of black milk, without visible consequences, Toghrul left to soak up on his own sheep. In his absence the nokod discussed him. “What a crazy story,” one began with a fascinated contempt. “His next-of-kin’s his worst enemy.”
“Not his fault, though. He didn’t invent the system. I don’t know how far back his time of innocence was, but the Blue Kingdoms’ system spun out of control at the end of each generation. They handed on brother-to-brother, only onto the next generation when they ran through a fraternal set. Brother-to-brother was meant to guarantee a grown-up king. Uncles and nephews? Tell the Blue Turks. Generations in conflict, they had, for kids of them as had been His Nibs, strangely, championed a father-to-son. Then when their turn came, on a father-son scheme, hundreds of cousins were candidates. Lesson is, there’s no perfect system, but maybe you’ve got to stick to one.”
“I’ll stick to ours.”
“Has he got forty brothers?”
“Not hard, when Kyriakus Khan had twenty and upwards of queens.”
“What did he die of?”
“I call that hard.”
“Stay decent.”
“Who was the Mongol queen, his mother?”
So far Yesugei had only listened. He answered this. “Jiloa of Jajirat, a sister to Black Qadan.”
“Ah. Didn’t drop that name, did he?”
“An interchange of cultures, to go by his end.”
“The ill odour of Black Qadan doesn’t taint his sister.”
Now Yesugei asked, “Aktagh, Toroqol, Jagan, you have been in Hirai and eaten with Kyriakus. What did you pick up to help us?”
“Years ago, captain. But we heard talk of this Gur, his uncle. Gentle, gentle and meek like Yesus Christ, and always thought about the welfare of the black people (black people, to Turks, even though your black-faced Hirai is your blue-blood). That was the gist about him. Toghrul says his stance isn’t sincere but I’d be sorry to think so. If he insists on punishment for brother-murder, however judicial, isn’t that the aim, Marquz’ aim? To stop the bloodshed. Toghrul’s right about the aim, with first son. They used to have a clan slaughter, because any of the blood were eligible.”
Aktagh spoke for the trio of friends. Yesugei nodded.
“For Toghrul to... hang onto the coattails of your reputation, I don’t know. Reputation’s a pearl above price. You are known an upright man. In Hirai, Yesugei. Didn’t know they took an interest.”
A whistle out of Yesugei. “How about my nokod? Now we’re alone, can I just slip off my lid and emit my steam? If you knew how a captain’s heart swells. A captain won’t fit his cuirass on, with a heart the size of his. Who’s next to step over my threshold and tell me he has heard of my nokod? The Idiqut of Uighur? Shah of Persia?”
They laughed at him. This was terrible boast, but on their behalf. On their behalf, but indirect, which gave them leave to laugh at him for camouflage of their enjoyment. “Knights out of the tales,” they elbowed each other. “That’s Turk for a nokor. No-one does them like Turks, never did.”
“He’d be a judge, then.”
“Climb down.”
Aktagh persisted with objection. “This is why he’s after us: for a hue of righteousness. He even says so.”
Alyp. “Yes, he says so. At least he’s honest.”
“He’s banished for brother-murder, Alyp. Is that honest?”
“Yes, but he’s only murdered two. That isn’t a witticism. Like he mentioned, and you did, it’s a step forward from the assassinations of the past.”
As Aktagh opened his mouth again, his friend Toroqol butted in. “The captain wants to. You want to, don’t you, captain?”
“I don’t want to turn him away. No-one likes to say no to a suit. Aktagh, I’m not asked to adjudicate on Hirai’s throne. Thank God. About the legal issues I don’t have a clue. We’d only help haul them to court.”
“We’d be seen to be on his side.”
“That’s true. He’s my suitor. The only question in my court is whether to say no to a suitor or say yes.”
“What if Gur had come a suitor?”
“And I knew nought against him? – I’d be much moved to answer yes.”
“Makes me wish Gur had.”
“Nokor, if I do help Toghrul, you need not.”
“No, captain. We’re a unit. We’re a unit and you’re in charge. I only have conjectural opinions on Gur and on Toghrul, but I know what I think of you.”
“Eh? Miss out?” a comrade said. “Stay at home, when we’re asked out to play by people on such horses?”
“Not for my life,” said the one beside him. “I don’t know much about their quarrel and I care less, and there you have the truth.”
“It is utterly, blatantly, none of our business,” took up the next along. “And that’s the beauty of it. Ah, Yesugei, give us an adventure.”
He laughed. “You are mesmerised by the jingle-jangle and the gleamy-weamy horses.”
“And yourself? What grabs you?”
“Me? I like him. At bottom. And there you have the truth. I know he wants me to, but that doesn’t stop me.”
One of them questioned, “What if we find we’re on the wrong side, and the right side comes after us? It’s Hirai. They’re bigger than us, you know.”
“Then,” answered Yesugei, “we hightail for the driest of the Gobi, or the wettest of Barghujin Marshes. Up to you.”
They tossed the possibilities. “Scorpions or six-incher mosquitoes?”
“The Black Watch or Toqtoa?”
“Toqtoa. He can be bribed. Hoelun, can’t you help us in that quarter?”
“No,” she told them. “You are on your own. Unless my husband wishes to trade me for safe passage?”
“Only if I have to,” he promised.
“Now, captain, my home patch of sand lies in the Gobi. And a pretty patch it is.”
“If you have a bush on your sand, comrade, you’re host.”
The putative khan of Hirai knocked about camp and struck up with unlikely people: he charmed Orboi Queen, he drew out Bagtor at the awkward age of fourteen. “The dogs like him, and the children. I’ve never known those judges to be wrong. – And you, Hoelun? You are a stern judge, I know.”
“Am I? Stern?” Although they had put away the subject in a box she said lightly, “I thought you didn’t believe in child kings.”
“I believe in them less. We don’t want a hostage to fortune, regularly kidnapped. Still, Toghrul seems not to have turned out too bad for the system. Seems to me, Hoelun. Tell me your opinion.”
“I find him genuine.”
“Genuine is what matters.”
“On the whole.”
“You have a reservation.”
“I am a hard woman to win over. I am a stern judge. Without reservation I say to you, go, before your nokors drop from boredom. To Hirai the affair is grave and consequential, but to them it’s First Milk Feast and Winter Slaughter in one. They are underutilised.”
“Of this I am conscious. Come to that, my wife, a few of our youngsters can do with the exercise. Bagtor and Belgutei are of an age. I thought Temujin, too.”
“Belgutei at ten? Temujin at eight.”
“I know, but how often do we get the chance? I must find means to give instruction to my sons. What do they see of the life of their fathers, beyond the effort to scrape up tribute?”
“And if you run into trouble?”
“Then the boys can run as fast as me. I’ll mount them on runners.”
“Don’t mount them on warhorses. And no – I said no – combat.”
“Spoilsport.”
“I don’t want Temujin to come home and boast he has shot a Hirai before he has shot a hare. Even by accident.”
“Do you impugn his aim?”
“His aim is more consistent than mine. He tries his heart out, and I don’t have the time.”
“How do you explain that bull’s eye at the games with Jorkimes?”
“You can’t tempt me to come. But yes
, Belgutei and Temujin. At least, the children with you, I know you won’t get in over your head.”
The nokod and the children had a splendid time. No blood was shed. Gur, whatever his motives, evaded arrest. Yesugei’s hundred pursued his thirty from Telesut Steppe to the Alashan desert where he crossed into Tangut, an old asylum for the Hirai royal house, who had ties there and a hostage at court. Toghrul was just as happy to prosecute the absent, and he made official Gur’s banishment. Aktagh sighed, on the dusty outskirts of Tangut, and sighed outside court; and Yesugei wasn’t without his niggles, but then neither was Toghrul, and Toghrul confessed these freely to him. “You know, I might mistake my uncle, Yesugei. I might. How do you search the insides of a man? The court has decided. He’ll have a fine life in Tangut. My brother’s there, my brother out of a Tangut mother; he doesn’t function as a hostage for me but he stays on. Quite the scholar. The Tangut have entitled him Jaqa Gambu, which means vastly learned, roughly. He comes home for the holidays, in fact he’s the only brother of my forty I can sit down and have a heart-to-heart with. You’ve done things more sensibly, with four.”
Nevertheless, Toghrul already had several queens. He had to; he had to honour important Hirai clans and neighbour peoples with his royal insemination. That was Toghrul’s phrase. “Now, you,” he said, “have your Hoelun, and you are very obviously blest. – I don’t mean to come across envious, Yesugei. Can we swap lives for a month or two?”
“No, you can’t have Hoelun.”
They rode the circuit of Hirai, from duke to duke, who iterated their loyalty to him or else evacuated ahead of him. Very few did the latter. Kyriakus’ queens had each her ordo, a court and territory over which she was the