Jebe grunted in pleasure and hefted a skin of airag, throwing it to Tsubodai, who scored his throat with the liquid. The ger stank of wet wool and mutton, a sweet smell that he had known all his life. Guyuk and Baidur exchanged glances at seeing the orlok so animated, so confident. Mongke watched them all, his face unreadable.
Pavel ran, as fast as he had ever run in his life. The dim lights of Mongol fires faded on the horizon behind him. He fell more than once and the third time winded him badly enough to make him limp. He had struck his head hard on something in the darkness, but the pain was nothing to what the Mongols would do if they caught him.
He was alone in the night, with neither the sound of pursuing horses, nor any companion. Many of the other men had lost their homes in the years of war. Some of them could barely remember another life, but Pavel had not lost his memory. Somewhere to the north, he hoped his grandfather and mother still tended their little farm. He would be safe once he reached them and he told himself that he would never leave again. As he ran, he imagined the other young men looking on him with envy in their eyes for the things he had seen. The village girls would see him as a hardened soldier, something different from the country boys around them. He would never tell them about the bodies heaped like straw bales, or the hot release as his bladder unclenched in fear. He would not mention those things. His sword was heavy and he knew it slowed him down, but he could not bring himself to throw it away. He would walk into the yard and his mother would surely weep to see him return from the wars. He would make it home. The sword tripped him, and as he stumbled, he let it fall and hesitated before going on. He felt much lighter without it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Batu cursed as he found himself sweating again. He knew that sweat could freeze under clothes in such cold, making a man listless and sleepy until he just lay down and died in the snow. He snorted at the thought, wondering if his constant, simmering anger would help to keep him alive. It was all very well knowing that sweat should be avoided, but there was no help for it when you were manhandling a heavy cart with eight others, heaving and rocking it until the stubborn thing finally shifted another few feet. Ropes stretched from the cart to a group of men pulling like horses; sullen, trudging Russians who never looked back and had to be struck or whipped to break through to them. It was maddening work, needing to be done over and over again as the carts lurched and spilled their contents. The first time Batu had seen one break free and race back to the bottom of the hill, he’d almost laughed. Then he’d seen a man holding his bloody face where a rope had lashed across it and another nursing a broken wrist. Every day brought injuries, and in the cold, even a small wound sapped the strength and made it harder to get up the next morning. They were all stiff and sore, but Tsubodai and his precious generals drove them on, higher into the Carpathian mountains every day.
The sky had come lower and grown blinding white, threatening snow all morning. When it began to fall again, many of the men groaned. The carts were hard enough to manoeuvre on good ground. With fresh slush, the men slipped and fell at every step, gasping for air and knowing that no one was coming to relieve them. Everyone was involved and Batu wondered how they had come to amass such a weight of carts and equipment. He was used to riding out with his tuman and leaving most of it behind. At times, he thought they could have built a city in the wilderness with all the tools and equipment they had with them. Tsubodai had even brought timber into the mountains, a weight of wood that took hundreds of men to move. It meant they had fires at night, when there was nothing else to burn, but the wind sucked away the small heat, or chilled one side of you while the other roasted. Batu seethed at the way he had been treated, more so because Guyuk had not spoken up for him. All he had done was question Tsubodai’s absolute authority over them, not refuse an order. He prided himself on that, but he was being punished almost as if he had.
Batu bent his back again to get his shoulder under a beam with the other men, ready to heave the cart over a rut where the wheels had sunk in.
‘One, two, three…’
They grunted with effort as he called the rhythm. Tsubodai had not been able to stop his men dismounting to help him with the work. Perhaps at first it was only the loyalty of a warrior to his general, but after days of the back-breaking labour, he thought they felt as disgusted with Tsubodai Bahadur as he was.
‘One, two, three…’ he growled again.
The cart lifted and thumped down. Batu’s feet went out from under him and he grabbed the cart-bed to steady himself. His hands were wrapped in wool and sheepskin, but they stung bitterly, raw as fresh meat. He used spare moments to swing his arms, forcing blood to the tips so he would not lose them to frost. Too many of the men had those white patches on their noses, or on their cheeks. It explained the faded scars on the older men who had been through it all before.
Tsubodai had the right to set him any task, but Batu thought his authority was more fragile than the orlok realised. His right to command came from the khan, but even on the march, not all of their actions were purely military. There would be moments when political decisions had to be made and those were the responsibility of princes, not warriors. With Guyuk’s support, the orlok could be overruled, even dismissed, Batu was certain. It would have to be the right moment, when the orlok’s authority was not so clear-cut. Batu took hold of the cart again as the cursed thing lurched and almost tipped over. He was willing to wait, but he found his temper growing shorter each day. Tsubodai was not of the blood. The princes would make the future, not some broken-down old general who should have retired to tend his goats long before. Batu used his anger in a surge of strength, so that he felt as if he lifted the cart almost by himself, shoving it onwards and upwards.
Ogedai mounted slowly, feeling his hips protest. When had he become so stiff? The muscles in his legs and lower back had grown astonishingly weak. He could make them shudder like a horse shrugging off flies just by raising himself in the stirrups. Sorhatani was deliberately not watching him, he noticed. Instead, she was fussing around her sons. Kublai was checking his pony’s belly strap, while Arik-Boke and Hulegu were very quiet in the presence of their khan. Ogedai knew the younger ones only by sight, but Sorhatani had brought Kublai to talk to him in the evenings. She had made it seem a favour to her, but Ogedai had grown to look forward to the conversations. The boy was sharp and he seemed to have an endless interest in the stories of past battles, particularly if Genghis had been part of them. Ogedai had found himself reliving past glories through Kublai’s eyes and spent part of each day planning what he would tell the young man that evening.
The khan tested his legs again surreptitiously, then looked down as Torogene chuckled behind him. He turned his horse to see her standing there. He knew he was thin and pale from too much time indoors. His joints hurt and he ached for wine so that his mouth grew dry at the thought of it. He had promised Torogene he would drink fewer cups each day. More than that, she had made him swear a solemn oath. He had not told her about the set of enormous cups the kilns were firing for him. His word was iron, but wine was one of his few remaining joys.
‘Don’t stay out if you feel yourself getting tired,’ Torogene said. ‘Your officers can wait for another day if they have to. You must build your strength back slowly.’
He smiled at her tone, wondering if all wives became mothers to their husbands at some point. He could not help glancing at Sorhatani at that thought, still as lean and strong as a herdboy. There was one who should not go to waste in a cold bed. He could not remember when he had last felt honest lust outside of dreams. His body felt worn out, withered and old. Yet the sun shone weakly and the autumn sky was blue. He would ride along the canal to see the new works. Perhaps he would even bathe in the river that fed it, if he could bring himself to enter the icy waters.
‘Do not set my city on fire while I am gone,’ he said gruffly.
She smiled at his tone.
‘I cannot promise, but I’ll try,’ Torogene replied.
She reached out and touched his foot in the stirrup, holding it hard enough for him to feel the pressure. He did not need to speak the love he felt for her; he just reached down and touched her cheek before digging in his heels and clattering through the gate.
Sorhatani’s sons came with him. Kublai held the reins of three packhorses, laden high with supplies. Ogedai watched as the young man clucked to them, so full of life that it was almost painful to see. He had not told Kublai his memories of Tolui’s death. He was not yet ready to tell that story, with all the pain that continued to that cold day.
It took half the morning to reach the river. His stamina had melted away over so many months of inactivity. His arms and legs were leaden by the time he dismounted and he had to struggle not to cry out as his thighs cramped. He could already hear the rippling cracks across the valley and in the distance smoke hung like morning mist. The air had the tinge of sulphurous bitterness he remembered from the Sung border. To his surprise, he found it almost pleasant to breathe in the exotic scent.
Sorhatani and her sons made camp around him, setting up a small ger on dry ground by the bank and starting tea on the stove. While it brewed, Ogedai mounted once again. He clicked his tongue to catch Kublai’s attention and the young man leapt into his saddle to join him, his face bright with excitement.
Together, both men rode across a sunlit field to where Khasar readied the ordnance crews for inspection. Ogedai could see the old general’s pride in the new weapons from a distance. He too had been on the Sung border and seen their destructive potential. Ogedai rode up slowly. He felt no sense of urgency or hurry. His glimpse at the greater night had given him a long perspective. It was just harder to care about the smaller things. Having Kublai with him was a reminder that not everyone shared his long view. The sight of the polished bronze guns had Kublai practically sweating.
Ogedai suffered through the formalities with his uncle. He declined the invitation of tea and food and finally gestured for the gunners to begin.
‘You might want to dismount and hold your horse, my lord khan,’ Khasar said.
He looked thin and weary, but his eyes were bright in his enthusiasm. Ogedai wasn’t touched by uncle’s mood. His legs felt weak and he did not want to stumble in front of such men. He took a moment to remind himself that he was in the eye of the nation once again. One slip and his weakness would reach every ear.
‘My horse was at the Sung border,’ he replied. ‘He will not bolt. Kublai? You should do as he says.’
‘Very well, my lord,’ Khasar said formally. He clasped his hands behind his back as he gestured sharply to the gunnery teams. They stood in groups of four, carrying sacks of black powder as well as a range of odd-looking equipment. Kublai drank it all in, fascinated.
‘Show me,’ Ogedai said to them.
Khasar snapped orders and Ogedai watched from the saddle as the first team checked their weapon had blocks against the massive, studded wheels. A warrior placed a reed in a hole in the tube, then lit a taper from a lamp. When the taper touched the reed, there was a spark, then an explosion that sent the cannon rocking back. The blocks barely held it and the weapon leapt and crashed back down. Ogedai did not see the ball that came flying out, but he nodded, deliberately calm. His horse flicked up its ears, but then bent to crop at the grass. Kublai had to slap his gelding on the face, shocking it out of panic. The young man snarled at the animal. He would not be shamed by seeing his horse break free and run in front of the khan. However, he was more than thankful he was not in the saddle.
‘Fire the rest together,’ Ogedai said.
Khasar nodded proudly and eight other teams inserted their reeds into the touch-holes and lit tapers.
‘On my mark, gunners. Ready? Fire!’
The crash was extraordinary. The teams had practised outside the city for weeks and the guns fired almost together, with only a slight delay. This time, Ogedai saw blurs vanishing across the valley, one or two skipping along the ground. He smiled at the thought of a line of horses or men in the path of such weapons.
‘Excellent,’ he said.
Khasar heard and chuckled, still delighted at controlling thunder.
Ogedai’s gaze drifted to the lines of heavy catapults beyond the guns. They could launch barrels of gunpowder for hundreds of feet. His engineers had learned from the Chin, but they had improved the powder, so that it burned faster and more fiercely. Ogedai did not understand the process, nor care. What mattered was that the weapons worked.
More men waited by the catapults, standing perfectly at attention. Ogedai suddenly realised that he did not feel tired. The explosions and bitter smoke had invigorated him. Perhaps because of that, he noticed how Khasar’s shoulders had slumped. The older man wore his exhaustion for all to see.
‘Are you ill, uncle?’ he said.
Khasar shrugged with a wince. ‘I have lumps in my shoulders. The things make it hard to move my arm, that’s all.’
His yellow complexion gave the lie to his words and Ogedai frowned as his uncle went on.
‘The shamans say I should have them cut out, but I won’t let those butchers have me, not yet. Half the men they cut don’t walk out again, maybe more.’
‘You should,’ Ogedai said softly. ‘I don’t want to lose you yet, uncle.’
Khasar snorted. ‘I’m like the hills, boy. A few lumps won’t stop me.’
Ogedai smiled.
‘I hope not. Show me more, uncle,’ he said.
When Ogedai and Kublai returned to the small camp by the river, the morning was almost over and the tea was long past stewed and undrinkable. The gunnery went on behind them, using vast stocks of the powder to train the men who would play a vital role in future battles. Khasar could be seen striding up and down the lines, in his element.
Sorhatani saw that her son’s flushed face was smudged with soot. Both the khan and Kublai reeked of sulphurous fumes and Arik-Boke and Hulegu could only look on with transparent envy. Sorhatani left her sons to make fresh tea and walked over to where Ogedai had dismounted.
He stood at the river’s edge and stared over it, shading his eyes against the sun. The noise of the waterfall hid Sorhatani’s steps as she came up behind him.
‘Kublai is chattering like a bird,’ she said. ‘I take it the demonstration went well.’
Ogedai shrugged. ‘Better than I had hoped. With the new powder mix, Khasar is convinced our guns have the range of the Sung cannon.’ He clenched his fist at the thought, his expression fierce. ‘That will make a difference, Sorhatani. We will surprise them one day. I only wish I could get some of them out to Tsubodai, but it would take years to drag those heavy things so far.’
‘You are getting stronger,’ she said, smiling.
‘It’s the wine,’ he replied.
Sorhatani laughed. ‘It’s not the wine, you great drunkard, it’s morning rides like this one and bow work each afternoon. You already look a different man from the one I found in that cold room.’ She paused, tilting her head.
‘There’s a little more meat on you as well. Having Torogene back is good for you, I think.’
Ogedai smiled, but the excitement of the great guns was fading and his heart wasn’t in it. He sometimes thought of his fears as a dark cloth that draped itself over him, choking off his breath. He had died on that campaign, and though the sun shone and his heart still beat in his chest, it was hard to go on with each day. He had thought Tolui’s sacrifice might have given him fresh purpose, but instead he felt the loss as another burden, one too great to bear. The cloth still clung to him, for all Sorhatani had done. He could hardly explain it and part of him wished the woman would leave him alone to find a quiet path onwards.
Under Sorhatani’s watchful gaze, Ogedai sat with the family, drank the tea and ate the cold food they had brought. No one brought him wine, so he rummaged for a skin of it in the packs, drinking straight from the teat, like airag. He ignored Sorhatani’s expression as the red liquid brought a glow back to his cheeks. Her eyes see
med made of flint, so he spoke to distract her.
‘Your son Mongke is doing well,’ he said. ‘I have reports from Tsubodai that speak highly of him.’
The other sons sat up in sudden interest and Ogedai wiped his lips, tasting the wine. It seemed bitter that day, sour on the tongue as if there was no goodness in it. To his surprise, it was Kublai who spoke, his tone respectful.
‘My lord khan, have they taken Kiev?’
‘They have. Your brother was part of the battles around that city.’
Kublai seemed to be struggling with impatience.
‘Are they at the Carpathian mountains yet then? Do you know if they will breach them this winter?’
‘You will tire the khan with your chatter,’ Sorhatani said, but Ogedai noticed she still looked for an answer.
‘The last I heard, they are going to try and cross before next year,’ he said.
‘That’s a hard range,’ Kublai murmured to himself.
Ogedai wondered how a young man could presume to know anything of mountains four thousand miles away. The world had grown since he was a boy. With the chains of scouts and way stations, knowledge of the world was flooding into Karakorum. The khan’s library already contained volumes in Greek and Latin, full of wonders he could hardly believe. His uncle Temuge had taken the task of building its reputation seriously, paying fortunes for the rarest books and scrolls. It would be the work of a generation to translate them into civilised languages, but Temuge had a dozen Christian monks working on the task. Lost in a reverie, Ogedai dragged himself back and considered the words that had led him to drift away in thought. He wondered if Kublai was worried for his brother’s safety.