The Khan Series 5-Book Bundle: Genghis: Birth of an Empire, Genghis: Bones of the Hills, Genghis: Lords of the Bow, Khan: Empire of Silver, Conqueror (227 page)

The boy had been knocked senseless, a large lump visible on his forehead. Kublai opened one of his eyes with a rough thumb and saw it twitch at the light. He was about to speak when he froze and remembered the battle he was meant to be commanding. His legs and back protested as he stood again. He did not try to mount, instead shading his eyes as he stared out.

The Sung had broken. Thousands of them stood in dejected silence, holding their hands up to show they had laid down their weapons. Many of them had already been bound and knelt with their heads down in exhaustion. In the distance, a few were racing away from the bloody field, hunted down in twos or threes by Mongol warriors. Kublai let go of his held breath, desperately relieved. The boy groaned and Kublai went back to him as he stirred.

“What is your name?” Kublai asked. He should have known it, but his mind felt thick and slow.

“Beran, my lord,” the boy replied, his voice weak. One of his eyes was red as blood seeped into it, but he would live.

“Your bravery saved me. I will not forget it. When you are old enough, come to me and I will give you command of a hundred men.”

The boy blinked through his pain and a smile began to spread before he turned to one side and vomited onto the grass.

Kublai helped him up and watched as Beran staggered to the camel, the boy’s swollen face distraught at what he saw.

“I will find you another mount, lad. That one is finished.”

The boy winced, though he understood. For a moment, Kublai met the gaze of the guard standing near him, the man’s expression somehow out of place. He too had been battered in the fight and Kublai could hardly find words to express his thanks. He wanted to reward him, but at the same time the man had done nothing more than his duty.

“Come and find me tonight, in my ger,” Kublai said. “I think I have a sword you’ll like. Something to remember our little fight on the hill.”

The guard grinned at him, revealing a bloody mouth and more than one missing tooth.

“Thank you, my lord. With your permission, I’d like to take my son back to his mother. She’ll be worrying.”

Kublai nodded stiffly, his mouth slightly open in surprise as the guard tapped the staggering drummer boy on the shoulder and walked him away down the hill. He could not help wonder if the man would have fought with such berserk energy if he had not seen his son knocked down, but it did not matter. Alone, Kublai sagged against the flank of his horse. He had survived. His hands began to shake and he held them up, seeing the sword calluses that ridged each finger of his bloody right hand. They were no longer ink-stained. For the first time, Kublai felt truly comfortable in the armor that had certainly saved his life. He began to laugh as he leaned against his mount, reaching out to rub its muzzle and leaving a bright smear of blood that the animal licked away.

XUAN, SON OF HEAVEN AND HEIR TO THE CHIN EMPIRE
, looked over the glassy surface of Hangzhou lake and listened to his children laughing as they splashed one another in the sun. He could see the ripples they made in the shallows spreading out over the deeper water, where a boatman fished for trout and stared too obviously in the direction of the Chin emperor’s family. Xuan sighed to himself. It was unlikely so lowly a man was a spy for the Sung court, but you never knew. In his years of peaceful captivity, Xuan had learned to trust no one outside his wife and children. There was always someone watching and reporting his every word and action. He had thought once that he would grow used to it in time, but in fact the opposite was true. Whenever he felt eyes on him, it was like already tender skin being prodded again and again until he wanted to rail and shout at them. He had done so once and the unlucky scribe who had made him angry had been quietly removed from his post, only to be replaced by another before the day was out. There was no true privacy. Xuan had come into Sung lands to escape a Mongol army and they had never been quite sure what to do with him. He was a cousin of the Sung emperor by blood and had to be treated with respect. At the same time, the twin branches of the family had not been friends or allies for centuries, and more importantly, he had lost
his lands, his wealth and power—a sure sign that bad luck stalked his house. The truth was that luck had played a very small part in the tragedies he had known. The armies of Genghis had taken Yenking, his capital city. Xuan had been betrayed by his own generals and forced to kneel to the khan. Even decades later, the memories stirred restlessly beneath the calm face he showed the world. Yenking had burned, but the wolves of Genghis had still hunted him, relentless and savage. He had spent his youth running from them, city by city, year by year. The sons and brothers of Genghis had torn his lands apart until the only safe place was across the Sung border. It had been the worst of all choices, but the only one left to him.

Xuan had expected to be assassinated at first. As he was moved around the Sung regions from noble to noble, he used to jump up from his bed at every creak in the night, convinced they had come to end it. He had been certain they would stage his death to look like a robbery and hang a few peasants afterward for show. Yet the first decade had passed without his ever feeling a knife at his throat. The old Sung emperor had died and Xuan was not even sure the man’s son still remembered his existence. He looked at the wrinkled skin on the backs of his hands and made fists, smoothing them. Had it truly been sixteen years since he had crossed the border with the last of his army? He was forty-nine years old and he could still remember the proud little boy he had been, kneeling to Genghis in front of his capital city. He still remembered the words the khan had said to him: “All great men have enemies, Emperor. Yours will hear that you stood with my sword at your neck and not all the armies and cities of the Chin could remove the blade.”

The memories seemed part of another age, another lifetime. Xuan’s best years had vanished while he remained a captive, a slave, waiting to be remembered and quietly killed. He had seen his youth wither, blown away on silent winds.

Once again, he looked to the lake, seeing the young men and women bathing there. His sons and daughters, grown to adulthood. The figures were blurred, his eyes no longer sharp. Xuan sighed to himself, lost in melancholy that seemed to spin the days away from him, so that he was rarely
in
the world and sometimes only dimly
aware of it. Their fates saddened him more than his own. After all, he had known freedom, at least for a time. His eldest son, Liao-Jin, was a bitter young man, petty in his moods and a trial to his brother and sisters. Xuan did not blame Liao-Jin for his weaknesses. He remembered how his own frustration had gnawed at him, before he managed at last to become numb to the passing seasons. It helped to read. He had found a freshly copied scroll of the
Meditations
of Marcus Aurelius in a library. Though he did not understand all of it, there was something about its message of accepting fate that fitted his situation.

Xuan still missed his wife, dead these ten years of some disease that ate her up from the inside. He had written many letters then, breaking his silence to beg the Sung court for doctors to save her. No one had come and each time he had been allowed to visit, she had grown a little weaker. His mind skittered away from the topic as it did with so many things. He dared not let his thoughts drift into the angry roads within.

A flight of ducks passed over his head and Xuan looked up at them, envying them their ability to fly and land wherever they wanted. It was such a simple thing, freedom, and so completely unappreciated by those who had it. Xuan was given a stipend each month for clothes and living expenses. He had servants to tend him and his rooms were always well furnished, though he was rarely allowed to stay in one place for more than a year. He had even been allowed to live with his children after the death of his wife, though he had discovered that was a mixed blessing at best. Yet he knew nothing of the outside world, or the politics of the Sung court. He lived in almost complete isolation.

Liao-Jin came out of the lake, dripping water from his lean body. His chest was bare and finely muscled, with his lower half covered in belted linen trousers that clung to him. The young man’s skin roughened in the breeze as he shivered and shook his long black hair. He toweled himself dry with brisk efficiency, looking over at his father and resuming his habitual scowl. At twenty, he was the oldest of the children, one of three Xuan had brought across the Sung border so many years before. The last, now a girl of twelve, had been born knowing
no other way of life. Xuan smiled at her as she waved to him from the water. He was a doting father to his girls in a way that he found difficult with his two sons.

Liao-Jin pulled a simple shift over his head and tied his hair back. He could have been a young fisherman, without any sign of rank or wealth. Xuan watched him, wondering what sort of mood he would be in after the swim. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched his son walk up the small pebbly beach toward him. Sometimes, he could hardly recall the bright, cheerful boy Liao-Jin had once been. Xuan could still remember when his son had truly understood their situation for the first time. There had been tears and rages and sulky silences almost ever since. Xuan never knew what to expect from him.

Liao-Jin sat on the pebbles and pulled his knees up, clasping his hands around them to keep warm.

“Did you write to the prefect, as you said you would?” he asked suddenly.

Xuan closed his eyes for a moment, weary of the conversation even before it had begun.

“I did not say I would. He has not answered me for a long time.”

Liao-Jin’s mouth twisted unpleasantly.

“Well, why would he? What
good
are you?”

The young man gripped a handful of pebbles and threw them into the water in a jerky motion. One of his sisters yelped, though she had not been hit. When she saw who had thrown the stones, she shook her head in admonishment and waded out deeper.

When Liao-Jin spoke again, the tone was almost a whine.

“You know, there is no law to prevent me joining the Sung army, father. Whatever they think of you, I could rise. In time, perhaps I could have a house of my own. I could take a wife.”

“I would like that for you,” Xuan agreed distantly.

“Would you? You haven’t written to the one man who might agree. You have done
nothing
, as usual, while every day passes so slowly I can’t bear it. If my mother was alive …”

“She is not,” Xuan said, his own voice hardening to match his son’s. “And there is nothing I can do until this prefect moves on to another post, or dies. I do not believe he even reads my letters any
longer. He has not replied to one for eight, no ten years!” His mood was spoiled, the peace of the day gone under his son’s fierce glare.

“I would rather be in prison than here with you,” Liao-Jin hissed at him. “At least there, I might dream of being released. Here, I have no hope at all. Shall I grow old? Do you expect me to tend you when your mind is gone and I am wrinkled and useless? I won’t. I’ll walk into the lake first, or put a rope around my neck. Or yours, father. Perhaps then they would let me walk away from my captivity.”

“There are servants to tend me, if I grow ill,” Xuan said weakly.

He hated to hear the bitterness in his son, but he understood it well enough. He had felt the same for a long time; part of him still did. Liao-Jin was like a stick stirring the muddy depths of his soul and he resisted, pulling away physically and coming to his feet rather than listen to any more. He raised his head to call his other children and paused. The distant towers of Hangzhou could be seen around them, the lake a creation of some ancient dynasty more than a thousand years before. On the rare days he was allowed there, he was rarely bothered by anyone, yet he saw a troop of cavalry trotting down from the road onto the shores of the lake. As he watched in vague interest, they turned in his direction. Xuan came to himself with a start.

“Out of the water, all of you,” he called. “Quickly now, there are men coming.”

His daughters squawked and Liao-Jin’s brother, Chiun, came out at a rush, spattering droplets onto the dry stones. The riders rode around the curving shore and Xuan became more and more certain they were coming for him. He could not help the spasm of fear that touched his heart. Even Liao-Jin had fallen silent, his face set in stern lines. It was not impossible that the soldiers had been told to make them disappear at last and both of them knew it.

“Did you write to anyone on your own?” Xuan asked his son, without looking away from the strangers riding in. Liao-Jin hesitated long enough for him to know he had. Xuan cursed softly to himself.

“I hope you have not drawn the attention of someone who might wish ill on us, Liao-Jin. We have never been among friends.”

The soldiers drew to a halt just twenty paces from the shivering
girls as they moved back to stand close to their father and brothers. Xuan hid his fear as the officer dismounted, a short stocky figure with gray hair and a wide, almost square face that was ruddy with health. The man flicked his reins over his horse’s head and strode to the small group watching him.