Until the Sun Falls

by Cecelia Holland

  “Why aren’t you with Tshant?”

  “He’s on watch. He always takes the first watch. He’ll send Dmitri for me soon.” Her hands with the rag stopped moving, and she braced herself up on her arms. “It’s so horrible.”

  “Don’t be silly.” He took a tress of her hair between his fingers and pulled it gently. “You’ll grow used to us—we aren’t entirely vicious.”

  She began to mop again. The strands of her hair swung before her face. “No, you aren’t. That’s why it’s horrible.”

  “If you enjoy feeling like that—”

  The door opened soundlessly, and Tshant stepped just inside, a black shape against the light from the next room. He said, “Come along, girl.” She rose, threw the wet rag into the bucket beside the cabinet, and walked out the door. He stood aside to let her pass. Reaching in, he gave Psin what Psin took to be a warning stare; the weak light from the lamp ruined it. Psin lay back, smiling, and tried to go to sleep.

  Tshant said, “Did he wake up by himself?”

  “Yes.”

  Her skirt rustled. She would not wear Mongol trousers. The skirt annoyed him. She walked very fast, so that he had to stretch his legs to keep up. Her hair swung, glowing in the light of each torch they passed, dark red.

  “Does he talk Mongol to you?”

  “Russian.”

  The sentry before his door straightened, saluted, and held the door open. Ana went through it. Tshant stopped to tell the sentry to wake him if a courier from the army should come. He could hear the girl undressing, just inside the door, and the sentry’s ears reddened.

  “Arcut will come in the morning with his report,” Tshant said. “If Mudak and Ruyun come back, let me know as soon as they report.”

  “Yes, noyon.”

  He went into his room. All the lamps were lit. Djela was sprawled on the couch in the alcove, fast asleep, his mouth half-open. The girl in her shift picked up the trimmer and started dousing the lamps. Tshant went into the alcove and knelt beside Djela’s bed. The boy did not wake up, and after a moment Tshant touched his hair and went out into the main room again.

  She was lying on the couch, her face turned toward the ceiling. He sat down on his side of the couch to take off his boots. Her skin, so pale, was soft and sweet, and he liked the way she carried herself. At first he had thought she was stupid, with her silences and her brooding, but now he knew that she hated them all. He remembered the amusement in his father’s voice, just before he’d opened the door.

  “What did my father say?”

  She understood him without his having to speak so slowly, and she knew more words now. But she still didn’t talk unless she was spoken to.

  “Nothing much,” she said. “He told me I was silly.”

  “Why?”

  “I said all Mongols are . .

  She searched for a word, frowning, and he said, “Ugly or wicked?”

  She actually looked at him. “What do they mean?”

  He stood up and pulled off his tunic. “Ugly.” He made a face.

  “Yes,” she said, and looked away again.

  “Psin’s ugly. So am I.”

  “Very.”

  “What do you think of him?”

  She turned her head toward him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

  He repeated it, slowly.

  “Oh. He’s… I like him. A little.”

  “More than you like me.”

  “Much more.”

  He lay down on his back and put his arms over his head. The silence stretched out. Abruptly, she said, “Will I have to have him, too, when he gets well?”

  He rolled over on his side, startled, to look at her. She tried to meet his eyes and couldn’t. She’d said that to shock him. He said, “You mean, sleep with him.”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He was tempted to say yes and see what she would do. He pulled the shift up around her waist, and she shivered and started to cover herself but did not.

  “No,” he said. “He doesn’t believe in concubines.” He made her sit up and pulled the shift off over her head. She grabbed for it.

  “I don’t like to sleep without—”

  “That’s too bad,” he said.

  “The Khan is awake and up,” Dmitri said, “you should go in there.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he will injure himself.” Dmitri was polishing brasses; he gave her only a glance. “He doesn’t realize how weak he is.”

  “He spent all the afternoon playing with the little one. He’s strong.”

  Dmitri dampened his cloth again. “You’ve never seen him strong. He’s weak as a new child, now. At least send for Tshant Noyon.”

  “Holy Mother. You act as if they were your own people.”

  She sat down. Dmitri was only a free townsman, and she was of noble blood. She kept saying that to herself.

  Dmitri swung his head toward her and frowned. “The Khan is well worth serving. If you’re clever you’ll—”

  The door opened, and Psin came in. Ana leapt up. He had Djela on one shoulder. On his feet he seemed twice as big as when he’d been in the bed.

  “You shouldn’t be up,” she said. “You’re not well enough.”

  “I am. If I lie there one more day I’ll go mad and chase everyone around the city, yelling at the top of my lungs and tearing my hair. Where is Tshant?”

  “He’s in his room, Khan,” Dmitri said. “Quyuk—”

  “Damn Quyuk.” Psin swung Djela down to set him on the floor. “Dmitri, where is my horse stabled?”

  Dmitri didn’t even bother to look up. “He’s turned out with the herds, Khan. And all the noyon’s horses are lame or out.”

  Psin snorted. “If I’m strong enough to walk, I’m—”

  Dmitri corrected a point of Russian grammar. Ana tried to keep from smiling. Psin got red in the face and Dmitri made him repeat the sentence ten times.

  “All right,” Psin said. “I won’t ride. Someday, Dmitri, I’ll teach you Chinese.” He stamped out.

  “I told you you should go watch him,” Dmitri said.

  Quyuk said, “Batu is an old woman.”

  “So you’ve said. Twice now.” Psin leaned back. His heart was thumping against the base of his throat. Whenever he did anything at all his heart began to beat harder. “Sabotai is the man with the orders.”

  “But it’s Batu who persuaded him. Batu says we can’t hold our flank now if we strike at Novgorod.” Quyuk clenched his fist and looked down at it. “If we take Novgorod and the cities on the Dnepr, we can hold Russia forever. If we leave Novgorod un-burnt—”

  “We have years for that.”

  Quyuk looked up quickly. His face was leaner and his bright eyes were shadowed, as if he were hiding something. He glanced over at the window. “Can anyone hear us?”

  “No. What has Tshant done here?”

  “He’s taken the estates between the two rivers—everything but Tver and Yaroslav, which he’s not manned well enough to attack. He’s done a good job. We can keep Tver and Yaroslav penned up while we—”

  “We can keep Novgorod penned up more easily. Besides, we’re moving west next year, not north.”

  “What’s west?”

  “Europe. A spit into the sea, like Korea. Two years’ fighting.”

  “And then what?”

  “We will hold the world from sea to sea.”

  “All but Novgorod.”

  “Ah, don’t be a fool.”

  “Talk to Sabotai. Please.”

  Psin thought, It’s Batu, then, not Novgorod he’s after. “I will. But it will do no good.”

  “He listens to you.”

  “He listens when he wants to. He’s too clever to let me jabber at him when his mind’s made up. From what you say, his mind’s made up.”

  Ana came in, with meat and red wine on a tray. She set the bowl on the table in front of Psin, and Psin looking down said, “Serve the son of the Kha-Khan before you serve me, girl.” He pushe
d the bowl over to Quyuk.

  “What did you say?” Quyuk said. He took a spoon from Ana and began to eat.

  Psin translated. Ana went out again, after another bowl.

  “Someday,” Quyuk said, “I will be the Kha-Khan.”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  Quyuk’s eyes flashed. “Do you dare say that?”

  “Did I not?” He smiled. “I said things to your Ancestor, Quyuk, that should have gotten me killed. Temujin let me live. A mistake, maybe. The habit’s strong from overuse.”

  “If Temujin didn’t kill you, I’d be less than he if I did.”

  “You could say so.”

  “Hunh.”

  Ana returned and served Psin, and he ate. Quyuk drank half the wine in the jug. At last, he said, “My father said when he exiled me here that I would learn to serve or die.”

  “Well,” Psin said. “You’ve not learned to serve, and you’re still alive. The Kha-Khan underestimates you.”

  Quyuk was pleased; his eyes narrowed to slits. “My wife and my mother will take care of the rest. All I need is to be alive and in Karakorum when my father dies.”

  “Siremon is alive, and your father’s choice.”

  “Siremon is a child.”

  “Kaidu’s age. He grows older, too—that seems to be the natural way of living. Your father might outlive your hopes.” Ogodai was strong. The drink had riddled him through with small weaknesses, but he was strong. “And besides, child, you have us all to contend with. Every man who casts a vote.”

  “I can handle the Altun.”

  “Can you, now.”

  Quyuk’s neck swelled. “I will deal with you all, when I am the Kha-Khan.”

  “Kill me,” Psin said softly. “And kill Tshant and your brother and Mongke, and do what you can to kill Batu and his brothers. Kill the khans of all the clans from the Caspian to the China Sea. In the end you’ll have nothing to be Kha-Khan of but black sand.”

  “Not all of you. Just… a few.”

  “You’d better learn to compromise with us now, Quyuk. If you kill one of us you’ll have to kill us all. Do you think we would let you be Kha-Khan if we thought you’d break the Yasa?”

  “I am—”

  “No worth, until you start to make bargains.”

  The door opened, and Tshant came partway into the room. He stopped; Psin glanced at him. Quyuk had heard him enter. He said, “Psin, I’ll bargain with you.”

  “With that look in your eyes, no. The Ancestor was a subtle man, Quyuk. He fenced the Khanate so that no one like you will ever come to it. Tshant, what do you want?”

  Quyuk got up and charged out of the room. Tshant sank down into the chair he had left. “What were you talking about?”

  Psin leaned back, surprised that he was almost dizzy. “His chances to be Kha-Khan.”

  Tshant was coiled up, set to spring, and his eyes burned. “Do you think he will?”

  “Maybe.”

  “He’s too dangerous.” Tshant tried to loosen his muscles and could not. Psin saw the effort. “How can we protect ourselves?”

  “We’ll consider that when we come to it. I haven’t been marrying off your sisters to half the tribes in the north to keep myself amused through the cold winter nights. He says you have Tver and Yaroslav invested but not taken.”

  “Tver is too far away, and Yaroslav is too strong. I have two tumans—both understrength. I’ve been to Yaroslav…. But I have some captives, and if I could only make them talk, maybe we’d learn something worth knowing.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Down in the basement. Do you want to see them?”

  “Later. What does Yaroslav look like?”

  Tshant shrugged. “It’s on the Volga, where another river flows into it, and they’ve cut a ditch between the two, so that it’s actually on an island. A wide ditch. The walls are of logs, like all the rest, but these have little houses built into the wall at each corner. There aren’t many people there, but they’re determined.”

  “All right. Now let me see the prisoners.”

  They went down the corridor to the stair. Psin’s legs wobbled at the knees. He breathed deeply, and that made his heart beat in a broken rhythm. Going down the stair, he held onto the railing so tightly that he caught a splinter in the ball of his thumb.

  “Most of them were in a party from Yaroslav that tried to get into Tver,” Tshant said. He cocked his finger at a sentry, who followed them. They were in a damp stone hall stinking of cobwebs and rats. “We always let them out of the cities and try to ambush them when they’re in the open.”

  Psin pulled the splinter out. “Good.”

  “The horses of the last party out of Yaroslav were gaunter than the ones before. But not ribby. They’re not starving yet.”

  Two sentries saluted and Tshant nodded. “Open the door for us.”

  One of them said, “It’s good to see the Khan well again.”

  “The air down here might make the Khan very ill very shortly.”

  They laughed. Tshant said, “The guard here changes eight times a day.”

  They walked into a lightless room. The air in the hall had been sweet compared to the stench in here. Psin wrinkled his nose. Something ran splashing across the floor. A light flowered, and Tshant waved the torch back and forth to spread the flame all around the head. In the light Psin could see almost all the room. Puddles of water covered the floor. Half a dozen Russians sat on a bench at the far end, their feet hobbled. Two had shaggy beards down to their belts, but the others were reasonably trim.

  “He’s from Yaroslav,” Tshant said, and pointed to a blond man just out of youth.

  The man stood up, throwing his head back defiantly. Psin said, “Come here.”

  “No.”

  One of the others murmured, “Mother of God, he speaks Russian.”

  Psin gestured to the sentry. “Drag him over here.”

  The sentry unbuckled his swordbelt and handed it out the door. The blond man set himself. Tshant said, “You see how they are. They won’t talk.”

  “Have you tried to persuade them?”

  “They die first. They won’t talk. Whip, fire, iron—nothing opens their mouths.”

  The sentry grabbed the blond man by the shoulder and hurled him down to the floor in front of Psin. The man groaned in rage. Psin put a boot on his back to hold him down.

  “I want a dry room, with a window,” Psin said. “Sentries under the window but out of sight.”

  “You were just sick,” Tshant said. “Do you think you could stop this one from killing you before the sentries came?”

  Psin’s teeth clenched. He caught Tshant by the wrist and twisted. Tshant whirled around, his free hand jerking toward his dagger. Psin let him go.

  “See how weak I am?”

  Tshant looked down at the Russian. “You’ll squash him.”

  Psin backed away from him. “Go do as I say.”

  Tshant went by him. Psin looked at the other Russians. None of them had tried to help the one at his feet. He kicked the man before him lightly in the ribs, and they stiffened but said nothing and did not move their hobbled feet.

  “Such courage,” Psin said, in Russian. He left the room.

  Tshant was at the foot of the stair, talking to four Kipchaks. They saluted and trotted up the stairs. Psin said, “Where are the other prisoners from?”

  “Places I’ve already taken.” Tshant’s mouth twitched. “You are weaker. Before you were wounded I’d have dislocated my shoulder, turning like that against your hand.”

  Psin cuffed him hard. “Don’t try my coat on quite yet.”

  Tshant looked as if he meant to cuff Psin back, but he only lifted his wrist. The marks of Psin’s fingers were fading like old bruises. “I’m pleased to wear your badge, Khan.” He bounded up the stair, two steps at a time.

  Psin swore at him. The stink of the basement made him gag. He felt light-headed, and he waited a little before he tried the climb up to the ground
floor.

  They brought the Russian in, still hobbled, and thrust him into the chair across from Psin. The window behind Psin opened on the little courtyard, brilliant with sunlight. While the sentries left, the Russian blinked and winced away from the light, but he kept his eyes turned toward the courtyard.

  “You are from Yaroslav,” Psin said.

  The Russian said nothing. His face was set like iron.

  “Everything will go much easier for you if you answer me.”

  The Russian’s face contrived disdain.

  Psin leaned back. He had put a cushion against the back of the chair. His dagger lay on the table next to the bowl of fruit the Russian was trying not to see. Psin took the dagger and pared his thumbnail.

  “Mongols know little about tortures. I hear the captives we’ve tried to force to talk have died first. That’s the trouble with tortures; they tend to kill people. The Chinese are more subtle at it. They have ways of loosening a man’s resolve that don’t kill. But they do tend to send a man mad. The Yasa says we may not kill madmen.”

  The Russian looked contemptuous. Psin picked up an apple and rolled it across the table to him. “Eat.”

  The Russian had caught the fruit before it fell off the table. He looked up, startled. His hands caressed the apple, stroking the tough, tight skin.

  “Go ahead, eat it.”

  The Russian put the apple swiftly to his mouth and bit, watching Psin; he obviously thought Psin would try to swat it out of his mouth. He chewed. Before he had swallowed the first bite he was gnawing at the apple again. The fruit vanished faster than Psin had thought possible—the Russian even ate the core.

  “I said that if you don’t start talking, things will get harder.”

  The Russian shook his head. Psin took another apple from the dish and ate it, slowly, crunching it between his teeth. The Russian licked his lips.

  “Horses like apples. Would you eat another?”

  The Russian said nothing, but his eyes went back to the dish. Psin rolled an apple across the table, and this time the Russian caught it before it reached the edge. He tried to eat slowly but he couldn’t keep from gobbling. This time he put the core on the table.

  “As I said, horses like apples. I saw a horse eat meat once, in the middle of a bad winter.”