The Tiger Queens Page 41

  “Thank you,” she whispered. She bowed her head, and I wondered for a moment if it was to hide her relief.

  Sorkhokhtani and I had escaped Güyük and the intrigues of the Golden Horde, at least for now.

  We wouldn’t always be so lucky.

  * * *

  “The Oirat lands that belonged to Checheyigen should be mine now,” Ogodei said to Toregene one day shortly after Tolui’s funeral feast and Sorkhokhtani’s retreat to the north. Toregene hadn’t spoken to Sorkhokhtani since the morning Ogodei had proposed she marry Güyük, and I’d listened to her rage that night about how Sorkhokhtani should be honored to marry her son. Toregene was an intelligent woman, but she was blind to her son’s many faults.

  Now Ogodei shifted on his tasseled cushions, his councilors’ heads bobbing like the ostriches I’d once seen in Nishapur’s zoo. “My father would want me to bring the Oirat firmly under the Mongol yoke again, and not let them be ruled by an untried girl-child.”

  “Oghul Ghaimish is not just a random child. She is Checheyigen’s daughter, granddaughter to Genghis Khan, and your niece,” Toregene said calmly, despite the advisers’ murmurs of agreement. Checheyigen had been Yesui’s daughter and therefore Ogodei’s half sister until her recent death, although I’d scarcely heard her mentioned before now. The entire clan seemed to pretend that Genghis’ lesser wives and children simply didn’t exist. “It’s unfortunate that Checheyigen died of the tumor in her belly, yet the fact remains that her daughter is now the rightful ruler of the Oirat.”

  I set down the artist’s plans in my lap, although I found them far superior to the talk of the Oirat and Ogodei’s plans of conquest. My hopes that Ogodei’s love of building would replace his desire for conquest had failed to materialize, and instead he’d commanded all his nobles to send their eldest sons to siege Ryazan. Jochi’s son Batu commanded the attack, joined by troublesome Güyük and Sorkhokhtani’s eldest boy, Möngke. Of course, Batu hadn’t been thrilled at being saddled with Güyük, but it was better than having Güyük here with us.

  “The Great Khan was quite clear on the matter of succession before he died,” Toregene said, glancing up from accounts of the recent tribute from Cathay. “You were given your own lands, and your sisters were to keep the lands from their marriages.”

  “The Oirat won’t welcome you,” I said. “They’re already ruled by your father’s blood through Oghul Ghaimish.” I thought Ogodei would let the Oirat matter drop in the face of reason, but I should have known that was folly. Ogodei was never ruled by reason.

  “I care little for what the Oirat want,” he said, pulling on his rabbit-fur-lined boots and stepping outside. He groaned with pleasure as the stream of his waters hit the ground, and I wrinkled my nose in distaste. “I’m Great Khan now,” he said through the wall, “and I will consolidate my father’s holdings and expand his empire, taking the Oirat lands just as I did with the Goryeo peninsula.”

  I didn’t respond to that. Ogodei’s early campaigns against far-flung Goryeo, also known by the Mongols as the Rainbow Land of the Son-in-Law Nation, had brought him a train of spoils that included ten thousand otter pelts and bolts of silk, twenty thousand horses, and ten children from the Goryeo noble houses given as hostages. His more recent offensive had resulted in widespread Goryeo resistance, the torching of their land, and their wholesale starvation and slaughter. Of course, Ogodei had crowed about his success in both instances, and the campaign had whetted his thirst for conquest and the need to prove himself equal to his father.

  The Khan scratched his chin. “And perhaps after I conquer the Oirat, I’ll head south and persuade the Uighurs to accept my rule as well.”

  The Uighurs were Al-Altun’s people.

  The very thought of Genghis’ youngest daughter brought my dreams of murder and poison flooding back, along with the memory of her crowing with pleasure along the ramparts of Nishapur.

  “The Khatun of the Uighurs has consolidated her power in recent years,” said one of Ogodei’s advisers. Korguz was a Uighur himself, covered with dark hair like a monkey, and one of Ogodei’s favorite councilors due to his ability to match the Khan’s drinking and carousing. I loathed the little man.

  “Too much power for a woman, if you ask me. Especially one whose very name means subordinate,” Ogodei drawled, chuckling at his wit. “And her lands are not impregnable.”

  “Not at all,” Korguz said. “In the face of your war machine, they would likely fall in a matter of months, if not weeks.”

  The hairy ape-man dared not even stand up for his people, but offered them on a platter to Ogodei. His next words were even more repulsive. “I’d be happy to act as an intermediary once Al-Altun capitulates to your demands.”

  Ogodei stroked his chin. “Perhaps. Your assistance might prove valuable, and in return, I shall soon have need of a governor of eastern Persia.”

  A grin spread across Korguz’s face and I scarcely managed to mask my anger. Perhaps I’d cultivate extra narcissus bulbs next spring to ensure that such a foul ape-man never set foot in the lands of my birth.

  * * *

  Ogodei’s attack against the Oirat was like a lightning strike in a forest of dried trees, and equally destructive. After their capital fell and Ogodei’s niece, Oghul Ghaimish, had been taken prisoner, Ogodei’s arrow messengers flew in all the eight directions to spread word of his destruction of the Oirat, and to strike terror into the hearts of his enemies. His treasure this time wasn’t hostages and furs, silk and horses, but instead the Mongol army raped almost a thousand Oirat girls, claimed them as slaves or wives, and brought them back to Ogodei’s burgeoning capital, where screams of terror and terrible sobbing replaced the constant sound of hammers and chisels on the night of his return. The moon shone down upon the foundations of the palace and the skeleton frames of the warehouses being built near the boundary stones of the ancient city of Khar Balgas.

  “Ogodei hasn’t heard the end of this,” Toregene promised, pacing the length of my tent. She’d built the fire up so the crackle of flames would drown out most of the Oirat screams and help her sweat out the illness she hadn’t been able to shake these past weeks. The Mongols’ ineffective cure for everything was to eat more meat, so strings of sausage, haunches of horse, and even a ram’s head hung from Toregene’s rafters. The sheep’s sightless eyes seemed to watch my every movement until I’d covered the carcass with a tattered felt blanket. “The clans have condemned his betrayal of his father’s laws.”

  “But Ogodei doesn’t care,” I said.

  “I know. All he would speak of tonight was his victory, and Güyük.”

  “Güyük?” I failed to see the connection of one disaster to the other.

  “My son is here, recalled from the Siege of Ryazan by his father.”

  “May Allah help us,” I muttered.

  It made sense that Ogodei had demanded the return of his son. Spoiled and drunk, Güyük had argued with his elder cousin Batu at a victory banquet after one of the main cities of the Rus wild lands fell, claiming Batu was an old woman with a quiver, although Güyük had failed to take down even a single goat kid. When his cousin calmly ignored him, Güyük rode away cursing and knocking down the gers of his own soldiers.

  “Ogodei threatened to have Güyük executed.” Her voice was calm, but her sudden cough caused the pot she set over the fire to spill its water. The liquid splashed into the flames with an angry hiss, dissipating into steam that spiraled up to the top of the tent and out into the night. “He railed against my son so loudly that the Muscovites in the west might have heard him.”

  For my part, I wished Ogodei would execute his son and save all of us a lot of trouble. Yet despite Güyük’s many faults, Toregene still loved her son. “What happened?”

  “Güyük promised to do better next time.”

  “And Ogodei forgave him?”

  “Of course. Ogodei seeks t
o bolster his power, in more ways than one.” Toregene cleared her throat. “He’s arranged Güyük’s marriage to Oghul Ghaimish.”

  I stared at her, sure I had heard wrong. Yet she didn’t repeat herself.

  “Checheyigen’s daughter?”

  “The very same.”

  Ogodei’s niece and granddaughter of Genghis Khan. In marrying his son to the last link to the Oirat ruling family, Ogodei would proclaim to all his enemies what would happen should they refuse to obey him: their lands destroyed, their men killed, and their girls absorbed into the Mongol Empire.

  It was cruel, but also genius.

  “Güyük asked to marry you again, Fatima, but Ogodei and I refused to allow it. I told him I agreed with Ogodei that he should marry Oghul Ghaimish instead.”

  I sagged with relief, and then guilt assaulted me, that this girl who’d already endured such horrors would now be subjected to Güyük for the rest of her life. It was a fate perhaps worse than death.

  Then I remembered Güyük’s words from the day in Ogodei’s Great White Tent.

  I have plans for you, Fatima, and one day my mother and father won’t be able to protect you.

  Gooseflesh rippled up my skin and I shivered in the sudden cold. “Why did you refuse?”

  “I know you’ll never love another man, Fatima.” She smiled. “And I don’t care to share you, not even with my son,” Toregene said. “I fear you’re saddled with me until the end of my days.”

  I smiled at that, but still my heart was heavy with guilt.

  “Oghul Ghaimish’s life was just destroyed. Surely Ogodei can be persuaded—”

  “Ogodei is emphatic that the marriage take place tonight.” She sat down, folding her legs so her chin rested on her knees. “Someone must prepare the girl.”

  “I’ll find her and bring her here.”

  It was the least I could do, to help this broken princess who was taking both my place and Sorkhokhtani’s.

  Only how I would find the callousness and the strength to deliver her to Güyük tonight, I didn’t know.

  * * *

  I discovered Oghul Ghaimish crammed in a corral with many more Oirat girls, their colorful silks stained a dull brown from the dust of the journey here and their hair matted in tangles like birds’ nests. However, it wasn’t their clothes that worried me, but the emptiness in their eyes, as if their souls had long since fled and left behind the hollow husks of their bodies.

  I called Oghul Ghaimish’s name as I passed the moonlit corral. The carts bearing silks and silver had been unloaded, but these unclaimed girls had been left to bear the brunt of the autumn winds in tattered silken shifts, guarded by the same men who had followed Ogodei’s nefarious orders to rape them all. I’d never thought of myself as lucky, but it occurred to me that things might have been much worse for me at Nishapur had Toregene not chosen me.

  “Come to choose a girl for a slave?” One of the soldiers hollered the question at me, then licked his lips. “They’re docile, already broken, if you know what I mean.”

  I gave him a withering glare. “Open this corral,” I said, but he didn’t move. “Now! By order of the Khatun!”

  He muttered under his breath and shuffled toward the gate to remove the wooden bars. I expected the girls to flood out onto the grass, but they remained rooted to the ground, like caged doves suddenly set free and unsure where to go.

  “Which one of you is Oghul Ghaimish?” I asked them. At first no one answered, but finally a woman nudged the wraith of a girl next to her, her face obscured by lanky hair.

  “She is Oghul Ghaimish.”

  I recognized the same flat face that Ogodei shared with his father, but there the similarities ended. The princess’ eyes were so empty I felt as if I were looking at one already claimed by death, and she smelled of feces, as if her bowels had turned loose after all she’d survived.

  “Come with me,” I said, then turned to the guard. “Get these girls food and water and blankets. They’d better be fed by the time I return or you’ll have to deal with the Khatun.”

  The man grumbled under his breath as Oghul Ghaimish tried to step regally from the pen, but she tripped on legs bruised and too long unused. I crouched to help her, shooting a scathing glare at the laughing guards as I looped my arm around her frail shoulders.

  “This Oirat girl marries Güyük tonight, and may well be your Khatun one day,” I said, swallowing back the bile in my throat at the implication of Güyük becoming Khan. The laughter fell from their lips and I gave a wicked smile. “I’m sure she’ll one day remember all the kindness you offered upon her arrival. Perhaps she’ll repay you with ordering a spear lodged in your stomach while you sleep.”

  The guard blanched the color of milk, and Oghul Ghaimish quivered in my arms like a feather in the breeze. She hiccuped as I led her toward Toregene’s tent, but otherwise she was silent.

  Toregene’s tent was ablaze with the light of a roaring fire, and a red felt headdress lined with black sable and dangling strands of gold coins and turquoise had been laid next to a red felted dress. Toregene straightened and cast a horrified glance at us. “This is Oghul Ghaimish?”

  What was left of her, at least.

  I nodded. “Daughter of Checheyigen, blood leader of the Oirat.”

  “Then we shall have to make her look like it.”

  I expected Oghul Ghaimish to let us peel the ruined silk from her thin frame, but the moment we touched the fabric she gave a screech like giant claws ripping the air and attacked us with some hidden well of strength. Her nails tore away my veil and sliced open my cheek so I felt the slick warmth of fresh blood on my skin.

  A fighter, then, but only once cornered.

  It took both of us to subdue the frightened animal of a girl, pinning her to the ground with the full weight of our bodies. “Wine,” I said to Toregene. “A full bowl.”

  She nodded and maneuvered herself off Oghul Ghaimish, leaving the panting girl pinned beneath me. “Drink,” I said, as Toregene tilted her head forward and pressed the golden bowl to her lips. “It will make things easier.”

  I’d have plugged her nose so Toregene could pour the wine down her throat, but Oghul Ghaimish opened her mouth and gulped the ruby-hued liquid like a fish left too long out of water. Toregene and I sat back on our haunches, flushed from the fight.

  Oghul Ghaimish held out the empty bowl, entranced by the ram’s head hanging from the ceiling, its blanket fallen to the ground in the melee. “More.”

  I arched an eyebrow and replaced the blanket, but Toregene filled the golden bowl to its rim and handed it back to the girl. Letting Oghul Ghaimish drink herself into oblivion likely wasn’t the wisest strategy for her wedding night, and I wondered with a fresh pang of guilt what she’d do once she’d met her husband. All the wine in the empire wouldn’t be enough to drown her misery then.

  She thrust the bowl back at me when she finished, a red tinge of liquid glistening on her upper lip. I shook my head. “You can have more once you’ve let us clothe you and dress your hair.”

  Oghul Ghaimish studied me, her scrutiny disconcerting. “You told the guard I might one day be Khatun. Is that true?”

  Toregene’s eyes widened, but she was seized by a coughing fit from her lingering illness and the exertion of the fight. I nodded to Oghul Ghaimish. “You’ll marry the Great Khan’s eldest son tonight,” I said. “Güyük may one day become Khan.”

  May Allah strike us dead before that happened.

  Oghul Ghaimish seemed to ponder that, scratching at a bleeding patch of skin on her neck and staining her nails scarlet. “You may dress me, then.”

  I stoked the fire, ready to pin Oghul Ghaimish to the ground again as we stripped her, but this time she didn’t fight. I cringed when she finally stood naked before us. What might have once been a slight and pretty young Oirat girl was now a ghost of a child, s
tinking of old urine with feces and blood matted in the hair between her legs and the stench of fear clinging to her like an invisible cloak.

  We scrubbed her gently, washing away the evidence of her ordeal, although I knew there were other invisible wounds that would never heal. She moaned several times, and her eyes fluttered open to reveal the whites of her eyes and swollen pupils.

  “Are you sure Ogodei won’t change his mind?” I whispered, but Toregene shook her head.

  So we trussed up Ogodei’s broken niece to sacrifice her to Güyük. She greedily slurped down one more bowl of wine before stepping from Toregene’s grand tent.

  Oghul Ghaimish held her chin high as she greeted Güyük outside the wedding tent erected on the banks of the artificial river being dug. The felt walls were darkened by the shadows of what would one day be the Khan’s palace, and during the ceremony Oghul Ghaimish bit her lip so a thin ribbon of blood unfurled down her chin. Güyük didn’t seem to notice, for his eyes remained on me for the whole of the ceremony. He strummed his fingers impatiently against his leg while the shaman intoned a blessing and Toregene invoked a Christian prayer for her son and new daughter. I was glad for the barrage of throat singers, lutes, and horsehair fiddles that burst into sound at a flick of Ogodei’s wrist, the cacophony of music ringing in my ears and making it impossible to think of what I’d done to this frail girl.

  Toregene beckoned to me when Güyük and his new bride walked between the purification fires, pressing into my hand a rumpled paper that had been folded and refolded many times. “I’ve had a message from Al-Altun,” she whispered. “She claims to have need of Ogodei’s army to quell resistance from her own people.”

  My mouth went dry as Oghul Ghaimish stumbled, then hesitated at the entrance of her new ger. “Will Ogodei do as she asks?”

  “It may be a trap,” Toregene said. “She likely heard of Ogodei’s plans to wage war against the Uighurs and thinks to lure her brother to her and then destroy him. She may have massed superior forces against us.”