Ruler of the Sky: A Novel of Genghis Khan Read online

  “They are Orbey and Sokhatai, the widows of Ambaghai Khan.” He scowled. “Orbey Khatun thinks a Taychiut should lead us, but her grandsons Targhutai and Todogen chose to follow me.” He came at her and pawed roughly at her clothes. She slapped his hands away.

  “Do you want me to wait?” He squeezed her arm, hurting her. “Maybe you do. Maybe you want to dream of what it will be like.” He let go. “Make yourself ready. I want you looking your best.”

  3

  Hoelun sat on Yesugei's left; Nekun-taisi and Daritai were on his right. People had ridden to Yesugei's circle from other parts of the camp, to sit by the fires outside his tents and to peer at his new woman. They had little for a real feast, this early in the season; the animals had to fatten and their young grow larger before more meat was butchered and stored. But they had curds, some dried meat, a few birds, and jugs of kumiss to drink. They would enjoy what they had, and be grateful for an occasion to celebrate.

  Daritai was entertaining the crowd with the tale of Hoelun's capture. “She wailed so loudly,” he said, “that her voice rippled the Onon's waters. Her cries made the trees sway and swept over the grass in the valleys as she wept.”

  Hoelun felt the stares of the two old Khatuns. The women near her were already drunk. Nekun-taisi's wife passed a ram's horn of kumiss to Sochigil. A few of the men stood up and danced, lifting their short legs as they stomped on the ground, their voices bellowing a song.

  Yesugei thrust an oxhide jug at her. “I'm not thirsty,” Hoelun whispered.

  “Drink it, or I'll pour it down your throat.”

  She took the jug and drank; the tart, fermented mare's milk eased the tightness in her throat. Two men leaped up to wrestle. One of the Taychiuts leered at her. It would soon be too dark to see; she wanted to hide in the shadows.

  Yesugei grabbed the jug from her, then pulled her to her feet. Daritai held out a piece of meat; Yesugei took the food from the end of his brother's knife. “I'll finish feasting inside my yurt,” he shouted.

  The men laughed. The fingers around Hoelun's arm were as hard as talons. Yesugei was silent until they reached his dwelling. He pulled her inside, then pushed her towards the hearth. “You didn't eat,” he said.

  “I wasn't hungry.”

  “It's wrong to waste food.”

  She sat down by the fire as he seated himself. He pulled his knife from under his sash, cut a piece from the meat, and speared it with his blade; she took it. He gulped kumiss from his jug, then wiped the ends of his moustache.

  “I should have killed that Merkit,” he said, “but I didn't want to run more flesh off my horse chasing him.”

  “Killing my husband wouldn't have warmed my feelings for you.”

  “It would have settled things, having him dead.”

  “You couldn't even face him alone,” she said. “You had to fetch your brothers.”

  “I wanted to be sure of success.”

  The shaved bald spot on the top of his head gleamed in the light of the fire; his eyes narrowed as he watched her. She took off her head-dress and set it down. “I hate you,” she said softly.

  “That's too bad.” He wiped his hands on his tunic. “He was a fool for letting me see you, for not making you cover yourself. He didn't deserve to keep you.” He paused. “I saw you give him your shift before he rode away.”

  She took a breath. “I wanted him to have a keepsake. He didn't want to leave me, but you would have killed him if he had stayed. I told him he had to go, that he—” Her voice broke.

  “And now he can dry his tears on your garment,” Yesugei said mockingly. “But maybe you didn't give him your shift just to console him. Perhaps you wanted to inspire me as I rode past by showing me everything I would get.”

  She said, “No.”

  “Are you going to weep over him again? You made your little show of loyalty before—don't go on pretending that you're sorry.” He rose swiftly to his feet, then pulled her up and dragged her towards him. Hoelun yanked her arms free. He shoved her towards the bed and fumbled at his belt. “Take off your clothes.”

  “Take them off yourself, if you can.”

  “I'll beat them off you if I must.” He sounded as though he meant it. She took off her boots and trousers. “The robe, too.”

  Her hand darted towards his face. He struck her arm away and knocked her to the bed. Her head swam. He came at her, grabbed her wrists, then pinned her down.

  “Hold still,” he muttered. She tried to kick, but he gripped her wrists with one hand and forced her legs apart with the other. His knee dug into her left thigh; his fingers were inside her cleft. Her wrists felt bruised, but the hand probing her was strangely gentle.

  He thrust inside her. Hoelun closed her eyes; her jaws were clenched, her body rigid. It would be over soon. She remembered how it was with Chiledu, how quickly it passed for him.

  He pushed her right leg up until her knee was against her chest; he was moving more slowly now. She twisted under him, wondering how long he would go on, hating the slapping sound his belly made against her body.

  His thrusts became more rapid, and then he groaned as he fell across her. His outer garment was open, and the rough wool of his shift chafed against her cheek. He withdrew, got up from the bed, and fumbled at his trousers.

  “You enjoyed it,” he said as she sat up.

  “You disgust me. Chiledu gave me more pleasure than I'll ever feel with you.”

  “I think not.” He moved towards the hearth; his odd, greenish-brown eyes glittered in the fire's light. “His only use was to make you ready for me.” He tied his belt, picked up his knife, and went outside.

  She heard the sound of voices raised in song; some of his people were still celebrating. Hoelun's face burned with fury. She imagined him out there, taking a piss, laughing with his friends about his new woman. The songs of his people seemed to mock her; she covered herself and wept.

  He wrenched her out of her sleep when he returned and took her again, then fell into the deep, untroubled sleep of a man content with the work of the day.

  Hoelun tossed at his side as she listened to his even, steady breathing. Yesugei lay on his stomach, his bowed, muscled legs bare below the edge of his shift; he smelled of sweat and leather and kumiss. She thought of reaching for his knife and plunging it into his back.

  At last she got up and crept from the yurt, then walked quickly until she was near a shrub. The camp was silent, the night sky above her clear. Hoelun looked up, noting the positions of the stars, the smoke-holes of Tengri; it would soon be morning.

  She squatted behind the shrub and relieved herself. I have to live with him now, she thought. I have to be a good wife and help him however I can, because that's the only way I can protect myself and any children he gives me.

  She walked back to the camp. Yesugei was stirring as she stepped inside; he sat up and beckoned to her. She came towards him and seated herself on the bed, as far away from him as she could get.

  “You are my wife, Hoelun Ujin.” He was addressing her respectfully now, but his mouth formed a half-smile, as though the formality amused him. “You see what I have, but I mean to get more.” He tilted his head. “You will have your share of my herds, and a third of whatever I take in any raid, when you have children. What you brought with you is yours to do with as you like. You'll manage what we own and make any decisions about it when I am away.”

  Chiledu's words had been phrased more poetically, but had amounted to much the same thing. “So now you have a second wife,” she said bitterly.

  Yesugei pulled at his moustache. “When you give me a son, you will be my first wife.”

  “Sochigil Ujin may have something to say about that,” she objected. “She's already given you a son.”

  “She'll say nothing. Your sons will be first and hers second.” He rested one arm against his raised knee. “I know her—I wanted her, but I also see how she is.” His face was solemn. “I have to lead these people, Hoelun, and I have rivals amo
ng the Taychiuts who sometimes question that. If I fly to Heaven before my sons are men, my chief wife will have to hold these clans together until a son of mine can take my place. Sochigil wouldn't be able to do it.”

  Hoelun recalled the young woman's placid gaze, how calmly Sochigil had accepted her presence. “Oh, she pleases me well enough in some ways,” Yesugei went on, “but as soon as we were wed, it was always, 'Yesugei, what do you think? My master, what should I do? Husband, I don't know what to tell you—you decide.' A man needs better counsel from a wife.”

  “Some men say so,” she replied, “and then don't listen.”

  His mouth twitched. “You'll say what you think. You may even tell me how much you hate me, as long as you say so only when we're alone.”

  “You're quick to trust a woman you hardly know.”

  “I have to see these things, know who will help me right away. If you don't offer good advice, you'll be very sorry—I won't have two weak-willed women clinging to me.”

  Hoelun was silent.

  “But I don't think you're weak,” he continued. “It was Heaven's will that I have you—I knew that when I first saw you.” He glanced up at the smoke-hole; it was still dark outside. “We have some time.” He reached for her again.

  4

  Hoelun rose early. By the time Yesugei was awake, meat broth was simmering in the kettle hanging from the tripod over the hearth, and she had set out some kumiss. Her husband watched her from the bed she and Chiledu should have shared, inside the yurt she had expected to raise in a Merkit camp.

  Yesugei groaned, got up, and pulled on his clothes before she brought him his food. He picked up the jug, sprinkled a few drops of kumiss as an offering to the spirits, then drank.

  “I spoke to Sochigil yesterday,” he said. “She knows you'll be my chief wife when you have a son.”

  “You might have waited to tell her that.” Perhaps that was why Sochigil avoided her. “I could be pregnant now.” His eyes narrowed. “You would always have to wonder if it's yours if I have a baby nine months from now.”

  “He wasn't enough of a man to give you a child so soon.” Yesugei showed his teeth. “If I have doubts, you may not be first wife.”

  She lifted her head. Her ongghon, a carving of a sheep's udder, hung over her bed next to one of his. Several women had helped her raise the yurt, working together to secure the wooden framework before tying felt panels to the wood. She had given the women the soft woollen scarves intended as gifts for Chiledu's family.

  Apart from Yesugei's brothers, he had no family to welcome her here. His father Bartan had died three years ago when Yesugei was sixteen, stricken by an evil spirit that had robbed him of the power of speech and movement. Yesugei's mother had followed her husband two years later.

  Yesugei was now head of his Kiyat clan. Nekun-taisi was older, but his mother had been a second wife; he had yielded to Yesugei when an older brother was killed in a raid. Daritai was the Odchigin, the Keeper of the Hearth as the younger brother, but he veered between devotion to Yesugei and resentment against him.

  “The days are too long,” her husband said. “I get impatient for your bed. I see how you are when we join.”

  “You flatter yourself.” She gestured at the place between her legs. “I could give myself more pleasure alone.”

  His face darkened; his scowl pleased her. She was waiting to see how angry he would get when Daritai called out from beyond the entrance.

  “Enter,” Yesugei shouted. Daritai entered, followed by Targhutai Kiriltugh.

  “Greetings, brother.” Daritai leered at Hoelun. “Targhutai says he's tired of herding—he's been eating dust for days. We could go hunting.”

  “You'll herd,” Yesugei replied. Targhutai's boyish face congealed into a pout. The Taychiut stayed with Yesugei because many of his people were content to follow the Kiyat; Hoelun's husband had told her that. But Targhutai dreamed of being a chief himself, an ambition which she supposed was fed by his grandmother Orbey.

  Yesugei stood up. Hoelun handed him a skin of kumiss; he would not return before the evening meal.

  When the three men had left the yurt, Hoelun smoothed down the felt blanket and hides on the bed. The basket near the doorway was nearly empty; she would have to gather more argal as fuel. She picked up the basket and went outside.

  The air was already hot and dry; even this early in the day, she might find dung dry enough to use. The eastern horizon was red, the sky growing lighter. She turned west. Dark, rolling land stretched beyond the few trees bordering the river; in the distance, an escarpment jutted towards the sky.

  Koko Mongke Tengri was everywhere. No place existed where a man could hide from the Eternal Blue Sky above. Tengri burned His people with the heat of the sun, sent storms against them, lashed them with winds, and chilled them with the ice of winter. Tengri forged them in heat and then plunged them into the cold, shaping them as smiths crafted the swords they made with ore scraped from open veins on mountainsides.

  Cattle moved towards the open land near the camp. The legs of the beasts were hidden by clouds of dirt; their bodies seemed to float forward on the dust. Men on horseback guided the camp's horses towards the plain, while women and girls, aided by dogs, herded sheep. The air was filled with lowing and the trampling of hooves.

  Hoelun searched for dry dung. Sochigil, with her baby tied to her back, was also out looking for fuel. The dark-eyed young woman walked towards her, then abruptly turned away.

  A voice said, “Greetings, Hoelun Ujin.” Orbey Khatun stepped from behind a wagon next to her tent.

  Hoelun bowed. “I greet you, Honoured Lady.”

  “There will be a storm soon,” Orbey said. “I feel it in my bones.” The Khatun's small black eyes narrowed. “You have not visited my tent, young Ujin.”

  “I have been here only a little while,” Hoelun said.

  “You will come to me tomorrow, when we gather to honour the spirits,” she commanded. “The new wife of the Bahadur should be with us. Sochigil Ujin is also welcome, of course.”

  “I am honoured,” Hoelun said. She bowed, murmured a farewell, then hurried towards her own camping circle. The old dowager's prediction had been sound; the sky was darkening in the north.

  Between two poles near Hoelun's dwelling, long strips of meat were drying; an old cow had died the night before. She took down the meat, carried it inside, then tied down the flap over the opening.

  She dreaded the storm. Once, lightning had struck a yurt in her father's camp. Everyone had wondered what the family inside had done to summon the bolt. They had been forced to purify themselves by walking between two fires while two shamans chanted, and had been forbidden to enter the camp for a year.

  Thunder was rolling by the time Hoelun slipped a little dry dung under the cauldron hanging over the hearth. She pulled at the rope dangling from the smoke-hole to close the opening, then dropped to the ground, stretched out, and drew a piece of felt around herself.

  Storms terrified her. She heard the screams of young children and the cries of women as they ran for their dwellings. The men out on the plain would be lying on the ground, wrapped in whatever was handy as they prayed that no lightning would strike near them.

  Hoelun trembled under the felt as the wind raged and rain pelted the yurt. Storms were always a reminder that Tengri could not be appeased, only appealed to for mercy or thanked if one were spared Heaven's wrath. “Etugen,” she whispered, praying that Earth would protect her even as Earth Herself was lashed by the wind.

  The storm passed almost as quickly as it had come. She lay under her covering until the wind died, then got up to open the smoke-hole.

  Her quiver and the case holding her bow hung on the eastern side of the doorway. She had only a bow that a boy might use, not one of the heavier ones for a man that took years to make, but her younger brother had told her she could shoot almost as well as he. She longed to go down to the river and hunt birds, as she had when she was a child.

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sp; Hoelun sighed; she had other obligations now. Sochigil was probably still inside her yurt. She checked her cauldron; the cow's milk could simmer a little longer. It was time she spoke to Yesugei's other wife alone.

  “Welcome.” Sochigil stepped back, her baby in her arms. The infant was tied to the wooden board with rounded ends that was its cradle.

  Hoelun followed the other woman inside and sat down near the hearth, her back to the doorway. Sochigil closed her robe, set her son on the floor, tied her sash, then seated herself on a cushion.

  Hoelun held out the pelt she had brought. “This is for your son Bekter.”

  Sochigil ran her hands over the fur. “I must give you something. I have a necklace with an amber stone. It would look well on you - the stone almost matches your eyes.”

  “You need not fetch it now,” Hoelun said.

  “Later, then.” The young woman poured kumiss into a ram's horn, flicked a few drops towards the images of household spirits hanging over her bed, then handed it to her; Hoelun drank. “I wanted to speak to you before,” Sochigil continued, “but then Orbey Khatun greeted you. I'm afraid of her.”

  “I'm not,” Hoelun said.

  The dark-eyed woman made a sign to avert misfortune. “Some say she knows magic.”

  Hoelun shrugged. “Some old ones in my camp wanted us to think they knew more than they did, so we would work harder to keep them alive. The Khatun wants us with her tomorrow, when the ladies gather in her tent.”

  Sochigil shivered. “Then we must go.” She rocked the cradle, crooning to her son.

  “The Bahadur told me,” Hoelun said carefully, “that he wants to make me his first wife when I bear a son. I didn't ask him for that. I was content to leave that place to you. I'm surprised he would make such a promise so soon after finding me.”

  “He decides everything quickly,” Sochigil murmured. “He doesn't wait to act.”