The Shaman lifted his arm, and cried out in a fearful voice: “The Spirits of the Blue Sky have come to the aid of Temujin, son of Yesukai!”
A single groan of utter panic rose from the people. They fell on their faces, and covered their heads with their arms. The cattle and camels and horses, who saw nothing, moved and reared, uneasily, smelling the acrid scent of human fear. But Temujin and his friends, and Kurelen, did not fall on their faces. Kurelen smiled. He thought to himself: The rascal hath as much imagination as I!
Slowly the host faded, the vapor moved back like a golden cloud. One by one, the people rose, cowed and trembling. One by one, they fell on their knees about Temujin and pledged their faith and allegiance, Across their bent heads, Kokchu and Kurelen exchanged a faint smile. Kurelen touched his brow mockingly, and with admiration. Smugly, Kokchu acknowledged the salute with a gratified bend of his head.
But only a handful, after all, were these who remained with Temujin. The young khan was full of gloom. Nothing could console him. He went to look for his mother, and soon he came running from her yurt, shouting: “My mother hath disappeared, and is nowhere to be found!”
When darkness fell, Houlun returned, and the people were more astonished than ever. For that intrepid woman had slipped away from the ordu on a horse, and, carrying the banner of the yak tails, had pursued the deserting tribesmen, and coming upon them, had harangued and shamed some of them into returning and renewing their allegiance to her son. She rode into the camp, her black hair streaming about her, her heroic head upheld, proudly carrying the banner high in her hand, the sheepish tribesmen following her in their yurts, and surrounded by their herds.
Kurelen looked upon his sister, and for once, his smile was not ironic. But Temujin, after one glance, turned a furious crimson. He swung upon his heel and went to his yurt. His heart was bitter against his mother. For the second time she had shamed him.
Chapter 17
“Thou art a fool,” said Kurelen, mildly.
Temujin regarded him with rage. All the violence of his nature showed in the lividity of his lips and in the vivid greenness of his eyes, which changed color with his mood.
“I am shamed forever, by my mother!” he cried.
Kurelen shrugged. “I repeat, thou art a fool. Because of thy mother, thou dost still have a people about thee, and thou art still alive. But perhaps thou wouldst prefer to have been left helpless, and then been killed? A hero’s death? Bah. I thought thou didst have some wit. Remember this: it matters not how a man surviveth, except that he survive. It matters not how his victory is obtained, except that he be the victor. Be sensible. Recall only that thou art still khan of the Yakka Mongols, and set thyself to the task of consolidating thy gains and sagaciously planning for the future. For thou art still in dire peril of losing thy clan and also thy life.”
“Kurelen is right,” said Jamuga, slowly, thoughtfully knitting his brows. “Thou art in no position to be heroic, or strike a figure. Thy people need thee.”
Chepe Noyon began to laugh. “Let the people sing of the memory of heroes. I prefer to sing with them, and not be the object of the song.”
Subodai said again, to his leader: “Temujin, I am glad thou art living, and not dead.”
But Kasar, who echoed all Temujin’s moods, in his adoration, exclaimed: “Thou dost not understand my brother! Ye all see but the opportunity and the gain. Ye do not see the dishonor.”
Kurelen looked at him kindly, but with indulgent disdain. “It is well that Temujin hath a heart like thine at his side, Kasar. But for his sake, refrain from counselling him.” He turned to Temujin, who was breathing rapidly. “Sit down. Thou art ridiculous. Let me give thee some advice. Make friends with thy brother, Bektor, at least outwardly. Thou dost not dare have division in thy ordu at this time. Woo the Shaman, and convince him of thy resolution. If a king have the priests with him, it is better than a thousand warriors. He can do what he will with his people. And he can be certain of the loyalty of the priests if he keepeth them fat and secure. Give the fairest woman of the next raid to Kokchu. Flatter him. Thou wilt not deceive him as to thy real sentiments, but he will be pleased that thou dost consult him, for that will convince him of his own power. Flattery is ofttimes better than gifts. And a smooth tongue maketh faster friends than all the virtues.”
“Men are fools,” replied Temujin, contemptuously.
Kurelen nodded. “Wise men know this, but never say it.” He went on: “But save subtleties for later. Thou and thy people are in grave danger. Thy father’s kinsmen, Targutai-Kuriltuk and Todyan-Girte, the two Taijiut chiefs, know that so long as thou dost live they must face a foe, and a holder of the pasture lands thy covet, they know it is to their advantage to kill thee, and absorb thy people in their own clans and tribes. Moreover, thy father was a brave man, and defied them successfully, for all he was so much smaller and weaker. They suspect (and whether this is true or not thou knowest best) thou art his worthy successor. They have already taken the greater part of thy people as vassals, and would have them all, but for thy mother and Kokchu. What hast thou in mind to do?”
“I will appeal to Toghrul Khan.”
Kurelen lifted one shoulder. “Toghrul Khan. That foxlike Nestorian Christian, who is known for his craftiness, treachery and sly cowardice! But mayhap thou wilt please him, but only if thou dost convince him thou art worth sponsoring. The test must come first, before he will assist thee.”
“Let me take breath,” said Temujin. He went out into the dark wind of the night. Lightning was playing in the east, and there was a mutter of thunder behind the hills, which the lightning made incandescent at intervals. The campfires were already low. Most of the tribesmen were asleep. Only the watchmen of the herds were awake, and some of them were nodding over their feeble fires. This enraged Temujin. He lifted his whip and struck the drowsers viciously. But he never wasted words. The blow was struck in silence, and then he went on. The aroused men rubbed their backs and shoulders and stared after him, blinking with awed amazement, as he strode through the camp, the folds of his coat blowing about him. The next day many of them said to their wives: “The youth became the young khan in a twinkling. He grew a foot in stature. He walked like a king. When he looked at me, his eyes glowed like the eyes of a wolf in the darkness, and I was afraid.”
Temujin, for all his gloomy and angered preoccupation that night, learned his first and most significant lesson: that some men can be won with words, a few with love, many with gifts, but all with the threat of force. He learned that a strong whip in the hand of a master is greater than any philosophy, and that a stern boot is more feared than all the gods. He was yet to learn that a few, if only a very few, can be won by reason, and that even less fear nothing except their own consciences. But even when he learned that, he knew that these few were insignificant in influence provided the master never lost belief in his mastery.
He left the ordu, and stood alone under the stars, with the dark wind in his face, and his eyes fixed on the hills that leaped in the lightning. He kept lashing his boots with his whip, and his face was set somberly. When a dog came sniffing at his heels, and growling, he. struck the beast savagely, and sent him howling on his way. At this, his expression lightened. His feeling of impotence grew less. He went on, found a flat boulder, and sat down on it. He rested his chin in his palm, and thought.
His anxious thoughts grew larger, more diffused, and finally, like a cloud, they lifted. Tranquillity slowly returned to him. He felt the strength of his young body, felt the strong beating of his heart. He lifted his head, and again looked at the stars.
Some dim intuition made his spirit stir, and his pulses began to sing with exultation. Who can conquer me, he thought, if I refuse to be conquered? Kurelen would laugh at me for this. But let him have his subtleties. Philosophies were invented by the weak; in their laughter, which acquiesces to everything, is the ointment for the wound which the strong inflict upon them. I shall not laugh. I shall live.
; He got up and went to the yurt of his half-brothers, Bektor and Belgutei. The youths were sleeping, but Temujin drummed imperiously on the flap of the yurt, and awakened them. Belgutei stirred up the fire, and by its dusky red light he regarded Temujin amiably. But Bektor sat on his heap of furs and waited sullenly. Temujin looked slowly from one to the other with sparkling eyes.
“We are brothers,” he said, quietly. “And as your older brother, and khan, I demand your loyalty. If I fall, you fall. Give me your faithfulness, not because of our blood or because I ask your love. But only because of expediency. If you fail me, I shall kill you with mine own hands. If you stand with me, you shall have no reason to complain.”
“I am no traitor,” said Bektor, in a loud, morose voice.
“And thou hast always had my allegiance. And love,” said Belgutei, in a soothing voice, which he managed to make admiring. His knowing eyes shone with assumed affection.
Temujin was silent. He continued to look slowly from one to the other. He thought to himself: Bektor hateth me, but he will not betray me. But because of his hatred, he is a temptation to those who would use him. He is simple, and a fool. He is a slave to words. But Belgutei will follow faithfully where I lead, so long as he is assured I will not fail in the long run. He is not so dangerous as Bektor. He distrusteth words, because, wordy himself, he knows how little they are worth.
Then and there he resolved that Bektor must die. He resolved this with no twinge or pang. His situation was too desperate, and never in his life was he to hesitate for sentimental or personal reasons.
“I shall never fail,” he said aloud, addressing himself to Belgutei.
He went out, sprang lightly down from the platform of the yurt. He went to his mother. She opened the flap for him, and he entered her tent. She looked at him with an eager smile, knowing how angered he was against her. But after one look at his face, she was silent, knowing that he was a man at last. He bent and kissed her forehead.
“I thank thee, my mother. Thou art a woman of great sagacity. I will look to thee always for advice. Thou art the mistress of my yurts. Tomorrow I shall bring my wife to thee, and do thou counsel her in the ways that will be worthy of my spouse and the mother of my children.”
She was deeply touched, but filled with respect and joy.
“Temujin, long ago I knew that thy destiny was greater than other men’s. Thou hast a long and bitter road before thee, but thou wilt travel it with courage, to power and glory. Thou hast no one to fear but thyself. Remember that man is not so much the slave of his fellow-men, as he is of his consciousness of his own inferiority. Believe thou art greater than others, and thou shalt be greater than others.”
“I have always believed so,” replied Temujin, and he believed this to be true.
He went to Kokchu, who was busy with some potion that he was mixing. He received Temujin with elaborate ceremony. But the youth observed that there was considerable amusement and mockery in this. He caught Kokchu’s eye and held it sternly.
“Kokchu,” he said, “I know thee for a rascal and a traitor. Thou dost see, I talk to thee straightly, for I have no time for flattery. Thou hast always preferred Bektor; he listens to thee, and I do not. Moreover, thou hast dreamed of using him to destroy me, because of thy hatred. It is strange that thou dost admire men of thine own kind, but hatest them in thy heart! Too, thou dost conspire for the very love of conspiracy, which is the way of priests. But I tell thee now that I need thee, for thou art a wise and knowing man. Serve me well, and some day thou shalt crown me as a kha khan. Betray me, and I will disembowel thee. Dost thou understand?”
Kokchu looked at him piercingly, his eyes narrowed, his lips faded to a leaden hue. He thought to himself: Thou son of a simple fox! I shall match wits with thee yet, and shall have the laugh on thee. He who defies and threatens a priest knoweth not what an enemy he makes.
Nevertheless, as he looked at Temujin, he was strangely excited. Perhaps, he thought, this is no mere silly youth, full of bombast. But we shall see. But that all dependeth on whether my desire for power is greater than my desire for revenge.
He assumed an expression of fatherly regret and love.
“Temujin, thy words are harsh, but it is my mission to forgive and counsel, and to pledge my loyalty to my khan. Let us hope we shall understand each other better as we travel together. Thy threats fill me with sorrow, but I remember that thou art young and untried, and bear no malice to thee for them.”
They fixed their eyes intently on each other in a hard silence. Then, very slowly, Temujin began to smile, grimly. He laid his hand on the Shaman’s shoulder.
“Live up to thy words, Kokchu, as well as say them. That is all I ask.”
He left the Shaman. Kokchu stood immobile for a long time afterwards. Many thoughts and emotions drifted across his dark and crafty face. Finally he began to laugh.
“I must remember that revenge is less sweet than self-gain. But still, we shall see.” He added, a moment later: “Is it possible that Kurelen hath schooled him in these words? If so, I know what I must do. If not, then I must rechart my course.”
The next day Temujin called all his people together. He stood before them, tall, fierce, resolute, with a face that had grown harder and older. He said:
“Our position is desperate. But nothing can touch me. If ye betray me, we shall all perish. Follow me, and nothing can resist us. I speak no idle words.”
Thought Kurelen with amazement: He believeth this!
Chapter 18
Temujin went for his bride.
Dai Sechen, who had heard of the disorganization of Temujin’s ordu, demurred. Better that Temujin consolidate his people, and become stronger, before he took his young wife to his poor camp, among a frightened and poverty-stricken people. But when Temujin turned to him quickly, and he saw his face, the old man fell into uneasy silence. Finally he said: “I did not look for thee to be alive.”
He made a great marriage feast. All the young warriors gathered, clad in their sheepskins, lacquer breast-plates weirdly painted, tanned leather jackets loose and red and embroidered, their lances slung over their shoulders and their bow-cases filled with sharp arrows. Their bitten faces shone with layers of grease, which protected them from the fierce winds of the Gobi. The women arrayed themselves in their best woolen robes and hung bracelets and necklaces about their persons and braided their hair with bright threads. The fattest horses and sheep were killed, and soon the rich odors of cooking meat permeated the ordu. The warriors piled their weapons at the entrances to their yurts, as a token of their friendship, and sat at the right hand of the elders. Drinking was prodigious. Before each drink, each warrior poured libations to the four corners of the earth. The minstrels, the old men with their fiddles of one string, sang heroic songs and the songs of marriage, and wandered from fire to fire, sampling the contents of the pots, and quaffing wine.
The warriors drank and clapped their hands, and shouted, and sang. Fermented milk and rice wine flowed like water. Soon they were dancing awkwardly in their deerskin boots, beating their hands in time on their leather shields. When night came, the revelry increased. The bronzed and bony faces shone in the red firelight, which glistened on laughing mouths and wet white teeth, making grotesque the clumsy dancers, so that they seemed like furry animals, cavorting. Beyond them the dark plains and the stars spread in limitless vistas.
The festivities continued for three days, and then Bortei was brought to sit at the left hand of her bridegroom. She was clad in a gown of white felt, embroidered with scarlet and blue and yellow and silver, and upon her head, heavily braided with silver coins and round blue turquoises, was fitted a cone-shaped head-dress, formed of bark covered with embroidered silk. She sat there, demure and silent, her eyes cast down so that the lashes were silken scimitars upon her cheeks, and her lips were full and pouting and red and soft, like a poppy bud. Upon her shoulders hung her sable coat; upon her wrists hung heavy bracelets of silver coins and tiny silver figures.
Temujin sat, looking at his bride, his nostrils flaring and his eyes full of flame. His upper lip was beaded with sweat, and he breathed hoarsely and unevenly. When she glanced up at him from under her lashes, and a faint smile curved the corners of her red mouth, and her breast moved a little, he clenched his hands together and looked about him fiercely, as though defying any watcher to find him demoralized and full of unmanly emotion. Near him sat the tranquil Subodai, upon whom all Bortei’s passionate attention was fixed, and Chepe Noyon, gayly drunk as usual, and the wan-lipped and rigid Jamuga with the stony eyelids, who drank nothing and saw everything. Sometimes Bortei, impelled by that immobile gaze, looked at Jamuga, and it seemed to her that her heart turned over with fear and rage and loathing, and she vowed to herself, again and again, that Jamuga must be ruined and sent away from her husband. At these moments the color in her lips grew less warm, and a blue shadow pinched her nostrils.
An old minstrel paused before the young couple and sang:
My beloved is she who sitteth by my side.
Arrayed in the blue girdles and the robe of marriage.
She will be my comfort from my youth to my age,
When my beard is grayer than the steppes, and my heart
Is slower than the ice-held waters. She will bear
My sons, each stronger than the last. She will crown
My life with fruitfulness and sweetness like pure honey.
She will warm my cold bed and my cold heart. Her hands
Will lay upon my neck like a circlet of tender fire.
She will bind up my wounds and shepherd my flocks,