The Tiger-Headed Horseman (2 page)

Fearsome, intelligent warriors they may have been, but Chinggis and his fellows also knew how best to kick up their heels at the end of each campaign. They were often to be seen singing boisterously at the end of battle about the good old days when things were in order, goats were plentiful and there was enough peace and quiet to enjoy a good book with a cup of boiling hot water infused by herbs. It was a delicately balanced dictatorship with a faint aroma of jasmine, but it worked. No one had managed to come anywhere near achieving this feat during the intervening centuries. Mongolia cradled the world in its hands and nurtured its billion or so subjects. Peace held throughout and although there were those who were jealous of Chinggis and did their best to deride him, most people loved him and lived in harmony and happiness.

Chinggis only kept counsel with his three closest allies. His army general Bold ruled the western empire from Italy to Kazakhstan. His childhood friend Khasar ruled the southern
Asian region covering China and the spice routes. The northern reaches covering Russia were the domain of his young cousin Khad. Chinggis lived in his beloved Ulaanbaatar in the heart of Mongolia, a city overflowing with tradition, learning and virtue. He had been so forthrightly downright aggressive and angry with those he had encountered as he built his empire that they remained in fear and awe of him for years afterwards. As a result, he could rest happily in his city and idle away his days having fun with his beloved Tsara, a princess from eastern Europe whom he had met in a bar in Budapest. These were happy days for Chinggis, though he tried not to be smug.

Khad, however, wasn't happy; he wasn't happy at all. He didn't like the cold and as a keen gardener Siberia proved useless to him. He was jealous of Bold and Khasar who retained warm, fertile and rich lands. Khad was also an ambitious young man, very ambitious. Full of mischief he arranged a supper with Bold and Khasar under the guise of discussing a surprise birthday present for Chinggis. Shortly after the onion soup had been served he had his friends beheaded. Rather than own up to his wrongdoing he ran to Chinggis declaring that he had uncovered a vile plot to ambush and murder his closest friends as they slept in camp. Khad knew that such news would enrage Chinggis. He knew his cousin would undoubtedly depart immediately to try and save his friends. Khad knew Chinggis would act rashly and set off to wreak revenge without waiting for support from his personal bodyguards. The moment Chinggis had entered Bold and Khasar's ger he was slain instantly. So came to an end the world's greatest emperor, hastily undone by a greedy cousin who didn't like the cold.

2

The reign of Khad had been very different from his cousin's. He wrote complicated processes and procedures and governed by bureaucracy. He also involved himself in complex negotiations with surrounding countries whereby he sold off vast swathes of the Mongol empire. In return, Khad received vast riches and an eternally guaranteed assurance that none of the neighbouring countries would ever again set foot in Mongolia. He assured them that if they broke this accord then the angry spirit of his beloved Chinggis would rise and the empire would be bloodily reborn. This had proved more than enough warning. Blood-letting had always tended to remain long in the cultural psyche and this warning, which was no different, came to be known by Outsiders as the ‘Legend of Khad’.

Retreating to Chinggis's beloved capital city, Khad quickly made his mark. So resentful was Khad at having had to spend several years catching colds in the northern territories his cousin had given him that he endeavoured to turn upside down everything that Chinggis had fought so hard to establish. He changed the name of both city and country: Baatarulaan and Ongolium were thus born. Rather than the music, art and democracy that had been hallmarks of Chinggis's reign Khad promoted gambling, prostitution, greed and all other manner of vice. Those loyal to Chinggis were forced into hard labour or expelled from the new republic. Those who had lived in fear of Chinggis, and there were many, flocked to Khad's side and
spoke in the honeyed voices he had longed to hear. A large police presence was established with a primary objective of making people enjoy themselves. They were called the ‘Fun Brigade’. Dressed in long red cloaks, they used big sticks to encourage people to have fun. Khad believed that if people were having fun they would remain loyal, even if this fun was forced on them upon pain of death. The people were fickle enough to embrace this forced fun and it enjoyed enormous success when it was instigated. Khad also established a very large walled vegetable allotment but he didn't tell anyone about it. In it he grew marrows, pumpkins, turnips and a wide variety of melons.

The neighbouring countries remembered and recounted the ‘Legend of Khad’. However, as the centuries passed and Khad's new kind of cultural identity seeped deep into the psyche of the people, few if any of the neighbouring countries wanted to communicate with Ongolium, let alone set foot there. The Ongolians believed they were special and referred to themselves as the ‘Chosen Million’, never more, never less. To Outsiders, the Ongolians were an example of everything that is wrong with humanity. By the time Tengis was born the world had mostly forgotten about his country and Ongolium had mostly forgotten about the rest of the world. It was an equilibrium that worked for all parties concerned. The Ongolian legend remained and its most devout followers did their best to erase the memory of its greatest son.

‘How's my little emperor,’ said Mrs Khaan as she admired her son preening himself in the mirror. She had always thought of him as an emperor and, despite his encroaching manhood, still treated him as an infant.

‘Morning, Mother,’ replied an embarrassed Tengis. He hated being mothered but was too lazy to do anything for himself. ‘What's for breakfast?’

‘Whatever my little soldier wants,’ said his mother. She made her way over to him and tried to pinch his cheeks.

‘Get off, Mum!’ shouted Tengis. ‘You're so . . . embarrassing. I'm nineteen now, almost a man.’

‘I know,’ said Mrs Khaan. ‘I'm so proud of my little Tengis.’

She made to embrace her son. He stormed out of his bedroom and locked himself in the bathroom. ‘Sausages!’ he shouted through the closed door.

Mrs Khaan smiled dreamily and made her way to the kitchen. Her son was growing up far faster than she would ever have allowed herself to believe. Still, he did like sausages and that was something. Mrs Khaan walked into the garden and pulled a string of five sausages out of a box. It was late January and the outdoor temperature never rose above freezing before mid-April. Winter was Mrs Khaan's favourite season because she was able to keep fresh food fresh longer and prepare too much too often for her son. She wanted to see him nice and round – just like Chinggis had been in his later days after the yakburgers had got hold of him and he'd taken to wearing one-piece fur suits and crooning.

Mrs Khaan – ‘Choogi’ to her friends – had always secretly been a big fan of Chinggis, even though she knew this was a dangerous pastime. Since the time of Khad the cult of Chinggism had been all but outlawed. She had a copy of every poster that had ever been printed of him. She had mugs where his cheeky face smiled into her coffee. Every bill she paid or letter she wrote was done so with a pen bearing Chinggis's name. She had a small room in her small ground-floor apartment set aside for Chinggis. She served up Chinggis porridge on particularly cold mornings and heaped platefuls of Chinggis-branded ice cream in front of Tengis on balmy summer nights. She called her larder her Chinggiserator. She wore colourful Chinggis pyjamas to bed and equally exuberant Chinggis gowns
to work. She worked in the Chinggis post office where she wore a Chinggis-branded helmet and facemask and adorned brown leather Chinggis gloves. She was a Chinggis messenger. She manned, or rather womanned, post 3276a and caught arrows from post 3277a as they sped out of Baatarulaan.

Most of Mrs Khaan's friends were Khadists. They would poke fun at her and say she was old school but Mrs Khaan didn't care. She loved her Chinggis, she did. So did many other Ongolians. Chinggis and Khad were big business. Most businesses were called Chinggis this or Chinggis that. Those that weren't called Chinggis were called Khad this or Khad that. For every factory making Chinggis golf clubs (complete with eyeball motif) there was a Khad factory doing likewise. It forged an unhealthy consumer competition, although the resulting angry capitalist tribalism helped the Fun Brigade keep the peace. Although Chinggis had been a very bad word during the time of Khad, recent centuries had seen him re-emerge as a viable contender to the self-anointed usurper. It was seen as a guerrilla brand whereas Khad was seen as the public service staple.

Choogi had been unfortunate during her life but liked to think that overall she had done quite well. She was annoyingly forgettable. Annoyingly, because she was just so nice to everybody and always thought the best of everyone and every situation, but she was simply one of those people whose name and face would evaporate as she left the room. Everyone could remember there was someone who was much lovelier and had a bigger heart than anyone else; they just couldn't remember exactly who that was. Born without much, Choogi had pursued and fallen in love with a junior bureaucrat who worked for the Fun Brigade in an administrative capacity. Although his job might have implied fun, Batbold was anything but. He took his role very seriously. He was in charge of procuring the large
pieces of wood that the Fun Brigade used to ‘encourage’ fun among the good people of Baatarulaan. In his view, all other people were revolting and he didn't like revolution, even if it amounted to little more than a heated discussion in the media about what length fur should be worn this season.

It had taken more than a little persuasion for him to even agree to meet Choogi. Procuring large knobbly pieces of wood was a growing and important business. When Choogi suggest they move in together it had taken him weeks to calculate the extent to which cohabitation would affect his efficiency and effectiveness. When marriage was mooted, the computer said ‘no’. Choogi resigned herself to living in sin, which was after all very much the rage in Baatarulaan (as was anything remotely related to sin). The Khaan–Khaant household (for those were their names) was not a happy one but it worked. It worked well, really well. Barely a moment, morsel or movement were wasted, so robust were Batbold's calculations.

Choogi had been a free-spirited young woman when she met Batbold; after six months living under the same roof she seemed to barely register with him anymore. Yet Choogi loved Batbold and she knew from all the books she had read that love conquered all. She hadn't realised that love was a two-way arrangement or, if she had, she ignored it. Her Batbold was her man. Nevertheless, the headiness of bedtime frolics over Ycel spread sheets were not the gymnastics Choogi had envisaged when she bought such a large bed. It soon became apparent that Batbold had conceded to the purchase of a double-superdooper-emperor bred not for the space it offered for night-time shenanigans but because it enabled space for solitary slumber.

When Choogi discovered she was pregnant she seriously wondered whether immaculate conception was indeed a possibility. When Batbold discovered Choogi was pregnant his computer blew up. This was something which no number of
variables could model but Batbold knew from experience that a child, let alone a baby, would have an irrevocably detrimental impact on his professional effectiveness. That was something he could never entertain. Instead, Batbold simply never came home from the office – never ever.

Choogi had known in her heart that this would be Batbold's reaction. Some part of her had prepared her for the eventuality. When it came she barely shed a tear. Her heart had still not melted after the ice of winter. It was July. She simply took herself to live nearer to those few relatives she knew about, fully realising that, while there was little prospect of them being hospitable, at least they would have faces she knew. Living alone, she promised herself that her son would not have the life she had led. He would have love, lots and lots of love. She would look after and mother him. She would make sure he had whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. She would teach him to believe in himself, to not accept criticism or second best. When Tengis was born she lived up to every one of her promises. Perhaps too much.

3

Chinggis had modelled Ulaanbaatar on everything he deemed to be good in the new world he had found himself governing. He respected the cultures of the nations he conquered; he adopted the spiritual knowledge of the many faiths he led; he devised a language that was recognisable across the many tongues of his realm and he encouraged freedom of thought. His city attracted the greatest minds of that time. Architects helped build magnificent palaces and temples. Artists painted enormous wall paintings that depicted the landscapes of his vast empire and he erected gargantuan statues of himself in all major cities to remind any potentially dissenting rebels that he was still watching over them. Poets and playwrights would work tirelessly to convey their love and admiration of their fine leader. In reality, the people were so proud of Chinggis that they had no real need for the bronze and marble statues or the epics or plays. Chinggis was in their soul. He had built a utopian society where everybody had a place and everybody had a chance. Certainly, there were detractors but they were few and far between. All of this had changed overnight as the result of a very spoiled little cousin with a penchant for gardening.

Ulaanbaatar had been a fine city based on principled thought and a successful society. Baatarulaan was anything but. If Ulaanbaatar had pristine avenues and ornately carved temples, then Baatarulaan had dingy alleyways and red light districts. Khad had, in a very short time, turned inside out everything
that was good about the city. Khad had been a man with a small, very small, teenie-weenie, absolutely miniscule amount of sense but a whopping great humungous, monstrously large sense of self-importance. In his day he had demanded to be known as the ‘Right Honourable Younger Cousin of the Emperor of Emperors, Grand Deity of the Northern Territories and King of Kings Amongst Those Who Grow Exquisite Tulips But Don't Like People Finding Out About It’, which was quite a mouthful especially if you were playing a team sport and wanted your ruler to pass the ball to you. Normally, the opposition had dispossessed him and scored by the time anyone got to ‘Exquisite’. If Khad had been born the same year as Tengis, he would simply have been known as a prat. He wouldn't have been alone – there were lots of prats around. Back in the day Khad had been mightily able at surrounding himself with prats who thought that of all the prats Khad was clearly the best prat and that prats were in fact seriously superior to non-prats if only because non-prats were ‘non’ and prats had nothing ‘non’ about them whatsoever. Prats were everywhere; scientists estimated that over 90 per cent of men were prats. Chinggis had been successful, despite the fact that lots of prats worked for him. He knew they were fickle and easily intimidated. Unlike non-prats, prats were easily assuaged if they were paid well and given a job title that fulfilled some sense of self-importance.