Until the Sun Falls

by Cecelia Holland

  Sabotai laughed; the sound heaved out of his chest like great bubbles in water. He spun to face Psin. “I might have thought so, had you not just said so. I know you well enough, Psin. When you complain you are happy.” He swung back to watch the horses coming. “It will be a good war.”

  The camp of the Kha-Khan’s guards lay outside Karakorum, on the west. Psin rode around beneath the walls. Yellow pennants streamed from each tower and cast their shadows rippling over the uneven ground. For the Gobi, the wind was light. Two or three herds grazed south of the city, scattered across the plain: one was the band of white mares who provided the Kha-Khan with his kumiss.

  Cities to take. An interesting problem, taking a city. Psin remembered the raid over the Caucasus, more than ten years before. If Sabotai had already beaten the Alans and Bulgars, the Christians were the next target. Psin had seen some Frankish knights in Outremer, when the Mongols fought the great war against the Muslims. The Franks were big, limber men who rode exceptionally strong horses. They fought with swords rather than bows. He wished he’d been more interested, back when they were fighting in the west. Heavy cavalry, the Franks would try to ram into an enemy line. Interesting.

  “Hold up,” a sentry called. “Declare yourself.”

  “Psin of the Black Merkits. Let me by.”

  The sentry jogged his horse over. “Psin Khan. Our camp is honored.” The sentry bowed.

  “I am honored,” Psin said. He rode by. The camp stretched on across the plain toward the mountains, ten thousand yurts, all in rows neat as Chinese writing. The officers’ yurts were on wooden platforms, with steps leading up. Men lounged on the platforms before their doors. Psin rode down the central street, trying to remember where Sidacai would be, and immediately got lost. He turned down a side street. A troop of dogs yapped at him. He passed four young children playing in the dust, and they turned to watch him, their eyes narrowed. The smell of meat simmering brushed his nose and he sniffed.

  Finally he asked directions from a man loitering at the corner of a street. Sidacai was all the way across the camp. He lifted his horse into a canter. Two great wagons rumbled past, drawn by oxen; they were full of grain. Ahead, he saw his own dark red banner. That would be Sidacai’s post, and he galloped up to the yurt beneath the flying banner.

  The yurt was of honest felt, at least; some of the others were silk. On the platform, Sidacai lay half naked in spite of the cold. A Hindi slave girl played the sitar in a corner beside the door.

  Psin stepped onto the platform from his saddle and walked over to Sidacai, who ignored him. He rolled Sidacai over with his foot. Sidacai sprang up, his hand leaping toward his dagger.

  “Forgotten me already?” Psin said. “Your doddering old father, soon meat for the vultures?”

  “I didn’t know it was you,” Sidacai said. He put one hand to his head and groaned. “You might have called out.”

  Psin grabbed him by his long hair, led him to the edge of the platform, and threw him off. Sidacai howled in midair, landed on his back, and bounced up, his face red with rage.

  “You can’t—”

  “Drunken child,” Psin said. The Hindi girl was still playing. “Come back up here and see whether I can.”

  Sidacai spat into the dust. A crowd gathered in the street, laughing and calling to Sidacai. He vaulted up onto the platform again, and Psin caught him before he could steady himself and tipped him off. Sidacai landed, rolling easily on his shoulders. The crowd hissed and booed. Sidacai got up and sprang. He landed in the middle of the platform, scattering bowls and a jug across the planks; he dove at Psin before he was on his feet. Psin sidestepped him, kicked him in the thigh, caught his wrist, and whipped him off into the street. The crowd ducked, and Sidacai this time lay still a moment, flat on his back in the coarse sand.

  “Well?” Psin said. He pulled his belt up over his belly.

  Sidacai rose. The crowd screamed advice and pelted him with handfuls of sand. His shoulders were slick with sweat, and the sand clung to him. He whirled, glared the crowd into silence, and paced up and down a little, thinking it out. Psin put his hands on his hips and grinned. They were about the same height, but Psin was much heavier through the chest and shoulders.

  Sidacai prowled around to the other side of the platform, near Psin’s horse. Psin followed him. The Hindi girl got up quietly and crossed to the other side of the door; she went on playing. Sidacai feinted, and Psin dodged to one side. Lunging, Sidacai caught him by the ankle.

  Psin sat down hard on the platform. Before he could get up, Sidacai was beside him; Sidacai planted one foot in the small of Psin’s back and shoved. Psin flew off into the midst of the mob. He scrambled up and whirled.

  “Beloved sire,” Sidacai said. “How you’ve aged.”

  Psin charged. He hauled himself up onto the edge of the platform, although Sidacai tried to kick him away, and straightened. Sidacai rammed into him shoulder first, and Psin wrapped both arms around his son’s chest. He could feel the edge of the platform under the balls of his feet. Sidacai elbowed him, shoved, kicked, and butted him in the jaw, but Psin hung on, throwing his weight forward slightly to balance himself.

  “Give up,” Sidacai whispered. “These are my underlings, do you want them to see me beaten by a toothless grandfather?”

  Psin ducked his head and bit him on the shoulder. Sidacai yelled. His hands flew up, and Psin with a thrust of his elbows knocked him back and away. Blood ran down Sidacai’s chest. Psin wiped his mustaches.

  “Not yet toothless, colt.”

  Sidacai threw his head back and laughed. All around the crowd cheered, beating their hands together. A crust of bread struck Sidacai accurately in the mouth. Psin glared at the crowd and waved them quiet. Sidacai said, “Come inside, I’m thirsty.”

  “Drunk.”

  “Old pig. I only counted one tooth.”

  They went into the yurt. The Hindi girl followed them. Sidacai gestured toward her. “Do you like her? I thought I’d send her to you—the music’s relaxing.”

  “Ayuh. And when your mother saw her we’d need relaxation.” Psin sat down with a grunt. “You’re strong, for such a stick. You hurt your old father.”

  “Against you nobody’s strong. Like fighting a mountain.” Sidacai poured kumiss into bowls and gave one to Psin. “What are you doing here? It’s early for the clan to be on winter pasture.”

  “The Kha-Khan summoned me.”

  Sidacai sat on his heels. Reaching behind him, he dragged a fur cloak from the couch and arranged it over his shoulders. “If I go mad from being bitten I shall curse you always. Why do they want you? For the China war?”

  “I’m to go with Sabotai to Batu. I suspect he’s having difficulty with the Altun.”

  “Hunh. The Russians, then. Dull fighting. But you’ve always liked new places.”

  “I’ve been there before. You’re going up to the Lake and play Khan. Tshant comes with me.”

  Sidacai only stared a moment. Finally he lifted his cup and drained it. “I am no khan.”

  “You’ll learn.”

  “I know nothing of it.”

  “My brothers will help you. And Malekai.”

  “I’d rather stay here.”

  “Jagatai will order you back.”

  “Why you?”

  “Sabotai requested me, I think.”

  “Have you seen the Kha-Khan?”

  “Yes.”

  Sidacai turned his head and bellowed for a slave. He poured more kumiss into his cup. “They don’t trust you. They hate you. Don’t go.”

  “Why not?”

  “Maybe they want to kill you. Far away where no one will care.”

  “These Khans don’t hate me, and they trust me or I wouldn’t have commanded six tumans in Korea. If Temujin never had me killed Ogodai won’t. And it was Sabotai who asked for me. I’m sure of that.”

  “Are you taking Mother?”

  Psin nodded. “And Artai.”

  “You are so trusting.”<
br />
  Psin shrugged. He pulled at his mustache, his eyes on Sidacai. “Well, I’ll keep it in mind. Now I’ve got to go. Sabotai wants to leave quickly. You ride post horse to the Lake and when you find the clan send Tshant straight to the Volga—Batu has a main camp there. Tell him to take his mother and your mother and two yurts and the necessary slaves and my dun horse.”

  Sidacai nodded. “Will he go?”

  “He’ll go or face me for it.” Psin scowled. “What do you mean, will he go?”

  “You know how he is.”

  “You tell him that I sent for him on the Kha-Khan’s order.” He stood up. “You might say I have no desire whatsoever to command over him again, after Korea.”

  Sidacai’s head bobbed. “Do you want her?” He jabbed an elbow at the Hindi girl.

  “No. I have all the women I can handle right now. And you know how I hate music.”

  Psin had fought two campaigns in Korea. The first, a reconnaissance raid, had been the kind of fighting he liked best: very fast, very hard, and more dangerous than usual. On the second campaign he had taken Tshant, his eldest living son, and two of Temujin’s grandsons, the Altun Mongke and Kubulai, as tuman commanders. Tshant and Mongke were deadly enemies.

  “Fighting Koreans was a relief,” he said to Sabotai. “Do you remember how Jebe and Mukali fought?”

  Sabotai grinned quickly between swallows. They were eating in a waystation on the road to the Volga camp, and the food was so bad that they gulped it to keep from tasting it.

  “Once I went into my yurt and Tshant had Mongke down and was strangling him,” Psin said. He had finished eating. A bit of limp cheese lay before him on the table; he pressed one forefinger into it and studied the fingerprint. “A couple of days later Mongke knocked Tshant off his horse and tried to trample him.”

  “How did you get them apart?” Sabotai said. He set his bowl down and wiped his chin. Particles of meat clung to his beard.

  “I? A lowly Merkit, a subchief, nothing more than the father-in-law of one of the Altun women, come between the woman’s husband and her cousin in a friendly argument? I kept them riding in opposite directions.”

  Sabotai laughed and yawned. “This campaign should be interesting.”

  “How much trouble do the Altun give you?”

  Sabotai leaned back. Slaves moved around them, clearing the table and fetching kumiss. The waystation was all but empty; a balding captain dozed beside the door, and the smoke settled just over Sabotai’s head.

  “Buri and Quyuk are closer than two out of the same womb. They hate Batu. In a council Batu’s brothers will support him on any issue. Anywhere else they quarrel among themselves. Baidar and Kaidu are the brightest and steadiest of the lot, if you want my opinion. Kaidu is a pleasant youngster, you’ll like him. Kadan is a damned drunk and keeps to himself. He hates Quyuk more than anything else in the world, and he rather likes Batu because of it. You’d never know he and Quyuk are brothers. Mongke hates everybody.”

  “Even you?”

  “Me he likes. Is that a compliment or the worst sort of insult?”

  Psin undid the laces of his tunic. “A compliment. Mongke I know, of course. I fought under Batu once, against the Muslims, and I know his brothers well enough to say they’re nothing. But the others—are they good commanders?”

  Sabotai shrugged one shoulder. “They’re all young, except Batu and Baidar. They are brave. They’ve brought their personal armies, thank God, so that we have Mongols for troops instead of Kipchaks who won’t learn or can’t.”

  “Mongke’s men don’t follow him well enough for my liking.”

  The night wind dragged at the yurt. Sabotai stretched his arms over his head, glanced at the captain snoring by the door, and dropped his hands to the table top. “What’s wrong with Mongke?”

  “Nothing much. He can’t command three crippled oxen and a shaman’s cart in a pitched battle, but he’ll raid as well as any of us.”

  Sabotai’s chest swelled up. He held his breath a moment and let it out with a sigh. “You must know what I mean. He’s not trustworthy.”

  “He has a vivid imagination. He can see just what an enemy should do to crush him into little bits. So he runs before they can.”

  “He’s a coward.”

  “Say that to his face.” Psin yawned until the bones in his jaw cracked. Sabotai’s lips quivered; obviously he was resisting a yawn himself.

  A slave came in and prostrated himself on the floor. “My lords, your horses wait.”

  Sabotai groaned. “I’m dying for some sleep.”

  “Wait until the next station,” Psin said. “Come along.”

  They rode steadily west, through desert bordered by blue mountains. Twice a day they reached waystations, changed horses, and rode on. They got little sleep. Psin thought Sabotai was worried about what was happening in the Volga camp and the city called Bulgar while he was gone. Sometimes, when they had reached the second waystation of the day early in the evening, they rode on all night, dozing in the saddle, a rope tied between their horses.

  Twice they met caravans going west—the camels, swaying on their great feet over the stony ground, reminded Psin of the Muslims who had spoken of the Franks of Outremer. He spent half the night in a waystation talking to the men of one caravan in his rusty Arabic. The camel drivers, from Damascus, mentioned the Franks even before Psin could ask.

  “How do they fight?” Psin said.

  “By the Compassionate God,” the head driver said. He raised his hands and eyes toward the ceiling. “When they are on ground of their own choosing, there is nothing that can meet their charges. There was one, now long gone from Outremer, who stood head and shoulders taller than you, lord.”

  Psin glanced at Sabotai, who was listening. Sabotai said, “Taller than you?” He sounded shocked.

  “And as broad,” the Damascene said. “He was a Norman. The stories are still told of him. He was king of Antioch.”

  “They use swords,” Psin said.

  “Lances also. They don’t throw them, they hold them, thus.” The Damascene locked his elbow against his side and held his hand palm up before him, the fingers curled around an unseen lance haft. “Their charge is terrible.”

  Psin smiled, so that his eyes narrowed. “Mongols don’t usually wait to be charged.”

  One of the other Arabs laughed softly. The head driver said, “All the world knows that Mongols are the greatest fighters.”

  “Someday we’ll fight Franks, maybe, and see.” Psin looked at Sabotai.

  “I can’t understand more than a few words,” Sabotai said. “My Arabic’s gone bad, and I’m sleepy.”

  Psin glanced around at the Arabs. In the low firelight their faces shone; their dark eyes were full of unease and soft fear. Sabotai lay back and pulled his coat over him. Psin finished his kumiss.

  “Your God be compassionate,” he said to the Arabs. They smiled, quick to try to please him, and he laughed in their faces. “Take my regards to your khan, whoever he is.”

  He lay down, his face away from the fire, and slept with the faint scent of Arab in his nostrils.

  They left long before dawn, crossed the river there, and headed on west. Psin was beginning to feel that his legs fit the saddle better than the ground. Sabotai was older than he was, and he watched for signs of failing strength, but Sabotai only grumbled more and walked very stiffly when they dismounted.

  On the twenty-first day they came to the place where they had to leave the main road and travel north. The waystation lay in a bowl of valley, shockingly green after the desert; wells bubbled up out of the ground all around the site of an old city. Only a few huts stood, scattered through the valley, and the hillside they rode over was white with old bones. The flat ground of the valley was covered with apricot trees, so that the air was full of the smell of overripe fruit.

  “We burnt this city when we fought the Kara-Khitai,” Sabotai said.

  Psin reined in and looked. Far across the valley he could s
ee the snowy tops of high mountains, but the dusty haze hid the slopes. “Yes, I remember—there was a mosque—it stood there. And the wall had spikes over it. When we came down here, it was just after a rainstorm, and we could see the mountains. You can’t see them now, only the tops.”

  Sabotai frowned. “I don’t remember that.”

  “I do. I stormed the wall.” Psin recalled something else of that battle and hunched his shoulders. “There were four gates to the city, and their banners were white with green markings.”

  “Ayuh. I remember. You’re right. God above, you were young then.”

  “Younger than Mongke.” He kicked his horse up; the memory made him nervous.

  “Long ago,” Sabotai said. “Ah, well.” He reined his horse around a knot of low bushes. “That was Temujin’s first great campaign—he made no mistakes in it. Before then he was sometimes wrong.”

  “He learned,” Psin said. He slipped his feet out of the stirrups and let them dangle. The soles of his feet were numb from pressing against the stirrup bars. “No man could say anything greater of him—he learned.”

  “Oh, he had some other virtues,” Sabotai said.

  Psin grunted. The campaign against the Kara-Khitai had been his third under Temujin, and the first in which he had commanded his own tuman. Before then he had seen Temujin only from great distances, riding through the camp, with his aides like hawks swooping around him, and the glitter of his name fencing him off from the unworthy.

  “You were not ordered to storm the city,” Temujin had said.

  No, my Khan.

  “You were ordered to encircle and wait for the rest of the army to join you.”

  Yes, my Khan.

  “You disobeyed me, child. I won’t tolerate that. Look at me, child. If you face my enemies, you can face me.”

  No, my Khan.

  Temujin’s soft voice, so quiet, had told him for half the day what the penalties were for disobedience, had told him how lucky he was that he had succeeded. Psin remembered quivering under that gentle voice.

  “If you had failed, child, there would now be so little left of you that a jackal would starve over your bones.”