Empire of Silver
The Conqeror Series
Conn Iggulden

Copyright

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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2010

Copyright © Conn Iggulden 2010

Conn Iggulden asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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To Katie Espiner

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

MAP

KHAN FAMILY TREE

PROLOGUE

PART ONE AD 1230

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

PART TWO AD 1232

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

PART THREE AD 1240

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

HISTORICAL NOTE

Keep Reading

An Excerpt from CONQUEROR

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

Also by Conn Iggulden

About the Publisher

MAP

KHAN FAMILY TREE

PROLOGUE

He trudged through a landscape of gers, like grubby shells on the shore of some ancient sea. Poverty was all around him: in the yellowing felt, patched and repaired endlessly over generations. Scrawny kid goats and sheep ran bleating around his feet as he approached his home. Batu stumbled over the animals, cursing as water slopped from the heavy buckets. He could smell pungent urine in the air, a sourness that had been missing from the breeze over the river. Batu frowned to himself at the thought of the day he had spent digging a toilet pit for his mother. He had been as excited as a child when he showed the results of his labour. She had merely shrugged, saying she was too old to go so far in the night, when good ground was all around her.

She was thirty-six years old, already broken by sickness and the years passing. Her teeth had rotted in her lower jaw and she walked like a woman twice her age, bent over and limping. Yet she was still strong enough to slap him on the rare occasions Batu mentioned his father. The last time had been just that morning, before he began the trek to the river.

At the door of her ger, he eased the buckets down and rubbed his sore hands, listening. Inside, he could hear her humming some old song from her youth and he smiled. Her anger would have vanished as quickly as always.

He was not afraid of her. In the last year, he had grown in height and strength to the point where he could have stopped every blow, but he did not. He bore them without understanding her bitterness. He knew he could have held her hands, but he did not want to see her weep, or worse to see her beg or barter a skin of airag to ease her misery. He hated those times, when she used the drink to hammer herself into oblivion. She told him then that he had his father’s face and that she could not bear to look at him. There had been many days when he had cleaned her himself, her arms flopping over his back, her flat breasts against his chest as he used a cloth and bucket to scrub the filth from her skin. He had sworn many times he would never touch airag himself. Her example made even the smell of it hard on his stomach. When its sweetness was combined with vomit, sweat and urine, it made him retch.

Batu looked up when he heard the horses, grateful for anything that would keep him outside a little longer. The group of riders was small by the standards of a tuman, barely twenty horsemen. To a boy brought up on the edges of the camp, it was a glorious sight for a morning, a different world.

The warriors rode with very straight backs and, from a distance, they seemed to radiate strength and authority. Batu envied them, even as he ached to be one of their number. Like any other boy of the gers, he knew that their red and black armour meant they were Ogedai’s own Guard, the elite warriors of the tumans. Stories of their battles were sung or chanted on feast days, as well as darker tales of betrayal and blood. Batu winced at the thought. His father featured in some of those, which prompted sidelong glances at his mother and her bastard son.

Batu hawked and spat on the ground at his feet. He could still remember when his mother’s ger had been of the finest white felt and gifts had arrived almost daily. He supposed she had once been beautiful, her skin fresh with youth, where now it was seamed and coarse. Those had been different days, before his father had betrayed the khan and been butchered for it like a lamb in the snow. Jochi. He spat again at the word, the name. If his father had bent to the will of the great khan, Batu thought he might have been one of the warriors in red and black, riding tall among the filthy gers. Instead, he was forgotten and his mother wept whenever he talked of joining a tuman.

Almost all the young men of his age had joined, except for those with injuries or defects of birth. His friend Zan was one, a mix-blood Chin who had been born with a sightless white eye. No one-eyed man could ever be an archer and the warriors had turned him away with kicks and laughter, telling him to tend his flocks. Batu had drunk airag for the first time with him that night and been sick for two days. The recruiters had not come for him either, not with the betrayer’s blood running in his veins. Batu had seen them out looking for strong lads, but when their gaze passed over him, they shrugged and turned away. He was as tall and strong as his father had been, but they did not want him.

With a shock, Batu realised the riders were not passing through. He watched as they stopped to speak to one of his mother’s neighbours and he took a sharp breath in amazement as the old man pointed in Batu’s direction. The horsemen trotted towards him and he stood rooted, watching as they came closer. He found he did not know what to do with his hands and folded them over his chest twice before letting them dangle. From inside the ger, he heard his mother calling some question, but he did not reply. He could not. He had seen the man riding at the head of the group.

There were no pictures in the poor gers, though one or two Chin paintings had found their way into the homes of the wealthiest families. Yet Batu had seen his father’s brother once. On a feast day years before, he had crept up close, peering between warriors for a sight of the great khan. Ogedai and Jochi had been with Genghis then and time had not faded the bright memory, among the most bitter-sweet in all his young years. It had been a glimpse of the life he might have had, before his father threw it all away for some petty squabble Batu did not even understand.

Ogedai rode bareheaded, in armour lacquered shining black. He wore his hair in the Chin style, as a heavy rope falling from a topknot on a bare, shaved scalp. Batu drank in every detail of the man as his mother’s voice called plaintively again from inside. He could see that the great khan’s son was looking directly at him and speaking, but Batu was tongue-tied, dumb. The yellow eyes were bright up close and he was lost in the realisation that he was staring at his uncle by blood.

‘Is he slow-witted?’ one of the warriors said. Batu shut his open mouth. ‘My lord Ogedai is speaking to you, boy. Are you deaf?’

Batu found himself flushing with great heat. He shook his head, suddenly irritated to have such men ride up to his mother’s ger. What would they think of the patched walls, the smell, the flies in the air? It was humiliating and his shock turned quickly to anger. Even then, he did not reply. Men like these had killed his father, his mother said. The life of a ragged son would mean little to them.

‘Have you no voice at all?’ Ogedai said. He was smiling at something and Batu responded crookedly.

‘I have,’ he said. He saw one of the warriors reach down, but he did not expect a blow and he staggered a step as a mailed glove connected with the side of his head.

‘I have, my lord,’ the warrior said without heat.

Batu shrugged as he straightened up. His ear was burning, but he’d known worse.

‘I have a voice, my lord,’ he said, doing his best to remember the warrior’s face.

Ogedai discussed him as if he wasn’t present. ‘It wasn’t just a story then. I can see my brother in his face and he’s already as tall as my father. How old are you, boy?’

Batu stood very still, trying to collect himself. Some part of him had always wondered if his mother had been exaggerating his father’s position. To have it confirmed so casually was more than he could take in.

‘Fifteen years,’ he said. He saw the warrior begin to lean forward again and added ‘my lord’ quickly. The warrior leaned back in his saddle and nodded to him complacently.

Ogedai frowned. ‘You’re old to be starting out. Training should begin at seven or eight at the latest, if you’re ever to draw a good bow.’ He saw Batu’s confusion and smiled, pleased to be able to do such a thing. ‘Still, I will be watching you. Report to General Jebe tomorrow. He has his camp about a hundred miles to the north, near a village by a cliff. You can find it?’

‘I have no horse, my lord,’ Batu said.

Ogedai glanced at the warrior who had struck him and the man raised his eyes to heaven before dismounting. He passed the reins into Batu’s hands.

‘Can you ride at least?’ the warrior said.

Batu was awed as he took the reins and patted the muscular neck. He had never touched an animal as fine.

‘Yes. Yes, I can ride.’

‘Good. This mare is not your horse, understand? She will carry you to your post, but then you will take some old sway-back and return her to me.’

‘I don’t know your name,’ Batu said.

‘Alkhun, boy. Ask anyone in Karakorum and they’ll know me.’

‘The city?’ Batu asked. He had heard of the stone thing rising from the soil on the back of a million workers, but until then, he had not believed it.

‘More a camp than a city at the moment, though that is changing,’ Alkhun confirmed. ‘You can send the horse by the way station riders, but tell them to go easy with her. I’ll take any whip marks out of your hide. Oh, and welcome to the army, boy. My lord Ogedai has plans for you. Don’t disappoint him.’

PART ONE AD 1230

CHAPTER ONE

The air swirled with marble dust that glittered as it caught the evening sun. Ogedai’s heart was full as he guided his horse down the main thoroughfare, taking in every sight and sound around him. There was a sense of urgency in the cacophony of hammer blows and shouted orders. The Mongol tumans had gathered outside the city. His generals, his people had been summoned there to see what two years of labour had created: a city in a wilderness, with the Orkhon river tamed and bent to his will.

Ogedai reined in for a moment to watch a group of workmen unload a cart. Nervous under his gaze, the labourers used ropes, pulleys and sheer numbers to manoeuvre blocks of white marble onto low sledges that could be dragged into the workshops. Each milky block was subtly veined in a light blue that pleased Ogedai. He owned the quarry that had birthed the stones, hundreds of miles to the east, just one of a thousand purchases he had made in the last years.

There was no doubt he had been extravagant, spending gold and silver as if it had no value. He smiled at the thought, wondering what his father would have made of the white city rising in the wilderness. Genghis had despised the anthills of humanity, but these were not the ancient stones and teeming streets of an enemy. This was new and it belonged to the nation.

There had never been a treasury like the one he had inherited, amassed from the wealth of China and Khwarezm, yet never spent by its khan. With the tribute from Yenking alone, Ogedai could have sheathed every new home in white marble or even jade if he had wanted. He had built a monument to his father on the plains, as well as a place where he himself could be khan. He had built a palace with a tower that rose above the city like a white sword, so that all men could see the nation had come far from simple gers and herds.

For his gold, a million men had come to work. They had crossed plains and deserts with just a few animals and tools, coming from as far off as Chin lands or the cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Kabul. Masons and carpenters from Koryo had made the journey, called to the west by rumours of a new city being built on a river of coins. Bulgars brought stocks of rare clays, charcoal and hardwood in great caravans from their forests. The city filled with traders, builders, potters, foodsellers, thieves and scoundrels. Farmers scenting a profit brought their carts for days of travel, all for the strings of metal coins. Ogedai gave them gold and silver from the earth, melted and shaped. In return, they gave him a city, and he did not find it a bad bargain. For the present, they were the colourful crowds of his city, speaking a hundred tongues and cooking a thousand different foods and spices. Some of them would be allowed to stay, but he was not building it for them.

Ogedai saw green-handed dyers flatten themselves against the walls, their red turbans dipping in respect. His Guards cleared the way ahead, so the son of Genghis could ride almost in a dream. He had made this place from the camp of gers his father had known. He had made it real, in stone.

It still amazed him. He had not paid for women to travel with his workers, but they had come with their husbands and fathers. He had wondered for a time how he would establish the businesses every city needed to thrive, but traders had approached his chancellor, offering horses or more silver to lease new properties. The city was more than a simple collection of houses. Already it had a vitality of its own, far beyond his control.

Yet not completely. A quirk in the plans had created an area of small alleyways in the south of his city. Criminal gangs had begun to flourish there until Ogedai heard. He had ordered eight hundred buildings torn down, the whole area redesigned and rebuilt. His own Guard had supervised the hangings.

The street fell quiet as he passed the labourers and their masters bowing their heads as they saw the man who held the power of life and death and gold over all of them. Ogedai took a deep breath of the dusty air, enjoying the taste of it on his tongue and the thought that he was literally breathing in his creation. Ahead, he could see the towers of his palace, crowned in a dome of gold beaten thinner than the paper of his scribes. It raised his spirits to see it, like sunlight trapped and held in his city.

The street widened as it grew before him, its stone gutters polished. That section had been finished months before and the bustling crowds of labourers fell behind. As Ogedai trotted on, he could not help glancing at the boundary walls that had so confused his Chin architects and labourers. Even from the low vantage point of a saddle, there were moments when he could see over them to the green plains beyond. The walls of Yenking had not saved that city from fire or siege, he knew. His walls were the warriors of the khan, the tribes who had brought a Chin emperor to his knees and razed a shah’s cities.

Already, Ogedai loved his creation, from the vast expanse of the central training ground, to the red-tiled roofs, the paved gutters, the temples and churches and mosques and markets and homes by the thousand, most still empty and waiting for life. Scraps of blue cloth fluttered in the plains wind on every corner, a tribute to the sky father above them all. In the south, green foothills and mountains stretched far away and the air was warm with dust as Ogedai rejoiced in Karakorum.

The twilight was deepening into a soft gloom as Ogedai handed his reins to a servant and strode up the steps to his palace. Before he entered, he looked back once more at the city straining to be born. He could smell fresh-turned earth and, over it, the fried food of the workmen on the evening air. He had not planned the herds of livestock in corrals beyond the walls, or the squawking chickens sold on every corner. He thought of the wool market that had sprung up by the western gate. He should not have expected trade to halt simply because the city was unfinished. He had chosen a spot on an ancient traders’ road to give it life – and life had begun pouring in while whole streets, whole districts, were still piles of lumber, tile and stone.

As he looked into the setting sun, he smiled at the cooking fires on the plains surrounding the city. His people waited there, for him. His armies would be fed on rich mutton, dripping fat from the summer grass. It reminded him of his own hunger and he moistened his lips as he passed through a stone gate the equal of anything in a Chin city.

In the echoing hall beyond, he paused for a moment at his most extravagant gesture. A tree of solid silver stretched gracefully up to the arched ceiling, the centre point open to the sky like the ger of any herdsman. It had taken the silversmiths of Samarkand almost a year to cast and polish, but it served his purpose. Whoever entered his palace would see it and be staggered at the wealth it represented. Some would see an emblem for the silver people, the Mongol tribes who had become a nation. Those with more wisdom would see that the Mongols cared so little for silver that they used it as a casting metal.

Ogedai let his hand slide down the bole of the tree, feeling the metal chill his fingers. The spreading branches reached out in a parody of life, gleaming like a white birch in moonlight. Ogedai nodded to himself. He stretched his back as lamps were lit by slaves and servants all around him, throwing black shadows and making the evening seem suddenly darker outside.

He heard hurrying footsteps and saw his manservant, Baras’aghur, approaching. Ogedai winced at the man’s keen expression and the bundle of papers under his arm.

‘After I have eaten, Baras. It has been a long day.’

‘Very well, my lord, but you have a visitor: your uncle. Shall I tell him to wait on your pleasure?’

Ogedai paused in the act of unbuckling his sword belt. All three of his uncles had come to the plains around Karakorum at his order, gathering their tumans in great camps. He had forbidden them all from entering the city and he wondered who would have disobeyed him. He suspected it would be Khasar, who regarded orders and laws as tools for other men rather than himself.

‘Who is it, Baras?’ Ogedai asked quietly.

‘Lord Temuge, master. I have sent servants to tend him, but he has been waiting now for a long time.’

Baras’aghur made a gesture to indicate a sweep of the sun in the sky and Ogedai pursed his lips in irritation. His father’s brother would be well aware of the nuances of hospitality. Simply by arriving when Ogedai was not there to greet him, he had created an obligation. Ogedai assumed it was deliberate. A man like Temuge was too subtle not to grasp the slightest advantage. Yet the order had gone out for the generals and princes to remain on the plains.

Ogedai sighed. For two years, he had readied Karakorum to be the jewel in an empire. His had been a splendid isolation and he had manoeuvred to keep it so, his enemies and friends always off balance. He had known it could not last for ever. He steeled himself as he walked after Baras’aghur to the first and most sumptuous of his audience rooms.

‘Have wine brought to me immediately, Baras. And food – something simple, such as the warriors are eating on the plain.’

‘Your will, my lord,’ his servant said without listening, his thoughts on the meeting to come.

The footsteps of the two men were loud in the silent halls, clicking and echoing back to them. Ogedai did not glance at the painted scenes that usually gave him so much pleasure. He and Baras’aghur walked under the best work of Islamic artists and it was only towards the end that Ogedai looked up at a blaze of colour, smiling to himself at the image of Genghis leading a charge at the Badger’s Mouth pass. The artist had asked a fortune for a year’s work, but Ogedai had doubled his price when he saw it. His father still lived on those walls, as well as in his memory. There was no art of painting in the tribes he knew and such things could still make him gasp and stand in awe. With Temuge waiting, however, Ogedai barely nodded to his father’s image before he was sweeping into the room.

The years had not been kind to his father’s brother. Temuge had once been as fat as a feasting calf, but then lost the weight rapidly, so that his throat sagged into flaps of skin and he looked far older than his years. Ogedai looked at his uncle coldly as he rose from a silk-covered chair to greet him. It was an effort to be courteous to a man who represented the end of his time apart. He had no illusions. The nation waited impatiently for him and Temuge was just the first to breach his defences.

‘You are looking well, Ogedai,’ Temuge said.

He came forward as if he might embrace his nephew and Ogedai struggled with a spasm of irritation. He turned away to Baras, letting his uncle drop his rising arms unseen.

‘Wine and food, Baras. Will you stand there, staring like a sheep?’

‘My lord,’ Baras’aghur replied, bowing immediately. ‘I will have a scribe sent to you to record the meeting.’

He left at a run and both men could hear the slave’s sandals clattering into the distance. Temuge frowned delicately.

‘This is not a formal visit, Ogedai, for scribes and records.’

‘You are here as my uncle then? Not because the tribes have selected you to approach me? Not because my scholar uncle is the one man whom all the factions trust enough to speak to me?’

Temuge flushed at the tone and the accuracy of the remarks. He had to assume Ogedai had as many spies in the great camps as he had himself. That was one thing the nation had learned from the Chin. He tried to judge his nephew’s mood, but it was no easy task. Ogedai had not even offered him salt tea. Temuge swallowed drily as he tried to interpret the level of censure and irritation in the younger man.

‘You know the armies talk of nothing else, Ogedai.’ Temuge took a deep breath to steady his nerves. Under Ogedai’s pale yellow eyes, he could not shake the idea that he was reporting to some echo of Genghis. His nephew was softer in body than the great khan, but there was a coldness in him that unnerved Temuge. Sweat broke out on his forehead.

‘For two years, you have ignored your father’s empire,’ Temuge began.

‘Do you think that is what I have done?’ Ogedai interrupted.

Temuge stared at him.

‘What else am I to think? You left the families and tumans in the field, then built a city while they herded sheep. For two years, Ogedai!’ He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. ‘There are some who say your mind has broken with grief for your father.’

Ogedai smiled bitterly to himself. Even the mention of his father was like tearing the scab off a wound. He knew every one of the rumours. He had started some of them himself, to keep his enemies jumping at shadows. Yet he was the chosen heir of Genghis, the first khan of the nation. The warriors had almost deified his father and Ogedai was certain he had nothing to fear from mere gossip in the camps. His relatives were a different matter.

The door swung open to reveal Baras’aghur and a dozen Chin servants. In moments, they had surrounded the two men, placing bronze cups and food on crisp white cloth before them. Ogedai gestured for his uncle to sit cross-legged on the tiled floor, watching with interest as the older man’s knees creaked and made him wince. Baras’aghur sent the servants away and then served tea to Temuge, who accepted the bowl in relief with his right hand, sipping as formally as he would have in any ger of the plains. Ogedai watched eagerly as red wine gurgled into his own cup. He emptied it quickly and held it out before Baras’aghur could move away.

Ogedai saw his uncle’s gaze flicker over the scribe Baras’aghur had summoned, standing in a respectful attitude against the wall. He knew Temuge understood the power of the written word as well as anyone. It had been he who had collected the stories of Genghis and the founding of a nation. Ogedai owned one of the first volumes, copied carefully and bound in hard-wearing goatskin. It was among his most prized possessions. Yet there were times when a man preferred not to be recorded.

‘Give us privacy, Baras,’ Ogedai said. ‘Leave the jug, but take your scribe with you.’

His manservant was too well trained to hesitate and it was but moments until the two men were alone once again. Ogedai drained his cup and belched.

‘Why have you come to me tonight, uncle? In a month, you can enter Karakorum freely with thousands of our people, for a feast and a festival they will talk of for years.’

Temuge studied the younger man before him. The unlined face looked weary and stern. Ogedai had chosen a strange burden for himself, with this city. Temuge knew there were only a handful of men in the camps who cared more than a bronze coin for Karakorum. To the Mongol generals who had known Genghis, it was a colossal conceit of white marble and Chin design. Temuge wished he could tell the young man how much he loved the creation without it seeming like greasy flattery. Yet he did love it. It was the city he had once dreamed of building, a place of wide streets and courtyards and even a library, with thousands of clean oak shelves lying empty for the treasures they would one day hold.

‘You are not a fool, Ogedai,’ Temuge said. ‘It was not by chance that your father chose you over older brothers.’ Ogedai looked up sharply and Temuge nodded to him. ‘At times I wonder if you are a strategist like General Tsubodai. For two years, the nation has been without a leader, without a path, yet there has been no civil war, no struggle between princes.’

‘Perhaps they saw my personal tuman riding among them, my scribes and spies,’ Ogedai replied softly. ‘There were always men in red and black watching them for treachery.’

Temuge snorted. ‘It was not fear but confusion that held them. They could not see your plan, so they did nothing. You are your father’s heir, but you did not call them to take the oath. No one understands it, so they wait and watch. They still wait to see what you will do next.’

Temuge saw Ogedai’s mouth twitch as if he wanted to smile. He longed to know his nephew’s mind, but with this new generation, who knew how they thought?

‘You have built your city on the plains, Ogedai. The armies have gathered at your call, but now they are here and many of them have seen this glorious place for the first time. Do you expect them simply to bend the knee and give their oath? Because you are your father’s son? He has other surviving sons, Ogedai. Have you considered them at all?’

Ogedai smiled at his uncle, amused at the way the man seemed to be trying to pierce his secrets with his gaze. There was one he would not find, no matter how closely he peered. He felt the wine spread its glow inside him, easing his pain like a caress.

‘If that was my intention, uncle – to win two years of peace for myself and build a city – well, I have done it, have I not? Perhaps that is all I wanted.’

Temuge spread his hands. ‘You do not trust me,’ he said, genuine hurt in his voice.

Ogedai chuckled. ‘As much as I trust anyone, I promise you.’

‘A clever answer,’ Temuge said coldly.

‘Well, you are a clever man. It’s what you deserve,’ Ogedai snapped. All the lightness had gone from his manner as he leaned forward. Imperceptibly, his uncle eased himself back.

‘At the new moon,’ Ogedai went on, ‘I will take the khan’s oath of every officer and prince of the blood in the nation. I do not have to explain myself, uncle. They will bend the knee to me. Not because I am my father’s son, but because I am my father’s chosen heir and the leader of the nation.’

He caught himself, as if he was about to say too much, and Temuge watched a shutter drop over his emotions. Here was one son who had learned the cold face early.

‘You did not tell me why you came to me tonight, uncle,’ Ogedai went on.

Temuge let out a sigh, knowing the moment had slipped away.

‘I came to make sure you understood the danger, Ogedai.’

‘You are frightening me,’ Ogedai said with a smile.

Temuge flushed. ‘I am not threatening you.’

‘Where can this terrible danger spring from then, in my city of cities?’

‘You mock me, though I travelled here to help you and to see this thing you have built.’

‘It is beautiful, is it not?’ Ogedai said.

‘It is wonderful,’ Temuge said, with such transparent honesty that Ogedai looked more thoughtfully at his uncle.

‘In truth,’ Ogedai said, ‘I have been considering the need for a man to oversee my library here, to collect scrolls from all corners of the world until men of learning everywhere know the name of Karakorum. It is a foolish dream, perhaps.’

Temuge hesitated. The idea was thrilling to him, but he was suspicious.

‘Are you still mocking me?’ he said softly.

Ogedai shrugged. ‘Only when you blow like an old sheep with your warnings. Will you tell me to watch my food for poison, I wonder?’ He saw Temuge’s face grow mottled as his peevishness resurfaced and he smiled.

‘It is a real offer. Any other man in the tribes can herd sheep and goats. Only you could herd scholars, I think. You will make Karakorum famous. I want it to be known from sea to sea.’

‘If you set such a value on my wits then, Ogedai,’ Temuge said, ‘you will listen to me, this once.’

Ogedai sighed. ‘Speak then, uncle, if you feel you must,’ he said.

‘For two years, the world has waited for you. No one has dared to move a soldier for fear they would be the first example you made. Even the Chin and the Sung have been quiet. They have been like deer who smell a tiger somewhere close. That has come to an end. You have summoned the armies of the nation, and a month from now, if you live, you will be khan.’

‘If I live?’ Ogedai said.

‘Where are your Guards now, Ogedai? You have called them back and no one feels their suspicious eyes riding through the camps. Did you think it would be easy? If you fell from a roof tonight and broke your head on all this stone, who would be khan at the new moon?’

‘My brother Chagatai has the best claim,’ Ogedai said lightly. ‘Unless my son Guyuk is allowed to live. Tolui too is in the line of my father. He has sons grown strong: Mongke and Kublai, Arik-Boke and Hulegu. In time, they could all be khans.’ He smiled, amused at something Temuge could not see. ‘The seed of Genghis is strong, it seems. We all have sons, but we still look to Tsubodai. Whoever has my father’s unbeatable general will carry the army, don’t you think? Without him, it would be civil war. Is that all those with power? I have not mentioned my grandmother. Her teeth and eyes are gone now, but she can still be fearsome when roused.’

Temuge stared at him.

‘I hope your actions are not as careless as your words. Double your personal guard at least, Ogedai.’

Ogedai nodded. He didn’t bother to mention that the ornate walls concealed watching men. Two different crossbows were centred on Temuge’s chest at that very moment. It would take only a particular gesture with Ogedai’s hand for his uncle to be ripped from life.

‘I have heard you. I will consider what you have said. Perhaps you should not take on the role in my library and university until the new moon has come and gone. If I do not survive it, my successor may not have such an interest in Karakorum.’ He saw the words sink in and knew that at least one of the men of power would be working to keep him alive. All men had a price, but it was almost never gold.

‘I must sleep now, uncle,’ Ogedai said. ‘Every day is full of plans and work.’ He paused in the moment of rising and went on. ‘I will tell you this much. I have not been deaf or blind these last years. My father’s nation has ceased to conquer for a time, but what of that? The nation has been fed on milk and blood, ready to be sent out into the world with fresh strength. And I have built my city. Do not fear for me, uncle. I know everything I need to know of the generals and their loyalties.’

He came to his feet with the suppleness of youth, while his uncle had to accept his outstretched hand and winced as his knees cracked aloud.

‘I think your father would be proud of you, Ogedai,’ Temuge said.

To his surprise, Ogedai chuckled.

‘I doubt it. I have taken Jochi’s bastard son and made him a prince and a minghaan officer. I will raise Batu further still, to honour my brother’s memory. Genghis would never forgive me for that.’ He smiled at the thought. ‘And he would not have loved my Karakorum, of that I am certain.’

He called for Baras’aghur to lead Temuge out of the dark city, back to the stifling air of treachery and suspicion that was so thick in the great camps.

Ogedai picked up his jug and cup, filling the goblet once again as he walked to a stone balcony and looked out at the moonlit streets. There was a breeze blowing, cooling his skin as he stood there with his eyes shut. His heart ached in his chest and he gripped his arm as the pain spread. He felt fresh sweat break out as his veins throbbed and pulsed at frightening speed, soaring for moments until he felt dizzy. He reached out blindly and held the stone sill, breathing slowly and deeply until the weakness left him and his heart beat slowly once again. A great pressure released in his head and the flashing lights dwindled to mere points, shadows that only he could see. He looked up at the cold stars, his expression bitter. Below his feet, another chamber had been cut from the stones. At times, when the pains came with a force that left him trembling and weak, he had not expected even to finish it. Yet he had. His tomb was ready and he still lived. Cup by cup he emptied the jug, until his senses swam.

‘How long do I have left?’ he whispered drunkenly to himself. ‘Is it days now, or years?’ He imagined he talked to the spirit of his father and waved the cup as he spoke, spilling some wine. ‘I was at peace, father. At peace, when I thought my time was at an end. What did I care for your generals and their…petty struggles? Yet my city has risen and the nation has come, and I am still here. What do I do now?’

He listened for an answer in the darkness, but there was nothing.

CHAPTER TWO

Tolui stroked his wife’s damp hair idly as he lay back and watched his four sons whoop and splash in the waters of the Orkhon. The sun was warm as they lay there and only the presence of his guards nearby prevented complete relaxation. Tolui grimaced at the thought. There was no peace to be had in the camp, with every man wondering whether he was a supporter of Chagatai or Ogedai or the generals – or perhaps one who would inform for any of them. At times, he wished his two older brothers would settle it somewhere quiet, so that he could enjoy being alive on such a day, with a beautiful woman in his arms and four healthy sons pleading to be allowed to swim over a waterfall. He had forbidden it once, but he saw that Kublai had dared Mongke once again and the two of them were creeping closer and closer to the bank, where a goat path led up to the source of the roaring river. Tolui watched from under half-closed lids as the two older boys glanced guiltily at their parents, hoping they were asleep in the warm sun. Arik-Boke and Hulegu were in on it, of course, their bony boy’s frames almost shaking with excitement.

‘Do you see them?’ Sorhatani murmured.

Tolui smiled. ‘I am half-tempted to let them try it. They swim like otters, both of them.’

It was still a new skill to tribes raised on grassy plains. For those who learned to ride before they could speak, the rivers were the source of life for the herds, or an obstacle when they were swollen in floods. Only recently had they become a source of pleasure to the children of the tribe.

‘You won’t be the one who has to soothe their wounds when they take the skin off their backs,’ Sorhatani said, relaxing into him, ‘or splint their bones.’

Yet she said nothing as Mongke suddenly darted for the track, his naked body gleaming. Kublai shot a last, sharp look at his parents, but neither moved, and in an instant, he was off as well.

Tolui and Sorhatani both sat up as soon as the boys were out of sight. They exchanged a private look of amusement as Arik-Boke and Hulegu craned to see the top of the plunging falls above.

‘I don’t know who is worse, Mongke or Kublai,’ Sorhatani said, pulling a grass stalk and chewing the end. He chuckled and they both said ‘Kublai’ together.

‘Mongke reminds me of my father,’ Tolui said a little wistfully. ‘He fears nothing.’

Sorhatani snorted softly. ‘Then you will remember what your father once said when he had to choose between two men to lead a thousand.’

‘I was there, woman,’ Tolui said, his mind leaping to her point. ‘He said Ussutai feared nothing and felt no hunger or thirst. That was why he was unfit to command.’

‘Your father was wise. A man needs to feel a little fear, Tolui, if only to have the pride of conquering it.’

A wild shout made them both look up as Mongke came over the falls, yelling in excitement as he managed a crude dive and plunged into the pool at its foot. The drop was little more than ten feet, but to a boy of eleven, it must have been terrifying. Tolui relaxed and chuckled as he saw his oldest son surface, blowing and gasping, his teeth very white against his sun-browned skin. Arik-Boke and Hulegu cheered, their voices high as they looked up again for Kublai.

He came over backwards in a tumble of limbs, moving so fast that he left the torrent of water and fell through empty air. Tolui winced at the flat smack that carried clearly across the water. He watched as the other three looked for him, calling and pointing to each other. Sorhatani felt her husband’s arms tense as he prepared to leap up, but then Kublai surfaced, roaring. His entire body was flushed red on one side and he limped as he climbed out, but they could see he was panting with exhilaration.

‘I’ll have to beat some sense into them,’ Tolui said.

His wife shrugged. ‘I’ll get them dressed and send them to you.’

He nodded, only half-aware that he had waited for her approval to punish the boys. Sorhatani smiled at him as he walked away. He was a good man, she thought. Not perhaps the strongest of his brothers, nor the most ruthless, but in all other ways, the best of the sons of Genghis.

As she stood and gathered the clothes her sons had left on every bush around them, she recalled the one man who had made her afraid in her life. She cherished the memory of the time when Genghis had looked on her as a woman, rather than just the wife of one of his sons. It had been on the shore of a lake, thousands of miles away in a different land. She had seen the khan’s eyes brighten at her youth and beauty, just for an instant. She had smiled at him then, terrified and awed.

‘Now, there was a man,’ she murmured to herself, shaking her head with a smile.

Khasar stood on the wooden base of the cart, leaning back against the white felt of the khan’s ger. It was twice as wide and half as high again as the homes of their people, and Genghis had used it for meeting his generals. Ogedai had never claimed the enormous construction, so heavy that the cart had to be pulled by six oxen. After the death of the great khan, it had sat empty for months before Khasar made it his own. As yet, no one had dared to dispute his right to it.

Khasar smelled the fried marmot meat Kachiun had brought for the midday meal.

‘Lets eat outside. It’s too fine a day to sit in the gloom,’ he said.

As well as the steaming platter, Kachiun carried a fat skin of airag which he tossed to his brother.

‘Where are the others?’ he said, placing the platter on the edge of the boards and sitting with his legs swinging.

Khasar shrugged. ‘Jebe said he would be here. I sent a messenger to Jelme and Tsubodai. They’ll come or they won’t; it’s up to them.’

Kachiun blew air from his lips in irritation. He should have passed on the messages himself, to be sure his brother didn’t forget or use the wrong words. There was no point in berating the man who was digging his fingers into the pile of steaming scraps. Khasar didn’t change and it was both infuriating and comforting at times.

‘He’s nearly finished that city of his,’ Khasar said, chewing. ‘Strange-looking place, with those low walls. I could ride right over them.’

‘I think that is his point,’ Kachiun replied. He took a pouch of unleavened bread from another pot, waving his hand to clear the steam as he filled it with meat. Khasar looked baffled and Kachiun sighed.

‘We are the walls, brother. He wants people to see that he does not have to hide behind stones like the Chin. Do you understand? The tumans of our army are the walls.’

‘Clever,’ Khasar said, munching. ‘But he’ll build walls eventually, you watch. Give him a year or two and he’ll be adding stones. Cities make you afraid.’

Kachiun stared at his brother, wondering if he had managed a bit of real wisdom. Khasar noticed his sudden interest and grinned.

‘You’ve seen it. If a man has gold, he lives with the terror that someone will take it away from him, so he builds walls around it. Then everyone knows where the gold is, so they come and take it. That’s the way it always goes, brother. Fools and gold, together.’

‘I never know if you think like a child or a very wise man,’ Kachiun said, filling another pouch and chewing.

Khasar tried to say ‘wise man’ around a large mouthful and choked, so that Kachiun had to pound him on his back. They had been friends for a very long time.

Khasar wiped tears from his eyes and took a deep breath and a swig of airag from the bulging skin.

‘He’ll need walls at the new moon, I should think.’

Automatically, Kachiun looked to see if anyone could overhear them. They were surrounded by empty grass, with just their two ponies grazing nearby. Beyond them, warriors were busy in the sun, preparing for the great competition Ogedai had promised. There would be prizes of grey horses and armour for wrestlers and archers, even for those who won foot races across the plains. Everywhere they looked, men were training in groups, but there was no one loitering too close. Kachiun relaxed.

‘You have heard something?’

‘Nothing, but only a fool would expect the oath-taking to go without a hitch. Ogedai’s not a fool and he’s not a coward. He faced me when I was running wild after…’ He hesitated and his eyes grew distant and cold for a moment. ‘After Genghis died.’ He took another swig of the harsh spirit. ‘If he’d taken the oaths immediately, not a man in the tribes would have dared raise a hand to him; but now?’

Kachiun nodded grimly.

‘Now Chagatai has come into his strength and half the nation wonders why he isn’t going to be khan.’

‘There will be blood, brother. One way or another,’ Khasar replied. ‘I just hope Ogedai knows when to be forgiving and when to cut throats.’

‘He has us,’ Kachiun said. ‘That is why I wanted to meet here, to discuss our plans for seeing him safe as khan.’

‘I haven’t been summoned to his white city for my advice, Kachiun, have you? You don’t know whether he trusts us more than anyone else. Why should he? You could be khan if you wanted. You were Genghis’ heir while his sons grew.’ Khasar saw his brother’s irritation. The camp was full of such talk and both men were tired of it, but Khasar just shrugged.

‘Better you than Chagatai, anyway. Have you seen him out running, with his bondsmen? So young, so virile.’

He leaned over the edge of the cart and spat deliberately on the ground. Kachiun smiled.

‘Jealous, brother?’

‘Not of him, though I do miss being young sometimes. Now some part of me is always aching. Old wounds, old knees, that time when you completely failed to stop me getting speared in my shoulder – it all hurts.’

‘It is better than the alternative,’ Kachiun said.

Khasar snorted.

They looked round as Jebe approached, with Tsubodai. Both of Genghis’ generals were in their prime and Kachiun and Khasar shared a glance of private humour at the way they came striding confidently across the summer grass.

‘Tea in the pot, meat in the bowl,’ Khasar said without ceremony as they climbed the steps up to the old khan’s ger. ‘We are discussing how to keep Ogedai alive long enough for him to carry the white tails.’

The symbol of the united tribes still fluttered above his head, horsetails that had once been a riot of tribal colours, until Genghis had bleached them pale and made them one. No one had dared to remove the symbol of power, any more than they had queried Khasar’s use of the cart.

Tsubodai made himself comfortable on the wooden edge, his feet dangling as he dug into the meat and bread. He was aware that both Kachiun and Khasar were waiting for what he would say. He did not enjoy the attention and he ate slowly and cleared his throat with airag.

In the silence, Jebe leaned back against the felt wall and looked at the city in the distance, a white haze in the warm air. He could see the golden dome of Ogedai’s palace and it struck him that it resembled a yellow eye staring out of the city.

‘I have been approached,’ Jebe said. Tsubodai stopped chewing and Khasar put down the skin of airag as he was about to drink. Jebe shrugged. ‘We knew one of us would be, sooner or later. It was a stranger to me, wearing no marks of rank.’

‘Sent by Chagatai?’ Kachiun said.

Jebe nodded. ‘Who else? But no names were mentioned. They do not trust me. It was just a light touch, to see which way I would jump.’

Tsubodai grimaced. ‘You jumped here, in full view of the tribes. No doubt they are watching you now.’

‘What of it?’ Jebe said, bridling. ‘I was loyal to Genghis. Do I demand to be known by my birth name, as Zurgadai? I carry the name Genghis gave me, and I am loyal to the son he named as heir. What do I care who sees me talking with his generals?’

Tsubodai sighed and put aside the final piece of his meal.

‘We know who is most likely to disrupt the oath-taking. We do not know how they will do it, or how many men will support them. If you had come to me quietly, Jebe, I would have told you to agree to anything they say and learn their plans.’

‘Who wants to go creeping about in the dark, Tsubodai?’ Khasar said scornfully. He looked to his brother for support, but Kachiun shook his head.

‘Tsubodai is right, brother. This isn’t just a matter of showing we support Ogedai and all right-thinking men following us. I wish it was. There was never a khan of the nation before Genghis, so there are no laws for how he passes on his power.’

‘The khan makes the laws,’ Khasar replied. ‘I didn’t see anyone complaining when he made us all take an oath to Ogedai as heir. Even Chagatai got down on his knees for that.’

‘Because his choice was to fall flat or die,’ Tsubodai said. ‘Now Genghis is gone and the men around Chagatai are whispering in his ear. They are saying the only reason he was not heir was his struggle with his brother, Jochi, but Jochi is dead.’

He paused for a moment, thinking of the blood that had splashed on snow. His face was utterly blank and they could not read him.

‘There are no traditions to tell us how to act,’ Tsubodai went on wearily. ‘Yes, Genghis chose his heir, but his mind was clouded with anger over Jochi. It was not so many years ago that he favoured Chagatai over all his brothers. The nation talks of nothing else. At times, I think Chagatai could press his claim openly and become khan. He could walk right up to Ogedai with a sword and fully half the army would not stop him.’

‘The other half would tear him to shreds,’ Khasar said.

‘And in a stroke, we would have a civil war that would break the nation in two. Everything Genghis built, all our strength, wasted on an internal struggle. How long would it be then before the Chin rose against us, or the Arabs? If that is the future, I would rather see Chagatai take the horsetail banner today.’ Tsubodai held up his hand as they began to protest. ‘That is not a traitor speaking, do not think it. Have I not shown that I followed Genghis, even when everything in me cried out that he was wrong? I will not fail his memory. I will see Ogedai as khan, on my word.’

Once again, he thought of a young man who had believed his promise of safe passage. Tsubodai knew his word was worthless, where it had once been iron. It was an old grief, but on some days he bled as if he had just been cut.

‘You had me worried,’ Khasar said.

Tsubodai did not smile. He was younger than both the brothers, but they waited patiently for him to speak. He was the great general, the master who could plan any attack on any terrain and somehow snatch victory. With Tsubodai, they knew Ogedai had a chance. Kachiun frowned at the thought.

‘You should look to your own safety as well, Tsubodai. You are too valuable to lose.’

Tsubodai sighed. ‘To hear such words while I sit by the ger of my khan. Yes, I will be careful. I am an obstacle to the one we all fear. You should be sure that your guards are men you trust with your life, who cannot be bribed or threatened without them coming to you. If a man’s wife and children go missing, will you still trust him to watch you as you sleep?’

‘That is an ugly thought,’ Jebe said, with a wince. ‘You truly think we are at that point? On such a day I can hardly believe in knives in every shadow.’

‘If Ogedai becomes khan,’ Tsubodai went on, ‘he could have Chagatai killed, or simply rule well or badly for forty years. Chagatai will not wait, Jebe. He will try to arrange a death, an accident, or he will try to take it by force. I cannot see him sitting idly by while his life and ambition is decided by others. Not the man I know.’

Somehow the sun seemed less bright after such cold words.

‘Where is Jelme?’ Jebe asked. ‘He told me he would be here.’

Tsubodai rubbed the back of his neck, making it crack. He had not slept well for many weeks, though he would not mention it to these men.

‘Jelme is loyal; don’t worry about him,’ he muttered. Some of the other men frowned.

‘Loyal to which son of Genghis?’ Jebe said. ‘There is no clear path in this, and if we do not find one, the nation could be torn apart.’

‘Then we should kill Chagatai,’ Khasar said. The others grew still and he grinned at them. ‘I am too old to be guarding my words,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Why should he have it all his own way? Why should I check my personal guards, to be sure no one has turned them against me? We could end this today and Ogedai would be khan at the new moon with no threat of war.’ He saw their cold expressions and spat once again. ‘I won’t dip my head at your disapproval, so don’t expect it. If you prefer to watch your backs for a month and make secret, clever plans, that is up to you. I could cut right through it and see an end. What do you think Genghis would say, if he were one of us, here? He’d walk right in and cut Chagatai’s throat.’

‘He might,’ Tsubodai admitted, who knew better than most how ruthless the khan had been. ‘If Chagatai was a fool, I would agree with you. If there could be surprise, yes, it could work. I’d ask you to test it, but you’d get yourself killed. Instead, take my word on this – Chagatai is ready for such a move. Any group of armed men approaching his tuman is met with bristling weapons and warriors ready to charge. He plans murder every day, so he fears it as well.’

‘Between us we command enough men to get to him,’ Khasar said, though less confidently.

‘Perhaps. If only his ten thousand responded, we could still reach him, but I think it has already gone further than that. Whatever game Ogedai has been playing, he has given his brother two years to whisper and make promises. Without a khan’s shadow, all of us were forced to rule the lands around us, to act as if we were the only voice that mattered. I found I enjoyed it. Did you not feel the same?’ Tsubodai glanced around at the others and shook his head. ‘The nation is falling apart into tribes of tumans, bound not by blood but by the generals who lead them. No, we will not attack Chagatai. My purpose is to prevent civil war, not to be the spark that sets it off.’

Khasar had lost his keen look as Tsubodai spoke, subsiding with an irritated expression.

‘Then we are back to keeping Ogedai alive,’ he said.

‘More than that,’ Tsubodai replied. ‘We are back to keeping enough of a nation intact for him to have something to rule as khan. I hope you did not expect me to have an answer on a single day, Khasar. We could win here and see Ogedai with the horsetails, yet watch as Chagatai takes away half the army and half the nation. How long would it be then before two khans and their armies were facing each other on a field of war?’

‘You have made it clear, Tsubodai,’ Kachiun said, ‘but we can’t just sit and wait for disaster.’

‘No,’ Tsubodai said. ‘Very well, I know enough to trust you. Jelme is not here because he is meeting two of the generals who may be loyal to Chagatai. I will know more when I have exchanged messages with him. I cannot meet him again – and yes, Khasar, this is the sort of secret game you despise. The stakes are too high to make a false step.’

‘Perhaps you are right,’ Khasar said thoughtfully.

Tsubodai shot a sharp glance at the older man.

‘I will also need your word, Khasar,’ he said.

‘On what?’

‘Your word not to act on your own. It is true that Chagatai runs every day, though he does not go far from his warriors. There is a small chance you could arrange archers in place to take him from cover, but if you failed, you would ruin everything your brother worked for, everything that cost the lives of so many of those you loved. The entire nation would go up in flames, Khasar.’

Khasar gaped at the general who seemed to be reading his very thoughts. His guilty expression was there for all to see as he forced the cold face. Before he could reply, Tsubodai spoke again.

‘Your word, Khasar. We want the same thing, but I cannot plan around you, without knowing what you will do.’

‘You have it,’ Khasar said grimly.

Tsubodai nodded as if it was a minor point in a discussion.

‘I will keep you all informed. We cannot meet often, with the number of spies in the camp, so we will send trusted messengers. Write nothing down and never use the name of Chagatai again, not after today. Call him the Broken Lance if you must speak of him. Know that we will find a way through.’

Tsubodai rose smoothly to his feet and thanked Khasar for his hospitality.

‘I must leave now, to find out what they promised Jelme in return for his support.’ He bowed his head and climbed lithely down the steps, making Khasar and Kachiun feel old just to watch.

‘Be grateful for one thing,’ Kachiun said softly, watching the general stride away. ‘If he wanted to be khan, it would be even harder.’

CHAPTER THREE

Ogedai stood in shadows, at the base of the ramp that led to light and air above. The great oval was finished at last, the smell of wood, paint and varnish strong in the air around him. It was easy to imagine the athletes of his people walking out to the roar of thirty thousand men and women. Ogedai saw it all in his mind and he realised he was feeling better than he had for many days. The Chin healer had spoken much about the dangers of foxglove powder, but Ogedai only knew that it eased the constant ache in his chest. Two days before, a sharp pain had driven him to his knees in his private apartments. He grimaced at the remembered pressure, like being trapped in a small space and unable to open his lungs to air. A pinch of the dark powder mixed in red wine had brought release like ropes snapping around his chest. He walked with death, he was certain of it, but it was still two steps behind.

The builders were leaving the great stadium in their thousands, though Ogedai barely looked at the river of exhausted faces passing him. He knew they had worked all night so he would be satisfied, and that was only right. He wondered how they felt about the emperor of the Chin kneeling to his father. If Genghis had been forced to such a shame, Ogedai doubted he could be so calm, so accepting. Genghis had told him that the Chin had no concept of nation. Their ruling elite talked of empires and emperors, but the peasants could not stand high enough to see so far. Instead, they found smaller loyalties to cities and local men. Ogedai nodded to himself. It was not so long since the tribes of his people had done the same. His father had dragged them all into a new era and many of them still did not understand the breadth of his vision.

Most of the crowd stared at the ground as they walked past, terrified of attracting his notice. Ogedai’s heart began to beat faster as he saw a different reaction in some of those approaching him. He felt the need to walk out of the shadows into light and had to strangle the urge. His chest ached, but there was none of the terrible weariness that usually dogged him no matter how much he slept. Instead, his senses were alive. He could smell and hear everything around him, from the garlic-laced food of the workmen, to the whispered voices.

The world seemed to strain and then burst, leaving him almost dazed. Ahead of him were men who stared and then deliberately turned away, their reaction marking them out like a raised flag. Ogedai saw no signal, but almost as one they drew knives from their clothing; short, hacking blades of the sort carpenters used to trim posts. The crowd began to swirl as more and more people realised what was happening. Voices cried out hoarsely, but Ogedai remained very still, the centre of the growing storm. He had locked eyes with the closest of the men as he shoved his way past others, his blade held high.

Ogedai watched the man approach. Slowly, he opened his arms wide, then wider, his outstretched hands buffeted by the fleeing crowd. The attacker shouted something, a wild sound lost in the clamour. Ogedai showed his teeth as the man was struck from the side, his body crumpling away from the armoured Guard who had hit him.

As his Guards trampled and slaughtered the men in the shadowy tunnel, Ogedai slowly lowered his arms, watching coldly. They left two alive, as he had ordered, clubbing them down with sword hilts until their faces were swollen masks. The rest were killed like goats.

In just moments, the first officer stood before him, his chest heaving and his pale face spattered with filth.

‘Lord, are you well?’ the man said, a study of confusion.

Ogedai turned his gaze away from the soldiers still thumping at the dead flesh of men who had dared to attack their master.

‘Why would you think otherwise, Huran? I am unharmed. You have done your work.’

Huran bowed his head and almost turned away, but he could not.

‘My lord, there was no need for this. We have followed these men for two days. I have searched their lodgings myself and there has never been a moment in Karakorum when I did not have eyes on them. We could have taken them without any risk to you.’

He was clearly struggling to find the right words, but Ogedai felt lighter and stronger than he had in too long. His mood was mellow as he replied.

‘Say what you have to say, Huran. You will not offend me.’ He had released the man from any need to guard his speech, and he watched the tension and stiffness vanish.

‘I live, I work, to protect you, lord,’ Huran said. ‘On the day you die, I die, I have sworn it. But I cannot protect you if you are…if you are in love with death, lord, if you want to die…’ Under Ogedai’s cool gaze, Huran stumbled over the last words and fell silent.

‘Put your fears to rest, Huran. You have served me since I was a boy. I took risks then, did I not? Like any other lad who thinks he will live for ever?’

Huran nodded. ‘You did, but you would not have stood with your arms wide then, not with a killer running at you. I saw it, lord, but I did not understand it.’

Ogedai smiled, as if instructing a child. Perhaps it was his closeness to eternity in those moments, but he felt almost light-headed.

‘I do not want to die, I promise you, Huran. But I am not afraid of it, not at all. I held open my arms because, in that moment, I did not care. Can you understand that?’

‘No, lord,’ Huran said.

Ogedai sighed, wrinkling his nose at the smell of blood and excrement in the tunnel.

‘The air is foul here,’ he said. ‘Walk out with me.’

He skirted the heaped bodies. Many had been killed by accident in the fray, simple workmen trying to get out of the darkness. He would have some payment made to their families, he thought.

Huran stayed at his side as the light brightened and Ogedai’s gaze fell on the completed arena. His mood soared higher at the sight of the tiered seating, thousands upon thousands of benches stretching into the distance. After the bloodshed at the entrance, it had emptied at astonishing speed, so that Ogedai could hear the song of a bird in the distance, clear and sweet. He was tempted to call across the space to see if his voice would echo. Thirty thousand of his people could sit and watch races and wrestling and the archery wall. It would be glorious.

A spot on his face itched and he rubbed it, raising a reddened finger before his eyes. Someone else’s blood.

‘Here, Huran, in this place, I will be khan. I will take the oath from my people.’

Huran nodded stiffly and Ogedai smiled at him, knowing his loyalty was absolute. Yet he did not mention the weakness of the heart that could take his life at any moment. He did not tell Huran that he woke each morning with sharp relief that he had survived the night to see one more dawn, nor how he stayed awake later and later each evening in case that day was his last. The wine and the foxglove powder had brought him relief, but he knew every day, every breath, was a blessing. How could he fear a killer when he was always in death’s shadow? It was amusing and he chuckled until he felt the ache in his chest again. He considered taking a pinch of the powder under his tongue. Huran would not dare ask about it.

‘There are three days until the new moon, Huran. You have kept me alive until now, have you not? How many attacks have you thwarted?’

‘Seven, lord,’ Huran said softly.

Ogedai looked sharply at him. ‘I know of only five, including today. How do you make seven?’

‘My man in the kitchens stopped a poisoning this morning, lord, and I had three warriors of your brother murdered in a brawl.’

‘You were not certain that they were here to kill me?’

‘No, lord, not certain,’ Huran admitted. He had left one alive and worked on him for part of the morning, earning nothing but screaming and insults for his trouble.

‘You have been rash, Huran,’ Ogedai said, without regret. ‘We have planned for such attacks. My food is tasted, my servants are hand-picked. My city is under siege from the sheer number of spies and warriors pretending to be simple painters and carpenters. Yet I have opened Karakorum and people are still flooding in. I have three Chin lords staying in my own palace and two Christian monks who have taken a vow of poverty, so bed down in the straw of my royal stables. The oath-taking will be…an interesting time, Huran.’ He sighed at the soldier’s grim worry. ‘If all we have done is not enough, perhaps I am not meant to survive. The sky father loves a good game, Huran. Perhaps I will be taken from you, despite all your efforts.’

‘Not while I live, lord. I will call you khan.’

The man spoke with such assurance that Ogedai smiled and clapped him on the shoulder.

‘Escort me back to the palace then, Huran. I must resume my duties, after this small amusement. I have kept Orlok Tsubodai waiting long enough, I think.’

Tsubodai had left his armour in the palace rooms he had been given. Every warrior in the tribes knew that Genghis had once approached an enemy without weapons, then used a scale of his armour to cut the man’s throat. Instead, Tsubodai wore a light deel robe over leggings and sandals. They had been laid out for him, clean and new, of the best materials. Such luxury in those rooms! Ogedai had borrowed from every culture they had encountered in conquest. It made Tsubodai uncomfortable to see it, though he could not find words for his discomfort. Worse was the bustle and hurry of the palace corridors, packed with people, all intent on errands and work he did not understand. He had not realised there were so many involved in the oath-taking. There were Guards at every corner and alcove, but with so many strange faces, Tsubodai felt a constant itch of worry. He preferred open spaces.

The day had half gone when he grabbed a servant running past him, making the man yelp in surprise. It seemed Ogedai had been busy with some task in the city, but he knew Tsubodai was waiting.

Tsubodai could not leave without giving insult, so he stood in a silent audience room, his impatience growing harder to mask as the hours fled.

The room was empty, though Tsubodai still felt crawling eyes on him as he strolled to a window and looked over the new city and beyond to the tumans on the plains. The sun was setting, throwing long lines of gold and shadow on the ground and streets below. Ogedai had chosen the site well, with the mountains to the south and the nearby river wide and strong. Tsubodai had ridden along part of the canal Ogedai had built to bring water into the city. It was astonishing, until you considered that a million men had worked for almost two years. With enough gold and silver, anything was possible. Tsubodai wondered if Ogedai would survive to enjoy it.

He had lost track of time when he heard voices approaching. Tsubodai watched closely as Ogedai’s Guards entered and took positions. He felt their gaze pass over him and then settle, as the only possible threat in the room. Ogedai came last, his face puffier and far paler than Tsubodai remembered. It was hard not to remember Genghis in those yellow eyes, and Tsubodai bowed deeply.

Ogedai returned the bow, before taking a seat on a wooden bench under the window. The wood was polished and golden and he let his hands enjoy the feel of it as he glanced out at Karakorum. He closed his eyes for a moment as the setting sun cast a last glimpse of gold into the high room.

He had no love for Tsubodai, for all he needed him. If the general had refused Genghis’ most brutal order, Ogedai’s older brother Jochi would have been khan long since. If Tsubodai had stayed his hand, disobeyed just once, there would be no crisis of leadership heading towards them, threatening to destroy them all.

‘Thank you for waiting. I hope my servants have made you comfortable?’ he asked at last.

Tsubodai frowned at the question. He had expected the rituals of ger courtesy, but Ogedai’s face was open and visibly weary.

‘Of course, lord. I need very little.’

He paused as footsteps sounded outside the doors and Ogedai rose as new Guards entered, followed by Tolui and his wife Sorhatani.

‘You are welcome in my home, brother,’ Ogedai said, ‘but I did not expect your beautiful wife to attend me.’ He turned to Sorhatani smoothly. ‘Your children are well?’

‘They are, my lord. I brought only Mongke and Kublai. I do not doubt they are causing trouble for your men at this very moment.’

Ogedai frowned delicately. He had asked for Tolui to come to the palace for his own safety. He knew of at least two plots that sought to dispose of the younger brother, but he had expected to explain in private. He glanced at Tolui and saw his brother’s gaze rise and drop for a moment. Sorhatani was hard to refuse in anything.

‘Your other sons? They are not with you?’ Ogedai said to his brother.

‘I have sent them to a cousin. He is taking a fishing trip out west for a few months. They will miss the oath-taking, but I will have them make it good when they return.’

‘Ah,’ Ogedai said, understanding. One pair of sons would survive, no matter what happened. He wondered if it had been Sorhatani who had changed his order for the whole family to appear at the palace. Perhaps she was right to be less than trusting in such bleak times.

‘I have no doubt General Tsubodai is bursting with news and dire warnings, brother,’ Ogedai said. ‘You may return to your rooms, Sorhatani. Thank you for taking a moment to visit me.’

The dismissal could not be refused and she bowed stiffly. Ogedai noticed the furious glance she shot at Tolui as she turned. The gates swung open again and the three men were left alone, with eight Guards along the walls.

Ogedai gestured to a table and they sat, all warier than he could once have believed possible. Losing patience with it all, Ogedai clinked cups together and filled each one, pushing them towards his guests. They reached for them at the same time, knowing that to hesitate would show they feared poison. Ogedai did not give them long, emptying his own in three quick gulps.

‘You two I trust,’ he said bluntly, licking his lips. ‘Tolui, I have stopped one attempt to kill you, or your sons.’ Tolui narrowed his eyes a fraction, growing tense. ‘My spies have heard of one other, but I do not know who it is and I am out of time. I can deal with those who seek my death, but I must ask that you stay in the palace. I cannot protect you otherwise, until I am khan.’

‘Is it so bad then?’ Tolui asked, astonished. He had known the camp was in turmoil, but to hear of open attacks had shaken him. He wished that Sorhatani were there to hear it. He would only have to repeat it all later.

Ogedai turned to Tsubodai. The general sat in simple clothes, but he radiated authority. Ogedai wondered for a moment if it was simply reputation. It was difficult not to look on Tsubodai with awe if you knew what he had achieved in his life. The army owed their success to him as much as to Genghis. Yet for Ogedai it was harder not to look on him with hatred. He locked it away, as he had for more than two years. He still needed this man.

‘You are loyal, Tsubodai,’ he said softly, ‘to my father’s will, at least. From your hand, I have word of this “Broken Lance” each day.’ He hesitated, struggling for calm. Part of him wanted to leave Tsubodai outside Karakorum on the plains, to ignore the strategist his father had valued over all others. Yet only a fool would waste such a talent. Even then, challenged openly, Tsubodai had not confirmed he was the source of the messengers who appeared at the palace, though Ogedai was almost certain.

‘I serve, lord,’ Tsubodai said. ‘You had my oath, as heir. I have not wavered in that.’

For an instant, Ogedai’s anger rose in him like a white spike in his head. This was the man who had cut Jochi’s throat in the snow, sitting there and talking of his oath. Ogedai took a deep breath. Tsubodai was too valuable to waste. He had to be managed, thrown off balance.

‘My brother Jochi heard your promises, did he not?’ he said softly. To his pleasure, the colour fled from the general’s face.

Tsubodai remembered every detail of the meeting with Jochi in the northern snows. The son of Genghis had exchanged his life for his men and their families. Jochi had known he was going to die, but he had expected a chance to speak again to his father. Tsubodai was too much of a man to quibble over the rights and wrongs of it. It felt like a betrayal then and it still did. He nodded, jerkily.

‘I killed him, lord. It was wrong and I live with it.’

‘You broke your word, Tsubodai?’ Ogedai pressed, leaning across the table.

His cup fell with a metallic clang and Tsubodai reached out and set it upright. He would not take less than his full share of blame; he could not.

‘I did,’ Tsubodai replied, his eyes blazing with anger or shame.

‘Then redeem your honour!’ Ogedai roared, slamming his fists into the table.

All three cups crashed over, spilling wine in a red flood. The Guards drew swords and Tsubodai came to his feet in a jerk, half expecting to be attacked. He found himself staring down at Ogedai, still seated. The general knelt as suddenly as he had risen.

Ogedai had not known how the death of his brother had troubled Tsubodai. The general and his father had kept all that between them. It was a revelation and he needed time to think about what it meant. He spoke instinctively, using the man’s own chains to bind him.

‘Redeem your word, general, by keeping another son of Genghis alive long enough to be khan. My brother’s spirit would not want to see his family torn and abandoned. My father’s spirit would not. Make it so, Tsubodai, and find peace. After that, I do not care what happens, but you will be among the first to take the oath. That would be fitting.’

Ogedai’s chest hurt and he could feel sour sweat under his arms and on his brow. A great lethargy settled across his shoulders as his heart thumped slower and slower, reducing him to dizzy exhaustion. He had not slept well for weeks and the constant fear of death was wearing him to a shadow, until only his will remained. He had shocked those present with his sudden rage, but at times he could barely control his temper. He had lived under a great weight for too long and sometimes he simply could not remain calm. He would be khan, if even for just a day. His voice was slurred as he spoke. Both Tsubodai and Tolui watched him with worried expressions.

‘Stay here tonight, both of you,’ Ogedai said. ‘There is nowhere safer on the plains, or in the city.’

Tolui nodded immediately, already ensconced in his suite of rooms. Tsubodai hesitated, failing to understand this son of Genghis or what drove him. He could sense a subtle sadness in Ogedai, a loneliness, for all he was surrounded by a great host. Tsubodai knew he could serve better on the plains. Any real threat would come from there, from the tuman of Chagatai. Yet he bowed his head to the man who would be khan at sunset of the following day.

Ogedai rubbed his eyes for a moment, feeling the dizziness clear. He could not tell them that he expected Chagatai to be khan after him. Only the spirits knew how long he had left, but he had built his city. He had left a mark on the plains and he would be khan.

In darkness, Ogedai awoke. He was sweating in the warm night and he turned over in bed, feeling his wife stir beside him. He was drifting back into sleep when he heard a rattle of running footsteps in the distance. He came alert instantly, raising his head and listening until his neck ached. Who would be running at such an hour – some servant? He closed his eyes again and then heard a faint knock at the outer door of his rooms. Ogedai swore softly and shook his wife by the shoulder.

‘Get dressed, Torogene. Something is happening.’ In recent days, Huran had begun the habit of sleeping outside the rooms, with his back to the outer door. The officer knew better than to disturb his master without good reason.

The knock sounded again as Ogedai belted a deel robe. He closed the double door on his wife and crossed the outer room, padding barefoot past the Chin tables and couches. There was no moon above the city and the rooms were dark. It was easy to imagine assassins in every shadow and Ogedai lifted a sword from where it hung on the wall. In silence, he removed the scabbard and listened at the door.

Somewhere far away, he heard a distant scream and he jerked back.

‘Huran?’ he said. Through the heavy oak, he heard the relief in the man’s voice.

‘My lord, it is safe to open the door,’ Huran said.

Ogedai threw back a heavy bolt and lifted an iron bar that anchored the door to the stone wall. In his nervous state, he had not noticed that the corridor cast no threads of light through the cracks. It was darker out there than in his rooms, where dim starlight gleamed through the windows.

Huran came in quickly, stepping past Ogedai to check the rooms. Behind him, Tolui ushered in Sorhatani and his two eldest sons, wrapped in light robes over their sleeping clothes.

‘What is happening here?’ Ogedai hissed, using anger to cover his spreading panic.

‘The guards on our door went away,’ Tolui said grimly. ‘If I hadn’t heard them leave, I don’t know what would have happened.’

Ogedai tightened his grip on the sword, taking comfort from the weight of it. He turned at a spill of light from the inner doorway, his wife silhouetted against the lamplight.

‘Be still, Torogene, I will attend to this,’ he said. To his irritation, she came out anyway, her night robe clutched around her.

‘I went to the nearest guardroom,’ Tolui went on. He glanced at his sons, who stood watching in open-mouthed excitement. ‘They were all dead, brother.’

Huran grimaced as he peered out into the dark corridors.

‘I hate to lock us in, my lord, but this is the strongest door in the palace. You will be safe here tonight.’

Ogedai was torn between outrage and caution. He knew every stone of the vast building around them. He had watched each one cut and shaped and polished and fitted into place. Yet all his halls, all his power and influence, would be reduced to just a few rooms when the door closed.

‘Keep it open as long as you can,’ he said. Surely there were more of his Guards on their way? How could such an attempt have slipped past him?

Somewhere nearby, they heard more running footsteps, the echoes clattering from all directions. Huran put his shoulder to the door. From the blackness, a figure loomed suddenly and Huran struck with his sword blade, grunting as it slid off scaled armour.

‘Put that away, Huran,’ a voice came, slipping into the room.

In the dim light, Ogedai breathed in relief. ‘Tsubodai! What is happening outside?’

The general said nothing. He dropped his sword on the stone floor and helped Huran bar the door, before taking up the blade once again.

‘The corridors are full of men; they’re searching every room,’ he said. ‘If it were not for the fact that they have never been inside your palace before, they would be here already.’

‘How did you get past?’ Huran demanded.

Tsubodai scowled in angry memory. ‘Some of them recognised me, but the common warriors have not yet been told to cut me down. For all they know, I am part of the plot.’

Ogedai sagged as he stared round at the small group who had run to his rooms.

‘Where is my son Guyuk?’ he said. ‘My daughters?’

Tsubodai shook his head. ‘I did not see them, lord, but there is every chance they are safe. You are the target tonight, no one else.’

Tolui winced as he understood. He turned to his wife. ‘Then I have brought you and my sons to the most dangerous place.’

Sorhatani reached out to touch his cheek.

‘Nowhere is safe tonight,’ she said softly.

They could all hear voices and running feet coming closer. Outside the city, the tumans of the nation slept on, oblivious to the threat.

CHAPTER FOUR

Kachiun walked his pony across the churned grass of the encampment, listening to the sounds of the nation all around him. Despite the stillness of the night, he did not ride alone. Thirty of his personal bondsmen went with him, alert for any attack. No one travelled alone in the camps any more, not with the new moon almost upon them. Lamps and mutton fat torches spat and fluttered at every intersection of paths, revealing dark groups of warriors watching him as he passed.

He could hardly believe the current level of suspicion and tension in the camps. At three points, he was challenged by guards as he approached Khasar’s ger. In the night breeze, two lamps cast writhing yellow shadows at his feet. Even as Khasar came yawning out onto the cart, Kachiun could see bows drawn and sighted on him.

‘We need to talk, brother,’ he said.

Khasar stretched, groaning. ‘Tonight?’

‘Yes, tonight,’ Kachiun snapped.

He didn’t want to say more, with so many listeners nearby. For once, Khasar sensed his mood and nodded without any more argument. Kachiun watched as his brother whistled softly. Men in full armour walked in from the outer darkness, hands near their swords. They ignored Kachiun and walked to their general, standing close by his feet and looking up at him for orders. Khasar crouched and murmured to them.

Kachiun mastered his impatience until the men bowed their heads and moved away. One of them brought Khasar’s current mount, a gelding near black in colour that whickered and kicked out as they saddled it.

‘Bring your bondsmen, brother,’ Kachiun said to him.

Khasar peered at him in the dim light, seeing the strain in Kachiun’s face. He shrugged and gestured to the officers nearby. Another forty warriors trotted to his side, long woken from sleep by the presence of armed men near their master. It seemed that even Khasar was taking no chances on those nights while they waited for the new moon.

Dawn was still hours away, but with the camp in such a state, the movement of so many men woke everyone they passed. Voices called out around them and somewhere a child began wailing. Grim-faced, Kachiun trotted his mount beside his brother, silent as they headed towards Karakorum.

Torches lit the gates in dim gold that night. The walls were pale grey shadows in the darkness, but the western gate gleamed, oak and iron, and clearly shut. Khasar frowned, leaning forward in his saddle to strain his eyes.

‘I haven’t seen it closed before,’ he said over his shoulder. Without thought, he dug in his heels and increased his pace. The warriors around him matched him so smoothly it could have been a battlefield manoeuvre. The noises of the camp, the calling voices, all were lost in the thump of hooves, the breath of horses, the jingle of metal and harness. The western gate of Karakorum grew before them. Khasar could now see ranks of men, facing outwards as if challenging him.

‘This is why I woke you,’ Kachiun replied.

Both men were brothers to the great khan, uncles to the next. They were generals of proven authority, their names known to every warrior who fought for the nation. When they reached the gate, a visible ripple ran through the ranks of men there, vanishing into the darkness. The bondsmen halted around their masters, hands on sword hilts. On both sides, the men were strung as tightly as their bows. Kachiun and Khasar glanced at each other, then dismounted.

They stood on dusty ground, the grass long since worn away by traffic through the gate. Both men felt the sullen gaze of those who faced them. The men at the gate bore no marks of rank, no flags or banners to identify them. For Kachiun and Khasar, it was as if they looked upon the raiders of their youth, with no allegiance to the nation.

‘You know me,’ Khasar roared suddenly over their heads. ‘Who dares to stand in my way?’

The closest men jerked under a voice that could carry across battlefields, but they did not respond, or move.

‘I see no signs of tuman or minghaan in your ranks. I see no flags, just dog-meat wanderers with no master.’ He paused and glared at them. ‘I am General Khasar Borjigin, of the Wolves, of the nation under the great khan. You will answer to me tonight.’

Some of the men shuffled nervously in the lamplight, but they did not flinch from his gaze. Khasar guessed the best part of three hundred men had been sent to close the gate and no doubt it was the same on the other four walls of Karakorum. The bondsmen snarling at his back were outnumbered, but they were the best swordsmen and archers he and Kachiun could field. At a word from either of them, they would attack.

Khasar looked at Kachiun once again, controlling his anger at the dumb insolence of the warriors facing them. His hand dropped to his sword hilt in unmistakable signal. Kachiun held his gaze for a moment and the warriors on both sides tensed for bloodshed. Almost imperceptibly, Kachiun moved his head a finger’s width left and right. Khasar frowned, showing his teeth in frustration for an instant. He leaned in to the closest of those before the gate, breathing into his face.

‘I say you are tribeless wanderers, without marks of rank or blood,’ Khasar said. ‘Don’t leave your posts while I am gone. I am going to ride into the city over your bodies.’

The man was sweating and he blinked at the growling voice too close to his neck.

Khasar remounted and he and Kachiun swung away from the pools of light and the promise of death. As soon as they were clear, Kachiun edged his mare over and tapped a hand to his brother’s shoulder.

‘It has to be the Broken Lance. Ogedai is in the city and someone does not want us riding to his aid tonight.’

Khasar nodded, his heart still hammering. It had been years since he had seen such a show of rebellion from warriors of his people. He was raging, his face flushed.

‘My ten thousand will answer the insult,’ he snapped. ‘Where is Tsubodai?’

‘I have not seen him since he went to Ogedai today,’ Kachiun replied.

‘You are senior. Send runners to his tuman and to Jebe. With them or without them, I am going into that city, Kachiun.’

The brothers and their bondsmen split up, riding different paths that would bring forty thousand men back to the gates of Karakorum.

For a time, the noises on the other side of the door died almost to nothing. With silent gestures, Tsubodai and Tolui lifted a heavy couch, grunting with the effort. It took both of them to shove it across the entrance.

‘Are there any other ways in?’ Tsubodai murmured.

Ogedai shook his head, then hesitated.

‘There are windows in my sleeping chamber, but they open onto a sheer wall.’

Tsubodai cursed under his breath. The first rule of battle was to choose the ground. The second was to know the ground. Both had been taken from him. He looked around at the shadowy gathering, judging their mood. Mongke and Kublai were wide-eyed and thrilled to be part of an adventure. Neither realised the danger they were in. Sorhatani returned his gaze steadily. Under that silent stare, he took a long knife from his boot and passed it into her hands.

‘A wall won’t stop them tonight,’ he said to Ogedai, pressing his ear to the door.

They fell silent as he strained to hear, then jumped at a crash that made Tsubodai leap back. A thin trail of plaster dust curled down from the ceiling and Ogedai winced to see it.

‘The corridor is narrow outside,’ Ogedai muttered, almost to himself. ‘They don’t have room to run at it.’

‘That is good. Are there weapons here?’ Tsubodai asked.

Ogedai nodded. He was his father’s son. ‘I’ll show you,’ he said, beckoning.

Tsubodai turned to Huran and found the senior man ready at the door. Another crash sounded and voices rose in anger outside.

‘Get a lamp lit,’ Tsubodai ordered. ‘We don’t need to stay in the dark.’

Sorhatani set about the task as Tsubodai strode through to the inner rooms. He bowed formally to Ogedai’s wife, Torogene. She had lost her sleepy look and smoothed down her hair with water from a shallow bowl, placed there ready for the morning. Tsubodai was pleased that neither she nor Sorhatani seemed to be panicking.

‘Through here,’ Ogedai said ahead of him.

Tsubodai entered the sleeping chamber and nodded in appreciation. A small lamp still glowed there and he saw the wolf’s-head sword of Genghis on the wall above the bed. A bow gleamed on the opposite side, each layer of horn and birch and sinew polished to a rich colour.

‘Do you have arrows for it?’ Tsubodai asked, bending the hooks open with his thumbs and hefting the weapon. Ogedai smiled at the general’s evident pleasure.

‘It is not a decoration, general. Of course I have arrows,’ he replied. A chest produced a quiver of thirty shafts, each the product of a master fletcher and still bright with oil. He tossed it to Tsubodai.

Outside, the crashing went on. Whoever it was had brought up hammers for the task and even the floor trembled with the blows. Tsubodai crossed to the windows set high in the outer wall. Like the ones in the outer room, they were barred in iron. Tsubodai could not help thinking how he would break in, if he were attacking the rooms. Though they were solid enough, they had not been designed to withstand a determined enemy. That enemy was never meant to get close enough, or to have time to hammer out the bars before Ogedai’s Guards cut them to pieces.

‘Cover the lamp for a moment,’ Tsubodai said. ‘I do not want to be visible to an archer outside.’ He pulled a wooden chest to the window and crouched on it, then rose suddenly to the barred space, ducking back just as quickly.

‘There’s no one in sight, lord, but the wall to the courtyard below is barely the height of two men. They will come here, if they can find it.’

‘But first they’ll try the door,’ Ogedai said grimly.

Tsubodai nodded. ‘Have your wife wait here, perhaps, ready to call if she hears anything.’ Tsubodai was trying to defer to Ogedai’s authority, but his impatience showed with every thump from the corridor outside.

‘Very well, general.’

Ogedai hesitated, fear and anger mingling, swelling in him. He had not built his city to be torn screaming from life. He had lived with death for so long that it was almost a shock to feel such a powerful desire to live, to avenge. He dared not ask Tsubodai if they could hold the rooms. He could see the answer in the man’s eyes.

‘It is strange that you are present for the death of another of Genghis’ sons, don’t you think?’ he said.

Tsubodai stiffened. He turned back and Ogedai saw no weakness in his black stare.

‘I carry many sins, lord,’ Tsubodai said. ‘But this is not the time to talk about old ones. If we survive, you may ask whatever you need to know.’

Ogedai began to reply, bitterness welling up in him. A new sound made them both whip round and run. An iron hinge had cracked and the wood of the outer door splintered, a panel yawning open. The lamplight from the room spilled out into the darker corridor, illuminating sweating faces. At the door, Huran speared his blade into them, so that one at least fell back with a cry of pain.

The stars had moved part-way across the sky by the time Khasar roused his tuman. He rode at the head in full armour, his sword drawn and held low by his right thigh. In formation behind him were ten groups of a thousand, each with their minghaan officers. Each thousand had its jaguns of a hundred men, led by officers bearing a silver plaque. Even they had their structures: ten groups of ten, with equipment to raise a ger between them and food and tools to survive and fight. Genghis and Tsubodai had created the system, and Khasar hadn’t given it a thought when he issued just one order to his quiriltai, his quartermaster. The tuman of ten thousand had formed on the plain, men running to their horses in what looked like chaos before the ranks coalesced and they were ready. Ahead lay Karakorum.

Khasar’s outriders reported other tumans on the move all around him. No one in the nation slept now. To the smallest child, they knew this was the night of crisis, so long feared.

Khasar had his naccara drummers sound a rhythm: dozens of unarmed boys on camels whose sole task was to inspire fear in an enemy with a rolling thunder. He heard it answered ahead and on the left, as other tumans took up a warning and a challenge. Khasar swallowed drily, looking for Kachiun’s men ahead. He had the feeling that events were slipping from his control, but he could do nothing else. His path had been set when men at the gate had dared to refuse a general of the nation. He knew they were Chagatai’s, but the arrogant prince had sent them out without his unit markings, to do his work like assassins in the night. Khasar could not ignore such a threat to his authority – to all the stages of authority that he represented, down to the youngest drummer on a sway-backed beast. He dared not think of his nephew Ogedai trapped in his own city. He could only react and force his way in, hoping there would be someone still alive to save.

Kachiun joined him, with Jebe’s Bearskin tuman and Tsubodai’s ten thousand. Khasar breathed in relief as he saw the banners stretching away into the dark, a sea of horses and flags. Tsubodai’s warriors knew their general was in the city. They had not disputed Kachiun’s right to order them in his place.

Like a mountain slowly falling, the vast array of four tumans drew close to the western gate of Karakorum. Khasar and Kachiun rode forward, hiding their impatience. There was no need for bloodshed, even then.

The men at the gate remained still, their weapons sheathed. Whatever their orders had been, they knew that to draw a blade was to invite instant destruction. No man wanted to be first.

The tableau held, with just the snorting of horses and fluttering banners. Then out of the darkness rode a new group of men, their passage lit with burning torches held by bannermen, so that in an instant, every man there knew that Chagatai had arrived.

Kachiun could have ordered Khasar to block Genghis’ son and had his own tumans cut a way into the city. He felt the weight of the decision hang on him, time running slowly as his pulse raced. He was not a man to hesitate, but he was not at war. This was not the desert of Khwarezm or the walls of a Chin city. He let the moment pass, and as it went, he clutched at it desperately, almost throwing away his life when it was too late.

Chagatai rode in like a khan, his bondsmen surrounding him in square formation. Some of the men at the gate went sprawling as horses knocked them down, but he did not look round. His gaze was fixed firmly on the two older generals, his father’s brothers, and the only men who mattered in the camp that night. He and his horse were armoured and the air was cold enough for Kachiun to see plumes of mist from man and beast alike. Chagatai wore an iron helmet, with a horse’smane crest whipping through the air as he came in. He was no longer the boy they had known and both men tensed under his flat stare.

Khasar made a hissing sound under his breath, signalling his anger to his brother. They knew Chagatai was there to prevent them entering Karakorum. They were not yet sure how far he would go to keep them outside.

‘It is late to be training your men, Chagatai,’ Khasar snapped, his voice loud.

They were separated by less than fifty paces, closer than he had been allowed to the man in a month. Khasar ached to reach for his bow, though the armour would likely save his target and then there would be a blood-letting on a scale unseen since they had destroyed the Xi Xia. The prince shrugged as he sat his horse, smiling with cold confidence.

‘I am not training, uncle. I am riding to see who threatens the peace of the camp in darkness. I find it is my own uncles, moving armies in the night. What am I to make of it, eh?’ He laughed and the men around him showed their teeth, though their hands never left the bows, swords and lances with which they fairly bristled.

‘Be careful, Chagatai,’ Khasar said.

The prince’s expression went hard at the words. ‘No, uncle. I will not be careful when armies ride through my land. Return to your ger, your wives and children. Tell your men to go back to theirs. You have no business here tonight.’

Khasar took a breath to roar an order and Kachiun shouted before he unleashed the tumans.

‘You have no authority over us, Chagatai! Your men are outnumbered, but there is no need for blood to be spilled. We will enter the city tonight, now! Stand aside and there will be no strife between us.’

Chagatai’s horse sensed his surging emotions and he had to turn it on the spot to stay in position, sawing its mouth with the reins. They could read the triumph on his face and, privately, both men despaired for Ogedai in the city.

‘You misjudge me, uncle,’ Chagatai shouted, making sure he was heard by as many ears as possible. ‘You are the ones trying to force your way into Karakorum! For all I know, you are planning bloody murder in the city, a coup, with my brother’s head as the prize. I have come to stop you entering, to keep the peace.’ He sneered at their surprise, his face savage as he waited for the arrows to fly.

Kachiun heard movement on his right and jerked in the saddle to see vast ranks of men moving into position around him, their officers lit with torches. He could not judge the numbers in the starlight, but his heart sank as he saw the banners of those loyal to Chagatai. The two sides glowered at each other, roughly equal, but Chagatai had done enough and he knew it. Kachiun and Khasar could not begin a civil war in the shadow of Karakorum. Kachiun looked east for the first signs of dawn, but the sky was dark and Ogedai was on his own.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘Down, Huran!’ Tsubodai snapped.

He notched an arrow on the string as he ran. Huran dropped flat below the hole in the door and Tsubodai sent a shaft hissing through into the darkness beyond. He was rewarded by a choking cry as he drew and loosed again. The distance was no more than ten paces. Any warrior of the tribes could have hit the gap, even under pressure. As soon as Tsubodai shot the second arrow, he dropped to one knee and rolled out of the way. Before he had stopped moving, a shaft buzzed into the room, going almost too fast to see. It struck behind Tsubodai with a loud thump, quivering in the wooden floor.

Huran had taken up a position with his back flat to the door, his head turned towards the hole. He was rewarded as a hand darted through, fingers scrabbling for the locking bar below. Huran swung his sword horizontally, cutting through meat and bone and almost jamming the blade into the wood. The hand and part of the forearm dropped to the ground and an unearthly screaming sounded before it too was choked off. Perhaps those outside had led the man away to be tended, or killed him themselves.

Tsubodai nodded to Huran as their eyes met. Regardless of rank, they were the two most capable warriors in the room, able to remain calm and think, even when the smell of blood was thick.

Tsubodai turned to Ogedai. ‘We need a second position, lord.’

The man who would be khan was standing with his father’s wolf’s-head sword drawn, breathing too shallowly and looking paler than Tsubodai had seen him before. Tsubodai frowned to himself as Ogedai didn’t respond. He spoke louder, using his voice to snap the younger man out of his trance.

‘If the door goes, they will rush us, Ogedai. You understand? We need a second place, a line of retreat. Huran and I will stay by this door, but you must get the boys and women back to the inner rooms and block the door as best you can.’

Ogedai turned his head slowly, dragging his eyes away from the dark hole that seemed to vomit forth the hatred of those behind it.

‘You expect me to burrow myself away to gain a few more heartbeats of life? With my own children being hunted somewhere out there? I would rather die here, on my feet and facing my enemies.’

He meant it, Tsubodai saw, but Ogedai’s gaze drifted over Sorhatani and her two sons. For a moment, he locked eyes with his younger brother Tolui. Ogedai wilted under the stares of the family.

‘Very well, Tsubodai, but I will return here. Tolui, bring your wife and sons and help me block up the inner door.’

‘Take the bow with you,’ Tsubodai said, yanking the quiver from his shoulders and tossing it to Ogedai.

The group of five moved back carefully, always aware of the line of sight for an archer in the halls outside. They knew a bowman was waiting in the darkness and they knew the patience of their people, used to hunting marmots on the plains. The archer’s field of vision formed a cone that crossed the outer room down the centre.

Without warning, Ogedai darted across the space and Sorhatani rolled, coming smoothly to her feet like a dancer. No arrow came as they reached a safe spot and turned.

Tolui stood on the other side. He had found a place in the shelter of a heavy beam with his sons, his face stiff with fear for them.

‘I will go last, lads, understand?’ he told them.

Mongke nodded immediately, but Kublai shook his head.

‘You are the largest and the slowest,’ he said, his voice quavering. ‘Let me go last.’

Tolui considered. If the archer was waiting with an arrow on the string and the bow half bent, he could loose a shot in an eye-blink, almost without aiming. Any of the men there would have wagered on the archer over them. The crashing at the door had stopped, as if the men outside were waiting. Perhaps they were. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ogedai’s wife Torogene beckoning to him.

It was just a few feet across a room, but it had become a chasm. Tolui took a deep, slow breath, calming himself and thinking of his father. Genghis had told him about breath, how men will hold theirs when they are frightened, or take a sudden breath before they launch an attack. It was a sign to watch for in an enemy. In yourself, it was a tool to manage fear. He took another slow breath and his hammering heart eased slightly in his chest. Tolui smiled at Kublai’s nervous defiance.

‘Do as you’re told, boy. I’m quicker than you think.’ He laid a hand on each son’s shoulder and whispered. ‘Go together. Ready? Now!’

Both boys sprinted across the innocent-looking space. An arrow flashed through the gap, passing behind Kublai’s back. He fell sprawling and Sorhatani dragged him clear, hugging him to her in desperate relief. She turned with her sons to look at Tolui, who nodded to them, sweat beading his brow. He had married a woman of aching beauty and he smiled at her fierce expression, like a mother wolf with her cubs. The archer was clearly ready and they had been lucky. He cursed himself for not following immediately, before the archer could notch another shaft. He had lost the moment and perhaps his life as a result. He looked around for some sort of shield – a table, or even a thick cloth to spoil the man’s aim. The corridor was still silent as the attackers let their bowman work. Tolui took another slow breath, readying his muscles to spring across the gap and dreading the thought of a shaft tearing into him, smashing him off his feet in front of his family.

‘Tsubodai!’ Sorhatani called.

The general glanced back at her, catching her beseeching gaze and understanding. He had nothing to block the hole for the time they needed. His gaze fell on the single lamp. He hated the thought of plunging the room into darkness once again, but there was nothing else. He swept it up, flinging it through the hole from the side of the door. The crash sent Tolui safely across the gap to his family and Tsubodai heard the thump of an arrow released into the door itself, the aim ruined. Kublai cheered the act and Mongke joined him.

For a few moments, the room remained lit by the flaming oil on the other side, but the men there stamped the flames out and they were left in blackness once again, far deeper than before. There was still no sign of dawn. The furious crashing resumed and splinters flew as the door groaned in its frame.

Tolui worked quickly at the entrance to the inner room. The door there had none of the strength of the outer one. It would not delay the attackers beyond the first few moments. Instead, Tolui kicked out the delicate hinges and began to make a barricade across the doorway. As he worked, he gripped his sons by the neck in quick affection, then sent them scurrying into Ogedai’s sleeping chamber to gather anything they could lift. He saw Torogene murmuring to them and they relaxed as she directed them. Both young men were used to their mother’s commands and Torogene was a large woman, motherly and brisk in her manner.

There was another small lamp there. Torogene handed it out to Sorhatani, who placed it so that some of its light reached Tsubodai. It made huge shadows in the rooms, great dark figures that leapt and danced, dwarfing them all.

They worked in grim concentration. Tsubodai and Huran knew they would have just moments to retreat when the outer door gave way. The couch braced against it would be no more than a nuisance to the attackers as they poured in. Behind them, Sorhatani and Tolui built their barricade without speaking, jittery from fear and lack of sleep. The boys brought them wood panelling, bedclothes, even a heavy pedestal that had to be dragged over the floor, leaving a long scar. It would not hold against determined men. Even young Kublai understood that, or saw it in his parents’ bleak expressions. When their pitiful collection of debris was in place, they stood behind it with Ogedai and Torogene, panting and waiting.

Sorhatani rested one hand on Kublai’s shoulder, holding Tsubodai’s long knife in the other. She wished desperately for more light, terrified of being killed in the gloom, overwhelmed by struggling, bloody bodies. She could not consider losing Kublai and Mongke. It was as if she stood on the edge of a high cliff and to look at them was to step off and drop. She heard Tolui’s long, slow breaths and copied him, breathing through her nose. It helped a little, in the dark, as the outer door cracked suddenly down its length and the men outside grunted and howled in anticipation.

Tsubodai and Huran were both wary of the archer on the other side of the door. Each man had to judge when the blows against the rapidly splintering wood would obstruct the hidden man, then strike a blow into the faces in the dark. The attackers were pressing, knowing they were near to getting in at last. More than one fell back with a cry from a sword blade, licking out like a fang and withdrawing before the archer could see through his own people. Someone out there was dying noisily and Huran was panting. He was in awe of the ice general fighting at his side. Tsubodai could have been at a training bout for all the emotion his face showed.

Yet they could not hold the door. Both men tensed as a low panel broke into splinters. Half the door remained, cracked and loose. Crouching men came struggling under the locking bar and both Huran and Tsubodai stood their ground, plunging their blades into exposed necks. Blood splashed them both as they refused to yield, though the archer had moved and sent a shaft that spun Huran around, winding him.

He knew his ribs had broken. Every breath was agony, as if his lungs inflated against a shard of glass, but he could not even check the wound to see if his armour had saved him. More men were kicking at the bar, loosening its bolts in the wall. When that finally gave way, the two warriors would be swallowed in the flood.

Huran gasped hoarsely as he continued to strike out, seeking bare necks and arms beyond the hole. He saw blades jabbing at him and felt blows on his shoulders and legs. He could taste iron bitterness in his mouth and his arms seemed slower as he swung and swung, each breath burning him with its sweetness and heat.

He fell then, thinking he must have slipped in someone’s blood. Huran saw the iron bar spring out. The room seemed lighter somehow, as if the wolf’s dawn had come at last. Huran gasped as someone trod on his outstretched hand, breaking bones, but the pain was fleeting. He was dead before Tsubodai had turned at bay to face the men who roared into that room, wild with release and hungry to do their work.

The stalemate at the gates had become Chagatai’s triumph. He had enjoyed his uncles’ expressions as Jelme brought a tuman up to his side. Tolui’s tuman had matched him on the other side, its men straining at the leash with knowledge that their lord and his family were trapped in the city, perhaps already dead.

One by one, all the generals of the nation brought their men to the city walls, stretching away into the darkness. More than a hundred thousand warriors stood ready to fight if they had to, but there was no battle heat in them while their commanders sat and stared coldly at each other.

Jochi’s son Batu had declared for Kachiun and Khasar. He was barely seventeen years old, but his thousand men followed his lead and he rode with his head high. He was a prince of the nation despite his youth and his father’s fate. Ogedai had seen to that, promoting him as Genghis would never have done. Even so, Batu had chosen to stand against the most powerful man in the tribes. Kachiun sent a runner to him to thank him for the gesture.

In Tsubodai’s absence, Kachiun’s mind was running faster than his peaceful look suggested. He thought Jelme was still loyal to Ogedai, though Chagatai had accepted him. It was no small thing to have perhaps a sixth of an enemy’s army ready to turn against him at a crucial point. Yet the sides were too evenly matched. Kachiun had a vision of the army falling in on itself until there were just hundreds left alive, then dozens, then just one or two. What then of the great dream Genghis had given them? He at least would never have countenanced such a waste of life and strength – not among their own people.

The wolf dawn showed in the east, the faint greying of the land before the sun rose above the horizon. The light spread over the host gathered by Karakorum, illuminating the faces of the generals and their men so that there was no need for torches. Even then, they did not move and Chagatai sat and chatted with his bondsmen, barking out laughter as he enjoyed the new day and everything it would bring.

When the first thin line of gold appeared in the east, Chagatai’s second in command clapped him on the back and the men around him cheered. The sound was quickly taken up by the other tumans on his side. Those with Khasar and Kachiun sat in sullen and thoughtful silence. It did not take a mind like Tsubodai’s to interpret Chagatai’s pleasure. Kachiun watched with narrow eyes as Chagatai’s men began to dismount, so that they could kneel to him as khan. He pursed his mouth in rising fury. He had to stop it, before it became a wave across all the tumans and Chagatai was made khan on a wave of oaths, before Ogedai’s fate was even known.

Kachiun moved his horse forward, holding up a hand to the men who would have followed him. Khasar too came forward, so that they rode alone through the ranks of men towards Chagatai.

Their nephew was ready from the first step they took in his direction, as he had been all night. Chagatai drew his sword in unmistakable threat, but he still smiled as he gestured to his bondsmen to let them through. The rising sun lit the host of warriors. Their armour glimmered like a sea of iron fish, scaled and dangerous.

‘It is a new day, Chagatai,’ Kachiun said. ‘I will see your brother Ogedai now. You will open the city.’

Chagatai glanced once more at the dawn and nodded to himself.

‘I have done my duty, uncle. I have protected his city from those who might have run riot inside on the eve of the oath-taking. Come, ride with me to my brother’s palace. I must be certain he is safe.’ He grinned as he spoke the last words and Kachiun looked away rather than see. He watched the gates begin to open, laying the empty streets of Karakorum bare before them.

Tsubodai was no longer a young man, but he wore full armour and he had been a soldier longer than most of the attackers had been alive. As they came in a welter of limbs and blades, he darted six steps away from the door. Without warning, he spun and lunged, taking the closest man to him through the throat. Two more brought their blades down in reaction, hacking wildly at his scaled armour and leaving bright marks in the tarnish. Tsubodai’s mind was perfectly clear, faster than their movements. He had expected to retreat immediately, but the hurried blows showed him their weariness and desperation. He struck again, reversing his blade for a pull stroke that jerked the steel across a man’s forehead, opening a flap so that he was blinded with blood. It was a mistake. Two men grabbed hold of Tsubodai’s right arm. Another kicked his legs away and he fell with a crash.

On the ground, Tsubodai exploded into a frenzy. He lashed out in all directions, using his armour as a weapon and always moving, making himself harder to hit. The metal plates on his leg opened a gash in someone’s thigh and then he heard roaring and still more men poured into the room, more than it could hold. Tsubodai struggled on desperately, knowing he had lost and Ogedai had lost. Chagatai would be khan. He tasted his own blood in the back of his throat, as bitter as his rage.

At the barricade, Ogedai and Tolui waited shoulder to shoulder. Sorhatani stood with the bow, unable to shoot while Tsubodai still lived. When he went down, she sent two shafts between her husband and his brother. Her arms were nowhere near strong enough for a full draw, but one of the arrows checked a man in his rush while the other ricocheted away into the ceiling. Ogedai stepped in front of her as she struggled to notch a third with shaking fingers. The view beyond the barricade was blocked with grasping hands and blades and bloody faces. She did not understand what was happening at first. She flinched at a roar as more men came into the outer room. Some of those struggling with Ogedai and Tolui turned at the sound and then they were yanked back. Sorhatani saw a sword appear through the throat of a man facing her, as if he had grown a long and bloody tongue. He fell jerking and the view was suddenly clear.

Ogedai and Tolui panted like dogs in the sun. In the other room, a group of armoured men were finishing off the attackers with quick, efficient blows.

Jebe stood there, and at first he ignored the survivors, even Ogedai. He had seen Tsubodai on the ground and knelt at his side just as the general struggled to his knees. Tsubodai was shaking his head; dazed and gashed, but alive.

Jebe rose and saluted Ogedai with his sword.

‘I am pleased to see you well, my lord,’ he said, smiling.

‘How are you here?’ Ogedai snapped, his blood still surging with anger and fear.

‘Your uncles sent me, lord, with forty bondsmen. We had to kill a lot of men to reach you.’

Tolui clapped his brother on the back in delight before he turned and embraced Sorhatani. Kublai and Mongke punched each other on the shoulders and mock-scuffled until Kublai was in Mongke’s headlock.

‘Tsubodai? General?’ Ogedai said.

He watched as Tsubodai’s glazed eyes cleared. A warrior put out his hand to steady the general and Tsubodai batted it away irritably, still shaken by how close he had come to death at the feet of the attackers. When Tsubodai got to his feet, Jebe turned to him, as if reporting.

‘The Broken Lance closed the gates of the city. All the tumans are outside, on the plain. It may be war yet.’

‘How then did you get inside my city?’ Ogedai demanded. He looked for Huran and remembered with a pang of loss that the man had given his life at the first door.

‘We climbed the walls, my lord,’ Jebe said. ‘General Kachiun sent us before he rode to try and force his way in.’ He saw Ogedai’s look of surprise and shrugged. ‘They are not so very high, my lord.’

The rooms were lighter, Ogedai realised. Dawn had come to Karakorum and the day promised to be fine. With a start, he remembered this was the day of the oath-taking. He blinked, trying to put his thoughts in some sort of order, to see a way through after such a night. That there even was an ‘after’ was more than he had expected in the last moments. He felt dazed, lost in events beyond his control.

In the corridor outside, running footsteps could be heard. A messenger came pelting into the room and skidded to a halt, shocked by the mass of dead flesh and the collection of blades levelled at him. The room stank of opened bowels and urine, thick and choking in the enclosed space.

‘Report,’ Jebe said, recognising the scout.

The young man steadied himself. ‘The gates have reopened, general. I ran all the way, but there is an armed force coming.’

‘Of course there is,’ Tsubodai said, his deep voice startling everyone there. They all looked to him and Ogedai felt a surge of relief that he was there. ‘Everyone who was outside the walls last night will be coming here to see who survives.’ He turned to Ogedai then.

‘My lord, we have just moments. You must be clean and changed when they see you. This room must be sealed. It will keep for today at least.’

Ogedai nodded gratefully and Tsubodai snapped quick orders. Jebe went first, leaving six men to form a guard for the one who would be khan. Ogedai and Torogene followed, with Tolui and his family close behind. As they hurried down a long corridor, Ogedai saw that Tolui’s hand kept drifting to his wife or his sons as he strode, still hardly able to believe they were all safe.

‘The children, Ogedai,’ Torogene said.

He glanced at her and saw that her face was pale and drawn with worry. He put his arm around her shoulders and both of them took comfort from the other. Looking over her head, Ogedai could see no one who knew the palace well. Where was his servant, Baras’aghur? He addressed Jebe, as the closest man.

‘General, I must know if my son Guyuk survived the night. My daughters also. Have one of your men find their quarters – ask a servant. Bring me the news as quickly as you can. And find my chancellor, Yao Shu – and Baras’aghur. Get them moving. See who still lives.’

‘Your will, my lord,’ Jebe said quickly, bowing his head. Ogedai seemed almost manic, his mood hard to read. It was more than the excitement that can come after a battle, when life courses more strongly in the veins.

Ogedai rushed on, his wife and Guards struggling to keep up. Somewhere ahead, he could hear marching feet and he darted down another corridor away from the sound. He needed fresh clothes and to wash the blood and filth off him. He needed time to think.

Kachiun had become cold and pale as they rode through the streets, approaching Ogedai’s palace. There seemed to be bodies everywhere, with pools of darkening blood staining the polished stone gutters. Not all of them bore the marks of Ogedai’s Guard tuman. Others wore dark deels or armour rubbed with lamp-black, dull and greasy in the dawn light. The night had been bloody and Kachiun dreaded what he would see in the palace itself.

Chagatai rode lightly, shaking his head at such destruction until Khasar considered cutting his throat and wiping the expression off his face. The presence of three of Chagatai’s bondsmen kept his hand from his sword hilt. They did not stare at the dead. Their eyes were only for the two men riding with their lord, the man who would be khan before the end of the day.

The streets were silent. If any workers had left their homes after the clashes and screams of the night, the sight of so many bodies had sent them scurrying back to bar the doors. The six horsemen made their way to the steps leading up to the palace doors. Dead men lay splayed on the pale marble, their blood in patterns along the veins of stone.

Chagatai did not dismount, but urged his pony up the steps, clicking his tongue as it trod gingerly past the corpses. The main door to the first courtyard stood open and there was no one to challenge his right to enter. Crows called to each other and there were hawks and vultures already overhead, drawn by the scent of death on the breeze. Kachiun and Khasar looked at each other in grim surmise as they passed under a bar of shadow into the yard beyond. The tree of silver shone there in the dawn, beautiful and lifeless.

The generals could read the patterns of dead well enough. There had been no fixed battle, with lines of men cut down. Instead, the bodies lay randomly, killed from behind or taken by shafts they never saw. They could almost sense the defenders’ surprise as men dressed in shadows had appeared and killed, cutting through them before anyone could organise a defence. In the silence, Chagatai was rapt as he dismounted at last. His pony was skittish with the smell of blood and he made a point of tying the reins securely to a post.

‘I begin to fear for my brother,’ Chagatai said.

Khasar tensed and one of the bondsmen raised a hand to him, reminding him of their presence. The man was grinning, enjoying his master’s show.

‘You need not fear,’ came a voice, making them all jump.

Chagatai spun instantly, his sword leaping out of its scabbard in one movement. His bondsmen were barely slower, ready for any attack.

Tsubodai stood there under an arch of carved limestone. He wore no armour and the morning breeze had not dried the patches of sweat on his silk tunic. A strip of cloth bound his left forearm and Chagatai could see a smear of blood seeping through it. Tsubodai’s face was weary but strong and his eyes were terrible as they met those of the man responsible for the death and destruction all around them.

Chagatai opened his mouth to demand some explanation, but Tsubodai went on.

‘My lord Ogedai is waiting for you in his audience hall. He bids you welcome in his home. He guarantees your safety.’ He spoke the last words as if they stuck in his throat.

Chagatai looked away from the rage he saw in the general. For an instant, his shoulders sagged as he understood his defeat. He had gambled it all on a single night. He did not look up at the slight sound of boots on stone above his head as archers appeared. He bit his lower lip and nodded to himself. Even so, he was his father’s son. He stood straight and sheathed his sword with the care of ritual. No trace of his shock or disappointment showed on his face as he smiled wryly at Tsubodai.

‘Thank the spirits he has survived,’ Chagatai said. ‘Take me to him, general.’

CHAPTER SIX

Chagatai’s bondsmen remained in the courtyard. They would have fought if he had asked them. Instead, he clapped one of them on the shoulder and shook his head before striding into the cloister behind Tsubodai. Chagatai did not look back as his men were surrounded by warriors of Ogedai and beaten to the ground. When one of them cried out, Chagatai set his jaw, disappointed the man could not die quietly for the honour of his master.

Khasar and Kachiun followed in silence. They watched Chagatai fall in beside Tsubodai, neither man looking at the other. At the audience chamber, Guards were all around and Chagatai merely shrugged and gave up his sword.

The door was of polished copper, red-gold in the morning light. Chagatai expected to enter, but the Guard officer tapped him on the armour and stood back, waiting. Chagatai grimaced, but he removed his long, scaled jacket and thigh pieces, as well as the heavy gloves and arm protectors. It was not long before he stood in just his jerkin, leggings and boots. It might have diminished another man to be so stripped, but Chagatai had been training for the festival for many months, wrestling, running and shooting hundreds of arrows each day. He was in superb physical condition and he made most of those around him look smaller and weaker than they were.

Not so Tsubodai. None of the Guards dared to come close to that man as he stood and silently dared Chagatai to protest. Though Tsubodai remained still, it was the stillness of a snake, or a sapling bent and ready to spring back.

Finally, Chagatai faced the Guard officer with one eyebrow raised. He endured being patted down, but he had no hidden weapons and the door swung open. He walked in alone. As it closed behind him, he heard Khasar begin to argue as he was held back. Chagatai was pleased Tsubodai and his uncles would not be witnesses. He had gambled and lost, but there was no shame in it, no humiliation. Ogedai had gathered loyal men to him, just as Chagatai had. His brother’s generals had proved more resourceful than his own. As it had been the night before, one brother would still be khan, and the other? Chagatai grinned suddenly as he saw Ogedai at the far end of the hall, sitting on a throne of white stone inlaid with patterns of gold. It was an impressive sight, as it was intended to be.

As he walked closer, Chagatai saw Ogedai’s hair was damp, loose and black on his shoulders. A purple mark on his cheek was the only visible proof of the night before. Despite the grandeur of the throne, his brother wore a simple grey deel over leggings and a tunic, with no more decoration than any herder of the plains.

‘I am glad to see you well, brother,’ Chagatai said.

Ogedai tensed as Chagatai walked smoothly towards him, his steps echoing.

‘Let us not play games,’ he replied. ‘I have survived your attacks. I will be khan at sunset today.’

Chagatai nodded, still smiling. ‘No games then, but you know, the strange thing is I spoke the truth. Part of me was dreading finding you killed. Ridiculous, yes?’ He chuckled, amused at the complexity of his own emotions. Family was a peculiar thing. ‘Still, I did what I thought best. I have no regrets or apologies. I think father would have enjoyed the risks I took.’ He bowed his head. ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t congratulate you on your triumph.’

Ogedai relaxed subtly. He had spent years thinking of Chagatai as an arrogant idiot. He had almost missed him growing into a man used to responsibility and power. As Chagatai came to stand before him, Ogedai’s Guards stepped out and commanded him to kneel. He ignored them, remaining on his feet and looking around the room with an interested expression. It was a huge space to a warrior more used to the gers of the plains. The morning light flooded in from a window overlooking the city.

One of the Guards turned to Ogedai for permission and Chagatai smiled slightly. With any other prisoner, the man would have struck him down, or even hamstrung him to make him kneel. The hesitation acknowledged Chagatai’s power even as they sought to humble him.

Ogedai could almost admire his brother’s careless courage. No, he could admire it, even after such a night. The shadow of Genghis hung over them both and perhaps it always would. Neither they nor Tolui could ever match their father’s achievement. By any standard, they were lesser souls and had been from the moment they were born. Yet they had to live and grow and become men, skilful in their crafts. They had to thrive in that shadow – or let it smother them.

No one else understood Ogedai’s life as Chagatai did, not even their brother Tolui. He wondered again if he was making the right decision, but in that too he had to be strong. A man could waste his life worrying, that was all too clear. Sometimes you simply had to choose and shrug, however it came out, knowing that you could not have done more with the bones you were given.

Ogedai faced his brother and wished one last time that he could know how long he had to live. Everything depended on it. His son did not have the ruthless will to inherit. If Ogedai died that very day, Guyuk would not follow in the line of their father, the line of Genghis. It would pass to the man standing before him. Ogedai searched for calm, though his heart thumped and pattered in his chest, spreading a constant ache until it became like a blade between his ribs. He had not slept and he knew he ran the risk of collapse in dealing with Chagatai that morning. He had drunk a jug of red wine to steady his nerves and used a pinch of the foxglove powder. He could still taste the bitterness on his tongue and his head ached as if it was being slowly crushed.

For all he knew, he might rule as khan for just days before his heart gave out and burst in his chest. If that was his fate and he had killed Chagatai, the nation would tear itself apart in civil war. Tolui was not strong enough to hold them together. Neither he nor Ogedai’s son had gathered loyal generals to protect them through such an upheaval. Power would triumph over blood in that struggle.

The man who stood before him, his tension hidden, was perhaps the best hope for the nation. More, Chagatai was the one Genghis would have chosen if their brother Jochi had never been born. Ogedai felt his damp hair itch and he rubbed it unconsciously. The Guards still looked to him, but he would not let them beat Chagatai to his knees, not that day, though part of him yearned to see it.

‘You are safe here, brother,’ he said. ‘I have given my word.’

‘And your word is iron,’ Chagatai murmured, almost automatically.

Both of them recalled their father’s beliefs and honoured them. The great khan’s shadow clung to them like a cloak. The shared memories made Chagatai look up and frown, suddenly at a loss. He had expected to be killed, but Ogedai seemed troubled rather than triumphant or even vengeful. He watched with interest as Ogedai turned to his Guard officer.

‘Clear the room. What I have to say is for my brother alone.’ The man began to move but Ogedai stopped him with a raised hand. ‘No, bring Orlok Tsubodai as well.’

‘Your will, my lord,’ the officer replied, bowing deeply.

In just moments, the Guards along the walls were marching to the great copper doors. Tsubodai came in at their call. Outside, Khasar could be heard still arguing with the officers before the door swung shut, leaving the three men alone in the echoing space.

Ogedai rose from the throne and stepped down so that he was at Chagatai’s level. He crossed to a small table and poured himself a cup of airag from a jug, drinking deeply and wincing as it stung ulcers in his mouth.

Chagatai glanced at Tsubodai only to find the man glaring at him like an enemy. He winked at the general and looked away.

Ogedai took a slow breath and his voice shook at the strain of saying what he had kept hidden for so long.

‘I am my father’s heir, Chagatai. Not you, or Tolui, or Kachiun, or Jochi’s son, or any of the generals. As the sun sets today, I will accept the oath of the nation.’ He paused and neither Chagatai nor Tsubodai interrupted as the silence stretched. Ogedai looked out of the tall window, enjoying the sight of his city, though it was quiet and frightened after such a night.

‘There is a world outside the one we know,’ he said softly, ‘with cultures and races and armies who have never heard of us. Yes, and cities greater than Yenking and Karakorum. To survive, to grow, we must remain strong. We must conquer new lands, so that our army is always fed, always moving. To stop is to die, Chagatai.’

‘I know this,’ Chagatai said. ‘I am not a fool.’

Ogedai smiled wearily. ‘No. If you were a fool, I would have had you killed in the courtyard with your bondsmen.’

‘Then why am I still alive?’ Chagatai said. He tried to keep his tone casual, but this was the question that had burnt him ever since he saw Tsubodai in the courtyard of the palace.

‘Because I may not live to see the nation grow, Chagatai,’ Ogedai said at last. ‘Because my heart is weak and I could die at any moment.’

The two men facing him stared as if struck. Ogedai couldn’t bear to wait for their questions. Almost with relief, he went on, the words spilling out.

‘I remain alive with the help of bitter Chin powders, but I have no way of knowing how long I have left. I wanted just to see my city finished and to be khan. Here I am, still alive, though I live in pain.’

‘Why was I not told this before?’ Chagatai said slowly, stunned by the implications. He knew the answer before Ogedai replied and nodded as his brother spoke.

‘Would you have given me two years to build a city, a tomb? No, you would have challenged me as soon as you heard. Instead, I have made Karakorum and I will be khan. I think father would have appreciated the risks I took, brother.’

Chagatai shook his head as things he had puzzled over began to fall together.

‘Then why…?’ he began.

‘You said you are no fool, Chagatai. Think it through, as I have done a thousand times. I am my father’s heir, but my heart is weak and I could fall at any moment. Who would lead the nation then?’

‘I would,’ Chagatai said softly.

It was a hard truth, that Ogedai’s son would not live to inherit, but neither man looked away from the other. Chagatai began to appreciate something of what Ogedai had gone through in the years since their father’s death.

‘How long have you known of the weakness?’ he asked.

Ogedai shrugged. ‘I’ve had twinges as long as I can remember, but it has grown worse in the last few years. There have been…more serious pains. Without the Chin powders, I do not think I have much time.’

‘Wait,’ Chagatai said, frowning. ‘You say I am safe? You will let me leave with this information? I don’t understand.’

It was Tsubodai who replied and he too stared at Ogedai as if seeing him for the first time.

‘If you died, Chagatai, if you were killed as you deserve for the attacks last night, who would keep the nation whole when the khan falls?’ Tsubodai’s face twisted into a furious sneer. ‘It seems you will be rewarded for your failures, my lord.’

‘That is why you too had to hear this, Tsubodai,’ Ogedai said. ‘You must put aside your anger. My brother will be khan after me and you will be his first general. He too is a son of Genghis, the bloodline of the man you gave oath to serve.’

Chagatai struggled to take in what he had heard.

‘You expect me to wait then, to be quiet and peaceful while I wait for you to die? How do I know this is not some ruse, something dreamed up by Tsubodai?’

‘Because I could kill you now,’ Ogedai snapped, his temper fraying visibly. ‘I still could, Chagatai. Why else would I offer you your life, after last night? I speak from a position of strength, brother, not failure. That is how you should judge my words.’

Reluctantly, Chagatai nodded. He needed time to think and he knew he was not going to be given that luxury.

‘I have made promises to those who have supported me,’ he said. ‘I cannot simply live the life of a herder while I wait. It would be a living death, unworthy of a warrior.’ He paused for a moment, thinking quickly. ‘Unless you make me your heir, publicly. Then I will have the respect of my generals.’

‘That I will not do,’ Ogedai said immediately. ‘If I die in the next few months, you will be khan whether I have made you heir or not. If I survive longer, I will not deny the chance to my son. You must take your chances with him, as he must with you.’

‘Then you offer me nothing!’ Chagatai replied, raising his voice almost to a shout. ‘What sort of a deal is this, based on empty promises? Why even tell me? If you die soon, yes I will be khan, but I will not spend my life waiting for a messenger who might never come. No man would.’

‘After the attacks last night, you had to be told. If I let it pass, if I just sent you back to your tuman, you would see only weakness. How long before you or another challenged me then? Yet I am not leaving you with nothing, Chagatai. Far from it. My task is to expand the lands we have conquered, to make the nation safe to thrive and grow by doing so. To our brother Tolui, I will give the homeland, though I will keep Karakorum as my own city.’ He took a deep breath, seeing the light of anticipation and greed in his brother’s eyes. ‘You will take Khwarezm as the centre of your lands, with the cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Kabul. I will give to you a khanate two thousand miles across, from the Amu Darya river to the Altai mountains. You and your descendants will rule there, though you will pay tribute to me and to mine.’

‘My lord…’ Tsubodai began, appalled.

Chagatai chuckled derisively. ‘Let him speak, general. This is a matter for family, not for you.’

Ogedai shook his head. ‘I have planned this for almost two years, Tsubodai. My challenge is to put aside the rage I feel for the attacks on my family and make the right choices, even now.’

He raised his head to stare at Chagatai, and his brother felt the surging emotions in his gaze.

‘My son and daughters survived, Chagatai. Did you know that? If they had been killed by your warriors, I would be watching you slow-roasted at this moment and listening to you scream. Some things I will not bear in the name of my father’s empire, his vision.’ He paused, but Chagatai said nothing. Ogedai nodded, satisfied he had been understood.

‘You have a position of strength, brother,’ Ogedai said. ‘You have generals loyal to you, while I have a vast empire that must be administered and controlled by able men. After today, I will be the gur-khan, the leader of nations. I will take your oath and honour mine to you and your descendants. The Chin showed us how to rule many lands, Chagatai, with tribute flowing back to the capital.’

‘You have not forgotten what happened to that capital?’ Chagatai asked.

Ogedai’s eyes glinted dangerously. ‘I have not, brother. Do not think that one day you will lead an army into Karakorum. Our father’s blood runs in my veins as much as it does in yours. If you ever come to me holding a sword, it will be against the khan and the nation will answer. I will destroy you then with your wives and children, your servants and followers. Do not forget, Chagatai, that I survived the night. Our father’s luck is mine. His spirit watches over me. Yet I am offering you an empire greater than anything outside the lands of the Chin.’

‘Where I will rot,’ Chagatai said. ‘You would have me lock myself in a pretty palace, surrounded by women and gold…’ he struggled for something suitably appalling,’…chairs and crowns?’

Ogedai smiled slightly to see his brother’s horror at such a prospect.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You will raise an army for me there, one I may call on. An army of the West, as Tolui will create an army of the Hearth and I will gather one of the East. The world has grown too large for one army of the nation, my brother. You will ride where I tell you to ride, conquer where I tell you to conquer. The world is yours, if you can put aside the base part of you that tells you to rule it all. That you may not have. Now give me an answer and your oath. Your word is iron, brother and I will take it. Or I can just kill you now.’

Chagatai nodded, overcome with the sudden shift from fatalistic numbness to new hope and new suspicions.

‘What oath will you accept?’ he said at last, and Ogedai knew he had won. He held out the wolf’s-head sword that Genghis had worn.

‘Swear with your hand on this sword. Swear by our father’s spirit and honour that you will never raise a hand in anger against me. That you will accept me as gur-khan and be a loyal vassal as khan of your own lands and peoples. Whatever else happens is the will of the sky father, but on that, you can make an oath I will respect. There will be many others today, Chagatai. Be the first.’

The nation knew that Chagatai had gambled for the horsetails, throwing his men at the city of Karakorum. When Ogedai and his officers rode around the city that morning in a show of strength, they saw that the attempt had failed. Yet somehow Chagatai too rode proudly as he rejoined his tuman outside the city. He sent his bondsmen to collect the corpses and carry them far beyond Karakorum, out of sight. In just a short time, only rusty marks were left on the streets, the dead as well hidden as the plans and stratagems of great men. The warriors of the nation shrugged and continued to prepare for the festival and the great games that would begin that day.

For Kachiun and Khasar, it was enough for the moment to know Ogedai had survived. The games would go ahead and there would be time to think of the future once he was made khan. Tumans that had faced each other in anger the night before sent teams of bowmen to the archery wall outside Karakorum. For those men, the battles of princes were a different world. They were pleased their own generals had survived; more pleased that the games had not been called off.

Tens of thousands gathered to watch the first event of the day. No one wanted to miss the early rounds, especially as the final would be seen by only thirty thousand, in the centre of the city. Temuge had organised the paper tokens that gained entry to that final enclosure. They had been changing hands for horses and gold for days before the event. While Ogedai had fought for his life, women, children and the elderly were quietly sitting in darkness where they could watch the greatest skills of their people demonstrated. Even the game of thrones had come second place to that desire.

The archery wall loomed above the east gate of Karakorum, bright in the rising sun. It had been built over the previous days, a massive construction of wood and iron that could hold more than a hundred small shields, each no larger than a man’s head. Around it, a thousand iron stoves added smoke to the air, cooking a feast for those who watched. The smell of fried mutton and wild onions was strong around the camp and the knowledge that civil war had been as close as a breath the night before did not diminish their appetites or still the ready laughter as the wrestlers practised with friends on the dry grass. It was a good day, with the sun strong on their backs as the nation prepared to celebrate a new khan.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Khasar stood with nine of his tuman’s best archers, waiting for his turn. He had to struggle to find the calm he needed and he took long, slow breaths while he held up each of the four arrows he had been given. In theory, they were all identical, products of the best fletcher in the tribes. Even so, Khasar had rejected the first three he had been handed. It was nerves in part, but he had not slept and he knew the day would be hard as it caught up with him. He was already sweating more than usual, as his body complained and ached. The only consolation was that every other archer had been awake as well. Yet the young ones were bright-faced and cheerful as they saw the grey pallor of more senior men. For them, it was a day of great potential, a better chance than they could have hoped to win recognition and Temuge’s precious medals of gold, silver and bronze, each stamped with the face of Ogedai. While he waited, Khasar wondered what Chagatai would have done if he had been successful. No doubt the heavy discs would have been quietly taken away and lost. Khasar shook his head to clear it. Knowing Chagatai, he would have used them anyway. The man felt no embarrassment about small things. In that at least, he was the true son of his father.

The festival would last for three days, though Ogedai would be khan at sunset on the first. Khasar had already seen Temuge running himself ragged trying to organise the events so that all those who qualified to compete could do so. Temuge had complained to Khasar about the difficulties, saying something about archers who were also riding in the horse races, and runners who were wrestling. Khasar had waved him away rather than listen to the tedious detail. He supposed someone had to organise it all, but it did not sound like a warrior’s work. It was well suited to his scholarly brother, who could use a bow hardly better than a child.

‘Step forward, Bearskin tuman,’ the judge called.

Khasar looked up from his thoughts to watch the competition. Jebe was a talented archer. His very name meant ‘arrow’ and had been given to him after a shot that brought down Genghis’ own horse. The word was that his men would be in the final. Khasar noted that Jebe did not seem to be suffering after the night’s exertions, though he had fought through the night to save Ogedai. Khasar felt a twinge of envy, remembering when he too could have ridden all night and still fought the following day, without rest or food beyond a few gulps of airag, blood and milk. Still, he knew he had not wasted the good times. With Genghis, he had conquered nations and made a Chin emperor kneel. It had been the proudest moment of his life, but he could have wished for a few more years of uncaring strength, without the painful clicking of his hip as he rode, or the sore knee, or even the small, hard lumps under his shoulder where a lance tip had broken off years before. He rubbed at the spot absently, as Jebe and his nine toed the line, a hundred paces from the archery wall. At that distance, the targets looked tiny.

Jebe laughed at something and clapped one of his men on the back. Khasar watched as the general bent and slow-released his bow a few times, limbering up his shoulders. Around them, thousands of warriors, women and children had gathered to watch, growing still and silent as the team waited for the breeze to die.

The wind dropped to nothing, seeming to intensify the sun on Khasar’s skin. The wall had been placed so the archers cast long shadows, but their aim was not spoiled by light in their eyes. Temuge had planned such tiny details.

‘Ready,’ Jebe said, without turning his head.

His men stood on either side of him, one arrow on the string and three on the ground before them. There were no marks for style, only accuracy, but Khasar knew Jebe would make it as silky smooth as he could, as a matter of pride.

‘Begin!’ the judge called.

Khasar watched closely as the team breathed out together, drawing at the same time and loosing just before they took the next breath. Ten arrows soared out, curving slightly as blurs in the air before they thumped home on the wall. More judges ran out and held up flags to show the hits. Their voices carried in the silent air, calling ‘Uukhai!’ for every shot in the centre of the target.

It was a good start. Ten flags. Jebe grinned at his men and they loosed again as soon as the judges were clear. To go on to the next round, they had to hit only thirty-three shields with forty arrows. They made it look easy, hitting a perfect thirty and only missing two on the last shot for a score of thirty-eight. The crowd cheered and Khasar glowered at Jebe as he passed back through the other competitors. The sun was hot, but they were alive.

Khasar did not understand why Ogedai had let Chagatai live. It would not have been his choice, but he was no longer one of the inner circle around the khan, as he had been with Genghis. He shrugged to himself at the thought. Tsubodai or Kachiun would know, they always did. Someone would tell him.

Khasar had seen Chagatai just before he joined the archers. The younger man had been leaning on a wooden corral, watching the wrestlers prepare with a few of his bondsmen. There had been no visible tension in Chagatai and it was only then that Khasar had begun to relax. Ogedai seemed to have won through to some sort of peace, at least for a time. Khasar put such things out of his mind, an old skill. One way or another, it was going to be a good day.

By the low, white walls of Karakorum, forty riders waited for the signal to begin. Their animals had been groomed and their hooves oiled in the days leading to the festival. Each rider had his own secret diet for his mount, guaranteed by his family to produce the long-distance stamina that the animal would need.

Batu ran his fingers through his pony’s mane, a nervous habit that he repeated every few moments. Ogedai would be watching, he was almost certain. His uncle had overseen all aspects of his training with the tumans, giving his officers a free hand to work him bloody and then force him to study each battle and tactic in the nation’s history. He ached as he had ached almost constantly for more than two years. It showed in the new muscle on his shoulders and the dark circles under his eyes. It had not been in vain. No sooner had he mastered a task or a post than he was moved again on the order of Ogedai.

The race that day was a respite of sorts from his training. Batu had tied his own hair back in a club, so that it would not whip his face and irritate him during the race. He had a chance, he knew that. He was older than the other boys, a man grown, though he had his father’s whip-lean frame. The extra weight would count over the distance, yet his pony was truly strong. It had shown its speed and endurance as a colt and, at two years of age, it was bursting with energy, as fit and ready as its rider.

He looked to where his second in command turned a small, pale mare on the spot. He met Batu’s eyes for a second and nodded. Zan’s blind white eye gleamed at him, reflecting his excitement. Zan had been Batu’s friend when only his mother knew the shame of his birth, when she still hid the disgrace of the name. Zan too had grown up with vicious dislike, beaten and tormented by those pure-blood boys who mocked his golden skin and delicate Chin features. Batu thought of him almost as a brother: thin and fierce, with enough hatred for both of them.

Some of the tumans had supplied teams of riders. Batu hoped Zan alone would be enough to make a difference. If he had learned anything from his father’s fate, it was to win, no matter how you did it. It was not important if someone else was hurt, or killed. If you won, you would be forgiven anything. You could be taken from a stinking ger and forced through the ranks until a thousand men followed your orders as if they came from the khan himself. Blood and talent. The nation was built on both.

As the judge stepped up to the mark, another rider crossed Batu’s line, as if struggling with his mount. Batu kicked forward instantly, using his strength to shove the boy away. It was Settan of the Uriankhai, of course. Tsubodai’s old tribe had been a thorn in his side ever since their valiant general returned to Genghis with Batu’s father’s head in a sack. He had met their silent dislike a hundred times since Ogedai had raised him. Not that they were open in their disdain or their transparent loyalty to their own blood. Genghis had outlawed the ties of tribe for his new nation, but Batu could smile at the thought of his grandfather’s arrogance. As if anything mattered but blood. Perhaps that was what his father Jochi had forgotten when he rebelled and stole away Batu’s birthright.

It was ironic that the Uriankhai still chose to visit the sins of the father on his son. Jochi had not known that his tumble with a virgin produced a boy. As an unmarried girl, Batu’s mother had no claim on Jochi. She had been scorned by her own family, forced to live on the edges. She had rejoiced when Jochi became an outcast, the traitor general, to be hunted down and killed. Then she had heard that the great khan had decreed all bastard children were to be legitimate. Batu still remembered the night she realised all she had lost, drinking herself into a stupor, then gashing weakly at her wrists with a cooking knife. He had washed and bound the wounds himself.

No one in the world hated the memory of Jochi like his son. In comparison to that seething white flame, the Uriankhai were simply moths that would be burnt by it.

Batu watched out of the corner of his eye as the judge began to unfurl a long flag of yellow silk. His father’s men had all left wives and children behind in the camp of Genghis. Zan was one of those abandoned children. Some had returned with Tsubodai, but Zan’s father had died somewhere far away, his body lost on strange ground. It was one more thing for which Batu could not forgive his father’s memory. He nodded to himself. It was a good thing he had enemies in the group of riders. He fed on their dislike, adding to it so that he could suck strength from their jibes and taunts, their sly blows and tricks. He thought once again of the human shit he had found in his feedbags that dawn and it was like a draught of black airag in his blood. That was why he would win the race. He rode with hatred and it gave him a power they could only imagine.

The judge raised the flag. Batu felt his pony’s haunches bunch as he rocked back, ready to explode forward. The flag whipped down, a streamer of gold in the morning sun. Batu kicked and in a heartbeat he was galloping. He did not take the lead, though he was almost sure he could have made them watch his back all the way round the city. Instead, he settled down to a steady pace midway down the group. Six times around Karakorum was forty-eight miles: no sprint, but a test of stamina. The horses had been bred for it and they could last the distance. The skill would come in the manoeuvres of the boys and men on their backs. Batu felt his confidence swell. He was a minghaan officer. He was seventeen years old and he could ride all day.

One thousand and twenty-four men of the nation raised their right arms to the crowd as they prepared for the first, massive round of wrestling. The first day would weed out the injured and the older men, or simply the ones who were unlucky. There were no second chances and with ten rounds to survive, the final two days would depend in part on those who came through the first with the fewest injuries.

The warriors had their favourites and for days there had been a stream of them strolling by the training fields, assessing the strengths and weaknesses, looking for those worth a bet and those who would not last through the gruelling trial.

None of the generals had entered for this part of the festival. They were too dignified to allow themselves to be thrown and broken by younger men. Even so, the first wrestling bout had been delayed so that Khasar and Jebe could take part in the archery competition. Khasar was a huge fan of the wrestling and sponsored the man no warrior wanted to meet in the first rounds. Baabgai, the Bear, was of Chin stock, though he had the compact build of a Mongol wrestler. He beamed toothlessly at the crowd and they cheered his name. Herds of the best ponies had been wagered on him, but ten rounds or an injury could wear him down. Even a stone could be cracked with enough blows.

Khasar and Jebe both went through their first round, then jogged with their teams across the summer grass to where the wrestlers waited patiently in the sun. The air tasted like metal and smelled of oil and sweat. The clashes and bloodshed of the night before were deliberately forgotten.

The archers knelt on mats of white felt, laying their precious bows carefully beside them, already unstrung and wrapped in wool and leather.

‘Ho, Baabgai!’ Khasar called, grinning at the bulky man he had found and trained. Baabgai had the mindless strength of an ox and seemed to feel no pain. In all his previous bouts, he had never shown the slightest discomfort and it was that stolid quality that most intimidated his opponents. They could not see a way to hurt the fool. Khasar knew some of the wrestlers called him the ‘empty one’ for his low intelligence, but Baabgai took no offence at anything. He just smiled and threw them over the horizon.

Khasar waited patiently through a song of beginning. The rough voices of the wrestlers swelled as they vowed to stand firm in the earth and to remain friends whether they were victor or vanquished. There would be other songs, in later rounds. Khasar preferred those and he barely listened as he looked across the plains.

Ogedai was in Karakorum, no doubt being washed, oiled and preened. The nation was already drinking hard and if Khasar hadn’t been taking part in the archery rounds, he would have joined them.

He watched as Baabgai took his first hold. The big man was not blisteringly fast, but once an opponent came within reach of his hands, once he found a grip, that was it. Baabgai’s fingers were short and fleshy, his hands always looking as if they had swollen badly, but Khasar had felt their strength and wagered heavily on him.

Baabgai’s first bout ended as he wrenched his opponent’s shoulder, grabbing the wrist and then throwing his weight onto the arm. The crowd cheered and beat drums and gongs in appreciation. Baabgai smiled at them, toothless as a huge baby. Khasar could not help chuckling at the simple pleasure in the wrestler. It would be a fine day.

Batu did not cry out as a whip lashed him across the cheek. He could feel the welt rise and his skin became as hot and angry as he was himself. The race had begun well enough and he had moved into the first six by the second lap of the city. The ground was harder and drier than he expected, which favoured some horses more than others. As they took the same path for the third lap, dust whitened their skin and dried the spit in their mouths to a gritty paste. Thirst grew steadily in the sun until the weaker ones gasped like birds.

Batu ducked as the whip came again, a strip of oiled leather. It was one of the Uriankhai, he saw, to his right. A dusty boy, small and light, on the back of a powerful stallion. Through gritty eyes, Batu saw the animal was strong and the boy full of malevolent enjoyment as he drew back his arm to lash him once more. Even over the close-packed thunder of hooves, Batu heard one of the others laugh and felt fury engulf him. They did not command men, as he did. What did he care for the blood of the Uriankhai, except to see it splashed in the dust? He looked to Zan, who raced close by. His friend was ready to aid him, but Batu shook his head, watching the Uriankhai boy all the time.

When the whip came again, Batu simply raised his arm, so the thong wrapped around his wrist. He closed his hand on a length of it. The boy gaped, but it was too late. Batu yanked hard, using all his weight and strength and heaving his own mount away in the same moment.

The stirrups almost saved the boy. For an instant, one leg flailed, but then he went down under the hooves and his mount whinnied and bucked, almost unseating another rider, who shouted angrily. Batu did not look back. He hoped the fall had killed the little bastard. They had stopped laughing at the front, he noticed.

Five Uriankhai riders had entered the race for two-year-olds. Though they came from two tumans, they rode instinctively as a group. Batu had brought them together somehow with his challenge, with his dislike. Settan of the Uriankhai led them. He was tall and lithe, with soft eyes that watered in the wind and a tail of hair that hung down his back. He and his friends exchanged glances as they passed the western gate of Karakorum for a fourth time. Sixteen miles to go and the horses’ mouths were white with foam, their skins dark and rimed with sweat. Batu and Zan moved up to challenge for the lead.

He could see the Uriankhai riders looking back at him. He made sure he showed only the cold face as he drew closer and closer. Behind the leading group, thirty other ponies stretched out like a long tail, already falling behind.

Khasar was still smiling as he walked back to the archery wall, where the judges and crowds waited impatiently for him. He ignored their stares as he strode to the line and strung his bow. As a brother to Genghis and one of the founders of the nation, he really couldn’t care less if he annoyed the senior men, or spoiled Temuge’s beautiful organisation.

Jebe’s ten had already taken their shots for the second round and the general stood relaxed, revealing his confidence. Khasar frowned at the younger man, though this seemed to make Jebe chuckle. Khasar steadied himself, knowing he would pass his mood to his own group of archers. No one in the archery rounds was weak or a poor shot. Not a single man there doubted he could win on the right day. There was always an element of luck, if the breeze shifted just as you loosed or a muscle cramped, but the main test was of nerves. Khasar had seen it many times. Men who could stand against a line of screaming Arabs without a qualm found their hands sweating as they walked up to the line in silence. Somehow, they could not take a full breath, as if their chest had swelled to block their throats.

Knowing that was part of the secret of conquering it. Khasar took long, slow breaths, ignoring the crowd and letting his own men settle themselves and grow calm. The forty targets on the wall even seemed to grow a fraction, an illusion he had seen before. He looked over his men and found them tense but steady.

‘Remember, lads,’ he murmured. ‘Every one is a virgin, sweet and willing.’

Some of his men chuckled, rolling their heads on their shoulders to ease the last tension that might spoil their aim.

Khasar grinned to himself. Weary or not, old or not, he was going to give Jebe a good run, he could feel it.

‘Ready,’ he called to the judges. He looked at the high banner on the archery wall. The wind had risen to a steady blow from the north-east. He adjusted his stance slightly. One hundred paces. A shot he had made a thousand times, a hundred thousand. One more long, slow breath.

‘Begin,’ the judge said curtly.

Khasar notched his first shaft to the string and sent it soaring to the line of shields he had marked as his own. He waited until he was sure it had struck home, then he turned and glanced at Jebe, raising his eyebrows. Jebe laughed at the challenge and turned away.

The line of pounding, sweating ponies had lengthened like beads on a cord, stretching a mile around the walls of Karakorum. Three of the Uriankhai still led the field, with two stocky boys almost herding Settan towards the finish. Batu and Zan were within reach of them and the group of five had opened a gap on the rest of the riders. It would be decided between them, and their mounts were snorting to clear their mouths and nostrils, spraying mucus and foaming sweat. The walls were lined with watching warriors as well as thousands of Chin workers. For them, the day was also a celebration, the end of two years of labour, with their purses full of coins.

Batu was blind to the watchers, to everything except Settan and his two companions. The dry ground rose as a cloud of dust, so that it would be hard to see what he was about to do. He felt in his pockets and removed two smooth stones, river pebbles that felt right in his hand. He and Zan had discussed knives or barbing his whip, but such wounds would be public. Some of the judges would not approve. Even so, Zan had offered to gash Settan’s neck. He hated the taller Uriankhai boy who took such pride in Tsubodai’s achievements. Batu had refused the offer, so that he would not lose his friend to vengeance. A stone could always have been thrown up from the hooves as they raced. Even if Settan saw what he and Zan were doing, he would not dare to complain. It would seem like whingeing and the warriors would laugh at him.

As they began the last lap, Batu fondled the stones. Past the racing horses, he could see wrestlers like brightly coloured birds against the grass; beyond them was the archery wall. His people were out on the plains and he was among them, riding hard. It was a good feeling.

He squeezed with his knees and his mount responded, though it was heaving for breath. Batu moved up and Zan followed closely. The Uriankhai were not sleeping and they moved to block him from Settan’s horse. Batu smiled at the closest boy and moved his mouth as if he was shouting something. All the while, he brought his mount closer.

The boy stared at him and Batu grinned, pointing vigorously at something ahead. He watched in delight as the boy finally leaned closer to hear whatever it was Batu was shouting into the wind. Batu swung the stone hard and connected with the side of his head. The boy vanished almost instantly under the hooves, just a rolling, dusty strip behind them.

Batu took his place as the riderless horse ran ahead. Settan looked back and stared to see him so close. They were caked in dust, their hair and skin a dirty white, but Settan’s gaze was bright with fear. Batu held his eyes, drinking in strength.

The other Uriankhai boy swerved his mount between them, crashing his leg into Batu so that he was almost unseated. For thumping heartbeats, Batu had to cling on to the mane as his feet lost the stirrups and he endured blows with a whip that came in a wild frenzy, striking his mount as often as himself. Batu kicked out instinctively and connected with the boy’s chest. It gave him a moment to regain his seat. He had dropped one stone, but he had another. As the Uriankhai boy turned back to face him, Batu threw it hard and yelled to see the stone crack into his nose, rocking him and sending bright red blood over the pale dust, like a river bursting. The boy fell back, and Batu and Zan were alone with Settan, with two miles still to ride.

As soon as he saw what was happening, Settan went all out to open a gap. It was his only chance. All the horses were at the end of their endurance, and with a cry of rage, Zan began to drift back. There was nothing he could do, though he threw his stones with furious strength, managing to hit Settan’s mount on the haunches with one, while the other disappeared in the dust.

Batu cursed under his breath. He could not let Settan leave him behind. He kicked and whipped his horse until they drew level and then Batu went half a length ahead. He felt strong, though his lungs were full of dust that he would cough up for days to come.

The final corner was in sight and Batu knew he could win. Yet he had known from the beginning that winning would not be enough for him. Tsubodai would be on the walls, Batu was certain. With one of his Uriankhai so close to the finishing line, the general would no doubt be cheering him on. Batu wiped his eyes, clearing them of gritty dust. He had no love for his father’s memory. It did not change his hatred for the general who had cut Jochi’s throat. Perhaps Ogedai would be there too, watching the young man he had raised.

Batu allowed Settan to cut inside him as they rushed towards the corner. The edge of the wall was marked by a marble post, decorated with a stone wolf. Judging it all finely, Batu let Settan come up beside him, almost head to head for the finish line. He saw Settan grin as he scented a chance to go through.

As they reached the corner, Batu wrenched his reins to the right and slammed Settan against the post. The impact was colossal. Both horse and rider stopped almost dead as the Uriankhai boy’s leg shattered and he screamed.

Batu rode on, smiling. He did not look back as the high sound faded behind him.

As he crossed the line, he wished his father could have lived to see it, to take pride in him. His eyes were wet with tears and he scrubbed at them, blinking furiously and telling himself it was just the wind and the dust.

CHAPTER EIGHT

As the sun sank towards the horizon, Ogedai breathed out slowly. There had been times when he thought he would not live to stand in his city on this day. His hair was oiled and tied into a club on his neck. His deel was simple and dark blue, without ornament or pretension. He wore it belted, over leggings and herders’ soft boots of sheepskin, tied with thongs. He touched his father’s sword at his waist, taking comfort from it.

At the same time, he felt a spasm of irritation at the choices his father had left him. If Jochi had become khan, it would have established a line of the first born. Instead, the great khan had made Ogedai his heir, the third of four sons. In the shadow of that man, Ogedai’s own line might wither. He could not expect the nation simply to accept his eldest son Guyuk as khan after him. More than twenty others had a blood claim from Genghis, and Chagatai was just one of the more dangerous. Ogedai feared for his son in such a tangle of thorns and teeth. Yet Guyuk had survived so far and perhaps that showed the sky father’s approval of him. Ogedai took a slow breath.

‘I am ready, Baras’aghur,’ he told his servant. ‘Stand back now.’

He strode forward into a swelling sea of noise, onto a balcony of polished oak. His drummers thundered his arrival and the warriors of his Guard tuman roared and beat their armour, making a clash of sound that could be heard across the city. Ogedai smiled, acknowledging the crowd as he took his seat overlooking the vast amphitheatre. His wife Torogene sat down beside him, with Baras’aghur fussing over the folds of her Chin dress. Unseen by the watching masses, Ogedai reached out. She took his hand and squeezed it. They had survived two years of intrigue, poison, attempts on their lives and, finally, open insurrection. Ogedai’s face and body were stiff and battered from his exertions, but he was in one piece.

As the crowd waited patiently, the wrestlers who had survived the first two bouts came to take their places in the centre ground below Ogedai. Two hundred and fifty-six men formed up in pairs ready for their last struggle that day. Bets flashed around the rows of seats, from shouted instructions to wooden tokens or even Chin printed money and coins. It was possible to bet on any aspect of the competition and the entire nation followed the sport. The weak and injured, the ageing and unlucky, had already been weeded out. Those who remained were the strongest and fastest in a nation which revered martial skill above all else. It was his father’s nation and creation, his father’s vision of a people: horse and warrior, sword and bow together.

Ogedai turned in his seat as Guyuk stepped onto the balcony. He felt his heart contract in the pride and sadness he always felt on seeing the young man. Guyuk was tall and handsome, fit to command a thousand, perhaps even a tuman, in peacetime. Beyond that, he had no spark of tactical awareness, or the subtle touch with his men that would have had them following him into flames. He was in all ways an unremarkable officer and he had not yet taken a single wife, as if continuing the khan’s own line meant nothing to him. The fact that he resembled Genghis in face and eyes only made his weaknesses harder to bear for his father. There were times when Ogedai could not understand his son at all.

Guyuk bowed elegantly to his parents and took his seat, staring out in wonder at the massed crowd. He had known little of the struggle in the palace. He had barricaded himself into a room with two friends and some servants, but no one had come to that part of the palace. Apparently, they had drunk themselves into a stupor. Despite Ogedai’s relief at seeing him alive, it summed his son up, that no one had considered him worth killing.

Temuge rushed by the rear of the balcony, almost hidden from view by a swarm of his runners and scribes. Ogedai heard him snapping out orders in his waspish voice and allowed himself a grin as he remembered the conversation with his uncle weeks before. Despite the old fool’s fears, Ogedai had won through. He reminded himself to offer the libraries of Karakorum to Temuge once again, as soon as the festival was over.

In the great oval, the twilight began the slow summer drift to grey. Because of the low city walls, the huge structure could be seen from the sea of grass outside. It would not be long before a thousand torches were lit, making a shape of light that all the nation could witness from the plains. Ogedai looked forward to the moment, the visible signal that he was khan. It also meant Karakorum was finished at last, barring the bloodstains that waited for rain. Perhaps that too was fitting.

Far below, Temuge signalled the wrestling judges. After a short song to the earth mother, the judges blew horns and the men crashed together, their hands and legs moving swiftly to take and break grips. For some, it was over in an instant, as with Baabgai’s opponent. For others, the match became a test of stamina as they heaved and sweated, long red marks appearing on their skin.

Ogedai looked down on the field of athletes. He knew Temuge had planned the events to the last detail. He wondered idly if his uncle would manage the whole festival without flaws. His people were warriors and shepherds to the last man and woman – not sheep, never sheep. Still, it was interesting to see.

The final pair collapsed with legs kicking to a roar and a howl from the crowd. A hundred and twenty-eight men were victors and they stood, flushed and pleased, before the nation. They bowed to Ogedai on the balcony and he got to his feet and raised his sword hand to them, showing his pleasure.

More horns sounded, great Chin tubes of brass and bronze that droned notes across the field. The wrestlers retired at a jog and the heavy gate swung open, revealing the main street of the city beyond. Ogedai squinted to see, just as thirty thousand others did their best to catch a glimpse.

In the distance came a group of runners, bare-chested in the summer heat. They had run three laps of the city, some twenty-four miles, before entering the western gate and heading for the centre ground. Ogedai leaned out as far as he could to see them, and for once Guyuk took an interest, craning forward with him, his face alight with excitement. Ogedai glanced at him and wondered if he had wagered some huge sum.

The Mongol people were not long-distance runners as a rule. They had the stamina but not the build, as Temuge had explained it. Some of them limped visibly as they came closer, before trying to hide their weakness as the noise surged around them.

Ogedai nodded to himself when he saw that Chagatai led them. His brother ran smoothly, a head taller than most of the other men. It was true Ogedai feared him, even hated his arrogance, yet he could not disguise his pride at seeing his own brother leading the way into the amphitheatre, pounding up the dusty track to the centre. Chagatai even began to pull away from the rest, but then a small, wiry warrior moved up to challenge him, forcing a sprint when they had nothing left.

As they drew level, Ogedai felt his own heart tremble, his breath coming faster.

‘Come on, brother,’ he whispered.

At his side Torogene frowned, her hands on the oak bar, gripping it. She had no interest in the man who had nearly killed her husband. She could happily have seen Chagatai burst his heart in front of the crowd. Yet she felt her husband’s excitement and she loved Ogedai more than anything in the world.

Chagatai threw himself forward at the last, crossing the line no more than a head’s length before the challenger. Both men were close to collapse and Chagatai struggled visibly for breath, his chest heaving. He did not rest his hands on his knees. Ogedai felt a twinge of nostalgia as he remembered his father’s words on the subject. If an opponent sees you clinging to your knees, he will think you are beaten. It was a hard voice to escape as they moved on with the years, leaving Genghis behind.

Out of a sense of decency, Guyuk could not cheer his uncle, but his skin glowed with a light perspiration. Ogedai grinned at him, pleased to see his son enthralled for once. He hoped he had won his bet, at least.

Ogedai remained on his feet as the horns sounded once more, spilling a note across tens of thousands. He closed his eyes for an instant, breathing long and slow.

The crowd fell silent.

Ogedai raised his head as his brass-lunged herald bellowed out the words at last.

‘You are here to confirm Ogedai, son of Temujin who was Genghis, as khan of the nation. He stands before you as the heir chosen by the great khan. Is there any other who will challenge for the right to lead?’

If there had been silence before, this one had the stillness of death as every man and woman froze, not even daring to breathe as they waited. Guyuk stood back and, for a moment, raised his hand to touch Ogedai’s shoulder, before letting it fall without his father knowing.

Thousands of eyes turned towards Chagatai as he stood on the dusty ground with his chest heaving, streaked in sweat. He too looked up at Ogedai on the balcony of oak and his face was strangely proud.

The moment passed and the release of breath was like a summer breeze, followed by a ripple of laughter as people were amused at their own tension and tight expressions.

Ogedai stepped forward, so that they could all see him. The amphitheatre had been influenced by drawings made by Christian monks from Rome who had come to Karakorum. As they had promised, it seemed to magnify sound, so that his voice flew to every ear. He drew the wolf’s-head sword and held up the blade.

‘I make my own oath before you. As khan, I will protect the people, so that we grow strong. We have had too many years of peace. Let the world fear what will come next.’

They cheered his words and in the enclosed bowl, the sound was immense, almost rocking Ogedai back where he stood. He could feel it on his skin like a physical force. He raised the sword again and they quieted slowly, reluctantly. Down in the field, he thought he saw his brother nod to him. Family was indeed a strange thing.

‘Now I will take your oath,’ he shouted to his people.

The herald took up the chant: ‘Under one khan we are a nation.’

The words crashed back at Ogedai and he gripped the sword tighter, wondering if the band of pressure on his face was his father’s spirit. He heart thumped slower and slower until he thought he could feel every beat.

The herald called once more to complete the oath and they replied: ‘I offer you gers, horses, salt and blood, in all honour.’

Ogedai closed his eyes. His chest was shuddering and his head felt swollen and strange. A sharp pain made him almost stumble as his right arm buckled, suddenly weak. Part of him expected it to end then.

When he opened his eyes, he was still alive. More, he was khan of the nation, in the line of Genghis. His vision cleared slowly and he took a deep breath of the summer air, feeling himself tremble in reaction. He felt the thirty thousand faces turned to him, and as his strength returned, he raised his arms suddenly in joy.

The sound that followed almost deafened him. It was echoed by the rest of the nation who waited outside the city. They heard and they responded, seeing the torches lit for the new khan.

That night, Ogedai walked through the corridors of his palace, with Guyuk strolling at his side. After the excitement of the day, neither man could sleep. Ogedai had found his son throwing bones with his Guards and summoned him for company. It was a rare gesture from father to son, but on that night Ogedai was at peace with the world. Somehow, weariness could not touch him, though he could hardly remember when he had last slept. The bruise on his face had grown colourful. It had been masked for the oath-taking with pale powder, but Ogedai did not know he had streaked it when he scratched his skin.

The corridors became cloisters that opened out onto the palace gardens, still and quiet. The moon was dim behind clouds and only the paths could be seen, as if they walked pale threads through the dark.

‘I would prefer to go with you, father, to the Chin lands,’ Guyuk said.

Ogedai shook his head. ‘That is the old world, Guyuk, a task begun before you were born. I am sending you out with Tsubodai. You will see new lands with him. You will make me proud, I do not doubt it.’

‘You are not proud now?’ Guyuk asked. He had not meant to ask the question, but it was rare for him to be alone with his father and he spoke his thoughts aloud. To his distress, Ogedai did not answer immediately.

‘…Of course, but that is a father’s pride, Guyuk. If you intend to follow me as khan, you must lead warriors in battle. You must make them see you are not as they are – do you understand?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Guyuk replied. ‘I have done everything you have asked of me. I have led my tuman for years. You saw the bearskin we brought back. I carried it into the city on a lance and the workers cheered me.’

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