The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories (82 page)

“I am one of you,” I said.

“You are only an old man who allowed himself to be deceived.” He looked away from me. “I know where honor lies, even if your people do not. I will not shame you before your chief by showing what I think of him. I will not break our treaty in this place.” He turned to Aroniateka and whispered to him. The chiefs near them were still; only their eyes revealed their rage.

I had fulfilled my duty to my Khan. All that remained was to keep my promise to myself, and to Dasiyu.

* * * *

9

I walked along New London’s main street, searching for Yesuntai. Warriors stumbled along the cobblestones, intoxicated by drink, blind to the contemptuous stares of our Frankish and Dutch sailors. The whiskey Michel’s men had given them from the looted stores had made them forget their villages and the tasks that awaited them there.

I found Yesuntai with a party of Ganeagaono warriors and a few Inglistani captives. “These comrades are leaving us,” Yesuntai said. “You must say an eloquent farewell for me - I still lack the words to do it properly.”

One of the men pulled at his scalplock. “It is time for us to go,” he said in his language. Five Mahicans clutching bottles of whiskey staggered past us. “To see brave men in such a state sickens me.”

I nodded in agreement. “My chief Yesuntai will forever remember your valor. May Grandfather Heno water your fields, the Three Sisters give you a great harvest, and the winter be filled with tales of your victories.”

The warriors led their captives away; two of the smaller children wept as they clung to their mothers’ hands. They would forget their tears and learn to love the People of the Long House, as I had.

“The rest should go home as well,” I said to Yesuntai. “There is nothing for them here now.”

“Perhaps not.”

“They will have stories to tell of this war for many generations. Perhaps the tales of their exploits can make them forget how they were treated here. I wish to speak to you, Noyan.”

“Good. I have been hoping for a chance to speak to you.”

I led him along a side street to the house where Aroniateka and my son were quartered with some of their men. All of them were inside, sitting on blankets near the fireplace. At least these men had resisted the lure of drink, and had refused the bright baubles Michel’s men had thrown to our warriors while claiming the greater share of the booty for themselves. They greeted us with restraint, and did not ask us to join them.

We seated ourselves at a table in the back of the room. “I swore an oath to you, Yesuntai Noyan,” I said, “and ask you to free me from it now.” I rested my elbows on the table. “I wish to return to Skanechtade, to my Ganeagaono brothers.”

He leaned forward. “I expected you to ask for that.”

“As for my wife Elgigetei and my son Ajiragha, I ask only that you accept them into your household. My wife will not miss me greatly, and perhaps you can see that Ajiragha does not forget his father. You were my comrade-in-arms, and I will not sneak away from your side in the night. You do not need me now. Even my son will tell you that I am a man who has outlived his taste for battle. You will lose nothing by letting me go.”

“And what will you do,” he said, “if my people forsake their treaties?”

“I think you know the answer to that.”

“You told me of the treaty’s words, that we and the Flint People would be at peace for as long as you were both their brother and the Khan’s servant. You will no longer be our servant if you go back to Skanechtade.”

“So you are ready to seize on that. If the men of Yeke Geren fail to renew their promises, that will show their true intentions. I had hoped that you—”

“Listen to me.” Yesuntai’s fingers closed around my wrist. “I have found my brothers in your son and Aroniateka, and among the brave men who fought with us. They are my brothers, not the rabble who came here under Michel’s command.”

“Those men serve your father the Khan.”

“They serve themselves,” he whispered, “and forget what we once were.”

I shook my arm free of his grasp. He was silent for a while, then said, “Koko Mongke Tengri, the Eternal Blue Sky that covers all the world, promised us dominion over Etugen, the Earth. I told you of the wise men in Khitai who believe that the ancestors of the peoples in these lands once roamed our ancient homeland. I know now that what those scholars say is true. The people here are our long-lost brothers - they are more truly Mongol than men whose blood has been thinned by the ways of Europe. For them to rule here is in keeping with our destiny. They could make an ulus here, a nation as great as any we have known, one that might someday be a match for our Khanates.”

I said, “You are speaking treason.”

“I am speaking the truth. I have had a vision, Jirandai. The spirits have spoken to me and shown me two arcs closing in a great circle, joining those who have been so long separated. When the peoples of this land are one ulus, when they achieve the unity our ancestors found under Genghis Khan, then perhaps they will be the ones to bring the rest of the world under their sway. If the Khans in our domains cannot accept them as brothers, they may be forced to bow to them as conquerors.” Yesuntai paused. “Are we to sweep the Inglistanis from these lands only so that more of those we rule can flood these shores? They will forget the Khanate, as our people are forgetting their old homeland. They will use the peoples of this land against one another in their own disputes, when they have forgotten their Khan and fall to fighting among themselves. I see what must be done to prevent that. You see it, too. We have one more battle to fight before you go back to Skanechtade.”

I knew what he wanted. “How do you plan to take Yeke Geren?” I asked.

“We must have Michel’s ships. My Mongols can man them. We also need the Ganeagaono.” He gazed past me at the men seated by the fire. “You will speak my words to your son and Aroniateka, and then we will act - and soon. Your brothers will be free of all their enemies.”

* * * *

Yesuntai spoke of warring tribes on the other side of the world, tribes that had wasted themselves in battles with one another until the greatest of men had united them under his standard. He talked of a time long before that, when other tribes had left the mountains, forests, and steppes of their ancient homeland to seek new herds and territories, and of the northern land bridge they had followed to a new world. He spoke of a great people’s destiny, of how God meant them to rule the world, and of those who, in the aftermath of their glory, were forgetting their purpose. In the lands they had conquered, they would eventually fall out among themselves; the great ulus of the Mongols would fracture into warring states. God would forsake them. Their brothers in this new world could reach for the realm that rightly belonged to them.

Aroniateka was the first to speak after I translated the Noyan’s speech. “We have a treaty with your people,” he said. “Do you ask us to break it?”

“We ask that you serve the son of our Khan, who is our rightful leader here,” I replied. “Those who came here to claim our victory will take the lands we freed for themselves, and their greed will drive them north to yours. Michel Bahadur and the men of Yeke Geren have already broken the treaty in their hearts.”

“I am a sachem,” my son said, “and will take up my duties again when I am home. I know what is recorded on the belts of wampum our wise men have in their keeping. Our treaty binds us as long as my father Senadondo is our brother and the servant of his former people, as long as he is our voice among them.”

“I found that many grew deaf to my voice,” I said. “I will not go back to live in Yeke Geren. I have told my chief Yesuntai that I will live among the Owners of the Flint until the end of my days.”

My son met Yesuntai’s gaze. How alike their eyes were, as cold and dark as those of a serpent. “My dream told me that my father would bring me a brother,” my son said. “I see my brother now, sitting before me.” I knew then that he would bring the other chiefs to agree to our plans.

* * * *

We secured the ships easily. Yesuntai’s soldiers rowed out to the vessels; the few sailors left on board, suspecting nothing, were quickly overcome. Most of Michel’s men were quartered in the Inglistani commander’s house and the three nearest it; they were sleepy with drink when we struck. Michel and his officers were given an honorable death by strangulation, and some of the Dutch and Frankish sailors hastily offered their oaths to Yesuntai. The others were given to the Ganeagaono, to be tortured and then burned at the stake as we set New London ablaze.

I sailed with Yesuntai and his men. The Ganeagaono and the Mahicans who had remained with us went west on foot with their Inglistani captives. When we reached the narrow strait that separated Yeke Geren from the long island of Gawanasegeh, people gathered along the cliffs and the shore to watch us sail south towards the harbor. The ships anchored there had no chance to mount a resistance, and we lost only one of our vessels in the battle. By then, the Ganeagaono and Mahicans had crossed to the northern end of Yeke Geren in canoes, under cover of night, and secured the pastures there.

They might have withstood our assault. They might have waited us out, until our allies tired of the siege and the icy winds of winter forced us to withdraw to provision our ships. But too many in Yeke Geren had lost their fighting spirit, and others thought it better to throw in their lot with Yesuntai. They surrendered fourteen days later.

* * * *

About half of the Mongol officers offered their oaths to Yesuntai; the rest were beheaded. Some of the Mahicans would remain in what was left of Yeke Geren, secure treaties with the tribes of Gawanasegeh and the smaller island to our southwest, and see that no more ships landed there. The people of the settlement were herded into roped enclosures. They would be distributed among the Ganeagaono and taken north, where the Flint People would decide which of them were worthy of adoption.

I searched among the captives for Elgigetei and Ajiragha. At last an old man told me that they had been taken by a fever only a few days before we attacked the harbor. I mourned for them, but perhaps it was just as well. My son might not have survived the journey north, and Dasiyu would never have accepted a second wife. I had the consolation of knowing that my deeds had not carried their deaths to them.

* * * *

Clouds of migrating birds were darkening the skies when I went with Yesuntai to our two remaining ships. A mound of heads, those of the officers we had executed, sat on the slope leading down to the harbor, a monument to our victory and a warning to any who tried to land there.

The Noyan’s men were waiting by the shore with the surviving Frankish and Dutch sailors. The ships were provisioned with what we could spare, the sailors ready to board. Men of the sea would be useless in the northern forests, and men of uncertain loyalties who scorned the ways of the Flint People would not be welcome there.

Yesuntai beckoned to a grey-haired captain. “This is my decree,” he said. “You will sail east, and carry this message to my father.” He gestured with a scroll. “I shall recite the message for you now. I will make a Khanate of this land, but it will not be sullied by those who would bring the sins of Europe to its shores. When an ulus has risen here, it will be the mighty nation of our long-lost brothers. Only then will the circle close, and all our brothers be joined, and only if all the Khans accept the men of this land as their equals. It is then that we will truly rule the world, and if my brother Khans do not join this ulus of the world to come willingly, only God knows what will befall them.”

“We cannot go back with such a message,” the captain said. “Those words will cost us our heads.”

“You dishonor my father by saying that. You are my emissaries, and no Khan would stain his hands with the blood of ambassadors.” Yesuntai handed the scroll to the old man. “These are my words, marked with my seal. My father the Khan will know that I have carried out his orders, that the people of Inglistan will not set foot here again. He will also know that there is no need for his men to come here, since it is I who will secure this new Khanate.” He narrowed his eyes. “If you do not wish to claim the Khan’s reward for this message, then sail where you will and find what refuge you can. The Khan my father, and those who follow him to his throne, will learn of my destiny in time.”