One Great Year (28 page)

Temujin struggled valiantly to appear at ease and comfortable, convinced he must win Borte over and have her as his wife. The humble gathering continued, and no one noticed the difference in him. Outwardly he was unchanged, but as he spoke calmly of livestock and family members, his mind shared cloudy past lifetimes filled with blurry pictures, impossible places, faces, memory after memory playing like a dream sequence in his head.

Borte decided that she liked Temujin, more by her instinct and feelings than because of anything he had done or said. He had in actuality been a bit odd and wooden, unlike her brothers and the other boys that she had grown up with, but she decided it was most likely just his nerves, and he would eventually relax and become … loveable.

Temujin's father's party departed the next day, anxious to return to their camp before the season's first snow. Temujin was left behind in the care of Borte's father. He would remain with them for the three years until he was twelve, at which time they would marry and return to his tribe together. Yesugei Khan said good-bye to his son and started out across the expansive plains toward the distant mountains. The skies were clear, cool, and endlessly blue in every shade and hue.

Temujin was stoic; if he was sad to be left behind, he hid his feelings well and said nothing. The youth was still reeling, contemplating the voice and pictures in his head. Was he going crazy? Were they real? He was not afraid, in fact he felt more powerful and manly than ever in his life. Were they spirits sent to drive him mad or to guide his way? He decided it was the latter, and he chose to embrace a new awareness of his divine function in the world. His belief in Tengri and Eje—Father Sky and Mother Earth—became absolute overnight. He decided that he was a tool of the gods, sent to the plains with a divine mission yet to be understood.

Clearly Borte was a big part of the equation; she had been a catalyst for him. Just meeting her gaze had instantaneously catapulted him to a whole new level of understanding and enlightenment. Her light and virtue, so foreign to him, were familiar at the same time. The process of recall, at least this time, was like a fine cashmere vest that had just begun to be woven—there was a great deal of painstaking work yet to be completed before it took shape. Temujin would have to bide his time and do the work, but he was sure that the information would come. He would be patient. He would develop his relationship with Borte and follow the path that opened before him. He had no doubt it would be worth it in the end.

Temujin had intended to spend the next few days sorting out the shadowy images bombarding him, but before nightfall he was informed that his father had been assassinated. A passing tribe of Tatars had customarily offered the chief an exchange of food and had poisoned him. The murderers were long gone before anyone realized what had happened.

The boy was overcome with emotion and anger. He left immediately to rejoin his clan, vowing that someday he would exact vengeance on the Tatars. Borte watched in confusion as her betrothed mounted his broad steed and bolted away on the horizon.

Temujin and his uncle and the other tribe members returned to their kin three days later, wrapped warmly in thick skins. Their fur caps obscured their faces, making them recognizable to one another only by wardrobe, mannerism, and voice. The season's first snow covered them, sticking to their hats and beards as they announced the news of the dead khan. It was unlucky to speak of the dead, and the shaman attended with his drum and mirrors, beating and flashing to confuse and ward off evil spirits. Within hours, the nine-year-old Temujin, with his uncle's support, addressed the elders and the men of the village. He proposed that he should inherit the title and position left unfilled by his father's murder. The men refused outright and mocked the boy.

“In his ninth year and hardly able to hold his own cock!”

“His only hair is on his head!” they jeered.

Temujin was irate but powerless, and he was sent away from the gathering, humiliated and denied.

Temujin's mother, Hoelun, now a widow, was left to care for five young sons and a daughter. She did not cry, she did not mourn. There was work to be done. She canvassed the village for a sponsor. Any man—old, young, married, single—she cared not. She knew that she needed a protector to exist in the tribe but, atypically, no one came forth. No one accepted her. Beautiful, but notoriously proud and outspoken, she was left to fend for herself and her children.

True to her acerbic nature, Hoelun projected her anger outwardly and accused the tribesmen openly of being too weak and insignificant to be worthy of her. She called the women stupid, ugly, and jealous, and the few who had held any pity for her turned away in disgust. Hoelun, with her pride and arrogance, had doomed her family, and they were soon abandoned by their nomadic tribe.

It was a brutal, deadly winter but, accustomed to the hardship of life on the plains, Hoelun and her children beat the odds and survived. They were a part of no tribe and had to fend for themselves. They had no herd to sustain them; their possessions had been ransacked and appropriated by the new chief when they had been abandoned. Their remaining shelter was a barely adequate ger of wood and poor-quality skins, but somehow they had the fortitude as a family to get through the next nine months of frigid battery.

They ate wild currants and blueberries that Hoelun and her daughter had collected and dried for winter, and they hunted small game. They had fire and they prayed many times a day to the fire god, grateful for the life that it gave. The days were short and the nights were long, and Hoelun regaled her children with stories of better days: tales of ancestors, strength, and triumph.

Hoelun anticipated their return to clan life someday and prepared her brood for that eventuality. She taught them the ritualistic offerings and assured them that they were favored and, as little as they had to eat and drink, they always shared first with the gods. They learned to be wary and cynical and, as a former khan's wife, she explained the ins and outs of the region's politics and her thoughts on how to gain advantage over others.

Hoelun and her small family remained independent and alone for many years. Temujin continued to grow and thrive and was at least a head taller than all of his brothers, including the eldest, who had been born to Hoelun from a previous marriage. He looked remarkably like his father—his red hair thick and wiry, his dark eyes hard and cold.

Temujin had changed drastically since his meeting with Borte and the death of the khan. His focus was on survival and on devising a plan to return his family to a place of sustenance, power, and honor. His twelfth birthday had come and gone unnoticed; the marriage agreement, impossible to fulfill, was unceremoniously ignored. He had become sullen and suspicious, and he manipulated his family, constantly challenging his older half-brother's authority in their small camp.

It was a beautiful warm spring day. Thirteen-year-old Temujin and his brothers were stalking the plains, a sea of multicolored, fragrant flowers laid out for miles around them. The gorgeous weather was a welcome reward for bearing a brutal nine months of harsh cold, but it had been an unlucky week. As the boys hunted, they were acutely aware of their hunger and the oncoming short-tempered desperation that the too familiar pangs brought with them.

In a flash of movement, the band leapt at a noise—Temujin had speared a marmot, and it lay squealing and struggling in the field ahead of them. Temujin ran to the animal and gently laid his hands on it, honoring its sacrifice and respectfully thanking the marmot spirit for fulfilling his need. His brothers crowded around and silently knelt, also happily honoring the spirit of the animal. It wasn't until the methodic, ritualistic butchering and division of the spoils that the merriment was quelled by an argument that erupted between Temujin and his elder half-brother.

“The heart is mine,” said the older boy, as Temujin deftly removed the coveted organs according to tradition.

Temujin had said the prayers and done his thanks, and he was in no mood to step aside. “The marmot is mine. You eat only by my skill,” Temujin retorted, covered in blood and still cutting deep into the animal to expose its prized bits.

The half-brother came closer, his hunting knife drawn, to retrieve the animal's heart. Temujin went against custom and denied his older brother, refusing to unhand the carcass.

“You will have to take it … you know I am the stronger hand,” Temujin warned as his brother got within striking distance.

The older boy sprang and the fight was on. The two square-brick young men, heavy with their layers of clothing, wrestled on the grass, tangling themselves up in the blood and guts of the beast.

“Off the meat!”

“Watch out!” the other brothers shouted, excited by the battle but conscious of the disrespect being shown. Surely the spirit of the marmot would be angered by such disregard. They were used to wrestling and scuffles among them, it was a way of life. Temujin grunted hard and managed to flip his attacker onto his back, and now he sat wild-eyed on his chest staring down at him.

It should have ended there, as it had many times before, but Temujin, panting, realized how close he had come to losing this time. Perhaps one of these days his older half-brother would overpower and submit him. With that thought in mind, Temujin deliberately and unexpectedly raised his hunting knife, still gory with the blood of their dinner, and sank it deep into the throat of his half-brother. The victim's hand had come up in self-defense and was pinned to his flooding neck.

Gasps and yelps rang out as the brothers howled in disbelief. Blood poured unchecked from the fatal wound. No one dared come near. The siblings ran back to their camp, forgetting their food, forgetting their hunger, and terrified by what they had seen.

Temujin felt no shock or sorrow. He climbed off his half-brother and cleaned his knife on the corpse, power surging through him. He felt invincible. The marmot heart was his, and he was now the undisputed head of the family. Bloodsoaked and victorious, he threw his dinner over his shoulder and headed home.

Chilger had not seen Borte since years before in the market, though he had casually searched for her at every opportunity. They had first met when they were very young. She was the only girl that he had ever noticed, and her energy had resonated with him. For as long as he could remember, she had looked like an angel to him. Just as a child can fail to notice a difference in hair or skin color, Chilger had been oblivious to the warm violet glow that surrounded her like a thick second skin, visible only to him, if he had cared to take notice. As they matured his Marcus-brain had begun to stir—not a thunderbolt this time, but in whispers and confusing, comforting flashes. He was older now and their childish play should be long forgotten, yet the memory of her continued to haunt him.

Chilger had become a strong horseman and hunter, and by twelve years of age he had proven himself an asset to his Merkit clan. Always profoundly spiritual and in tune with the natural world, he had a way of communing with animals and birds that was unusual, even among his holistic peoples. His parents had approached the shaman for direction and advice for their son on many occasions, and always the spiritual leader was impressed by the youngster's insight and depth of contemplation and understanding.

When he was halfway through his twelfth year, his destiny was laid out. It was late spring, and the cloudy expanse of blue sky overhead was at its kindest and most brilliant. The eagles soared and swooped, floating effortlessly in the warm sun. The sweet chirping of many birds rose from the flowering, fragrant plains, and as Chilger and his horse passed through, they continued their song in harmony with one another.

Chilger felt the strange energy of the day even before anything unusual had happened. He had felt a tingling in his hands, his feet, and the Tengri-god center at the top of his head since he had awakened that morning. This vibration was usually accompanied by strange visions, yet today none had come. He had never told anyone of the strange pictures that he saw in his mind, the stories and images that unfolded. Only the shaman had ever spoken of visions and premonitions, and Chilger's father, a hunter and herder, was far from understanding such mysterious concepts, and lived life simply. He prayed and gave offerings as he was taught, without questioning or seeking deeper meaning and enlightenment. Chilger learned early that too much conversation and too many questions were met with a stern glance or a firm hand. He kept his visions and metaphysical contemplations to himself. He lived like the other boys his age—hunting, wrestling, and herding, always preparing for the coming grueling winter months—but he was different somehow.

Chilger, alone as usual, was on horseback when he entered the woods in distant view of his clan's camp. He saw the beams of sunlight breaking through the leaf canopy, lighting strips of the forest floor, and it filled him up. His spirit drank in the beauty and godliness of the vision before him.

Just then a large black bear meandered carelessly into the sunny clearing, positioning itself in front of a particularly abundant berry bush. She dropped her heavy rump with a thud to the earth, and a dry cloud rose up around her. The dust glowed in the sunbeams like sparkling silver rain, and Mother Earth and Father Sky touched one another and danced before him.

The forest was alive with the spirits, and Chilger breathed them in and traveled inside the particles that mingled in front of him, drinking in their energy, sharing his own—at one with the Earth. He marveled at the muscles rippling in the bear's broad shoulders, the sun lighting her coat with a golden glow. She would have made a fabulous kill, and her fur and meat would have been celebrated by the clan. Yet, though he held his bow in his hands, it never occurred to him to kill her. Moments later, the bushes near her rustled and snapped as three growing cubs playfully joined in the feast. A twig under his pony's hoof snapped, and the mother bear protectively swiveled her heavy head toward him to assess the danger. They watched one another curiously, unafraid, both one with nature.