Bones Of the Hills

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

As the summer ended, Genghis remained in Samarkand, though his generals roared through the region in his name. The cities of Merv, Nishapur, Balkh and Urganj fell in quick succession, the populations slaughtered or enslaved. Even the news of the shah’s death and the return of Tsubodai and Jebe did little to raise his spirits. He wanted to return home to the plains he had known as a boy, but dismissed the urge as weakness. It was his task now to train Ogedai to lead, to pass on everything he had learned as khan in decades of war. He had repaid the shah’s insults a thousand times, but in the process discovered lands as vast as any he had ever known.

He found himself like a wolf let loose in a sheepfold and he could not simply take the nation home. Ogedai would rule his people, but there were other thrones. With new energy, Genghis walked the shah’s palace and city, learning everything he could about how such a place supported its people.

Temuge brought new maps to him as they were captured or drawn by prisoners. Each one revealed more and more of the land around Samarkand and the shape of the world itself. Genghis could hardly believe there were mountains to the south so vast that no man had ever climbed them, where the air was said to be thin enough to kill. He heard of strange beasts and Indian princes who would make the Shah of Khwarezm look like a local governor.

The people of Samarkand had been freed to return to their homes for the most part. In other places, Genghis allowed the young warriors to practise sword blows on bound prisoners. There was no better way to demonstrate the damage a sword could do and it helped prepare them for real battles. In Samarkand, the streets were choked with people, though they stayed out of his way as he walked with guards and maps. His curiosity was insatiable, but when he returned to the palace each night, he could feel it close on him like a tomb until he could hardly breathe. He had sent a scout into the mountains to where Kokchu had been left. The warrior had brought back a package of splintered bones and Genghis had burned them in a brazier. Even that had not brought him peace. The stone walls of the palace seemed to mock ambitions built on men and horses. When Ogedai was khan, what would it matter if his father had once taken a city or left it intact? Genghis practised each day with a sword, working himself to a sweat in the mornings against the best of his guard. It depressed him how much speed he had lost with the years. His stamina was still a match for younger men, but his right knee ached after a bout and his eyes were not as sharp over distance as they had been.

On a morning that held the first breath of winter, in his fourth year in Khwarezm, Genghis rested with his hands on his knees, having fought a warrior of twenty years old to a standstill.

‘If he comes at you now, you are dead, old friend. Always leave something, if you can.’

Genghis looked up in surprise, then smiled slowly at the sight of the wiry old man on the edge of the training ground. Arslan was darkly tanned and as thin as a stick, but the sight of him was a pleasure Genghis had not expected again.

The khan cast a glance at his opponent who stood barely breathing hard, his sword ready.

‘I am hoping to surprise this young tiger when he turns his back,’ he said. ‘It is good to see you. I thought you might have been content to stay with your wife and goats.’

Arslan nodded.

‘The goats were killed by wolves. I am no herdsman, it seems.’ He stepped onto the stone square and took Genghis’ arm in a familiar grip, his eyes weighing the changes in the khan.

Genghis saw that the old general was marked with thick dust from months of riding. He pressed his grip tighter, showing his pleasure.

‘Eat with me tonight. I want to hear about the plains of home.’

Arslan shrugged.

‘They are the same. From west to east, Chin merchants do not dare cross your land without asking permission from one of the road stations. There is peace there, though there are fools who say you will not return, that the shah’s armies are too much even for you.’ Arslan smiled at the memory of a Xi Xia merchant and how he had laughed in his face. Genghis was a hard man to kill and always had been.

‘I want to hear it all. I will invite Jelme to eat with us,’ Genghis said.

Arslan brightened at word of his son.

‘I would like to see him,’ he replied. ‘And there are grandchildren I have not seen.’

Genghis winced slightly. Tolui’s wife had given birth to her second son within a few months of Chagatai’s first-born. He was a grandfather three times over, though part of him was not at all thrilled at the idea.

‘My sons are fathers now,’ he said. ‘Even little Tolui has two baby boys in his ger.’

Arslan smiled, understanding Genghis better than he knew.

‘The line must go on, my friend. They too will be khans one day. What did Tolui call them?’

Genghis shook his head, amused at Arslan’s fatherly interest.

‘I named the first Mongke. Tolui called the second Kublai. They have my eyes.’

It was with an odd sense of pride that Genghis showed Samarkand to the man who would rule the city. Arslan was fascinated by the water system and the markets, with their intricate web of suppliers from a thousand miles all around. By then, Genghis had discovered the gold mines that fed the shah’s treasury. The original guards had all been killed and the mine looted by the time he realised its significance on the maps, but he had new men working and some of his brightest young warriors learning the process of taking gold and silver from the ground. That was one benefit of the city, he had found. It supported more men than the life he had known on the plains. Those men could be used to build other things, perhaps even greater.

‘You will have to see the mine,’ Genghis told Arslan. ‘They have dug into the ground like marmots and built great forges to separate the silver and gold from the rock. More than a thousand men dig and half as many again crush the rock into powder. It is like a nest of ants, but from it comes the metal that makes this city run. Everything else works from that. At times I feel I am very close to understanding how they came to have value. It feels like a thing built on lies and promises, but it works, somehow it does.’

Arslan nodded, watching Genghis rather than listening too closely to things he could not have cared less about. He had answered the call because he knew Genghis would not have summoned him without reason. He had yet to understand why the cities had suddenly become important to the younger man. For two days, he walked with Genghis through Samarkand, talking and taking note of the khan’s inner tension. Arslan’s wife had been given a suite of rooms in the palace and seemed entranced with the great baths and Chin slaves Genghis had procured for her. It interested Arslan to note that neither of Genghis’ wives had left the camp of gers outside the city.

On the third day at noon, Genghis stopped by a market, taking a seat on an old bench with Arslan. The stalls were busy, their owners nervous at the presence of the Mongols in their midst. Both men sat comfortably, waving away those who came to offer them fruit juices or salted bread and meat.

‘Samarkand is a fine city, Genghis,’ Arslan said. ‘But you did not care about cities before. I have seen you staring out to the camp of gers every time we walk the walls and I do not think you will stay here much longer. Tell me then why I should.’

Genghis hid a smile. The old man had not lost his sharpness in the years apart.

‘I thought for a time that I would take cities for my people, Arslan. That this would be our future.’ He shook his head. ‘It is not, at least for me. The place has beauty, yes. It is perhaps the finest rats’ nest I have ever seen. I thought if I could truly understand the way it works, perhaps I could rule from a city and spend my final days in peace, while my sons and grandsons conquer.’ Genghis shivered as if a breeze had found his skin. ‘I cannot. If you feel the same way, you may leave and go back to the plains with my blessing. I will destroy Samarkand and move on.’

Arslan looked around him. He did not like being surrounded by so many people. They were everywhere and for a man who had spent much of his life on open plains with just his son or a wife, their closeness made him uncomfortable. He suspected Samarkand was no place for a warrior, though it may have been a place for an old man. His wife thought so, certainly. Arslan was not sure if he could ever feel at ease there, but he sensed Genghis was reaching for something and struggled to understand.

‘You only cared about razing cities once,’ he said at last.

‘I was younger then,’ Genghis replied. ‘I thought a man could throw his best years against enemies and then die, feared and loved, both.’ He chuckled. ‘I still think that, but when I am gone, the cities will rebuild and they will not remember me.’

Arslan blinked to hear such words from the great khan he had known almost from boyhood.

‘What does that matter?’ he asked incredulously. ‘You have been listening to Temuge, I think. He was always chattering about the need for history, for records.’

Genghis cut the air with his hand, impatient with the way the discussion was going.

‘No, this is from me. I have fought all my life and I will fight again and again until I am old and feeble. Then my sons will rule lands even greater and their sons after them. That is the path we made together, Arslan, when I had nothing but hatred to sustain me and Eeluk ruled the Wolves.’

He saw Arslan’s astonishment and went on, searching for the words to give voice to his hazy ideas.

‘The people of this city do not hunt to eat, Arslan. They live longer than we do and it is a softer life, yes, but there is no evil in that alone.’

Arslan snorted, interrupting him without caring for the blaze of anger it provoked. It had been a long time since anyone broke in while Genghis was speaking, even in his closest family.

‘Until we come and kill their kings and shahs and knock their walls down,’ Arslan said. ‘Of all men, you have shown the weakness of cities and you would now embrace them? Perhaps you will build statues to yourself like the ones by the walls. Then every man can look on the stone face and say, “That was Genghis.” Is that it?’

The khan had gone very still as Arslan spoke and the fingers of his right hand drummed silently on the wooden bench. He sensed danger radiating off Genghis, but Arslan did not fear any man and he refused to be cowed.

‘All men die, Genghis. All. Think what it means for a moment. None of us are remembered for more than one or two generations.’ He raised a hand as Genghis opened his mouth to speak again. ‘Oh, I know we chant the names of great khans by the fireside and the Chin have libraries running back for thousands of years. What of it? Do you think it matters to the dead that their names are read aloud? They don’t care, Genghis. They are gone. The only thing that matters is what they did while they were alive.’

Genghis nodded slowly as Arslan spoke. It eased him more than he could say to have the old man’s advice once again. He had lost himself for a time with the dream of cities. Hearing Arslan was like a bucket of cold water on his dreams, but he relished it. To hear that voice was almost like being young again, when the world was simpler.

‘When you are afraid and you do nothing, that matters,’ Arslan went on. ‘It eats at men when they think they are cowards. How you raise your sons and daughters matters. The wife who warms you at night matters. The joy you take in being alive, the pleasure of strong drink, companionship and stories – all that matters. But when you are dust, other men go on without you. Let it all go, Genghis, and find peace.’

Genghis smiled at the stern tone.

‘I take it you will not be ruling Samarkand in my name then, old friend.’

Arslan shook his head.

‘Oh, I will take what you offer, but not to be remembered. I will take it because these old bones are tired of sleeping on hard ground. My wife likes it here and I want her to be happy as well. Those are good reasons, Genghis. A man should always care about pleasing his wife.’

Genghis chuckled.

‘I can never tell when you are playing games or not,’ he said.

‘Never, Genghis, I am too old for games. I am almost too old for my wife as well, but that is not important today.’

Genghis slapped him on the shoulder and rose. He almost used his arm to help Arslan to his feet, then withdrew it just before the old general took offence.

‘I will leave you five thousand men. You may have to level part of the city to build a barracks for them. Do not let them get soft, old man.’ He smiled as Arslan showed his disdain for such an idea.

Genghis trotted his mount through the markets to the main gate of Samarkand. Just the thought of riding with the families and the tumans once more was enough to cast aside the feeling of constriction he had suffered within the city. Winter, such as it was, had come again to the lands of the shah, though there were still warm days. Genghis scratched a sore on his hand idly as he guided his horse along the paved road. It would be good to have sweet grass under the hooves once more. Eight tumans waited for him to leave the city, drawn up in battle order on the farmland around Samarkand. Boys reaching fourteen had filled the gaps in the ranks and he had found five thousand good men to leave with Arslan.

Beyond the tumans, the gers were packed onto carts and the people were once again ready to move. He did not know yet where he would take them. It did not matter and he repeated an old nomadic idea to himself as he approached the gate in winter sunlight. They did not have to stand to live, not like those around them. In the tribes, the important parts of life went on whether they were encamped on a sunny river bank, or assaulting an enemy city, or waiting out a cruel winter. He had lost sight of that for a time in Samarkand, but Arslan had helped him to put his thoughts in order.

The crowds in the city kept well back from the man who might order the death of anyone he saw. Genghis hardly noticed their staring faces as he approached the gate and looked out through the open space to the ranks of his warriors.

His pony jerked without warning and Genghis was jolted forward. He saw a man had stepped out of the crowd to grab the leather straps attached to the bit. One hard pull had turned the mount’s head and stopped the khan in his tracks. His guards were drawing their swords and opening their mouths to shout, but Genghis turned too slowly to see a second attacker rush to his side, a yelling face too young for a beard. A knife was shoved up at him, the boy trying to jam it beneath the layered armour into his flesh.

From instinct, Genghis struck the youth hard across the face. In full armour, his forearm was sheathed in plates of beaten iron and the metal ripped open the boy’s cheek, knocking him down. Genghis drew his sword as the crowd seemed to erupt around him. He saw more knives held in fists and lunged at the one holding his horse, punching the blade downwards into his chest. The man he had struck was dying, but he gripped Genghis’ foot and his arm flailed wildly, a blade gashing the khan’s hip. Genghis grunted in pain, lashing out again and this time almost taking off the head. He could hear the attackers yelling all around him, but his guards were moving to protect the khan. They did not know or care particularly which of the crowd were the attackers. They went through them all, hacking men and women aside until bodies lay everywhere.

As Genghis sat panting on his mount, the boy with a torn cheek recovered and leapt at him. One of his guards impaled the boy from behind, then kicked him off the blade so that he sprawled with the rest. The marketplace was empty by then, though the nearby streets still echoed to screams and running feet. Genghis reached down to touch the wound he had taken. He’d known worse in his time. He nodded to the guards, knowing that they would fear his anger for letting him be cut at all. In fact, Genghis had already decided to see them all hanged for their inattention, but the moment to tell them was not when they were within sword’s reach of him and still ready to kill.

Genghis waited until fresh soldiers rode in from the tumans, Tsubodai and Kachiun with them. He ran a hand across his throat as he glanced at the guards and they sagged as they sat their mounts, all the fight going out of them as their weapons were taken.

‘I should have expected it,’ Genghis said, furious with himself. Perhaps the city itself had made him careless. For a man who broke empires, there would always be those who hated him. He should never have relaxed inside a city, even Samarkand. He cursed under his breath at the thought that his enemies had known exactly where to find him for months. That was one benefit of a nomadic life – enemies had to work hard even to locate you.

Kachiun had dismounted to check the dead. Almost forty people had been cut down by the guards and some of them still lived and bled. The general had no interest in finding guilt or innocence, or any pity for them. His brother had been attacked and he was about to order his men to put an end to those who still crawled when he hesitated, holding up a hand.

Two young men had fallen closely together, right by the first attack. Each wore a robe such as those that protected the desert Arabs from sandstorms. They were bare-chested under it, and in death, Kachiun could see the same mark low on their throats. He pulled the cloth further open, then gestured to a warrior to do the same for the rest of the dead. Male and female, they had their clothes torn. Kachiun found six other men with the mark, none of them alive.

Genghis saw him turn to a young Arab standing with Tsubodai.

‘You. What does this mean?’

Yusuf Alghani shook his head, his lips tight.

‘I have never seen it before,’ he replied.

Genghis stared down at the man, knowing that he hid something.

‘It is a word in your writing,’ he said. ‘Read it for me.’

Yusuf made a show of inspecting the first man Kachiun had found. He read it right to left and Kachiun could see his hands were shaking.

Master, it is the word for serenity. T hat is all I know.

Genghis nodded as if he accepted it. When Yusuf did not look at the others, he made a hard sound in his throat and dismounted, showing his teeth as weight came on his leg.

‘Hold him,’ he said.

Before Yusuf could react, Tsubodai’s sword was at his throat, the metal warm against his skin.

‘You knew they would all be the same, boy,’ Genghis said. ‘Tell me who might wear this word on their chests. Tell me and live.’

Even with the threat, Yusuf’s eyes still moved around the deserted market, looking for anyone who might be watching. He could see no one, but he knew someone would be there. His words would find their way back to the men who had ordered a kill.

‘Will you leave this city, master?’ he asked, his voice slightly choked by the pressure of Tsubodai’s blade.

Genghis raised his eyebrows, surprised at the courage he saw. Or madness, or fear, though who could inspire more fear than a sword at the throat, he did not know.

‘I will leave today, boy, yes. Now speak.’

Yusuf swallowed drily.

‘The Assassins bear such a mark, such a word, master. That is truly all I know.’

Genghis nodded slowly.

‘Then they will be easy to find. Put your sword away, Tsubodai. We need this one.’

‘I have found him useful, lord,’ Tsubodai replied. ‘With your permission, I will send a runner to the general with this news. He will want to have all his staff checked for the mark, perhaps everyone in the city.’ As the thought formed, he turned and grabbed Yusuf, yanking his robe aside before he could react. The skin was bare and Yusuf glared at the general as he rearranged himself.

‘That would be wise,’ Genghis said. He looked around him at the dead bodies, already attracting flies. Samarkand was no longer his concern.

‘Hang my guards before you join me, Tsubodai. They failed today.’

Ignoring the pain from his hip, he remounted and rode out to the tumans.