Swords From the East (18 page)

"Successful as always, you return 0 Temujin, my khan," he said. "This time with a Cathayan captive."

Temujin greeted the newcomer by name, Jamuka. This was the Khan of the Jelairs, of Turkish descent, called in the Horde the Master of Plotting. By his proud bearing and quick, intelligent eyes Mingan judged him to be wiser than the Mongols-a judgment that afterward proved most true. He saw, too, that Temujin was pleased to see his cousin.

The more so, because, drawing back the entrance flap of the council tent, the young khan beheld no more than five elderly Mongols awaiting him-some sleeping and some the worse for wine. In truth the leaders of the Horde had forsaken him.

He let fall the flap and put his hand on Jamuka's shoulder, his eyes blazing from his gaunt face.

"0 my cousin, the orkhons have scattered to the far corners of the earth, and you alone, save these five, stand to await me. I will not seek them."

He raised his hand toward the high standard before the tent-a pole bearing a yak's horns and cross-piece from which hung the long yak-tails. "I will find new palladins to take the seats of the old. This is my word and it will not change."

Jamuka shook his head reflectively.

"Where will you seek for new heroes? You are lean with hunger, and consumed by the fires of anger." His glance shifted to Mingan. "It is well you have brought this Cathayan, to be slain at Yesukai's grave."

Temujin's eyes narrowed.

"I have gone among the riders who went to the edge of the emperor's hunt to seek you," went on Jamuka gravely, "and I have learned what they heard whispered among the followers of the Dragon around the fires at night. The Taidjuts who slew Yesukai had gold upon them, and it was coin of Cathay. Two of them escaped your arrows and went back to rob the bodies of their comrades; having great wealth, their tongues wagged.

"This thing is true."

A murmur of assent came from Jamuka's retinue of nobles, and an answering growl from the Mongol warriors massed around them. Those who could not see Mingan pressed forward upon their fellows; those who stood nearest laid hands upon weapons.

The prince folded his arms and looked at them calmly; he had been schooled to keep from betraying emotion, nor did he lack dignity. Those who saw him so did not realize that cold shivers were chasing up and down his back, or that utter fatigue gripped mind and body.

He, too, knew that Jamuka spoke the truth.

"Yesukai," Chung-hi had whispered to the emperor within Mingan's hearing, "will not trouble your hours of pleasure."

From the death tent near at hand sounded the subdued beating of a drum, mingled with the shrill lament of women.

Chung-hi, Mingan reflected, could not have planned more shrewdly if he had schemed for the Prince of Liao-tung to be slain beside Yesukai. Temujin, grieving for his father, and sorrowing over the loss of his heroes, could hardly fail to give him up to the throngs that thirsted for his death. For one thing, the young khan could not afford to deny the wishes of his men.

"Why do you hesitate, Temujin?" questioned the Jelair chief carelessly. "Let your followers take life from the Cathayan."

"Aye," said another. "Surely this thing must be!"

"Kabul also died of poison from the Dragon's claw."

"Twenty pieces of gold, it was-"

"We will throw this youth's head over the wall-'

"Nay, Temujin will make of it a silver drinking-cup."

All the whispers that reached Mingan's ears were hostile. Only one voice was lifted in his favor: "He bears himself well; he is no black-boned knave," a Mongol warrior said judiciously.

All at once Temujin flung up his head.

"Peace, dogs! I am the khan. No man speaks before me."

At this Jamuka, who was the boy's elder by ten years or more, started angrily, and would have spoken, but Temujin was before him.

"Abide in this place, Jamuka. I go to the tent of Yesukai. When I come forth the lot of this Cathayan will be decided."

He instructed several Mongols to take Mingan to his own tent and to keep him there until other orders were issued.

Mingan was led out of the gathering to the leather yurt of the khan, which his guards did not enter, contenting themselves with squatting in the entrance where they could watch him. He sat down on a pile of leopard skins, paying no attention to them. Presently others came with a bowl of fermented milk thickened with rice, and cheese, and offered it to him.

His hunger was acute and, finishing off the food, he asked for more. The men glanced at each other in surprise at being addressed in the Mongol tongue, and when Mingan had emptied a second bowl, one-the officer who had commented on his bearing heretofore-muttered that he ate like a noble.

The truth was that Mingan's exhaustion was so great that the peril of death was no more than a new, numbing pain.

After awhile Temujin appeared and sat down by him.

"I have said to my men that you are my comrade. Speak openly and tell me what you know of the death of my father."

Mingan hesitated but, aware that the Mongols already knew the truth, explained that it had been a plot of one of the favorites of the court, and that the emperor had had no hand in it.

"Chung-hi! " said Temujin.

Mingan remained silent, and the young khan went on to say he had thought, from his talk with Mingan at the shrine of Kwan-ti, that the Prince of Liao-tung had not been concerned in the plot against Yesukai. Under the circumstances, he said, he-Temujin-would be a dog and the son of a dog if he let Mingan die.

"You must pass between the fires, 0 my first friend," he concluded. "That is our test of all strangers. If you are brave you will not be harmed; if you are a coward, you will be burnt by the fire and we will break your limbs and throw you to the dogs."

Mingan could smile a little, thinking that it made little difference if a man were innocent or not, so long as he was bold enough to satisfy the Mongols.

"Heed what I say," went on Temujin earnestly, "and you will not be marked by the flames. You are brave and hardy, I know. First, strip off these long garments and put on no others. The heat is such that clothing will catch fire, and the man who wraps himself up will be marked."

When Mingan had rid himself of all garments, Temujin rose and added a low-voiced warning.

It would seem, when he was led to the fires, as if they were a solid mass of flames without interval of any kind. As a matter of fact they would consist of two lines of fires, some ten feet apart, but with the end of this lane nearest the victim closed by a heap of blazing brush.

If he leaped over this, he could then run swiftly through the narrow lane and come out unharmed. There was no wind, and the flames rose straight into the air. If he did not jump with all his strength, his feet would be caught in the brush and he would fall. To hesitate after he was once in the lane would be equally fatal.

"And do not hang back when you are led up to the fires or twenty arrows will seek you out. Fear not, for only a weakling dies in this test."

Mingan nodded, and was surprised when the Mongol officer who had brought him food, asking consent of his chief, knelt in front of him and fell to chafing his legs vigorously, starting up the circulation in the stiffened limbs. Then he was led from the tent, through the gathering to where, in a cleared space between the tent-lines, flames crackled and smoke poured from small heaps of rushes and brush for a length of some fifty feet.

It looked, as Temujin said, as if the fires were in a solid mass, for the biggest pile in front of him gave forth a dense smoke that hid the lane of which his friend had spoken. For a second Mingan wondered if Temujin had tricked him.

But he was allowed no time for reflection. At one side of him he noticed the Jelairs, mounted on fine-looking horses, watching him as he was conducted to the end of the fires. Someone gave him a push, and he sprang forward.

Taking off at the edge of the flames he leaped, drawing in his breath and holding it as he did so. A hot wave seemed to engulf him and his knees smarted. Then his feet came down upon cool earth, although the heat around him was unbearable.

Mingan stumbled, caught himself up, and ran on, his eyes stinging with the effort to keep them open in the smoke. In spite of himself, he was forced to close his eyes, while his legs still urged him forward.

He ran into something solid, felt himself clasped by mighty arms, and opened his eyes to gaze with blurred vision into the seamed face of a Mongol warrior at the edge of the crowd. The fires were a dozen paces behind him. Other men crowded about to inspect his skin for burns.

A shout announced that he had passed through the fire safely, and he was brought to where Jamuka was bidding farewell to Temujin.

"You are a fool, my cousin," he heard the thin Turk say, "to keep this Cathayan alive. He will work you harm. The spies of Chung-hi are thick as jackals in the trail of a hunt. I go to my lands, beside Tangut, the city of Prester John, whom you call Wang Khan."

"Will you go to the castle that is guarded by beasts?"

Laughing, Jamuka shook his head.

"Not I! A word of warning, stripling. Prester John is your foe, because he desires the mastery of the Horde. May the way be open before you!"

Temujin raised his hand silently and the Jelairs cantered off.

Mingan was taken to the khan's tent, where he was clad in the rough Mongol garments, and more food was brought him by the warrior who had befriended him and who seemed anxious to observe how much he could eat.

Being hungry again, Mingan did justice to the milk and cheese, and the Mongol growled approvingly-"He eats like a king of a great people."

Temujin, brooding beside him, glanced at him with keen surprise. But Mingan's head sank on his shoulder and drowsiness overcame him.

It was night when he was awakened by the sound of a groan near at hand. Temujin was sitting over a fire in the hearth of the small tent that reeked of leather and horses, his chin propped on his iron-bound arms, tears running down his cheeks.

When Mingan stirred, the Mongol bent his head to hide his emotion.

"Except for a few, my palladins have left me. Will you abide with me, my first friend, and become my teller of tales? Unwillingly you came to my place, the country of the Three Rivers, yet your voice comforts me and your fellowship strengthens me."

For a long time Mingan stared into the embers, and then answered gravely-"Aye, Temujin, for so long as the gods permit, I will remain at your side."

Fate, he thought, and the hand of Temujin, had brought him into the Horde, so that he could learn its secrets, and return to Cathay to place the knowledge he had gained on the step of the Dragon Seat, thus lending aid to the Dynasty of his father.

So the Cathayan youth reasoned, not knowing that it would be his lot to make out of his adventures in the Horde a song to which kings would listen with bowed heads.

IV

The Race

Two years passed, and Mingan found he was faced with a riddle that neither the wisdom of the sages nor the reading of the stars would help him unravel.

Of the five Mongol khans who had been faithful to Temujin, two died, and one fell sick of a wasting illness. Temujin's herds were thinned, and of the best horses kept near the yurt of the young chief, many disappeared in the night in spite of the most vigilant watch. True, the last winter had been a hard one, the prairie swept by blizzards, and the rivers frozen over. The horse thieves had left traces of boots with heels fashioned of deers' hoofs, but none of the reindeer people had been in the Three Rivers country.

Temujin himself was tireless in his efforts, riding in snow or wind storm, from clan to clan of his tribe, leading his fighters in pursuit of the raiders who seemed to descend upon him from every quarter. He recruited supplies from raiding, in turn, caravans that crossed the southern edge of his pasture lands bound to Cathay from India, gaining wine, weapons, cloth, and camels that he sorely needed.

Once he was taken prisoner by riders who attacked his camp at night, but escaped, with the wooden yoke that was used by Tatars to confine their prisoners still on his shoulders. When his men had chopped off the kang, he sent it by an envoy to Mukuli, saying that he would not keep the property of one who had been his ally.

It amused Mingan that old Mukuli gave the envoy a feast and sent back the message that he had nothing to do with the kang.

But from an unknown source, Temujin was still harassed and Mingan knew now that it could not be by the horse thieves who had taken gold from Chung-hi.

And then came a messenger from Podu's camp, in the southern Gobi, to invite Temujin to a feast that would be shared by the other khans of the Horde.

More than once had Temujin disappeared from the Mongol pastures when his herds were nearest the Gipsy lands, and Mingan knew that he had taken the gray pony and gone to have speech with Burta. The last time he returned from his long ride he was moodier than usual. Podu, he said to Mingan, intended to give his daughter in marriage to a khan of the Horde within a few months, at the frost of the autumn hunting season.

"The number of the Mongol orkhons is growing smaller," he meditated aloud. "The sword of an enemy is thinning our fellowship. Podu sees this-he is a great trafficker and trader."

It was the first time Temujin had mentioned the girl to his comrade, and Mingan asked a question-"Do you wish for Burta to be your wife?"

Temujin's keen eyes darkened.

"I will take her."

"Not at the feast of Podu, in the next moon. You must not be among the assemblage at the feast. Your warriors are too few to protect you against your enemy, who will be there."

"What enemy? I have as many as a litter of dogs." The khan laid down the arrow he was whittling into shape and frowned. "What is your thought? No hidden thing must come like a snake between us."

Mingan, however, had not solved the riddle that perplexed him; so far, he could not put a name to the foeman who worked under cover of darkness, striking at Temujin each time with more deadly aim. Who were the riders who, purporting to be Tatars, had taken the Man of Iron captive to bear him alive to their master? Mukuli, the Tatar, would have slain the Mongol rather than take him prisoner.