Jamuga said abruptly: “I do not know what assistance thou canst give me. But I must tell thee the truth: Temujin is enamored of the daughter of Toghrul Khan. He lusted after her openly, when we visited the camp of the Khan. Yesterday I read him the letter of Toghrul, in which he was invited to the marriage of this girl to the Caliph of Bokhara.”
Kurelen cocked an eyebrow. “If I remember rightly, Temujin is continually becoming enamored of some wench or other. He hath a harem to inspire the respect of a minor sultan. I see no reason for thy perturbation.”
Jamuga said inexorably: “When I read him the letter, he suddenly turned white as bleached wool. His eyes became full of violence, and evil. He was like a madman, trying to hide his madness. I am convinced he is going to this wedding in order to seize this girl.”
He waited for Kurelen to make some exclamation or remark. But Kurelen merely fixed his eyes piercingly on his and said nothing. His expression was inscrutable. All at once, Jamuga was driven to frenzy by this silence and calm. He squatted down beside the old man, and gripped him by the arm.
“Dost thou not see everything?” he cried fiercely. “Toghrul Khan, the mighty ruler of the Karaits! The Caliph of Bokhara, lord of military legions and a hundred cities and limitless power and wealth! These are to be affronted, to be made the remorseless enemies of a small barbarian chieftain with a handful of warriors and a roaming band of women and children! They will kill him, and destroy us, as easily as a man steppeth on a hill of ants. Let Toghrul Khan give the word, and in a day we shall drown in our own blood. The whole Gobi will be on us like a sea of steel! All that we have gained through such suffering and hardship, such enormous pain and fortitude, lost for a woman’s pink body and a man’s uncontrollable lust!”
Kurelen turned aside his head and gazed thoughtfully at his bowl. After a long moment, during which Jamuga’s thin panting filled the yurt, Kurelen picked up another wedge of bread, sopped it, lifted it to his mouth, and chewed. Then he slowly, still chewing, turned his face on Jamuga again, and the inscrutable expression was thicker in his eyes. But now there was a penetrating gleam in them, also.
He spoke softly: “Jamuga Sechen, Temujin hath made thee temporary khan in his place. What orders thou dost give shall be obeyed. Thou canst, for instance, give orders that we leave immediately for the winter pastures. If we move rapidly, and at once, we can be far from here by daybreak, and immensely far by the time Temujin doth commit his—folly. So far, indeed, that it would be hard to find us.” He added, even more softly: “Thou art the khan, Jamuga Sechen.”
A silence like that following a flash of lightning and a deafening crash of thunder filled the yurt. Kurelen’s eyes shone like fire as they fixed themselves on Jamuga’s rapidly paling face. He saw the sudden convulsive lift of Jamuga’s thin and pallid lip. He saw the sudden flash of Jamuga’s light blue eye. The student of men felt nothing but the most intense curiosity and speculation. He leaned forward a little, the better to see the young man in the gloom of the yurt. He smiled slightly. His whole expression became subtle and dark and watchful. He thought to himself: I have not been mistaken. In that cold and dedicated breast is the bloodless man’s insane passion for power and mastery, which he believeth can avenge him on the world of warmer men.
Suddenly Jamuga stood up, as though pricked by an intolerable pain. He turned his back to Kurelen, as though he could not endure the reflection of himself in the knowing eyes of the old man. He leaned heavily against a high chest. His head was bent on his breast.
Kurelen huddled deeply in himself, as he squatted on his cushions on the floor. He began to smile with irrepressible amusement and enjoyment. He asked himself: Will Jamuga, in his aroused lust, find some noble excuse to follow my suggestion? He will always need a noble excuse, this man without violence and loins, to accomplish the passion of his pale but vitriolic heart! Never again shall he have this opportunity, and he doth know it! He must decide between a love and loyalty which have never brought him anything but humiliation and bitterness and envy, and a last chance of seizing what he hath dreamed in his soul in his nights of impotence and livid longing.
To Kurelen, the conflicts and struggles and battles that raged in a man’s spirit were more entertaining and more exciting than those that raged about him in the external world. He knew to the utmost what Jamuga was suffering in his temptation, and he understood that if love and loyalty prevailed it would only be because Jamuga had finally conquered, subjugated and destroyed himself. And this death of the inmost heart would be a death indeed.
But he felt no pity, only amused curiosity and wry mirth.
At last he heard a deep, almost shuddering sigh. Slowly, Jamuga turned back to him. His thin and ghastly face was bedewed with cold moisture. His eyes were those of a drowned man, who had died in agony and despair. He staggered a little. He had to catch hold of the chest beside him to keep from falling. But his expression was quite calm, and when he spoke, his voice was also controlled and calm.
“Perhaps what thou hast suggested is the wisest course for all of us, Kurelen. But it cannot be. If Temujin doth perish in his folly, then we must perish, also. There can be no life for us if he doth die. He is our heart; we are only his body.”
Kurelen smiled ironically. He studied Jamuga’s face with a curious mixture of contempt and respect. He shrugged imperceptibly. He filled a goblet of wine and held it up to the young man. Jamuga took the goblet. It almost slipped from his nerveless fingers, and he had to seize it in both his trembling hands. He put it to his lips and drank deeply and desperately, as a man must drink the poisoned cup of execution. And all the time Kurelen watched him with his venomous and speculative smile.
When Jamuga had handed back the goblet, Kurelen said coldly, noting the utter exhaustion and prostrated pallor of the young man: “Jamuga, torment thyself no longer, and take a little comfort to thyself. Thou hast thought of the danger which Temujin may bring down upon himself and upon his people. Do not underestimate him: he hath, doubtless, already thought of this, himself. I grant thee that he is reckless and violent throughout all his nature. But he is no fool. Thou dost grant he is no fool?”
He waited, smiling, for Jamuga’s answer. But Jamuga was beyond speaking, beyond noticing the sardonic lift of Kurelen’s brows. He merely nodded.
“Women are precious and delightful to Temujin. But not so precious nor delightful as himself, and his own life. I can assure thee that he will return to us safely, perhaps a trifle scarred, but return he will. And he will still have the friendship of Toghrul Khan. So, comfort thyself, and be at peace.”
Jamuga bowed his head. He seemed utterly broken. He turned towards the door of the yurt, as if to go. Then he halted. He suddenly turned back to Kurelen. Something appeared to have snapped in him. He began to speak in the incoherent and rapid voice of a man who cries out because of his inner torment:
“How can we understand such a man as this? He doth understand nothing of us!”
Kurelen laughed, lightly and derisively. “Do not deceive thyself, Jamuga! He understandeth us, but we do not understand him.”
Jamuga made a disordered and abandoned gesture, the gesture of one who is utterly prostrate and broken.
“But who can read his thoughts—the thoughts of such men? They are cruel enigmas, stony faces of eternal mystery, brutal visages without tenderness or mercy!”
And then Kurelen understood that the icy fastnesses of Jamuga’s spirit had been shattered, and that he stood before him, naked and terrified and despairing, as he had never stood before another man. For a moment Kurelen was filled with rare compassion and pity. His expression became gentle and a little sad.
“Surely, Jamuga Sechen, we can never understand such men by attempting to decipher their souls by our own code. If we do, we come upon confusion. We cannot use their own code, because it is a secret one, never to be understood by us. If we even vaguely guessed, we would be stunned and incredulous, and believe that we are having a bad dream, where shadows have become
light, and light, shadows. But do not try to comprehend, lest thou go mad.”
Jamuga suddenly sat down beside him, as though his legs could no longer support him, and also because he must speak now or lose his mind because of the old pressure upon it.
“I do not comprehend! I cannot understand! I have tried to, for years, and only the gibbering face of madness hath confronted me! But what can I do?”
His words were a cry of misery and despair. He looked at Kurelen with the stark and naked face of a man whose last defenses have gone down, and who must turn to any one for help, no matter whom.
Kurelen looked at him intensely in a long silence. Pity rose in his dark and twisted heart. He no longer felt contempt for Jamuga, nor amusement.
Finally he asked gently: “What dost thou want?”
Jamuga gazed at him with dreadful despair, without speaking. And then, because he could no longer endure the understanding in the eyes of the old man, he dropped his head on his chest.
Kurelen laid his hand affectionately on his thin shoulder. It moved under his hand, and then was still.
“Jamuga, thou hast been born either too late, or too early. If the former, seek comfort in the Persian poets. If the latter, hang thyself. But, if both, go to Cathay. For what Cathay hath been, so must the world of the future be, if men are to survive.”
Jamuga, without lifting his head, asked dully: “And what hath Cathay been?”
Kurelen, without answering, reached over and opened one of his chests. He withdrew an ancient manuscript, tied with a ribbon of gold. He unrolled it. It crackled dryly. Kurelen drew a silver lamp closer on its tabouret.
He began to read quietly and slowly:
“Where is the perfect State, where man’s heart shall be at rest, and his soul at peace, and where he can live with his fellows and not long to destroy them?
“Seek this State in thine own heart, O Man, and when thou hast found it then shall it exist in all the world.
“What shall be its attributes?
“The condition where all men shall pursue perfection, but never fully attain it. Where there is gentleness with dignity, kindness with reason, learning with aristocracy, love with pride, peace with strength, mercy as wide as the earth, wisdom with humility, and knowledge with wonder.
“Respect another’s soul, O Man, and demand respect for thine own. Despise a fool above all other men. If thou be a ruler, be the first servant of thy people, without hypocrisy. Delight in what is beautiful, and be horrified by what is evil. Discipline thyself gladly for the sake of thy fellows. Love truth, for falsehood is the tongue of the slave. Speak not of money, but of friendship and God. If thou be a priest, serve God, and not men.
“Dishonor not thy soul, and thou shalt dishonor no other. Have faith, for without faith a people must perish.
“Be at peace. Be just. Remember that the world before thee is only thine own dream. Thus can no man injure thee, though he doth destroy thy body.
“Love God, and seek Him ever, with thine every breath and thine every thought and thine every word and act. He alone will not betray thee nor fail thee. In Him is the only reality.
“Believe all these things, and the perfect State is thine, and the whole world’s.”
Kurelen had finished. He waited for some word from Jamuga. But none came. But on the young man’s face there had come a quietness, like that of a man who is sleeping after great pain.
When he had finally gone away, Kurelen thought:
“Jamuga hath lost the whole world, but hath finally found his soul.”
Chapter 14
Jamuga was not the only one who wondered why Temujin was making this long journey to attend the marriage of Azara, daughter of Toghrul Khan, to the Caliph of Bokhara. Chepe Noyon speculated, cynically, Kasar, with simple bewilderment Chepe Noyon, finally, was no longer deceived. The fair Azara was the lodestar that drew the susceptible Temujin. After a while, Chepe Noyon was alarmed, but excited. What did Temujin wish to accomplish? What did he hope to accomplish?
Temujin was also wondering this. At times, he berated and ridiculed himself. But these were on the rare times when he momentarily forgot Azara’s charms. But he could not resist the impulse that drew him so inexorably to the girl. His passions were brief, wild and violent, and this passion was the wildest and the most violent he had ever experienced. The closer he came to the Karait towns, the madder he became, until finally all his thoughts, his desires, the beat of his heart, the pound of his pulses, his soul and his very breath, were entangled like helpless flies in the web of Azara’s pale bright hair. He was helpless, now, to summon his own will power, even had he desired to summon it. He could think of nothing. He was like a man dying of thirst, who sees no desert about him, no valleys, no hills, is conscious not even of his own being, but whose glaring vision is fixed only on a distant oasis. He saw Azara’s face everywhere. He heard her voice in every wind. When the sky turned pink at sunset, he saw her lips. Finally, his thirst for her became so consuming that he could barely speak, and sank into a deep moroseness and silence that no one could break.
He was not the slow-planning man who carefully lays his plots far in advance. The plots are there, shimmering but nebulous in the distance, and he was content to approach them hourly and steadily, trusting to circumstance and fate and luck to aid him, to guide him when the moment to seize has arrived. Details were not cautiously plotted for the future. The city stood before him on a hill, the thousands of cities of his life, shining and glorious but shadowy, and it was always enough for him, and would always be enough, to ride towards it inexorably, armored with luck and desire and relentlessness, and to wait until he was at the very gates before planning the last decisive campaign. Thus, he never spent himself in advance, and arrived at the last moment fresh and enthusiastic and irresistible. Neither was he hampered nor distracted with previously laid plans, and could proceed brilliantly, taking advantage of every new circumstance which presented itself, and which he could never have foreseen. Historians were later to say that every campaign he conducted was planned far into the future, to the last detail. But that was not true. Like every great man he vaguely saw the vast and glorious future, but was wise enough to conduct the immediate skirmish only, trusting to destiny to lead him on to the next, and then the next, closer at each hour to the ultimate goal. Thus he lived always in the element of surprise, both for himself and others. Not knowing exactly what he would do on the morrow, his enemies could never know, either.
Once Kurelen had told him: “He who plans for tomorrow completely is a fool. He hath failed to take into his calculations the human equation, which must always frustrate and baffle him. Too, Fate is a knave of many tricks, and delighteth in nothing more than in presenting to the plotter new labyrinths and new passes, which his plotting had not dreamed existed.”
He did not know what he would do when he arrived at the palace of Toghrul Khan. But he did know that he must see Azara, that he must hold her in his arms, that he must possess her. The ultimate stood before him in its veils. He had no doubt that he would be able to tear aside these veils, and conquer the ultimate to his own satisfaction. But just at this time he did not know how. Nor did this worry him overmuch. If Fate were a knave, it was also a capricious woman, who loved the reckless man.
Therefore, though he was reckless, he was also bold. Never did he doubt for an instant that he was irresistible.
He rode ahead of his companions and his warriors, his heavy brown coat fluttering in the cold gales, his fox-skin cap on his head, his lance in his hand, his green-blue eyes steadily but excitedly fixed forward. He did not notice the long and arduous journey. At night, he scarcely slept. He was like a man entranced, but with a deadly entrancement. His mood infected those with him. They became reckless and somber by turns, and quarrelsome.
They passed several caravans, and these Temujin encountered, egotistically satisfied when he discovered that these caravans were under his protection, and that they carried gifts for him. Those in c
harge, seeing the Mongols riding up to them, were at first alarmed, then deliriously happy upon learning their identity. On these occasions, the Mongols were received like princes, and dined and wined to stupefaction, the leaders slavishly doing them honor, and bending before them like serfs.
Among the gifts, which Temujin ordered to be delivered to his encamped people, was a necklace of glittering onyx disks set in a chain of bright pale gold and pearls, and also a bracelet. He no sooner saw them than they reminded him of Azara with her black eyes and golden hair and little white teeth. He would present them to her, himself! He took the golden casket, lined with white silk, which contained them, and carried it jealously with him. At night, he looked at them, letting them fall slowly through his fingers. They seemed warm and voluptuous to his touch. He would kiss them over and over, with mounting passion and aching desire, catching the dim lamplight on the glittering black disks, watching the reflections of the campfire on the round lustrousness of the pearls. They seemed living things to him, the holders of his love, the crystallizations of his adoration. Some alleviation of his burning torment would come to him, as he slept with them against his breast and his lips.
But when he arrived at the large Karait town, he was pale and grim with inexorable purpose. He felt that even death could not frustrate him. And he was completely certain that in some way Azara knew of the purpose of his coming, and that she awaited him, as aching and desirous and passionate as himself.
It was high noon when he and his warriors rode into the town. He had seen smaller villages, but no city like this. When he rode through the gates, he was amazed at what seemed to him countless multitudes, feverishly going about the inexplicable business of townsmen. He clattered through the narrow twisting streets, with their fetid gutters and low, flat-roofed white houses and gardens, and looked about him with the stern fierce glances of the steppe-dweller. The crowds drew back against walls to let him and his warriors pass, admiring their carriage, their horses, their rope-lariats and their sabers, but also amused at their wildness and their bronzed faces and their acrid smell. But they were more used to barbarians than the barbarians were accustomed to cities, and therefore were not unduly excited by their appearance. Hardly a week passed without some desert chieftain coming to pay his court and allegiance to the mighty Toghrul Khan. But they had never seen one with such a face and such eyes and hair as this Temujin, and he aroused comment as he passed.