Birth of an Empire Read online

  At the last possible moment, Yesugei moved with a jerk, reaching up in a blur to snatch a rider. The horse galloped on wildly, bare of reins or saddle. Freed of its burden, it bucked twice and then settled, dropping its head to nibble at dry grass.

  Temujin had spun round at his father’s movement, seeing the big man lowering a child to the ground as if the weight were nothing.

  It might have been a girl, but it was not easy to be sure. The hair was cut short and the face was almost black with dirt. She struggled in Yesugei’s arms as he put her down, spitting and wailing. He laughed and turned to Enq with raised eyebrows.

  “The Olkhun’ut grow them wild, I see,” Yesugei said.

  Enq’s face was twisted with what may have been amusement. He watched as the grubby little girl ran away screeching. “Let us continue to her father,” he said, flashing a glance at Temujin before he limped away.

  Temujin stared after the running figure, wishing he had taken a better look.

  “Is she the one?” he said aloud. No one answered him.

  The horses of the Olkhun’ut were out on the ragged edge of the tribe, whinnying and tossing their heads in the excitement of spring. The last of the gers sat on a piece of dusty ground by the corrals, baked and bare of any ornament. Even the door was unpainted wood, suggesting the owners owned nothing more than their lives and their place in the tribe. Temujin sighed at the thought of spending his year with such a poor family. He had hoped at least to be given a bow for hunting. From the look of the ger, his wife’s family would be hard-pressed even to feed him.

  Yesugei’s face was blank, and Temujin tried hard to copy it in front of Enq. He had already resolved not to like the thin uncle who had given them such a reluctant welcome. It was not difficult.

  The father of the girl came out to meet them, smiling and bowing. His clothes were black with old grease and dirt, layer upon layer that Temujin suspected would remain on his skin regardless of season. He showed a toothless mouth when he smiled, and Temujin watched as he scratched at a dark spot in his hair, flicking some nameless parasite away with his fingers. It was hard not to be revolted after the clean ger his mother had kept all his life. The smell of urine was a sharp tang in the air, and Temujin could not even see a latrine pit nearby.

  He took the man’s dark hand when it was offered and went inside to drink yet another bowl of the salty tea, moving to the left after his father and Enq. His spirits sank further at the broken wood beds and lack of paint. There was an old bow on the wall, but it was a poor thing and much mended. The old man woke his wife with a hard slap and set her to boiling a kettle on the stove. He was clearly nervous in the presence of strangers and muttered to himself constantly.

  Enq could not hide his cheerful mood. He smiled around at the bare felt and wooden lattice, repaired in a hundred places.

  “We are honored to be in your home, Shria,” he said to the woman, who bowed her head briefly before pouring the salt tea into shallow bowls for them. Enq’s good humor was growing visibly as he addressed her husband. “Bring your daughter, Sholoi. The boy’s father has said he wants to see her.”

  The wiry little man showed his toothless gums again and went out, pulling his beltless trousers up at every second step. Temujin heard a high voice yelling and the old man’s curt reply, but he pretended not to, covering his dismay with the bowl of tea and feeling his bladder grow full.

  Sholoi brought the grubby girl back in, struggling all the way. Under Yesugei’s gaze, he struck her three times in quick succession, on the face and legs. Tears sprang into her eyes, though she fought them with the same determination as she had fought her father.

  “This is Borte,” Enq said slyly. “She will make your son a good and loyal wife, I am certain.”

  “She looks a little old,” Yesugei said doubtfully.

  The girl writhed away from her father’s grip and went to sit on the other side of the ger, as far from them as she could possibly get.

  Enq shrugged. “She is fourteen, but there has been no blood. Perhaps because she is thin. There have been other suitors, of course, but they want a placid girl instead of one with fire in her. She will make a fine mother for Wolves.”

  The girl in question picked up a shoe and threw it at Enq. Temujin was close enough to snatch it out of the air, and she stared malevolently at him.

  Yesugei crossed the ger and something about him made her go still. He was large for his own people and larger still for the Olkhun’ut, who tended toward delicacy. He reached out and touched her gently under the chin, lifting her head.

  “My son will need a strong wife,” he said, looking into her eyes. “I think she will be beautiful when she has grown.”

  The little girl broke her unnatural stillness and tried to slap at his hand, though he was too fast for her. Yesugei smiled, nodding to himself.

  “I like her. I accept the betrothal.”

  Enq hid his displeasure behind a weak smile.

  “I am pleased to have found a good match for your son,” he said.

  Yesugei stood and stretched his back, towering over them all.

  “I will return for him in a year, Enq. Teach him discipline, but remember that one day he will be a man and he may come back to pay his debts to the Olkhun’ut.”

  The threat was not lost on Enq and Sholoi, and the former clenched his jaw rather than reply before he had mastered himself.

  “It is a hard life in the gers of the Olkhun’ut. We will give you back a warrior as well as a wife for him.”

  “I do not doubt it,” Yesugei replied.

  He bent almost double to exit through the small door and, in sudden panic, Temujin realized his father was leaving. It seemed to take forever for the older men to follow, but he forced himself to sit until only the wizened wife was left and he could leave. By the time he stood blinking against the light, his father’s pony had been brought. Yesugei mounted easily, looking down on them all. His steady gaze found Temujin at last, but he said nothing and, after a moment, he dug in his heels, trotting away.

  Temujin stared after his father as he rode, returning to his brothers, his mother, everything he loved. Though he knew he would not, Temujin hoped Yesugei would glance back before he was out of sight. He felt tears threaten and took a deep breath to hold them back, knowing it would please Enq to see weakness.

  His uncle watched Yesugei leave and then he closed one nostril with a finger, blowing the contents of the other onto the dusty ground.

  “He is an arrogant fool, that one, like all the Wolves,” he said.

  Temujin turned quickly, surprising him. Enq sneered.

  “And his pups are worse than their father. Well, Sholoi beats his pups as hard as he beats his daughters and his wife. They all know their place, boy. You’ll learn yours while you are here.”

  He gestured to Sholoi and the little man took Temujin’s arm in a surprisingly powerful grip. Enq smiled at the boy’s expression.

  Temujin held silent, knowing they were trying to frighten him. After a pause, Enq turned and walked away, his expression sour. Temujin saw that his uncle limped much worse when Yesugei was not there to see it. In the midst of his fear and loneliness, that thought gave him a scrap of comfort. If he had been treated with kindness, he may not have had the strength. As things stood, his simmering dislike was like a draft of mare’s blood in his stomach, nourishing him.

  Yesugei did not look back as he passed the last riders of the Olkhun’ut. His heart ached at leaving his precious son in the hands of weaklings like Enq and Sholoi, but to have given Temujin even a few words of comfort would have been seen as a triumph for those who looked for such things. When he was riding alone across the plain and the camp was far behind, he permitted himself a rare smile. Temujin had more than a little fierceness in him, perhaps more than any other of his sons. Where Bekter might have retreated into sullenness, he thought Temujin might surprise those who thought they could freely torment a khan’s son. Either way, he would survive the year and the Wol
ves would be stronger for his experiences and the wife he would bring home. Yesugei remembered the fat herds that roamed around the gers of his wife’s tribe. He had found no true weaknesses in the defenses, but if the winter was hard, he could picture a day when he would ride amongst them once more, with warriors at his side. His mood lightened at the thought of seeing Enq run from his bondsmen. There would be no smiles and sly glances from the thin little man then. He dug in his heels to canter across the empty landscape, his imagination filled with pleasant thoughts of fire and screaming.

  CHAPTER 6

  TEMUJIN CAME ABRUBTLY from sleep when a pair of hands yanked him off his pallet and onto the wooden floor. The ger was filled with that close darkness that prevented him from even seeing his own limbs, and everything was unfamiliar. He could hear Sholoi muttering as he moved around, and assumed it was the old man who had woken him. Temujin felt a surge of fresh dislike for Borte’s father. He scrambled up, stifling a cry of pain as he cracked his shin on some unseen obstacle. It was not yet dawn and the camp of the Olkhun’ut was silent all around. He did not want to start the dogs barking. A little cold water would splash away his sleepiness, he thought, yawning. He reached out to where he remembered seeing a bucket the evening before, but his hands closed on nothing.

  “Awake yet?” Sholoi said somewhere near.

  Temujin turned toward the sound and clenched his fists in the darkness. He had a bruise along the side of his face from where the old man had struck him the evening before. It had brought shameful tears to his eyes, though he’d seen that Enq had spoken the truth about life in that miserable home. Sholoi used his bony hands to enforce every order, whether he was moving a dog out of his path, or starting his daughter or wife to some task. The shrewish-looking wife seemed to have learned a sullen silence, but Borte had felt her father’s fists more than a few times on that first evening, just for being too close in the confined space of the ger. Under the dirt and old cloth, Temujin thought she must have been covered in bruises. It had taken two sharp blows from Sholoi before he too kept his head down. He’d felt her eyes on him then, her gaze scornful, but what else could he have done? Killed the old man? He didn’t think he would live long past Sholoi’s first shout for help, not surrounded by the rest of the tribe. He thought they would take a particular delight in cutting him if he gave them cause. His last waking thought the night before had been the pleasant image of dragging a bloody Sholoi behind his pony, but it was just a fantasy born of humiliation. Bekter had survived, he reminded himself, sighing, wondering how the big ox had managed to hold his temper.

  He heard a creak of hinges as Sholoi opened the small door, letting in enough cold starlight for Temujin to edge around the stove and past the sleeping forms of Borte and her mother. Somewhere nearby were two other gers with Sholoi’s sons and their grubby wives and children. They had all left the old man years before, leaving only Borte. Despite his rough ways, Sholoi was khan in his own home, and Temujin could only bow his head and try not to earn too many cuffs and blows.

  He shivered as he stepped outside, crossing his arms in his thick deel so that he was hugging himself. Sholoi was emptying his bladder yet again, as he seemed to need to do every hour or so in the night. Temujin had woken more than once as Sholoi stumbled past him, and he wondered why he had been pulled from the blankets this time. He felt a deep ache in his stomach from hunger and looked forward to something hot to start the day. With just a little warm tea, he was certain he would be able to stop his hands shaking, but he knew Sholoi would only cackle and sneer if he asked for some before the stove was even lit.

  The herds were dark figures under the starlight as Temujin emptied his own urine into the soil, watching it steam. The nights were still cold in spring and he saw there was a crust of ice on the ground. With a south-facing door, he had no trouble finding east, to look for the dawn. There was no sign of it and he hoped Sholoi did not rise at such an early hour every day. The man may have been toothless, but he was as knotted and wiry as an old stick, and Temujin had the sinking feeling that the day would be long and hard.

  As he tucked himself in, Temujin felt Sholoi’s grip on his arm, pushing at him. The old man held a wooden bucket, and as Temujin took it, he picked up another, pressing it into his free hand.

  “Fill them and come back quick, boy,” he said.

  Temujin nodded, turning toward the sound of the nearby river. He wished Khasar and Kachiun could have been there. He missed them already and it was not hard to imagine the peaceful scene as they awoke in the ger he had known all his life, with Hoelun stirring them to begin their chores. The buckets were heavy as he headed back, but he wanted to eat and he did not doubt Sholoi would starve him if he gave him an opportunity.

  The stove had been lit by the time he returned, and Borte had vanished from her blankets. Sholoi’s grim little wife, Shria, was fussing around the stove, nursing the flames with tapers before shutting the door with a clang. She had not spoken a word to him since his arrival. Temujin looked thirstily at the pot of tea, but Sholoi came in just as he put the buckets down and guided him back out into the quiet darkness with a two-fingered grip on his biceps.

  “You’ll join the felters later, when the sun’s up. Can you shear?”

  “No, I’ve never had…” Temujin began.

  Sholoi grimaced. “Not much good to me, boy, are you? I can carry my own buckets. When it’s light you can collect sheep turds for the stove. Can you ride herd?”

  “I’ve done it,” Temujin replied quickly, hoping he would be given his pony to tend the Olkhun’ut sheep and cattle. That would at least take him away from his new family for a while each day. Sholoi saw his eagerness and his toothless mouth curled like a wet, grubby fist.

  “Want to run back to your mother, boy, is that it? Frightened of a little hard work?”

  Temujin shook his head. “I can tan leather and braid rope for bridles and saddles. I can carve wood, horn, and bone.” He found himself blushing, though he doubted Sholoi could see in the starlit darkness. He heard the old man snort.

  “I don’t need a saddle for a horse I don’t have, do I? Some of us weren’t born into pretty silks and furs.”

  Temujin saw the old man’s blow coming and slipped it, turning his head. Sholoi wasn’t fooled and thumped at him until he fell sideways into the darker patch where the urine had eaten at the frost. As he scrambled to get up, Sholoi kicked his ribs and Temujin lost his temper. He sprang up fast and stood wavering, suddenly unsure. The old man seemed determined to humiliate him with every word, and he couldn’t understand what he wanted.

  Sholoi made a whistling sound of exasperation and then spat, reaching for him with his gnarled fingers. Temujin edged backwards, completely unable to find a response that would satisfy his tormentor. He ducked and protected himself from a rain of blows, but some of them found their mark. Every instinct told him to strike back and yet he was not sure Sholoi would even feel it. The old man seemed to have grown and become fearsome in the dark, and Temujin could not imagine how to hit him hard enough to stop the attack.

  “No more,” he cried out. “No more!”

  Sholoi chuckled, holding the edge of Temujin’s deel in his unbreakable grip and panting as if he had run a mile in the noon sun.

  “I’ve broken ponies better than you, boy. With more spirit, too. You’re no better than I thought you were.”

  There was a world of scorn in his voice, and Temujin realized he could see the old man’s features. The sun’s first light had come into the east, and the tribe was stirring at last. Both of them sensed they were being watched at the same time, and when they turned, Borte was there, staring.

  Temujin flushed with shame more painful than the actual blows. He felt Sholoi’s hands fall away under Borte’s silent scrutiny, and the old man seemed discomfited somehow. Without another word, he pushed past Temujin and disappeared into the fetid darkness of the ger.

  Temujin felt an itching drip of blood come from his nostril onto his top lip, a
nd he smeared it with an angry gesture, sick of all of them. The movement seemed to startle Sholoi’s daughter and she turned her back on him, running away into the dawn gloom. For a few precious moments he was on his own, and Temujin felt lost and miserable. His new family were little better than animals from what he had seen, and it was only the beginning of the first day.

  Borte ran through the gers, dodging obstacles and flying past a barking dog as it tried to chase her. A few swift turns and it was left behind to yap and snarl in impotent fury. She felt alive when she ran, as if nothing in the world could touch her. When she stood still, her father could reach her with his hands, or her mother take a whip of silver birch to her back. She still carried the stripes from knocking over a pail of cool yoghurt two days before.

  The breath rushed cleanly in and out of her lungs, and she wished the sun would stay frozen on the distant horizon. If the tribe remained asleep, she could find a little quiet and happiness away from their stares. She knew how they talked of her and there were times when she wished she could be like the other girls in the tribe. She had even tried it when her mother had cried over her once. One day was enough to become tired of sewing and cooking and learning how to ferment the black airag for the warriors. Where was the excitement in that? She even looked different from the other girls, with a thin frame and nothing more than tiny buds of breasts to spoil the rack of ribs that was her chest. Her mother complained she did not eat enough to grow, but Borte had heard a different message. She did not want big cow bosoms that would hang down for a man to milk her. She wanted to be fast like a deer and skinny like a wild dog.

  She snorted as she ran, reveling in the pleasure of feeling the wind. Her father had given her to the Wolf puppy without a second thought. The old man was too stupid to ask her whether she would have him or not. No. He would not have cared either way. She knew how hard her father could be, and all she could do was run and hide from him, as she had a thousand times before. There were women in the Olkhun’ut who let her spend the night in their gers if old Sholoi was raging. Those were dangerous times, though, if their own men had been at the fermented milk. Borte always watched for the slurred voices and sweet breath that meant they would come grasping at her after dark. She had been caught once like that and it would not happen again, not while she carried her little knife, at least.