The Mongoliad: Book One

by Neal Stephenson

  “Too far,” Munokhoi said, too loudly. A slur of noise went through the hunting party, assent voiced but not as pointedly—as publicly—as Munokhoi’s dismissal.

  The buck reacted to the sound, sensing danger, and it raised its head. The muscles in its legs quivered, but it was too late. Gansukh’s arrow, released on the heels of the noise from the gathered crowd, struck the deer in the breast. The buck staggered once, blood trickling down its white fur, and then it collapsed.

  There was no sound coming from the group now, and Gansukh steeled himself to not turn and look at them. “And that,” he murmured, almost to himself, “is how my father hunted.”

  Ögedei’s mighty laugh broke the silence. “I see your father was as good a marksman as mine.”

  Gansukh turned to face Ögedei, bowing his head respectfully at the suggested compliment. When he raised his head, he realized Ögedei was still looking at him with that penetrating gaze he had seen before, when he had first arrived. It was as if a cloud had cleared from the Khagan’s sight, and he was seeing something that had been hidden from him for a long time.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Gansukh watched the servant put Munokhoi’s Chinese contraption down on the grass. No one else seemed to notice, or care.

  The early autumn sunrise spilled into the valley too slowly for young Ögedei. He lay prone on the frozen ground at the edge of a marshy clearing. Cold seeped into his bones and the dim light played tricks on his eyes. The hunting conditions were less than ideal, and he had been lying there too long.

  Before the sun had threatened to peek over the ridge, Ögedei had been watching two shapes in the grass near the river’s edge, alternately sure they were animals or his older brothers in their hide jackets. His muscles were starting to cramp. Even if he could be sure of the identity of his quarry, he might not be able to pull his bow well enough to shoot it.

  He pushed himself up on his hands and knees and inched forward. The brittle grass stalks scraped against his shoulders. The sound was like tree branches thrashing in his ears, and he was sure his quarry could hear him.

  Ögedei pressed his belly and chest to the ground and breathed out slowly. He was nearly within shooting distance. If he nocked his arrow, stood and shot in one motion, he’d have a reasonable chance of bringing down a deer.

  But if the shapes were his brothers, there would be no end of ridicule around the fire that night, and more than ridicule if he actually hit one of them.

  Ögedei cursed under his breath and slowly got up on his knees. He had to be sure. Suddenly the quiet of the valley was broken by loud laughter, and Ögedei felt all the air rush out of his lungs. He remained still for another few seconds, listening for the ridicule that was sure to be coming, and when it didn’t, the fact his brothers weren’t laughing at him did little to lessen the sting of what might have happened. He waited for another burst of laughter, and then he stood and strode forward as if he had just entered the clearing, unconcerned now with the loud rustle his body made against the brush. Jochi, his eldest brother, had turned toward the sound, and he waved in recognition.

  “Third Brother! Come over here. Chagatai is telling of his great exploits last night,” he laughed.

  Ögedei smiled as he jogged toward his older brothers. He felt no shame at the nickname, for it was the simple truth: of Genghis Khan’s four sons, only Tolui was younger.

  Of the siblings, it was generally agreed that Chagatai was the fairest, and his ability to spin a tale as well as any court entertainer certainly contributed to his ability to charm the women in the camp. Jochi relied more on his position as the eldest son, and Tolui managed to parlay his ever-present maladies into a constant flock of attentive and doting women who followed him everywhere. While Ögedei thought the image he saw in the water pail was somewhat comely, most said he was much like his father—both in physical appearance and mannerisms.

  “She had such natural bounty,” Chagatai exclaimed to Ögedei as the younger brother approached. He held his hands out in front of his chest, as though this gesture was enough for Ögedei to understand all he needed to know about the story he had been telling Jochi.

  “Have you ever been with a woman with small breasts?” Ögedei asked.

  Chagatai screwed up his face with an expression of mock outrage, and Ögedei laughed, forgetting his disappointment.

  “Indeed, Chagatai, it seems every girl you bed has fully ripened,” Jochi teased. It wasn’t just his height that made it clear he was the oldest of the three. There were already lines around his eyes, and his gaze was much more direct and piercing. He stood with his shoulders thrown back as if he were ready to accept the weight of leadership. He raised his hands and began to massage the air in front of him. “Ooo! Firm!”

  Chagatai backhanded him across the shoulder. “Those are my melons!”

  Their laughter was cut short by a new voice booming across the clearing: “I’m impressed!”

  From the line of trees behind where Ögedei had been lying, an imposing figure and four other men strode into the morning sunlight. Light glinted off the gold around Genghis Khan’s neck, and that same light seemed to vanish into their black cloaks.

  “Truly, what great hunters are my three sons,” Genghis said. “You’ve killed your deer and skinned them already, because here you are, telling stories. Come, show me what you have taken.”

  Ögedei looked at Chagatai first, and seeing nothing but panic in Second Brother’s face, he turned his gaze toward the river. His cheeks burned with shame, and all the bitterness of the failed hunt churned his stomach. Genghis and his four men surrounded them easily, as they stood rooted to the ground. Like frightened deer, the thought flashed through Ögedei’s mind. If Genghis had been alone, if there were no witnesses to the Great Khan’s discovery of his sons’ failed hunt, they might have escaped with only the sting of their father’s tongue. As it was, they were liable to receive a real lashing.

  “Father—” Jochi started.

  “We have more than seventeen hundred mouths to feed.” Genghis spoke without rancor or anger, but they knew better. “The farmers of this territory cannot supply us with enough food—even if we were to eat them as well.”

  Ögedei shivered uncontrollably, not just at the thought of cannibalism, but the calm and effortless way his father suggested the possibility.

  “I know you are not skilled hunters, but I sent you out to learn how to hunt,” Genghis said, responding to the statement Jochi would not be allowed to finish. “We need provisions. Every member of the tribe must be able to—”

  Ögedei silenced his father with an upraised hand, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see a pair of the Great Khan’s guards react as if Ögedei had slapped his father. He ignored them, raising a finger to his lips. He turned his head slightly, enough to see his father’s face.

  “Deer,” he mouthed, and pointed. Downstream, on the opposite bank, stood two good-sized does and a huge buck.

  Genghis’s eyes followed his son’s finger, and with a nod, he motioned for the guards nearest the river to kneel. The familial discipline was forgotten as the group instinctively focused on their prey. The guards slowly lowered themselves to the ground; their swords were of no use in this hunt, and they were only in the way of the hunters. Jochi and Chagatai began to creep along the riverbank, their boots crunching softly on the river rock. Genghis unslung his bow and stepped toward the river, his eyes locked on the deer. Ögedei was at his side, bow ready as well, and as one they moved into the shallows, their boots submerging in the icy water.

  The deer heard Jochi and Chagatai and looked up, presenting perfect broadside targets for Genghis and Ögedei. The two men were ready, and their bowstrings hummed at nearly the same instant.

  Two arrows buried deep into the neck of the buck, the soft slap of the impacts nearly inaudible across the river. The does started, though, much closer to the sound, and bounded off, disappearing into the woods. The buck struggled to keep its footing and then pitched forward
, falling into the river where it thrashed helplessly.

  Ögedei whooped loudly and, raising his knees high with every step, splashed downstream as quickly as he could to stop the downed buck from floating away.

  “Good shot,” shouted Chagatai. The guards whistled their appreciation, and Jochi even clapped as Ögedei splashed past.

  The deer had stopped kicking, and the river was starting to tug at its body as Ögedei reached it. He stopped with a splash, made sure he wasn’t standing on loose rocks, and grabbed at the deer’s rack of antlers. “Help me,” he shouted.

  “No!” Genghis’s voice cut across the water.

  Bracing his feet, Ögedei looked back over his shoulder. Jochi and Chagatai were halfway across the river, and they too had stopped at the sound of their father’s voice.

  “You two,” Genghis said, “go back to camp with the women; this is not your kill.”

  Chagatai looked crestfallen immediately, and his shoulders slumped. Jochi hesitated.

  “Go back!” Genghis roared, and Ögedei’s older brothers reacted quickly to their father’s tone and reversed their course. They stood, dripping, on the bank, unwilling to fully depart from the scene, and Genghis’s personal guard came down to stand with them as Genghis drew a great bone-handled skinning knife from his sash and strode into the river.

  Ögedei felt his balance slipping, and he had to turn back to the dead deer. The buck was bigger than he had thought, and his grip wasn’t very good. He couldn’t pull it out of the river by its antlers. He needed to get in a better position, and as he was trying to get behind the animal’s hindquarters, his father appeared at his side and slung his left arm around the shoulders of the dead animal.

  “Ready?” Genghis asked, his face close to Ögedei’s.

  He could smell his father’s breath—meat, garlic, the slightly sour aroma of airag. For an instant, he was a baby again, being held close by his father—this strange man he had never seen before, but who looked at him with fierce eyes. He had felt—without knowing these concepts—safe…protected…

  “Lift!” shouted Genghis, and Ögedei stumbled back, the buck’s body lurching toward the bank. He stumbled over his own feet and slammed hard to the ground, the buck’s antlers jabbing him painfully in the thighs. The deer’s head lay in his lap, its body mostly out of the river.

  Genghis stepped up onto the bank and looked down at Ögedei, a peculiar expression on his face.

  “What?” Ögedei asked. Then, taking his father’s expression as disapproval, he contended, “If we’d kept talking, the deer would have heard—”

  Genghis shook his head. “That was the right decision,” he said. “I am not angry that you interrupted me.”

  Ögedei tried to reason what his father was thinking.

  “Why did you choose the buck?” Genghis asked.

  Ögedei glanced at his brothers and the guards, and made a snap decision. Tell him the truth. “Father, it was the best choice. It never crossed my mind to shoot one of the females. I should have. I’m sorry—”

  Genghis waved off the apology. He sank down to the ground beside Ögedei. He pushed the skinning knife into the ground between them, and then he looked back across the bank at the other men. “Do you know what your brothers would have done?”

  Ögedei wasn’t sure of the right answer, but sensed Genghis was going to tell him the answer anyway, and so he stayed silent.

  “They would have known I would take the buck and they would have chosen a doe.”

  Ögedei’s stomach knotted again, and suddenly he was the foolish stripling again. The one who had nearly shot one of his brothers, mistaking him for a deer. “We would have had more meat,” he said, the words burning in his throat.

  “Yes, that’s right, Ögedei. We would have had more meat.”

  Ögedei stared at the animal in his lap. He wanted to shove it away. The thrill of the kill was fleeing, and all that remained was the sickening shame of his own inability to think beyond his own desires.

  “You took the buck because you wanted it,” Genghis said. “You wanted the prize it offered. You didn’t defer to me or ask my permission, and you didn’t hesitate.”

  Ögedei looked at his father, but the Great Khan was still looking over the river, his eyes unfocused.

  “You did,” his father said slowly, “exactly as I would have done.” He looked at Ögedei finally.

  Ögedei stared at his father, searching his face for some explanation of the sadness he heard in his father’s voice. He sensed everything around him—the hardness of the buck’s antlers in his hands; the water of the river flowing beside them; his breath, in the cold morning air, mingling with his father’s; the deep lines around his father’s eyes that had been drawn there by the sun and the weight of his position; the sudden emptiness in his stomach as his fear and panic vanished—and he knew there was more to his father’s words than a simple compliment. For a moment, it was just the two of them on the riverbank, and the rest of the world didn’t exist.

  Father and son. More alike than not.

  Genghis nodded, and the moment passed. He pushed himself up from the grass and undid the leather tethers at his belt for the skinning knife’s sheath.

  “What are you doing?” Ögedei asked.

  “It’s not my kill,” said Genghis. He looked down at Ögedei once more, and then turned on his heel and walked into the river.

  Ögedei looked at the knife in the ground. He recognized it as his grandfather’s. An object that predated him, predated even his father. He pulled the blade free of the wet earth. The metal glinted dully in the bright morning sunlight. It was a long blade, but weighted well, and it moved easily in his hand.

  He pushed himself out from beneath the corpse of the deer and considered the animal’s bulk. Perhaps half the weight of a pony. It would take more than one trip to carry it back to camp, even after it had been parted. It would take the better part of the day to haul all the meat back to camp.

  Ögedei looked across the river. Genghis had reached the far side, and one of the guards had given the Great Khan his cloak. “Hey,” he shouted. “One of you. Stay with me and help carry back this meat.”

  A long moment followed where the only sound was the river gurgling between them, and then Genghis threw back his head and laughed. He shooed Jochi and Chagatai off, sending them back toward the camp, and two of the guards followed. Genghis spoke to the remaining pair, and the one who had given the Great Khan his cloak nodded. The Great Khan looked back at Ögedei one last time and then left, a guard following him.

  By the time the remaining guard made it across the water, Ögedei had gutted the deer and was peeling the skin back from its haunches, revealing the lean meat beneath.

  CHAPTER 9:

  THE MADNESS OF THE MUSHROOMS

  At the morning camp, Feronantus took the news of Istvan’s nocturnal malfeasance with irritated resignation. He thanked Cnán, then walked off to the edge of a river, where Eleázar and Percival were idly trying to fish with a weir made of stripped and woven branches. They spoke for a few minutes, then gathered the rest of the group. Cnán watched the leader with no less interest than she had Istvan. She’d had trouble making sense of his name—which sounded vaguely Latin but wasn’t—until she had heard Taran addressing him as Ferhonanths. Then she had come to understand it as an old barbarian name—probably Gothic—that had been Latinized for use in polite company.

  Feronantus motioned for the young Binder to join them. “Cnán has been scouting,” he said.

  “Gone much of the time,” Roger said brusquely.

  Feronantus took exception to his tone. “She returns often enough to keep us on course, and she sees to it we don’t cross paths with anyone who might distract us. But she brings us a problem I’ve been dreading since we gathered at the chapter house.”

  He described what Cnán had seen on the lakeshore.

  “Surely we can’t criticize a man for his grief,” Roger said.

  Percival saw it oth
erwise. “We are on a quest,” he said. “We work as brothers. Istvan has never truly joined us, and now…It’s not grief. It’s pure, mad vengeance. Why would he kill a family of trappers?”

  “He’s after the Mongol guards,” Feronantus said. “He’s tracking tax collectors and studying hamlets that cooperate with the Mongols. Cnán has seen the results of one night’s work. I doubt that this was the first. He has done it before and plans to do it again. This will attract attention—probably has done so already. The countryside is in shock. War parties wander everywhere—Mongol and otherwise. No doubt there will be teams of horsemen riding guard wherever there are goods and money to gather and carry off.”

  “We tend away from the main paths,” Cnán said, “but fur traders go everywhere there are woods and fields and water.”

  “What you saw,” said Illarion, “was but one small contingent of a larger group. You may be assured that there are other parties just like it, ranging over the country, venturing into every forest and valley where furs are to be had. By this point in the season, they will already have harvested a small fortune in trade goods. Which means…”

  “They’ll have protection,” Taran said.

  Roger stared at Cnán resentfully. She glared back. A wry grimace came over his face. He looked away for a moment, then glanced back and nodded by way of apology. “It’s not good news,” he explained. “Istvan was one of our bravest and most loyal.”

  “Mohi broke him,” Finn said, in rough Latin.

  “Illarion saw his family killed and did not break,” Feronantus reminded them. “We can ill afford to lose anyone. I will send a party of three with Cnán—Eleázar, Percival, and Raphael. She will track Istvan, and the three of you will persuade him to rejoin us.”

  “With respect, the girl is no rider,” Eleázar said. “Should we get into trouble—”