The Tiger Queens (35 page)

Toregene scowled, but not at the woman desecrating the prayer rug. “That’s odd,” she said, shading her eyes from the sun. “There’s someone else here.”

I followed her gaze to where a cluster of carts and horses stood. To me, they looked no different from all the other dusty horses and rickety oxcarts, but Toregene’s frown only deepened. “I’d thought Ogodei might greet us,” she said, “but my husband is likely snoring under a table. Reconcile the ledgers for my carts—I don’t want any of the men filching what belongs to my husband and sons. Find me in Ogodei’s
ger
when you finish.”

I looked around at the veritable city of identical tents, as bent and mean as a herd of old sheep. “How will I find it?”

“Listen for the loudest tent,” Toregene said. “You’ll find Ogodei inside.”

I oversaw the unpacking of Toregene’s carts while some men erected her tent. “Unload the scrolls first,” I commanded, peering into a crate of yellowing scrolls from Nishapur’s House of Wisdom with its ancient Babylonian tablets and Egyptian papyri. I prayed the illiterate Mongols wouldn’t use the precious texts as kindling for their fires. The soldiers scowled and grudgingly followed my instruction, although I knew it was only because they’d overheard Toregene’s orders. A pockmarked youth and a second boy with eyes that drooped at the corners wandered toward our commotion. The first picked up the occasional caged red falcon or glazed porcelain bowl before tossing them back into the crates. His flat face and wide cheeks marred any chance he ever had of being called handsome, and his leather boots and breeches smelled of a cow freshly slaughtered.

“Look what the sunrise brought.” His gaze skimmed over my veil and travel-stained robe. “I’ve never had a Mohammedan in my bed before.”

I recoiled at his ignorance and wished for once that I’d dressed as these heathens did. My fingers itched to slap him, or better yet—rip out his filthy tongue. The other slaves stopped what they were doing, but none spoke.

My skin crawling, I stepped closer to the repulsive boy, glad he was a fingerbreadth shorter than me. “I’d sooner slit my own throat,” I murmured in Mongolian, “or skewer your manhood and serve it mixed with goat liver before I’d go to your bed.”

His face burned like a furnace. “How dare you—”

“And you’ll not speak to me again, lest you care to take up the matter with Toregene, wife of Ogodei.”

“Toregene Khatun?” The fire in his face banked, and he grew sallow as I withdrew the silver tiger medallion from under my collar.

“Come along, Güyük,” the second boy said. “Lest your mother find out what trouble you’re causing.”

Güyük. It took me a moment to recall Toregene’s mention of her eldest son. I’d expected a young man with a smile like his mother’s but instead confronted a foul demon whose white silk robe and gaudy green felt hat trimmed with ermine did little to cover his heathen stench.

“Keep your opinion to yourself, Kublai.” Güyük grimaced, then stepped back and spat at me. The yellow glob of spittle spattered my hem and he stormed off, kicking up angry puffs of dust.

“My apologies for my cousin,” the tall one said, tugging on the earflaps of his woolen hat. “He inherited his father’s temper.”

I watched them go, then turned to find Toregene’s slaves staring at me. My glare scattered them and they continued unloading Toregene’s leather saddles, embroidered pillows, and snowy oxen while I calmed my heart. Only once everything was situated did I seek out Ogodei’s tent.

Smoke from the largest tent puffed into the air like steam on a winter’s night, and a chuff of coarse laughter burst from inside, followed by trills of high-pitched giggles. Someone threw open the tent’s door, snaring me in the shaft of light that poured from inside. I moved to retreat when I
recognized the flat-nosed boy from the cart, but Güyük gave a feral grin and caught me by my wrist. “You won’t get off so easy this time,” he said.

He pulled me into the tent before I could protest. Soldiers dressed in stained leathers and ratty furs stood, sat, or sprawled wherever there was space, and the wine fumes on their foul breath could have felled a bear. I shirked their curious gazes and straightened my shoulders as if addressing my own slaves in Nishapur, praying to Allah that no one would notice the trembling in my hands or quaking of my knees under the pleats of my robe.

“Look what I found lurking outside,” Güyük hollered. He dragged me before a huge man dressed in luxurious brown silk who reclined among overturned bowls in the middle of the tent. There was no denying their shared resemblance, although the son seemed a crude and misshapen shadow of his father.

So this was Toregene’s husband, the son of Genghis Khan.

Ogodei’s face was as ugly and pockmarked as Güyük’s, his nose red and flat, and his arms were as wide as tree trunks. Yet he let out a ripe guffaw that made his mustache twitch, and his beetle black eyes sparkled with great mirth, as if he’d been blessed by Allah with all he could desire in this life. He clutched a drinking bowl in each hand—one of silver and the other of transparent yellow horn—and on his lap sprawled two women, both with matted hair and who seemed to have difficulty focusing their eyes. One draped her arm around his neck, pressing her breasts against his chest in a way that made my face burn, for I’d never so much as touched my husband outside the privacy of our own walls. Ogodei didn’t seem to mind.

“This one has a tongue like a snake on her, Father,” Güyük said. His friend Kublai sat next to him wearing the same apologetic expression he’d had at the cart. “Perhaps you should save us all the trouble and cut it out.”

I didn’t deign to acknowledge Güyük, and fortunately, neither did his father.

Instead, Ogodei shifted the women from his lap and balanced one elbow on his knee while a boy-slave filled his cup in the other hand. “If I cut out her tongue, she couldn’t tell me where she’s from, and I always like to know where beautiful women come from.”

I glanced around for Toregene, but aside from a few slave-girls, all holding cauldrons and jugs of what I supposed was more alcohol, there were no other women among all these slavering men. This was the last place I wanted to be.

“I’d guess you’re one of the slaves from Nishapur, or perhaps Otrar.” Ogodei reached for one of the cauldrons and shocked me by withdrawing a soup bone. He cracked it in half over his knee, then dug inside before licking the marrow from his finger. He gestured with the bone to a place at his feet. “Sit, little rose.”

Shigi cleared his throat, sitting cross-legged on a sheep-wool rug near the door. I hadn’t realized he was here, although it appeared that he took dictation for Ogodei as I’d been told he had for the Khan.

“Her name is Fatima,” he said. He glanced up from the papers in his lap. “You could claim her as your slave if you wish—”

This brought murmurs of approval and a few shouts of encouragement. I prayed for my legs to hold steady.

Shigi glanced at Ogodei. “But any man who touches her will have to deal with your wife.”

“Which one?” Ogodei sniffed. “Toregene?”

Shigi nodded. “She’s partial to this slave.”

Ogodei recoiled from me as if I’d suddenly broken out in boils. “I try never to cross that wife.”

I glanced at Shigi, but he had eyes only for his paper. I didn’t care to be indebted to him, but it was better than being claimed by Ogodei. “I’ll leave you to your wine, then,” I said to Toregene’s husband.

“Stay,” Ogodei said. “And join us.” He thrust his silver wine cup at me, golden rings on every finger, so the woman on his left pouted and the other scowled in my direction. “There’s nothing in life that can’t be improved with a bit of
airag
or a bowl of wine,” he said. I expected his teeth to be brown and rotten, but they flashed white under his smile as he nudged the blade-thin man snoring on the floor with his boot. “Except perhaps my brother Tolui here.”

The Qur’an forbid alcohol, but most Persians circumvented that law by boiling wine down until it grew thick and sweet. The pale yellow liquid in
my hand was unboiled and unclean, yet I couldn’t appear weak before this man. I took a long draft, then spat it onto the packed earth, wincing at my own crassness. Ogodei stared at me, but I shrugged. “I tasted finer in Nishapur,” I lied.

His women looked at him as if waiting for him to explode, but his booming laugh threatened to bring down the felts. “Don’t tell my little sister that,” he said. “She brought that wine herself today, said she planned to drink an entire jug herself when she married again.”

The wine’s acrid taste clung to the insides of my mouth, and I longed to wipe my lips on my sleeve. Al-Altun was the blood daughter of Genghis Khan, the only daughter I was aware of, and therefore also Ogodei’s sister. Hope flared in my chest that Al-Altun had come here instead of returning to her husband’s lands, that I would meet her and see justice done for my family. “Your sister is here?” I asked.

Ogodei nodded, his eyes closed as the ragged women nibbled on his drooping ears. I averted my gaze, wishing for something to scrub the ghastly image from my mind. “An unexpected visit from her and her sprat,” Ogodei said. “But necessary after her husband’s death.”

I stood suddenly. “I must go,” I said. “Toregene will be expecting me.”

“A pity,” Ogodei said. “Feel free to visit us anytime, Rose of Nishapur.”

“And send us any girls you see along your way,” one of the men called.

“Or perhaps a goat for Güyük!”

I would have smiled under my veil at the insult, but Güyük’s glare stabbed me as I ducked outside, glad for the clean air that filled my lungs. Autumn would come soon, and with it, the need to plant the narcissus bulbs I kept tucked into my belt before they withered and spoiled. I had plenty for Al-Altun now, and with spring would come the opportunity to harvest and split the new growths in case I had need of them beyond tonight.

I pushed past bleating goats and sidestepped the occasional flea-bitten dog until I arrived where Toregene’s white tent stood proudly among the now-empty carts. Her wooden door was carved with the head of a single snarling tiger and painted with vibrant hues of yellow, green, and blue, yet the workmanship was inferior to that found in the meanest shop in Nishapur.

I expected to find Toregene and Al-Altun inside, but instead I discerned
three women wreathed in smoke as my eyes adjusted to the murky light. Al-Altun faced away from me with her head pillowed on a stranger’s lap, and Toregene stirred a boiling cauldron over the new hearth fire. My hand tightened on the bulbs in my belt. I would have to find an excuse to chop them up, to stir them into the foul-smelling stew boiling atop the metal spider.

Al-Altun made a sound akin to an ox’s snort. “I held him in my arms,” she said, her voice quavering. “And then his battered soul slipped through my fingers.”

Her words caught me in their wintry grip, the image of Mansoor’s final moments filling my mind. I smelled the copper tang of death again and heard the shrieks of the grieving on the wind. I would avenge his death before I left this tent, despite the consequences to my already-stained soul.

Al-Altun heaved a shuddering sigh, sobs wracking her body. “I keep thinking of what I might have done differently, how I might have saved him.”

Toregene rose from the fire, then knelt next to the grieving woman. “There’s nothing you could have done,” she said, clasping the woman’s hands. “Jingue had his father’s sickness.”

Jingue. But I recalled Mansoor and my father discussing the first battle of Nishapur, when the Mongols had retreated. Al-Altun’s slain husband had been called Tokuchar.

My heart fell and the visions of Mansoor fled as I realized that this grief-stricken widow wasn’t Al-Altun at all.

“Join us, Fatima,” Toregene commanded before I could gather my thoughts. “Alaqai, sister of my heart and eldest daughter of Genghis Khan, has received a terrible blow and traveled to our camp to recover.”

Eldest daughter. So the bloodthirsty invader had sired more than one daughter.

The weeping woman sat up and wiped a sleeve across her nose, leaving behind a smear of tears and snot as if she were three years old instead of thirty. She was beyond the first flush of youth and her features were too strong to be called beautiful, yet a face such as hers would always draw attention. There was intensity in her every movement despite her puffy and bloodshot eyes, as if a gust of wind and burst of fire had somehow been trapped beneath her skin.

Toregene offered me a bowl of stew from the fire, a mix of greasy meat and gristle with several strands of goat hair floating on top. I’d never cooked a meal in my life—that’s what slaves were for—but even the thorns served to those unfortunate souls in Jahannam would be a delicacy compared to this. I shook my head, my stomach threatening to revolt as she pressed it into my hand. “Alaqai made it,” she whispered. “Eat, or she’s likely to start crying again.” She addressed the other two. “I claimed Fatima at Nishapur after she lost her family. She’s a talented calligrapher.”

After she lost her family.

I’d lost my husband and father only because these women’s sister had ordered their slaughter.

Alaqai glanced at my bowl of stew and her lower lip quivered as she turned her glistening eyes toward me. “You don’t like the stew?”

Toregene gave the bowl in my hands a pointed glance. I tipped it back and managed to gag down a mouthful without it coming back up. I’d never survive a second bite. “I should reconcile the ledgers,” I lied, for I’d checked the accounts until I knew they were pristine. “I don’t wish to intrude.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Alaqai said, her tone exactly as I imagined a queen’s in a crowded throne room would be. “After all, you’ve also lost a husband, haven’t you?”

My husband, and most of my heart.

“I thought so,” Alaqai said, reading my expression and flopping down again. The woman whose lap served as her pillow was a tiny thing with a mole high on her cheek, and she possessed the skill of fading into the background so I’d almost forgotten she was there. Or perhaps she disappeared simply because the overwhelming force of Alaqai’s presence pushed all others into the shadows. “One widow knows another,” Alaqai said. “Toregene’s first husband passed to the sacred mountains before she came to us, so only Sorkhokhtani here has been spared that particular grief.”