It was a kiss that left me trembling, truly and gloriously alive for the first time in years.
I arched against him, my entire body tingling with the golden heat that spread from my belly and settled still lower. It had been so long since I’d been with a man, but this was a different kind of hunger, deeper and more powerful. I tugged away his deel and trousers and drank in the long brown lines of his body, the way the flames shifted shadows across the sinewy muscles of his chest.
Despite his bandaged arm, Jingue lifted me up and spread me across the bed, covering me with his body and caressing my cheeks. His eyes were the color of damp earth, the very element to calm the fire that always raged in my soul. I realized then that for all our differences, this quiet, thoughtful scholar was the man I could spend the rest of my life with.
“I love you, Jingue,” I said.
He only smiled and brushed his lips against the sensitive skin at the base of my throat. “And I love you,” he murmured. “In fact, I’ve loved you since almost the day I met you.”
I shivered at the surge of pleasure his lips sent down my body, scarcely managing to gasp a single word. “Almost?”
He chuckled and lifted his lips, leaving me aching for his touch. “I did almost let you die of poison that first day.”
“I’m glad you thought better of it,” I said, drawing a sharp breath as he finally loosened my sash and opened my deel, his tongue teasing my nipples before he tugged the silk trousers from my hips.
“So am I.” His arms were under me then, lifting me to him so there was nothing but our flesh and the perfect fit of our bodies together. I wrapped my legs around him, gasping as he filled my body and soul in the same moment. “And tonight I plan to prove it to you,” he murmured.
And he did. Several times.
* * *
We spent the rest of the evening in each other’s arms, then dressed in deels tightly woven with raw silk—the better to stop enemy arrows from penetrating our flesh in the battle to come—and the fur-lined helmets my father had left for us when the sky turned from black to gray. Together we stepped out of the silence of the tent, transformed into a single yoke in the eyes of my father and his men.
My cheeks were flushed with happiness, but I couldn’t resist whispering a question in Jingue’s ear as we walked past waves of bowing soldiers. “So, husband of my heart, will you take any more wives once we return to Olon Süme?”
“You foolish woman.” Jingue chortled. “I waited all this time for you—what could I possibly want with another wife? Aside from peace and tranquility, that is.”
I gave him a fierce scowl and a mock punch to his arm, earning still more laughter despite my relief. Nestorians didn’t make a habit of taking more than one wife, but I’d worried that I might follow in my mother’s footsteps, my heart broken as Jingue married more women, as my father had done. “I can scarcely handle you, Alaqai,” Jingue said, “much less any other women.”
“And I’d have you gelded if you did,” I said. “I’m quite handy with a knife, you know.”
Jingue threw back his head and laughed as we walked to where my father stood with Shigi and Boyahoe, our army of mounted cavalry fanning out behind them.
“It pleases me to see your happiness in this marriage,” my father said to us, smiling before he motioned to where Boyahoe stood with Enebish. “When we’ve defeated the Jurched, this boy-soldier can return to Olon Süme or accompany me to the Khwarazmian Empire to conquer the lazy sultans in their palaces of gold.”
“You never remain at peace for long, do you, Father?” I asked.
He harrumphed, sounding like an old man, but his eyes were as bright as those of a boy receiving his first horse. “There will be plenty of time for peace once my flesh feeds the earth.”
I breathed the cool morning air on both sides of his leathered face while Jingue bid his brother and sister good-bye. “Thank you, Father,” I murmured. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Indeed you shall, tarvag takal.” He winked. “When next we meet we shall toast one another’s victories with that fine Onggud wine of yours.”
Shigi presented my tiger sword, freshly sharpened and polished, a knowing look in his eyes.
“It was good that you took this last night,” I said. “You know me well.”
He shrugged. “I’ve always liked Jingue. It would have been a shame to have to arrange his funeral today.”
“Be safe, Shigi,” I said. “Don’t let a Jurched arrow find its way to your back.”
He smiled, turning his palms over to reveal ink-stained fingers, so like Jingue’s that I almost laughed. “I fight with brushes and ink, Alaqai Beki, not swords and spears.”
And I was glad of it, for although he didn’t share our blood, Shigi was as much a part of my heart as my parents, Toregene and Sorkhokhtani, and Jingue. I remembered his words before he first left Olon Süme and wondered if he’d fully reconciled himself to living without a wife at his side, if he still pined for his married lover. I squeezed his hands, then mounted my borrowed horse and lifted my tiger sword to salute my father, prompting cheers from the soldiers behind Jingue and me.
Despite the flush of excitement, I felt a flutter of dread at the uncertainty of what lay before us when we reentered Olon Süme.
My father pledged victories for all our family, but I could only pray that the Eternal Blue Sky would grant his promises.
* * *
With a contingent from my father’s army at our back, we retraced our path through the skeletons of burned villages, listening silently as my father’s soldiers recounted their execution of the Crow Swarm outside one barren Jurched town, the way their war drums had pounded and men galloped at once from all directions. They left only charred earth and fat crows in their wake, like a gaping wound in the earth after a lightning strike. Olon Süme would suffer the same fate if its people refused the demands that Jingue and I would set before them.
The air still smelled of soot and the oily stench of death when Jingue and I approached Olon Süme’s carved tortoise gates, our army of cavalry and hastily constructed ballistas hidden in the hills on ground I’d recently sprinkled with fresh mare’s milk, beseeching the Earth Mother for an easy victory. I prayed that the Onggud fear of war and the threat of mounted Mongols armed with catapults would induce Olon Süme to accept our terms. We’d been gone only ten days, but already the blows of hammers and chisels resounded, signs of a city being reborn. Freshly tilled soil outside the walls lent the impression of spring instead of autumn, but there were no seeds tucked into these furrows. Instead, the last open pit we passed held only corpses with bloated limbs and unrecognizable faces, too many dead to leave uncovered on the steppes for the foxes and vultures.
I stared at the walls ahead and prayed we wouldn’t soon have more bodies to bury.
Several overdressed figures, all wearing the red hats of the Council of Nobles, hurried to the bulwark over the tortoise gate, now frantically closed to bar our entrance. I kept my hands clasped before me, searching for Jingue’s uncle and shocked when I didn’t find him. Orbei stood stiff-backed amongst the nervous men, but her reptilian features sagged with relief when she recognized her eldest son riding next to me.
A reed-thin man I scarcely recognized from the council lifted his pointed red hat to wipe the top of his shiny head. “Jingue, son of Ala-Qush,” he said, his voice trembling as he stared at me and then scanned the horizon. The man might be a coward, but he was no fool. “To what do we owe this honor?”
Jingue nudged his horse forward, but I held back. “May Christ rest my father’s eternal soul,” my husband said, ignoring the question. “With God’s blessing, the noble lineage of Ala-Qush has ruled Olon Süme for generations, and with his passing, I’ve returned as the eldest son and hereditary heir. I assume you’ll open the gates and follow behind me as I claim the Great House as my own.”
The men whispered amongst themselves, pointed red hats bobbing as their eyes darted to Jingue and me. It was no small thing to supplant their god’s chosen leader, and well they knew it. “And yet you’ve brought the daughter of the Khan of Khans,” the first man said. “Did you capture her as your uncle instructed?”
“I did not capture her.” Jingue glanced at me, his eyes sparking. “I married her.”
And now it was my turn.
“You, the Onggud of Olon Süme, have betrayed us. My father, the Great Khan, craves the blood of the Onggud for the insult you have offered his daughter.” I turned in my saddle to wave my tiger sword at the hills. The metal captured the sun’s light and threw the signal back to where our scouts waited with their catapults and the newly invented spiked shells that would wreak havoc on Olon Süme’s walls. “Jingue, son of Ala-Qush, is the true Prince of Beiping, and as his first and only wife, I, Alaqai Beki, daughter of Genghis Khan, am Beki of Olon Süme. Together we make you a single offer to save your city and your souls.”
Already the disturbance in the hills was being noted as our men moved the ballistas into position. The men on the wall muttered and crossed themselves.
“What are your terms?” Orbei asked, her voice rising above the men’s panic. “Tell us, for we are listening.”
Part of my heart cried out for revenge, for the Onggud to know the same fear I had faced as the fire raged around me and my people screamed in death and fear. But I was mother to these people. And no matter the crimes of her child, a mother never seeks retribution.
I drew a deep breath. “You know what trespasses you committed. Those stains will mark your souls until you draw your final breaths. We offer mercy in this life if you surrender and accept our rule. If you refuse, the full wrath of the Mongol army will rain upon this city, until only your ashes are left to bear testimony to its existence.”
By this time, the hills were covered with the mounted soldiers borrowed from my father, their swords glinting in the sun. The loaders stood ready with the giant lethal arrows for the ballistas. Orbei stepped forward, the breeze ruffling tendrils of gray hair that had escaped from her severe braid. “And our daughter and youngest son?” she asked. “Will they be spared as well?”
“They remain with the Khan of Khans,” I said. “Enebish wishes to continue her work as a healer, and Boyahoe is learning to soldier from the greatest conqueror of all.” When Orbei didn’t respond, I asked the question I needed to have answered. “Where is your brother, he who fanned the revolt that saw this once-great city reduced to rubble?”
“My brother’s body lies beyond the walls now,” she said, her face betraying no emotion. “He was killed during the Night of Flashing Swords.”
The Night of Flashing Swords.
Suddenly I realized why Jingue refused to speak of his wound. “He was killed by a sword wound?”
Orbei gave a tight nod. “He was.”
I glanced at Jingue, reading the truth in his eyes. My precious husband, who believed so deeply in the sanctity of life, had murdered his own uncle and then risked his life to save me. My throat tightened and it took me longer to find my voice than I would have liked.
“What is your answer to our terms?”
The huddle of men conversed with Orbei while Jingue and I waited. Behind us in the hills, impatient warhorses threw their heads and men stood ready with the arrows for the ballistas. I prayed I’d soon give the order that would return them to my father.
Finally Orbei bowed her head to us. “All shall be as you ask,” she said. “The Onggud welcome their new Prince of Beiping and his beki.”
The tortoise gates creaked open on ancient hinges and the Onggud fell to their knees in the streets before us. I rubbed the golden tigers on my sword with my thumb, the victory ritual from my youth. Jingue and I had departed this city as fugitives, but now we returned as prince and princess. Together we would rebuild our broken city, tempered and made stronger for all we’d survived.
Against all odds, we had won. Together, we would prosper.
Later that night, I received yet another blessing.
In return for my mercy, the Earth Mother lifted the shadow of death Teb Tengeri had once claimed I carried. While I nestled in Jingue’s arms before a roaring fire and safe under the peaked roof of the Great House, my husband’s seed buried itself deep in my womb. Less than a year later, surrounded by Orbei, Enebish, and the sticky heat of the summer solstice, I gave birth to a squalling, red-faced son.
His name was Negudei, and the Earth Mother and Eternal Blue Sky decreed he would be the only child born of my womb.
In the days to come, he would be my most precious gift of all.
Part III
The Rose of Nishapur
Chapter 21
1221 CE
YEAR OF THE WHITE SNAKE
NISHAPUR, KHWARAZMIAN EMPIRE
The day my city was destroyed started as any other.
It was Farvardin, the first month of spring’s delicate warmth and life’s rebirth, when the black chaos of death descended upon our city like the blazing hellfires of Jahannam. In the days to come, we children of Nishapur—the astronomers and poets, mathematicians and philosophers—would fall for seventy years into the pit of everlasting hell. The nineteen celestial angels cursed those of us who weren’t shattered to pieces with garments of fire and a perpetual feast of thorns.
We howled in pain for Allah to save us, to deliver us from our torment, but the One God was deaf to our prayers.
At the first light of dawn, yawning merchants pushed creaking carts of fragrant cinnamon and the last of the winter pears toward the bazaar, spotted flycatchers darted from stuccoed eaves in search of insects, and the pale blue sky was filled with the sun’s shining light. My mother had named me Fatima for that light, and for the Prophet’s revered daughter, who died a martyr for our faith. I had no wish to live a glorious life as my namesake had, or to die a venerated death, but sought only to live in quiet ease and beauty, to keep an elegant home for my husband to return to each night after he became governor of Nishapur.
Hidden behind the high walls of our garden, delicate tulips opened their faces to the sun and fragrant pink blossoms garlanded spindly quince trees. The kitchen slaves, mostly Christians and a handful of Zoroastrians, had chosen a haunch of fresh lamb still streaked with rubied blood and pearled fat from the butcher that morning and argued now whether to season tonight’s stew with figs or dried limes. Thus the scent of blood was already in the air before the invaders poured into Nishapur.
I smoothed my hair under its veil and gave the girls a gentle scolding for raising their voices on so pure a morning, then made my way to the balcony that overlooked the garden, the treasure of our home. The scent of jasmine and freshly turned earth filled my nose, and I lowered my head to my prayer rug, its red and gold silk knotted by my mother’s deft hands before she had departed this life, gathered into Allah’s waiting arms as a result of my cowardice. The perfume of the flowers was the smell of my childhood, reminding me of my mother in the garden, arms covered in dirt as she divided tulip bulbs or transplanted rosebushes while purple sunbirds darted amongst the hibiscus. I’d never understood why my mother didn’t allow our many slaves to tend her flowers and shrubs, but I’d listened with my head in her lap when she spoke in her smooth voice about the plants she loved. She knew which ones Allah had created only for their beauty, or which—like the chamomile and mint my father used to calm his often sour stomach—also possessed healing qualities.
A profound calm wrapped around me, as if the One God cupped me in his hand, when I knelt on the prayer mat facing Makkah. I closed my eyes to let my soul fill with the imam’s clear voice rising from the main mosque, so beautiful the birds ceased their songs to listen to the call beckoning the faithful to prayer. This was one of my favorite sounds, and five times a day it filled my heart with joy and calmed my mind.
&n
bsp; Allahu Akbar. Sam‘i Allahu liman hamidah, Rabbana wa lakal hamd.
God is most great. God hears those who call upon Him; Our Lord, praise be to You.
I imagined the men filling the mosque’s dainty courtyard, pausing to wash their hands and feet in the delicate fountains and combing their dark hair flat against their heads. My father would be there with a crimson-and-gold prayer mat identical to mine, another gift from my mother. Mansoor would help him find his place and together they would honor Allah.
My marriage to Mansoor was arranged by our parents, of course, but my father had waited until I was nineteen—far beyond the usual age for girls to marry—to choose my groom. I’d been pleased to learn the art of love in my husband’s patient arms, but the months had turned to years and my womb had never quickened with his seed. I had failed my husband, yet Mansoor refused to take another wife, something not even my father understood.
“What need have I for a child?” my husband asked once, kissing away my silent tears. “I have all I require in this life in you, dearest Fatima.”
And so, unable to give my husband a child, I gave him everything else I could. I massaged his back with rose oil when he came home each night, served him his favorite lamb-and-mint stew on delicate porcelain plates from Cathay, and listened attentively to his talk of tax disputes and trade ledgers from Nishapur’s lucrative turquoise trade.
This afternoon, after their prayers, my husband would lead Father to our home and I would oversee the slaves as they served my men the midday meal of sweet brittle bread and pomegranate soup.
Mine was a beautiful life, and one I’d been bred to live.
I lifted my voice in an ululating prayer for my mother’s soul as I’d do until the traditional four years of mourning had passed. Once the last note had faded into the sky, I rolled up my prayer rug and padded back inside on bare feet, pausing to rinse my mouth with rose water and wincing at the lumpy silk bag that remained by the door, accusing me with its very presence. The poet narcissus bulbs inside were a gift from my father, culled from my mother’s garden. I had promised my father I’d plant them, but in truth I couldn’t bear to touch them without being reminded of the role I’d played in allowing my mother’s soul to fall into the fires of Jahannam, imperiling myself at the same time. Instead, I nudged the bag behind the loom strung with the prayer rug I’d been weaving as a name-day gift for Mansoor, its vibrant red-tulip border meant to symbolize undying love. My husband appreciated beauty in all its forms, and so I’d wed a man who prized my weaving and calligraphy as much as he worshipped the curves of my body. I flushed at the thought of our lovemaking last night in the garden below, our skin damp from the heat and perfumed from the carpet of lilac blossoms we’d lain upon.
The Tiger Queens Page 32
