The Tiger Queens (49 page)

“This has been a long time coming,” she said, pausing as a fresh cough overtook her. My heart ached, for it was as if her lungs were saturated with blood, and a fresh stream of crimson flowed down her chin before she finished. I wiped away the blood, remembering all the times she’d nursed me when I was ill.

“My only regret in dying is that I won’t live to see my son and his foul wife toppled from their dais.” She clutched my hand, her eyes glazed with fever. “Güyük and Oghul Ghaimish must pay for their crimes.”

“Their crimes?” I knew then what Shigi had meant outside. “Do you mean their crimes against Fatima?”

Tears welled in her eyes, and from the door, Shigi motioned for my silence. “Toregene.” Shigi’s voice was as hard as stone. “You need to rest.”

But Toregene ignored him.

“Güyük murdered Fatima,” she whispered to me, squeezing her eyes shut against the pain. “He claimed she’d bewitched me, that she’d used sorcery to influence me and keep him from the throne all these years.” She stopped for air, her breathing coming in short and labored gasps. “He charged her with trying to overthrow him and ordered her execution, just as I once ordered Al-Altun’s execution.”

“Fatima wasn’t a member of the Golden Family,” I said gently. “He could have ordered her execution even without Al-Altun’s precedent.”

“But he mightn’t have ordered her torture.” Toregene’s shoulders shook with silent sobs, but she pressed a fist to her lips to regain control of her breath. “He claimed he wouldn’t spill her blood, but he tortured her for days,” Toregene whispered, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

“And he forced you to watch,” I said, understanding dawning. Güyük was a demon from the furthest reaches of hell, inflicting pain upon his
mother to speed her death, while murdering his greatest opponent. He’d been denied Fatima once and couldn’t bear to have a woman like her influence his mother, and so he’d sought her destruction the moment the Khan’s helm was placed upon his head.

Dread unfurled down my spine. I, too, had once denied Güyük my hand in marriage. I wondered what penalty he thought to inflict upon me—or worse, upon my sons—for my repudiation of his offer.

Toregene gave a weary nod. “When he was done, my son ordered her thrown into the river—”

She was overcome with a coughing fit so strong I thought she might die, drowning in a sea of her own blood. Shigi pulled her into his arms, stroking her hair and wiping her mouth as she was seized again and again with the bloody coughing. Through it all, I clutched her hand, willing her to stay. Toregene would soon be free of this world, but I wished for peace in her final moments, that her last thoughts might be of Shigi and all those she’d loved in this life, of the scent of grinding herbs and the sweet sound of music.

I sagged with relief when the coughing eased, only to find it replaced by heart-rending sobs.

“I killed her, Sorkhokhtani,” she moaned. “I should have sent her with you—”

I stroked her thinning hair. “You gave Fatima her freedom long ago, and she could have left you at any time.
She knew the risks, but she chose to stay with you. She loved you, just as I love you and Alaqai loves you, and as Borte loved you. Forget about the recent days, and think of the times when we were together.”

She closed her eyes then, and I took the tiny
buree
from my pocket, the carved ivory flute almost identical to the one I’d given Alaqai when she’d first left for the Onggud a lifetime ago. The melody I played was soothing, like the whisper of wind rattling the leaves of a birch tree in autumn. Borte had once told me that I had air in my soul, and that was why I loved music.

“The air is often so calm that no one notices its presence,” she had said, smiling while I played my flute. “But given the right force and direction, it makes beautiful music. It can also come screaming down from the mountains, overturning great spruce trees and tearing down
gers
in its fury.”

My days of calm were coming to an end.

I looked up from the flute to see Shigi check Toregene’s throat for a pulse. He closed her mismatched eyes and let fly a tortured sob, his frail shoulders shaking with grief.

Toregene had been well loved in this life, but now her soul gathered strength and soared to the sky, where I imagined her greeting Borte and Fatima in a tearful reunion.

First we became widows. Now, one by one, death claimed us, until only Alaqai and I remained.

One day, we, too, would join them. But not today.

“Shigi,” I said, my voice firm but gentle. “We loved her, and we will honor her. But if we do not move quickly, Güyük may yet win.”

He lifted his head and blinked away his tears, then nodded. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll see it done.”

“You must take Toregene’s body to the mountains,” I said. “And her Great White Tent must be dismantled.”

“My slaves can see to the tent,” he said, his voice wrought with emotion. “I’ll carry her to the mountains myself.”

“Good. Have your slaves inform Güyük of her passing, but they must wait to deliver the message until you’re well outside the city walls.” I glanced around the empty tent, then dropped my voice. “You must gather Alaqai. Both you and she must ride for the camp of Batu and the Golden Horde.”

Shigi gave a weary nod. “You plan to depose Güyük, don’t you?”

“I plan to do much more than that.” I tucked my flute back into my wide sleeve and hesitated only long enough to press my forehead to Toregene’s, feeling the warmth still there. Then I straightened and squared my shoulders. “Where did they take Fatima?”

“To the river outside the walls, downstream from the artificial river. Where all the city’s filth is dumped.” His gaze met mine. “I wanted to stop Güyük then, but I feared he’d turn on Toregene as well. I pray Fatima can forgive me.”

“Fatima forgave much more than that over the course of her life,” I said gently. “She was doomed from the moment Güyük took the throne, but we
were too blind to see it.” I wrapped one of Toregene’s discarded shawls around my graying hair and picked up an old woven basket. “I’ll see you in Batu’s camp. Go well, Shigi.”

“Go well, Sorkhokhtani Beki,” Shigi murmured as Toregene’s tiger door closed behind me.

I retraced my steps as quickly as I could, stopping for a moment in the stables to gather the necessary tools, then leaving behind the Silver Tree and the palace walls, and finally the whole of Karakorum. No one dared question an old woman on foot headed toward the river. The basket under my arm was heavy, but I managed.

I almost expected a crowd at the site of Fatima’s execution, but instead the Orkhon River was deserted, as if both the living and the dead were offended by what had happened beneath the Earth Mother’s sacred waters.

I didn’t have to go far before I found her.

A large felt bundle was submerged beneath the surface, tied tight with rope and weighted down with many heavy stones. The water was bitingly cold, and it took several attempts before I could wade in and roll the stones away, then drag the muddy bundle out of the river. I panted from exertion and trembled from the cold, unsure whether I wished to face what lay inside.

I wouldn’t cower from what I was to do in the coming days; I couldn’t hide from this either.

The knots were too waterlogged to untie, so I used the knife from the basket to cut them loose. Closing my eyes, I gently peeled back the wet felts with their pervasive stench of wet wool and the lingering scent of terror.

Then I opened my eyes.

I lurched back and stumbled to the grasses, the earth spinning beneath my feet as I retched, gasping for air.

Nothing could have prepared me for the brutalities visited upon this woman who, in life, had moved with such grace, whose silks were always gently perfumed, and whose mind was seeped in poetry and beauty.

River water had bloated her naked corpse, the skin on her torso and limbs riddled with burn marks from branding irons. Still worse was her face; the nose, mouth, and eyes had been sewn shut with jagged stitches.
The golden silk thread was stained with blood, its decadence garish against so monstrous a backdrop.

I didn’t need to inspect the rest of the body to know that Güyük had ordered her every orifice sewn shut to prevent her spirit from escaping her body. He meant to punish Fatima in this life and the next, too.

Kneeling in the grass under a sky throwing shadows dark with grief, I retched until my stomach was empty, rare tears pouring down my cheeks.

There was nothing left of Fatima’s earthly body to save, but I might still salvage her soul.

Fatima was a Saracen, and according to her beliefs, she must be buried before a full day had passed since her death. I recalled her words at Borte’s deathbed, claiming that her soul was already damned to the fires of hell. Yet I doubted whether any god would punish a woman of such loyalty and dignity as Fatima of Nishapur.

The stench of death was overwhelming, but I cut the stitches on her face with trembling fingers, pulling away the hated golden thread. The deceptive silk stitching had been done with a careless hand, each stitch doubled over so Fatima’s soul had no hope of escape.

Until now.

I imagined her soul flying into the sky, returning to the gardens she had so loved. I had no doubt that her god would gather her to him and allow her to spend eternity in the paradise of Jannah, reclining on couches inlaid with gold and surrounded by fountains scented with ginger while watching rivers of pearls and rubies flow past.

I turned to the basket I’d brought, retrieving the shovel taken from Güyük’s stables. Pausing occasionally to catch my breath, I dug a shallow grave for Fatima as dusk blanketed Karakorum.

“I have no bolt of silk for your shroud,” I murmured to Fatima, forcing myself not to recoil as I smoothed the hair back from her ravaged face. “But I promise I will make this right.”

I wrapped her again in the felt blanket, then dragged her broken body to the edge of the grave and gently laid her inside, making sure she lay on her right side facing Makkah. I tucked the dark earth over her, then
arranged a wreath of red poppies and yellow wildflowers along the edges of the grave, as she’d once done around Borte’s body.

The sky had grown dark and the stars shone down on this bleak steppe. I hoped that by now Shigi had managed to take Toregene to the mountains, and that perhaps these two sisters, joined not by blood but by life and love, could now greet each other with light hearts.

Their work on this earth was done, yet mine had just begun.

“
Bayartai
, Fatima and Toregene,” I whispered. “I shall greet you one day in the sacred mountains, with many stories to tell.”

I passed under Karakorum’s main gate, guided by the moon and stars and perhaps the spirits of the dead. My footsteps joined those of few others out on the limestone cobbled streets that led to the palace, and the dark figures all shrank back at the sight of a woman covered with filth and reeking of death. I slipped in silence to where Toregene’s Great White Tent had stood, already dismantled by Shigi’s slaves, and dug in the soft dirt outside the ring of trampled earth until I found the gift Fatima had left behind. Smooth and white, with the promise of fresh life.

Or the ability to end life.

I recalled the narcissus bulbs Fatima had used to shepherd Borte toward the long sleep of death. I shoved the bulbs into my pockets, wiping away the clumps of black dirt that clung to my palms. I knew not what Güyük had planned for me now that Toregene had been consigned to the earth and Fatima destroyed, and while I considered fleeing, I knew Güyük would hunt me down and destroy me if he chose, and my sons in the process.

The time for retreat had ended. Now was the moment I’d waited for all my life.

Güyük’s guards tried to bar my entrance into the Golden Ordu after I’d exchanged my ruined clothes, claiming that the Great Khan was in mourning for the death of his mother, but I gave them my most scathing glare. “I am Sorkhokhtani Beki,” I said. “The Princess of the Hearth and Mother of the Toluids has come to visit the Great Khan. I demand to be presented to Güyük Khan, firstborn son of Ogodei Khan and Toregene Khatun.”

Grudgingly, the guards stepped aside. Güyük reclined on the throne high atop the dais, staring intently at a yellowing scroll spread across his knees with the heavy copper treasury stamp next to him. I waited a moment, then cleared my throat.

He glanced up, then blinked and offered a slow grin. “Sorkhokhtani Beki, we are honored at your unexpected presence. I’d have thought you’d have been halfway to the barren lands of your sons by now.”

I bowed so he couldn’t see the hatred burning in my eyes. “I returned when I heard of your mother’s ill health. I’m most distressed that I was too late to help her,” I said, daring to glance up to gauge his reaction. “May I offer you the deepest of condolences, from myself and my loyal sons.”

Güyük waved his hand, whether dismissing Toregene’s death or my groveling, I couldn’t tell. “My mother was ill for some time. Both she and the empire received a great boon when she passed to the mountains today.”

If there was any justice in the world, a bolt of lightning would have struck this demon where he sat, but instead, Güyük only yawned and set aside his scroll. “I would send you with a message for Batu when you leave Karakorum.”

I lowered my eyes, a demure matron. “And what message would that be?”

“Batu was the only member of the Golden Family not present at my
khurlatai
. I command his immediate presence in Karakorum, to demonstrate his acceptance of my rule.”

“And if he refuses?”

“Then I will destroy him, just as my father destroyed the rebellious Oirat and Uighurs.”

It was Toregene who had ordered Al-Altun’s execution, and Ogodei had destroyed the Oirat at great cost to himself. Yet I held my tongue.

“I shall carry the message as you ask, but I would request one favor of you, Great Khan.”

Güyük rolled up the map of Goryeo, pinching the paper between thick fingers. “And what might that be?”

“On my way to Batu, I would erect your mother’s
ordu
next to Borte’s. Your revered grandmother would wish Toregene’s spirit to be nearby.”