The Tiger Queens Page 39

  I recoiled at her words. My mother’s death had been a murder of mercy, but Al-Altun’s death would have been a crime borne of revenge. Yet she would walk free after tonight’s dinner, oblivious to how close she’d come to dying.

  I’d failed completely.

  The sob that escaped my throat took me by surprise, and it required every shred of my willpower not to lash out, not to scream with fury at my impotence. What sort of wife and daughter was I that I couldn’t even avenge my family?

  “I know something of what you’re feeling, Fatima,” Toregene said. I shook my throbbing head and lurched away when she tried to touch my hand.

  “You know nothing,” I yelled, and then I was overcome with uncontrollable sobs. I wanted to throw something, to inflict this searing pain on someone else, but instead I closed my eyes and clamped my lips tightly to smother the sounds of my misery. My eyes snapped open when Toregene drew me into her arms, and I stiffened at the embrace. It had been so long since anyone had embraced me, but then I let her hold me, silent tears streaming down my cheeks.

  The river muffled the sounds of my hiccups, and when I stepped back it was to find Toregene staring past me at something only she could see. “I do know what you’re feeling,” she said slowly. “For I watched the first son of my womb and my husband being cut down like terrified horses in the midst of a midnight raid. Another son, too, still a babe at my breast.”

  “What?” My pounding head could scarcely make sense of her words, yet one look at her pale face and haunted eyes told me she spoke the truth. “When?”

  She blinked as if she’d forgotten I was there. “It was years ago, during the Blood Wars and before I came to Borte’s tent. My second son was scarcely a season old, and Genghis brought me to Borte with sour milk still staining my deel. For years after that, I dreamed of killing the Khan.”

  “The Khan?” I struggled to make sense of this new tragedy, hidden for so long. “You mean Genghis?”

  She nodded. “He led the final raid against the Merkid. I imagined all the ways I might kill him, envisioned stabbing him in the stomach or slitting his throat while he slept more times than I could count.”

  “Why didn’t you?” My hand had been stalled by distance all these years, but the flame of revenge in my withered heart had never died. I couldn’t imagine the temptation of sleeping in the same tent with my family’s murderer, or watching him laugh over a bowl of stew cooked by my own hands.

  Toregene opened her palms in a gesture of submission. “Borte loved the Khan, and I love Borte. I couldn’t cause her to suffer my same pain.” She clasped my hands. “Al-Altun sought revenge on Nishapur because your city killed the husband of her heart. Her mother was long dead, and as the daughter of a lesser wife, she was never needed by her father and the rest of the family. Her husband was all she had. Isn’t it possible that you’d have done the same in her place?”

  I saw the simplicity of her logic but also its inherent flaw.

  “My family—my people—didn’t deserve to die,” I said. “And neither did yours.”

  “But they did die, and one day they will greet us when we’ve glimpsed our last of this world. You shall see them again, Fatima. I promise it.”

  I looked into her eyes then, one glowing gold and the other like burnished copper. “That’s why you saved me, isn’t it?” I asked, wiping my eyes. “In Nishapur?”

  She gave a sad smile. “I’ve often wondered if perhaps it would have been kinder to let you die instead. But yes, Fatima, I saved you because I saw echoes of myself in you.” She stepped closer, touching my collar and withdrawing the chain that held the silver tiger medallion that marked me as her slave. “And now I’d like to do something I’ve been considering for a long time.” She lifted the necklace over my head, placed it in my palm, and folded my fingers over it. “I give you your freedom, Fatima. You are no longer my slave, but I would be honored if you choose to stay by my side.”

  Freedom. I could leave here, return to Persia, and make a life for myself.

  But there was nothing left for me in Persia, no family or home.

  I stared at the medallion with its image of a snarling tiger, more tears stinging my eyes. I’d reconciled myself to the fact that I would endure the remainder of this life alone, no parents, husband, or children to fill my days. Even my hope for revenge had been destroyed, but before me now stood a woman, an unexpected sister who had rescued me more than once.

  The jagged outline of the Altai Mountains was black against the twilit sky, a dragon’s back as wild and fierce as these lands I’d always hoped to leave. Toregene had given me my freedom tonight, and perhaps more, yet I wondered if one day I might regret my decision to remain at her side.

  “I’ll stay,” I whispered, the words catching in my throat. “For now, at least.”

  I was bound to this woman by the bonds of life and death, ties closer perhaps than those that bound sisters of the same womb.

  Against my will, Toregene had become my family.

  Chapter 23

  I avoided Al-Altun until she left our camp, spending my time in Toregene’s tent either working on my record of the Khan’s death or bent over a prayer rug, begging Allah to heal my battered heart. Perhaps the One God heard my prayers, but he ignored the other broken heart in our camp.

  Each month after the Khan’s funeral found Borte more deteriorated. She still rarely left her tent, and while I’d assumed the night at the lake had been an isolated spell brought on by some terrible dream or a wayward djinn, instead the Khatun’s fits of forgetfulness increased and her thoughts became so tangled that her mind was more often lost than present among us.

  The light in Borte’s eyes finally grew dim, and she ceased recognizing Toregene and Sorkhokhtani. On her worst days, the Khatun sobbed over terrible memories she couldn’t share, fighting with the strength of a tiger as I tried to calm her, screaming the name “Chilger” as she bucked against me. I sent the fastest arrow messenger available to summon Alaqai again and prayed that the only daughter of Borte’s womb would be able to cross the fabled Great Dry Sea in time. Finally, the Great Khatun fell silent, calling out in her dreams to those who had long since turned to spirits.

  Gurbesu.

  Jamuka.

  Temujin.

  “I’ll care for her,” I told Toregene one day. Sorkhokhtani was brushing the cascade of Borte’s hair while the Khatun sat motionless in her bed. Both Toregene and Sorkhokhtani had much to attend to, assisting their drunken husbands as they attempted to hold together their father’s empire and garner enough support to call a new khurlatai to proclaim the next Khan, while still arguing amongst themselves over who that would be. For now, tradition dictated that Tolui, as Prince of the Hearth, hold the position of regent, despite the fact that Genghis had intimated his preference for Ogodei. No one wished to see Genghis’ eldest son, Chaghatai, wear the Khan’s headdress.

  “The Khatun gathered us all to her,” Toregene said, her gaze faraway. “Like lost cranes, we were tumbled about by an autumn storm and so broken she feared we might never be whole again. Now it is her daughters’ privilege to care for her.”

  I sat back, stung. “I didn’t mean to presume—” Anger tightened my throat. “Of course you and Sorkhokhtani must care for her. And Alaqai, when she arrives.”

  Toregene blinked and patted my hand absentmindedly, watching as Sorkhokhtani styled the Khatun’s white hair, as thick as a sheep’s fleece. “You are one of Borte’s daughters, Fatima. The last, in fact.”

  Chastened, I fiddled with the silver bangle on my wrist. “She suffers,” I said. “It’s difficult to watch.”

  Toregene stood and rifled through a box of herbs she’d taken to leaving in Borte’s tent, retrieving a small glass vial filled with a murky brown liquid. “Willow bark might ease the worst of her pain.”

  I turned over the vial in my hand before tucking it into my waistb
and, knowing that willow bark would be useless in the face of such a terrible fight. “There’s something else,” I said, the words lodging in my throat. “Narcissus bulbs could speed her toward peace.”

  A cold hand tightened around my heart, but it was too late to take back the words. My narcissus bulbs would no longer be a secret, but I couldn’t watch Borte’s long and futile struggle against death when it was in my power to end it.

  “Speed her toward peace?” Toregene asked. “Or would you use your narcissus bulbs to usher her toward death? Is that what you planned to use on Al-Altun?”

  I avoided her eyes and her questions. “Are peace and death not one and the same?”

  “The god of the cross forbids such a crime,” Toregene answered. “As does Allah, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Allah forbade suicide, but my soul was forever stained from feeding my own mother the narcissus bulbs she’d begged for when her body became too ravaged to bear any more pain. I touched Toregene’s hand. “Our gods forbid it,” I said. “But Borte’s does not. My father’s brother lingered like this for many more years, lost between life and death.”

  Toregene pursed her lips, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “We’ll make no decisions until Alaqai arrives. I’ll not deprive a daughter of her final chance to see her mother.”

  I recalled Alaqai’s comment the first time I’d met her about carrying death in her heart. I doubted whether she’d see Toregene’s decision as a kindness.

  * * *

  Alaqai arrived with her son, both swathed in black, with the bloodshot eyes of the grieving. Although she hadn’t yet seen forty years, the Khatun’s daughter leaned heavily upon her adolescent son, as if the burden of life had grown too heavy for her now.

  “Boyahoe was killed in battle against the Song,” she said, closing her eyes as if to steady herself. “We received your message about Mother and left before his funeral feast. I couldn’t even give him the proper forty-nine days of mourning.” Alaqai’s voice quavered as her expression hardened. I recognized the mask of hidden sorrow, for it was one I’d perfected long ago, as effective as the veil that covered my face today. Alaqai whispered something in her son’s ear, and he scampered off, likely relieved to be free of his mother’s grief, even for a few moments. “Boyahoe’s life was too short,” Alaqai said, stomping her foot. “It’s my fault he’s dead, for I let him go off to prove himself in battle. I’m done marrying. I won’t curse another husband with an early death.”

  “Our entire camp will feast in Boyahoe’s honor, even the dogs,” Toregene said. “Together we shall celebrate his life.”

  “He’d have liked that,” Alaqai said. “I think his happiest time was here, in the army with Father. Now they’re both gone, and Mother . . .” Her eyes filled, but she drew a ragged sigh and blinked back the tears. “How is she?”

  Toregene gestured for me to answer. “Borte Khatun is much changed since you last saw her,” I said. “The men are with her now.”

  “I want to see her,” Alaqai said. “And then I’ll visit Father’s bones.”

  Borte’s blue seer’s door stood proud and defiant as Ogodei and Tolui stumbled outside, both dressed in rumpled deels. Shigi stepped out behind them, upright under his blue judge’s cap as he tucked his arms into his sleeves. I’d seen Toregene slip into his tent the night before and wondered how he could share the same air with Ogodei the morning after making love to his wife. I’d convinced myself that it was only my loneliness that had made me yearn for Shigi, yet my continuing bitterness toward him hinted otherwise.

  “The Khatun rests now,” Shigi said, his gaze briefly meeting Toregene’s before flickering away. It was a tender expression of concern, but so brief no one else seemed to notice. “Her sons may have exhausted her with their reminiscing about the Great Khan.”

  Tolui’s nose was redder than normal and he wiped it with the back of his sleeve, leaving a shiny trail of snot like a slug’s path. He gulped air, showing off his missing tooth.

  “Go with Ogodei,” Sorkhokhtani said to Tolui, cupping his cheek with her hand. Sometimes I still had a difficult time reconciling graceful Sorkhokhtani with her coarse, and typically drunk, husband. “We’ll sit with the Khatun.”

  Ogodei’s great bulk almost swallowed Alaqai as he pulled her into a tight embrace. “It’s good to see you, sister,” he said. “Perhaps with you here, our mother may yet win her battle over death.”

  I exchanged a look with Toregene and Sorkhokhtani, feeling the terrible weight in my pocket. My mouth went dry and my underarms grew damp. If all went as we’d discussed, today I would become a murderer a second time over.

  Alaqai’s fingers threaded through the Spirit Banner outside Borte’s ger, the tail of her father’s favorite warhorse. “I miss you, Father,” I heard her whisper. “One day we’ll race each other on horseback again. I might even let you win.”

  Then she stepped inside. I’d never grow accustomed to the stench of burning dung inside all the Mongol tents—more like a stable than a home—but despite my veil, Borte’s tent smelled also of Toregene’s freshly ground herbs and the insidious smell of death that grew stronger every day. Alaqai wavered and I guided her inside, toward the bed her mother hadn’t left for so many months. Borte’s brown eyes were blank, as they always were, her mouth slightly open. I might have thought she’d already passed to the next life had it not been for the gentle rise and fall of her chest and the sound of her labored breathing. “You’ve faced battles with flashing swords,” I whispered to Alaqai. “And watched three of your husbands leave this life. Let those trials give you courage now.”

  She worked to swallow, and it took a moment before she managed to speak. “How long has she been this way?”

  “A full season,” I answered. I opened the smoke hole in the top of the tent wider to let in fresh air and removed my veil, since I was safe in the company of women. “We feed her broth and milk, bathe her from a bucket, and move her to avoid sores on her skin.”

  Alaqai pressed her knuckles to her lips and squeezed her eyes shut. “‘Two queens—one grown stooped and the other like a child—shall part once more with tears in their eyes.’ She foretold our final meeting, but I never imagined it like this.”

  Toregene and Sorkhokhtani were at her side with a rustle of silks, bolstering her with their strength. “Just as she cared for us when we were young, now we care for her,” Sorkhokhtani said.

  “She once spent an entire afternoon spoon-feeding me mutton broth when I fell ill with a fever,” Toregene said. “It is an honor to do the same for her now.”

  “She often used to sing Tolui to sleep,” Sorkhokhtani said. “Now I sing to her each night.”

  “She’s so broken,” Alaqai whispered. “Even more than my father, my mother was always the strongest person in any room.”

  “She might yet linger like this for months, even years,” I said.

  Tears finally spilled down Alaqai’s cheeks, and she knelt at her mother’s side. “She’d hate this slow death.”

  I swallowed hard, prompted by Toregene’s nod. “With your permission, we would speed her on her journey.”

  “Speed her?” Alaqai gave a sharp intake of breath. “You mean kill her?”

  “Borte Khatun is already gone,” Sorkhokhtani said. “This shell of flesh and bone isn’t the woman who rode out to save her husband from the Tatars, or who rescued the People of the Felt from Jamuka’s plots.”

  Alaqai touched the wolf-tooth necklace at Borte’s throat, the necklace that Toregene had insisted I tie around her neck each day despite her chests of silver and jade. “I can’t imagine a life without my parents. Yet it seems I have no choice.”

  “Borte Khatun was ill before your father died,” I said. “I fear his death sped her illness.”

  “And there’s nothing more to be done?”

  I shook my head. “We’ve tried everything. Her spirit
has already fled.”

  She nodded and drew a deep breath. “How would you . . . ?”

  I dared to touch her hand, relieved when she didn’t draw away. “Narcissus bulbs,” I answered.

  “Will it be painful?”

  I couldn’t lie; death by poison was rarely an easy way to leave this life. “It will be quicker than this.”

  Alaqai nodded, squaring her shoulders as she clutched the bed. “She’d want me to say yes. But I need to say good-bye first.”

  “Of course.”

  Sorkhokhtani slipped silently outside, and Toregene and I sat on a woven silk rug near the door as Alaqai whispered to Borte while the sheep bleated outside, Alaqai occasionally chuckling over some shared memory from long ago while she brushed her mother’s hair and arranged her hands over her chest. I remembered my mother’s hands as she lay dying, their delicate webbing of veins and perfectly trimmed nails. Those pale hands had taught me the graceful curve of calligraphy and wiped the tears from my cheeks when I pricked myself with my sewing needle. Yet it was what Sorkhokhtani held that stole my breath now, as she slipped into the tent with an armful of rainbow-hued wildflowers. The vivid colors of the blossoms robbed me of my voice, and I heard my mother’s final words in my mind.

  “There are so many colors,” she’d gasped, her eyes staring unseeing toward the ceiling. Blood and vomit trickled from the corner of her lips. “Colors like our garden in spring.”

  She drew a last tortured breath and then her soul burst from her body, freed of the sickness that had ravaged her, leaving me clutching the remnants of the narcissus bulbs that still bore the marks from her teeth. I threw them across the room, but the touch of the bulbs polluted my palms, their fire increasing as I listened to my father wail at my mother’s bedside after he found her body stiff and cold.

  He was so overcome with grief that he never noticed me burying the mangled bulbs in the garden or scrubbing my hands until the water in the porcelain ewer was cloudy with blood.