Then, gently but firmly, Subodai disengaged himself. Bortei attempted to cling to him, but his hands were inexorable. He seemed to push her away without violence, but this was just seemingly, for when he had released himself from her last clutch, she staggered backwards and fell on her couch. She sat there, panting, her hair disordered, her lips open, showing the glisten of her teeth.
Subodai smiled whitely; he bowed to her. “And that is all thou dost wish of me, Bortei?” he asked in a quiet and ironic voice.
She glared at him, and did not move. He bowed again. “If it is so, then I must refuse. Thou wilt forgive me, tomorrow, I know. But spare me thy gratitude.”
He turned away, still smiling that strange fixed smile. He took a step from her. She watched him. Then she uttered a shrill and savage cry. She flung herself upon her knees; she tore her garments from her shoulders and her breast. Her bosom was like twin moons, and glimmering. She grasped him about the knees, and laid her cheek fiercely to them.
“Thou darest not leave me! I shall not let thee go, Subodai! I love thee; I cannot live without thee!”
He struggled to release himself. His face was damp with sweat and horror. He closed his eyes, to shut out the sight of her nakedness. She clung to him like a serpent; she began to laugh, deeply, in her throat.
Suddenly they heard a muffled cry, the sound of some one entering. Subodai stood upright, glaring and breathing heavily. But Bortei, too paralyzed with terror, did not move. Her arms still clutched the young paladin; she looked over her shoulder at Jamuga, standing there, his face ghastly with fury and hatred and loathing.
“Thou foul wanton!” he exclaimed. “Thou iniquitous whore!’
Now Bortei’s arms fell from Subodai’s knees. She squatted there before Jamuga, her hair on her shoulders, her breast exposed. Her face was idiotic with fear and rage and shame.
Jamuga, trembling, turned to Subodai. “Leave us!” he commanded. In those moments he was a khan in truth, no longer proud and timid and haughty. Subodai, white as death, inclined his head. He hesitated. Then, after a long deep look into Jamuga’s distended eyes, he left the yurt, moving without haste, but in his own quick way.
Alone with the woman, rage fell on Jamuga. His eye sought out Temujin’s whip. He bent and seized it. Bortei watched him, unable to rise. She saw Jamuga lift the whip; she winced. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream. She heard the whip whistle, and felt its searing tongue on her bare shoulders and breast. She rolled from her knees and lay on the floor, trying to protect herself with her arms. But the whip was relentless. It fell again and again, cutting her flesh, leaving scarlet ribbons on her white body. But there was no sound from either her or Jamuga, just the mad flailing of the whip and its whistling.
Then he had done. She lay motionless on the floor, gasping, her head hidden in her arms. Jamuga flung the whip from him.
“Bitch!” he said in a low voice. And that was all.
He left her, stumbling blindly through the night. Reaching a sheltered spot, he fell down, moaning with tearing anguish.
Bortei, alone, began to sob. She writhed in her torment. She sat up, putting aside her hair. She glared about her. Her eyes fell on the whip, in which strands of her hair were entangled. Suddenly her face became distorted with fury and hatred. She pushed herself slowly to her feet, her head hanging, her breath hoarse in her throat. Swaying, as she stood, she examined her injuries. They were many.
Her arms dropped to her sides. Then she smiled evilly.
Jamuga did not yet know it. But he had marked himself for death. It would take some time. But inevitably, he had marked himself.
Subodai found Jamuga, almost at dawn, lying prostrate in the shadow of his yurt. He had been unable to summon the strength to climb upon the platform. Without speaking, the young paladin helped him inside, and laid him upon the couch. He poured wine, and forced Jamuga to drink it.
“What shall we do?” he asked, when Jamuga seemed to have recovered some part of his strength.
Jamuga shook his head. He said, grimly: “Nothing. The woman will never dare to speak. As for us, we must keep our silence.”
Then suddenly he began to weep, like a woman.
Chapter 27
Shortly after dawn, Jamuga, finally overcome by exhaustion, fell asleep. He did not dream. His collapse was too profound. So it was that Subodai had to call him several times before he awakened. He sat up. The sunlight was warm and brilliant as it streamed into the yurt.
Subodai’s pale face was shining with joy. “Our lord hath returned!” he cried. “Our sentinels have sighted him to the east!”
Jamuga stood up; he staggered. He almost fell. Subodai helped him to put on his coat and buckle his belt. The young paladin’s hands were sure and calm, and he smiled. They went out together.
The camp was already in a state of intense excitement and joy. Everything was forgotten, save that Temujin had returned. The people thronged the narrow winding streets between the yurts. The dogs barked furiously. The women began to sing and the minstrels strummed their fiddles, and boys began to beat drums. Kokchu emerged from his yurt, attended by his young priests. He was gorgeously arrayed. Kurelen, smiling wryly, stood beside him. Only Houlun was not there, nor Bortei. But finally Bortei appeared, clothed and tranquil, but colorless. Even in his fury, Jamuga had remembered to spare her face, and it was untouched. She held her child in her arms, wrapped in a white fur robe.
On the eastern horizon was a cloud of swiftly approaching dust. It caught the sun and shone, a golden halo of drifting light. They could hear the faint drumming of hoofs.
“The lord hath returned!” chanted the minstrels and the women. “He hath come unto his people, like the sun out of the heavens! He hath given us the light of his countenance, and the glory of his smile! What have we feared in the darkness? What have we dreaded? We do not remember; we have forgotten! The lord hath returned!”
The yellow river glinted in the sunshine. A string of gray geese moved across the sky. The herds were excited, and bellowed, and the horses neighed.
The people surged out to meet their khan. The warriors held their lances, and sat monumentally on their horses, their faces graven. The children screamed.
The simple people had indeed forgotten. But there were a few who had not. Kurelen, Subodai, the nokud, Bortei and Kokchu, waited, watching. Was the Persian woman with Temujin? They were chill with fear and alarm. If so, then this joy was but a respite before horrors and death and endless flight from vengeance.
Now, through the golden dust they could see the galloping horsemen, and the glittering tips of the lances, and the fluttering of the banners. But no woman was with the horsemen. They rode alone.
Kurelen drew in a deep whistling breath of thankfulness. He turned to Jamuga, rigid and gray-lipped, beside him. “Our fears were groundless,” he said in a low voice.
But Jamuga said nothing. He had fixed his eyes ahead.
Temujin and his warriors were greeted with shouts and cries of joy, which the brown and purple barrens flung back, ringingly. The whole earth seemed to rejoice. The people surged about the returning men; women seized the bridles of the horses, and looked up, their faces streaming with tears and bright with happiness. The warriors, laughing, dismounted, and embraced their women and their children. The air resounded with the babble of voices and the great excitement. The minstrels shouted louder, and the drums beat on the ears.
Temujin, dust-stained and unsmiling, dismounted from his horse. Kurelen and the nokud, Jamuga and Subodai and Kokchu, approached him, pushing their way through the excited throngs. Kurelen looked at Temujin, and thought: He hath aged. His flesh hath dissolved from his bones. This is a man who hath suffered awful agony, and who will never rid himself of its scars. But he smiled at his nephew and embraced him.
“Welcome, my nephew. Never have I rejoiced more than now.”
Bortei approached. She smiled languidly, and laid her hand on Temujin’s arm. He looked down at her as though he did not see her.
His lips moved in a slight convulsion. Then he received the greetings of his nokud and his paladins. He seemed bemused, and though he kept inclining his head it was evident that he heard little. Before Kokchu had finished his elaborate speech of greeting, Temujin began to push his way towards his yurt. Chepe Noyon and Kasar remained behind.
Kurelen plucked at Chepe Noyon’s sleeve. The others gathered about, furtively, making a small island of conspiracy in the midst of the colorful and laughing people.
“What!” whispered Kurelen. “No woman?”
Chepe Noyon shook his head. He glanced swiftly after Temujin’s retreating back. The young noyon did not smile.
“No woman,” he said briefly.
But Kasar, the simple, was not so taciturn. He was caught up in the general excitement and glad to be at home.
“She killed herself,” he said loudly and frankly. “She sacrificed herself for our lord.”
“Hush!” said Chepe Noyon sternly. “Hush!” cried the others, glancing fearfully over their shoulders. The people near at hand, sensing some drama, looked at them hopefully and curiously.
Chepe Noyon spoke in a loud and casual voice.
“Toghrul Khan gave us no women. But he filled our hands with treasures. Is that not enough?”
The people laughed pridefully. They forgot the small group standing together, with stiffly smiling faces.
Kurelen said: “Come with me.” Subodai, Chepe Noyon, Jamuga, and Kasar, followed him. They did not speak until they were inside Kurelen’s tent, and then they sat down and drank his good wine.
“Now, tell us,” said Kurelen, briefly.
Chepe Noyon told them in short words, Kasar excitedly supplying any missing details. When he had finished they all sank into silence. Kurelen appeared much moved, and enormously relieved. He shook his head.
“From what thou dost tell me, Chepe Noyon, this was a beauteous and wise woman. But tell me this: is Temujin inconsolable?”
“He hath not spoken her name since she died.”
Kurelen sighed deeply. “Ah, that is bad. His eyes are sleepless. He hath been stricken to the heart. I doubt he will fully recover.”
“The world is full of beautiful women,” said Chepe Noyon.
Again, Kurelen shook his head. He seemed to speak to himself:
“But there doth come a time in a man’s life when there is only one woman. Temujin hath known this one. He will have many others, but none shall take her place. I suffer with him.”
Chepe Noyon, who believed this pure sentimentality, raised his brows and shrugged.
“She had hair like the morning sun,” said Kasar, with solemn relish. “Her face was like a flower, in the spring, when the desert doth bloom. I saw her but once, and I knew that she was a dream among women.”
“Oh, thou art a chattering and vulgar goat!” remarked Kurelen, absently. “But tell me, Chepe Noyon: who doth know of this besides thee, and Kasar?”
“None. The warriors know only that Azara died, and there would be no wedding.”
Kurelen regarded Kasar sternly, and the young man winced like a child.
“Hold thy tongue, Kasar, thou babbler! Tell no one of this.”
Jamuga, despite his own preoccupation with his miseries, felt a deep sadness and compassion. Now that Azara was no longer a menace, he could regret the death of so much beauty and love, and he could feel an answering anguish for Temujin. He wanted to go to Temujin, but remembered that Temujin had spoken to no one, and had gone to his yurt like an animal that has been mortally stricken. And then he remembered his own precarious and wretched state, and was again preoccupied.
Bortei gave it out that the young khan was greatly tired from his journey, and wished to sleep. Even she was forbidden his yurt. A double guard was posted about the tent, to warn away exigent visitors. But Temujin was not sleeping. He was not even lying down. The guards could hear his hurried and stumbling footsteps within, going back and forth for hours. They could hear his sighs, his low incoherent exclamations. They exchanged impassive glances, but no words.
At sunset, he called for food, but ate it alone, inside his yurt. When the sun finally stood like a red plate on the horizon, he sent for Subodai and his nokud, for their reports. They found him pale and worn, but calm. His feverish eyes sparkled greenly in the lamplight. He noticed Jamuga’s absence, and inquired the reason. It was Subodai who replied, tranquilly and straightly:
“Much hath happened in this time, my lord. And Jamuga hath requested me to tell thee, myself.”
Temujin stared. He gazed at Subodai over the lip of his goblet.
“What is the matter? And why is Jamuga such a coward?”
Subodai hesitated. “Jamuga is no coward. It might have been better had he been so.”
Temujin grunted. He put down his goblet. “Well, speak,” he said shortly.
Alone in his yurt, Jamuga waited. The sun fell, and darkness came out with its bristling stars. The moon rose, filled with light. The howling of distant wolves came on the endless wind. The campfires blazed, then died down to smoldering ruins. The city of tents fell into silence.
Jamuga’s heart was beating now with a cold terror and despair. He still waited. The hours were filled with menace. He did not know what he feared, but he was paralyzed with his fear. Now he was sure that Temujin would never forgive him, and that he was torturing him tonight as a prelude to worse torture.
Some one was plucking at the flap of the yurt. Jamuga started, and his face streamed with sudden water. Subodai stood there, smiling.
“Our lord doth request thy presence in his yurt, Jamuga Sechen.” And then seeing Jamuga’s agony, he laid his hand on his shoulder.
“Calm thyself, Jamuga. It is not so very bad.”
Chapter 28
Jamuga found Temujin among three or four of his nokud, and Chepe Noyon. They sat in silence, and every eye was fixed on the wretched young man as he entered. Temujin’s eyes, sunken and febrile, regarded him piercingly. He did not smile. Jamuga thought that he had never seemed so ferocious, so inhuman, so relentless, as he did at this hour.
Temujin did not ask him to sit down. And so Jamuga stood before him, waiting. His fear and despair had gone. He was prepared for the worst. This was not his anda who sat before him, not his brother, not his friend. It was an inexorable monster, without mercy, gray-lipped like stone, and full of terribleness. Expecting nothing but death now, Jamuga could be calm.
He made himself speak: “I do not know if they have told thee, Temujin, but I have ordered the imprisonment of thy mother, Houlun, for insolent language and defiance.”
He was appalled at his foolish words, and wondered if it had been his own voice which had uttered them. And then, to his intense amazement, he saw that Temujin had begun to smile, as though with involuntary amusement. The smile darkened rather than lightened his face, but it was actually a smile, and Jamuga, with the keen instinct of the sensitive man, knew it was Temujin’s first smile in many days. The others were surprised, and exchanged glances. Then, they, too, smiled, with immense relief. The air of tension in the yurt relaxed. Chepe Noyon even chuckled.
“Well, then, Jamuga Sechen, it doth seem thou art less of a coward than I,” said Temujin, with grim jocularity. “I would never have dared to do so. I salute thee as a courageous man.”
Jamuga, completely bewildered, could only stare in miserable silence. He did not understand Temujin’s amusement. And then he was completely undone when he heard Temujin’s hard and bitter laughter, which came reluctantly, pushing itself up like water through layers of congealed rock. He heard the laughter of the others; he saw Subodai nodding to him encouragingly, and sensed his relief. Baffled, he could only stare at Temujin, dumbly, wondering what had occasioned all this.
The icy torment on Temujin’s face had lightened when he had done. Even when the sternness had returned to it, the darkness had lifted measurably.
“Jamuga Sechen, it is not my way to condemn any one without hearing his own defense.” He paused.
He fixed his eyes inexorably on Jamuga’s, and Jamuga’s heart sank again, for Temujin had not called him his anda. “Speak; what hast thou to say?”
Jamuga sighed; his colorless lips parted. “Only this, Temujin: that I believe I did no wrong. I would do it again.”
The others exchanged looks of consternation, and Subodai seemed alarmed and regretful at these quiet but bold words.
“Ah,” said Temujin, thoughtfully. He held out his goblet, and Chepe Noyon filled it. He drank slowly, not removing his eyes from Jamuga’s face. Jamuga sighed again, as though his heart were bursting. He looked away from Temujin. He encountered the unfriendly and stolid countenance of Agoti, who sat in smug triumph and satisfaction. I am undone, he thought.
Temujin put aside his goblet. He licked his lips. At the corners of them there was a slight twitching. His eye slowly travelled about his nokud.
“I know ye have your own opinions as to the wisdom of what Jamuga Sechen hath done,” he said indifferently. “But I am glad that ye obeyed him. Had ye not, I would have visited my vengeance on ye.”
Utter amazement seized them. They looked at one another with expressions of imbecility, and blinked. Only Chepe Noyon and Subodai smiled, and Chepe Noyon winked at the other man. Temujin observed all this, and again his lips twitched.
“Go, now, all of ye, and accept, again, my thanks for your obedience and loyalty.”
In the profound silence that followed his words, they got to their feet, saluted, and left the room. None looked at Jamuga, except Subodai, and his smile was sweet and encouraging.
Alone with his anda, Temujin smiled again, that hard and reluctant smile. He reached for another goblet, filled it. “Sit thee down beside me, and drink,” he said.
Jamuga’s trembling legs collapsed under him. He sat down. He took the goblet in his nerveless fingers. He put it to his lips. But he could not swallow. And Temujin watched him with those green unwinking eyes.