ut had traveled far in the years since he had last stood in their camp, it seemed the status of Sholoi and his family had remained the same. Koke led Temujin and Arslan to the very edge of the gers, to the same patched and mended home that he remembered. He had spent just a few short days there, but they were still fresh in his mind and it was with an effort that Temujin shook off his past. He had been little more than a child. As a man, he wondered if Borte would welcome his return. Surely Sansar would have said if she had been married in his absence? Temujin thought grimly that the khan of the Olkhun’ut might very well enjoy gaining two fine swords for nothing.
As Koke approached, they saw Sholoi duck out from the little door, stretching his back and hitching up a belt of string. The old man saw them coming and shaded his eyes against the morning sun to watch. The years had left more of a mark on Sholoi than on the khan. He was skinnier than Temujin remembered and his shoulders sagged under an ancient, grubby deel. When they were close, Temujin could see a web of blue veins on his knotted hands, and the old man seemed to start, as if he had only just recognized them. No doubt his eyes were failing, though there was still a hint of strength in those legs, like an old root that would stand right up to the moment it broke.
“Thought you were dead,” Sholoi said, wiping his nose on the back of his hand.
Temujin shook his head. “Not yet. I said I would come back.”
Sholoi began to wheeze and it took a moment or two before Temujin realized he was laughing. The sound ended in choking and he watched as Sholoi hawked and spat a lump of ugly-looking brown phlegm onto the ground.
Koke cleared his own throat, irritably. “The khan has given his permission, Sholoi,” Koke said. “Fetch your daughter.”
Sholoi sneered at him. “I didn’t see him here when my seam split last winter. I didn’t see old Sansar out in the wind with me then, with a patch and some thread. Now I think of it, I don’t see him here now, so keep your tongue still while we talk.”
Koke flushed, his eyes darting to Temujin and Arslan.
“Fetch the other girls, Koke, for my brothers,” Temujin said. “I’ve paid a high price, so make sure they’re strong and pretty.”
Koke struggled with his temper, irritated at being dismissed. Neither Temujin nor Arslan looked at him as he strode away.
“How is your wife?” Temujin asked when his cousin had gone.
Sholoi shrugged. “Dead two winters back. She just lay down in the snow and went. Borte is all I have now, to look after me.”
Temujin felt his heart thump at the mention of her name. Until that moment, he had not known for certain she was even alive. He had a flash of understanding for the old man’s loneliness, but there was no help for it, nor for all the blows and hard words he had used with his children. It was too late to have regrets, though that seemed to be the way of the elderly.
“Where…? Temujin began. Before he could go on, the door of the ger swung open and a woman stepped out onto the cold ground. As she straightened, Temujin saw Borte had grown tall, almost as tall as he was himself. She stood at her father’s side and met his gaze with frank curiosity, finally dipping her head in greeting. Her gesture broke the spell and he saw she was dressed to travel, with a deel lined with fur and her black hair tied back.
“You were a long time coming,” she said to Temujin.
He remembered her voice and his chest grew tight with memory. She was no longer the bony child he had known. Her face was strong, with dark eyes that seemed to look right into him. He could tell nothing else about her under the thick deel, but she stood well and her skin was unmarked by disease. Her hair gleamed as she bent and kissed her father on the cheek.
“The black colt has a hoof that needs lancing,” she said. “I would have done it today.”
Sholoi nodded miserably, but they did not embrace. Borte picked up a cloth bag from inside the door and slung it over her shoulder.
Temujin was mesmerized by her and hardly heard Koke returning with their ponies. Two young girls walked at his side, both red-faced and weeping. Temujin only glanced at them when one coughed and held a dirty cloth to her mouth.
“This one is sick,” he said to Koke.
His cousin shrugged insolently and Temujin’s hand dropped to where his blade should have been. Koke saw the fingers close on air and grinned.
“She is the one Sansar told me to fetch for you, with her sister,” he replied.
Temujin set his mouth in a hard line and reached out to take the girl by her chin, raising her face to him. Her skin was very pale, he realized, his heart sinking. It was typical of Sansar to seek a bargain even after the terms had been sealed.
“How long have you been ill, little one?” Temujin asked her.
“Since spring, lord,” she answered, clearly terrified of him. “It comes and goes, but I am strong.”
Temujin let his gaze fall on Koke and held it until his cousin lost his smile. Perhaps he was remembering the beating he’d had at Temujin’s hands on a night long before. Temujin sighed. She would be lucky to survive the trip back to his camp in the north. If she died, one of his brothers would have to find a wife among the Tartar women they captured.
Arslan took the reins and Temujin mounted, looking down at Borte. The wooden saddle did not have room for two, so he held out an arm and she scrambled up to sit across his lap, clutching her bag to her. Arslan did the same with the girl who coughed. Her sister would have to walk behind them. Temujin realized he should have brought other ponies, but it was too late for regrets.
He nodded to Sholoi, knowing they would not meet again.
“Your word is good, old man,” he said.
“Look after her,” Sholoi replied, though his gaze did not leave his daughter.
Without replying, Temujin turned with Arslan and they made their way back through the camp, the girl of the Olkhun’ut trotting behind.
CHAPTER 22
A
RSLAN HAD THE GOOD SENSE
to leave them alone that first night. The swordsmith was still brooding about the loss of his blades and preferred to take a bow and hunt while Temujin came to know the woman of the Olkhun’ut. The sister who had walked was footsore and weary by the time they stopped that evening. Temujin learned that her name was Eluin and that she was used to tending to her sister, Makhda, when she was weak from her sickness. Temujin left the pair of them with the ponies after they had eaten, but he could still hear Makhda’s barking cough come at intervals. They had the horse blankets to protect them against the cold, though neither sister seemed particularly hardy. If Makhda lived long enough to reach the north, Temujin thought his mother might be able to find herbs for her, but it was a slim hope.
Borte hardly spoke as Temujin unrolled a blanket on the ground by the crackling fire. He was used to sleeping with nothing but his deel to protect him from the frost, but it did not seem right to ask her to do the same. He did not know the life she was used to, nor how Sholoi had treated her after Temujin had gone. He had not grown up around sisters and was uncomfortable with her in a way he did not fully understand.
He had wanted to talk and listen to her as they rode, but she’d sat straight-backed and stiff, rocking with the motion and staring at the horizon. He had missed the chance to open a conversation naturally, and now there seemed to be a strain between them that he could not ease.
When Arslan returned from his hunt, he played the part of a manservant with his usual efficiency. He butchered a marmot he had caught, roasting the strips of flesh until they were brown and delicious. After that, he took himself off somewhere nearby, lost in the gathering gloom. Temujin waited for some sign of Arslan’s acceptance of his trade for a wife, but there was nothing but grim silence from the older man.
As the stars turned around their northern point, Temujin began to fidget, unable to make himself comfortable. He had seen the smoothness of Borte’s tanned skin as she washed her face and arms in a stream cold enough to make her teeth chatter. They were good teeth, he had noticed, strong and white. For a while, he considered complimenting her on them, but it seemed a little like admiring a new pony and the words wouldn’t come. He could not pretend he didn’t want her under a blanket with him, but the years apart sat between them like a wall. If she had asked, he would have told her everything he had done since the last time they met, but she did not, and he didn’t know how to begin.
As he lay there under the stars, he hoped she would hear the way he puffed air out in great sighs, but if she did, she made no sign she was even awake. He might have been alone in the world, and that was exactly how he felt. He imagined staying awake until dawn so that she would see his tiredness and feel sorry for ignoring him. It was an interesting idea, but he couldn’t keep the sense of injured nobility for very long.
“Are you awake?” he said suddenly, without thinking. He saw her sit up under the stars.
“How could I sleep, with you huffing and blowing to yourself like that?” she replied.
He recalled the last time he had heard that voice in the dark and the touch of her hand on his cheek. The idea was exciting and he felt his body grow hot under his deel, despite the frozen air.
“I had an idea we would spend the first night under a blanket together,” he said. Despite his best intentions, it came out as an irritable complaint, and he heard her snort before she replied.
“Who could resist such sweet words?” she replied.
He waited hopefully, but her continuing silence was enough of an answer. Apparently, she could. He sighed, catching himself in the sound as he heard her giggle, quickly stifled in the blanket. In the darkness, he smiled, suddenly amused.
“I have thought about you many times in the years away,” he said. He saw her shape move then and guessed she had turned to him. He lay on his side facing her and scratched his nose where the damp grass tickled his skin.
“How many times?” she murmured.
He thought for a moment. “Eleven,” he said. “Twelve, including tonight.”
“You did not think of me,” she told him. “What do you remember of who I was?”
“I remember you had a pleasant voice, and a lump of snot underneath your nose,” he said, with such a ring of casual truth that it reduced her to stunned silence.
“I waited for you to come and take me away from my father for a long time,” she said at last. “There were evenings when I dreamed of you riding up, full grown as a khan of the Wolves.”
Temujin tensed in the darkness. Was that what it was? Had his new status made him less in her eyes? He raised himself on an elbow to reply, but she went on, unaware of his fast-changing moods.
“I turned down three young men of the Olkhun’ut,” she said, “the last when my mother was ill and not likely to survive the winter. The women laughed at the girl who pined for a Wolf, and still I walked proudly amongst them.”
“You knew I would come,” Temujin said, with a touch of smugness.
She snorted. “I thought you were dead, but I did not want to be married off to some horse boy of the gers, to bear his children. They laughed at my pride, but it was all I had.”
He stared into the gloom, trying to understand the struggle she had faced, perhaps as great in its way as his own. If he had learned anything in his life, it was that there are some who thrive on loneliness and take strength from it. They were vital, dangerous people and they cherished whatever kept them apart. Borte was one of those, it seemed. He was himself. He thought of his mother for a moment. She had told him to be kind.
“The first time I came to the Olkhun’ut, you were given to me, accepted by my father,” he said softly. “The second time, I came of my own will to find you.”
“You wanted to put your seed in me,” she said tightly.
He wished he could see her face in the darkness.
“I did,” he said. “I want your spirit in my sons and daughters: the best of the Olkhun’ut. The best of the Wolves.”
He heard a rustle and felt the warmth of her as she crept close and pulled her blanket over them both.
“Tell me I am beautiful,” she whispered in his ear, exciting him.
“You are,” he replied, his voice becoming hoarse. He moved his hands on her in the blackness, opening her deel and feeling the smoothness of her belly. “Your teeth are very white.” He heard her chuckle into his ear at that, but her own hands moved on him and he had no more words, nor needed them.
The following day was strangely vivid as Temujin rode with Borte. His senses seemed heightened and almost painful. Every time their flesh touched, he thought of the night before and the nights to come, thrilled by the experiences and the closeness.
They did not make good progress, though Arslan took the reins and let both sisters ride together for most of the afternoon. They stopped to hunt and, between the two bows, they had enough meat to roast each night. Makhda’s cough seemed to be growing worse away from the shelter of the Olkhun’ut gers, and her sister could be heard sobbing whenever she tended her. Arslan spoke kindly to them both, but as the first month ended, Makhda had to be tied into the saddle so that she would not fall from weakness. Though they did not speak of it, none of them expected her to live much longer.
The green of the land was fading as they rode north, and one morning, Temujin woke to see snow falling. He was wrapped in blankets with Borte and they had slept heavily, worn out by the cold and the endless plains. Seeing the snow brought a little ice back to Temujin’s spirit, marking the end of a happy time, perhaps happier than he had ever known. He knew he was returning to hardship and fighting, to leading his brothers into a war with the Tartars. Borte sensed the new distance in him and retreated from it, so that they spent hours each day in weary silence, where before they had chattered like birds.
It was Arslan who saw the wanderers first in the distance, his voice snapping Temujin out of his reverie. Three men had gathered a small herd in the lee of a hill and pitched a grubby ger there against the winter cold. Ever since Sansar had taken their swords, Temujin had feared such a meeting. With Borte in his arms, he swore softly to himself. In the distance, the strangers mounted quickly, kicking their ponies into a gallop. Perhaps their intentions were peaceful, but the sight of three young women would excite them to violence. Temujin drew rein and lowered Borte to the ground. He removed his bow from its wrapping and fitted his best remaining string, pulling away the cap of his quiver. Arslan was ready, he saw. The swordsmith had cut the rope holding Makhda in the saddle, leaving her to sit on the frozen ground with her sister. As he mounted in her place, he and Temujin exchanged a glance.
“Do we wait?” Arslan called.
Temujin watched the galloping warriors and wished he had a sword. Three poor wanderers would not own a long blade between them and it would have been enough to make the outcome certain. As it was, he and Arslan could be left for the birds in just a few bloody moments. It was less of a risk to attack.
“No,” he shouted back over the wind. “We kill them.”
He heard the sisters moaning in fear behind as he kicked in his heels and readied his bow. Despite himself, there was an exhilaration in riding with only his knees, perfectly balanced to send death from his bow.
The distance between them seemed long as they raced along the plain, then suddenly they were close and the wind was roaring in their ears. Temujin listened to the sound of his pony’s hooves striking the ground, feeling the rhythm. There was a point in the galloping stride where all four hooves left the ground for just a heartbeat. Yesugei had taught him to loose on that instant, so that his aim was always perfect.
The men they faced had not suffered through years of such training. They misjudged the distance in their excitement and the first shafts whined overhead before Temujin and Arslan reached them. The hooves thundered and again and again there was that moment of freedom when the ponies flew. Temujin and Arslan loosed together, the shafts vanishing away.
The warrior Arslan had marked fell hard from the saddle, punched off it by an arrow through his chest. His mount whinnied wildly, kicking out and bucking. Temujin’s strike was as clean, and the second man spun free to thump unmoving onto the frozen ground. Temujin saw the third release his arrow as they passed by each other at full speed, aimed right at Temujin’s chest.
He threw himself sideways. The shaft passed above him, but he had fallen too far and could not pull himself up. He cried out in anger as his foot slipped from the stirrup and he found himself clinging almost under his pony’s heaving neck at full gallop. The ground sped by underneath him as he yanked cruelly on the reins, his full weight pulling the bit free of his pony’s mouth so that he dropped another foot. For a few moments he was dragged along the icy earth, then with a huge effort of will he opened his hand on the reins and fell, trying desperately to roll out of the way of the crushing hooves.
The pony raced on without him, the sound dwindling to the silence of snow. Temujin lay on his back, listening to his own shuddering breath and gathering his wits. Everything ached and his hands were shaking. He blinked groggily as he sat up, looking back to see what had become of Arslan.
The swordsmith had put his second shaft into the chest of the warrior’s pony, sending him tumbling over the ground. As Temujin watched, the stranger staggered to his feet, obviously dazed.
Arslan drew a knife from his deel and walked unhurriedly to finish the killing. Temujin tried to shout, but as he took a breath, his chest stabbed at him and he realized he had broken a rib in the fall. With an effort, he stood and filled his lungs.
“Hold, Arslan!” he called, wincing at the sharpness.
The swordsmith heard and stood still, watching the man he had brought down. Temujin pressed a hand into his ribs, hunching over the pain as he walked back.
The wanderer watched him come with resignation. His companions lay in heaps, their ponies cropping at the ground with their reins tangled and loose. His own mount lay dying on the frost. As Temujin came closer he saw the wanderer walk to the kicking animal and plunge a knife into its throat. The flailing legs grew limp and blood came out in a red flood, steaming.
The stranger was short and powerfully muscled, Temujin saw, with very dark, reddish skin and eyes set back under a heavy brow. He was bundled in many layers against the cold and wore a square hat that came to a point. With a sigh, he stepped away from his dead pony and beckoned to Arslan with his bloody knife.
“Come and kill me, then,” he said. “See what I have for you.”
Arslan did not respond, though he turned to Temujin.
“What do you see happening here?” Temujin shouted to the man, closing the distance between them. He took his hand away from his side as he spoke and tried to straighten, though every breath sent a jolt of pain through him. The man looked at him as if he were insane.
“I expect to be killed as you killed my friends,” he said. “Unless you are going to give me a pony and one of your women?”
Temujin chuckled, gazing over to where Borte sat with Eluin and Makhda. He thought he could hear the coughing even from far away.
“That can wait until after we have eaten,” he said. “I grant you guest rights.”
The man’s face creased in amazement. “Guest rights?”
“Why not? It’s your horse we’ll be eating.”
When they rode out the following morning, the sisters were mounted on the ponies and they had another warrior for the raids against the Tartars. The newcomer did not trust Temujin at all, but with luck, his doubt and confusion would last long enough to reach the camp in the snows. If it did not, he would be given a quick death.
The wind tore viciously at them, snow stinging as it was hurled into their eyes and against any exposed skin. Eluin sat on her knees in the snow, wailing at the side of her sister’s body. Makhda had not had an easy death. The constant cold had worsened the thickness in her lungs. For the previous moon, every morning had begun with Eluin thumping at her back and chest until great red clots of blood and phlegm were torn loose enough for her to spit. When she was too weak, Eluin had used her fingers to clear her sister’s mouth and throat, while Makhda watched in terror and choked, desperate for another sip of the frozen air. Her skin had grown waxlike, and on the last day, they could hear her straining, as if she breathed through a whistling reed. Temujin had marveled at her endurance and more than once considered giving her a quick end with a knife across her throat. Arslan had pressed him to do it, but Makhda shook her head wearily every time he offered, right to the end.