Conqueror: The Complete 5-Book Collection. Conn Iggulden
the edge of the forge.
Arslan watched, appalled, as Jelme took a moment and rose with icy calm. His son rubbed at his jaw and his face was very pale.
‘Do not do that again,’ Jelme said softly, his eyes hard.
‘It was a mistake, my son,’ Arslan replied. ‘It was worry and weariness, nothing more.’ He looked as if he felt the pain himself.
Jelme nodded. He had suffered worse in their practice bouts together, but there was still anger running through him and it was hard to shake it off.
‘Train men to make swords,’ Jelme said, making it an order. ‘We will need every last one of them and, as you say, you will not live for ever. None of us do.’ He rubbed his jaw again, wincing as it clicked.
‘I have found something of worth here,’ he said, trying hard to make his father understand. ‘The tribes fight amongst themselves and waste their strength. Here, we have shown a man can begin again and it does not matter whether he was once a Naiman or a Wolf.’
Arslan saw a strange light in his son’s eyes and was worried by it. ‘He gives them food in their bellies and, for a little while, they forget old feuds and hatreds. That is what I am seeing here!’ he snapped at his son. ‘The tribes have fought for a thousand years. You think one man can cut through all that history, that hatred?’
‘What is the alternative?’ Temujin said from the door.
Both men spun to face him and he glanced at the dark bruise on Jelme’s jaw, understanding it in an instant.
He looked exhausted as he came to stand by the forge.
‘I could not sleep with three women and my sister chattering like birds, so I came here.’
Neither son nor father replied and Temujin went on, closing his eyes as the warmth reached him.
‘I do not ask for blind followers, Arslan,’ he said. ‘You are right to question our purpose here. You see a ragged group with barely enough food to get through to the thaw. Perhaps we could find ourselves a valley somewhere and raise herds and children while the tribes continue to roam and butcher each other.’
‘You won’t tell me you care how many strangers die in those battles,’ Arslan said with certainty.
Temujin fixed his yellow eyes on the swordsmith, seeming to fill the small space of the ger.
‘We feed the soil with our blood, our endless feuding,’ he said after a time. ‘We always have, but that does not mean we always should. I have shown that a tribe can come from the Quirai, the Wolves, the Woyela, the Naimans. We are one people, Arslan. When we are strong enough, I will make them come to me, or I will break them one at a time. I tell you we are one people. We are Mongols, Arslan. We are the silver people and one khan can lead us all.’
‘You are drunk, or dreaming,’ Arslan replied, ignoring his son’s discomfort. ‘What makes you think they would ever accept you?’
‘I am the land,’ Temujin replied. ‘And the land sees no difference in the families of our people.’ He looked from one to the other. ‘I do not ask for your loyalty. You gave me that with your oath and it binds you until death. It may be that we will all be killed in the attempt, but you are not the men I think you are if that will stop you.’ He chuckled to himself for a moment, knuckling his eyes against the weariness made worse by the warmth.
‘I climbed for an eagle chick once. I could have stayed on the ground, but the prize was worth the risk. It turned out that there were two of them, so I was luckier than I had hoped to be.’ His chuckle seemed bitter, though he did not explain. He clapped father and son on the shoulder.
‘Now stop this bickering and climb with me,’ he said. He paused for a moment to see how they took his words, then went back out into the cold snow to find somewhere to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Wen Chao kept a close eye on his servants through the hangings of the litter as they struggled under its weight. With three men to each wooden handle, the labour should have been just enough to keep them warm, but when he glanced out of the silk awning, he noticed more than one was growing blue around the lips. He had not moved before the winter snow had begun to melt, but there was still crunching ice underfoot and the wind was cruel. He suspected he would lose another slave before they reached the Mongol camp, if not two. He pulled his furs around him and wondered peevishly if they would find the camp at all.
He amused himself for a time by cursing Togrul, the khan of the Kerait, who had claimed to know where the raiding band were waiting out the winter. With a little more heat and imagination, he practised even more complicated insults for the members of the Chin court in Kaifeng.
He had known he had been outmanoeuvred from the moment he laid eyes on the expressions of the eunuchs. They were as bad as gossipy old women and there was little that went on in the court that they did not hear. Wen remembered the acid delight in little Zhang, the first amongst them, as he had ushered him into the presence of the first minister.
Wen pursed his lips in irritation at the memory. He prided himself on his expertise in the games of power, but there it was. He had been lulled by a woman of the best Willow house in Kaifeng and missed just one important meeting. He sighed at the thought of her skill, remembering every wanton touch and the peculiar thing she had tried to do with a feather. He hoped her services had cost his enemies dearly, at least. When he had been summoned from her bed in the middle of the night, he had known immediately that he would pay for his pleasures. Ten years of cleverness had been wasted by one drunken night of poetry and love. It hadn’t been good poetry, either, he reflected. The minister had announced a diplomatic mission to the barbarous tribes as if it was a great honour and, of course, Wen had been forced to smile and knock his head on the floor as if he had been given his heart’s desire.
Two years later, he was still waiting to be recalled. Away from the machinations and games of the Chin court, no doubt he had been forgotten. He addressed copies of his reports to trusted friends with instructions to send them on, but it was likely none of them were ever read. It was no great chore to lose them in the thousands of scribes who tended the court of the Middle Kingdom, not for one as devious as Zhang, at least.
Although Wen refused to despair, there was a chance he would end his days among the ugly Mongol tribes, frozen to death or poisoned by their endless rancid mutton and sour milk. It was really too much for a man of his position and advanced years. He had taken barely a dozen servants, as well as his guards and litter-bearers, but the winter had proved too much for the weaker ones, passing them back onto the wheel of life for their next reincarnation. Remembering the way his personal scribe had caught a fever and died still made him furious. The man had sat down in the snow and refused to go on. One of the guards had kicked him, on Wen’s instructions, but the little fellow gave up the spirit with every sign of spiteful pleasure as he died.
Wen hoped fervently that he would return as a scrubber of floors, or a pony that would be beaten regularly and with much enthusiasm. Now that the man was gone, Wen could only regret the beatings he had not inflicted himself. There was never enough time, even for the most conscientious of masters.
He heard the thumping rhythm of hoofbeats and considered twitching back the hanging that kept out the wind from his litter, before thinking better of it. No doubt it would be the guards reporting a complete lack of sign, as they had done for the previous twelve days. When he heard them shout, his old heart thumped with relief, though it was beneath him to show it. Was he not the fifth cousin of the Emperor’s second wife? He was. Instead, he reached for one of his most annotated scrolls and read the words of philosophy, finding calm in their simple thoughts. He had never been comfortable with the high moral tone of Confucius himself, but his disciple Xun Zi was a man Wen would have liked to take for a drink. It was his words he turned to most often when his mood was low.
Wen