Genghis tossed the bowl down onto the grass and signalled for a fresh horse to be brought. The tumans formed in squares and Genghis hardly cast an eye over them, knowing the officers would have worked through the night to bring new arrows and swords to those that needed them. He was no longer a young man, able to go two or three days without rest. While he slept, many of his warriors had worked, sharpening swords and tending to their horses.
As Genghis mounted, he saw Mongke and Kublai sitting with other boys nearby, sharing a piece of dried mutton. He scowled at the sight, looking around him for the nearest officer to take them to safety. Before he could find one, Jelaudin’s army shouted a challenge, sending flights of startled birds soaring up from the trees by the river.
Genghis stood in his stirrups, straining his eyes to see if they would attack. Instead, Jelaudin’s army parted and Genghis watched in astonishment as one man rode through them to the ground between the two armies.
The khan stared out at the lone rider. He did not know Jelaudin by sight, but it could be no other. As Genghis watched, Kublai and Mongke stood to see what was holding their grand-father’s interest. Both boys watched in fascination as Jelaudin took a knife and cut through the lacing holding his armour, so that it fell away in pieces.
Genghis raised his eyebrows, wondering if he watched some sort of ritual. In just moments, Jelaudin sat his horse in just a tattered robe and Genghis exchanged a glance with officers nearby, mystified. He saw the prince raise his sword as if in salute, then fling it at the ground so that it stuck point first in the earth. Was he surrendering? Three young men came from the ranks and he spoke to them, ignoring the Mongol host. The prince seemed relaxed in their presence and he laughed with them. Genghis watched curiously as all three men touched their foreheads to his stirrup, then returned to their places.
The khan opened his mouth to order the tumans forward, but the prince turned his horse and dug in his heels. His army had left a clear route back to the river bank and Genghis realised at last what Jelaudin was going to do. The khan had seen the drop on the previous day and he winced in appreciation.
Jelaudin reached the muddy bank at a gallop. Without hesitation, horse and man leapt, plunging over the edge. The tumans were close enough to hear the great splash that followed and Genghis nodded to himself.
‘Did you see that, Kublai? Mongke?’ he called out, startling the boys from their awe.
Kublai answered him first.
‘I saw. Is he dead?’
Genghis shrugged.
‘Perhaps. It was a long drop to the river.’
He thought for a moment, wanting his grandsons to appreciate the dramatic gesture of contempt. Jelaudin could have climbed down at any point in the night, but he had wanted the khan to see the reckless courage of his race. As a horseman born, Genghis had enjoyed the moment more than any other part of the campaign, but it was difficult to explain to the boys.
‘Remember the name of Jelaudin, Kublai. He was a strong enemy.’
‘That is a good thing?’ Kublai asked, perplexed.
Genghis nodded. ‘Even enemies can have honour. His father was fortunate to have such a son. Remember this day and perhaps in time you will make your own father proud.’
Ahead of him, Jelaudin’s army closed the gap and raised their swords. Jelaudin’s three brothers strode forward with tears of joy in their eyes.
Genghis smiled, though he did not forget to send the boys to the rear before he gave the order to move.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The rains had come at last to Samarkand, pounding on the tile roofs of the city in a constant downpour that had lasted for days and showed no sign of ceasing. The streets ran as rivers and the inhabitants could only endure. Illness spread as cesspools overflowed and added their stinking contents to standing water, some even corrupting the city wells. The air remained hot even so and Genghis abandoned the shah’s palace when a vicious new pestilence appeared. It began with vomiting and loose bowels, killing first children and the old as they grew weak. No one was safe and there was no pattern to it: in one area, hundreds would die, while no one suffered in streets all around. Chin physicians told Genghis that such a scourge could only be left to run its course.
The khan urged Arslan to leave Samarkand, but the old general refused, as was his right. The city was his. Arslan had not mentioned the first stirrings of sickness in his gut as he walked Genghis to the gates and saw them nailed shut. With the khan safe, Arslan had closed his eyes, feeling a hot iron in his bowels as he walked back to the palace through deserted streets. Genghis heard of his death just days later.
When Genghis looked at Samarkand after that, it was with fury and grief, as if the city itself were responsible. Those inside mourned the dead or joined them while the khan and his generals took shelter in the gers outside. No one died there. The families collected their water from the lakes to the north and sickness did not strike the camp.
Tsubodai was sighted as the number of deaths in the city began to fall and the air grew cool for the first time in many months. As the general drew closer, tension mounted palpably in the camp. Genghis became more and more irritable until no one dared approach him. The death of Arslan had put the final touch on a bad year and he was not sure he wanted to hear what had become of Jochi. No one had died for four days when he allowed the city to open its gates at last and burn the rotting dead. Arslan was among the corpses and Genghis sat by the funeral pyre as his oldest friend was reduced to clean ash and bones. The shamans of the nation gathered solemnly to chant the general’s soul through to the sky father, though Genghis hardly heard them. The great fires seared the air, burning away the last of the sickness. In some ways, it felt like a rebirth. Genghis wanted to put bad memories behind him, but he could not prevent Tsubodai coming home.
As Tsubodai reached the walls of Samarkand at last, Genghis waited for him in the khan’s ger, lost in dark thoughts. He looked up when the general entered through the small door and, even then, a small part of him hoped he would have failed.
Tsubodai handed the wolf’s-head sword to the khan, his eyes shadowed and showing nothing. Genghis took it almost with reverence, laying the scabbard across his lap and breathing out slowly. He looked older than Tsubodai remembered, worn thin by battle and time.
‘The body?’ Genghis asked.
‘I would have brought it back, but the heat…’ Tsubodai’s gaze fell to a rough sack he had brought with him. He had carried its withered contents for hundreds of miles.
‘I have Jochi’s head,’ he said.
Genghis winced.
‘Take it away and bury or burn it,’ he replied. ‘I do not want to see.’
Tsubodai’s eyes flashed for a moment. He was tempted to remove the head from the sacking and make the khan look at the dead face of his son. He throttled the impulse quickly, knowing it was born of exhaustion.
‘Did his men resist afterwards?’ Genghis asked.
Tsubodai shrugged.
‘Some of the Chin officers chose to take their own lives. The rest came with me, as I thought they would. They are still fearful that you will have them killed.’ He breathed deeply. ‘I made promises to them.’ Tsubodai sensed Genghis was about to speak and threw aside his caution. ‘I will not see my word broken, my lord khan,’ he said.
The two men stared at each other for a long moment, each assessing the will of the other. Finally Genghis nodded.
‘They will live, Tsubodai. They will fight again for me, yes?’ He chuckled, though it was a forced and ugly sound. The silence became uncomfortable until Tsubodai spoke again.
‘I heard of your victory.’
Genghis put aside the sword, relieved at being able to speak of mundane things.
‘Jelaudin escaped,’ he said. ‘I have scouts searching for him, but there is no sign. Do you want the task?’
‘No, lord. I have had enough of the heat. The one good thing I found in going north was in welcoming the cold again. Everything is cleaner there.
’
Genghis hesitated as he considered how to reply. He sensed a great bitterness in his general and he did not know how to ease it. He recalled the worst times of his own life and knew that time alone would heal the man, rather than anything he could say. Tsubodai had obeyed his orders and he was tempted to tell him to take comfort from that.
Genghis held his tongue. The brooding general brought a subtle sense of menace into the ger and Genghis felt invisible hackles rise as he struggled for words.
‘I will move the nation to Herat in the west. One sharp blow there will restore the nerve of other cities. After that, I think I will return home for a few years. It has been too long and I am tired.’
Tsubodai tilted his head slightly and Genghis felt his temper begin to fray. The man had followed his orders and Jochi was dead. What more could he want?
‘Did you hear that Arslan died in the city?’ he asked.
Tsubodai nodded. ‘He was a great man,’ he said softly.
Genghis scowled at the calm tone.
‘Even so, it was not a good death,’ he said.
Once more, Tsubodai did not add anything to the stilted conversation and the khan’s temper came to the surface.
‘What do you want from me, Tsubodai? You have my thanks. Do you think I am pleased that this had to be done?’ Genghis glanced at the sack between Tsubodai’s feet and almost reached for it. ‘There was no other way, general.’
‘I grieve for him, still,’ Tsubodai replied.
Genghis stared at him, then looked away.
‘As you please, Tsubodai. There will be many who grieve. Jebe was his friend, as was Kachiun. His mother is distraught, but they know it was my order.’
‘Still, I am the man who killed the khan’s son,’ Tsubodai said grimly.
Genghis shook his head.
‘He was not my son,’ he said, his voice hard. ‘Put this aside and ride with me to Herat.’
Tsubodai shook his head.
‘You do not need me for that.’
Genghis crushed the swelling sense of anger at the man. He barely understood Tsubodai’s pain, but there was a debt to be repaid and he realised the general could not simply return to the nation.
‘Once more then, Tsubodai,’ he said, his voice hard. ‘For your service, I ask. What do you want from me?’
Tsubodai sighed. He had hoped to find peace when he gave the sword and head to the khan. It had not come.
‘Let me take tumans to the north once more, into the clean cold. I will win cities for you there and wash away what I have done.’
Tsubodai bowed his head at last, staring blankly at the wooden floor as Genghis considered. Jebe had been planning a raid to the north before Jelaudin’s army had attacked at Panjshir. In normal times, Genghis would have sent the two generals away without a thought. The sick misery he saw in Tsubodai troubled him deeply, in part because he felt it himself, but resisted. He had revenged the insults of small kings. The shah was dead, with all but his oldest son, and Genghis had scorched cities from east to west. He searched for a victor’s satisfaction, but could not find it. Somehow, Jochi’s betrayal and death had poisoned the simple pleasures.
After an age, Genghis nodded.
‘Very well, Tsubodai. Take Jebe and Jochi’s men. I would have had to send them far anyway, to have them relearn the discipline I expect of those who follow me.’
Tsubodai raised his eyes from the floor, the warning not lost on him.
‘I am loyal, lord. I have always been loyal to you.’
‘I know it,’ Genghis said, gentling his tone with an effort. He knew he did not have the lightness of touch that Kachiun would have brought to the meeting. Genghis rarely thought how he ruled men like Tsubodai, as able as any he had known. In the stillness of the ger, he felt an urge to ease the general’s grief with the right words.
‘Your word is iron, Tsubodai, take pride in that.’
Tsubodai rose and made a stiff bow. His gaze lingered on the sack before he lifted it onto his shoulder.
‘I have to, lord,’ he said. ‘It is all I have left.’
Herat lay almost five hundred miles to the south and west of Samarkand, with two wide rivers and a dozen smaller ones in between. With the gers of the nation on carts, Genghis chose to approach the fortress city from that direction rather than go back to the mountains around Panjshir and strike west through the maze of valleys and hills. Tsubodai and Jebe had gone north from Samarkand, taking Jochi’s tuman and a dark shadow with them. The story of that hunt and death was whispered in a thousand gers, but never when the khan was able to hear.
It was more than two months before the families sighted the orange stone of Herat, a city by a river. It rose from an outcrop of granite and, to Mongol eyes, it was impossibly ancient. On the first raids into the area, Herat had surrendered without bloodshed, preserving the lives of the inhabitants in exchange for tribute and occupation. Kachiun had left a garrison of just eighty men and then forgotten about Herat until the city expelled them, made rash by Jelaudin’s victories.
As Genghis approached it for the first time, he began to appreciate the sheer mass of the fortress. It was built as a square on top of a rock, the walls rising more than a hundred feet from the rugged base, with great round towers set into them at each corner and along their length. He counted twelve towers, each as large as the single one that had sheltered the people of Parwan. It was a huge construction, able to give shelter to thousands racing in ahead of the tumans. Genghis sighed to himself at the sight, knowing from experience that there would be no quick victory. As with Yenking and Yinchuan, he would have to surround it and wait for them to starve.
The gates of the fortress were shut against him, but Genghis sent officers and interpreters to demand surrender as the tumans began to make camp. No answer came and Genghis barely listened as the officers raised a white tent just out of arrow shot. He did not know if the people of Herat knew his rituals and did not care. The white tent would stand for a day, followed by its red twin and then the black cloth that signalled utter destruction for anyone inside the fortress.
It was another two days before the catapults were assembled in front of the walls and the people of Herat remained silent. Genghis wondered if they trusted in their walls or simply understood that he could not accept a peaceful surrender a second time. He waited tensely until the first stones flew, skipping off the orange walls with just a blurred mark to show where they had struck.
The black tent fluttered in the breeze and Genghis relaxed, settling himself for a long siege as he had done many times before. It was his least favourite method of war, but such fortresses had been made to keep out armies like his own and there was no quick solution.
For the nation in the gers, life went on around Herat, punctuated by the rhythmic crack of catapults through each night and day. The families watered their animals at the river, content to leave the destruction of the city to the warriors. The rains had brought sweet grass, though it was already withering in places as the sun beat down. Such concerns were old to them and, if the city did not fall quickly, they would send the herds out to the furthest grazing, leaving the closest hills to be cropped last.
Genghis rested, his wounds having faded to pale scars on his legs and arms. He did not think of Jochi, except with relief that the betrayal had been brought to an end. After Tsubodai had left, the khan had seemed invigorated, willing to fall on Herat with the nation and begin again. His shoulder had healed over time and he rode every day to strengthen his body, ignoring the aches and pains of age. He had sent Chagatai and Kachiun to besiege the city of Balkh in the east, but the main strength of the nation had come with him to the fortress and he took heart from the sight of the encampment. His wife Borte had not spoken to him since she heard the fate of Jochi, but he was oblivious to that. The world lay at his feet and he was strong as he waited for Herat to fall.
In the fourth month of the siege, Genghis was hunting with senior officers around the base of the city. After s
o long in one place, there were few living things that had escaped the pots of the families. Just a few rabbits remained and they were wary survivors, long used to running from the sound of horse or man.
Balkh had fallen two months before and his tumans had slaughtered the inhabitants, pulling down the stones of the city walls. Only Herat still held out and Genghis was tired of the siege and the hot lands. He had become hopeful of a quick ending when Kachiun and Chagatai returned, but the fortress at Herat was one of the strongest they had ever tried to break.
As the season passed, Genghis had moved his catapults three times, concentrating their stones on flat sections of the walls. Cracks had appeared to great jubilation in the camp, but he sometimes felt he was assaulting a mountain, with as much effect. The walls stood, battered and marked in a thousand places. By then, Genghis knew starvation and thirst would break the city, but he kept his siege weapons working.
‘When this is done, we will go home,’ Genghis muttered to himself, looking up at the walls.
Kachiun and Khasar had heard it a hundred times before from their brother and merely exchanged a glance. A rabbit darted out from cover far ahead of them and all three kicked in their heels to chase it down. Over the noise of hooves, Genghis heard a sharp cry above his head and looked up. There was always someone staring down at his camp from the walls, but this time he saw a man had leaned out too far. The luckless watcher had barely caught himself and now clung to the outer edge by his fingertips. Genghis whistled to his brothers, pointing as the man shouted for help above their heads.