The Tiger Queens Read online

Shigi and my father let me travel that morning in peace and it was only after the sun reached its highest point in the sky that we stopped to rest the horses and eat the bundles of roasted mutton my mother had packed in our saddlebags.

  My father sat next to me and unwrapped the meat from its brown-and-white-spotted goatskin while the soldiers tucked into their meal of dried curds, singing of horses and women between bites. Each of the men in the heavy cavalry wore an iron helmet and coat of mail and carried two bows, a lasso, and a battle-ax, yet despite their load each seemed invigorated at the thought of the coming conquest. Shigi settled next to us, as easy next to my father as he was with his scrolls. I knew my father had set his adopted Tatar brother to recording this campaign as well as finishing codifying the Jasagh so the final legal code might be shared with the rest of the clans, including the new edict that decreed that all members of the Golden Family were above the law. Even now, Shigi retrieved his perpetual stack of papers while he ate, so I wondered if he might leave greasy thumbprints on his fine descriptions of my father’s cavalry or the latest law forbidding the washing of clothes until they were worn out.

  “No friend is better than your own heart.” My father recited the ancient saying while he chewed. “Yet your heart seems troubled, tarvag takal.”

  I offered him a wan smile and removed the headdress, twisting my neck with relief. “I fear I’ll fail at the task you’ve set before me. The Onggud are learned people, and I am not.”

  It was only one of the many reasons that I dreaded meeting the strange foreigners I would rule, but the safest to discuss.

  Shigi set down his pen, balancing his portion of meat on one leg and a waterskin between both knees along with the thick stack of paper. “It’s true that the Onggud are blessed with much wisdom: shamans learned in the ways of spirits from faraway lands, scribes to record their histories, and great sculptors living in the shadow of the Great Long Wall.”

  I scowled when he didn’t continue. “Thank you,” I said. “I feel much better now.”

  He gave an elegant shrug. “It’s not my fault you refused to sit still long enough to learn anything during my lessons.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Because if I had, then I’d be as wise as their scribes? Or at least as wise as you?”

  Shigi gave me a slow smile. “That, my dear Alaqai, you could never be.”

  My father chuckled and clapped a heavy hand on my knee. “Even with all that wisdom, the Onggud cities would fall if I directed my armies against them,” he said, his voice roughened from years of inhaling smoke inside dark gers. “There are many kinds of knowledge, Alaqai Beki, and of all my children, you are the wisest. You have your mother to thank for that.”

  My scowl deepened. “My mother is no longer here to guide me.”

  “No, but she has stretched you to the height of men.”

  I nudged his toe with mine. “That’s only when I wear that infernally heavy headdress. Take it off and—” I motioned to my bare head and shrugged.

  He laughed again. I would miss that sound when he finally left me in Olon Süme weeks from now, something that didn’t bear thinking about. “You and I were both born with clots of blood in our fists. You will be my feet amongst the Onggud, but also my eyes, ears, and mouth.” He licked his fingers, wiped the leftover grease on his deel, and stood. “It’s only a matter of time until you determine how to best rule your new people.” He stuffed the empty goatskin into the front of his deel. “And I’ll be leaving Shigi with you, at least for the first few months while you settle in and before our conquest against the Tanghut begins in earnest. That way you’ll have secret eyes of your own.”

  My father winked at me, then left to make his rounds among his men, clapping a hand on one of his general’s shoulders and easily joining their conversation, even as my own food remained untouched. The enormity of what my father expected struck me then, making me want to gasp for breath and reminding me of the time Ogodei had thrown me into Older Sister Lake. I’d sunk for what seemed like forever before finally touching the bottom and kicking frantically to the surface, my lungs screaming and my eyeballs threatening to explode. I’d survived the experience, but barely.

  I prayed I’d survive what my father required of me.

  “It looks like you won’t be going home anytime soon. Instead, you’re stuck with me,” I said to Shigi, expecting a witty rejoinder or conspiratorial smile. Instead he stared again in the direction we’d just come.

  “It seems we’re both stuck with each other,” he said, giving a weak smile.

  I knew not what troubled him, but I didn’t have room in my heart to worry over Shigi’s problems as well as my own. I was only a headstrong girl, not a conqueror who drew chiefs to me by the sheer force of my personality. I doubted whether I could rule my husband, much less a kingdom, in my father’s name.

  May the Eternal Blue Sky and the Earth Mother help me when I failed.

  * * *

  We traveled for six weeks across the Great Dry Sea, riding only at night to save the horses and ourselves from the scorching heat, although it was already well into autumn. I grew accustomed to our upside-down life, sleeping in the light and riding and hunting in the dark. Shigi taught me to play Sorkhokhtani’s buree from my saddle, coaching my fingers on a song I’d often heard Toregene humming. We caught an occasional deer but mostly subsisted off dried milk paste and meat from the reserve horses we brought with us. There was no time to cook, nor would we have welcomed the additional heat from the fires, so we tucked the meat beneath our saddles and ate it raw and soft after the sun disappeared each night. I looked for the fabled Mongolian death worm, the olgoi-khorkhoi, a bright red creature as long as a man and reputed to spew yellow poison that could kill a beast on contact. The olgoi-khorkhoi eluded us, but we passed such strange sights that I began to believe my mind played tricks on me: eagles’ nests made of sticks in a land without trees; duck hawks feasting on the flesh of a herd of dead antelope; and the strange bones of massive, long-dead lizards hidden amongst the dunes and blowing sands. I realized that the barren stretch of sands wasn’t dead at all, for delicious water welled up from the earth at the edge of rocky basins, and jerboas with their long tails often leapt in front of our horses in the dead of night. I rode next to my father, listening to his tales of battle, but more important, to his stories of loyalty and honor. He recounted his early exploits against the Merkid and the Blood War against Jamuka, and although I already knew the tales, I listened now for the ways my father had woven men to him to create the Thirteen Nations. Finally, the Great Dry Sea’s constant wind song faded from my ears and its dunes slipped away, diluted first by grasses, then shrubs, and finally the cool birch forests that reminded me of home.

  Then one day as the sun was beginning to wake, we saw the black outline of Onggud walls on the horizon.

  Olon Süme was stark and hard, an unnatural scar on the gentle swell of the earth, as if men had forced the settlement onto the Earth Mother’s back. The city was surrounded by hundreds of grazing two-humped camels, more numerous than the blades of grass on the hills. I’d rarely spent much time around my mother’s camels; we kept our horses separate from the awkward, humped beasts due to their natural animosity toward each other, but still, I’d never seen so many camels all together. I was accustomed to the smell of animals, but a foreign stench burrowed into my nostrils and made my gorge rise as we passed the shaggy beasts: human waste, accumulated years of animal dung, and the musk of too many unwashed bodies crammed together. I reared back like a whipped horse, wanting to bury my head in Neer-Gui’s mane and gulp the hot desert air I had never thought to miss.

  “The Onggud have herders who travel with the seasons, but most remain within the safety of the walls.” My father’s voice was soothing, and I recognized the tone he often used to calm frightened horses. “And there are treasures within those walls that will make up for the stink.”

  Still,
I didn’t move until Shigi cleared his throat. “Now would be a good time to avail yourself of your mother’s gifts, Alaqai.”

  Panic made it impossible to speak, but I beckoned for my cart and opened the trunk that had been carefully sealed all this time against the desert sands. I’d overheard my father’s men tell tales of Onggud women who had been fed perfumes since infancy so the bees and butterflies followed them, infatuated with their fragrance. Another story claimed their noblewomen painted their faces with yellow lead and their lips with the ashes of fragrant flowers. Their women were skilled at poetry and dance, song and a variety of musical instruments. I was only a girl expert with a bow and arrow, my father’s blood in my veins my only commendation.

  Inside the trunk was my meticulously folded red deel, and under it, the tall boqta I’d worn to leave my mother. I shook out the robe and slipped it over my travel clothes, the familiar scent of my mother’s cook smoke making my eyes sting and my fingers fumble with the elaborate bone toggles, which resembled galloping horses. Already my neck ached from the weight of the headdress, and I could scarcely balance it atop my head as we finally approached the walls. Nervous herders scurried back inside the city at our approach, their camels unperturbed, and soldiers called down to us, their words a foreign jangle in my ears.

  Turkic.

  The Onggud lived at a crossroads of the steppe, between the Turks and the Jurched. While I had realized this, I hadn’t thought to be entirely cut off from communicating with the people I would rule. Panic threatened to overwhelm me once again.

  My father answered back in Mongolian, his command clear and steady. “Tell Ala-Qush, Prince of Beiping, that Genghis Khan is at his gates and requests admittance into the city of Olon Süme.” He motioned with his scimitar behind him, his lip curving up in a dangerous grin. “And my men request admittance as well.”

  The soldiers scurried away like rats to do my father’s bidding, and I could almost hear their hearts pounding at the thought of the bloody conqueror at their gates. It was an image my father liked to propagate, to save the trouble of unnecessary battles.

  “Ala-Qush speaks our language,” he said, eyeing me. “I have no doubt that soon you’ll speak all the Onggud languages. Shigi will help you.”

  It wasn’t just Turkic I heard as people began to gather along the walls, but a cauldron of strange tongues. All around, flat-faced people stared down at us. Realization dawned in their curious eyes at the sight of this strange girl in a beki’s headdress and her father with his sixteen hundred men. The expressions of more than a few hardened into glares before they averted their eyes.

  I remembered my mother’s words and tilted my chin, resisting the urge to straighten the ungainly headdress. The chatter of its beaded strings did little to drown out the furious whispers.

  A soldier approached through the open gates, the tall wooden panels carved with plodding tortoises, smaller relatives to the golden tortoise that carried the earth on its back, and still another sign that the fire in my soul would clash with these people I must now rule. “The Great Ala-Qush of the Onggud, Prince of Beiping, bids you welcome to our city,” he said, his voice wavering. “He asks you to proceed to the Great House.”

  The walls closed in upon us as we entered and headed toward the Great House. I expected a palatial tent like my mother’s, large enough to hold at least thirty men, but Ala-Qush’s residence was smaller and built from polished wood with a birch roof. Tiny weather-beaten houses huddled around it like nervous old women, and a man almost Ogodei’s size and dressed in shimmering blue silk stood outside the door. Ala-Qush stepped forward to greet my father, his arms outstretched in welcome even as he stared at me from a face that screamed of his white-boned ancestry. I refused to drop my gaze but clasped my pommel as his upper lip curled before smoothing into a stiff smile of welcome.

  I could see it in his eyes—Ala-Qush didn’t relish the idea of marrying me; he only wanted the alliance our union would bring. In that moment I would have traded the stars in the sky to appear more like delicate Sorkhokhtani and less like myself.

  “The Onggud welcome the Khan of Khans and his most esteemed daughter to our town,” Ala-Qush said. I was a foreigner come to rule over them, to use them for her father’s conquests, and I was under no illusions; one wrong move and they’d feed me to the wolves, then rejoin their ancient alliance with the Tanghut.

  “Ala-Qush.” My father remained on his horse, as befitted a Khan greeting his vassal. “It is with a glad heart that I bring you my favorite daughter. May the two of you cleave as one heart until the end of your days.”

  Ala-Qush offered a hand to help me from my saddle, but I swung my leg over and dismounted without assistance. His brows jumped in surprise, but I couldn’t tell if he was pleased or not. If so, his pleasure wouldn’t last long. “And it is with a glad heart that I shall take Alaqai Beki as my wife tomorrow,” he said to my father.

  There came a snort of derision from behind Ala-Qush. A sallow-skinned woman stood straight-backed, dressed in a deel that shimmered in the sunlight, although it was too rough to be silk. Two children flanked her, a boy with a thick nest of black hair and wide ears like a jerboa, and a thin-lipped girl almost my height. Both bore Ala-Qush’s broad cheeks and flat nose and this woman’s sharp chin. I wished I still sat astride Neer-Gui then, for my knees threatened to buckle under their scathing glares.

  Not only had I supplanted this woman, but my future children would outrank hers. From her expression, I could guess that a bleak and possibly very short future stretched before me, one in which I had to fear a pillow over my face every night and test each bite of horsemeat or sip of goat’s milk. It would take more than simply setting me above this woman for her to obey me.

  “Shall you introduce me to your family?” I asked Ala-Qush, gesturing to the boy and girl.

  Ala-Qush motioned stiffly to his wife, twice my age and with the leathery skin of the desert lizards I’d shot in the Great Dry Sea. Unlike in the stories, she wore no yellow lead on her face, but her skin was so pallid that the paint might have been an improvement. “This is Orbei, mother of my sons Jingue and Boyahoe.”

  Only one son stood on the platform now, but I didn’t dare ask what had happened to the other. At least not yet.

  “And your daughter?” I asked. “What is her name?”

  Ala-Qush quirked an eyebrow at that, for it was uncommon to inquire about a girl-child. “She is called Enebish.”

  Enebish. The name meant Not This One, an entreaty to malicious spirits not to carry off a weak child. As the only girl, Enebish would have been seen as frail, although the young woman who glowered at me now seemed far from weak.

  Ala-Qush’s son reminded me of Tolui when he was about seven years old, with rosy cheeks and a shock of hair that partially obscured his eyes. His round ears only made him more endearing, although it would be unfortunate if he never grew into them. He was the only one to offer me a smile, revealing a chipped front tooth, at least until his mother’s hand on his shoulder made him wince.

  “Our firstborn is not here,” Orbei sneered. “Jingue was called to leave Olon Süme in order to purify his mind.”

  Our firstborn.

  His absence during my arrival was a slight no one could ignore. I wondered what heinous thoughts Ala-Qush’s former heir needed to purge from his mind, whether they perhaps revolved around the heathen girl who had come to supplant his mother and bear sons who would replace him.

  I fluttered my fingers in the air, seemingly unconcerned. “A shame. I’d thought to meet all of my husband’s children today.”

  Orbei clucked sympathetically, but I wasn’t fooled. “It’s unfortunate when life doesn’t adhere to your plans, isn’t it?”

  Some demon urged the next words from my tongue unbidden.

  “Perhaps,” I said. “Although I’m pleased I was able to meet my husband’s former wife.”

  Orbe
i’s eyes narrowed to slits and for a moment I feared she would spit at me. Instead, she drew back, and Ala-Qush’s brow furrowed, his gaze skittering from me to my father. Better to do this right away, surrounded by plenty of witnesses.

  “Surely you’ve already set aside your other woman, as I’m to be your first and only wife?”

  Those words were a gamble that would alter the course of my life, although I didn’t yet know it.

  Enebish cried out at the insult to her mother, but my father didn’t balk at the change of plans, and for that I loved him even more. He glanced at Orbei, then to Ala-Qush. “Or perhaps the Prince of Beiping has yet to do as I commanded?”

  My future husband was pinned, surrounded by sixteen hundred of the fiercest warriors in the world. I could tell from his expression that he didn’t relish the feeling, the hint of bloodlust in the air. Neither did I.

  There was a rustle like whispers as Orbei shifted on her feet, the wattle under her chin twitching with anger.

  “I don’t recall being asked to set aside my wife.” Ala-Qush’s jaw clenched, but he dared not refute my father’s supposed request. “Perhaps in my old age, I’ve forgotten the details of our negotiations.”

  I almost laughed at that. Ala-Qush had seen more than twice my years, but he was scarcely an old man. He’d have to find a better excuse.

  My father dismounted and ran his hand down his stallion’s muzzle, pretending to consider Ala-Qush’s words. “I’m willing to overlook such a mistake, but Alaqai Beki is the key to our alliance.”

  I interrupted then, my mouth suddenly dry. “As such, tomorrow I’ll become Beki of the Onggud, and your only wife. Or . . .”

  I shrugged, letting him imagine my father’s hordes pouring over the city walls.

  “I see,” Ala-Qush said, motioning to the men behind my father, all armed with spears and shields. “And I assume your men expect as much?”

  My father stroked his mustache. “Naturally.”

  Ala-Qush straightened, and for a moment I wondered whether he could feel the daggers of his wife’s eyes against his spine. “Then the woman who has served me these past years has done her duty.” He clasped his thick belt with its ivory deer buckle, a meaningless gesture to those far away, but this close I could see the tension in his hands as he gripped the leather. “I shall take Alaqai Beki, daughter of Genghis Khan, as my one and only wife.”