Ch'i-kuo listened to such reports, and wondered what the enemy, who surely had spies among the traders in Chung Tu, was making of these accounts. The lines and strokes in her paintings of the court grew thinner, and her colours more translucent, as if the figures in them were hardly more than shadows.
She remembered the first time she had painted one of the Emperor's hawks. The effort had been a childish one, with little sense of the bird's swiftness as it struck at its prey.
Ch'i-kuo thought then of her last months in the imperial palace, when she was often in the quarters of ministers and their wives, or in offices where scribes and scholars laboured over scrolls of documents. Sometimes she brought her inks and brushes; at other times, she simply studied the subjects she hoped to paint. She had given paintings to a few ministers, and they were soon easy enough in her presence to ignore the minor princess who cared for nothing except her art.
She had been in the office of a minor minister of war when two officers came to report to him. The two had fought against the Mongols, and had much to tell.
“The enemy is most dangerous in retreat,” one officer said. The minister nodded, clearly aware of that fact. “He withdraws, and lures soldiers to pursue him, then turns back to strike. It's said that this is how they succeeded in getting inside the Great Wall, and I can well believe it, although some claim they also used bribes.”
“They are mastering the art of siege,” the second soldier said, “thanks to the traitors who have joined them. The enemy forces his captives to man catapults and build siege towers, and pushes them to the front when a city is stormed.”
“They move more swiftly than I thought possible,” the first officer said. “Armies separated by thousands of li advance as one, so swift are the riders who move between them carrying their generals' commands. I spoke to people who had managed to escape from one town and went east to another, only to find, when they reached their destination, that the Mongols they had fled were attacking that place, too.”
The game had not escaped her father's hawks. Ch'i-kuo had not painted a hawk later that day, or the minor minister and the officers, but a hare, ears back, legs poised to flee.
Ch'i-kuo had a vision of Chung Tu as a bird hovering overhead might see the city. Her father had ordered artisans to construct a scale model of the capital in one of his halls, where only the imperial family and the most favoured courtiers were allowed to view it. Tiny walls with brick battlements and twelve small gates had surrounded the miniature city; nine hundred towers lined three moats made of blue gems.
She had marvelled at the curved ruby-studded eaves of the miniature summer palace and the delicately carved trees that lined the ivory paths of its park. Outside the model city's four sides stood four forts, each a town in itself, surrounded by towers and moats. She had learned that the craftsmen had even reproduced the underground tunnels that led from the main city to these forts, although no viewer could see them.
At the beginning of the Year of the Dog, the Emperor Hsun sent an envoy to the enemy requesting peace. By then, the town of Cho Chou had fallen to the Mongols, and three more generals had deserted with their forces to the enemy. The Emperor's plea for peace was refused; the capital prepared for a siege.
During her sixteen years of life, Ch'i-kuo had moved through the streets beyond the palaces only in a carriage or litter. Shortly after the new year, at the Emperor's command, she and the rest of the royal house left the imperial palace for Chung Tu's northern fort. The city's wealthiest citizens had been ordered to the eastern fort, officials and their families to the southern one, and minor relatives of the royal house to the western. The forts, with their soldiers, granaries, arsenals, and defences, could hold out even if the city's high walls were breached; so the Emperor hoped.
A wide, straight street beyond the palace's vast courtyard was cleared for their passage, but Ch'i-kuo caught glimpses of frightened faces behind the lines of soldiers. Carts loaded with food and hay brought in from the countryside, and others filled with tiles and stones to hurl down at the enemy from the battlements, stood on either side of the road. Snow sifted down from the grey sky; by the time they reached the tunnel that led to the fort, the city was hidden behind a white veil.
Inside the mansion allotted to the imperial family, Ch'i-kuo and her slaves were given three small rooms. The soldiers at the walls might hold back the enemy; the Mongols might settle for what they had already won. Ch'i-kuo did not dare to hope.
The Mongols attacked Chung Tu twice that winter. The first time, they forced their way into part of the city, but were driven back when a street was set on fire by Chung Tu's defenders. When the enemy made a second attempt to storm the main city, soldiers from the four forts repelled them. Yet Emperor Hsun could take little comfort from these successes. Most of the enemy forces had moved south. The few who were able to escape them and carry word to the capital told of the ravaged great plain along the Yellow River and of towns, expecting attack from the north, being surprised by Mongols sweeping up from the south.
The court now expected a prolonged siege. Fewer dishes were served at the royal banquets; Ch'i-kuo bathed less frequently with the small amount of heated water her women brought to her. By spring, the court knew of the Emperor's losses; the rapidly moving enemy had taken most of the plain to the south. Yet the Mongols seemed weary of battle. When a Mongol envoy entered Chung Tu to propose peace, Emperor Hsun refused the offer. To everyone's surprise, the envoy returned and offered peace once more.
In the more restricted confines of the fort, news travelled quickly, and Ch'i-kuo heard nearly as much about the negotiations as if she had been present at them. The Mongol King had sent a Tangut called A-la-chien, a man fluent in the northern Han tongue, as his chief envoy. His speech, stripped of elaborate phrases, had been to the point.
“All your provinces north of the Yellow River are in my possession,” the Tangut had said, “while you have only Chung Tu. God has brought you to this, but Heaven may turn against me if I press you further. I am willing to withdraw, but my generals counsel war. What will you give me to appease them?”
That question, with its implicit admission that the enemy was not prepared for a prolonged assault, divided the Emperor's advisers. One faction, led by Kao-ch'i, urged rejection of the demand. But Wan-yen Fu-hsing, commander of the troops in the main city, led a faction pressing for peace. The troops inside Chung Tu had families in outlying districts. If they were defeated in battle now, they would abandon the city; if they won, they would want to return home, leaving Chung Tu nearly defenceless.
It came down to that—not the strength or weakness of the enemy, but the loyalty of their own troops. Ch'i-kuo, hearing of these deliberations, had little doubt about the Emperor's decision. Hsun would appease the Mongols to gain time to strengthen his defences. She was not surprised to learn that Fu-hsing had gone with A-la-chien to the Mongol camp to discuss terms.
By late spring, Fu-hsing and the Tangut had returned to Chung Tu. There would be a truce; the enemy's demands would be granted.
The last time she was brought before the Emperor, Ch'i-kuo saw how much the weakness around Hsun's mouth resembled that of his predecessor Wei-shao Wang. Emperor Hsun had spent much of that day summoning imperial princesses to the large room he was using as an audience hall; even then, with a truce at hand, he still clung to the security of his northern fort. The spring wind outside had died at last, but the yellow dust that always choked the city during this season had sifted inside through cracks and doorways, settling on carpets and even in a fold of the Emperor's robe. He glanced at Ch'i-kuo for only a moment before dismissing her.
She was in her room painting when a minor official came to her door. Her slaves knelt around her as Mu-tan ushered the man and his two attendants inside. The official went through his bows and murmured his ceremonial greeting. She waited, sensing what he would tell her, yet refusing to believe it.
“Our Mongol brother,” the official was saying, “has said he wi
ll accept a tribute of gold and silk. We shall grant him ten thousand liang of gold and ten thousand bolts of fine silk. He has said he wants horses, and he will be given three thousand of our finest steeds. He has said he wants five hundred skilled boys and five hundred beautiful girls to serve his people, and they shall be granted to him. He has said a royal bride will appease his wrath when he leaves our city. Honour is yours, Imperial Highness—the Son of Heaven has decreed that, of all the royal princesses, you are most worthy to be wife to the Mongol King.”
Her women were still. She was, Ch'i-kuo realized, the most suitable choice Hsun could have made. The Mongol would not know that she was one of the least of the imperial line, a woman whose rumoured frailty might bring her an early death. How clever of the Emperor to have found a use for her, and to insult the enemy under the guise of granting his request.
“So I am to be the partridge,” she said, “delivered to the tiger's claws.”
“The Emperor has granted you three days in which to prepare yourself. You will of course be given everything you need for your comfort—the Son of Heaven will select many of your gifts himself.”
Ch'i-kuo gazed at her painting; a few more strokes would complete it. The Emperor Hsun sat in a garden, looking on as a few members of the royal guard practised with their bows. One man's bow was lowered, as though he had just taken his shot. An arrow jutted from the ground, having fallen short of the target; other arrows were embedded in the grass near it. Her brush moved over the paper. The official stood in silence as she waited for the ink to dry. She did not ask him to sit, or tell her women to bring him tea.
At last she looked up. “I must obey,” she said. “As much as I shall mourn my exile, I am honoured that the Son of Heaven finds me worthy of a place at his brother monarch's side. If Chung Tu is saved, I shall hold its memory in my heart and be grateful my beloved city survives. Should it fall, I will not have to witness its end.”
The official's face paled. “We shall have a truce.”
“Let us hope it endures.” She rolled up the paper scroll, stood up, and handed it to the man. “This is the last picture I shall paint in my own land. Please give it to the Emperor, so that he will remember me.”
The man bowed himself out of the room as he murmured more phrases. Ch'i-kuo sank to the floor. Mu-tan held her as she wept against the young woman's shoulder.
“Highness,” a voice said. Ch'i-kuo looked around, caught now in the present. Mu-tan came towards her from the door. “Lady, they are waiting for you.”
Ch'i-kuo rose. Hsun, she had been told, had scowled at her last painting, cursed, and stamped on it with his foot. She had achieved her purpose; he would remember her. Mu-tan took her arm and guided her from the room.
97
Ch'i-kuo stared ahead at the broad road that led away from Chung Tu. She would not look back at the distant city, where soldiers would be standing in the slots of the crenellated battlements, gazing down at the tribute sent outside Chung Tu's walls, the wagons of silk and gold, the horses carrying the thousand boys and girls who would now serve the Mongols in return for this bartered peace.
A carriage had carried her and her women to a gate, where Commander Fu-hsing's soldiers had brought horses to them. The Commander and some of his troops had been ordered to accompany the retinue as far as the Chu-yung pass north-west of the city. Mongol troops on horseback lined the sides of the road, their hooked lances held upright; another force of barbarians led the procession.
All of them were thickset, heavy-boned men like those who had met Fu-hsing's soldiers at the city gate. Their slits of eyes peered out from brown, wind-burned faces; their stench, even at a distance, nearly overwhelmed her. Many wore brightly coloured silk tunics under their gleaming black breastplates. Some wore the metal helmets of Kin soldiers, with plated sides hanging to their chins; others had wide-brimmed hats with flaps. Their heads were so close to their broad shoulders that they seemed to have no necks.
She had expected a bestial herd. Yet the men at the sides of the road sat proudly in their saddles, while those leading the way rode in straight, unbroken rows.
In the distance, a river wound through brown fields. Blackened hulls of boats rested along its banks; herds of horses grazed on what millet remained. A small mound marked a place where a narrower, rutted road led away from the main thoroughfare, and when she was closer, she saw that the mound was built of severed heads.
Ch'i-kuo saw many more hills of heads during the day's journey. Small settlements and dwellings lay in ruins, surrounded by wagons, tents, and an occasional siege tower. Prisoners moved among the tents, their backs bent under the weight of the sacks they carried; others, bound together and imprisoned in yokes, pulled wagons. Near the ruins of many houses, limbs had been torn from mulberry trees whose fruit had once nourished silkworms. Wherever she turned, she saw destruction—hills of freshly turned earth that might have been mass graves, levelled towns, trampled fields, and horses grazing amid it all.
By evening, they arrived at the largest camp she had yet seen. Ch'i-kuo and her women were separated from the procession and led to a great tent. A young woman with the porcelain complexion and slender build of a Han waited by the doorway; she bowed low as Ch'i-kuo approached.
“I welcome you, Imperial Highness,” the woman said in the Han tongue. “The Great Khan of the Mongols has sent me here to serve you. I am called Lien.” She beckoned to a group of boys; they moved towards the carts that held Ch'i-kuo's belongings. “Perhaps you wish to rest after your journey.”
The woman led her and her slaves inside. An older woman was tending a fire that smouldered in a round metal enclosure. Carpets and mats of bamboo covered the floor. A carved bed sat at the back of the tent, with cushions heaped around it. Two large chests stood on one side of the tent; the three women standing near them knelt.
Ch'i-kuo, aching from the ride, sat gingerly on the bed as two boys carried the first of her trunks inside. The young woman was still standing. She was clearly Han, but her coiled black hair was covered by a scarf, a wide sash marked her waist, and under her gold-trimmed blue robe, she wore woollen Mongol trousers tucked into boots.
“Please be seated,” Ch'i-kuo said. The woman bowed, then sat on a cushion. “I had expected to be led before His Majesty when I arrived.”
“The Great Khan and Emperor of the Mongols is most anxious to be in your presence, but there is a form to such things. Surely you did not expect the Great Khan to pull you from your horse and drag you to his tent.”
Ch'i-kuo flushed; that was exactly what she had expected. “The general who travelled here with you,” the woman continued, “will go with the Khan's envoys to his ordu. After he has presented himself and begged the Khan to accept the Emperor's gifts, the Great Khan will most graciously accept them, if it is his wish to do so.”
Ch'i-kuo's hands fluttered. “Is there any doubt of that?”
“Have no fear, Imperial Highness. When his men tell him of the beautiful Lady who awaits him, he will be even more impatient to hold you in his arms.”
Ch'i-kuo shuddered. “When the Khan has accepted his tribute,” Lien went on, “his brother Shigi Khutukhu, who is one of his most important ministers, will see that gifts are given to those most deserving of them after the Khan has received his share. Then a feast will be held to celebrate your marriage.”
“Have you been among his people long?” Ch'i-kuo asked.
“Nearly two years.”
“I sorrow for you.”
“There's no need for sorrow, Royal Lady. My parents sold me as a child to a brothel. When my city fell, it was my good fortune to be among those women offered to the Khan himself. If I must be a man's receptacle, surely it is better for him to be a ruler, and he has kept me with him even after tiring of many others. I was among those he took with him when he returned to his own lands, and when he began this campaign I was among those he commanded to follow the army. I am grateful he still finds me pleasing, since I've given him no son. He m
ight have put me among the slaves to be killed before he returns to his home.”
Ch'i-kuo lifted a hand to her mouth. “He enslaves them only to kill them?”
“He keeps those he needs, the ones skilled in crafts, the strongest, the women who please him and his men the most. The others would only die crossing the desert. I have no craft except for the arts of the bedchamber, and a Mongol is more versed in battle than such arts, but in a brothel where traders seek rest, one hears many languages, and I was quicker than most at learning them. I have mastered the Mongol tongue, and the Khan finds me a useful servant.”
“Then you are to be my interpreter.”
“It is the Khan's wish that I teach you his tongue.”
She had heard the Mongols speak in their grating language during her journey. The tongue was filled with unfamiliar sounds and seemed as rough as the men who spoke it. “I know the Jurchen tongue and the Han,” Ch'i-kuo murmured. “Perhaps it will not be so difficult for me to master a third.”
“I shall do my best to be a good teacher.” Lien lifted her head as the women opened one trunk and took out scrolls. “Have you brought paintings with you, Mistress?”
“I've brought paper and silk on which to paint.”
“I didn't know that princesses were taught such arts.”
“Most are not,” Ch'i-kuo replied, “but I showed a small gift in childhood, and my father the Emperor humoured me by having me instructed.”
“Paintings from the hand of a wife may please the Khan.”
“I can't imagine that he would be interested in such things.”
“I beg you not to judge him too quickly, Highness.”
Ch'i-kuo studied the young woman. Lien might call herself Ch'i-kuo's servant, but she also served the Khan, and could either ease matters for her master's new wife or make them more difficult. “You must guide me, Lien,” she said at last. “I have no wish to displease the man I am to wed.”
Ruler of the Sky: A Novel of Genghis Khan Page 58
