and a counterweight iron butt. She kicked off her right stirrup, leant the butt on the tread and shifted her own weight to the left.
Tarqutai, Ubashi knew, had had more luck with Kiyat than with Yesugei’s nokod, the offer identical: to take them over. In Kiyat, focus on the chiefly family was loose. The chief, known as the marshal, is chosen by consensus from a pool of the founder’s get – in the first instance. If he has gotten what, wrapped in green grass, a cow wouldn’t lip, what smeared with fat a dog wouldn’t lick, the circle is widened. Khabul hadn’t been a Kiyat marshal; famously, in his youth they had passed him by as too fond of the drink and a bit of a tearaway. In these times of insecurity two trends were in evidence: to treat lineage as sacred, worship descent, or to flock to the strong arm, with or without much ornament. Both were trends for Tarqutai to exploit, as Ubashi overheard in snatches where he stood outside the tents of Kiyat with Yesugei’s tuq. Tarqutai argued his effectual arm and the Mongols’ holy martyr Ambaghai. In the usual course, Yesugei’s sons might have had the sentimental edge, if they proved to have the equipment; and a man’s sons are ready-trained to his station. Military office is a family affair. Had Yesugei lived, great had been the likelihood of one of his – say Temujin – stepping into his harness after him; had he lived to be aged or otherwise inactive, one of his might have taken on his functions, overseen by him. That was why Temujin’s name got mentioned in the Kiyat tents. A father and son, by the father’s death, can be deep in co-operation, and though not in a technical sense an inheritance, military office works thus.
It isn’t strict or fixed, Ubashi understood. There are traditions, different traditions that on inspection, in fact conflict; there are sentiments and the like must be said; and these traditions and sentiments grow strong or weak in the climate of the times, in the circumstances. And so he heard Kiyat slip into Tarqutai’s hands.
“Our lion names, our great dead, either left no children – Attai – or left them too young, like Cutula, and like Yesugei. We are a people of orphans. The great Mongol skeleton – with bones knocked out, with gaps. To preserve what we have, we cherish offspring of the lion sires, just as if a beam of light begot them, yes. And we wink nine times at a fault, for the sires’ sake.” This was Gombo, who as captain of fifty of his kin group had fought in Tartary beside Cutula and Yesugei. He had come outside for privacy. “Me, I’m old guard, I’m almost the oldest head I know; I lived through Bor Nor, God help me. My own sentiments, strongly, lean towards offspring of Yesugei; I’ve spotted Temujin for promise, as I thought I saw Yesugei spot him. To me – I say outright in your ear, Hoelun – there’s nought wrong with a widow marshal the way we have a widow queen, until Yesugei’s are grown. That’s what I’d like. Others, they see a bigger branch off the trunk of Ambaghai, and I’ve heard, I’ve heard a lot of, we can go to Tarqutai and come back to Yesugei’s. There’s the idea that Yesugei had Tarqutai in his tutelage.”
“Yesugei went to pains with him, but I’d say he had him closely under eye where he didn’t have scope to do much harm.”
“You know and I know, he didn’t intend him for his next-in-charge. But there’s the perception, and Yesugei, alas, hadn’t time to sort these matters out. At the last, he gave no word on his marshalcy?”
“It is a marshalcy. He wasn’t the khan, to name a name.”
“No. It’s just that things work differently, after Bor Nor. If he had we’d have listened.”
“He did not.”
“Tayichiut foster the perception of next-in-charge, and harp on the brother-tribe. And I’m left with this, Hoelun: Yesugei spent the efforts of his latter years to conserve Kiyat, to conserve our unity. We watch other tribes disintegrate. If the majority go to Tarqutai... I don’t know. I don’t want Kiyat split.”
“I don’t ask you to create a split, if the consensus is for Tarqutai. Not only is division contrary to Yesugei’s efforts, but Yesugei didn’t own the tribe, the tribe goes by joint decision. My husband had no thought to flout traditions there.”
“If we had Mengetu. A headquarters, you and Mengetu, with lads of promise who have the smack of Yesugei... Is there any chance? Can you persuade him? The otchigin isn’t versed in war, and lady, though you run a mean war camp, you haven’t led in combat.”
“No. I haven’t been in combat.”
“But you and Mengetu, you’d be a team we’d hitch our wagons onto.”
“Mengetu is sick with his sorrows. I have said to him I understand his stance.”
“Then I can only urge you, go the rounds. Talk to the others, whom I haven’t left unacquainted with my opinions. Most kin groups have post-Bor Nor captains, as you know; I don’t criticize the new set, but they do have a different perspective. Us few who have followed his standard in war, we don’t want to switch to the scarlet. It’s the white tails forever for us. I’d go with you, Hoelun, only I dare say they’ve heard enough out of me. But give them a sight of Yesugei’s tuq...” The old captain squinted, or almost winced at the tuq in Ubashi’s hold. “His spirit lives on in his tuq.”
But this he didn’t say with enormous conviction. A tuq possesses a temporary life after him who lent an aspect of his soul to be his emblem. Death, for the left-behinds, is gradual, even Yesugei’s, seized quickly. But a tuq too must have its funeral, and that last aspect of his spiritual self flit to its liberty. When? The widow, who has his relics in her custody, senses when. Ubashi felt a discomfort, to have the tuq in hand, months on; a discomfort he hid from Hoelun.
Hoelun went the rounds with the spirit of a war hero that burnt on in his tuq. But Tarqutai had been around the Kiyat tents before her with inducements of live cattle. Where did he get the cattle? He stole them. Tayichiut had driven their wagons north to their old grounds on the upper Onon, and there met the Suldu, trespassers, they said, ridiculously. In punishment they seized the famous Suldu rosy cows, fat from their meadows.
“But that is banditry.”
“Lady, what’s between Tayichiut and Suldu I’m ignorant of.”
“There is nothing between them. He has robbed Suldu and given you their cattle?”
Here, thought Ubashi, you have the man who left a spear in Jaraqa and rode on. Where was the outrage? Confronted with Hoelun’s outrage, the captains at once scrabbled for excuses, since they had taken the cattle.
“Lady, the day prior to his arrival with the cow, the children in my care drank water because I had no milk. I had no mare’s milk, no cow’s milk, no ewe’s milk, no nanny goat’s milk. I had no bitch’s milk. Forgive me, lady, but you don’t know how that feels, to see your children quench their thirst with water. Water doesn’t stick the flesh on.”
This, said to her with a return of passion, doused hers. “We have scrimped with our children.”
“Yes. Yes, you’ve been frugal with them, for a chief’s children, we know. Still, they don’t go hungry.”
“Last year Yesugei earnt in Hirai and he straightaway gave what was given him. He kept a colt. His nokod kept their goblets.”
“Forgive me, lady,” this Kiyat said again. “But there won’t be any more where that came from. And half of what he had from Hirai, half of what didn’t go to the Tribute Wall, went to Iqira.”
“Iqira were at the end of their contrivances, last year. Worse off than us. Is this blame?”
“No. Indeed no, God keep me. It’s Jurchen whose policy is to make life nigh on impossible for us. The assessor knew he earnt last year and charged him the taxes. How Tarqutai came by the cow exactly, like I said, I don’t know. I only know I have to feed my kin group’s children.”
This exchange left a dent in her. “Even I,” she said to Ubashi, “underestimated the importance of one man. Why, he has been gone four months.” After a moment, “And I have not his strength. My arm aches.”
“Ujin, you are strong.”
“I wish I were less. I might give up.” A while and she said, “It isn’t strength he had I lack.”
Ubashi only found to say, “They pick a wrestler to
heft that tuq about, beyond short distances.”
“Women can wrestle.”
“Aye. There was Mafjuguru who overthrew her suitors, until one took her fancy and she let herself be beat. And that’s no tale, though she had her schematics from tales. My grandfather saw her wrestle.”
“It’s Mother Nomolun I need to be. But bless me, I am not.”
“Whose deed was to hide Qaidu inside a stack of fuel.”
“What is your lesson, Ubashi?”
Pierced by her eye, he went stupid. “Uh, mistress, I guess I meant I don’t much like her fate.”
After one more tent and discussion inside she turned for home. On the way she said a second time, “My arm is weary.”
“And the horse, I’ll warrant.”
“Can you take this, Ubashi?”
“Aye, mistress.”
Qongdaqor helped her off with the cuirass. She sighed, “If only I had a simple thing to do, such as to wear that against a big bad Tartar.”
“Big bad Tartars are a big day’s work for a Jorkimes or an Uru’ud.”
“But there is so much less to be afraid of. Must I see his efforts go to waste? Must I fail him?”
Qongdaqor dug in his brain before he answered. “Was my master so unkind and skew-eyed as to task you with his tribal affairs?”
This dragged Hoelun’s far-away gaze to him. “What if I told you he did?”
“Then I have fouled my