captain hung his head, admitted he knew such things went on and that they were wrong. Why do they go on? she asked him. Why do the children pick on Bagtor? “It surely isn’t that he is the marshal’s son.”
“It isn’t. Or wouldn’t be, if he didn’t tell the kids he’s going to flog them out of camp when he’s in his father’s stead.”
“Monglig,” she hazarded, “maybe you were a duffer once or twice when you were only five.”
“Maybe I still am,” he grinned cheerily.
“I suspect we have before us a vicious circle. You have seen how a vicious circle works?”
“Oh yes.” Old acquaintances.
“What a vicious circle needs is a stout and sturdy person to put his foot into the spokes. I hope that person might be you.”
“Mistress,” he said. They didn’t often call her mistress, or call the master master in direct speech, Yesugei’s staff. “I promise to stick my foot in, with my kids. Only...”
“You see a problem. Tell me.”
“He’s not allowed to associate with me.”
“He’s not allowed?”
“He’s to stay away from me and my gang, his mother tells him. That’s why he’s mean to us, and my kids get provoked.”
The vicious circle had hoops. She had seen an astrolabe once, out of the Kingdom of Qatay, but they had failed to conquer its intricacies. “Has there been trouble, that he is to stay away from your gang?”
“I try not to lead my kids into trouble. I try to lead them to be intrepid and generous of spirit, like Yesugei leads his.”
“A fine aim.”
“On my watch Yesugei hasn’t had cause to tell us off.”
“I’m afraid he’d have found cause had he seen what I saw yesterday.”
“Yesterday was bad. I never knew about stones. Stones can get kids hurt.”
“A captain ought to know.”
“He ought,” the lad wrung out, and at once captainly duties seemed to weigh on him.
“What term have you been in office, Monglig?”
“One year nine months, since Onggor came of age, whose lieutenant I was two years.”
Onggor was Mengetu’s son. “But I imagine, in great need, you can consult the old captain? Or isn’t that done?”
“I hold the old captain in the highest estimation, as do the troops. And I am’t too proud, your ladyship, to ask him to step in. – Is, ah, can?” He hopped from foot to foot. “Is Yesugei to hear of this?”
“Not for a first offence. As I said to the sentry who was too busy whittling a flute from a bone to notice me.”
Monglig grinned.
It wasn’t that Yesugei was harsh, but people found a sad eye from him very hard to stand.
After her intervention Goagchin came to visit her. A lion might have stalked into the tent, so timid was Hoelun. Lions are lost to the steppe, but unforgotten. Goagchin was as big and gorgeous as she thought a lion might be, bigger than life, a bit of the legend about her. She purred – a soft, throaty voice. She had a dimple that never went away. She wound her sash high up and tight, to curve. Hoelun only curved when her husband undid her felt coat and hide trousers; her silk gown was summer wear, and occasional. Trousers are steppe. Gowns are Chinese. There had been a trade, a thousand years ago, yet a tentative one; women in gowns stood out, and men in gowns, to her knowledge, weren’t an extant species on the steppe (shamans a third sex and another species altogether).
She had time to rattle on in her head. It is rude to converse over the first cup. Goagchin took her first cup about the tent and dabbed milk on the mouths of the effigies. Over Hoelun’s head, over the north couch where she used to sit with Yesugei, a two-legged figure with utility belt of toy tools: “Jol Jayagachi, bless with your gifts the lives in this shelter of felt.” Over the door, on the inside, a woolly ewe with a great udder: “Emelgelji, bless with your gifts the lives in this shelter of felt.” Outside the door the whole of a stuffed hare, white. “Jandaghatu, bless with your gifts the lives in this shelter of felt.”
When thirst has been quenched you can talk to your guest. But Goagchin began. “You have been a friend to my Bagtor, lady. We want for friends; we are in an awkward situation, and your kindness means much to us. Bagtor has quite lost his heart to you.”
Hoelun murmured. She felt as if smothered by a great big gorgeous cushion, that hindered speech. How did Yesugei cast her off? She was determined not to be a jealous wife, a jealous wife out of those how-not-to-behave sort of tales.
“May I be frank with you, my lady? Do you mind if I am outspoken? Can we talk of Yesugei, you and I – or shouldn’t we?”
To this call she did answer. “I very much hope we can talk freely, and be sisters.”
“There are things about Yesugei you must have learnt, even in so short a while. He never has an ill intention. I believe he never has. Still, he did not think through the consequences, when he took me in. Do I lack gratitude? I have never faulted him, not to his face, not to others. But – I say to you – we are left in an awkward situation. Commonly does a man co-habit with a slave and have his by-blows from her. But not before he has his wife and his true children, his children that rank in the clan. Bagtor, lady, is Yesugei’s first son. And yet he is not. Is he? I do not know another child who has his situation to grow up to.”
Neither did Hoelun, now she thought.
“Of course, Yesugei did the upright thing – beyond what other men might do. But that is just why things are unusual. And to be unusual, to be unconventional, though fine for the marshal, who can do as he sees fit, often leaves difficulties for lesser people. Like me, and Bagtor.”
This was nothing other than the truth.
“Almost I wish... but there. What he did he did, and was done, if you like, in a surplus of honour. But this upside-down life of his, when he has wed ten years too late, a child of five cannot understand. A child cannot understand why he is the odd one out, why nobody knows where he fits.”
They sat. Goagchin sighed. “I have said quite enough. I spoke to excuse Bagtor, if he can be sulky. I just do not wish Yesugei to say he is spoilt. Spoilt?” she frowned. “By whom?”
Here, at last, Hoelun made a contribution – off the subject of Yesugei. “Perhaps, Goagchin, Bagtor might quickly shed the sulks if he joined in more with the other children.”
The frown, for an instant, turned ugly, quite ugly. “Not with that imp of the Alip shepherd. A rough boy, lady, and strange for one of his origins to follow on from Mengetu’s son. I won’t have Bagtor answer to him, although he does not rank.”
This was abysmal. They were children. But next Hoelun thought, yes, of course she is status-conscious. Of course she is.
The frown wafted off without a trace and she dimpled more deeply. “Do you find you haven’t a moment to sit and chat with a guest, my lady? There is the feast tonight and I interrupt you. A marshal believes he is busy, but a marshal’s lady? He has his staff, but did I have mine? Qongdaqor is stood there at the door, while I run in and out in a mad distraction. Do you find, Lady Hoelun?”
“There is much to do, ahead of the nightly banquet.”
“You mustn’t hesitate, should you ever find you wish you had a spare set of hands.”
“I wonder whether you’d stay and help me, Goagchin, this very afternoon?”
At the end of that night’s feast Yesugei kept Arash back and they put their heads together, in masculine fashion. When they had done he walked him out with a hand on the shoulder, came in again and began, “Perverse blasted woman. She has a ger from him, but she prefers to serve in the great tent than be mistress of her own. It asks for gossip, given what people know of us before. I can say I don’t care for gossip but there’s more than me involved. If she’s staff of mine she’s mine to maintain. No, Arash maintains her, I borrow her to polish my furniture. Arash and me have just had to sort out whether we step on each other’s toes.”
Into this irritation she waded. “Cannot you make her an offer, Yesugei?”
r /> He froze. Then he acted dumb. “An offer? Of?”
“Status. Status as a wife. Though she is from an enslaved tribe, and not quite from outside yours, since Jangsiut are Kiyat’s offsiders, nothing prevents her being an under-wife. It is the major wife who has to fit specifications.”
“Is this her idea?”
“I do not know. I do not know her ideas, but you are the father of her children, and if she has ideas, I gather from her that she thinks of the status of her children.”
“Act of mine can’t change the status of her children.” As if he had said so before.
“No. Or yes and no. You can make their mother a wife.”
“As can Arash. And does his damnedest to, if she’d co-operate.”
“Arash has been said no to, on whatever grounds.”
“Only half said no to, Hoelun. Am I to have her back again, after he has had her for a fortnight, as if I’d given him a lend of my ewe while she’s in milk?”
From this contemptuous metaphor she knew they skirted near to disgust. “It is muddy, Yesugei, but is that her fault? Before Arash, she has been with two men and not been a wife.”
“I admit. Still, she can’t go to Arash for a fortnight. That is just...” He tightened his lips and abstained to say what that was, just. “And for me to wed her now is no way to make an honest woman of her.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that is the way to make her seriously dishonest. I cannot – I cannot, Hoelun, with commitment. I’d have to grit my teeth. I’m sorry but this is the fact. I cannot go from you