The Tiger Queens Read online

  Shigi and I shivered with our backs to the hearth fire in her Great White Tent one afternoon, chuckling with Toregene over the proposition sent to the Golden Family by the Christian pope in faraway Rome. Innocent IV had sent a Franciscan monk to ask that the Mongols be baptized and to insist on their submission to the Holy Father’s authority. I found it easy to be with Shigi these days, united as we were in assisting Toregene, and imagined that the calm affection I now felt for him was what I might have felt for an older brother, had Allah chosen to bless me with one.

  “Heap honors upon this monk,” Toregene said, a faint smile hovering on her lips. “But this pope knows little if he thinks I would force one religion on my people.”

  “He knows you are Christian. And he seeks to”—I cleared my throat—“‘admonish, beg, and earnestly beseech you’ to desist from your assaults of Christian people. Thus, you can unite with him to defeat the Saracens in the Holy Lands.”

  “Which we shall not do, of course,” Toregene said, smiling at me over her bowl of tea.

  “I do like the part where he mentions how we ‘rage indiscriminately against all with the sword of chastisement,’” Shigi remarked. “Very well said.” He smiled, but his worried gaze lingered on Toregene as she coughed at her latest herbal infusion, a mix of nettle, garlic, and something that smelled strongly of urine.

  “The pope may rest assured that we shall not invade Wien again,” Toregene wheezed. “Güyük has his eyes set upon Goryeo again, and I would rather expend my energies on my monasteries. Inform Innocent that we can’t fathom what he means about the recent destruction and massacre of Europe, tell him to submit to us, and then give it to Güyük to sign.”

  I grimaced at the mention of Güyük. I’d write the letter later, but for now I set aside the pope’s missive with its colossal red wax seal and took up the plans for Toregene’s latest project, a Taoist monastery in Cathay. Despite her favoring the crucified prophet Isa Ibn Maryam, Toregene had encouraged the growth of a variety of religious houses in Karakorum and beyond the capital. Most Mongols had a queer belief that the majority of religions had an equal chance of being effective, and both Genghis Khan and Ogodei had asked Christians, Taoists, Saracens, and Buddhists to pray for them. I saw Toregene’s building projects as a friendly competition among her and her sisters, for Alaqai often sent word of her latest monastery funding and Sorkhokhtani had recently founded on her sons’ lands a school based in the teachings of Muhammad, prompting me to send a letter of gratitude to the Princess of the Hearth.

  One of my slaves—a daughter of Goryeo’s noble houses, sent as a hostage after Ogodei’s last campaign there—entered and hurried to my side, her whisper in my ear making me frown. My scowl deepened as I read the letter she pressed into my hands.

  “What is it?” Toregene asked.

  “Korguz is causing trouble again,” I answered. “This message from him to the governor of Otrar was just intercepted. He encourages the governor to revolt against your rule and to withdraw support from anyone you would nominate as the future Khan. He also speaks against Güyük’s plans for a third invasion of Goryeo.”

  While once the idea of the Persians rising against the Mongol horsemen and Güyük’s long absence while he subdued the Goryeo peninsula would have pleased me, I found I no longer had the stomach for bloodshed. Al-Altun’s execution had cured me of that.

  “Korguz has spoken against you and Güyük since the day you claimed the regency,” Shigi said to Toregene, scanning the letter. “This is the first time he’s put such ideas into writing.”

  “Thus he’d never broken the law,” I said. “Until now.”

  Toregene sighed and rubbed her eyes. Lines had lodged themselves there and around her lips, too, etched deeper by the thinness of her skin and her sunken eyes. “I grow weary of hearing Korguz’s name and his challenges to my rule.” She gestured to the paper and brush at my elbow. I’d long since worn out the bristles from Mansoor’s old brush and kept it in a wooden box inlaid with pearls and jade, a gift from Toregene. The box also contained Alaqai’s tiger comb, a scrap of silk now black with my husband’s blood, and my silver slave medallion. They, along with the narcissus I continued to plant outside my window box and around Toregene’s Great White Tent, were the only surviving reminders of my past. Next to the chest was the book I’d kept since I’d first come to the steppes, each page covered with my meticulous recordings of the life of the Golden Family, from Nishapur to this place. My past and my future, forever intertwined.

  Toregene cleared her throat with a rattle of phlegm, and I dipped the brush into the inkpot so I might take down her words.

  “I, Toregene Khatun, Great Khatun of the Thirteen Tribes, do hereby order the execution of Korguz, former scribe of Ogodei Khan, for his treason against the People of the Felts.”

  I stared at her, my brush suspended in the air. Droplets of black ink fell, ruining the paper. “His sentence shall be carried out this fourth day of the ninth month,” Toregene said. “In the Year of the Wooden Snake.”

  “Is it wise to order Korguz’s death?” I asked, choosing my words carefully as I set aside the marred paper for a fresh sheet.

  Toregene stood abruptly and began pacing, although she had to stop often to catch her breath. “I’ve worked since our return from Wien to strengthen the foundations of this empire. I cannot allow Korguz to threaten it all.” She paused, coughing violently into the silk cloth she kept tucked in her sleeve. When her lungs calmed, she stuffed the white handkerchief out of sight, but not before I saw the spatters of blood. Shigi guided her back to her seat, the anguish apparent in his expression.

  Toregene had been coughing up blood for some time now, but each fit grew bloodier. Our friend—sister and lover—was dying before our eyes, and nothing we could do might save her.

  We exchanged pained glances, and the abject sadness in his face was almost too much for me to bear. “I cannot allow Korguz to continue slandering the Golden Family,” Toregene said through gritted teeth. “We shall silence him and then we shall call the khurlatai. Our family must nominate someone to replace me before I die,” she said angrily, slamming her bowl of tea down so hard that the porcelain cracked. Brown liquid leaked out, slowly at first and then in a torrent, and Toregene’s eyes welled with tears as Shigi gathered her frail form into his arms. I looked away, cleaning up the mess with a silk towel.

  “You’ll nominate Güyük, won’t you?” I finally asked, already knowing the answer.

  She nodded, in control of herself once again. “He is the only choice.”

  Güyük’s behavior since Toregene’s assumption of the regency had been exemplary, and he and his wives had dutifully produced the next generation of the Golden Family. In fact, he was absent from the Great White Tent today so that he could visit his second wife, who had just borne him a daughter. Oghul Ghaimish was also pregnant again.

  “Are you sure his actions haven’t simply been a show for your benefit?” I asked, ignoring Shigi’s motion that I keep quiet. I wouldn’t agitate Toregene further, but it was imperative that I know what she planned, mostly so I could assess the coming disaster.

  “Not even Güyük could maintain such a farce for this long.” She shook her head. “No, he’s changed since his return from Rus.”

  “So you’ll order the khurlatai and hand over the empire to him?”

  “I’ll continue to wear the Great Khatun’s headdress, to write decrees and allow time for Güyük to find his legs.”

  That was all well and good for a newborn colt, but Güyük was no horse. Kings and shahs were taught to rule from birth, but Güyük had spent his early years learning only to surpass his father’s depravity.

  “And you think the Golden Family will wish to see Güyük don his grandfather’s helmet?”

  “I don’t care what they wish. They must come to Karakorum,” Toregene said. “Every last one of them.”

&nbs
p; She gnawed her nails, the tip of her thumb already bleeding. I stood and covered her hands with my own. “I’ll send the command,” I said.

  “I want the pope’s monk in attendance, and the Seljuk sultan and the princes of Europe as well. They must bow before my son.”

  “And Korguz?”

  Toregene rubbed her temples, then took my pen, dipped it in the ink, and signed her name in the sprawling Mongol script. “I cannot fight a war on two fronts. Execute him and be done with it.”

  I bowed over the blank paper that would soon send a man to his grave. I backed away, leaving Shigi behind Toregene and rubbing her shoulders as the doors closed.

  I disagreed with Toregene’s decisions, but I did as she bade. At dawn the next morning, Korguz was arrested and the commands to attend the grandest khurlatai since Ogodei’s installation as Great Khan flew like birds to the four corners of the empire.

  * * *

  I attended Korguz’s gruesome death in Toregene’s stead—she was too ill to rise from her bed that morning—and forced myself to watch as Ogodei’s former adviser was dragged into Karakorum’s main horse corral, screaming his innocence to the gathered crowd. I anticipated that he would fight his sentence, but I didn’t expect that his pleas for mercy would be directed at Allah as the soldiers tied him to a waiting post.

  “Korguz converted to the teachings of Muhammad in preparation for his post in Persia,” Shigi whispered from his seat beside me, wearing his blue cap and serving in his official capacity as chief judge.

  I nodded, making the sign against the evil eye. I’d set aside my veil, yet I would only ever pray to Allah, although I was sure he had forsaken me. Korguz was as practical as the Mongols when it came to religion, but it jarred me to hear him begging for the One God to spare him. Even more disconcerting were his frantic pleas when his gaze fell on me.

  “Please, Fatima,” he begged, his eyes wild. “Intercede on my behalf with the Khatun. As a fellow Saracen—”

  But I was not in charge of the proceedings. Güyük rose from his makeshift throne and motioned to the guards. “There shall be no intercession on your behalf, Korguz of the Uighurs,” he said. “The Khatun has ordered your death in return for your treason. As punishment for your crime, you shall be stoned until you choke to death.”

  At his signal, two guards stepped forward, hefting a silver cauldron between them filled with smooth river rocks, clean and polished. I felt a flash of pity as a dark stain of urine spread down Korguz’s trousers.

  Güyük smiled as his fingers danced over the cauldron. He chose two pebbles and tossed them in the air, catching them neatly before handing them to the guards. “Start small,” he said. “The criminal deserves a long and painful demise.”

  One soldier held Korguz’s head steady while another plugged his nose to force open his mouth. The scribe tried to wrench his face away, but the brawniest soldier tilted his chin up and forced his lips shut over the rocks. The apple of Korguz’s throat moved as he swallowed them; then the soldiers forced his jaw open and shoved more pebbles inside, his teeth smashing down on the rocks with a sound like a cart driving over gravel. One of the stones fell from his lips, along with a dribble of blood and tiny shards of white.

  His teeth.

  More stones were shoved into Korguz’s mouth, and the punishment continued until the scribe’s mouth was a mash of pink and red pulp, fragments of his teeth clinging to the spittle on his lips.

  Güyük turned to me. “You choose next, Fatima. Just a small one, though—we wouldn’t want him to expire too quickly.”

  I stared at him in shock as the guards hauled the cauldron before me. I could refuse to obey the future Khan and earn his further enmity, or I could do as he ordered and become his accomplice. Güyük’s face was as smooth as polished marble, but his eyes glowed with pleasure.

  I suppressed a shudder of revulsion and chose a stone the size of a grape, palming a second rock the size of a peach pit, large enough to lodge in the throat of any man. My gaze flicked to Güyük, but neither he nor his soldiers seemed to notice. Shigi’s eyes grew wide as he realized what I intended, and he shook his head in warning. The guards waited expectantly, but I ignored them and ducked between the rough-hewn planks of the corral. Korguz sobbed quietly to himself, smelling of fear, urine, and the cloves he must have chewed that morning before his arrest. I touched his face, but he reared back at the sight of the stone in my hand. “Swallow it,” I whispered. “Swallow it and all this will end.”

  Tears trickled down his cheeks, but he obediently opened his ruined mouth. I placed the stone on his tongue and recited the Qur’an’s prayer for the dead.

  “Inna lillaahi wa inna ilayhi Raaji‘oon.”

  To Allah we belong and to Allah we return.

  It was the same precious verse I’d said over the bodies of my mother and father, Mansoor and Al-Altun. Korguz’s eyes shone with gratitude. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  Then he swallowed.

  I expected Korguz to sputter or gag, but he only opened his mouth in a silent plea for air. His eyes bulged as death swooped down to claim him, but I dropped my gaze and turned my back, unwilling to watch the light fade from another man’s eyes.

  When I’d steadied myself enough to lift my gaze, it was to find Güyük’s face contorted in anger. The gleam of fury in his dark eyes almost made me cry out, but I forced myself to duck back out of the corral and walk away from him. I stopped only when I reached the walls of the palace, my chest heaving and my hands as cold as ice as I cursed myself to Jahannam and back, recalling Güyük’s words from long ago.

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

  Fool and coward that I was, I’d thought to outwit Güyük, to demonstrate that while I might not challenge him outright, I wouldn’t partake in his lust for cruelty. Instead, I’d only succeeded in reaffirming an enemy today.

  And that enemy would soon be the most powerful man in the world.

  * * *

  I relived Korguz’s execution over and over in my mind in the months to come, wondering what I might have done differently, yet each night I retired to my cold chambers in the palace to pray to Allah, although I never received any answers. The flash of cruelty I’d witnessed in Güyük that day had evaporated, replaced with the caring and dutiful son who had become a fixture at his mother’s side. Even Shigi seemed won over by the idea of Güyük’s ascension, although I suspected his agreement likely stemmed from a desire to lift the weight of the empire from Toregene’s fragile shoulders. And while it took much cajoling and many threats and negotiations written to some members of the Golden Family, finally Toregene received enough confirmations to formally order a khurlatai.

  And so, on a spring day when new grass covered the terraced hills outside of Karakorum, the Golden Family and its people gathered to crown Güyük as the third Great Khan of the Mongolian empire. Unlike his father, Güyük ignored the tradition of declining the silver helm three times, likely because he feared it wouldn’t be offered again if he refused.

  I looked out over the crowd of brown Mongols, interspersed with its conquered Persians, Uighurs, and the occasional pale faces and blue eyes of the European envoys. At least three thousand members of the world’s royal families—all bearing carts of gold, silk, and furs in tribute—had traveled to witness Güyük’s election in Karakorum’s Yellow Pavilion. The only missing member of the Golden Family was Jochi’s son Batu, who claimed illness, although he had made no secret of his distaste for Güyük after their fight in Rus. Still, this was a very different khurlatai from the one that saw Ogodei installed as Great Khan. In the place of Genghis’ four sons now stood four women to represent their husbands’ khanates: Chaghatai’s bent-backed widow for Kashgar, Sorkhokhtani for the east, Alaqai for the south, and Toregene for the capital and the central lands extending to Genghis’ birthplace. A disheveled
Oghul Ghaimish sat with Güyük’s other wives on the dais below as Toregene placed the Great Khan’s helm upon Güyük’s head. Oghul Ghaimish giggled into the silence, then swayed in her seat. Allah forbid that woman should ever wear the green headdress of the Great Khatun.

  The night degenerated into the usual depravities of drinking and brawling, and I found myself craving the comfort of my new room in the palace and the crate of books Toregene had recently directed my way. Toregene had chosen to raise her tent within the palace compound, its new panels woven with white velvet so glorious as to make the sun weep and the moon sulk with envy. It had been too many years since I’d lived within proper walls, and although I still found the palace to be a crude attempt at beauty, I’d decorated my stone chambers with decadently soft silk rugs, delicate blue-glazed Ikanid ceramics, and even a bronze peacock oil lamp purchased from a Khorosan merchant that reminded me of one my father once had. I’d often stay up long into the night, writing in my book of histories by the flickering light of that lamp, finding satisfaction with each word I transcribed. Still, it would be many hours before I could curl up with my freshly printed volume of Rumi’s poetry or record the events of the khurlatai, for Toregene ordered the festivities into a red velvet tent for a feast of roasted camel hump, an assortment of various sausages and white foods, and birds’ nest soup—a foul Cathayan delicacy—inviting the ambassadors, who were unused to such unabashed revelry.

  I, of course, didn’t eat.

  “The new Great Khan seems a robust young man,” said the man on my right. Grand Prince Yaroslav of Vladimir-Suzdal strolled next to the Seljuk sultan, the latter as graceful as a wisp of smoke next to a man who lumbered like an ill-mannered yak. The sultan’s eyes flicked to where Güyük stood near one of the tables heaped with food, stripped almost naked and awaiting his next wrestling opponent.

  “Indeed.” The sultan sniffed.

  The royal entourage remained in the crimson feast tent until early sunlight overpowered the flickering light of the torches, drinking rivers of airag and wine gathered by slaves from the Silver Tree. One by one, the courtiers stumbled to their chambers in the palace, or to the tents they’d erected outside Karakorum’s walls, leaving behind only a few scant members of the Golden Family. Shigi had excused himself, ostensibly to record the day’s events in the quiet of his own tent, and Güyük stood with Möngke and Kublai. I remained with Toregene, Alaqai, and Sorkhokhtani, glad to have a chance to sit with all of Borte’s daughters once again.