He drank and drank and drank. It seemed as if he would never stop drinking, and Ögedei was about to cry out for him to stop, when he dropped the bowl and fell heavily against the bed. He raised his head, his bright eyes piercing Ögedei. His mouth worked for some time before words came out, and when they did, Ögedei wanted to cry out, to drive them back into his brother’s throat as if that would undo what had been done. “Bring greatness to our empire, brother,” he whispered.
Ögedei sat up. His spirit was returning in prickly waves running through his limbs. “Tolui,” he cried, his voice a hoarse gasp.
Tolui groaned, then doubled over, his hands clutching at nothing. When he looked again at Ögedei, the veins of his brow swelled purple and tight under the sweat-slicked skin. “Brother,” he whispered, his voice a ragged hiss, “they drink me.” All the skin of his face now stretched tight, like the head of a drum, and Ögedei could see things moving beneath—like worms burrowing.
“I am drunk,” Tolui sighed. He tried to shape one last smile for his older brother, but his muscles failed him and he collapsed in a heap.
Ögedei threw off the furs. Finding he could stand, he rushed to his brother’s side.
A shaman stood to one side, half in shadow. “It is done,” he pronounced in a hollow, distant voice.
Tolui’s eyes were closed, as if he had fallen into a deep sleep. Ögedei hugged him tightly, but there was no life left in his brother’s body.
“On this day nine years ago, my noble brother sacrificed himself so that I might live. But his sacrifice was not just for me! Tolui…Tolui Khan sacrificed himself so the Mongol Empire would not be denied its leader—or its destiny.”
Surrounded by more than a minghan of ecstatic and effusive warriors, it was easy to be infected by their enthusiasm, and when the crowd roared in approval following the Khagan’s words, Gansukh found himself halfheartedly cheering along.
The courtyard was removed enough from Ögedei’s balcony that it was not easy to tell if the Khagan had been drinking. Certainly, at this distance, one could not make out any of the telltale details in a man’s face that betrayed intoxication, but based on the Khagan’s cadence and the way he leaned heavily on the balcony railing while the crowd cheered, Gansukh suspected the Khagan was, indeed, besotted.
“We must never forget my dear brother’s spirit,” Ögedei continued, pulling himself upright again. “His strength is our strength; his spirit is with us still. His name, and the names of all our fallen brothers, are what make us who we are. Those who stand against the empire—those who defy me—defile the memory of our dead brothers.”
Ögedei paused dramatically, and as the noise of the crowd filled the courtyard, he raised his arms, urging them to even greater volume. The ground rumbled as men began to stomp rhythmically. This time, when the Khagan dropped his hands, silence came slowly.
“It is due to my brother,” Ögedei shouted in a ringing voice, “and to your brothers, and all the fallen Mongol brothers, that our empire endures. My father brought the tribes together and set us upon a course that will forever carve a furrow in history. It is our duty—our sacred duty for our brothers who will follow after us—to continue that course.”
The crowd’s cheers grew louder, more guttural, becoming a war chant. The noise flowed back and forth, beating against the walls of the palace, and above the seething tide of shouting warriors, Ögedei faltered. Gansukh’s heart faltered with him. But the crowd did not notice as Ögedei steadied himself, and Gansukh saw someone move behind Ögedei and the sharp shooing motion of his hand as the Khagan brushed off any assistance.
The crowd continued its exultation, but Gansukh had seen enough. As Ögedei began to quiet the shouting warriors for one final declamatory exclamation, Gansukh shoved his way through the crowd.
The Khagan’s greatness had not departed. The wine addled him, but it had not entirely doused Ögedei’s fierce spirit. The Khagan could still be saved, but it would require someone like Gansukh—an outsider, a warrior for whom the old ways were still fresh and vital—to show him the path.
Learning the ways of court were a means to an end, much like learning how to read tracks and spoor in order to hunt. A hunter had to know his prey well before he could stalk it, before he could get close enough.
CHAPTER 30:
PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS
No place could be less like Jerusalem than the one they were riding into now. Yet as they entered the gates of the priory on the top of the hill in Kiev, Raphael could not help thinking of the day a dozen years earlier when he had ridden into Jerusalem a few lengths behind Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor and author of the Sixth Crusade. For Jerusalem too had thrown open her gates without a fight. The martial orders of Christendom—the Teutonic Knights, the Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae—had all sent contingents. Buffing their armor, grooming their horses, and unfurling their most glorious banners, they strove to outshine one another in the eyes of the locals—Muslims, Jews, and Christians—who had lined Frederick’s route from St. Stephen’s Gate to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The Shield-Brethren, who styled themselves after the Spartans, tended to come off quite poorly in such displays, and so had probably made little impression upon the crowd. Which was acceptable—preferable, even—to Raphael and the dozen brothers who had ridden alongside him under the Order’s red rose banner. Less attention from the common folk of Zion gave them more leisure to observe the city and the rival orders of Christian knights who were now reoccupying the place after four decades’ absence.
The Knights Hospitallers, for one, who had ridden into Jerusalem at the right hand of Frederick II in their black surcoats adorned with silver crosses. After paying their respects at the Holy Sepulchre, they reoccupied the Hospital of St. John, which, in its original conception, had been a hostel for pilgrims who had traveled from the West to visit the tomb of Our Lord. Its martial proprietors had since learned that succoring pilgrims was a complicated business that extended beyond merely giving them food and shelter. For what good were those amenities if they could not travel safely on the roads?
It was impossible for Raphael not to think of that day as he entered the Shield-Maidens’ nunnery-cum-fortress and saw the sick and the lame distributed about its courtyard on straw pallets. They were being tended to by the good sisters in their white wimples. These nuns had learned the same lesson as the Crusaders at the Hospital of St. John: protecting the meek required a judicious combination of bandages, simples, and sympathy on the one hand, and brute armed force on the other.
The Shield-Maidens were amply qualified to supply the latter. These were the descendants of Norsewomen who had drawn inspiration from tales of Valkyries and the skjalddis. Like all the other Varangians who had migrated down the great rivers of Rus, they had gradually become one with the local population, adopting their Slavic language and their Greek alphabet. But Raphael could plainly see ancient links to his Order in many details of their arms and armor, their movements, and their discipline.