Conqueror (2011)

do you understand? Everything I have done for the last five years has brought me to this point and then my bastard brother declares himself khan! Am I supposed to leave everything we have accomplished and go home, crawling on my stomach like a dog? How can I leave now?’

‘How can you not? Please, keep your voice down, or you can settle her again,’ Chabi replied. She was exhausted from lack of sleep. Her nipples ached from feeding, but she could not leave Kublai to work himself into a panic or drink himself unconscious.

‘When Tsubodai was called home from the west, he never went back,’ Kublai said, beginning to pace again. ‘Do you understand? This is my chance, my time. If I vanish, the Sung will not fall so easily again, even if I do manage to return. They will learn from this and we will have to fight for every bloody step. If I come back at all. If I’m not killed on some distant battlefield fighting my own brother! How could he do this to me, Chabi? The useless, arrogant …’

‘Don’t curse in front of the child,’ Chabi said warningly. He frowned at her.

‘She can’t understand anything, woman.’

‘Don’t “woman” me, husband. You wanted me to listen, so I’m listening, but you said you had made the decision to go home. Why have we stopped here in this cold place? Why is nothing resolved?’

‘Because it’s not a simple question!’ he snapped. His wife began to rise. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To bed.’

His mood changed and he went to her, kneeling by the couch.

‘I’m sorry. It’s just that I thought I didn’t have to watch my back from my own brother. Not from him. I thought Arik-Boke would always support me.’

Chabi ran her hand along his jaw in a caress.

‘Do you know how you’ve changed since you left Karakorum? Perhaps he has as well. Five years is a long time, Kublai. He probably still thinks of you as his scholar brother, more in love with books and strange ideas than anyone else in your family. He does not know you now. And you don’t know him, not any more.’

‘I have a letter from him,’ he said, wearily. His wife sat up, looking deep into his eyes.

‘So that is why you are so angry. What did it say?’

Kublai sighed. ‘Some part of me hoped it was all a mistake. Arik-Boke declared himself khan at almost the same time I did. He had no idea what I was doing out here. I hoped he would understand I had the right over him, but instead he wrote to me as if what he did was already set in stone.’ His temper grew again as he recalled his brother’s words, written in the hand of some distant scribe. ‘He ordered me home, Chabi. My youngest fool of a brother, writing as if he were my equal.’

‘You are not boys any longer, Kublai,’ Chabi said softly. ‘It doesn’t matter now who was born first. He has grown to manhood and he has been a khan of the homeland, your own mother’s inheritance and Mongke’s gift. He is used to leading a nation. I don’t doubt he considered your reaction, but your experience has been in the field, against enemies.’

‘A trial he will come to understand, if I face him in battle,’ Kublai said, clenching his right hand into a fist. He took a deep breath, controlling the rage that flooded through him. ‘You’re not saying he’s right?’ he demanded.

She shook her head. ‘Of course not, husband. He should have put it before the princes and senior men. He should have considered you might challenge for the great khanate before he declared. But that is in the past. It is pointless to argue what he should have done. He declared himself khan. You have to see him as a man now, not the boy you once picked up when he fell, or you told stories to. He had the same mother in Sorhatani, who practically ruled the nation for years. He had the same father, who gave his life for a khan. You both had Genghis for a grandfather. If you keep thinking of Arik-Boke as a weakling or an idiot, he could destroy you.’

‘I’ll kill him first,’ Kublai said. ‘I did not expect to be khan, Chabi. Mongke had a dozen sons. If he’d lived just a few years longer, he would have named an heir and the line would have passed smoothly. But he did not and now he is gone and instead, instead…’ He could not express the fury that filled him and only clasped at the empty air.

‘You need to find calm,’ Chabi said. ‘You need to put aside your anger and betrayal and think as a khan.’ She shook her head. ‘And you need to make the decision. Either treat him as your enemy, or give up the khanate and swear an oath of loyalty to Arik-Boke. One or the other. There is no point driving yourself to madness with this. Either way, you cannot remain in Sung lands.’

In an instant, the anger went out of her husband and he slumped as he stood before her, his shoulders drooping.

‘It’s just such a waste,’ he said softly. ‘I’ve lost good men. We’ve all suffered to carry out the orders Mongke gave me. I don’t know if he expected me to succeed or not. Maybe it’s true that he thought I’d fail and he would have to ride in and rescue me. But I am here, still standing. I could take their capital, Chabi.’

‘And you would lose the world if you do,’ she murmured wearily. ‘You’ve said all this before. Even if you win against the Sung, even if you become emperor here, you will still have to face Arik-Boke. You will have taken a khanate for the greater nation, but you will be your brother’s vassal. You would still have to go to Karakorum and swear loyalty to him.’ She sighed as the baby started to squeak and wriggle, gently putting her little finger in its mouth. Still asleep, the baby sucked greedily on it.

‘I cannot do that,’ he said, staring into the distance as if he could see all the way to the homeland. ‘I am khan, Chabi. I have the right and I will not give it up. What was he thinking to call himself khan? Do you see what he’s done to me? He had no right, Chabi. No right at all.’ He shook his head, turning again to stare into the fire.

‘When I was young, I used to dream of following in the path Ogedai laid out, but it was just a fantasy. His son Guyuk would inherit. I knew that. I understood that. When Guyuk died, Mongke was the obvious choice. He was older, respected. He’d ridden with Tsubodai into the west - he was everything I was not, Chabi. I wasn’t ready then. He used to sneer at me for the way I dressed and spoke, the books I read.’

‘I remember,’ Chabi said softly.

‘But he was right, Chabi! The things I’ve seen … no, the things I’ve done.’ He shuddered slightly as memories flashed into his mind. ‘I was an innocent. I thought I understood the world, but I was little more than a child.’

Kublai took up an iron poker and began to thrust it at the burning logs, causing a stream of bright sparks to fly into the room. Chabi shielded the little girl from the heat with her hand.

‘But I am no longer a child,’ he said, his voice grown low and hoarse. He put the poker down and faced her.

‘We were so young then, but by the sky father, I am not that young man who had never seen the swollen dead. I am khan. It is done and I would not change it.’ He clenched his fist, taking pleasure in his own strength. ‘I will not let another stand in my place.’

Both of them turned their heads as a man cleared his throat at the outer door. One of Kublai’s guards stood there, rain streaming off his oiled cloak and puddling around his boots.

‘Orlok Uriang-Khadai is here to see you, my lord khan,’ he said bowing deeply.

No one reached Kublai without being checked for weapons and passing at least two guards. Even yam riders were forced to strip to bare skin before being allowed to dress and enter his presence. Those few who had reached him had been forced to remain with his tumans, rather than have them carry back the news of his declaration. The lessons of Mongke’s death were still rippling through the nation. It explained why Uriang-Khadai was flushed with indignation as he came in out of the rain.

‘You asked to see me, my lord khan,’ the orlok said, his mouth a thin, pale line. He spotted Chabi at that moment and bowed to her, unbending enough to smile at the child in her arms.

‘My lady, I did not see you there. Is your daughter well?’

‘She sleeps all day and keeps me awake all night, but yes, she is well. It’s time for me to wake and feed her.’

Uriang-Khadai nodded, almost amiable. Kublai watched him in surprise, seeing a side of the man he had not witnessed before. Uriang-Khadai had not brought his wives or children on the campaign and it had simply not occurred to Kublai that the stern officer might be a doting father as well.

Kublai cleared his throat and Uriang-Khadai bowed again to Chabi before approaching her husband at the great fire. Kublai gestured for him to warm himself and the orlok stood with his palms outstretched, gazing into the