The Mongoliad: Book One

something shift inside him, he let go.

When he opened his eyes, his hands were empty. The box—rather, the three intricate pieces that it was comprised off—lay on the floor. He pushed aside the pieces to reveal the secret contents of the puzzle box. It took him a moment to make sense of it, in its startling simplicity.

It was a green twig—a sprig cut from a tree. Despite its time in the box, away from soil and light, it was still supple, with tight, youthful bark—and one soft, tiny yellow-green leaf.

He raised the sprig to his nose; it smelled like…the mud along a riverbank in the spring, when the ground was redo-lent with young sprouts. When he put his fingertip on the leaf, he could almost feel it pulse like a miniature heart.

Sleep eluded him.

Opening the box had not solved its mystery, and after an hour of lying on his bed, staring at the sprig, rolling it gently in his fingers, he had wrapped it in a piece of silk and tucked it inside his robe. Hiding it once again, much as the thief had done.

But his mind could not rest; his thoughts buzzed like angry bees swarming from a disturbed nest. The more he tried to get comfortable on his bed, the more aware he became of how small and cramped his room was. The walls were too close; if he threw out his arms, he felt as if he could touch opposite walls. He was like the sprig, rattling around in a tiny box.

How could anything survive in such a box? he thought, throwing a wool-trimmed jacket over his robe. Maybe the sprig only seemed alive once he opened the box. Maybe it was rejuvenated by fresh air…

He strode out of the guest quarters, inhaling great draughts of air as he left the confines of the building. I am not a man of this place, he reflected, peering up at the night sky. Torches still sputtered and danced along the paths, the fading remnants of the revelry that had filled the palace earlier, and their light made it difficult to see the stars.

A strange cry filled the air, raising the hair on Gansukh’s arms. He heard other voices too—men shouting— and he staggered, unable to comprehend how he had been thrown into the past, back to the night when the thief had fled Ogedei’s palace and changed everything.

But it wasn’t that night. The noise came again, a trumpeting bleat of an angry animal, and when Gansukh reached the corner of the palace, he spied the source of the tumult.

In the square, a majestic beast struggled. Gray and titanic, nearly twice as tall as a man, with ears like tent cloth, great tusks like a boar, and a long snout that curled and uncurled like a snake—a monstrous beast was rearing on tree-trunk hind legs, straining against ropes wrapped around pegs and held by men who were trying to contain it. As if rope alone could restrain such a creature, Gansukh thought. Proof of Heaven’s humor. Its handlers—brown-skinned men with tall wrapped hats— prodded at the beast with long, hooked spears, shouting frantically at each other.

The beast bellowed and trumpeted, stomping the ground with its huge feet, each one as thick as a tent-pole log. As Gansukh watched, both awed and amused that men would try to tame a creature such as this, it reared again. The ropes groaned like men in pain and then tore free of their moorings. The ground shook as the beast came down, and it flung its trunk to the side, smacking a puny handler. The man flew across the square like a child’s doll as the other handlers tried—valiantly but hopelessly—to control the beast.

Released from its bonds, the great animal vented a triumphant cry, like a dozen blatting horns, and pounded across the square in a ponderous but unstoppable gallop.

Gansukh shrank against the side of the building as the animal thundered past him. He felt like an insect clinging desperately to a stone shaken by a fierce earthquake. He knew its power by the slow sway of its huge belly and the thick muscles and sinews of its thumping limbs…and by the deep bellows of its lungs pumping a grassy, sour breath.

Why, it’s simply a great, snouted bull, with ears like flapping carpets and gray, pitted, wrinkled skin like armor…

Now his mind kicked in. This was not a rhinoceros, whose hide was cut into real armor for royalty, but something like… Its great nose horn softened and lengthened to an obscenely grasping member…and yet that hazel-brown eye, fixing him as it rushed by, deep sunk and frantic, yet intelligent, like the measuring eye of a giant warrior…

And then it was past him, and Gansukh fell away from the wall, sucking in breath. Now the gray beast’s handlers ran and pranced by, pointing at him and laughing, but lagging at a safe distance as the warrior bull with the swaying nose pounded and rumbled toward the palace gate. The gate guards, laughing like maniacs, but not at all willing to stand in the way of this living battering ram, hurriedly swung the gate wide to let it pass. The massive animal galloped through, unimpeded in its flight toward the open steppe, and shouts of derision and delight followed. Better to let it run free until its anger was spent rather than try to stop it. Gansukh smiled at the thought of such a strange creature roaming free on the plains. There was no doubt in his mind that it would be recaptured eventually, if not hunted down and slaughtered, but for now, it was free to run under the open sky.

As all things should be.

Ogedei could never speak of his secret terror. The knot of fear wound tighter and tighter in his gut every year as this day of memory approached. It wasn’t remembering Tolui, the youngest of Genghis’s four children, that caused him such pain; it was clear to everyone how dear his brother’s memory was to the Khagan. Nor was it the endless processionals or the interminable ceremonial dinners held in his dead brother’s honor throughout the week of the festival. No, what made his guts spasm and ache was the fact that he had to address the court; he had to stand before them and speak of the importance of Tolui’s sacrifice.

Ogedei paced the length of his chamber like a caged tiger. The great cup stood on a nearby table, half filled. He could not stand to look at it. The smell of the wine followed him. More than once he had wrapped his hands around the cup’s stem as if it were a neck he could throttle; if he couldn’t snap it in half then at least he could hurl it from his sight. But each time, he would raise the brim to his trembling lips and pour more of its contents into his gasping mouth.

Oh, how he wished the cup were even larger, like a tub, that he might drown in the pool of wine and be released from his burden, freed from the weight of the empire. Each gulp was bitter, but then he only drank more to banish the taste of the previous draught.

Ogedei cursed and slammed the cup down on the table, once more unable to throw it out the window. The young warrior, Gansukh, had stood up to him, in front of all his guests. He should have had him dragged from the room and flogged.

The Khagan sneered at his quivering reflection in the surface of the wine. He should have drawn his knife and killed the insolent pup himself. But the fierce expression on the whelp’s face had reminded him of Tolui…as had the large cup.

Chagatai, his older brother, had chosen this envoy well.

A light knock sounded at the door, and before he could shout at whoever was foolish enough to disturb him, his wife, Toregene, opened the door and entered.

“You should see how many there are,” she said, gliding across the floor. She was heavily made up—dressed in layers of yellow and orange silk, her hair freshly braided. “They are all waiting for their glorious and exalted leader.” She touched his arm lightly, and he could smell the jasmine and lemongrass oils in her hair.

Ogedei exhaled noisily, his shoulders and chest slumping. He wanted to lie down on one of the couches. Take a short nap. “They should come back tomorrow,” he sighed. “Or not at all.” His hand edged toward the cup. Even though he refused to look at it, he knew exactly how far away it was. Just one more gulp, he thought. Perhaps that will numb me enough…

She leaned against him, slipping her arm through his. Her voice floated up to his ear. “They don’t want much. Show them your face. Tell them to begin their revels.”