Of Battles Past (Amgalant #1)

Borte, as a change from his kid brother Jochi – he’d grow up like spring grass.”

  “It’s for the children’s sake I ask. If engaged children forge a friendship before adolescence is visited upon them, we find they remember they aren’t from different species, in the throes.”

  “Ongirat are the experts. Nought more important, Dei Sechen, than a friendship over the hearth. Nought more important. I agree: a twelvemonth.” Yesugei knocked on his hilts. “Escort him, when you can, around strange dogs.”

  “Dogs?”

  “A dog tried to tear his throat out on the way here. He’s petrified of them, though I haven’t noticed.”

  “I won’t notice either. What else?”

  “He’ll eat you out of house and home. Labour? See that he does, or you have a bad bargain.”

  Never mind dogs, was dad to abandon him to the girl? Dad felt a rat, nonetheless he did. Terror must be temporary. Dei Sechen was nothing if not avuncular, and the otchigin had taken an instant shine to him.

  “I’ll leave you Jahan, Temujin. Though I haven’t had the funds to be indulgent with you, you can be seen to have two mounts, in your wife’s tribe, and Jahan’s a noyonly type. To go with that hat.”

  “Keep the hat on. I know.”

  “Two mounts doesn’t mean unsighted from meal to meal – unless Borte is with you. With you here she’ll be allowed time off to be a kid, and she’ll shortly value you for that. There’s a kid inside her, Temujin. She’s interested in wild animals, but because they keep her to slave at the hearth, there’s an area where you’ve had more opportunity to learn. Ride out and watch the wild animals. But don’t shoot them to impress her. Talk to her about them. If you spot your chance, track her down a tiger.”

  “A tiger, dad?”

  “It’s the eyes, lad.” He dropped a hand on his shoulder. “The eyes are serious weapons. Use them wisely.”

  Temujin digested this. “You won’t have a spare horse for the trip home.”

  “Sweetheart. Don’t worry about me. Wink’s got a spare set of legs.”

  Temujin joined him on the first miles of his journey – just Temujin, Dei Sechen with the sensitivity to omit this courtesy. “Talk to her. Have I told you?”

  “A few times, dad.”

  “For us boys, you’re almost articulate once you get going. For us boys, in actual fact you’re quite intelligent.”

  “Wow, dad.”

  Both of them laughed. “It’s to your mother’s program. You she set to suck at her left teat and Jochi at her right. On the left lies the organ of the heart, the seat of thought, and the left teat nursed your heartly faculties. Whereas the right nourishes physical facility, as the right hand is natively abler than the left. So we have you and Jochi. One of these days he’ll outshoot you –”

  “One of these days a month ago,” Temujin told him.

  “Is that so?”

  “I’m not to tell, in case of fluke. He is a fluke, though. I know I’m ordinary, but Jochi’s hot for six.”

  “You don’t wish you got the right teat? Your mother knows what she’s about. For Jochi I’ll find a girl transfixed by an arrow – no shortage of those. Your girl suits your strengths. As far as I can determine, Temujin. A wife – the first wife; I don’t know about others, to be frank; or perhaps your true wife whether she came first or not – by our beliefs, she’s forever. Life and death. When you natter with your ancestors over the shadows or the essences of fires, she’s your wife. I have tried to judge aright for you. God grant you take after me, because I can’t figure out what else a father does but see whether he can’t get in love with them himself.”

  “God grant I’m a mirror of you, dad. And that’s why I know I’ll like her, dad. Because you do.”

  Moved, Yesugei cast an arm across his shoulders. “See? Talk to her like that, when you’re grown, she won’t grumble. Boy.” He squeezed the arm. “This wasn’t how I meant to do things, to tell you what I told you and then leave you on your own. While you have me, do you have any questions for me?”

  At once he asked, “Why me?”

  “I know that one. You’re going to be congruent to the task. Fit for the job.”

  “I can’t see that I am.”

  “Not yet, my woolly ears, you aren’t. Be funny if you were. Tangr sees you in your potential. It’s him we have to trust in. Your great-grandfather Khabul and your great-uncle Cutula were khans, and they weren’t perfect. They had foibles. Khabul drank way too much (forgive me on high) and Cutula very seldom changed his clothes (he smelt high, and he doesn’t mind to hear). They were human.”

  With a tilt in the two straight strokes of his brows he said, “They were magnanimous.”

  Yesugei creased his brow.

  “I’m not. I never change my clothes if I can help. But it’s different when you cannot be – big.”

  Yesugei pulled up his horse. “Temujin, what gives you the idea you aren’t magnanimous?”

  Hairyfeet stopped beside Wink, a black with a splotch of white about one eye. The horses nuzzled, but Temujin constricted his lips.

  “Boy? I’m your father. Tell me freely.”

  “Mother says.”

  “Mother says?”

  “If I can’t rise above my sense of injury, I’m not.”

  “What sense of injury?”

  There tumbled out, “Bagtor goes on I call him a bastard. I never have said that word, until I just did. But he goes on I call him that behind his back. Mother says if I give a grudge permission to pitch tent in me, I’ll end up and call him a – word.”

  Shortly Yesugei said, “I don’t have bastards.”

  Temujin stilled and glanced at him cautiously.

  Yesugei was aware his face had changed; he was angry, palpably angry, in front of Temujin. “From son of mine I’d have hoped for the honesty to insult me to my face. Son of mine. To beget a bastard is act beneath me.” Thus he made statement, as if he were about to challenge. Challenge who, his son? “A bastard is a child who can’t point to his father. If Bagtor can’t point...” But he petered out. Challenge who, himself? He muttered, “Where have I gone wrong?”

  And this was worse for Temujin to see: his uncertainty.

  “Harshly said is harshly felt. I have been at fault on Bagtor, if unintentional fault. I didn’t know how he felt, I didn’t know he inflicts the affair on you. Hoelun, does she, keeps this from me, like a child?” This last, with a twist of the mouth of hurt disenchantment.

  Solemn owl eyes watched him. He couldn’t help but think of Hoelun’s words about a son’s faith in his father’s wisdom. Then the Temujin-owl gave a peep. “Dad.” A peep with trust in, or love.

  Yesugei heaved him off his horse, onto his own. “Boy,” he answered.

  Temujin fiddled with Yesugei’s sleeve, which is a boy’s caress. Yesugei sat with his arms loosely about him, hands locked on the other side of him, and went on. “Boy. I’ve told you about your great-grandfather and your great-uncle, and as for your dad, him you see short of unblemished. Now, onto you. Your mother sets you a labour. Not one to be achieved overnight. Virtues are like muscles: the more you use them, the stronger they grow, the easier labour becomes. You can’t draw my heavy bow. But one day.”

  Temujin listened and doodled a finger on his sleeve.

  “And your mother in her wisdom has chosen out for you a hard target, but one worth the sweat and toil. Magnanimity: it’s a big word for a big thing, and you’re a little tyke, but we have expectations of you.” He jiggled him in his arms. “In your labours ahead, Temujin – for I told you, didn’t I, the load’s a heavy one to haul – you won’t be alone. You won’t have to ponder your questions alone. You’ll have the great minds of the age beside you.”

  Temujin lilted a quote. “Not great but dear to the great.”

  “If you like, Temujin. It is a group thing, to run the Mongols. The khan? Pish. Obviously, it’s the marshals and the baghaturs who run the operation. Khan just co-ordinates.”

  “Will you
always tell me what is right to do?”

  He knew that one, still, in spite. “I’ll tell you what I believe right, whenever you ask me. I’ll always be your father.” He removed Temujin’s hat, nuzzled him, plopped the hat on. “Are we happy for the time?”

  “Mm hmm.”

  “Then I’m going to dump you back on Hairyfeet, turn his head to Dei Sechen’s ger and say, God keep you, and love you as your father does.”

  Yesugei rode on plunged in thought. Not gloomy, but grave, and self-critical; thoughts he was glad enough to shake out of, when in the last hour of light, north of Mount Frosty, he saw a hunters’ camp. Fresh game – he smelt roast goat, or hare – beat the bag of runny yoghurt at his cantle, and a mood to be social overtook him. He leant his hips towards the fire and Wink went where steered.

  Close to, he saw the glint of the silver pierced through their nostrils. Ongirat and Tartary both abut on Bor Nor. The war was in the past. Here they were. Yesugei didn’t veer away or make believe he hadn’t ridden up to help them eat their catch. Why be rude? They weren’t his enemy. Even if they were, your worst enemy has guest-rights at your fire. That has been the ethic for thousands of years on the steppe, else no-one can survive. He swung from his horse – stiffly; he stiffened lately, in the hip and the knee; he wasn’t far off forty and the aches had begun.

  As a guest behaves he behaved: he squatted at their fire and warmed his hands, nodded to them. No introductions – they can lead to trouble – you only need to know you are host and guest. Guest was how they addressed him, jochi, a much-used