The Mongoliad: Book One

CHAPTER 2: THE KHAN OF KHANS

Ögedei, Khan of Khans, third son of Genghis the Great Conqueror, sat upon his throne. His mighty frame was draped in fine robes—delicate embroidery depicted clouds and dragons in pure-gold thread on a sky-blue background. Around him were the lavishly painted walls of the Great Palace of Karakorum. The lilting music of zithers filled the room, and lithe girls danced about the tall throne, their sheer silk sleeves twirling red spirals in the air. Ögedei divided his attention between listening to the petitions of the bureaucrat prostrated before him and playing with his empty cup. He spun the cup deftly in his broad right hand, tracing the delicate silverwork with his fingertips. The cup was empty. He did not wish it to remain empty.

“O Khagan, Master of the World,” said the Shanxi provincial sub-administrator, his fat forehead firmly planted against the floor, “I bring myself before you today to humbly request that the grain taxes for Xieliang County be lowered from one in twelve bushels to one in fifteen…” The beaded tassels on the top of his cap dangled back and forth as he talked, and Ögedei found the motion mesmerizing. He was well into the embrace of the wine, and his mind was easily snared.

Weak, he thought, staring at the tassel-topped sub-administrator. A life hunched over books and papers. Any simple peasant among his subjects could subdue him and choke the breath from his throat, yet he governs them completely. He studied the man, his ludicrous hat, his soft, fat hands. One blow, he reckoned, I could split his head in two with one stroke, and then he could bother me no more. Ögedei sighed and looked away. One hand idly stroked his mustache, while he traced the grooves and ridges on the cup with the other. But another would just take his place, and after him, another. Like swatting at a swarm of flies.

The Shanxi provincial sub-administrator twisted his neck to look up at the Khagan, expecting an answer to a question Ögedei had only half heard. He grew pale, seeing the twisted line of Ögedei’s mouth, and he started to stammer, the tassels bobbing up and down.

Ögedei cut him off with a grunt and a wave of his hand. “Let it be thus,” he said.

The tassels clattered against the floor as the sub-administrator groveled in gratitude. Praising the magnificent wisdom of the Khagan, he shuffled backward until he was far enough away to flee the throne room without causing offense.

The sub-administrator scuttled between a pair of men entering the throne room. One was Yelu Chucai, Ögedei’s advisor; the other was a young warrior, wearing dust-covered leather armor. Chucai strode across the room, a floating apparition in his black silk robes. His beard, as dark as his robes, trailed down to his waist, a not-inconsiderable distance of his seven-foot frame. The young warrior looked small next to Chucai, even though the crown of his head was in line with the other man’s shoulder. The warrior’s eyes were wide, his boyishly smooth face unable to hide his wonderment at the array of treasures arranged in the throne room. Chucai knelt before the Khagan, and the young man belatedly scrambled to follow his lead.

“Khagan,” said Chucai, “this envoy comes from Chagatai Khan.”

Ögedei studied the young man kneeling beside Chucai. Why has my brother sent an emissary? He tried to recall the last report from the noyon, his generals in the field. Batu, Jochi’s intemperate son, was still in the West, expanding the edge of the empire with the aid of Subutai, Genghis’s brilliant strategist. Kadan and Onghwe were with the great horde as well; conquering lands for their father was a worthy cure for the boredom that had consumed them at Karakorum. Chagatai’s holdings—given to him by Genghis—extended from the Altai Mountains to the Amu Darya River. As long as Batu—and, by extension, the rest of Jochi’s offspring—kept conquering lands to the west, there should be no conflict between the two branches of the family. What more could Chagatai want?

The nagging question gave birth to a wine-spawned idea: the possibility of sending the warrior away, dismissing him outright without giving him a hearing.

“Why has my brother sent you?” Ögedei sighed, putting aside the idle idea.

The emissary started. “I…” he stuttered. “Chagatai Khan has sent me to…” He looked up at Ögedei, and the Khagan saw both confusion and something else in the young man’s face. “I have been sent to ensure your safety.”

“Safety?” Ögedei echoed. A scattering of half-formed thoughts raced through his head, a confusion of trails that looped back on themselves. Who? He raised his head and looked around the room. Oil lamps illuminated every inch of the walls; there were no shadows, no places for assassins to hide. There were a handful of men at every door throughout the palace, and hundreds more—thousands—who would die for him at but a word. How much safer could this one man make him? “An assassin?” he sneered, the wine slurring his words.

“No, great Khagan,” the emissary spoke quickly, attempting to redirect the conversation. “Who would be so foolish to try to assassinate you? Chagatai Khan sends me to…” The emissary glanced at Chucai, and seeing no help in the advisor’s hooded gaze, plunged on. “Your brother worries about you, about your drinking. He has sent me to…to watch over you…and…and to make sure you do not drink more than a single cup a day.”

Ögedei stared at the emissary for a long time, long enough that even Chucai started to fidget. The young man looked out of place—a warrior more at ease on the steppes than in the halls of Karakorum, a man who did not like the roof over his head—but there was something about the way he held himself, about the way his eyes moved about the room.

From deep in Ögedei’s belly a rumbling sound rose, a laugh that shook his shoulders and made his robes tremble. “My drinking? My brother is concerned about how much I drink?” He swiped a hand across his mustache, and noticing his cup on the arm of his throne, he picked it up and threw it at the young emissary. The warrior had the presence of mind to not flinch as it bounced off his leather jerkin, dust rising from the impact. “My brother dotes on me like a brood mare.” He stood, looming over the two men, and the last vestige of the laugh became a booming echo in his voice. “I am Ögedei, Khagan of the Mongol Empire. I do as I please. My brother’s attention should be on the kingdoms he can conquer in my name, like his nephew Batu. Like my sons. The rest does not concern him.”

The wine was making his legs wobble, and Ögedei put a hand down on the arm of his throne to steady himself.

The emissary’s face tightened as he watched the Khagan. “It will be as you say, Khagan.” He offered a shallow bow and then turned away from the Khagan, showing Ögedei his back as he walked out of the throne room.

Ögedei collapsed into his throne, a hot flush rushing up his neck. How dare he walk away like that? Gripping the arms of his throne, he pulled himself upright to yell at his guards.

Chucai had not moved, and the stormy expression on his face was enough to quell the shout rising in Ögedei’s throat. The wine fought him too, muddling his vision and making it seem as if dark shadows swam behind his advisor. Shadows that could contain…

“I will speak with him,” Chucai said. Before Ögedei could argue, Chucai offered a perfunctory bow and went after the emissary, leaving the Khagan to brood on his throne.

Ögedei leaned back on silk sheets and breathed the aromatic air infusing his private chambers deep into his lungs. Jasmine and magnolia, with a hint of cedar. It wasn’t the same as the rarified scent of the open steppes, but it reminded him of them nonetheless. In this room, away from the bowing and scraping sycophants and the watchful eyes of his guard, he could forget about the affairs of the empire for a while. His head throbbed faintly, a pressure against the crown of his skull—a lingering reminder of the wine. Dinner with Governor Mahmud Yalavach was a few hours away, and he hoped the headache would be gone by then.

The bed shifted around him, the light presence of his wives as they undid his robe and removed his fur-lined shoes. Hands ran over his muscular chest, and without opening his eyes, he caught them. He heard a quick gasp, and he knew whom he held. Jachin, the tallest. He had chosen her for her eyes, the brightest green color he had ever seen.

One of his wives put her mouth next to his ear, and he felt her breath. “So tense,” she whispered. He released his grip on the pair of fluttering hands and groped for the woman next to him. His hand brushed against her head, touching her thick braids and the thin ribbons she had woven into the strands.

“Toregene,” Ögedei murmured, rolling toward her.

She clucked her tongue, and the sound echoed in his ear. He instinctively moved away from her, and her hands slid under his body, pushing him farther. He rolled onto his stomach, still trying to reach back and grab her. She evaded his clumsy grope and tapped him lightly on the bare shoulder. “Lie still,” she admonished. “Let us see if we can’t work these knots out of your back.”

Ögedei grunted and relented, letting his hands fall onto the bed. “If I had my way,” he said, “I’d stay like this all evening, in bed, surrounded by my beautiful wives. We’d make love and then eat fried dumplings, then clean off in a cold bath and take a midnight ride. Out, over the steppes.”

“As if you’d ever be able to keep up with me,” Toregene laughed.

Ögedei opened his eyes and tried to look over his shoulder. “In lovemaking or riding?”

“Both.”

Ögedei smiled. “Would you not leave me my pride, woman?”

Toregene snorted. “You would get it back in a morning at court. All those officials crawling on the floor, calling you High Grand Exalted Master of the World. Begging you to notice them.”

“It is our job to remind you of more important things,” Jachin said as she joined Toregene. She pressed her elbow down hard into Ögedei’s shoulder, and he let out a grunt of pleasure. “Tense as a bowstring. What is it that worries you?”

The dust on his shoulders, Ögedei thought. The young emissary from his brother Chagatai. The warrior had ridden countless days across the steppes to reach Karakorum. He had slept outside, nothing but the endless bowl of the heavens over his head. There had been a horse beneath him, and the wind had flowed through him. All he had known was the grass that lay behind him and all he saw was horizon before him.

“Do you know how long it has been since I’ve been on a horse?” he said. “How long it has been since I’ve ridden freely across the grasses?”

Neither woman answered. Nor will they, he thought bitterly. They know as well as I. “Some nights I dream of escaping this cave,” he confessed. “I’m sitting in that room, watching an endless parade of bureaucrats and officials. They flow in like a spring river, and every time I blink, there are more of them. A flood that will overwhelm me.

“And in this dream, I escape. I leap from a balcony, and there is a strong pony waiting for me. No one can stop me. I ride out of the gates, and I keep riding forever, until I die in the saddle. But the pony doesn’t stop. He keeps going, and my body rots away. My bones are scattered across the empire, and the pony doesn’t stop until he reaches the place where the sky bends down and touches the ground. All that is left of me then is my hands, my fingers wound in his mane.”

Toregene worked her way down, and Ögedei felt his muscles loosen. He was tight, but it wasn’t that half-remembered tightness, that lower-back tension that came from being in the saddle overlong. “Tonight,” he sighed, “I have to go to dinner and eat over-spiced foreign food with golden chopsticks. I have to pretend to be interested in talking to overstuffed diplomats. That’s all I am now. A man who sits on benches and chairs, who eats and talks. That is all I do.”

“Somebody has to be Khagan,” said Toregene. “You’ve done a better job of ruling the empire than even your father.”

Ögedei scowled. “The empire rules itself. They just need someone to grovel to.” After a beat he added, “And no one compares to my father.”

He felt Jachin shift to his other side, and her elbow descended into the softer flesh below his shoulder. “Before you were Khagan this was all empty grassland,” she reminded him. “Because of you, there is a palace now. The grandest palace the world has ever known.”

“It would’ve been better off staying grassland. A palace for the Chinese is a prison for Mongols.” He flexed his shoulders, shooing his wives off him, and sat up. Their hands were deft, but their words were not helping him relax. He looked at Jachin and then Toregene, making sure they were paying attention to him. “Would it not be simpler if we rode off together? We could leave all of this to someone else and go live in a ger on the edge of a river like we used to. We could live off the land again. Eat what I kill.”

His wives said nothing, but they curled up close to him, running their hands through his hair. He clasped his hands on their shoulders, feeling their warm skin. “I think when I die, the empire will die with me,” he mused. “I have no worthy heirs. Kadan is too enamored with foreign religions. Khashi is more interested in chasing pretty women than fighting. Onghwe…” He shook his head. “Onghwe is worst of all.”

“What about Guyuk?” asked Toregene. “He will be a worthy Khagan.”

“Guyuk is too quick to anger. Remember what he did in Rus.”

“Batu is an arrogant fool,” said Toregene. “Guyuk was—”

“Wars aren’t won by being cruel to your own men,” Ögedei cut her off. “Guyuk is too temperamental. He does not understand how to rule. And his cousins…they would be like wolves in the dead of winter: they would look upon Guyuk as the weakest member of the pack.”

“They wouldn’t dare!” Toregene’s eyes flashed.

“They would,” Ögedei sighed. “And perhaps…” His shoulders sagged and his hands pressed down more firmly on his wives’ shoulders.

“What is it?” Jachin asked. “It isn’t the dream of the steppe that haunts you, is it?”

Ögedei shook his head. “An emissary from Chagatai came today, bearing a message.”

“What message?”

“He sent some stripling to keep an eye on my drinking.”

The women were quiet for a moment, and when one of them spoke, her voice was almost too quiet to be heard. “There might be some benefit to such a man,” Jachin said.

Ögedei whirled on her, and she met his gaze for an instant. She dropped her chin, but the damage was done. Ögedei had seen the sharp glitter of her eyes.

“I am Khagan,” he roared. The headache pulsed in his head, returning with furious hammering. “I will do as I please. When I please. How I please. No one—not my brother, not you, and certainly not some dust-covered, boodog-eating horse archer—will tell me what I may and may not do.”

Toregene leaned against him, her weight holding his arm down. Had he raised it to strike Jachin? He had no memory of trying. There was nothing in his head but the pounding reminder of how long it had been since he had had a drink, and that sensation only proved Jachin’s point. He pulled away from Toregene, dismissing Jachin with a wave of his hand. “You can’t expect a man not to drink from time to time. My father drank. His father drank. Drinking is the only freedom I still have.”

Toregene put her hands on his shoulders. Her braids brushed against his back as she rested her head against his. “Your brother’s not trying to insult you, Ögedei. He just cares about you.”

“Does he?” Ögedei stared at the flickering light of the lantern hanging on the wall. “If he really cares about me, then why doesn’t he come here himself?”

Ögedei could not see the sky for all the dust in the air. Men and horses—and the wind, even—had stirred up the dry ground of the Khalakhaljid Sands. The Kereyid army was endless; every time a break appeared in the clouds of dust, it was only to unleash more riders upon Genghis Khan’s beleaguered army.

His mouth filled with the taste of dirt and blood, Ögedei whipped the reins of his horse and drove it on through the sands. All around him, he heard the cacophony of battle: men shouting, the clanging of swords, the shrill screams of horses dying. He could not tell if his father’s armies were winning or losing. Ögedei’s world was reduced to a red cloud, filled with ghosts.

He beat his heels against the ribs of his horse, trying to keep the animal under control, but it sensed his fear and refused to mind him. Starting at every clang of steel around it, the horse kept shying—first one direction and then another.

He had seen seventeen winters; he did not think he would see another.

The dust swirled in front of him, billowing out from the shape of a charging horse and rider. There was something wrong with his head, and as he emerged from the cloud, Ögedei glimpsed the warrior’s helmet more fully and realized the approaching rider was not from Genghis’s army. The Kereyid, the long feather on his helm broken and bent, flicked his spear down and drove its point into his horse’s flank.

Ögedei felt the shock of the thrust in his legs, and his horse reared, lurching to the right. The reins jerked from Ögedei’s grasp, and as he tumbled toward the ground, he caught a glimpse of the sky through the dust. Blue sky.

The fall knocked the wind from his lungs and made his ears ring. He tried to spit out the dust in his throat, but nothing came out when he retched. His sword was gone, and he tried to remember when it had fallen from his grip: when his horse had thrown him, or when he had hit the ground? The dust had swallowed it up.

The ground shook. A horse. His ears were still echoing with the shock of his fall, and everything was muffled. But he could feel the horse coming at him, and he rolled to the side as the Kereyid thundered past. The tip of the man’s sword caught the edge of his helmet, ringing from one of the metal studs in the leather. His head was yanked back and his helmet flew off, eagerly devoured by the dust.

The Kereyid pulled his horse to a stop, wheeling it around again, and as it trotted toward Ögedei, he slipped off its back in a fluid motion. Sword raised, he charged Ögedei.

Scrambling for the dagger in his belt, Ögedei pushed himself off the ground. The wind gusted between them, and the Kereyid’s blow came slowly, as if all the particulate in the air was causing resistance against the blade.

Ögedei crouched under the strike and thrust up into the Kereyid’s belly. His dagger hit the edge of the warrior’s breastplate, skipped down, and then slid into flesh. Ögedei pulled the blade along the edge of the hard breastplate and blood splashed over his hands. The Kereyid howled, and Ögedei shoved him down. He was still holding his sword, and Ögedei kicked it from his hands and then stomped on the man’s face. The Kereyid continued to yell, and Ögedei kept kicking until his boots were covered in red mud.

His horse was still alive. It lay on its side, kicking and convulsing around the Kereyid’s spear. Ögedei coughed and spat up sand. His legs trembled as he bent and picked up the Kereyid’s sword. It was heavier than his, and the cross-guard wider and thicker than he was used to. It will do. He squeezed the hilt tightly as he staggered toward his dying horse.

It had been a good steed, sure-footed and responsive to his guidance. It had carried his uncle for several months before Jochi gave it to him. There was blood smeared on the horse’s nose and its eyes were wide and frenzied. Incredibly, it was trying to stand as Ögedei approached, but its front right leg failed to hold its weight.

“Run,” Ögedei croaked. “Run to the Eternal Blue Sky.” His stroke was clumsy, but the blade was sharp enough. The horse’s back legs kicked twice as it died, and Ögedei ground the heel of his hand against his face, fighting the sting of sand and salt in his eyes.

An arrow landed in the side of the dead horse, and Ögedei looked at it dumbly. It was a short Mongol arrow, but the fletching was unfamiliar. A Kereyid arrow. He was still on the battlefield. He couldn’t stay here; he had to find his way out of the sand cloud. He didn’t know whether to advance or fall back, wouldn’t even know where to advance or fall back to. Perhaps he would never see the sky again. He was being buried underground. He wrapped his scarf over his face to keep out the dust, still tasting grit on his tongue.

Something bumped into him, and he fell back against the corpse of his pony. Wildly he looked around, trying to spot a shadow or a shape in the dust. Who is there? Horses charged past on his right. Their hooves pounded against the sand, kicking up swirling clouds of dust. He brought up a hand to shield his face, and pain lanced his neck and shoulder. Glancing down, he saw the bloody tip of an arrow protruding from beneath his chin.

His scarf was tangled in the arrow, and he couldn’t reach over his shoulder to pull it out. His fingers brushed the shaft, and pain shot through his neck. Screaming, he fell to his knees.

There was blood inside his armor. His scarf was turning red, and what wasn’t absorbed by the cloth was running down his chest. His hands were red too, and he realized he was kneeling in the bloody mud of his horse. He shivered, suddenly cold.

The dead Kereyid, though he didn’t have much of a face left, seemed to be laughing at him. Ögedei tried to steady himself on his horse. So warm, he thought, and the tears started again. He didn’t try to hide them this time. He let them run. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, though there was no one there to hear him.

The Kereyid kept laughing. Ögedei could hear his voice—a roaring, rippling sound in his head, like a flash flood in the spring as it filled the dry riverbed. It wasn’t just the Kereyid; it was the dead on the battlefield. All of the spirits were laughing at him now.

Dark spots swam in his vision. He dug his fingers into the short hair of the horse and tried to remember what it was like to ride.

So much blood, he thought as he toppled over.

He was having trouble breathing. His mouth was clogged with sticky mud, and bristly hairs tickled at his nose. Sit up. His body seemed so far away. Ögedei tried to move his arms and felt nothing. I’ll try again soon, he thought. Maybe when the sun comes out. Until then he would lie still and listen to the faint rhythm of his heartbeat.

A muffled noise interrupted his reverie, and he realized it was coming from his throat. The sun had come out, and its light was burning a hole in his neck. The pain burned straight through to his throat, and his scream was escaping through the ragged hole.

Above him, there was nothing but blue sky. No dust, no clouds, only the endless expanse of the sunlit heavens. But for the intense pain in his neck, he would have thought he had gone into the next world. It shouldn’t hurt, he thought, not anymore.

It did, though, and the pain kept digging deeper into his belly. He kept trying to spit it out, but nothing came out of his mouth. Everything seemed to be coming out of his neck in crimson gouts.

A shadow passed between him and the sky, a dust-covered cloud. Its surface arranged itself as he focused on it: redrimmed eyes, a mustache flecked with dirt and blood, lips cracked and dry. The lips were moving far above him, but he could still only hear the sound of his own scream leaking through the hole in his neck. The face dipped down and the smell of sweat and oil from the man’s hair filled Ögedei’s nostrils. Underneath the stink of battle, he recognized the man’s scent. When the face raised itself up again and spat out a mouthful of black blood, a name came to Ögedei.

Boroghul. One of the orphans adopted by his grandmother. The tall one with the face like red stone. Family, yet not-family. Not-blood, and yet—Ögedei watched Boroghul spit out another mouthful of his blood—a blood-brother.

The sky grew dark, and Ögedei found the strength to move his hands. He grabbed on to the cloth and leather of Boroghul’s armor and held on. Stars came out, tiny eyes winking at him like animals hidden in the tall steppe grasses, and eventually he could hear the wind again. Stay with me, Ögedei, it said. Or maybe it was Boroghul, whispering in his ear.

It didn’t matter. He had been found.