Authors: Conn Iggulden
He placed it firmly on the new emperor’s head.
“Xuan, you are emperor, the Son of Heaven,” he said. “May you rule wisely.” He ignored the shock in the faces of the men around him. “I am your regent, your right hand. Until you are twenty years of age, you will obey me in everything, without question. Do you understand?”
The little boy’s eyes filled with tears. He could hardly comprehend what was happening, but he stammered a response.
“I . . . I understand.”
“Then it is done. Let the people rejoice. I am going to the wall.”
Zhi Zhong left the stupefied ministers behind with their charge as he flung open the doors and strode out of the palace. It had been built high on the edge of Songhai lake, which fed the great canal, and the view at the top of the steps allowed him to look out on the city as the subjects waited for news. Every bell would sound and the peasants would be drunk for days. He took a deep, shuddering breath as he stood there, looking out at the dark walls. Beyond those, his enemies looked for a weakness. They would not get in.
Temuge sat staring dreamily at three men who had once been khans amongst the people. He could see their arrogance in every action, their disdain for him held barely in check. When would they understand they had no power in the new order his brother had created? There was only one
gurkhan,
one man superior to them all. His own brother sat before them, yet they dared to speak to Temuge as if they were his equal.
As the tribes erected their gers on the plain in front of Yenking, it had pleased Temuge to keep the men waiting on his pleasure. Genghis had shown his trust in him with the title of “Master of Trade,” though Temuge himself had defined the role against surly opposition. He delighted in the power he exercised and still smiled when he thought of how long he had kept Kokchu waiting to see him the previous day. The shaman had been pale with fury by the time Temuge finally allowed him into the khan’s ger. In allowing him to use it for his work, Genghis showed his approval, a gesture not wasted on the supplicants. There was no point appealing to Genghis if they disliked a ruling made in his name. Temuge had made sure they understood. If Kokchu wanted to gather men to explore an ancient temple a hundred miles away, the request had to be granted and the spoils looked over by Temuge himself.
Temuge laced his hands in front of him, barely listening to the men who had been khans. The father of the Woyela was supported by two of his sons, unable to stand on his own. It would have been a courtesy to offer him a chair, but Temuge was not one to let old wounds be forgotten. They stood and droned on about grazing and timber, while he looked into the distance.
“If you will not allow the herds to move to new grazing without one of your little tokens,” the Woyela was saying, “we will be slaughtering healthy animals as they starve.” He had increased in bulk since Genghis had cut the tendons in his legs. Temuge enjoyed seeing the man grow red in the face with anger and only glanced lazily at him without a reply. Not one of them could read or write, he reminded himself with satisfaction. The tokens had been a fine idea, carrying the symbol of a wolf burned into the squares of pine wood. He had men in the camp who would demand to see such a token if they saw warriors cutting trees, or bartering looted wealth, or any one of a thousand things. The system was not yet perfect, but Genghis had supported him in sending back the ones who complained, their faces pale with fear.
When the men had finished their tirade, Temuge spoke to them as gently as if they discussed the weather. He had found the soft tone served to heighten their anger and it amused him to prick them in that way.
“In all our history, we have never gathered so many in one place,” he said, shaking his head in gentle reproof. “We must be organized if we are to thrive. If I let trees be cut as they are needed, there will be none left for next winter. Do you understand? As I have it now, we take timber only from woodland that is more than three days’ ride away, dragging it back. It takes time and effort, but you will see the benefit next year.”
As much as his soft speech galled them, the delicious part was that they could not fault his logic. They were men of the bow and sword and he had found he could think circles around them now that they were forced to listen.
“The grazing, though?” the crippled Woyela khan demanded. “We cannot move a
goat
without one of your maimed men demanding a token to show your approval. The tribes are growing restless under a controlling hand they have never known.”
Temuge smiled at the furious man, seeing how his weight was becoming a strain on his sons at each shoulder. “Ah, but there are no tribes any longer, Woyela. Is that not a lesson you have learned? I would have thought you remembered it every day.” He made a gesture and a cup of airag was placed in his hand by a Chin servant. Temuge had found his staff among those Genghis had recruited from the cities. Some of them had been servants to noble families and they knew how to treat a man of his position. He began each day with a hot bath in an iron tub built specially for the purpose. He was the only man in the camp who did, and for the first time in his life, he could smell his own people. He wrinkled his nose at the thought. This was how a man should live, he told himself, sipping as they waited.
“These are new days, gentlemen. We cannot move from here until the city falls, which means grazing must be carefully managed. If I do not exercise
some
control, the ground will be bare of grass come the summer and where will we be then? Will you have my brother separated from his herds by a thousand miles? I do not think you would.” He shrugged. “We may be a little hungry by the end of summer. Perhaps some of the herds will have to be slaughtered, if the land cannot support so many. Have I not sent men to look for salt to cure the meat? The emperor will starve before we do.”
The men stared at him in silent frustration. They could voice examples of how his control had spread through the vast encampment. He had an answer for each one. What they could not express was their irritation at being called to heel at every turn by some new rule from Temuge. Latrine pits must not be dug too close to running water. Ponies could be mated only according to a list of bloodlines that Temuge had made himself, without consulting anyone. A man with a fine mare and stallion could no longer put them together without begging for permission. It irked them all and it was true that discontent was spreading through the camp.
They did not dare complain openly, not while Genghis supported his brother. If he had listened to their complaints, he would have undermined Temuge and made a mockery of the new position. Temuge understood that, knowing his brother far better than they did. Once Genghis had given him the role, he would do nothing to interfere. Temuge reveled in the chance to show what an intelligent man could achieve when he was not restrained.
“If that is all, I have many others I must see this morning,” Temuge said. “Perhaps now you understand why it is difficult to see me. I find there are always some who will talk the day away before they understand what we
must
do here; what we must become.”
He had given them nothing and their enraged frustration was like cool wine to him. He could not resist driving in the barbs a little deeper.
“If there is anything else, I am busy, but I will find time to listen, of course.”
“You listen, but you do not hear,” the crippled khan said wearily.
Temuge spread his hands in regret. “I find that not everyone who comes before me can fully understand the problems they raise. There are even times when trade goes on in the camp without the khan’s tithe being removed and sent to me.”
He stared at the old khan hanging in the arms of his sons as he spoke, and the man’s feverish gaze faltered. How much did Temuge know? There were rumors that he paid spies to report every transaction to him, every bargain and exchange of wealth. No one knew the full extent of his influence.
Temuge sighed and shook his head as if disappointed. “I had hoped you would bring it up without my prompting, Woyela. Did you not sell a dozen mares to one of our Chin recruits?” He smiled encouragingly. “I have heard that the price was a fine one, though the mares were not the best quality. I have not yet received the tithe of two horses that you owe my brother, though I assume they will be here by sunset. Is that a reasonable thing to assume, do you think?”
The khan of the Woyela wondered who had betrayed him. After a time, he nodded and Temuge beamed.
“Excellent. I must thank you for taking time away from those who still look to you for authority. Remember that I am always here should anything else need my attention.”
He did not stand as they turned to leave the khan’s ger. One of those who had not spoken looked back in naked anger, and Temuge decided to have him watched. They feared him, both for his role as a shaman and as his brother’s shadow. Kokchu had spoken the truth in that. Seeing fear in another man’s eyes was perhaps the most wonderful feeling of all. It brought a sense of strength and lightness that came otherwise only from the black paste Kokchu supplied.
There were other men waiting to see him, some of whom he had summoned himself. He considered a dull afternoon spent in their company and, on a whim, decided against it. He turned his head to the servant.
“Prepare a cup of hot airag laced with a spoonful of my medicine,” he said. The black paste would bring colorful visions and then he would sleep through the afternoon, letting them all wait. He stretched his back at the thought, pleased with the day’s work.
CHAPTER 26
I
T TOOK TWO MONTHS
to build ramparts of stone and wood to protect the great engines of war. The trebuchets Lian had designed had been constructed in the forests to the east. With their great beams still sticky with sap, they sat like brooding monsters a full mile away from the walls of the city. When the ramps were built, they would be rolled up into their protective shadow. It was slow and tiring work, but in some ways, the confidence of the Mongol host had grown in the time. No army sallied out to attack them; there was a freshwater lake to the north of the city, and the shores teemed with birds they could trap during the winter months. They were the lords of the Chin plain. Yet there was nothing to do but live, and they were used to fast conquest and victory, with new lands discovered each day. Coming to a sudden halt began to sour the camaraderie between the tribes. Already there had been knife fights stemming from ancient grudges. Two men and a woman had been found dead on the shore of the lake, their murderers unknown.
The army waited restlessly for the city to starve. Genghis had not known whether the stone ramps could protect the heavy catapults, but he needed something to keep his people from idleness. At least working them to exhaustion kept them fit and too tired to bicker. The scouts had found a hill of slate, less than a day’s ride from Yenking. The warriors quarried the stone with the enthusiasm they brought to every task, breaking it with wedges and hammers, then heaving the blocks onto carts. Lian’s expertise was vital there and he hardly left the quarry site in those weeks. He showed them how to bind the stones with a paste of burned limestone, and the ramps grew daily. Genghis had lost count of how many thousands of carts had trundled past his ger, though Temuge kept a careful record on their dwindling supply of looted parchment.
The counterweights Lian had designed were rope nets of larger stones, hanging from the levers of the machines. Two men had crushed their hands in the construction, suffering agonies as Kokchu cut the mangled limbs from them. The shaman had rubbed a thick, gritty paste into their gums to dull the pain, but they had still screamed. The work went on, watched always from the walls of Yenking. Genghis had been helpless to prevent the massive war bows being moved along the crest to face his own weapons. Sweating teams of Imperial guards built new cradles for them, working as many hours as the Mongol warriors below.
It took hundreds of strong men to roll the trebuchets up to the ramps in front of Yenking. With fresh snow falling on the plain, Genghis stood in frustration as the Chin engineers wound back seven great bows, sending iron-tipped poles crashing against the ramparts. The trebuchets answered with two boulders that cracked against the walls, sending splinters flying. The Chin weapons were untouched.
It took an age to reset Lian’s great levers. In that time, the wall bows hammered the ramps over and over. Before the trebuchets were ready for a second shot at the city, cracks appeared in the ramps the tribes had built. After that, destruction came quickly. Stones exploded into the air with each strike, showering Lian and his men with splinters. Many of them fell clutching at their hands and faces, staggering back as the barrage continued. Lian himself was untouched and he stood watching in grim silence as his ramparts were torn apart and his machines exposed.
For a time, it seemed that the trebuchets themselves might survive, but then a direct hit cracked across the plain, followed almost instantly by three more. As the wall teams tired, the rate had slowed, but each blow carried terrific force. Warriors died trying to drag the machines out of range. One moment they were there, sweating and shouting. The next they were bloody smears on the wood and the air around them was filled with snow and dust.
Nothing could be salvaged. Genghis growled softly in his throat as he looked over the broken men and timbers. He was close enough to the city to hear cheering inside, and it galled him that Lian had been right. Without protection, they could not match the range of the wall weapons, and whatever they built would be hammered down. Genghis had discussed making high towers to wheel toward the city, perhaps even sheathed in iron, but the heavy bolts would punch straight through them, just as his own arrows pierced sheet armor. If his metalworkers made the towers strong enough to withstand the blows, they would be too heavy to move. It was maddening.
Genghis paced up and down as Tsubodai sent brave warriors in to collect the wounded and take them out of range. His men believed he could take Yenking as he had taken other cities. Seeing Lian’s extraordinary constructions smashed to kindling would not help morale in the camp.
As Genghis watched the Young Wolves risk their lives, Kachiun approached and dismounted. His brother’s expression was inscrutable, though Genghis thought he could detect the same deep irritation at the failure.
“Whoever built this city gave thought to its defense,” Kachiun said. “We won’t take it by force.”
“Then they will starve,” Genghis snapped. “I have raised the black tent before Yenking. There will be no mercy.”
Kachiun nodded, watching his older brother closely. Genghis was never at his best when forced into inaction. Those were the times when the generals walked with care around him. Over the previous days, Kachiun had seen Genghis lose his dark moods as the ramps rose, wondrously strong. They had all been confident, but it was clear now that the Chin commander had only waited for them to drag the new weapons into range. Whoever he was, the man was patient, and patient enemies were the most dangerous.
Kachiun knew Genghis was capable of being stung into rash decisions. As things stood, he still listened to his generals, but as the winter wore on, Genghis would be tempted to try almost anything and the tribes could suffer as a result.
“What do you think of sending men to climb the walls at night?” Genghis asked, echoing Kachiun’s thoughts. “Fifty or a hundred of them, to light fires in the city.”
“The walls can be climbed,” Kachiun replied carefully. “But the Chin patrols at the top are as thick as flies. You said it would be a waste of men, before.”
Genghis shrugged irritably. “We had catapults then. It might still be worth trying.”
Genghis turned his pale eyes on his brother. Kachiun held his gaze, knowing his brother would want the truth.
“Lian said they had more than a million in the city,” Kachiun said. “Whoever we sent would be hunted down like wild dogs and become sport for their soldiers.” Genghis grunted in response, grim and despairing. Kachiun searched for a way to lighten his mood.
“Perhaps it is now time to send the generals out to raid, as you said you would. There will be no quick victory here and there are other cities in this land. Let your sons go with them, that they can learn our trade.”
Kachiun saw doubt cross his brother’s face and thought he understood. The generals were men Genghis trusted to act without his supervision. They were loyal by any test that mattered, but the war up to that point had been fought with Genghis watching. To send them out, perhaps for thousands of miles, was not an order Genghis would give lightly. He had agreed to it more than once, and yet somehow, the final command had not come.
“Is it betrayal you fear, brother?” Kachiun asked softly. “Where would it come? From Arslan and his son Jelme, who have been with us from the beginning? From Khasar, or Tsubodai, who worships you? From me?”
Genghis smiled tightly at the idea. He looked up at the walls of Yenking, still untouched before him. With a sigh, he realized he could not keep so many active men on that plain for as long as three years. They would be at each other’s throats long before that, doing the work of the Chin emperor for him.
“Shall I send the entire army? Perhaps I will stay here on my own and dare the Chin to come out.”
Kachiun chuckled at the image. “In truth, they would probably think it was a trap and leave you there,” he replied. “Yet if I were the emperor, I would be training every able man as a warrior, building an army from within. You cannot leave too few to guard Yenking, or they could see a chance to attack.”
Genghis snorted. “You do not make a warrior in a few months. Let them train, these bakers and merchants. I would welcome the chance to show them what it means to be a warrior born.”
“With a voice of thunder, no doubt, and perhaps a penis of lightning,” Kachiun said with a straight face. After a moment of silence, both of them broke into laughter.
Genghis had lost the black mood that had settled on him with the destruction of the catapults. Kachiun could almost see the energy rise in him as he thought about the future.
“I have said I will send them out, Kachiun, though it is early yet. We do not know if other cities will try to relieve Yenking and we may need every man here.” He shrugged. “If the city hasn’t fallen by spring, I will set the generals free to hunt.”
Zhi Zhong was in a pensive mood as he stood before the high window in the audience chamber of the summer palace. He had hardly spoken to the boy emperor since the day he had crowned him. Xuan was somewhere in the labyrinth of corridors and rooms that had formed his father’s official residence, and Zhi Zhong rarely thought of him.
The soldiers had cheered their general as the Mongol trebuchets were destroyed that morning. They had looked to Zhi Zhong for approval and he had shown it in a brief nod to their officer before striding down the steps into the city. Only in private had he clenched a fist in silent triumph. It was not enough to expunge the memory of the Badger’s Mouth, but it was a victory of sorts and the frightened citizens needed something to raise them from their despair. Zhi Zhong sneered to himself as he recalled the reports of suicides. Four highborn daughters had been found dead in their rooms as soon as the news of the army’s defeat had filtered through Yenking. All four had known each other and it seemed they preferred a dignified end to the rape and destruction they saw as inevitable. Eleven more had taken the same path in the weeks that followed, and Zhi Zhong had worried the new fashion for death might spread right across the city. He clasped his hands behind his back, peering out across the lake at the noble houses. They would have better news today. Perhaps they would hesitate with their knives of ivory and their scorn for his skill. Yenking could still resist the invaders.
The lord regent realized he was tired and hungry. He had not eaten since the morning and the day had been spent in too many meetings to recall. Every man in authority in Yenking seemed to need his approval and his advice. As if he knew any better than they what to expect over the coming months. He frowned at the thought of the food supplies, glancing to a side table where scrolls lay in a pyramid. The citizens of Yenking were eating themselves into defeat. That one thing could make a mockery of his defenses, but Zhi Zhong himself had stripped the city stores to feed the army. It galled him to think of the Mongols eating the supplies he had gathered for a year at the pass, but there was no point looking back at bad decisions. After all, he and the emperor had believed the Mongols would be stopped before they ever came in sight of the Imperial city.
Zhi Zhong pursed his mouth. The Yenking merchants were not fools. Rationing was already in force across the city. Even the black market had collapsed as they realized the siege might not be broken quickly. Only a few were still selling food for huge profits. The rest were hoarding supplies for their own families. Like all their class, they would try to wait out the storm and then grow fat and rich again in the aftermath.
Zhi Zhong made a mental note to have the wealthiest merchants brought before him. He knew how to apply the sort of pressure that would reveal their secret stores. Without them, the peasants would be eating cats and dogs inside a month, and after that . . . ? He cracked his neck wearily. After that, he would be trapped in a place with a million starving people. It would be hell on earth.
The one hope was that the Mongols would not wait outside the walls forever. He told himself they would tire of the siege and ride to other cities less well defended. Zhi Zhong rubbed his eyes, glad there was no one but slaves to see his weakness. In truth, he had never worked as hard in his life as in this new role. He hardly slept, and when he did find rest, his dreams were filled with plans and stratagems. He had gone without sleep at all the night before as he stood with the bow teams.
He smiled tightly as he remembered again the destruction of the Mongol machines. If only he could have seen the khan’s face at that moment. He was tempted to summon the ministers for a final meeting before he bathed and slept. No, not while they looked at him with something more than defeat in their eyes. He would let them have this day complete, one where he had cracked the image of invincibility around the Mongol khan.
Zhi Zhong turned away from the window and took a path through dark corridors to where Emperor Wei had bathed each evening. He sighed in anticipated pleasure as he reached the door and entered a room centered around a sunken pool. The slaves had heated the water ready for his ritual, and he cracked his neck again as he prepared to have the cares of the day soothed from him.
Slaves undressed Zhi Zhong with casual efficiency as he gazed at the two girls waiting to rub his skin with oils in the pool. Silently he congratulated Emperor Wei on his taste. The slave women of the Imperial household would be wasted on his son, at least for a few more years.
Naked, Zhi Zhong lowered himself into the water, enjoying the sense of space in the high-ceilinged room. Water dripped and echoed and he began to relax as the girls soaped his skin with soft brushes. Their touch revived him. After a time, he drew one of them out of the pool, laying her on her back on the cold tiles. Her nipples stiffened in the sudden chill. Only her lower legs remained in the hot water as he took her in silence. She was well trained and her hands writhed across his back as she gasped under the man who ruled the city. Her companion observed the rutting pair with dispassionate interest for a few moments, then resumed soaping his back, pressing her breasts into him so that he groaned in pleasure. Without opening his eyes, Zhi Zhong reached for her hand, guiding it down to where the bodies met so that she could feel him enter her companion. She clung to him with professional skill and he smiled, his mind growing calm even as his body tensed and jerked. There were compensations in ruling Yenking.