Until the Sun Falls (48 page)

“He wants to know why you don’t signal.”

“I will. Goon.”

They scattered into the streets around them. Psin drew back to the wall. The standardbearer was climbing back up, unhurt. The roar of the fire across from them was dimming, and Psin could hear the timbers crashing inside. There was no sound of fighting.

“One yellow, three red,” he said to the standardbearer. “The lanterns are all over the side.

The man leaned over to see. The last of Kadan’s tuman dribbled through the gate and galloped off. The silence was unnatural, pricked through with yells and the sound of this fire. There was nobody in the street beneath Psin.

He sat down, putting his coat on again. The standardbearer said, “Two white from Sabotai.”

“Two white.” Psin rubbed his jaw.

“Withdraw,” the man said, helpfully.

“I know. Can you see Batu’s post from here?”

“No.”

“See if you can rig up a mast and run the lanterns up on it.”

“It would be easier to—”

“Wait. Here comes Mongke.”

Mongke rode up, alone. Psin called, “Go over and find out what’s happening in the southern part of the city. What have you done?”

“We are killing them.” Mongke’s mouth drew crooked. “You know I have no stomach for it. Ask if we may spare the mothers of the children. Otherwise it would be more merciful to kill them all, to the last infant.”

“Yes.” Psin turned to the lanterns and swung back. “My order. All the mothers of suckling children may live. Go find out—”

“I will.” Mongke rode back toward the square to change his order.

Psin sat down on his heels. By the Yasa every creature in Kiev had to die, because of the Mongol envoy killed. But Sabotai had said that the children should live, and now the mothers were to live. The law was losing its meaning. Tuli, Mongke’s father, had cut the heads off all the corpses in Nishapur, so that none could live by feigning death. “Consider Mongke,” Quyuk had said.

Women, weeping and screaming, pushed down the big street toward the gate. Mongols herded them. Three men galloped up to stand guard by the gate, and the women started through. The weeping had died abruptly, as if they were all too tired to cry. Their faces were slack with despair. Most of them clutched children, but none of them held more than one, and several had none at all. Psin chewed his mustaches. Mongke was stretching the order. The women filed out beneath the eyes of the guards, who kept them from shoving or stopping. One woman paused, just beneath Psin, to wait until there was room; she held a child of two or three years in her arms. The child’s head lay on the woman’s shoulder, and its big eyes stared up at Psin. It looked neither frightened nor angry, just tired. The woman found a place in line and went on.

Mongke rode up. “Batu has told Tshant that he and his men could loot in the south. There is no resistance. All the men are dead.”

“Send all your men out. We’re supposed to withdraw. Go back and tell Batu, will you?”

“Withdraw? It’s not looted yet.”

“Kadan and Quyuk will do the looting. We’ll split it up afterward. Go on.”

Mongke called over his shoulder to a thousand-commander and sent him to Batu. Psin said, “If you’re going out, make sure these people don’t get into our camp.”

Mongke waved and rode out after the women. Buri and his men rode up and organized themselves into double columns to leave. Mongke’s gate guards had gone with him. Batu cantered up with his men and went out before Buri. Psin saw him collecting the women and moving them to a place to camp. He was playing khan, protecting his people as soon as they became his people. It made an interesting point: when did a conquered Russian become the responsibility of his khan?

Kadan and Quyuk appeared, and wagons moved in through this gate to transport the plunder. They would loot street by street and burn it all afterward. Psin stayed on the wall until he was sure everyone was out who was not with Quyuk and Kadan. When he left, the moon was rising, a thin scrap of pale yellow. Down in the Mongol camp, dogs began to bark, and a little inside the city wall, Russian dogs answered. 

“Quyuk is gone,” Kaidu said.

Psin nodded. “Did Buri go with him?”

“Yes.”

Tshant moved a pawn, and Psin frowned at the board. He did not like chess. He always did well enough at the beginning but when the game drew out his mind drifted on to other things and any child could beat him. Djela, hanging over the edge of the table, said softly, “Grandfather, look.” He pointed to the threatened elephant.

“Will he be the Kha-Khan when Ogodai dies?” Kaidu said.

“Who, Buri?” Tshant slapped at his son. “Djela, don’t tell him what to do.”

Djela folded his arms on the edge of the table and rested his chin on his hands.

“No. Quyuk, of course.”

“Turakina will have it for him, if she can,” Psin said. “And Oghul Ghaimish.”

“The sorceress,” Kaidu said. “Who drives out men’s souls from their bodies.” He pulled over a stool and sat down.

Psin remembered Oghul Ghaimish, her face with its treacherous mouth and the long flat eyes. They said that Quyuk had married her under a spell.

“There are better men for the Khanate than Quyuk,” Kaidu said.

“None in the bloodline,” Tshant said. “Quyuk is very capable.”

“Quyuk is a drunk. Batu—”

“Check,” Tshant said.

“Grandfather,” Djela said, in a pained whisper.

“Don’t you think Batu should be the Kha-Khan?” Kaidu said.

Psin looked up, amazed. “No. Of course not.”

“He is the heir of the eldest son—”

Psin got up and pulled Kaidu away from the others. He heard Djela arguing with Tshant; Djela wanted to finish Psin’s game. Near the window, Psin looked out and saw no one and turned back to Kaidu.

“You know the story about Juji. Batu will never be the Kha- Khan. Nor any other of Juji’s blood.” 

“No one ever proved—”

“Temujin was sure. Why else would he call him the Guest? Borte was almost a year in somebody else’s yurt. Don’t mention it. There’s bad blood from here to Lake Baikal about it.”

“Batu—”

“Batu would like to be the Kha-Khan. So would all the Altun.”

“I am of the Ancestor’s blood.”

Kaidu’s face was flaming, and his mouth grew tight. Psin said, “I believe it. You know that Borte was thieved away by Merkits—When I was a child I knew the man Temujin thought was Juji’s father. There was nothing of him in Juji.”

“Then why—”

“When the Merkits attacked, Temujin fled. He left Borte behind. He had less than a dozen men—he couldn’t have defended her, he would only have died. It was his fault she was taken, and he always knew it. But he wasn’t a man who liked to be reminded of his mistakes. Juji reminded him.”

“It’s unjust.”

“Boy, Batu’s ulus is richer and stronger than any to the east. You will come to it, probably. Why yearn after the Khanate?”

Kaidu said nothing. Psin shook him roughly.

“There are things not to be longed after. Learn that. And don’t remind people of that story.”

He went back to the chess table. Djela said, “And then I would move—”

Tshant said, “I don’t like him.”

Psin looked over his shoulder; Kaidu had gone out. “Why not?”

“He’s like all Juji’s kind. He isn’t like us.”

“Maybe.”

“Temujin was right. Juji wasn’t his son.”

“I think it was a lie.”

“Can you prove it?”

“No. It was Temujin’s lie. And it’s come to the best, like everything Temujin did.” He moved a pawn, and Tshant’s archer flew down and whisked an elephant off the board.

“Check.”

“And mate. Let’s go outside. It’s stuffy in here.”

PART FOUR

THE MONGOL GENERALS

Temujin said, “My descendants will go clothed in gold; they will dine on the choicest meats, they will ride superb horses and enjoy the most beautiful young women. And they will have forgotten to whom they owe all that…

Djela squirmed, swallowed a yawn, and started to fiddle
with the laces of his coat. Tshant slapped his hand. “Sit still.”

“I’m—”

“Sit still.”

Djela thrust out his lower lip. The bench he was sitting on was hard; his rump itched. Across the half-circle, Sabotai looked almost asleep, and Kadan beside him was weaving from side to side. Djela had pointed that out to Tshant, just before the reception started, and Tshant had said, “He’s drunk.”

The two Russians in their fur cloaks droned on. For days, since Kiev fell, the Russian noyons had been riding in to pledge their submission to the Kha-Khan, and Djela didn’t understand why he had to be here. “You are the great-grandson of the Ancestor,” Tshant had said. So he had to wear the coat with the gold hooks and the gold lace around the collar, which jabbed him if he moved.

Tshant said, “What are they saying now?”

Djela listened. “That they will grow grain for us and send us all we need. They say their land is rich enough to feed us all and feed them and still fill the warehouses full.”

Mongke, on Tshant’s other side, murmured something under his breath. He smelled richly of flowers. Tshant had been wrinkling his nose all through the reception. He said softly, “Mongke. You smell like my stepmother.”

“Oh?” Mongke lifted one arm and sniffed the sleeve. “I like it.”

“Ssssh,” Baidar said. He leaned past Mongke to nudge Tshant.

The two Russians knelt and touched their foreheads to the ground in front of Batu. Batu’s two interpreters began to speak, telling the Russians how fortunate they were to be the servants of the only God-sent Khan and describing the benefits the Russians would receive under Batu’s rule. Djela leaned against Tshant, put his head down, and dozed.

After a while, Tshant shook him awake again. “What are they saying?”

Djela straightened up. “They’re talking about the—the Russians who ran away when we attacked. They say they couldn’t stop them.” He frowned, trying to follow the Russians’ quick voices. “They went west, to Hungary.”

Tshant nodded.

Baidar had been with the southern wing of the army at the Dniester. Tshant said that now that he was back they would talk about going on west. Djela scratched his neck where the stiff lace had roughened his skin.

Batu’s interpreter said something, briefly, about the refugees. The Russians bowed. Batu lifted one hand and made a sign that showed he took them under his protection. “Stand up,” Tshant said. “They are leaving.”

Djela slid off the bench onto his feet. The Russians bowed to each of the Altun in turn. None of the Altun bowed back. The Russians turned to Tshant and Djela and their heads bobbed. Djela looked up at Tshant. “Now can I—”

“Ssssh!”

They stood until the Russians had backed out of the semi-circle. As soon as the reception was over, Tshant sat down and undid Djela’s coat.

“He’s old enough to take care of himself, don’t you think?” Baidar said.

“The first thing he’ll do is get the coat dirty so that he won’t have to sit at any more receptions.” Tshant pulled the coat off. “He didn’t inherit that from my side of the family. Go play.”

Djela ran off, headed for the horse lines. After the city had fallen, all but two of the tumans had gone off and pitched their camps farther south along the river, so that the horse herds were much thinner than before. He caught his horse and bridled it and climbed up.

The Russians were riding off, and he wheeled to gallop along beside them, a short bowshot away. One of them pointed to him, and he saw the man’s mouth open, but he couldn’t hear the words. With a yell he spun the horse and raced back up the slope toward Psin’s yurt.

Psin hadn’t come to the reception because of the ban. Usually he spent the afternoon talking to men from the west, but sometimes he was alone. Djela slid down and knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” Psin called.

“Grandfather, it’s me. May I come in?”

“If you keep quiet.”

The door opened, but through it he saw strangers, dressed in the clothes of merchants. He backed away.

“I sat down all day until now,” he said. “Can I come tomorrow?”

“Any time you wish, noyon.”

The door shut. Djela put one foot on his horse’s knee and scrambled up onto the bare back.

There was nothing to do. Batu had told Tshant to come to his yurt after the reception ended, Psin was busy, and the few boys Djela’s age in the camp were all slaves. He jogged up and down the road beneath the ruined gate, wondered if he dared go bother Mongke. Sometimes Mongke would tease him and play with him, but when he was in a bad temper he threw rocks. He was probably in a bad temper today, after sitting through the reception. Kaidu and the others were too serious to be fun.

He turned the horse and galloped across the slope, screaming the Mongol warcry. If anybody even heard him in Psin’s yurt, no one came out to see what was happening. The horse carried him on around the slope and down to the hollow between the bluff and the plain. He sighed.

In the end he rode along the river, singing songs Ana had taught him in Russian. Most of them were sad and full of low notes, which he thought he sang rather well. His father roared when he sang, but everybody knew Tshant and Psin didn’t understand music.

He remembered the times they had hunted along the rivers, in the summer past, and the heron that had lived just east of Chernigov. He couldn’t remember if there were herons in the rivers around Lake Baikal. That reminded him of his mother and his throat filled up. She wouldn’t know him when he got back, he had grown so big.

“Have fun, and obey your father, and when you come back we’ll have long stories to tell each other, won’t we?” He could remember exactly how she had stood when she said it, how her hair had shone in the light, how soft her cheeks had seemed. When he tried to remember what she looked like, he had to think of special times, or he couldn’t summon up her face.

The horse snorted, and he looked around. A hare was bounding off into the brush beside the river. It was almost dark. He tightened up his reins. If he got back after dark Tshant would yell and threaten to beat him. He galloped back along the riverbank, hanging onto the mane.