Until the Sun Falls (22 page)

Tshant came in during the afternoon and said, “Sabotai’s scouts came in today. The army mustn’t be far behind.”

“What did they say?”

“We lost four hundred men.” Tshant grinned. “And no Russian goes armed on the upper Volga.”

Ana glanced at him quickly. She turned back to Psin. “What did he say?”

Psin translated it into Russian. Tshant sat down. “Bring me something to drink, girl.” He gestured broadly, and she nodded that she understood; she left. He said, “Father, Sabotai has sent Quyuk back here.”

“Oh? Is he here yet?”

“He came in with the scouts.”

“Send him up to see me.”

“Tomorrow. You look sleepy.”

Ana handed him a cup. She had left a jug and a bowl beside Psin’s bed, and Psin rolled over onto his stomach so that he could reach them and pour kumiss. When he was done his arms shook. He heaved himself over again, panting. The girl came over and packed cushions behind his head so that he could drink.

Djela said, “Ada, I made up a story.”

“Good news.” Tshant pulled the boy into his lap. “Ana, go away.”

When the door had closed, he said, “I don’t like to have her hear everything. She speaks better Mongol than she pretends to. Do you think we should take Novgorod this year?”

“What does Sabotai say?”

“I don’t know. Quyuk thinks we need it to hold the northern frontier. But if we don’t start out soon—”

“I know. When the snow melts, the forest all around it will be swamp.”

“So Quyuk says.”

“I’m tired. I don’t know. Maybe we should take it.” He shut his eyes. “I can’t think properly.”

“It would be odd if you could,” Tshant said. The fine shade of meaning in his voice made Psin open one eye. “I’ll ask Quyuk to come up here tomorrow morning.”

Psin nodded.

“Do you like the girl? Is she tending you well?”

“Yes.”

Tshant rose; Psin heard the chair creak. Djela began to tell his story. The voices faded, and a door opened and shut. Psin slept.

When he woke it was full dark, and no lamp burned. The room was chilly. He lay still, more alert than he’d been that morning, and listened to the sounds of the house settling—the tiny groans and whispers of all that weight sinking down against the ground. The first time he had slept inside a wooden building, that had kept him awake and tense all night, but later he learned that all houses creaked.

Ana was there. He could smell the soft scents of her body, and he heard her breathing. He said her name, and she jumped, startled.

“Light a lamp,” he said.

Clothes rustled, and she crossed the room. She had not been in the chair, but next to the window. The light glowed weakly in the lamp and she ran it up onto the wall.

“What’s the matter?”

The lamplight washed her in pale colors. She wore a robe, she was barefoot, and her hair swung around her shoulders. “Why aren’t you asleep? “ she said.

“I’m not tired. I’m sick of sleeping. I’m sick of eating, too, and being told stories and having my son treat me like a… Who are you?”

She laughed nervously. “Ana Vasilievna.”

“No. I mean… who owns you?”

“Your son.” She sat down in the chair, half out of the light. Her eyes were impenetrable.

“Where did you come from? Susdal?” 

“Yes. I lived in this house.”

He laughed. “So. Ironic enough.”

“I suppose so.”

Her voice was soft, but there was an edge to it. He remembered the woman in Vladimir who had tried to stab him. He wondered if he could fight off a strong, healthy woman, when he was so weak.

“Were you alone here?” he said.

“No. I had… My family…”

She turned her face away a little. Her voice thickened. “What traitor taught you Russian?”

“Don’t cry, woman. God’s name.” He dragged himself up almost sitting. She was trembling, and she put one hand to her averted face. “Don’t cry,” he said. “It won’t do any good.”

She wheeled on him. Her eyes were still only shadows. “No good. No. My father is dead, my grandmother is dead, and the little children are all gone, nobody knows where or will tell me, and I have to take care of a sick Mongol and sleep with a healthy one—”

Her lips clamped shut. He relaxed. In this mood she wouldn’t attack him. He smiled, thinking he’d been wary of a woman. Her voice came again, low and heavy.

“You killed them all. All you could find. Everything burned, and the children were trampled, and the houses looted, and now there are horses stabled in the monastery and everyone must be indoors by sunset or they are killed too. The blood ran down the street. I saw it—it made waterfalls, little waterfalls.”

“Not everyone died. You’re alive.”

“Because I’m a coward and when he came in the door I fainted. He broke down the door—he packed it, he seemed so huge.” She laughed, and Psin’s muscles jerked at the sound. “Now I find out he’s shorter than I am.”

“My son, this was.”

She nodded. The lamplight shone on her tears.

“Tshant is tall for a Mongol.”

“To me you’re all small. Stunted, warped, like trees that grow in the wrong places. Ugly. Flat faces and little tilted eyes. When he brought me in here and I saw you I thought I should die—it was like being told to nurse a monster.”

“Hunh.” He thought of Chan, and reached for the jug.

“You sound as if that’s funny.”

“Very. One of my wives calls me a monster, now and then.”

“Are you ugly even to Mongol women?”

“She is Chinese. To us, you know, you are not beautiful. You are too white, and your eyes too big, and your noses too long. Stop trying to make me angry. It’s against our law to harm someone else’s slave, and if I told Tshant what you’d said he would only laugh.”

“Do brutes have laws?”

“I don’t know. But we do.”

“I hate you.”

“Now you’re losing your sense. Simple insult won’t win you anything. You sound too desperate. Think a little.”

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“You’re very amusing.” He sipped kumiss and put the bowl down again. He set it on the edge of the table, and it fell, splashing across the floor.

“Now you’ve made a mess,” she said. “I think I shall scream.”

She got a rag from a cabinet and knelt, mopping up the spilt kumiss. He lay on his side and watched her.

“Why aren’t you with Tshant?”

“He’s on watch. He always takes the first watch. He’ll send Dmitri for me soon.” Her hands with the rag stopped moving, and she braced herself up on her arms. “It’s so horrible.”

“Don’t be silly.” He took a tress of her hair between his fingers and pulled it gently. “You’ll grow used to us—we aren’t entirely vicious.”

She began to mop again. The strands of her hair swung before her face. “No, you aren’t. That’s why it’s horrible.”

“If you enjoy feeling like that—”

The door opened soundlessly, and Tshant stepped just inside, a black shape against the light from the next room. He said, “Come along, girl.” She rose, threw the wet rag into the bucket beside the cabinet, and walked out the door. He stood aside to let her pass. Reaching in, he gave Psin what Psin took to be a warning stare; the weak light from the lamp ruined it. Psin lay back, smiling, and tried to go to sleep.

Tshant said, “Did he wake up by himself?”

“Yes.”

Her skirt rustled. She would not wear Mongol trousers. The skirt annoyed him. She walked very fast, so that he had to stretch his legs to keep up. Her hair swung, glowing in the light of each torch they passed, dark red.

“Does he talk Mongol to you?”

“Russian.”

The sentry before his door straightened, saluted, and held the door open. Ana went through it. Tshant stopped to tell the sentry to wake him if a courier from the army should come. He could hear the girl undressing, just inside the door, and the sentry’s ears reddened.

“Arcut will come in the morning with his report,” Tshant said. “If Mudak and Ruyun come back, let me know as soon as they report.”

“Yes, noyon.”

He went into his room. All the lamps were lit. Djela was sprawled on the couch in the alcove, fast asleep, his mouth half-open. The girl in her shift picked up the trimmer and started dousing the lamps. Tshant went into the alcove and knelt beside Djela’s bed. The boy did not wake up, and after a moment Tshant touched his hair and went out into the main room again.

She was lying on the couch, her face turned toward the ceiling. He sat down on his side of the couch to take off his boots. Her skin, so pale, was soft and sweet, and he liked the way she carried herself. At first he had thought she was stupid, with her silences and her brooding, but now he knew that she hated them all. He remembered the amusement in his father’s voice, just before he’d opened the door.

“What did my father say?”

She understood him without his having to speak so slowly, and she knew more words now. But she still didn’t talk unless she was spoken to.

“Nothing much,” she said. “He told me I was silly.”

“Why?” 

“I said all Mongols are . .

She searched for a word, frowning, and he said, “Ugly or wicked?”

She actually looked at him. “What do they mean?”

He stood up and pulled off his tunic. “Ugly.” He made a face.

“Yes,” she said, and looked away again.

“Psin’s ugly. So am I.”

“Very.”

“What do you think of him?”

She turned her head toward him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

He repeated it, slowly.

“Oh. He’s… I like him. A little.”

“More than you like me.”

“Much more.”

He lay down on his back and put his arms over his head. The silence stretched out. Abruptly, she said, “Will I have to have him, too, when he gets well?”

He rolled over on his side, startled, to look at her. She tried to meet his eyes and couldn’t. She’d said that to shock him. He said, “You mean, sleep with him.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He was tempted to say yes and see what she would do. He pulled the shift up around her waist, and she shivered and started to cover herself but did not.

“No,” he said. “He doesn’t believe in concubines.” He made her sit up and pulled the shift off over her head. She grabbed for it.

“I don’t like to sleep without—”

“That’s too bad,” he said.

“The Khan is awake and up,” Dmitri said,
“you should go in there.”

“Why?”

“Because he will injure himself.” Dmitri was polishing brasses; he gave her only a glance. “He doesn’t realize how weak he is.”

“He spent all the afternoon playing with the little one. He’s strong.”

Dmitri dampened his cloth again. “You’ve never seen him strong. He’s weak as a new child, now. At least send for Tshant Noyon.”

“Holy Mother. You act as if they were your own people.”

She sat down. Dmitri was only a free townsman, and she was of noble blood. She kept saying that to herself.

Dmitri swung his head toward her and frowned. “The Khan is well worth serving. If you’re clever you’ll—”

The door opened, and Psin came in. Ana leapt up. He had Djela on one shoulder. On his feet he seemed twice as big as when he’d been in the bed.

“You shouldn’t be up,” she said. “You’re not well enough.”

“I am. If I lie there one more day I’ll go mad and chase everyone around the city, yelling at the top of my lungs and tearing my hair. Where is Tshant?”

“He’s in his room, Khan,” Dmitri said. “Quyuk—”

“Damn Quyuk.” Psin swung Djela down to set him on the floor. “Dmitri, where is my horse stabled?”

Dmitri didn’t even bother to look up. “He’s turned out with the herds, Khan. And all the noyon’s horses are lame or out.”

Psin snorted. “If I’m strong enough to walk, I’m—”

Dmitri corrected a point of Russian grammar. Ana tried to keep from smiling. Psin got red in the face and Dmitri made him repeat the sentence ten times.

“All right,” Psin said. “I won’t ride. Someday, Dmitri, I’ll teach you Chinese.” He stamped out.

“I told you you should go watch him,” Dmitri said.

Quyuk said, “Batu is an old woman.”

“So you’ve said. Twice now.” Psin leaned back. His heart was thumping against the base of his throat. Whenever he did anything at all his heart began to beat harder. “Sabotai is the man with the orders.”

“But it’s Batu who persuaded him. Batu says we can’t hold our flank now if we strike at Novgorod.” Quyuk clenched his fist and looked down at it. “If we take Novgorod and the cities on the Dnepr, we can hold Russia forever. If we leave Novgorod un-burnt—”

“We have years for that.”

Quyuk looked up quickly. His face was leaner and his bright eyes were shadowed, as if he were hiding something. He glanced over at the window. “Can anyone hear us?”

“No. What has Tshant done here?”

“He’s taken the estates between the two rivers—everything but Tver and Yaroslav, which he’s not manned well enough to attack. He’s done a good job. We can keep Tver and Yaroslav penned up while we—”

“We can keep Novgorod penned up more easily. Besides, we’re moving west next year, not north.”

“What’s west?”

“Europe. A spit into the sea, like Korea. Two years’ fighting.”

“And then what?”

“We will hold the world from sea to sea.”

“All but Novgorod.”

“Ah, don’t be a fool.”

“Talk to Sabotai. Please.”

Psin thought, It’s Batu, then, not Novgorod he’s after. “I will. But it will do no good.”

“He listens to you.”

“He listens when he wants to. He’s too clever to let me jabber at him when his mind’s made up. From what you say, his mind’s made up.”

Ana came in, with meat and red wine on a tray. She set the bowl on the table in front of Psin, and Psin looking down said, “Serve the son of the Kha-Khan before you serve me, girl.” He pushed the bowl over to Quyuk.

“What did you say?” Quyuk said. He took a spoon from Ana and began to eat.

Psin translated. Ana went out again, after another bowl.

“Someday,” Quyuk said, “I will be the Kha-Khan.”

“Not if I can help it.”

Quyuk’s eyes flashed. “Do you dare say that?”