Khagan to make his way through the press of people—during which time Munokhoi continued to stare at him—and as Ogedei approached, Gansukh noted with some relief that his hands were empty. For the moment, he wasn’t drinking.
From this vantage point, Gansukh had a better angle on the table where Namkhai sat and tried to see who was sitting next to him. It was Lian, and he watched her lean forward in appreciation of what Namkhai was saying. She laughed at his apparent cleverness, and Gansukh frowned. Had she witnessed the wrestling match? He did not dare try to catch her eye—not with Munokhoi watching.
“Gansukh.” Ogedei clasped him on the arm, as much to steady himself, Gansukh realized, than as a friendly gesture. His breath stank of wine. “A mighty effort this morning.”
“I am humbled, Khagan,” Gansukh said, dragging his attention away from Lian. What do I care, anyway? She isn’t any part of what I am here to accomplish.
“A toast,” Ogedei called, gesturing for his short servant with the tray of tiny cups. “A toast to our wrestlers!”
“Please, if I may, a moment, Khagan.” Gansukh held up a hand to stop the servant’s approach. He gulped as all the conversation around them suddenly died, and for a second his courage threatened to depart. Respect, he thought, locking his knees. Demand it. Earn it.
He picked up the package from the table. “Earlier today,” he said, “I saw the Khagan drinking from those tiny cups, and I wondered why you bothered. They hold so little wine. They are not worthy of your greatness, your magnitude under the all-covering sky.”
Ogedei’s eyes seemed even more unfocused than they had been the night Gansukh had visited him in his chambers. His pupils were black holes that might swallow everything—the light, the sound, the very air in the room. His mouth was starting to twist as if he were about to lunge forward and bite at Gansukh’s neck.
“I was sent here by your brother,” Gansukh continued. “Chagatai wants you to stop drinking—”
He was interrupted by a bray of laughter from across the table. “It’s the little nursemaid,” Munokhoi sneered. “Come to tell us how wine is bad for our health!”
The same suspicion was apparent in Ogedei’s face, and Gansukh knew he was perilously close to losing the Khagan’s attention, much as he had failed so badly the first day he had arrived in Karakorum. He turned his back, his spine tingling, then tore the paper off his package. With a spin around again that made the chamberlains gasp and the guards shove a step forward, he lifted the object…and revealed his gift to the Khagan.
“Chagatai said I should insist that you only drink one cup of wine a day, and here I find you drinking how many? Twenty? Thirty?” He raised his empty hand, holding the thumb and forefinger close together. “Tiny cups. Cups for children and monkeys! Just this size. Who brings such cups before the Khagan and does not perish of shame?”
He raised the cup—the wide-mouthed, enormous cup he had accidently bought at market the other day— extending it toward Ogedei, and then he slammed it down on the table with a resounding clank. “My duty is to my lord—Chagatai Khan—and the empire. He says one cup a day. I say that the Khagan should do as he pleases. You, yourself, told me this when I first came before you: the Khagan asks permission of no man. The Khagan is beholden only to himself. Drink, if you so desire; it is not for me or your brother or any of these people assembled here to say otherwise. But if you are going to drink, the great Khagan must drink from a great cup—a vessel worthy of your vastness, your magnitude, your all-conquering might.”
Ogedei’s mouth moved like he was chewing a piece of gristly meat. He looked around the table, blearily surveying the faces that turned away from his, and then he spat. And belched.
The utter silence was suddenly broken by the rasping steel hiss of blades being drawn—the guards anticipating violence, eager to carry out the Khagan’s fatal bidding.
But a slow rise of Ogedei’s arm and a waggle of his thick-fingered hand stayed their punishment. The Khagan slowly turned, leaning this way and that, his gaze moving slowly from face to face of the assembled host, all equally enthralled but desperately wishing to move aside, move away, to flee now so as to avoid the wrath they all suspected was about to erupt.
The servant with the tray of tiny cups squirmed, edging away from the Khagan. Like an animal that senses weakness in its prey, Ogedei lashed out with a wordless yell. The tray flew out of the little man’s hands, spattering the crowd with thick red wine like drops of blood.
The Khagan then whirled with surprising and sudden poise on Gansukh, his hands clawing at the warrior’s new robe. Gansukh was hauled forward until his face was a mere aid from the Khagan’s.
Ogedei’s face turned as dark as the wine, anger bringing a dangerous flush to his already ruddy cheeks. Suddenly, like a dog, he leaned forward, and his teeth snapped at Gansukh’s cheek. “I… will…do…as…I…please!” he ground out, spraying spittle on Gansukh, then drew back like a snake, lips curled in an awful, writhing snarl.
Gansukh kept silent, clamping his jaw tightly shut. He had said all that he had come to say. The Khagan would either listen or not. In the periphery of his vision, he could see the wide eyes of a few of the faces surrounding them. Flush with fear and excitement, there was no doubt in their minds that the Khagan, as soon as he could speak through his overwhelming rage, would order Gansukh to be broken—first the knees and then his ribs—before he would be placed beneath the boards so that horses could be ridden across his fractured body…a slow, suffocating, bone-cracking death for this inexplicable impudence and insult.
He did not look away from the Khagan, wordlessly challenging Ogedei to give the order. It is not a suitable death for a warrior, he thought. But that does not make me less of one.
The corner of Ogedei’s left eye began to twitch, and he forcefully shoved Gansukh away, pushing him against the table. “Give me the cup,” he snarled. “I will be the judge of whether it is worthy.”
Gansukh dropped to his knees, lowering his gaze to look down at the Khagan’s feet. “Yes, my Khan,” he murmured. His vision blurred, and he swayed, gasping for air. He heard the sound of hooves rattling against wood, and after a moment he realized it was only the echo of his own pounding heart.
Someone pressed the cup into his hands—too fearful, clearly, to give it to the Khagan himself. With shaking legs, Gansukh got to his feet and offered the vessel.
Ogedei snatched it from him. “Wine!” he shouted. “Why is there no wine in this cup?” A dozen bodies sprang forward, offering to fill the Khagan’s chalice with their own half-filled cups.
With a grunt, Ogedei turned and smashed the cup across Gansukh’s face.
Gansukh’s eyes filled with tears, and the room became a blur as he spun and fell to his hands and knees. There was blood in his mouth, and it felt like a hot coal had been ground into his cheek.
Something heavy fell against his body, and he stiffened, trying to keep from collapsing entirely to the floor. Planks. His hands clenched with panic. But it was only a man, leaning on him, clutching at his shoulders, his hot, stinking breath washing over his bloody cheek. He tried to focus on a glittering object that floated in his field of vision, and blinking through the tears, he realized it was the cup—his gift to Ogedei.
It had fared better than his cheek.
“It is a good cup,” the Khagan hissed in his ear. “Get out of my sight, young pony, before I change my mind.”
