The warriors suddenly raised a shout. Temujin had flung his leg about the thighs of his brother, Bektor. Body was pressed against body, as though fused together. Then, very slowly, with audible crackings of bone, Bektor was thrust backwards, his inclination followed by the bending body of Temujin. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Bektor’s spine bent. Yet never for an instant did wild eye leave wild eye. But Temujin had begun to grin like a wolf.
A moment later, with a groan, Bektor collapsed. He became limp in his brother’s arms. Foam appeared on his lips. His eyes rolled upward, showing the red-threaded whites; they became fixed, like dead eyes. But still Temujin bent him backwards. In a moment more, he would break his back.
Suddenly there was a thin and piercing scream. Bektor’s mother pushed her way through the crowding warriors with superhuman strength. She flung herself upon Temujin. She sunk her teeth into his neck, and hung on to him like a weasel upon the throat of a wolf. She uttered no sound after that first anguished cry, but her teeth bit in deeper, her head thrust between Temujin and her fainting son, her long hair hiding his contorted face.
Temujin, shocked by the attack, experienced excruciating pain in his throat. He felt his blood oozing about the murderous teeth of the woman, who seemed to have become a part of him, a vampire who would never let go. He staggered. His arms became weak as water. He heard a faint crash, and weight upon his feet, as Bektor fell upon them. Now he was concerned only with freeing himself from this loathsome thing, which filled him with horror rather than fear. His heart beat with sickening and choking disgust. He felt that any moment he would spew up vomit. He swung his head from side to side, staggering drunkenly. But the woman hung on, as though all her life was concentrated in her teeth. His hands plucked at her, striking her, squeezing her, his breath gone from his chest. But she would not let go.
Dimly, he heard a shout, followed by others, and then screams of rapturous delight. Darkness fell over his eyes. He felt himself sliding down the slope of a dark hill, into blackness. He was conscious of a burning anguish in his neck, and an emotion of intense loathing and shame. Then, the shouts and screams of ecstatic laughter became louder in his ears. He opened his eyes dully.
He was lying on his back, his head almost in the fire. But no one was looking at him. Whooping, striking each other with delight and huge mirth, rolling on their haunches, the warriors were watching the mad scrambling, scratching, tearing, shrieking, tumbling mass that was Houlun and the Karait woman. They rolled over and over on the ground, scattering the fire, their feet flailing into the faces of the helpless warriors, who were weeping in the excess of their laughter, their bodies rapidly becoming denuded. Now a naked leg appeared in the ball of their entwined bodies. Now a nude breast was exposed, now a thigh, and finally a torso. They had clenched their hands into each other’s long and streaming hair. Their teeth were busy. They emitted growls like she-bears. and they worried each other, sinking their fangs into bare shoulder, throat or arm. They howled like wolves. Houlun would wrench herself to her knees, striking and scratching; then the Karait woman would drag her down and under. Their faces were distorted out of all semblance to humanity, and streaming with blood. Their eyes were swollen and black. A struggle which had portended death was ending in a farce.
Finally, they were totally naked, breast crushing into breast, covered only intermittently by their disordered hair. Leg twined about leg; arms like snakes wound about each other. Their hoarse breath whistled in their throats. Their expressions were mad. The warriors rolled helplessly upon the ground, panting with groans of laughter, wheezing like old men. Temujin sat up, shaking his head free of the splinters of red light that pierced his eyes. Bektor had been dragged away from the seat of the combat of the women. And then when Temujin saw his mother like this, naked and covered with blood, her face almost unrecognizable, he was pierced by the deepest shame and degradation. He burst into tears.
He heard renewed shouts. Yesukai had entered the fray, wielding a camel whip. He stood over the rolling women, lashing indiscriminately. His whip tore red, bleeding welts into their naked flesh, caught strands of their streaming hair and wrenched them from their scalps. They released each other, rolling apart, trying to protect their bodies with their hands, doubling up their legs. Their buttocks winced under the blows; they folded their arms across their tender breasts, and bent their heads between their shoulders. Temujin, weeping, closed his eyes.
He felt himself carried away. When he opened his eyes again, he was in Kurelen’s yurt. The crippled man was spent with laughter, and exhausted. But Jamuga, his face pale with disgust, was gravely laving his anda’s face with cool water, and wiping away the clotted blood on his throat.
“A she-wolf hath bitten thee,” he said quietly.
Temujin raised his voice in lamentations for the disgrace of his mother. Kurelen shook his head, laughing deeply in his chest.
“Regret nothing that doth give occasion for laughter, Temujin,” he said.
But Jamuga fixed his eyes upon him with stern loathing.
“Thou art wrong, Kurelen. There are times when laughter is more bitter than death, and less endurable.”
Chapter 11
Bektor wept also, learning of his mother’s disgrace.
“I shall never lift my face again, and look straightly into another’s eyes, knowing that it was my mother, a weak woman, who saved me from death,” he lamented.
He would not see his mother, though bruised and broken and torn, she stood outside the yurt he occupied with his brother, Belgutei, waiting humbly to speak to him. He could not forgive her. He would allow only the Shaman, who was his elder adviser and friend, to attend him, and his brother. When his father, Yesukai, entered and upbraided him harshly in vague terms, he hid his face for shame. Even when Yesukai kicked him savagely, he offered no resistance. He realized that the chieftain had been disgraced also, and knew no other way of avenging himself. Yesukai professed to be outraged that his sons should attack each other. But he would not have been so exercised, Bektor knew, if one had killed his enemy. A Mongol accepted grief simply; it was one of the aspects of living. But disgrace he never accepted. His sons, he cried, might have been ennobled by death; alive, they were occasions for the laughter of the meanest of the herdboys and the slaves.
Bektor accepted this abuse and the kicking with humility, acknowledging the truth of his father’s words. He kissed Yesukai’s feet in an access of regret and sorrow. Better had he died, and been forgotten, than lived and be remembered with mirth and ridicule, he said.
Yesukai listened darkly. Then he said: “The day must come when this must be settled in blood and death. Prepare for that day, Bektor.”
To Temujin, whom he also kicked and upbraided, he said the same thing. Soon it was noised about through the whole ordu that Yesukai had commanded his sons to engage in a mortal combat, for the sake of his honor. But they would wait, until time had given them strength of sufficient dignity.
In the meantime, the Shaman attempted to console Bektor. “Temujin is older than thee by almost a year,” he told his favorite, who was partly in his favor because of real liking, and partly because of Kokchu’s own hatred for Temujin. “Too, he hath craft. Thou hast only strength.”
“But he fighteth fairly!” exclaimed Bektor, quickly.
The Shaman exchanged a glance of contempt with the pliant and furtively smiling Belgutei. These two understood each other with remarkable insight.
“Know, Bektor, that a combat must be won at any cost. Thou hast told me before that victory is not true victory, if it be stained with guile or treachery. That is the belief of the fool. A victor, however he doth obtain his victory, is always justified by his followers, and by time. It is only the vanquished, at the last, who is judged a knave.”
Bektor regarded him with some fear and distrust and uncertainty. But he was essentially of a simple nature. He also had the humility of that nature, and a belief in the superiority of any one of a smooth and subtle tongue. He gnawed his
swollen lip, and knitted his brows. Surely, he was wrong, and the Shaman right. Nevertheless, he could not rid himself of uneasiness.
He said: “Mayhap I could waylay him, and slay him with a knife in the back, when he is unsuspecting.”
“True,” said the Shaman, frowning thoughtfully. “But that would bring thee little honor. The craft must be so artfully disguised that it appeareth valor. Let me judge for thee, and advise thee, Bektor. The folly of fools, however despised, must be considered.”
Bektor, in his simplicity, consented. But still he was uneasy.
When the Shaman had departed, after anointing Bektor’s back with a magic ointment to relieve the torn muscles and ligaments, Belgutei began to laugh. Bektor watched him a moment, then, his face turning crimson, he forced himself to a sitting position and hurled a basin at his brother. Belgutei rolled out of the way of the missile, and renewed his laughter.
“Thou art too serious!” he cried. “It was a brave fight, until the women came. Nevertheless, I am glad they did interfere. Otherwise, I would have lost my brother.”
Bektor scowled. But he was touched pathetically at these affectionate words. Finally he smiled. He said, in an almost placating voice:
“Thou dost prefer me to Temujin, Belgutei?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, the wily youth replied: “Thou art my brother. It is thou who shouldst be the khan when our father is dead, and not Temujin. Thou hast only to do what the Shaman would have thee do.”
“Dost thou trust him?”
Belgutei widened his eyes. He smiled slightly. “I trust no one, Bektor, not even thee. Thou art too simple. But the others are too guileful. Trust the Shaman only to the extent of the advancement of his own interests. Beyond that, trust no one.”
A feeling of ineffable sadness came over Bektor. Despite his dark and formidable features, he looked wounded. He was the simple man, distressed that other men could be devious and treacherous, and envying them a little in his heart for their ability to deceive.
The Shaman, upon leaving Bektor, went to Temujin’s yurt. Kurelen, who was becoming bored by his nephew’s lamentations, and Jamuga’s melancholy and mortification, greeted the Shaman with pleasure, though he eyed him keenly, knowing his predilection for Bektor.
“Ah, now, Kokchu, thou canst give these womanish youths some fortitude. They wail like girls.”
The Shaman pursed his lips, and without replying, examined Temujins injuries. “A woman’s bite is like a dog’s bite,” he commented. “There is a venom in their slaver.”
Kurelen made a wry grimace. He narrowed his eyes. He did not like the serious expression on the face of his old enemy, which he knew was hypocrisy.
Kokchu passed his long dark hands, as flexible as serpents, over the throat of Temujin, and muttered an incantation. Kurelen began to smile. Jamuga watched with cool reserve, the bloody cloth in his hand.
Having done with his incantations, the Shaman regarded Temujin severely.
“It is not good for kinsmen to quarrel,” he said. “I have come from Bektor, and he is properly ashamed. I said to him: ‘Know that every man doth need every friend, and every brother his brother, for this is a fierce world without mercy or hope for the vanquished.’ Make up thy quarrel with thy brother, Temujin. It is an evil day when the blood of kindred floweth.”
Kurelen raised his brows at these moral sentiments. But Kokchu, without a glance at him or at Jamuga, walked with a stately step from the yurt, every movement of his body expressing his reproach and indignant coldness. When he had gone, Kurelen exchanged a look with Jamuga, who was pale with anger.
“When a serpent speaketh of brotherly love, it is time for honest men to flee,” he said.
Temujin did not speak. His features settled in a mask of obstinate sullenness. But Jamuga replied eagerly:
“It is so, Kurelen. If Bektor had killed Temujin, the Shaman would not have engaged in such fine talk of kindred blood. Kokchu is ambitious.”
Kurelen nodded. “Let men beware when one of lust appeareth among them, but let all men arm themselves when a priest coveteth power.”
Chapter 12
Temujin and his friends, Jamuga Sechen, Chepe Noyon and Subodai, and his brother, Kasar, came in at sunset, jubilant. Temujin loved white stallions, and his father had given him one on an occasion when he was pleased with him. The youth had come upon a huge bear unexpectedly, and had slain him with his short dagger, a prodigious feat. The white stallion was a gift. Henceforth, Temujin would ride no other sort of horse. But Jamuga Sechen preferred black horses, small and fleet and compact, with his own narrow grace. Chepe Noyon loved gay horses, that would cavort in high spirits. His steed was a young mottled mare with a knowing and flirtatious eye, and an arched tail. Subodai, whom Kurelen called the distillation of pure virtue, rode a gray mare who could drift like a spectral shadow, almost unseen, through herds and through groups of men.
Yesukai’s ordu had reached the winter pastures. The greenish-gray steppes were rimed at sunset with gray drops of frozen crystal. Beyond this dim sea of tall and whispering grass were far and floating masses of violet hills, scuttled out by ghostly rose. But the west was a lake of dark and savage scarlet, and the figures of the five young horsemen loomed against it, black and sharp and featureless, as they rode swiftly, shouting, through the bending grasses. The hunt had been good, that day. Each youth rode his horse as though part of it, straight young back swayed lightly with the movement of the animal, strong straight legs stiffened in the stirrups. Their high pointed hats cut the sunset like black daggers; their felt coats were belted about their narrow hard waists; their bow-cases were slung on their backs. But featureless and colorless though they were, Kurelen knew each youth by his silhouette against the burning sky. There was Temujin, taller than the others on his taller horse, riding with a wild and quiet pride, like a horseman running down the slope of the heavens from some mysterious other world. About him rode his friends, young paladins of a king, a kind of savage dignity about them, splendor in the poise of their heads and the straightness of their shoulders.
Kurelen reflected that Temujin had the ability to inspire devotion in good and brave and valorous men, and often, in men nobler than himself. Among those who loved him sincerely were none of flawed and cunning character, none who followed him for sheer self-gain. Kurelen wondered at this, for Temujin was a somber and furious youth at times, hasty, harsh and implacable, unbending and often inexorable. He had little patience in small matters, and could be most brutal and exigent Yet in him was the best of Mongol generosity and fearlessness, and his word, once given to a friend, would never be broken. He was honest with Mongol honesty, which was simple and primitive. If he were ever subtle, it was not with the sublety of Jamuga, but with the deep and innocent subtlety which was yet more profound than the other’s. In time, Temujin would be a wise and ferocious man, magnificent, endowed with primal and heroic dignity. But it was not all these things which inspired the devotion of his friends. It was something in the glance of his gray eye, steadfast and eaglelike, something in his lifted profile, with its slumbering aspect of awful power and ageless strength. This was a youth fashioned by the mysterious agents of supernatural power to be a king among men, an instrument made by the gods for some dreadful but splendid purpose of their own. And it was all this that Temujin’s friends knew without conscious awareness.
He could inspire devotion in men like Kasar, childlike and unthinking, like the greater mass of mankind. He could inspire love in those like Jamuga, who loved philosophy and wisdom and thought He could draw the affection of those like Chepe Noyon, gay adventurers, courageous, laughing, eager and resistless. And then, strangest of all, this youth without pure virtue could seize the passionate adherence of those like Subodai, silent thoughtful, brave, pure, devoted and lofty. In truth, here was an embryo khan of all men, to whose banner of the yak tails would flock every kind of spirit, including those like Belgutei, who followed a victor in order to share in the spoils.
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p; Kurelen often remarked that in the presence of unsullied virtue, like that of Subodai, men were crestfallen and uneasy, or inspired with selfless love, or convulsed with remorseless malignancy and hatred. Subodai had the face and body of a young god, beautiful and quiet and meditative. His smile was a gleam, his glance like a shaft of light. His voice was low and sweet. He had never been known to do a cruel thing, or a treacherous one. Yet none was braver than he, none more without fear, none swifter with the sword nor more graceful on a horse. Sometimes Kurelen suspected that he was more profound than Jamuga, with his wan and bitter lip, and his deep and jealous eye. But Subodai spoke very simply, so that the dullest man could comprehend. His enemies were more venomous than the enemies of Temujin, and those who loved him loved him even more deeply than they loved the young son of the Khan. Kurelen had taught him to read. Jamuga was free and lucid with comments during the lessons, but Subodai listened in silence, his still, dark-blue eyes fixed lambently on Kurelen’s lips, his face like pale and burnished bronze. To the end of his life, no one ever knew what he thought, not even Kurelen, who could only guess. The Shaman hated him more than he did Jamuga Sechen, who might at times be beguiled by a clever phrase.
Subodai knew more about horses than did Chepe Noyon, who understood their language. When he sat his shadowy gray mare, with the morning light upon his face, it seemed to many that this was some beautiful and majestic spirit who communicated his thought to his steed by a mere breath or sigh or touch. He had a genius for organizing potent cavalry, and though he was still very young, Yesukai had already appointed him the master of the younger horsemen, which Chepe Noyon had copiously and humorously resented. But no one, not even the most ambitious, could long be resentful of this chivalrous youth, who offended none except by the very effulgence of his nature and his soul, and the beauty of his aspect.