When Kurelen awoke, he became aware that he had been conscious of movement for a long time, and that the movement had now ceased. He also became aware that he had suffered much, and that the torment he was now enduring was nothing to what he had already endured. But these awarenesses were vague, faint gleams of consciousness in an after-darkness from which he was slowly and painfully emerging.
He lay with his eyes shut. He heard a faint dry hissing accompanied by a hollow and somber moaning and a vast tremor and shaking. These he dimly recognized; they were snow and sand and wind. He thought to himself: winter has come. We are on our way. And as he thought this, he opened his eyes abruptly, the past and present rushing together in a whirlpool of bewilderment and readjustment. Instantly, as he opened his eyes, the vague awareness of torment and lapse of time and unconscious darkness became sharper and more intolerable.
He discovered himself lying on his bed, covered with thick layers of fur and coarse felt. The yurt was filled with dimness and the odor and presence of dung smoke which emerged from the sultry brazier in the center. He saw the shadowy outlines of his cherished carved Chinese chests and tabourets. He saw the livid gleam of his pale silk Chinese paintings on the walls of the yurt. He saw the flash of the Turkish scimitars hung between the billowing banners. But confusion still had him, and he wondered dismally if he were still engrossed in the half-forgotten nightmares of his suffering dreams. Everything was very still about him, in the yurt, but he could hear distant shouts of the tribesmen, the irritable cries of camels and horses, the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep, in the wintry twilight outside. He heard the creaking and rumbling of yurts, being moved into better positions for the night’s camp, the curses of men, the abusing voices of women and the squalls of children. All these were old familiar sounds, rapidly slipping into place in the midst of his bewilderment. The thundering wind, assaulting the yurt, the hiss of mingled snow and sand upon its black felt walls, were familiar, too, and told him accurately what was transpiring and approximately the position of the ordu.
He attempted to move, and was immediately plunged into sharp agony. His right arm was bound with strips of cloth and held closely to his side. His entire body screamed out its protest in lightninglike pains and crushing aches. His head seemed to fly into tortured fragments, and scarlet lights pierced his eyes. Astonishment was in his groan as well as pain. And then he remembered the night when he had attempted to save the life of the Buddhist monk. He panted aloud in his misery and dismay.
He heard a slight sound near him, and slowly, and with agony, turned his head. Squatting beside him, and seemingly part of the shadows, was the huddled form of a woman. His heart leaped feebly. “Houlun!” he murmured. The form moved again, bent over him. And then he saw that it was not Houlun, his beloved sister, but another woman. The dung fire brightened, and by its dull red light he was able to see that this was the girl whom Yesukai had largely flung into his arms on that distant night. He saw her enormous black eyes with their thick fringes of lashes, the roundness of her pale dark cheek, the pursed tininess of her red mouth. She smiled at him, and laid her hand on his forehead. At this movement of her body and garments she exhaled the pungent odor of hot femaleness and youth, unwashed and primitive, like the earth in fecund spring. For some reason, Kurelen was nauseated, and he drew in his nostrils for protection.
“What is thy name, girl?” he asked.
“Chassa,” she answered, shyly.
Kurelen was never vicious with the simple or innocent, and delicately refrained from offending them. Therefore, though the rank female smell revolted him in his weakness, he made himself smile at the author of it.
“Have I been—like this—very long, Chassa?”
“Yes, Master, very long. Three moons have come and gone, and we have been far on our way, since they carried thee into thy yurt.” She added: “Thou wert sorely hurt, Master.”
“So I imagine,” said Kurelen kindly, wincing at the pain it caused him to speak. The noises outside increased in intensity. Inside, Kurelen was suddenly overpowered by odor and smoke and heat. “Open the flap,” he gasped.
The girl obediently opened the flap, and the dark winter wind rushed in, making the brazier flare into crimson, and forcing the smoke out in the form of gray coiling ghosts. The opening was a rectangle of dim blue light in the darkness, shaking with snow. Very faintly he could discern the blurred outlines of animated cattle and men in that snow-filled spectral blue light, as they passed and repassed the opening of the yurt. The air had a strangeness about it, pure and fierce and sterile, as if it had been blown from the transfixed mountains of the frozen moon, and Kurelen breathed it deeply into his laboring chest. Chassa crouched beside the flap, looking at the man over her shoulder, patiently and anxiously. Feathers of snow gathered on the floor of the yurt, near the flap, or scurried backwards into the interior, like white moths.
Suddenly the yurt lurched and shuddered. Yesukai’s people were on their way again, deciding to move on a little more. The shouts outside were redoubled; wood shafts creaked and strained. The cattle lamented; the heavy wooden wheels groaned, and then squeaked over the virgin snow and ice. The wind increased in fury. Kurelen rocked and rolled on his couch, his eyelids wrinkling with pain, his teeth chewing into his lips. The girl closed the flap, and resumed her place by his side. The dung fire smoldered and crackled, throwing off golden sparks.
Kurelen opened his eyes again, and smiled kindly at Chassa. “Hath my sister, Houlun, been with me?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, Master! When I slept she was beside thee, with the little one.”
“Ah.” Some of the deathly pallor lessened on Kurelen’s face, and was replaced by a look of shadowy contentment.
“And the Shaman, Master—he was often with thee, with his spells and conjurings.”
At this, Kurelen burst into weak laughter; the blood rushed achingly through his veins at the involuntary convulsion. But he felt much better, and was able to think about matters with interest. He cautiously investigated his injuries, and reflected that only excellent nursing had saved his life. Chassa was bending over him anxiously, and when he suddenly fixed his piercing eyes on her childish face she blushed, and averted her head. He took one of her hands in his feverish grasp.
“I am not worth thine efforts, Chassa,” he said. But he smiled internally, amused that he did not believe this maudlin sentiment. However, he observed to himself, it rarely did harm to say or do what was expected of one. Life was thus made more pleasant for the liar and the lied-to.
The girl was overcome with confusion and joy, and gazed at Kurelen with her innocent primitive soul in her eyes. And then an odd thing happened to him: he was faintly ashamed.
The multitude of yurts, lumbering and heaving and groaning all about Kurelen’s yurt, lumbered and heaved and groaned to another stop, and the shouting was renewed. Chassa opened the flap and peered out to discover the cause. Night had shut down into black and impenetrable chaos, in which torches were thin and streaming red banners illuminating only immediate dark faces, or the wet side of an animal or the flap of a yurt. Chassa asked a passing man the meaning of the stop, and he hoarsely replied, pausing a moment, that the ordu was halting for the night. The storm made it too dangerous to continue in that country of broken craters smoothly filled with snow, and showing only the rims of black teeth to warn the wanderer.
Again the dark and swirling air was filled with the noise and uproar of men and beasts, making ready for the night’s camp. Chassa shovelled more dung upon the fire, and blew upon it, crouching shapelessly in her thick felt garments. The fire shone in her eyes, and Kurelen observed that they were the eyes of some shy wild animal, purely savage and unhuman and untouched. The pupil was a fierce and pulsing point swimming in untamed and electric radiance. She had cupped her hands about her mouth, to concentrate her breath. Her tangled hair fell about her round cheeks and over her brow.
Some one was tugging at the flap, and, when Chassa went to answer, Kurelen’s heart leaped expectantly. But it was not Houlun who entered, but the Shaman, bending his head, with its pointed hood. He was wrapped in furs, and appeared to be a tall bear standing on its hind legs. He came to Kurelen’s bed, and when he saw that the sick man was conscious, he smiled darkly. Kurelen grimaced with amusement.
“Thou dost see, Kokchu, that thy conjurings did not kill me after all.”
The Shaman, still smiling, did not answer. He sat down on the floor near the bed. The two men regarded each other in the silence of enjoyment. At length Kokchu spoke, gravely and with mock solicitude.
“I am a healer beyond mine own expectation, and thou art the proof. It will be many days, however, before thy recovery is complete. Rest, and think of nothing.” He added, leaning towards Kurelen: “Art thou in much pain?”
“Pain,” answered Kurelen, with deliberate sententiousness, “is the price of consciousness.”
Again they regarded each other with enjoyment.
“My nephew,” said Kurelen. “The spirits were propitiated?”
Kokchu raised his eyes piously and solemnly to the rounded roof of the yurt. “I can assure thee of that,” he said with fervor.
Kurelen winced. “How thou must have enjoyed thyself,” and bit his tongue for the childishness of his words.
But Kokchu merely inclined his head seriously. He hesitated. Kurelen could detect no particular hostility in this man. But all at once he did detect loneliness. Kokchu’s loneliness was suddenly as poignant and as imminent as his own; it had the same smell, the same presence. For a moment he felt compassion, followed by a curious and cunning hatred, as though he were hating himself. He knew he had been correct in his surmise, for Kokchu’s next words were revealing.
“Thou and I, Kurelen: we are men of understanding. We are men among animals. We could laugh together.”
Kurelen smiled. “But thou wouldst deny me the pleasure of laughing at thee, also.”
Kokchu pursed his lips in amusement. “Nay, thou mayest laugh, for all of me. I ask only that thou dost laugh in secret.”
“And not at thy dupes?”
Kokchu’s lip curled; he seemed to gaze at Kurelen as though both surprised and dissillusioned. He leaned over him, plucked at the cloth on his breast.
“Look thee, Kurelen: thou hast lived in Cathay, where there are men. But these are only beasts. Why dost thou not seek worthier objects for thy laughter?” His voice was scornful, his eyes full of contempt.
Kurelen stared, and then his sallow and shrunken features were suffused with mortification. He was speechless. The Shaman stood up, shook out his furs and his felt garments, fastidiously. He glanced at Chassa, who still crouched by the fire. The girl turned her head over her shoulder, and gazed back at the priest with the eyes, humility and fear of a dog. Kokchu picked up a strand of her long hair, and curled it about his fingers as one curls the hair of a child. “Thou hast done well by thy master, Chassa,” he said, in his rich voice.
Without another word to Kurelen, he left the yurt. He left behind him a peculiar blankness, as though some essence, some power, had been withdrawn from the air. Kurelen closed his eyes; he was burning with rage and humiliation. When Chassa approached him, timidly proffering him a bowl of hot mare’s milk, he thrust aside her hand and shook his head.
He must have slept, for when he opened his eyes again he discovered that Chassa was gone, and that it was Houlun who sat beside him, motionless and watchful. Her hood lay on her shoulders; her glittering hair hung like black spun glass about her beautiful face. Her gray eyes were soft and smiling. She had been bathing his face, and he could smell the fragrance of the scent with which the warm water had been perfumed. When she saw he was conscious, she leaned over him and laid her warm full cheek against his for a moment. His heart seemed to rush to the spot which she had touched, and beat there, madly and painfully.
“Ah, Houlun,” he murmured faintly. He took her hand; he held it against his breast with both of his. She could feel the pounding of his heart, which raced under her palms. She laughed softly, and shook her head at him.
“It is well for thee that I had just given my husband a son, and so could prevail upon him with my pleadings,” she said. Kurelen saw that the fur-wrapped bundle near by, much agitated, was his sister’s child.
Houlun continued: “But he was certain thou would have had his life, and it took many days to persuade him to the contrary. Ah, Kurelen, thou must have a care!”
“What didst thou tell him, Houlun?”
She began to laugh lightly. Her face shone like a pearl in the uncertain firelight.
“I told him it was impossible! I told him thou didst not have the courage to kill a mouse.”
They laughed together, then. All at once the interior of the yurt seemed warm and full, as though joy and contentment pervaded it.
“But thou must have a care, my brother,” repeated Houlun, ceasing her laughter. “The next time I might fail. But thou wilt never learn to hold thy tongue, I fear.”
She picked up the squirming bundle, which had begun to emit protesting roars. When Kurelen looked at the child, after Houlun had carefully unwrapped several layers of wool, he realized how long he had been ill. The boy was vigorous, and had an angry light in his great gray eyes. Though less than three moons old, he struggled to raise himself in his mother’s arms. His red hair was a tangle of raw gold over his large round head, and his lips were the color of pomegranates. Houlun laid him beside Kurelen, and the baby and the man regarded each other with passionate solemnity. Kurelen’s expression reluctantly changed. He appeared to be embarrassed, after a few moments. He shut his eyes.
“Take him away,” he said with a half laugh. “The eyes of children see too much.”
Houlun lifted the child. She exposed the full moon of her breast, and the infant began to suck with loud noises. Houlun’s head drooped over him; the firelight outlined the immobile figures, and Houlun’s face was hidden by her falling hair. Kurelen felt that he was being drawn into the profound circle of mysterious life and strength which appears to surround a mother and her suckling child. Contentment and peace flowed over him like cool water over burned flesh.
Houlun informed him, after she had tended to the needs of the child, that she lived in comparative quiet. Yesukai rarely plagued her with his demands, for he was engrossed with his second wife, the Karait girl. She was already with child, and the Shaman had promised another son. But Houlun had refused to have her in her own yurt, as was the custom with wives. Yesukai, remembered Kurelen, stood in some awe of Houlun; this was usually the way of things between the simple and the imperious.
Again, the child was laid beside Kurelen, and again the two looked at each other with passionate intensity, and in deep silence. Then suddenly dogs began to bark savagely outside; the clamor rose to a deafening crescendo. Kurelen felt the child wince at the noise; the little lips parted, and he whimpered. Fear, stark and adult, made the child’s gray eyes wide and intent in the dusky light.
“He is afraid of dogs,” said Houlun, smiling. “Young as he is, he crouches in mine arms, at the sound of their barking.”
But Kurelen did not hear her. He was absorbed in something terrible and unhuman which he was glimpsing behind the gray curtain of the infant’s eyes, and which was not concerned with the clamor of the dogs.