His heart plunged sickeningly. He thrust her roughly aside. He could see a little. A few wan beams of moonlight were struggling through the thick shade. He saw the veiled form before him, and heard a light amused laugh. The form approached him again. She was standing on tiptoe, and her lips were against his ear.
“Fear not, my lord! I am a virtuous wife, but could not resist embracing thee. Ah, thy lips are like fire! It is enough. I have come to lead thee to thy love, who awaiteth thee.”
His heart was still plunging. His senses swam. He felt his arm taken, but he could not move a step for several moments. But his mind was as clear and sharp as ice. He put his hand to the lady’s throat. She drew a sharp breath, and trembled, and pressed her warm tender flesh against his hard fingers. But they were not closing desirously on her throat, but only on a necklace which he remembered she had worn, a necklace of pearls and gold. He jerked at it fiercely; there was a slight breaking sound, and the necklace was in his hand. She cried out, faintly, fell back from him. But he suddenly seized her by the hair. One soft strand curled on his fingers. He lifted his saber and slashed it free from her head. She saw the flash of the blade in the moonlight, and uttered a muffled scream.
He smiled grimly. He caught her in his arms again, and pressed his mouth savagely upon hers, partly to stifle her cry, and partly because he remembered that she was very desirable, and that she had desired him for all her virtue. She subsided in his arms, and lay quietly, returning his kisses with a lustful passion. She put her soft palms against his cheeks, in order to hold him to her. His hand closed over her breast, and held it. She panted a little. Her breath was hot and perfumed. She seemed almost fainting in his arms, and moaned under her breath. And again Temujin’s pulses sang, and his senses were caught up in a silver spinning cloud.
But finally, after a long time, he thrust her from him again. His teeth flashed in the gloom.
“And now I have thy necklace, and a lock of thy hair, to remember thee by,” he whispered, mockingly. “A sweet remembrance! I shall treasure them forever, remembering the lovely moments I dallied with thee! But I shall also hold them as ransom, in order that thou shalt play me no tricks, my delicious one.”
He heard her panting. He knew she was full of rage. He laughed a little. “If I did not love a woman so deeply that my blood is cold to another, I should remain with thee,” he said. “But, who knoweth? Mayhap tomorrow night, in this selfsame spot?”
Now she began to laugh, almost silently. “I did not bring thee here for myself, Temujin, but to lead thee to Azara, who doth languish for thee. Have I not told thee I am a virtuous woman? But who knoweth if I shall not be here tomorrow?” She added, in a quieter tone: “Follow me.”
But he caught her arm again. “Why dost thou do this thing?”
She laughed, with a low vicious note in her laughter.
“Because I hate Toghrul Khan, and my husband, who treateth me like a dog, the Moslem serpent! And because I hate Azara, too! It will be a happy remembrance in the days to come, to know thou didst tarnish the gem reserved for the great Caliph of Bokhara, and to conjecture if Azara’s son is not the fruit of thine own loins!”
“Thou art a Christian?” Temujin was beginning to understand.
“Yes, a virtuous Christian woman, my lord.” And she laughed again, with that cold vicious laughter.
Temujin was silent. A sick spasm of contempt twisted his stomach. These women! Crafty as serpents, cruel as death, cold-hearted as stone! He, who had killed his own brother with his own hand, felt repulsion at such treachery, such lewdness and wickedness. Then he laughed to himself, with amusement at his own thoughts.
The lady was moving away. He saw her dimly beckoning. He followed, cautiously. He could hardly see her, for the light was so wan, and her movements were so spectral. They emerged from the thicket. Before them stood a long flight of white steps, shimmering in the moonlight. They mounted the steps. They reached a narrow colonnade, unguarded. They entered a faintly-lighted room, the bedchamber of the lady. No one was about. It was apparent that she had dismissed her attendants. She looked at him, and he could see her clearly. Her lips laughed at him through her veil, and her dark eyes sparkled wantonly. He thought swiftly: “My love for Azara will lead me to doom and ruin. Mayhap I could quench my desire in this golden bowl, and no longer yearn after a woman whom I dare not touch?”
She read his thoughts in his flaming eyes and suffused face. But she shook her head at him archly, and lifted a dainty warning finger. “Not tonight!” she whispered. “But who knoweth what tomorrow might bring?”
She lifted the curtain, and led him through a series of empty, lamplit luxurious rooms. She reached a tall narrow doorway of bronze, intricately chased. She opened it without a sound, and motioned him through.
On the threshold he stopped, looked at her, then seized her in his arms, and covered her mouth with his lips. She struggled a little, then sank against him. Then, after an instant or two, she pushed him away, and laughed at him with her gay and beautiful eyes.
“Save thy passion for Azara,” she said, mockingly, “or I shall be denied my revenge.”
“Tomorrow night?” he asked urgently, convinced that he must have her.
She nodded. Her teeth gleamed through her veil. “Tomorrow night, my lord, my panther!” She added: “And fear no intrusion. I have guarded against this.”
She pushed him through the doorway, then closed the door after him. He found himself in a little narrow corridor. At the end, a blue-and-gold curtain wavered in a faint wind. Now he forgot the lady of the litter, Taliph’s wife. Behind that curtain Azara waited for him, and again his heart pounded and there was no one else in all the world. He walked swiftly down the corridor, tore aside the curtain.
He had expected to find Azara standing there, awaiting him, her arms outstretched, a smile of langurous desire upon her lips. But instead, he found himself standing only in her bedchamber, lighted only by the moon. Tt was a vast room, and the floor was covered by Persian carpets. A delicate scent, fragile and illusive, filled the warm dim air. For a moment he could sec nothing, then slowly the objects in the room took vague form. Near a distant wall was Azara’s couch, and she was lying upon it, asleep.
Chapter 18
It appeared to him that the sudden thundering of his heart must sound through all the palace like arousing drums, and would instantly bring armed guards with torches, shouting. In a moment he would be surrounded, he would be overpowered and murdered. His breath came loudly. He trembled.
But there was no sound. The arousing drums were only his own body. The moonlight streamed into the apartment, bringing with it the dark and scented night wind and the singing of the nightingales. Beyond the doors he knew that guards paced, alert and listening, for he could hear the faint slithering of their steps. The lock on the casket was well guarded, but the hinges had been broken, by a treacherous and vengeful woman.
He knew that he must move with the utmost silence. And so, shaking in every limb, he approached Azara’s couch, and stook there, looking down at her.
She slept like a child, her cheek in her curved hand, her wondrous hair streaming over her shoulders and breast like a gleaming cloak. The moonlight bathed her with its pallid light. She lay in a circle of dreamlike radiance, breathing softly and gently. He saw the circles of her yellow lashes, closed and tender and innocent. He saw the movement of her pure and youthful breasts, the curve of her hip and thigh under the coverlet of cloth-of-gold. But he saw also how pale she was, how marked with suffering her gentle and beautiful young face.
He stood there, gazing at her, thinking to himself that he was looking at all the world, and that all his life and desires were centered in that sleeping girl. The hotness of his blood subsided, became cool, and he was filled with an infinite sadness and love, and a passionate tenderness. He wanted to kneel beside her, and gently kiss her hand, which hung down over the side of the couch. He wanted to bury his face in her hair, and forget everything but how much
he loved her. It seemed to him that if he did so, all the pain and fever in his heart would subside, and he would be at peace.
He knelt beside her, not touching her, only filling his eyes with her nearness. He knew that she had not sent for him, and that she slept, trusting in him to help her, how, she did not know. Some of the acute prescience of love told him that she slept so for the first time in many nights, trusting in him, resting in the knowledge that he was under the same roof that sheltered her also.
He thought to himself: Shall I go? Without disturbing her, without alarming her? He felt in his breast. The gold-and-jet necklace he had brought for her moved into his hand. He could lay this on her pillow, and tomorrow she would know he had been there, and that he had given her a promise. But what promise would it be? What could he do?
He was drowned in a wave of despair. In quarters outside the palace his warriors waited. He could call them. But they would be overpowered by the soldiers in the palace and the city. He could wake her, take her from her father’s house, and ride away from this accursed place, into the desert and the mountain and the barrens. But what then? Vengeance would ride after him. He did not know what to do!
The young Mongol, who had never been truly desperate before, truly impotent, could only kneel there, trembling, enraged at his own helplessness, biting his lips, clenching his fists. And Azara continued to sleep, smiling trustfully.
He said to himself: I came only to possess her, to quench my lust in her, and then to abandon her to whatever fate her father had designed for her. I came only for a day, and then to ride away, satisfied, forgetting. But I cannot do this, now. I do not desire this. For, no matter how long I live, or where I go, I shall never forget her, and my life shall be an everlasting torment without her. And he was consumed with an objective wonder.
He was brought out of his despair, for Azara was stirring. She was sighing deeply. Her hands moved. Then she smiled again. He bent over her. His breath touched her cheek. Then simply, without a sound, as though she had not really been sleeping, she opened her eyes, and fixed them fully on his face.
He lifted his hand quickly, as though to put it over her mouth if she were about to utter a startled cry. But she did not cry out. She did not move. Only her eyes widened, but not with surprise. It was as if she believed she was still dreaming, and that her dream had become reality. She smiled, a smile of infinite joy and peace and love. Tears welled up into her eyes, spilled onto her cheeks, swiftly. Then she turned to him as a child who has been in pain turns, and held up her arms to him.
He hesitated. He could not move! Lustful and exigent with women, responding savagely to them, he could not touch this girl, who looked at him like this, innocently and simply, with an unawakened passion of rapture. An enormous shame fell over him. He felt that it would be sacrilege to touch her, a blasphemy for which the spirits would blast him to dust. He could only look at her, all his soul despairingly, hungrily, in his eyes.
“I knew thou wouldst come,” she said, and again, with joy: “I knew thou wouldst come!”
Then suddenly he buried his face in her breast, holding her as though he would never let her go. He could hear the swift rising beat of her heart, beating with mingled terror and ecstasy. Her flesh was as soft as velvet, and scented. He felt her hands fluttering on his head, and then they were still, like birds that had come to rest. He heard her murmuring and sighing, and then he knew she was weeping.
“I shall never leave thee, my love,” he said. “I have come, and shall never leave thee again.”
In the warm swimming moonlight outside, drenched in the perfume of roses, the song of the nightingales rose triumphantly, but with an unbearable sound of rapture and joy.
Chapter 19
Impotence was a new sensation for the young Mongol. Especially was it unendurable when that impotence was forced upon him by those he despised.
He was torn by alternate gales of despair and rage. The night with Azara had merely intensified his desire for her, and his love. He had promised her that he would never leave her. He had promised this to other women, also, and lightly, never meaning it. But now he meant it. When he thought of her innocence and beauty, and gentleness of spirit, he was forced to rise, though already exhausted, and pace up and down in a veritable fever of anguish, clenching his fists and rolling his head from side to side. The wildest plans rushed through his mind, but his reason rejected all of them with passionate contempt. If he only had time! Then he might force matters, become increasingly powerful, and boldly demand the girl from her father, and not be refused. But he had no time. In less than seven days Azara would be the bride of the Caliph, who was already on his way to claim her.
What could he do? He did not know. He might flee with her, but even if he were able to get beyond the city, his days with her would be brief. Then utter ruin, and death, not only for himself and Azara, but for all his people. Even his love and passion were not able to blind that cold dispassionate part of his spirit which was never deceived. Therefore, he knew the cost was too great for that brief ecstasy.
He seemed to see himself wandering in a labyrinth, returning only to the place where he started. But his agony would not let him rest.
When Chepe Noyon and Kasar awoke, refreshed, when the dawn was pink in the eastern skies, they found Temujin still walking back and forth, alternate light and shadow falling on his haggard face. Chepe Noyon was surprised.
“What, my lord! Hast thou risen so early?”
Temujin regarded him in dark and gloomy silence, resumed his pacing. Then, because much of his self-control was shattered, he burst out into incoherent speech. Chepe Noyon listened, at first indulgently, then with active horror. The pure gem for the crown of the Caliph was tarnished! Temujin had committed the unpardonable crime, had ravished the lily and desecrated the fountain. Chepe Noyon stood up and exclaimed in a low rapid voice:
“We must leave at once, my lord, and pray to the eternal spirits that we be clear of the city before this hath been discovered!”
Temujin stared at him with bitter anger. He watched Chepe Noyon dress, buckle on his sword. The gay humorous face of the young nokud was grim and tense, such as it had never been in battle.
“Hark thee, Chepe Noyon. We shall not go. I have never been balked before, and I shall not be balked now!”
Chepe Noyon was aghast. He actually stammered when he spoke:
“My lord! Thou art not serious? What canst thou do? What wouldst thou do?”
Temujin shook his head with despairing fury. “I know not. I know not why I have told thee, for thou hast nothing to offer. But this I do know: I shall not leave this girl.”
Dumfounded, Chepe Noyon sat down and gazed at him with distended eyes.
Kasar, who had been listening, open-mouthed, looked helplessly from one to the other. His slow mind was a long time in absorbing what he had heard. When he did so, he uttered a wild cry.
Temujin regarded them with the utmost black contempt and anger.
“Ye sit there, gaping at me, and have nothing to offer but flight! Flee then. I shall remain.”
Chepe Noyon, slightly recovered, answered gravely: “Lord, thou knowest we cannot leave thee, even if we desired to do so. Thou art our khan. If thou dost remain, to thy death, then we must remain, also.
“Forgive me if I attempt to reason with thee. Think me not insolent. But thou hast said, thyself, that thou dost not know what to do. The maiden is beautiful, but so are thousands of other women. And all women are the same, in the blindness of night. Thou knowest this. Thou hast gone too far to bring ruin upon thyself for the sake of one woman out of a world of women.”
Suddenly the young man, always so gay and cynical, burst out grimly:
“A curse on the wench! She hath bewitched my lord!”
Temujin put his hand to his aching forehead. “Thou art right,” he said, with simple anguish, “she hath bewitched me. My heart is gone.”
“But I have another suggestion, my lord: a woman’s bed is a
cure for a man’s passion. Enjoy her all thou wilt, and then, when the moment cometh, thou wilt leave her, and forget.”
Temujin’s brows drew together. “I shall never forget. I love her.”
Chepe Noyon suppressed a smile. He was greatly relieved, for he saw that Temujin was weighing his advice.
But now the faithful Kasar burst out vehemently: “My lord, if thou wishest this woman, then I shall seize her for thee with mine own hands, and defy a whole garrison!”
Temujin laughed drearily, but some of the tension relaxed in his face. He put his hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“I believe thou wouldst really do this, Kasar! But the matter is not so simple.” He looked at Chepe Noyon. “Thou hast spoken with judicious wisdom. I shall visit her for the whole seven nights. Perhaps then I shall be released from the spell. If not, at least I shall have some small measure of self-control. Just at this moment, I cannot think at all.”
He bathed, combed his red hair, partook of the breakfast brought to him and his companions. His expression was lighter. But he was thinking.
Then he recalled the bishop. The skeptical Mongol, derisive of priests and their magical deceptions, yet began to wonder if this old man with the illuminated face might not be able to conjure, to create miracles. But more than this, he was brother to the world’s mightiest emperor, who was lord of a thousand walled cities and countless legions of cavalry and soldiers. Who was Toghrul Khan compared to this man? A pretty chieftain, a rabbit! Temujin suddenly shouted aloud, with exultation.
He clapped his hands. A servant appeared at once. Temujin told him imperiously to go to the bishop and request that he grant the lord Temujin an audience as soon as possible. Chepe Noyon listened to this extraordinary command with raised eyebrows, but made no comment.
The servant returned and announced, with open surprise, that the bishop would see the noble lord Temujin at once.
Temujin’s spirits rose hilariously. Without a word to Chepe Noyon, he followed his guide to the austere and simple apartments of the bishop. The old man was lying on his couch, and a servant was rubbing his tired and twisted feet. But he greeted Temujin with a smile of the purest sweetness, and was apparently neither surprised nor curious at this visit. Temujin bowed low before him, as one bowed to a great prince, and then seated himself on the floor beside the old Chinese.