The Tiger Queens (32 page)

Orbei gave a tight nod. “He was.”

I glanced at Jingue, reading the truth in his eyes. My precious husband, who believed so deeply in the sanctity of life, had murdered his own uncle and then risked his life to save me. My throat tightened and it took me longer to find my voice than I would have liked.

“What is your answer to our terms?”

The huddle of men conversed with Orbei while Jingue and I waited.
Behind us in the hills, impatient warhorses threw their heads and men stood ready with the arrows for the ballistas. I prayed I’d soon give the order that would return them to my father.

Finally Orbei bowed her head to us. “All shall be as you ask,” she said. “The Onggud welcome their new Prince of Beiping and his
beki
.”

The tortoise gates creaked open on ancient hinges and the Onggud fell to their knees in the streets before us. I rubbed the golden tigers on my sword with my thumb, the victory ritual from my youth. Jingue and I had departed this city as fugitives, but now we returned as prince and princess. Together we would rebuild our broken city, tempered and made stronger for all we’d survived.

Against all odds, we had won. Together, we would prosper.

Later that night, I received yet another blessing.

In return for my mercy, the Earth Mother lifted the shadow of death Teb Tengeri had once claimed I carried. While I nestled in Jingue’s arms before a roaring fire and safe under the peaked roof of the Great House, my husband’s seed buried itself deep in my womb. Less than a year later, surrounded by Orbei, Enebish, and the sticky heat of the summer solstice, I gave birth to a squalling, red-faced son.

His name was Negudei, and the Earth Mother and Eternal Blue Sky decreed he would be the only child born of my womb.

In the days to come, he would be my most precious gift of all.

The Rose of
Nishapur

1221 CE

YEAR OF THE WHITE SNAKE

NISHAPUR, KHWARAZMIAN EMPIRE

T
he day my city was destroyed started as any other.

It was Farvardin, the first month of spring’s delicate warmth and life’s rebirth, when the black chaos of death descended upon our city like the blazing hellfires of Jahannam. In the days to come, we children of Nishapur—the astronomers and poets, mathematicians and philosophers—would fall for seventy years into the pit of everlasting hell. The nineteen celestial angels cursed those of us who weren’t shattered to pieces with garments of fire and a perpetual feast of thorns.

We howled in pain for Allah to save us, to deliver us from our torment, but the One God was deaf to our prayers.

At the first light of dawn, yawning merchants pushed creaking carts of fragrant cinnamon and the last of the winter pears toward the bazaar, spotted flycatchers darted from stuccoed eaves in search of insects, and the pale blue sky was filled with the sun’s shining light. My mother had named me Fatima for that light, and for the Prophet’s revered daughter, who died a martyr for our faith. I had no wish to live a glorious life as my namesake had, or to die a venerated death, but sought only to live in quiet ease and beauty, to keep an elegant home for my husband to return to each night after he became governor of Nishapur.

Hidden behind the high walls of our garden, delicate tulips opened
their faces to the sun and fragrant pink blossoms garlanded spindly quince trees. The kitchen slaves, mostly Christians and a handful of Zoroastrians, had chosen a haunch of fresh lamb still streaked with rubied blood and pearled fat from the butcher that morning and argued now whether to season tonight’s stew with figs or dried limes. Thus the scent of blood was already in the air before the invaders poured into Nishapur.

I smoothed my hair under its veil and gave the girls a gentle scolding for raising their voices on so pure a morning, then made my way to the balcony that overlooked the garden, the treasure of our home. The scent of jasmine and freshly turned earth filled my nose, and I lowered my head to my prayer rug, its red and gold silk knotted by my mother’s deft hands before she had departed this life, gathered into Allah’s waiting arms as a result of my cowardice. The perfume of the flowers was the smell of my childhood, reminding me of my mother in the garden, arms covered in dirt as she divided tulip bulbs or transplanted rosebushes while purple sunbirds darted amongst the hibiscus. I’d never understood why my mother didn’t allow our many slaves to tend her flowers and shrubs, but I’d listened with my head in her lap when she spoke in her smooth voice about the plants she loved. She knew which ones Allah had created only for their beauty, or which—like the chamomile and mint my father used to calm his often sour stomach—also possessed healing qualities.

A profound calm wrapped around me, as if the One God cupped me in his hand, when I knelt on the prayer mat facing Makkah. I closed my eyes to let my soul fill with the imam’s clear voice rising from the main mosque, so beautiful the birds ceased their songs to listen to the call beckoning the faithful to prayer. This was one of my favorite sounds, and five times a day it filled my heart with joy and calmed my mind.

Allahu Akbar. Sam‘i Allahu liman hamidah, Rabbana wa lakal hamd.

God is most great. God hears those who call upon Him; Our Lord, praise be to You.

I imagined the men filling the mosque’s dainty courtyard, pausing to wash their hands and feet in the delicate fountains and combing their dark
hair flat against their heads. My father would be there with a crimson-and-gold prayer mat identical to mine, another gift from my mother. Mansoor would help him find his place and together they would honor Allah.

My marriage to Mansoor was arranged by our parents, of course, but my father had waited until I was nineteen—far beyond the usual age for girls to marry—to choose my groom. I’d been pleased to learn the art of love in my husband’s patient arms, but the months had turned to years and my womb had never quickened with his seed. I had failed my husband, yet Mansoor refused to take another wife, something not even my father understood.

“What need have I for a child?” my husband asked once, kissing away my silent tears. “I have all I require in this life in you, dearest Fatima.”

And so, unable to give my husband a child, I gave him everything else I could. I massaged his back with rose oil when he came home each night, served him his favorite lamb-and-mint stew on delicate porcelain plates from Cathay, and listened attentively to his talk of tax disputes and trade ledgers from Nishapur’s lucrative turquoise trade.

This afternoon, after their prayers, my husband would lead Father to our home and I would oversee the slaves as they served my men the midday meal of sweet brittle bread and pomegranate soup.

Mine was a beautiful life, and one I’d been bred to live.

I lifted my voice in an ululating prayer for my mother’s soul as I’d do until the traditional four years of mourning had passed. Once the last note had faded into the sky, I rolled up my prayer rug and padded back inside on bare feet, pausing to rinse my mouth with rose water and wincing at the lumpy silk bag that remained by the door, accusing me with its very presence. The poet narcissus bulbs inside were a gift from my father, culled from my mother’s garden. I had promised my father I’d plant them, but in truth I couldn’t bear to touch them without being reminded of the role I’d played in allowing my mother’s soul to fall into the fires of Jahannam, imperiling myself at the same time. Instead, I nudged the bag behind the loom strung with the prayer rug I’d been weaving as a name-day gift for Mansoor, its vibrant red-tulip border meant to symbolize undying love. My husband appreciated beauty in all its forms, and so I’d wed a man who prized my weaving and calligraphy as much as he worshipped the curves
of my body. I flushed at the thought of our lovemaking last night in the garden below, our skin damp from the heat and perfumed from the carpet of lilac blossoms we’d lain upon.

I tucked a stray tendril of hair beneath my head scarf and settled into Mansoor’s favorite chair, vacillating between reading the illuminated verses of Nishapur’s famous poet Omar Khayyám and dabbling with my brushes and ink while I waited for my men to return. The book and my writing remained untouched as my eyelids grew heavy and I drifted toward dreams, seeing Mansoor walking away from me with a sad smile on his face. My hold on the inkpot loosened, and the glass bottle fell and shattered, fingers of black ink spreading across the turquoise tiles. I stood to summon a slave to clean the mess but started as a feral scream rent the air, gooseflesh rolling down my skin as the terrible sound crescendoed like the trumpet blast that would herald the Day of Arising.

Heart pounding, I ran to the edge of the balcony. Our home sat near the city walls, perfectly situated to capture the cool mountain breezes in the summer, but now the streets were choked with people fleeing toward the center of town, veiled mothers tucking precious children under their arms and wives clutching their husbands’ hands as they stumbled away from certain death.

Mongol horsemen, multiplied like locusts, swarmed over the hills.

And the walls.

Last winter we’d watched the Mongol hordes descend upon us as the trees shed their last leaves. The heathen warlords had demanded our empire’s surrender before they shed our blood, but the sultan ordered the massacre of their first emissaries, and their second envoys were humiliated by having their beards shaved in the streets and the Khan’s gifts of camels and silver seized. The third messenger from Genghis Khan bore only a letter of four words:

You have chosen war.

Still, we did not worry, for the Khwarazmian Empire was ancient and strong, surely more powerful than a group of filthy soldiers dressed in
squirrel skins and reeking of horses. Then came the news that Genghis Khan had captured and executed the governor of Otrar, dragging him screaming from the city’s citadel and pouring molten silver down his nose and throat. The Mongols had arrived at Nishapur soon after and demanded our surrender outside the great Gate of the Silversmiths with its massive panels of beaten metal and turquoise studs. During those tense hours, the words of Omar Khayyám’s famous poem
Rubáiyát
had replayed over and over in my mind.

Awake! For morning in the Bowl of Night

Has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight:

And Lo! The Hunter of the East has caught

The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Life.

At our refusal of their terms, the sun had swallowed the moon in a ring of fire and one of our soldiers launched the fateful arrow that lodged in the heart of a young Mongol general bedecked in a horsehair helmet. We learned later that he was the husband of Al-Altun, Genghis Khan’s youngest daughter from a lesser wife, but the swarms of dreaded horsemen fled after his fall, leaving us in stunned peace. Afterward, Father claimed we should leave the city in case the Khan of Khans ordered the heathens to return, but Mansoor’s position as vice-governor of Nishapur required his presence. I refused to abandon my husband or the city of my birth, to forsake my mother’s grave and the memories of walking with her to the bazaar to buy saffron for the
ash-e
soup my father adored.

Nishapur had celebrated after the Mongols fled, people filling the streets and claiming that the moon was like the Mongol hordes, too small to swallow the sun of our turquoise city. We didn’t realize then that the ring of sun fire wasn’t a sign of our victory, but an omen of our impending doom.

My knees buckled as I realized we were under attack for a second time, and for a moment I thought to hide. Instead, I hesitated, running downstairs to order in a calm voice that the slaves go to the cellar. Then I vacillated over whether I should try to find Mansoor or bar the doors against the barbarian invaders. I moaned aloud to think of the Mongols in our house, stealing our
silver candelabra, tramping across the silken carpets, and tearing apart the leather-bound Qur’an passed down through the generations of Mansoor’s family.

But none of that would matter if I died. Or if Mansoor died.

The Mongols had already cut a bloody swath through Nishapur by the time I finally tripped down the stairs and burst barefoot into the chaos. The burly baker from the shop down the street knocked me into the wall, his arms coated with flour and eyes ravaged with shock and grief. I gasped to see his wife’s broken body in his arms, her veil torn away and glazed eyes open in death. A boy stumbled past, holding his stomach as if about to be sick. He stopped, eyes unseeing as he grabbed my arm and bent double to cough. The spray of crimson that spattered my own veil matched the blood seeping between his fingers. I shook him off and fought against the current of terror to elbow my way toward the mosque.

Screams came from inside the tiled walls. I jumped back when the iron gates were flung open, and men in prayer caps were cut down by wild-eyed Mongols dressed in filthy furs and leather vests stained with years of blood. Pages of the Qur’an fluttered in the air, its sacred verses shredded by swords and spattered with crimson. I fell to the ground, feigning death despite my pounding heart, while men around me screamed to Allah and the Mongols barked unintelligible commands. I dared not move and give myself away. It seemed an eternity before the sounds of pounding hooves and swords against bone finally moved on and I was able to stumble to the gates amidst the groans of dying men. Inside, the sacred grounds were trampled with sacrilegious dirt and blood.

So much blood.

I recoiled from the unholy sight. Men lay sprawled on their prayer mats, limbs splayed, with arrows and spear shafts embedded in their chests. One man rolled in agony, frothy red bubbles at his mouth as he clutched his abdomen. A quarrel with spotted feathers protruded from his stomach, but his blood-slicked hands slipped as he tried to pull it away. I could feel the life draining from him, his tortured soul straining to greet Allah.

“Help me,” he moaned. “Please.”

I turned away, making the sign against the evil eye with one hand. I was
a coward, unwilling to speed a dying man to his death. Instead, I ran through the mosque, my bare feet leaving a trail of red footprints in my wake, further desecrating the holy ground.

Every step brought me to a new body; every stranger’s face twisted with death gave me hope that my father and Mansoor had escaped the carnage. Something caught my eye at the base of the mihrab, the tall arched niche directing the faithful toward Makkah and closer to Allah.

The dull gleam of red silk on the floor, interwoven with gold.

An animal moan escaped my lips and I fell to my knees, crawling toward the precious bare head scattered with brown spots and wisps of gray hair. My father’s prayer rug was drenched with blood, his body laid out as if awaiting a shroud. The flesh at his neck had been sliced open so that his blood wrapped around his neck like a winter scarf and his unseeing eyes still stared in shock at the face of his killer. I pressed my fist to my lips, muffling my howl as I crouched low and rocked on my heels.

“Fatima.”

I gasped and looked to the crumpled form that uttered my name. Mansoor lay curled on his side, face pale and body shaking. I crawled to my beautiful husband and pulled his head into my lap, my fingers fluttering against his chest. We had sat like this only days ago in the garden, a moment of everyday happiness among the jasmine and tulips. Now a nightmare surrounded us.

“I tried to help him,” Mansoor said, “but it happened so fast—”

He was wracked with coughing, flecks of shiny blood spraying my yellow robe. An alarming trickle of red slipped down his lips to his chin, the same lips that had kissed me so tenderly only that morning.

“Everything will be all right.” I glanced around frantically, but Mansoor’s hand closed on mine, cold and clammy. I recognized the unmistakable brush of death from my mother’s last moments.