The Yngling and the Circle of Power



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TWENTY ONE

Achikh told Kaidu some of his experiences and observations in
the West, including Nils’s fights in the arena, first with
the lion, then with the Orc. When he was done, it was evening, and
soon time for supper.

Kaidu had already arranged to have the council as his dinner
guests, and Achikh begged to be excused. He wished to see his
mother before he slept. Kaidu agreed. He knew too well the ugly
relationship between Achikh’s mother, Khada’an, and his
own mother, Dokuz. And he preferred that it not color his
friendship with his younger brother, whom he saw as potentially a
powerful supporter.

Actually Achikh was a half-brother, but the distinction was
generally ignored in the Mongol culture. And while Kaidu
didn’t mention it, of course, most of the tribe considered
Dokuz’s mistreatment of Khada’an as more or less
disgraceful. Mothers-in-law were often harsh to daughters-in-law,
but not usually with such rancor, especially when earlier
they’d both been wives of the same man. And to a degree, the
public disapproval reflected on himself. Thus Kaidu was careful
always to treat Khada’an respectfully, and speak well of
her.

As for Nils and the others, they would be fed in their own
ger by the woman assigned.

Word was sent to Khada’an that her son had returned and
would visit her for supper. Her ger was not large, but it
was large enough for herself and her household, and to entertain a
few friends. Its furnishings were excellent. All in all it was
appropriate to her unusual status—a younger widow of a chief who
was not wife to the inheriting son. For normally, the inheriting
son inherited his father’s wives, except for his own mother.
Typically his own mother would rule the women of the household—his
wives and inherited wives—as the mother-in-law. Such rule could be
pleasant or unpleasant.

Dokuz, Kaidu’s mother, was Kokchü s first and eldest
wife, a famous beauty with a face flatter than an owl’s. She
was the favorite daughter of the rich and powerful Mengetu family.
Khada’an, Achikh’s mother, was his fourth and final
wife, neither beautiful nor ugly, and Achikh was
Khada’an’s only surviving son, the sixth son of eight,
by various wives, who’d survived their father.
Khada’an’s family, the Tokurs, was neither rich nor
powerful, though respected for their integrity and the quality of
their horses.

According to Dokuz, her dislike of the younger woman grew out of
Khada’an’s inanities when the women would sit in the
ger and do the many tasks that women do there. Besides,
Khada’an did not look the part of a chief’s wife, for the
wives of any prominent man were expected to get fat, preferably
very fat, and Khada’an, while filling out moderately, would
measure only half of Dokuz’s girth.

The gossip, though, was that her hatred had other roots: that
Kokchü preferred to take Khada’an to his bed, though she
gave him only one living son and two daughters.

Fortunately for Khada’an, Kokchü’s mother was
alive till almost the day of Kokchü’s death. And under
the old lady’s even-handed management, Dokuz could abuse Khada’an only with her sarcasm, while even in that her
mother-in-law enforced restraint.

When Kokchü died, Kaidu inherited his wives, and Dokuz
became the mother-in-law. Now she not only tongue-lashed
Khada’an cruelly, but gave her demeaning and exhausting tasks
in the household, as if she were one of the slaves. And indeed the
slaves were better off, for the matron spoke to them far less
harshly.

All of this Achikh already knew. It was the decisive reason why
the seventeen-year-old youth, who had adventurous tendencies
anyway, left home as the leader of a reckless teenaged band.

Now, on his first evening back, Achikh ate supper with his
mother. A supper of beef and kidneys and brain and curds and
airag. When he finished, he listened to a bitter
recitation of his mother’s resentments. After he’d gone
traveling westward, she said, she no longer felt tied to the chief’s
household, and begged Kaidu to let her return to her family. Twice
he’d withheld his permission. Not that he took his inherited
wives to his bed, unless they requested it. He’d refused her
simply because of his mother, who wished to retain her for her own
cruel purposes. At her third request he’d relented, sending
her back destitute to her father, whose charity fed and clothed
her. She’d had to beg from her brothers to get the
furnishings she had around her.

She also told him that as her son, he should publicly reject
Kaidu as his brother.

Achikh told Nils all of this late that night atop their sleeping
robes, while Hans and Baver listened. They spoke in Anglic so far
as possible, in case others were eavesdropping. “Then I went
to my Uncle Jelme, my mother’s eldest brother, wondering what
I should do. Should I reject my elder brother Kaidu, who had taught
me much as a child and had always treated me well? Most would say
he was kind to release my mother; many would not have done it. But
to send her away with nothing . . . 

“Jelme told me that that was untrue. Kaidu had sent her
off with cattle, sheep, horses, three slave girls, and household
furnishings. Not that she’d come home rich, but she’d
been far from poor.”

Achikh sighed, hands behind his head, gazing at the dull glow of
the coals reflected from the ger’s roof. “You
need to have known my mother when I was young,” he said.
“She was always loving, more than most mothers. And she
really loved my father, who was good to her. When he died, though,
Dokuz was terrible to her, and it changed her, made her deeply
bitter. I could not stand to live in the same ger,
certainly not in winter, when one is inside so much.

“It was typical of Kaidu to let her go. Perhaps he did
refuse her twice, but if he did, I am sure it was because his
mother insisted. To release my mother was like letting her slap
Dokuz’s face, and I’m sure that Dokuz didn’t
accept it without being unpleasant to Kaidu too. She’d know
her other daughters-in-law and her maids would talk about it behind
her back.

“So Kaidu was generous, and I cannot reject him. But it
grieves me that I must refuse my mother her request. I am her only
son.”

They all lay silent then awhile. Baver thought how cruel people
could sometimes be, but in a culture like this one, so bound by
tradition . . . 

“Achikh, my anda,” Nils said, “it is
sad indeed that your mother was so changed. But you have done well
to decide as you did. To reject Kaidu would be unjust, as you said,
and it would feed your mother’s hatred without satisfying it.
For she has clearly lost her sanity, and would hate as much
afterward as before. Also, what she asked would hurt you and Kaidu,
while you know as I do that it would not hurt Dokuz. Dokuz would
use it to justify what she’d done.”

My anda. Baver was impressed. The word was equivalent
to “soul brother,” and the impression he’d gotten
was that, beyond adolescence, it was used very selectively. Once
before Nils had said they’d become “like
andat,” but this time he’d said “my
anda.”

After Nils had validated Achikh in his decision, the Buriat
warrior told them other things he’d learned from his Uncle
Jelme.

The congress here was centered around a council, which consisted
of the chiefs of all four tribes and the twelve principal clans. So
far the council had dealt with routine matters: feuds between clans
of different tribes, disputes over grazing and water—that sort of
thing. They would also, perhaps tomorrow, discuss matters related
to who, if anyone, should be Great Khan of all the Buriat. Only two
chiefs contended for the position, Burhan Rides-the-Bear, who was
chief of the Red Spear Tribe, and Kaidu Long Nose. Burhan did not
seem avid for it, but he did not want Kaidu elected. And Kaidu
almost surely would be, if unopposed, for just now among the Buriat
there was a ferment to unite under a strong khan. They were
concerned about the Chinese, actually the Sino-Tibetans, to the
south, who had conquered the Uighurs and more recently the Koreans.
And it seemed to most that only united under a Great Khan could the
Buriat long survive.

Kaidu had earned much attention, a year earlier, by proposing
that the tribes unite to make war on the Yakut-Russ, to the north,
and take from them the wild and rugged forest region below the
great lake called Baikal. There were grazing lands intermixed
there, and much wild game. The Buriat had hunted in that country
for as long as men knew, though the Yakut-Russ sometimes harassed
and attacked the hunters. Possessing that land, the Buriat would
have a place of retreat, should a great Sino-Tibetan army come to
the steppes to enslave them, as they’d enslaved other
peoples. And from the shelter of the endless forest, they could
strike and harass any Chinese conqueror.

This Kaidu had proposed. Others had been quick to say that it
was easier proposed than done; the Yakut-Russ were thinly
scattered, but they were formidable fighters. Others had suggested
how they might beat the Yakut-Russ and hold the land, while others
yet had found fault with their reasoning. Still others had said
that the realm of the Yakut-Russ was immense, and the region below
Baikal a very small part of it. That mostly the Yakut-Russ were
reindeer herders, and since the region below Baikal was not
well-suited to reindeer, it was not important to them.

Thus had gone the debate, with no consensus growing out of it.
Then Kaidu had withdrawn his proposal knowing that the people
would continue to talk about it, arguing among themselves, while
his friends among them spoke for it. In another year or two, the
tribes and clans might be ready to agree, and elect him their
leader.

That had been a year ago.

This much Achikh had learned from talking with Jelme, his uncle,
and he shared it with Nils in the presence of Hans and Baver. What
he didn’t know, hadn’t the perspective to know, was
that the Buriat were the most political of the three Mongol
peoples, and the most inclined to assign power and loyalty beyond
their clans to their tribes and chiefs. During the preceding two
centuries, they had twice elected Great Khans to lead all the
Buriat. These arrangements, however, had not taken root. The
organization of khan rule, what organization there’d been,
had been superficial, and in the absence of continuing strong
incentives had come apart.

Each time, however, it had served its purpose: it had broken an
invasion out of China.

Achikh wasn’t the only person in the Buriat camp to make a
report that evening. Fong Jung Hing had made one earlier, long
distance.

The procedure could be somewhat cumbersome, but it was far
quicker and easier than a courier riding 1,200 kilometers. Also it
provided two-way communication—the exchange of information, and
particularly of questions and answers—in a matter of minutes.

With Fong on mission, the Circle of Power had at least three
adepts linked from suppertime till midnight—enough to detect any
thought that Fong might “cast toward them.” When a call
was detected, other members of the Circle were sent for if
necessary; five was adequate, even four in a pinch. And a runner
rushed to the palace to inform the emperor.

With Tenzin as a guide, the Circle created a conduit, with the
emperor the receiver. He would come at once, even if asleep when
sent for, and sit in the middle of the Circle in what a
twenty-first-century psychologist might have called a trance state,
but in fact was a state of heightened, focused sensitivity.

Meanwhile Fong waited. Those who worked closely with the emperor
had their patience well-developed. When he felt the emperor’s
psychic touch, Fong began their mental dialog: “Your
Reverence, the barbarian you are interested in has arrived here at
Urga. With the raven.

“The man’s appearance is as Tenzin read it from the
bird—very large, very powerful, and seemingly a great warrior.
Certainly a superior telepath.

“His talents go much beyond that, however. He has great
force of personality, and he is clever.” Then he reran
mentally the man’s conversation with Kaidu, up to the time
when the chief had cleared the ger of its other guests.
“At that point,” Fong said, “it was required that
I leave. And as I am accompanied at all times by guards who both
protect and constrain me, I could not loiter near the chief’s
ger and listen through the mind. The raven was there,
however. Tenzin can learn for you what happened in my
absence.”

The emperor nudged his envoy’s mind with a question.

“Where he will go from here,” Fong answered,
“he did not say, any more than he did in the hearing of the
raven. Perhaps he spoke the truth to his companions last winter,
when he said he didn’t know, beyond accompanying the Mongol
to his people. Perhaps he is someone who simply desires to see new
places.

“But Your Reverence, there is something about him that
makes him unusually interesting and perhaps even dangerous. He
seems not to think to himself. I discern no internal
monologue.

 . . .  “No, Your Reverence,
it is not a matter of screening. I would know if he screened. He
simply does not carry on an internal monolog, and beneath his
words, his mind seems still. It’s as if he were in deep
meditation constantly, even while talking and moving, seemingly
alert. Obviously alert. The raven was not able to tell us that, of
course. It could only show us his movements, let us listen to his
words.”

There was little more to the psychic conversation; then the
emperor discontinued it. He next took a brief report from Tenzin
Geshe on what the raven had seen. As he returned to his apartment,
Songtsan Gampo felt a thrill run through him. This barbarian was
indeed interesting. More than interesting: exciting! Tenzin had
sensed the man as a threat, but Tenzin was always cautious. And
opportunities often entailed danger. The barbarian held some
special significance, it seemed to Songtsan, some special promise.
Perhaps from him he’d learn something new and powerful, a key
that would open the world to his grasp.

For just a moment, as if standing on an exhilarating height, he
felt possibilities he couldn’t quite perceive. Marvelous
possibilities that went well beyond conquest!

Then the height sagged, and he lost his certainty.

But Songtsan Gampo was a man of spiritual strength as well as
vast material power. And of great patience, when it suited him. He
would wait, see, react, and take the initiative when the time
came.



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