Kublai closed his eyes and bowed his head, breathing so hard and fast he felt his blood heat soar and his face grow flushed with every beat of his heart. He could surrender, or he could fight to the last man, the worst of all decisions. He wiped blood from his cheek in a spasm of anger, but Arik-Boke’s men were shouting and the formations were moving again, as if to counter a new threat. Kublai’s head jerked up, his breath held in his throat.
Not a reserve, then! Arik-Boke was already shifting his banners around, moving them away under a shield of tumans. Kublai felt dizzy and ill as his pounding pulse dwindled in his ears. He had known the agony of defeat, accepted it. He was not certain what he would have done, even then, but as the men around him shouted and cheered, he bawled with them, waving his sword to the tumans coming in at full speed.
‘Lay down your swords!’ Kublai shouted to the enemy.
His generals took up the cry, then his minghaan officers, then the men who ran each jagun of a hundred. In moments, thousands of voices were yelling the order at Arik-Boke’s men and all the time, six tumans were galloping closer, fresh and deadly with full quivers and unbroken lances. Kublai repeated his order and his tumans repeated it like a chant. Uriang-Khadai pulled them back further, opening a new space between the armies. No one raced to close the gap and the tumans of Arik-Boke sat their mounts in stunned silence, watching sixty thousand men riding hard at them.
Kublai didn’t see the first of Arik-Boke’s men to throw his sword to the ground, followed by the empty quiver from his back. The officer was a senior minghaan and his thousand copied the gesture. Many of them dismounted and stood by their horses, their chests heaving. It spread through Arik-Boke’s tumans, one after the other, beginning with those furthest away from their khan. By the time Kublai could read the banners of Bayar and Batu Khan with him, only a single tuman with Arik-Boke remained armed and ready, surrounded by their own men calling on them to surrender.
Arik-Boke’s last tuman waited in grim silence as Uriang-Khadai gathered his tumans in silent ranks and Bayar and Batu Khan came into range with bows ready.
Under that threat, with a fresh army against them, the last tuman threw down their swords and walked away from the small knot of bannermen with Arik-Boke. He roared at their backs in furious anger, but they ignored him.
Kublai rode with the feeling that he had never been in more danger that day. He did not have to order his generals to form up around him. A single arrow could take his life and then Arik-Boke might yet rally his tumans again. He did not doubt his brother would fight to the end and leave the nation weak and wounded. He nudged his horse forward across the battlefield, not looking left or right as his men shouldered aside warriors they had been trying to kill just before.
It seemed to take an age before he found Arik-Boke. His brother looked older, Kublai saw, his ruined nose bright red with emotion. He still carried a drawn sword in his hand and Kublai murmured a command to those at his back. They bent their bows with an audible creak, a dozen shafts focused on one man who stared balefully at Kublai.
‘Surrender, brother,’ Kublai called to him. ‘It’s finished now.’
There was a bright gleam in Arik-Boke’s eyes as he glared round at his men. His face was well made for the contempt he showed them and he leaned over to hawk and spit on the ground. For an instant, Kublai thought he would kick his horse forward at him and die, but his brother shook his head as if he could hear the thought. Slowly, he opened his hand and let the wolf’s-head sword fall onto the grass.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Kublai stood alone in the throne room of the palace in Karakorum, looking out of the open window over the roofs of the city below. He hadn’t noticed the grime and odour he carried with him before entering the palace. The clean rooms with the polished stone floors made him feel oddly out of place, like an ape in a garden. He smiled at the thought, imagining how he must look. The armour he wore was a far cry from the scholar’s robe he had worn for much of his youth. Palms that had once been ink-stained were ridged with sword callus. He held up his right hand with a wry expression, seeing the pale scars on the skin. The grime that had worked its way into every seam and crevice of his fingernails was a mixture of blood, earth and oil.
He had not seen the city of his youth for many years and from the first steps through the gate, he had been struck by both the familiarity and the differences. The short ride through the streets to reach the palace had been a surreal experience. In his years away, he had entered many Sung cities, too many to count or remember. Karakorum had once seemed large and open to him, a place of wide streets and strong houses. To the man who came home, it was somehow small and shabby. None of the people within the walls had ever seen the delicate gardens and streams of a Sung city, or the vast hunting parks that were being shaped in Xanadu. Even the palace library where he had spent countless hours had shrunk in his absence, once golden treasures failing to live up to his memories. Walking alone through the palace corridors, he had visited many of the places of his youth. In the room where he had once slept, he found the spot where he had carved his name in oak. Standing there, he had lost himself in reverie for a time, tracing the primitive lettering.
Even the palace gardens were different, with shaded rows of trees grown huge. They changed the views and altered the sense of the garden, spreading patterns of shadows so that nothing looked the same. He had sat for a time at the bench and pergola built after Ogedai’s death. There had been peace there, as the pale blossoms of a cherry tree stirred in the wind around him. The war was over. He had realised it truly as he sat there in the silence. All he had to do was rule.
The knowledge should have filled him with joy, but he could not shake the feeling of disappointment that weighed on him, as if all his years at war had won him only echoes of memories. He tried to dismiss the sensation as nostalgia, but the reality hung in the thick summer air, already sweet with the smouldering herbs that were said to ward off disease.
With an effort, he turned away from the window looking out over the streets below. If Karakorum was flawed, it was still the first city of his people, the boundary marker that Ogedai Khan had built to take them from nomadic tribes to a settled nation. It had been a grand dream, but he would do better in Xanadu. He would do better as emperor of China, with all the wealth of those vast lands at his disposal. Kublai realised he would have to appoint a governor for Karakorum, someone he could trust to make the city bright and clean again. Uriang-Khadai sprang to his mind and he considered the idea carefully, finally nodding to himself.
The place Kublai thought of as home had become a city of strangers. His place was in Xanadu, a bridge between the lands of the Chin and the Mongol homeland, exactly as he had planned it. From there, he would send out the tumans to dominate the Sung for all time. He clenched his fist as he stood in the silence. They had almost fallen to a Mongol general. They
He heard footsteps approaching the polished copper doors that closed off the room from the rest of the palace. Kublai gathered his will once again, ignoring the weariness that made his legs and arms feel leaden. He had ridden and fought all day. He stank of horses and blood and the summer sun was setting at last, but there was still one thing he had to do before he could bathe, eat and sleep.
There were no servants there to answer the fist thumping on the outer door. No doubt they had all vanished as the conqueror came into the city, expecting slaughter and destruction. As if he would harm a single one of his people, the nation of his birth. He crossed the room swiftly and heaved open the copper doors. He was not aware of how his right hand dropped to his sword hilt, an action that had become part of him.
Uriang-Khadai and Bayar stood there, with his brother between them. Their expressions were grim and Kublai did not speak, gesturing for them to enter. Arik-Boke was forced to shuffle forward, his feet tied so he could take only the smallest of steps. He almost fell and General Bayar gripped him by the shoulder to keep him upright.
‘Wait outside,’ Kublai said softly to the two men.
They bowed briefly without protest, sheathing their swords as they went. Uriang-Khadai pulled the doors shut and Kublai watched the gap close on the orlok’s cold eyes.
He was alone with his brother, for the first time in many years. Arik-Boke stood with his arms behind his back, straight and strong as he looked around the room. The only sound was the hissing wheeze from the old scar across his nose. Kublai looked for some sign of the boy he had known, but the face had coarsened, grown heavy and hard, as Arik-Boke’s eyes glittered under the inspection.
