Achikh told Kaidu some of his experiences and observations in the West, including Nils’s fights in the arena, first with the lion, then with the Orc. When he was done, it was evening, and soon time for supper.
Kaidu had already arranged to have the council as his dinner guests, and Achikh begged to be excused. He wished to see his mother before he slept. Kaidu agreed. He knew too well the ugly relationship between Achikh’s mother, Khada’an, and his own mother, Dokuz. And he preferred that it not color his friendship with his younger brother, whom he saw as potentially a powerful supporter.
Actually Achikh was a half-brother, but the distinction was generally ignored in the Mongol culture. And while Kaidu didn’t mention it, of course, most of the tribe considered Dokuz’s mistreatment of Khada’an as more or less disgraceful. Mothers-in-law were often harsh to daughters-in-law, but not usually with such rancor, especially when earlier they’d both been wives of the same man. And to a degree, the public disapproval reflected on himself. Thus Kaidu was careful always to treat Khada’an respectfully, and speak well of her.
As for Nils and the others, they would be fed in their own ger by the woman assigned.
Word was sent to Khada’an that her son had returned and would visit her for supper. Her ger was not large, but it was large enough for herself and her household, and to entertain a few friends. Its furnishings were excellent. All in all it was appropriate to her unusual status—a younger widow of a chief who was not wife to the inheriting son. For normally, the inheriting son inherited his father’s wives, except for his own mother. Typically his own mother would rule the women of the household—his wives and inherited wives—as the mother-in-law. Such rule could be pleasant or unpleasant.
Dokuz, Kaidu’s mother, was Kokchü s first and eldest wife, a famous beauty with a face flatter than an owl’s. She was the favorite daughter of the rich and powerful Mengetu family. Khada’an, Achikh’s mother, was his fourth and final wife, neither beautiful nor ugly, and Achikh was Khada’an’s only surviving son, the sixth son of eight, by various wives, who’d survived their father. Khada’an’s family, the Tokurs, was neither rich nor powerful, though respected for their integrity and the quality of their horses.
According to Dokuz, her dislike of the younger woman grew out of Khada’an’s inanities when the women would sit in the ger and do the many tasks that women do there. Besides, Khada’an did not look the part of a chief’s wife, for the wives of any prominent man were expected to get fat, preferably very fat, and Khada’an, while filling out moderately, would measure only half of Dokuz’s girth.
The gossip, though, was that her hatred had other roots: that Kokchü preferred to take Khada’an to his bed, though she gave him only one living son and two daughters.
Fortunately for Khada’an, Kokchü’s mother was alive till almost the day of Kokchü’s death. And under the old lady’s even-handed management, Dokuz could abuse Khada’an only with her sarcasm, while even in that her mother-in-law enforced restraint.
When Kokchü died, Kaidu inherited his wives, and Dokuz became the mother-in-law. Now she not only tongue-lashed Khada’an cruelly, but gave her demeaning and exhausting tasks in the household, as if she were one of the slaves. And indeed the slaves were better off, for the matron spoke to them far less harshly.
All of this Achikh already knew. It was the decisive reason why the seventeen-year-old youth, who had adventurous tendencies anyway, left home as the leader of a reckless teenaged band.
Now, on his first evening back, Achikh ate supper with his mother. A supper of beef and kidneys and brain and curds and airag. When he finished, he listened to a bitter recitation of his mother’s resentments. After he’d gone traveling westward, she said, she no longer felt tied to the chief’s household, and begged Kaidu to let her return to her family. Twice he’d withheld his permission. Not that he took his inherited wives to his bed, unless they requested it. He’d refused her simply because of his mother, who wished to retain her for her own cruel purposes. At her third request he’d relented, sending her back destitute to her father, whose charity fed and clothed her. She’d had to beg from her brothers to get the furnishings she had around her.
She also told him that as her son, he should publicly reject Kaidu as his brother.
Achikh told Nils all of this late that night atop their sleeping robes, while Hans and Baver listened. They spoke in Anglic so far as possible, in case others were eavesdropping. “Then I went to my Uncle Jelme, my mother’s eldest brother, wondering what I should do. Should I reject my elder brother Kaidu, who had taught me much as a child and had always treated me well? Most would say he was kind to release my mother; many would not have done it. But to send her away with nothing . . .
“Jelme told me that that was untrue. Kaidu had sent her off with cattle, sheep, horses, three slave girls, and household furnishings. Not that she’d come home rich, but she’d been far from poor.”
Achikh sighed, hands behind his head, gazing at the dull glow of the coals reflected from the ger’s roof. “You need to have known my mother when I was young,” he said. “She was always loving, more than most mothers. And she really loved my father, who was good to her. When he died, though, Dokuz was terrible to her, and it changed her, made her deeply bitter. I could not stand to live in the same ger, certainly not in winter, when one is inside so much.
“It was typical of Kaidu to let her go. Perhaps he did refuse her twice, but if he did, I am sure it was because his mother insisted. To release my mother was like letting her slap Dokuz’s face, and I’m sure that Dokuz didn’t accept it without being unpleasant to Kaidu too. She’d know her other daughters-in-law and her maids would talk about it behind her back.
“So Kaidu was generous, and I cannot reject him. But it grieves me that I must refuse my mother her request. I am her only son.”
They all lay silent then awhile. Baver thought how cruel people could sometimes be, but in a culture like this one, so bound by tradition . . .
“Achikh, my anda,” Nils said, “it is sad indeed that your mother was so changed. But you have done well to decide as you did. To reject Kaidu would be unjust, as you said, and it would feed your mother’s hatred without satisfying it. For she has clearly lost her sanity, and would hate as much afterward as before. Also, what she asked would hurt you and Kaidu, while you know as I do that it would not hurt Dokuz. Dokuz would use it to justify what she’d done.”
My anda. Baver was impressed. The word was equivalent to “soul brother,” and the impression he’d gotten was that, beyond adolescence, it was used very selectively. Once before Nils had said they’d become “like andat,” but this time he’d said “my anda.”
After Nils had validated Achikh in his decision, the Buriat warrior told them other things he’d learned from his Uncle Jelme.
The congress here was centered around a council, which consisted of the chiefs of all four tribes and the twelve principal clans. So far the council had dealt with routine matters: feuds between clans of different tribes, disputes over grazing and water—that sort of thing. They would also, perhaps tomorrow, discuss matters related to who, if anyone, should be Great Khan of all the Buriat. Only two chiefs contended for the position, Burhan Rides-the-Bear, who was chief of the Red Spear Tribe, and Kaidu Long Nose. Burhan did not seem avid for it, but he did not want Kaidu elected. And Kaidu almost surely would be, if unopposed, for just now among the Buriat there was a ferment to unite under a strong khan. They were concerned about the Chinese, actually the Sino-Tibetans, to the south, who had conquered the Uighurs and more recently the Koreans. And it seemed to most that only united under a Great Khan could the Buriat long survive.
Kaidu had earned much attention, a year earlier, by proposing that the tribes unite to make war on the Yakut-Russ, to the north, and take from them the wild and rugged forest region below the great lake called Baikal. There were grazing lands intermixed there, and much wild game. The Buriat had hunted in that country for as long as men knew, though the Yakut-Russ sometimes harassed and attacked the hunters. Possessing that land, the Buriat would have a place of retreat, should a great Sino-Tibetan army come to the steppes to enslave them, as they’d enslaved other peoples. And from the shelter of the endless forest, they could strike and harass any Chinese conqueror.
This Kaidu had proposed. Others had been quick to say that it was easier proposed than done; the Yakut-Russ were thinly scattered, but they were formidable fighters. Others had suggested how they might beat the Yakut-Russ and hold the land, while others yet had found fault with their reasoning. Still others had said that the realm of the Yakut-Russ was immense, and the region below Baikal a very small part of it. That mostly the Yakut-Russ were reindeer herders, and since the region below Baikal was not well-suited to reindeer, it was not important to them.
Thus had gone the debate, with no consensus growing out of it. Then Kaidu had withdrawn his proposal knowing that the people would continue to talk about it, arguing among themselves, while his friends among them spoke for it. In another year or two, the tribes and clans might be ready to agree, and elect him their leader.
That had been a year ago.
This much Achikh had learned from talking with Jelme, his uncle, and he shared it with Nils in the presence of Hans and Baver. What he didn’t know, hadn’t the perspective to know, was that the Buriat were the most political of the three Mongol peoples, and the most inclined to assign power and loyalty beyond their clans to their tribes and chiefs. During the preceding two centuries, they had twice elected Great Khans to lead all the Buriat. These arrangements, however, had not taken root. The organization of khan rule, what organization there’d been, had been superficial, and in the absence of continuing strong incentives had come apart.
Each time, however, it had served its purpose: it had broken an invasion out of China.
Achikh wasn’t the only person in the Buriat camp to make a report that evening. Fong Jung Hing had made one earlier, long distance.
The procedure could be somewhat cumbersome, but it was far quicker and easier than a courier riding 1,200 kilometers. Also it provided two-way communication—the exchange of information, and particularly of questions and answers—in a matter of minutes.
With Fong on mission, the Circle of Power had at least three adepts linked from suppertime till midnight—enough to detect any thought that Fong might “cast toward them.” When a call was detected, other members of the Circle were sent for if necessary; five was adequate, even four in a pinch. And a runner rushed to the palace to inform the emperor.
With Tenzin as a guide, the Circle created a conduit, with the emperor the receiver. He would come at once, even if asleep when sent for, and sit in the middle of the Circle in what a twenty-first-century psychologist might have called a trance state, but in fact was a state of heightened, focused sensitivity.
Meanwhile Fong waited. Those who worked closely with the emperor had their patience well-developed. When he felt the emperor’s psychic touch, Fong began their mental dialog: “Your Reverence, the barbarian you are interested in has arrived here at Urga. With the raven.
“The man’s appearance is as Tenzin read it from the bird—very large, very powerful, and seemingly a great warrior. Certainly a superior telepath.
“His talents go much beyond that, however. He has great force of personality, and he is clever.” Then he reran mentally the man’s conversation with Kaidu, up to the time when the chief had cleared the ger of its other guests. “At that point,” Fong said, “it was required that I leave. And as I am accompanied at all times by guards who both protect and constrain me, I could not loiter near the chief’s ger and listen through the mind. The raven was there, however. Tenzin can learn for you what happened in my absence.”
The emperor nudged his envoy’s mind with a question.
“Where he will go from here,” Fong answered, “he did not say, any more than he did in the hearing of the raven. Perhaps he spoke the truth to his companions last winter, when he said he didn’t know, beyond accompanying the Mongol to his people. Perhaps he is someone who simply desires to see new places.
“But Your Reverence, there is something about him that makes him unusually interesting and perhaps even dangerous. He seems not to think to himself. I discern no internal monologue.
. . . “No, Your Reverence, it is not a matter of screening. I would know if he screened. He simply does not carry on an internal monolog, and beneath his words, his mind seems still. It’s as if he were in deep meditation constantly, even while talking and moving, seemingly alert. Obviously alert. The raven was not able to tell us that, of course. It could only show us his movements, let us listen to his words.”
There was little more to the psychic conversation; then the emperor discontinued it. He next took a brief report from Tenzin Geshe on what the raven had seen. As he returned to his apartment, Songtsan Gampo felt a thrill run through him. This barbarian was indeed interesting. More than interesting: exciting! Tenzin had sensed the man as a threat, but Tenzin was always cautious. And opportunities often entailed danger. The barbarian held some special significance, it seemed to Songtsan, some special promise. Perhaps from him he’d learn something new and powerful, a key that would open the world to his grasp.
For just a moment, as if standing on an exhilarating height, he felt possibilities he couldn’t quite perceive. Marvelous possibilities that went well beyond conquest!
Then the height sagged, and he lost his certainty.
But Songtsan Gampo was a man of spiritual strength as well as vast material power. And of great patience, when it suited him. He would wait, see, react, and take the initiative when the time came.