The officer shut his mouth with a click of teeth, trying to reconcile the idea of a prince with the filthy beggar he saw before him. The yellow eyes glared through the dirt and the officer recalled the descriptions of Genghis he had heard. He nodded.
‘Come with me,’ he said, wheeling his mount.
‘And food,’ Kublai muttered, too late. ‘I would like food and perhaps a little airag or wine.’
The warriors didn’t answer and he rode after them. Tarrial and Parikh watched him go with wide eyes. They felt responsible for the man and they were reluctant to leave and go back to their lonely post in the hills.
After a time, Tarrial sighed irritably. ‘Might be an idea to stay here and find out what’s happening. We should wet our throats before reporting in, at least.’
As Kublai entered the encampment proper, he saw there were wide dirt roads running past the homes. Some of them were gers in the style he knew, but many more had been built of wood, perhaps even from the great trunks they had cut to make the clearing in the first place. There were thousands of them. Batu’s original ten thousand families had raised children in the years in the wilderness. He had expected a lonely camp, but what he saw was a fledgling nation. Lumber was plentiful and the buildings were tall and strong. He looked with interest at the ones with two storeys and wondered how the occupants would escape in a fire. Stone was rare there and the whole camp smelled of pine and oak. He realised his weary thoughts had been drifting as the officer halted before a large home somewhere near the centre of the camp. With shattering relief, Kublai saw Batu standing in front of the oak door, leaning against a wooden post with his arms crossed lightly over his chest. Two big dogs poked their heads out to see the stranger and one of them growled before Batu reached down and fondled his ears.
‘You were barely a boy when I last saw you, Kublai,’ Batu said, his eyes crinkling with a smile. ‘You are welcome in my home. I grant you guest rights here.’
Kublai almost fell as he dismounted, his legs buckling. Strong arms held him up and he mumbled thanks to some stranger.
‘Bring him in before he drops,’ he heard Batu say.
Batu’s home was larger than it looked from the outside, perhaps because there were very few partitions. Most of it was an open space, with a wooden ladder leading to a sleeping platform at one end, almost like a hayloft above their heads. The floor was cluttered with couches, tables and chairs, all haphazard. Kublai entered in front of two of the warriors, pausing on the threshold to let the dogs smell his hand. They seemed to accept his presence, though one of them watched him as closely as the two men at his back. He stood patiently while they searched him for weapons, knowing they would find nothing. As he waited, he saw the heads of children peeping down at him from the second level. He smiled up at them and they vanished.
‘You look exhausted,’ Batu said, when the warriors were satisfied.
He wore a long knife on his hip and Kublai noted how he had been ready to draw the blade at the first sign of a struggle. Batu had never been a fool and there was a legend in the nation that Genghis had once killed a man with a sharp scale of armour, when everyone thought him disarmed. There wasn’t much threat in a deel robe that stank of old urine and sweat.
‘It’s not important,’ Kublai said. ‘I have brought a message from Karakorum. From my mother to you.’ It was a relief to be able to say the words he had hidden for so long. ‘May I sit?’ he said.
Batu flushed slightly. ‘Of course. Over here.’
He gave orders for tea and food and one of the warriors went running to fetch them. The other was a small, wiry man with Chin features and a blind white eye. He took a place at the door and Kublai saw how the man winked his dead eye at the children above them before he stared ahead.
‘Thank you,’ Kublai said. ‘It has been a long trip. I only wish the news was better. My mother told me to warn you that Guyuk is coming. He has taken the army away from the city. I followed them for some days until I was sure they were coming north. I’ve stayed ahead of them, but they can’t be more than a week behind me, if that. I’m sorry.’
‘How many tumans does he have?’ Batu said.
‘Ten, with two or three spare mounts to a man.’
‘Catapults? Cannon?’
‘No. They rode like raiders on a grand scale. All the supplies were on the spare horses, at least those I saw. Cousin, my mother has risked a great deal in sending me. If it became known …’
‘It won’t come from me, you have my oath,’ Batu replied. His eyes were distant, as he thought through what he had been told. Under the silent pressure of Kublai’s gaze, he came back and focused.
‘Thank you, Kublai. I will not forget it. I can wish for more than a week to prepare, but it will have to be enough.’
Kublai blinked. ‘He has a hundred thousand warriors. You’re not thinking of fighting?’
Batu smiled. ‘I don’t think I should discuss that with you, cousin. Rest here for a few days, eat and grow strong, before you ride back to the city. If I live, I will show my gratitude - give my regards to your mother.’
‘My brother Mongke is with the khan,’ Kublai went on. ‘He is the orlok of Guyuk’s armies and you know he is no fool. See sense, Batu! I brought you the warning so you could run.’
Batu looked at him, seeing the terrible weariness in the way Kublai slumped at the table.
‘If I discuss this with you, I cannot let you go, do you understand? If Guyuk’s scouts capture you, you already have too much information.’
‘They would not dare torture me,’ Kublai said.
Batu only shook his head.
‘If Guyuk ordered it? You think too highly of yourself, my friend. I would imagine that your mother survives because Mongke has supported Guyuk so loyally. And there is only room for one on that particular tail.’
Kublai made his decision, in part because he could hardly imagine getting on a horse ever again, the way he felt at that moment.
‘I will stay until it is safe to go. Now tell me you are not thinking of attacking the khan’s army - the army that took Yenking, broke the Assassin fortress and humbled the Afghan tribes! What do you have, twelve thousand warriors at most, some of them still untried boys? It would be a massacre.’
The food and tea arrived and Kublai fell to with a will, his hunger banishing all other concerns. Batu sipped at a cup, watching him closely. Kublai was known for his intelligence. Even Genghis had remarked on the prodigy and told his brothers to look to Kublai for solutions. Batu could not ignore Kublai’s opinion when it was so completely against him.
‘If I run, I run for ever,’ he said. ‘I was there in Hungary, Kublai, five
‘Then have your people scatter in a hundred directions. Have them ride deep into the Russian steppes as herders. Tell them to bury their armour and their swords, that they might at least survive. You cannot stand, Batu.’
‘The forest is vast …’ Batu began.
Kublai had revived with the draught of salt tea and he thumped his fist on the table as he interrupted.
‘The forest will only slow them down, not stop them. Genghis climbed mountains around the Chin wall with men just like these. You say you know the army. Think, then. It is time to run. I have bought you a few days, enough to stay ahead of them. Even that is not … Well, it is all you have.’
‘And I am grateful, Kublai. I have said it. But if I run, how many of the people in this valley will still be alive a year from now? A few thousand? A few hundred even? Their lives are dedicated to me. These lands are mine, given by Ogedai Khan. No one has the right to take them from me.’
‘Why didn’t you come to Karakorum? If you had bent the knee then, if you had given your oath, there wouldn’t be an army on the way here.’
Batu sighed and rubbed his face. For a moment, he looked almost as weary as Kublai.
‘I just wanted to be left alone. I didn’t want my warriors taken for some pointless war under Guyuk. I supported Baidur, Chagatai’s son, but in the end he chose not to fight for the khanate. I can’t say I blame him. I didn’t expect the gathering to go ahead without me, but there it is. Call it vanity, perhaps, or just a mistake. It could have gone another way.’
‘But after that? When Guyuk was made khan you could still have come.’
Batu’s face grew cold. ‘To save my people, I would have done even that. I would have knelt in front of that
