by Megan Bannen
“What’s your name?” he asks.
It makes sense that he would ask this question at some point. But nothing’s as it should be anymore, and here I am, floundering at how to answer the most basic question of all.
“Baraq,” I answer. It was the name of one of the slave boys back in Sarai. They actually called me Adelma in Timur Khan’s palace, but that’s a girl’s name, and I’m not supposed to be a girl.
He turns his head to look at me, taking his shoulder slightly out of my reach with him. “And what did your mother call you?”
I gaze back at him for some moments, feeling like he’s stripping away all my bristly, hard parts one by one until I’m left with nothing but my infinite weakness.
“Jinghua,” I tell him.
My real name.
A girl’s name.
Every salty word and phrase I know screams inside me, haranguing me for my carelessness. Please, don’t let him know how to speak Hanyu, I pray. Please, please, please. I try to keep my face steady so he won’t detect my panic.
“Jinghua,” he repeats. Badly. His intonations are off, and it sounds like he’s calling me “quiet flower.” I nod anyway, and, despite my nerves, I feel like I might cry, hearing something resembling my own name from someone else’s lips. It’s been months. If he suspects my true gender, he doesn’t let on, to my infinite relief, which I also hide from him.
“Jinghua,” he says again, his voice heavy with exhaustion, his eyes bottomless. “My name is Khalaf. It’s nice to meet you.”
I nod again like I’m mentally incapacitated. He shifts his body to sit on his rear. He pulls up his knees and rests his battered head on them, letting his hair stream down his right side. I resume my stitching.
“It’s nice to meet you, too, my lord,” I finally think to say.
“Khalaf,” he corrects me, his voice muffled by his knees.
“Yes, my lord,” I answer. I can’t and I won’t call him by his name to his face. But in the safety of my own mind, I’m already his friend, and I call him Khalaf.
Khalaf walks before me back to our campsite. There’s no way I’m walking in first, just in case Timur Khan still wants to wrap my intestines around my throat or yank my teeth out or something else along those lines.
I need not have worried. The khan has spent his time constructing a rough awning out of the deels of our dead, which he has draped over a boulder on one side and a couple of saplings on the other. He’s already underneath the shelter, asleep. He coughs and sputters, “Milk-blooded il-khan,” before continuing with his snoring.
Khalaf staggers into the shelter without a backward glance. He lies down beside his father, and I suspect he’s already asleep by the time he hits the ground.
I step close to the shelter, but I’m not sure if I’m allowed inside. Plus, I can smell the blood on the deels the khan used. Heaven forbid the man wash them first. So, despite the fact that I’m sore and exhausted, I spend the rest of the morning chasing away the vultures while I tug the wool deels from the bodies of the two least damaged former humans littering the field of skirmish. I take the robes down to the stream to wash them as best I can, and may Timur Khan and his Mongol beliefs about blood and water be damned. I’m not going to spend the rest of my days in a tent that reeks of death.
As I dunk the fabric in the icy water and slap and scrub it on a stone, I get lost in my thoughts. Thinking probably isn’t the best course of action right now, but I can’t turn off my mind. I can’t even begin to consider the larger philosophical ramifications of my choices, so I decide to contemplate more basic issues: where we’ll find food, how we’ll get out of the mountains, where we’ll go. Or, more accurately, if we find food, if we get out of the mountains, if we find somewhere to go.
Those are big “ifs.”
I also contemplate the fact that I am somehow still among the living.
The only reason Timur Khan isn’t dead is because he is ludicrously lucky. The only reason Khalaf isn’t dead is because he is brave beyond all measure. And the only reason I’m not dead is because I was singing in a tree like an idiot.
7
I DECIDE THAT IF I’M GOING to think of the prince as Khalaf, I may as well call the khan Timur, if only in the private recesses of my mind. Why not? He’s no better than I am now, is he? And it gives me a nice, petty thrill every time I think it: Timur.
In the beginning, Timur—oh blessed, smug contempt—is stoic, but as the days of trudging along rough paths and through thorny gullies stretch into a week with little to eat but bitter herbs and roots, he becomes sulky.
“Rally our forces,” he says in a nasal, mocking voice. “Fight off Hulegu Il-Khan and his milk-blooded army. Brilliant.”
Khalaf heaves a long-suffering sigh. “We made that plan together, Father.” He doesn’t mention his brothers by name, but their deaths hang heavily in the air.
I don’t think Khalaf is more than eighteen or nineteen years old, but he’s starting to look older. There is the wound on his shoulder, which is slow to heal, and the weight of the world that pushes down on the burgeoning frame of his body. He’s the one who has to find food, since I have no idea what food looks like here and Timur claims that he is a khan and shouldn’t have to fend for himself. Maybe Khalaf is right about the old man’s eyesight after all.
“This was your idea,” Timur accuses Khalaf as he yanks his fraying brocade deel from yet another thorn bush.
“If you had had a better plan, you were welcome to have shared it.” Khalaf’s voice is, as ever, soft, but it’s lacking its usual serenity.
“And how is your idea holding up, young mustang? Are you finding your books and your learning helpful now?”
“More helpful than complaining, I should think,” Khalaf replies, and he picks up his pace, marching several steps ahead of us. Since I have no desire to lag behind with Timur, I scramble to catch up and follow behind him on the narrow path that winds its way to nowhere in particular.
“This is a rutting goat path,” Timur grumbles some time later. “We’re traversing the world on a path meant for rutting goats.”
“Apropos,” Khalaf utters, so softly that Timur doesn’t hear him. “For one of us at least.”
And so I trudge along for hours between a wounded prince and an old goat.
Khalaf and I stand on the path waiting for Timur, who has gone off into the trees to relieve himself. The old goat is absent an inordinately long time.
“Everything all right?” Khalaf calls into the forest.
“What do you think?” is Timur’s response, his terse grunting muffled by trees and distance. I don’t know how the man can spend so much time pooping. We’ve found barely enough food to keep us living. I guess our steady diet of roots and herbs disagrees with him.
“Well, I’m sitting,” Khalaf tells me as he plunks himself down on the grass by the side of the track. “I have a feeling we’re going to be here for a while.”
I follow suit, and several minutes of awkward silence pass between us. At least, it’s awkward for me. I doubt Khalaf has been awkward a day in his life. He does look weary, though, and I’m sure his shoulder must be bothering him. Even so, I decide to take this opportunity to ask some questions with Timur out of the way. If I’m going to throw my lot in with the prince, I may as well be armed with at least a little bit of knowledge.
“My lord, there are a few things I don’t quite understand,” I say, remembering to pitch my voice low.
Khalaf breathes a laugh through his nose. “A few things?”
“I’ve heard you say that many believe Timur Khan has a better claim to the throne of the empire than the Great Khan does. If that’s the case, why isn’t he the Great Khan?”
The prince rubs at his eyes. “We’d have to go back nearly a hundred years to answer that question.”
I look at him expectantly. He’s worn-out, but when he sees that I’m awaiting his response, he relents and begins the lesson.
“Genghis Khan had four sons: J
ochi, Chagatai, Ogodei, and Tolui. Before he died, he tried to settle the matter of succession with them. In Mongol families, when a father passes away, each son receives a certain portion of livestock as well as an allotment of grazing land. For Genghis, the empire was simply an extension of that tradition. Each son would get his own khanate to rule, but in addition, one of them would be Great Khan to oversee the administration of the empire and take responsibility for foreign affairs with his brothers as advisers. When Genghis gathered the four sons to discuss this, he called on his oldest son, Jochi, to speak first, which singled out Jochi as his choice to succeed him. Chagatai, the second son, protested and declared outright that Jochi was a bastard, literally. The two brothers brawled right there in front of their father. And because neither Jochi nor Chagatai could accept the other as Great Khan at that point, Jochi nominated the third brother, Ogodei, for the position, and Chagatai agreed. But the two oldest sons of Genghis Khan would never forgive each other, and my father, as Jochi’s grandson, is not overly fond of the Chagataiyids either.”
“What about the youngest brother?” I ask.
“Tolui was the prince of the hearth. For Mongols, the youngest son keeps the hearth fire burning and protects the home. So Tolui inherited the Mongol homelands where Genghis first rose to power.”
“Does that mean you’re the prince of the hearth, too? Is that why your brothers were so angry when your father called on you first to discuss the war with the Il-Khanids?”
It isn’t until after the words have left my mouth that it occurs to me how inappropriate the question is. Khalaf looks at me like I’ve grown a third arm out of my head.
I cringe. “Forgive me, my lord. That was forward of me.”
“Not at all,” he murmurs. It seems that he is, in fact, capable of feeling awkward. “Electing Ogodei as Great Khan brought a temporary peace among the brothers, but in the long run it wasn’t the best choice. Ogodei was a drunk, you see.”
“So he was the Great Khan but not a great khan.”
Khalaf gives me that look again, his eyes narrowing as if he needed to bring me into better focus. It gives me the sensation that he can see right through me. I drop my gaze and add, “My lord.”
“Khalaf,” he corrects me. “You’re a remarkably good student, Jinghua, very . . . clever.”
You are remarkably stupid, Jinghua, I tell myself. I’m a slave. I’m not supposed to be clever. Of all people, it’s Timur who comes to my rescue with a loud grunt from the trees.
“Father?” Khalaf calls.
“Leave me the hell alone,” Timur shouts back.
I use the distraction to shift Khalaf’s focus back to our history lesson. “So, the third son, Ogodei, became the Great Khan. What happened after that?”
“Ogodei ruled for over ten years, and when he died, his son who succeeded him was also a drunk and a disaster. So the heirs of Genghis Khan’s youngest son, Tolui, staged a coup d’état about thirty years ago. The current Great Khan is Tolui’s son, and he sits on his throne today because his family overthrew Ogodei’s line. However, Genghis Khan’s law clearly states that all family members must agree on the election of a Great Khan, and my father did not agree to this election.”
“Did your father rebel against the new Great Khan?”
“He didn’t like it, but he felt that the empire would be stronger if all the khanates were united, at least on the face of things.” Khalaf looks off into the trees where his father disappeared ten minutes ago and adds, “Much good it’s done him.”
“And what does Hulegu Il-Khan have to do with any of this? Why did he attack the Kipchak Khanate?”
Khalaf tears his attention away from the trees, but his worry for his father is still plastered over his face. “Once Genghis’s heirs turned against each other, the Muslim kingdoms to the south of the Kipchak Khanate stopped paying tribute to the empire,” he explains to me, “which is why the Great Khan sent his brother Hulegu to bring them back in line by force. Hulegu is now il-khan, which means he acts as the Great Khan’s regent in Persia and Iraq. Hulegu has also been chipping away at the borders of the Kipchak Khanate, so he and my father have had several run-ins already. The il-khan’s sacking of Baghdad was the last straw. Hence, the war. Hence, here we are.”
And I thought my family had problems. What kind of mess have I gotten myself into?
“Won’t the Great Khan intervene?” I wonder aloud.
“I doubt it,” says Khalaf, looking even more exhausted. “My father played nicely with the Great Khan in the eyes of the outside world, but he has always been more than happy to break a few rules if it benefitted himself and the Kipchak Khanate. At the end of the day, Timur Khan is Jochi’s grandson, and everyone knows that he would gladly rule the empire if anyone let him. And between you and me, much as I hate to admit it, he’s probably the best qualified for the job.”
“Damn right,” says Timur, who now stands over us like a monstrous giant in the mountains.
I didn’t hear him sneak up on us, and it’s clear from Khalaf’s pained grimace that he didn’t either. “Shall we move on?” he says as he rises to his feet.
We hike through the unending Caucasus range, losing track of the days, growing ill with cold and hunger, trudging along in silence, until one morning Timur just stops. He comes to a halt on a bluff overlooking a plain in the distance, and between us and that plain is a series of gulches filled with brambles, an impenetrable wall that stands between us and the will to live. Khalaf and I stand behind him as he sits down like a defiant elephant and refuses to move.
“Would that I had died with them,” Timur says without looking at either of us. He has turned to stone, as massive and immovable as the boulders that litter the mountains, moss-grown, unmoving.
The word “them” plants itself, takes root, and grows between Khalaf and his father.
Them.
Miran and Jahangir, the brothers who never came home.
It’s a reminder that my own brother never came home either, a fact that stings every single time I think of him. I touch the pendant under my shirt.
Khalaf kneels beside his father and places a hand on his shoulder. “There’s no use agonizing over our misfortunes. We have no choice but to submit ourselves to the will of God. If He has the power to pluck the crown from your head, does He not also possess the power to restore you?”
Timur stares blankly at the rough terrain that stretches before us. The impenetrable landscape sneers at me, telling me that I have no one to blame but myself for this. Gaunt with hunger and guilt, I sway woozily on my feet.
“‘For truly with hardship comes ease,’” Khalaf continues, his voice like a soft blanket, his outlook stunningly hopeful. “I have faith that He will lift us out of this deplorable condition.”
“I’ll await that day right here, then,” Timur says. “You can take your faith and find a way out of this hell. Personally, I prefer death to such an existence.”
Khalaf looks to me with helpless eyes, but to be honest, I can see Timur’s point. My feet throb and bleed in their ill-fitting boots, and I’m so dehydrated I can’t even muster tears. A feverish wave washes over me as I tumble to the ground. I lie in the rough grass and watch the pinkening clouds spin overhead. Khalaf gazes down at me. It’s a pretty good way to die, really: sunset, clouds, a prince (even if the prince in question is looking green around the gills these days). Not many people could boast of such a death.
Khalaf turns his head toward Timur. I watch his larynx move under the smooth skin of his neck as he says, “Maybe there’s another trail that will give us access to the plain. Why don’t I go see if I can find one.”
“Knock yourself out,” Timur answers as I slip into my feverish mind.
I’m singing.
Jasmine flower.
A vague series of images flashes before me: a porcelain duck atop a green-glazed lotus blossom, the hills rising over the West Lake, the swift current of the river rushing past.
My brother stands at
the door, haloed by the red silk of the curtain behind him. He gazes longingly at the portrait he holds in his hand. When he turns it toward me, I see a girl’s perfect face staring back at me with cold, reptilian eyes.
Let me pluck you down, I sing, and give you to the one I love.
I’m draped across the bumpy terrain of Khalaf’s knees. He’s cradling my head in the crook of his arm. I assume this is part of the dream, but then he pours cool water down my throat. I sputter and choke on it.
I crash through the water’s surface as if it were a wall of ice. I’m drowning. Drowning.
My arms thrash.
“Shh. You need to drink.” He wraps my arms up in his and murmurs to me in the kind of voice a man uses with a feral dog or a jittery horse. My body goes slack. I’m as helpless as a baby.
Timur’s craggy head comes into view, blocking out the sun that shines around the edges of his wild, matted hair.
“We should ditch her. She’s dead weight at this point.”
“You’d leave this poor little bird here to die alone?” Khalaf asks.
I barely have the mental capacity to follow the conversation, much less join in. I swallow the trickle of water that Khalaf squeezes into my mouth from a damp cloth.
“She’s not a little bird. She’s a slave,” says Timur. “And not a very pretty one at that. There’ll be girls enough to bed when we get out of this mess.”
They’re calling me “her” and “she.” I’ve been caught. “Wŏ de tiān nă,” I groan in Hanyu. Oh, my heaven. I ease back into the dream. There’s a garden behind my eyes with a little hill and a footbridge over a creek, and peach blossoms bobbing on a sunny day. I slide my slim fingers between the lotus blossoms of the goldfish pond. The scent of jasmine rides the breeze. My brother, Weiji, is somewhere nearby, hiding, waiting for me to find him.
Jasmine flower, I sing.
I can no longer see Khalaf, but I hear his unmistakable voice. “She stayed with us when none of the other servants would. She came to our aid when we were under attack. She risked her life for us.”
