As he walked on, Hulegu stepped over the body of a young woman, careful not to tread in the pool of sticky blood around her head. He looked down and frowned. She had been beautiful and he assumed the archer who had put a shaft into her throat had done so from a distance. It was a waste.
It had taken a day to get two hundred men into the fortress, each warrior trudging up the narrow path in single file, then holding the door for the next. Rukn-al-Din could do nothing and he had not had the courage to throw himself off the cliff. Not that they would have let him, but it would have been a fine thing to attempt. They had spread into Alamut’s rooms and corridors with calm deliberation and the Ismaili Assassins had only stood and watched, still looking to Rukn-al-Din for authority. When the killing began, they scattered, trying to protect their families. Hulegu smiled at the memory. His warriors had scoured the castle, room by room, floor by floor, stabbing and shooting anything that moved. For a time, a group of the Assassins had blockaded themselves into a room, but the door fell to axes and they were overwhelmed. Others had fought. Hulegu looked over the battlements into a courtyard far below, seeing the bodies of his men laid out. Thirty-six of them had been killed, a higher toll than he might have expected. Most of those had died from poisoned blades, when they would otherwise have survived with a gash. By dawn, only Rukn-al-Din was still alive, sitting in the courtyard in dull despair.
It was time to finish it, Hulegu realised. He would have to leave men behind, but to destroy rather than to live. It would take months for them to break down the fortress, and he could not wait while Baghdad resisted his army. It had been a risk, even a luxury, to seek out the Assassins, but he could not regret it. For a short time, he had walked in the steps of Genghis.
It took an age to descend the stone stairs running inside the walls. Hulegu finally came out into the bright sunshine, blinking after the gloom. Rukn-al-Din was sitting with his knees drawn up into his arms, his eyes red. As Hulegu came out he looked up and swallowed nervously, certain he was about to die.
‘Stand up,’ Hulegu said to him.
One of his warriors kicked the man hard and Rukn clambered to his feet, swaying slightly from exhaustion. He had lost everything.
‘I will be leaving men here to destroy the fortress, stone by stone,’ Hulegu said. ‘I cannot stay longer. In fact, I should not have taken so much time to come here. When I return this way, I hope there will be a chance to visit the other fortresses your father controlled.’ He smiled, enjoying the utter defeat of an enemy in his power. ‘Who knows? Only rats live on in Alamut and we will burn them out when it falls.’
‘You have what you wanted,’ Rukn said hoarsely. ‘You could let me go.’
‘We do not shed the blood of royalty,’ Hulegu replied. ‘It was a rule of my grandfather and I honour it.’ He saw a gleam of hope come into Rukn’s eyes. The death of his father had broken the young man. He had said nothing while the Mongols tore through Alamut, hoping that they would spare him. He raised his head.
‘I am to live?’ he said.
Hulegu laughed. ‘Did I not say I honour the great khan? No blade will cut you, no arrow will enter your flesh.’ Hulegu turned to the warriors around Rukn-al-Din. ‘Hold him down.’
The young man cried out as they laid hands on him, but there were too many and he could not resist. They took his arms and legs and stretched them out, so that he lay helpless. He looked up and saw only bright malice in the Mongol general.
Hulegu kicked Rukn in the ribs as hard as he could. He heard them crack over Rukn’s scream. Twice more he kicked out, feeling the ribs give way.
‘You should have cut your own throat,’ Hulegu told him as Rukn-al-Din panted in agony. ‘How can I respect a man who wouldn’t even do that for his people?’ He nodded to a warrior and the man began to stamp on the broken chest. Hulegu watched for a time, then walked away, satisfied.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Yao Shu was filled with strange emotions as he rocked back and forth on the cart taking him into Sung lands. As a young monk, he had known Genghis even before he had become the first khan of the Mongol nation. Yao Shu had put aside the natural course of his life to observe that extraordinary man as he united the tribes and attacked the Chin empire. Even in those days of youth, Yao Shu had hoped to influence the khan, to bring a sense of civilisation to his court.
Somehow, as the years passed, Yao Shu had lost sight of his first ambitions. It was strange how a man could forget himself in the thousand tasks of a day. There was always some new problem to solve, some work that had to be done. Yao Shu had seen his life slip through his fingers, so that he looked up from the details less and less often with each passing year. There had been a time when he could have written his ambitions and desires on a single parchment. He was still not sure whether he had lost the ability to think so clearly, or whether he had just been naive.
Still, he had kept hope alive. When Genghis had died, Yao Shu had worked with Ogedai Khan, then Torogene as regent. He had remained in Karakorum as chancellor during Guyuk’s short and bitter reign. Ogedai had shown promise, he thought, looking back. The third son of Genghis had been a man of great vision, until his heart failed and allowed a weak son to rule the nation. Yao Shu sighed to himself as he stared out at the massed ranks riding all around him. He had grown old in the service of khans.
Mongke’s rise had been a terrible blow. If ever there had been a man in the mould of Genghis, Mongke was the one. Genghis had been ruthless, but then he had been surrounded by enemies bent on his destruction. He had been formed in conflict and spent his entire life at war. Yao Shu smiled ruefully at the memories of the old bastard. The philosophies of Genghis Khan would have shocked his Buddhist teachers, almost to the point of unconsciousness. They had never met anyone like that cheerful destroyer of cities. In Genghis, all things had come together. He had kept his fledgling nation safe by slaughtering their enemies, but enjoyed himself enormously while doing so. Yao Shu remembered how Genghis had addressed a council of Chin lords on the subject of ransom. He had told them solemnly that a captured Mohammedan could buy his freedom for forty gold coins, but the price of a Chin lord was a single donkey.
Yao Shu chuckled to himself. Mongke had not inherited that sense of joy. It had drawn men to Genghis as they sensed a vibrant life in him that Yao Shu had never seen anywhere else. Certainly not in the grandson. In Mongke’s earnest efforts to be a worthy khan, he showed no true understanding. Thinking back through the generations, Yao Shu worried that he had wasted his life, drawn like a moth to a lamp, throwing his years of strength away for nothing.
The lamp had been extinguished when Genghis died. Yao Shu had thought many times since then that he should have gone home at that moment, the dream over. He would have counselled a stranger to do just that. Instead, he had waited to see what would happen, taking tasks upon himself until Ogedai trusted him with everything.
Yao Shu stared out at the massed ranks of horsemen in all directions. He had made the decision at last to leave the court. No, Mongke had made it for him when he whipped Chin scholars out of Karakorum and showed it was no longer a place where civilised men would be welcome. It had been almost a relief to begin his preparations for the long trip home. Yao Shu owned very little and had given most of his wealth away to the poor in Karakorum. He did not need much and he knew there were monasteries which would take him in as a long lost son. The thought of regaling Buddhist monks with stories of his adventures was appealing. He could even read from the Secret History to them and give them a glimpse of a very different world. He doubted they would believe half of what he had seen.
Back in Karakorum, Yao Shu had been looking sadly at his collection of books when a messenger had arrived with news of Kublai’s destination. The old man had smiled then at the vagaries of fate. It had solved his problem of how to travel safely for thousands of miles east. He would go with Kublai to Chin lands and then one night he would get up from a fire and walk away from all his memories. He was not bound by oath to
any living man, and there was a kind of balance in having the Mongols take him home, as they had once brought him out of the lands of his birth.
It had not happened. Over the months of conversation and travel, he had become fascinated again by Kublai, his interest sparked by the other man as he toured new estates in Chin lands and talked. Oh, how the man talked! Yao Shu had always known Kublai was intelligent, but his ideas and limitless curiosity had fired Yao Shu’s imagination. Thousands of new farms had been surveyed and marked out in just a few months. Kublai would be a landlord who took only a reasonable share and let his people prosper. Yao Shu hardly dared to believe he had finally found a descendant of Genghis who might love Chin culture as much as he did. On a spring evening, Yao Shu had reached a point where he knew an old monastery was barely thirty miles off the road and yet he had sat on his cart all night and not taken a single step towards it. One more year would not make too much of a difference to his life, he had told himself.
Now he was on the road to Ta-li, a Sung city, and once more, there was hope in his heart. He had seen Kublai spare forty thousand prisoners, and Yao Shu doubted the younger man even understood what an extraordinary event it had been. The orlok, Uriang-Khadai, still sulked in his ger, unable to understand why he had been shamed in front of his men. Yao Shu shook his head in wonder at the thought, desperate not be disappointed once again. Genghis had destroyed cities to send a message to anyone who might resist him. Yao Shu had despaired of finding anyone in his line who did not model themselves on the great khan.
Now he could not leave. He had to see what Kublai would do at the city. For the first time in decades, Yao Shu felt a sense of purpose and excitement. Kublai was a different animal from his brothers Hulegu and Mongke. There was still hope for him.
The region of Yunnan was one of the least populous in Sung lands. Just one city connected the distant territory with the rest of that far-flung nation, supported by a few thousand farms and barely a dozen villages and small towns. There had been no growth there in living memory, perhaps for centuries, and the benefits of peace were obvious. Kublai’s army passed through millions of acres of rich ground, given over to rice paddies or dry crops and a rare breed of long-horned cow that was said to produce the best beef for a thousand miles.
Ta-li city was girded around by high walls and gates, though a suburb of merchant houses gripped the inner city like moss on a stone. That part of Sung territory was a world away from the lands Genghis had conquered. No one there had ever seen a Mongol warrior, or any armed force beyond the soldiers of their own emperor.
Kublai stared across a scene of stillness and tranquillity, his vast army out of place. He could see the smoke of a thousand chimneys over the city, but the farmers had all left their crops and gone to its protection. The fields and outer suburbs lay abandoned, stretching as far as he could see.
The ground was dry and they were close enough to the city for those within to be watching in terrified silence. Kublai spoke an order to Bayar at his side and stayed where he was while it was relayed down the line of authority. The Mongol host dismounted and began to make camp.
Kublai watched his ger being assembled, beginning with the sections of wooden lattice bound together. Everything was done for him by a group of warriors, routine making them quick. They raised a central column and slotted slender roof poles into it, taking lengths of moist sinew from pouches to tie them all off. Finally, thick mats of felt were layered and bound, the small door fitted and a cooking stove carried inside. In just a short time, it was one of thousands appearing on the land, waterproof and warm. Chabi and Zhenjin came trotting up on the same pony, the boy’s arms clasped around his mother. Kublai held his arms wide and Chabi guided the mount close enough for Zhenjin to leap at his father.
Kublai grunted and staggered backwards as he took the boy’s weight.
‘You are getting too big for this,’ he said, holding him for a beat before lowering his son to the ground. Zhenjin already showed signs of his father’s height and his eyes were the same light gold that marked him as the bloodline of Genghis. Zhenjin stretched up to stand as tall as he could, making his father laugh.
‘I have your bow, Zhenjin. Bring it out of the ger and I’ll help you practise.’
Zhenji gave a whoop and disappeared through the door. Kublai let the smile remain. He felt the responsibility of being a father acutely. In time, Zhenjin would be his own man. Yet at that moment he was still a child, long-legged and gangly, with two teeth growing through in the front. Kublai was glad he had brought his family on the campaign. Uriang-Khadai’s wife and children were safe in Karakorum, but Kublai had not wanted to leave Zhenjin to Mongke’s care for so many years. He would have come home to a stranger.
Kublai nodded to the warriors as they bowed and hurried off to complete their own dwellings before dark. As Chabi dismounted and kissed him on the neck, his personal servants went inside with the first armfuls of cooking implements and a large metal pot for tea. Zhenjin could be heard asking them where his quiver was. Kublai ignored the voices, choosing to spend the last moments of daylight staring at the city he must take. His first.
Chabi slipped her arm around his waist. ‘I am pregnant,’ she said.
Kublai turned and held her at arm’s length. His heart leapt and he embraced her. Zhenjin’s older brother had died in infancy and another had been stillborn. It broke his heart to see once more the mingled hope and fear in her eyes.
‘This one will be strong,’ he said. ‘It will be born on campaign! Another boy? I’ll get the shaman to cast the bones. If it is a boy, I have been thinking of names.’
‘Not yet,’ Chabi said, her eyes rimmed with tears. ‘Let it be born first and then we will name it. I do not want to bury another child.’
‘You won’t, woman. That was in Karakorum, where the father was a mere scholar. Now the father is a fearsome general, commanding fire and iron. I will always remember you told me before my first city. I could name him Ta-li, though it sounds like a girl’s …’
Chabi put a hand over his mouth.
‘Hush, husband. No names. Just pray that it lives and I will talk names with you as long as you want.’
He embraced her again and they stood together with the camp all around them. Chabi sensed Kublai’s thoughts settle on the city he must take for the khan.
‘You will do well,’ she murmured, resting her head on his shoulder.
Kublai nodded, but did not reply. He wondered if Genghis had ever felt the same sense of trepidation. Ta-li’s walls looked solid, impregnable.
They were entering the ger when Yao Shu approached. The old man raised a hand in greeting and Kublai copied the gesture. He had known Yao Shu for almost all his life and the monk was always a welcome presence.
‘Will you want me to read to you tonight, my lord?’ he asked.
‘Not tonight … unless of course you have found something worth hearing.’ Kublai could not resist checking. Yao Shu had a talent for unearthing interesting texts, covering all subjects from animal husbandry to soap-making.
The old man shrugged.
‘I have some minor writings on the running of servants in a noble house. They can wait for tomorrow, if you are tired. I … had hoped to talk to you about other matters, my lord.’
Kublai had ridden all day. Though Chabi’s news had lit his blood, the excitement was already fading. He was dropping with weariness, but Yao Shu was not one to bother him with unnecessary details.
‘Come in and eat with us then. I grant you guest rights, old friend.’
They ducked low to pass through the doorway and Kublai took a seat on a bed placed by the curving wall, his armour creaking. He could smell mutton and spices being seared on a wide pan and his mouth watered at the prospect. He kept silent until Chabi had handed over shallow bowls of salt tea. Zhenjin had found his bow and quiver and was waiting with them laid across his knee, fidgeting with impatience. Kublai ignored the stare as he sipped, feeling the hot liquid refresh him.
Yao Shu accepted his own bowl. He was uncomfortable speaking before Kublai’s wife and son. Yet he had to know. At Yao Shu’s age, Kublai was his last student. There would be no others.
‘Why did you spare those men?’ he asked at last.
Kublai lowered his cup, looking strangely at him. Chabi looked up from tending the food and Zhenjin stopped fidgeting, the bow forgotten.
‘An odd question from a Buddhist. You think I should have killed them? Uriang-Khadai certainly did.’
‘Genghis would have argued their deaths would act as a warning to anyone else who might stand against you. He was a man who understood the power of fear.’
Kublai chuckled, but it was a mirthless sound.
‘You forget that Mongke and I travelled with him when we were barely old enough to stay on a horse. I saw the white tent raised before cities.’ He grimaced, glancing at Zhenjin. ‘I saw the red and the black tents and what followed after.’
‘But you spared an army, when they might take arms again.’
Kublai shrugged, but the old man’s gaze did not waver. Under the silent pressure, he spoke again.
‘I am not my grandfather, old man. I do not want to have to fight for each step across this land. The Chin had little loyalty for their leaders. I hope to find the same thing here.’ He paused, unwilling to reveal too much of his hopes. When Yao Shu did not speak, he went on, his voice low.
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