Kurelen said, coldly and with disgust: “Thou must be exceedingly proud, to kill a defenseless boy.”
Temujin replied quietly: “Had he been defenseless, I should not have killed him.”
Kurelen was unwillingly silent a moment, considering this, and angrily acknowledging its truth to himself. Then he said, his eyes still averted from his nephew:
“Thou couldst have betrothed him to a girl of another tribe, and so have gotten rid of him that way.”
Temujin smiled grimly. “That, too, would have taken time. I have no time.”
Then Kurelen looked at him curiously and attentively. He said to himself: That is true. Nevertheless, he was seized with a fear rare with him. He had flattered himself that he had had an enormous influence over Temujin, and that, in anything of importance, his nephew would have consulted him in his circuitous way. Yet, Temujin had not consulted him. Therefore, he, Kurelen, had lost his influence. And if he had lost his influence, he, in reality, did not know Temujin at all. This was a stranger standing before him, locked in the black fortress of his own soul, which could be entered by no one. Kurelen’s vanity smarted. The interpreter of men was no interpreter. He knew no more than the veriest simpleton. He thought: I have been wrong. There is no scale with which to measure and weigh all men. Each man is a law and a type unto himself. He who sayeth he understandeth men is without understanding, and is only a conceited fool. An attempt at understanding resolveth only in confusion and bafflement.
He had believed for a long time that there was a strange and frightful force in Temujin. Now he knew it. He was always appalled at tremendous force, which seemed reasonless and terrifying, a sort of cataclysm of nature before which men must stand, impotently aghast. Yet, as he looked now at Temujin, he knew this force in him was not reasonless, not stupidly cataclysmic. It was even more terrible, for it was deliberate and reasoning. He was not merely ruthless by nature; he was ruthless by intention. And that was the most appalling violence.
He said, lamely and somewhat incoherently: “Go. I cannot bear to look at thee.” But he knew that it was his own futility, his own broken vanity, at which he could not bear to look. He said to himself, bitterly: “I know nothing at all.”
Houlun, learning that night of Temujin’s foul deed, wrapped herself in her cloak and pulled her hood over her head. She went to the tent of Bektor’s mother. The poor woman was stricken tearless with grief. When she saw Houlun, she could only stare at her with bright dry eyes. Houlun knelt before her, and kissed her feet, weeping.
She cried: “Forgive me, that I have given birth to a murderer!”
The Karait woman was illiterate and simple and stupid. Yet, with a simplicity deeper than intelligence, she raised Houlun up and embraced her. She said: “Thou hast deeper reason to mourn than I. Let me comfort thee.”
The enmity between the two women was washed away in their tears.
In death, this poor woman still retained her son. But Houlun knew that she no longer had Temujin. She knew that never again would she completely love him, for she could never trust him. Between them, this murder would stand like a bloody shadow. And all at once, with a sickening and frenzied certainty, she thought of her daughter-in-law, and hated her with a murderous hatred.
She went to Temujin, sitting alone in his yurt with Kasar. Her terror and grief and despair distorted her face, made her expression wild and filled her eyes with fire. Her hair, as though catching the disorder of her mood, was dishevelled. Her breast heaved with anguished breath. She looked down at the two youths with passionate scorn and fury. But she spoke to Temujin, who looked up at her with eyes dark and inscrutable and cold as ice.
“Thou coward and monster!” she cried. “The man who lifteth his hand against his brother is accursed! Take heed for thyself! Guard thy shadow, lest it rise up and smite thee down! Guard thy heart, for no other man’s heart will beat trustingly for thee again. Hold close thy whips, for no other man’s whip will rise in thy defense. Sharpen thy sword, for thou hast only this one to protect thee. Call in the Shaman, to stand guard before thy yurt, for the spirits shall seek vengeance on thee!”
Temujin listened in silence, but when his mother had finished he smiled slightly. For some reason this slight smile afflicted her more than his deed had done, and filled her with a greater terror.
He answered her at last, in a quiet voice:
“Go to thy yurt, Mother, and calm thyself. Thy words are extravagant. I do only the things which I must do, and there was no anger in me against Bektor. But thou art only a woman, and cannot understand. Go.”
And paralyzed and bewildered by her terror, she went, her lips cold and her eyes blind. Later, when the Karait woman came to her yurt, she threw herself in this woman’s arms and wept wildly.
Temujin sat alone, with Kasar, whose face was white but resolute. He waited. And then, one by one, his friends came to him, as he knew they would come. Subodai came. The beautiful youth’s eyes were intensely bright, his expression calm. He looked at Temujin in silence for a long moment. Then he knelt down before him, lifted Temujin’s hand and placed it on his head.
He spoke in his dulcet voice: “To the end, I will ward off thy foes. I will be thy sword. I will be the yurt that protecteth thee from the wind. That, to the end of my life, is what I shall be to thee.”
Temujin was unendurably touched. For he knew that this loyalty, which was not blind, was the greatest loyalty of all.
Then Chepe Noyon came, pale but brilliantly smiling. It was evident that he had rehearsed what he would say to Temujin. But once in the yurt, and confronted with the man whose hands were still red with the blood of his brother, he could not speak for a moment or two, and could only smile his false and determined smile. Then all at once, the smile vanished from his face, and a look of intense gravity and sternness replaced it—a strange look for the gay adventurer. He knelt before Temujin, but he looked him straightly in the eye.
“Thou art my khan,” he said, and his upper lip lifted as though the words were painful to him.
Temujin thought: He will still be loyal to me, for I have convinced him I will stop at nothing.
He made himself smile, and touched Chepe Noyon lightly on the shoulder. “And thou art Chepe Noyon, my paladin,” he said. With profound wisdom, he knew that only the light touch, the light smile, were the approach to Chepe Noyon.
And then Belgutei came. The others were dimly surprised at this, but Temujin was not surprised. He held out his hand to Belgutei, and said: “My brother! Sit by my side.”
Belgutei, with a smooth expression that none could read for all the faint redness about his eyelids, sat down at Temujin’s left hand. He, as well as Chepe Noyon, acknowledged the perfection of Temujin’s words and gestures. Less penetration would have made a mortal enemy of Belgutei. But now Belgutei knew beyond all doubt that Temujin was worth loyalty.
They all continued to wait, in unspeaking silence. Each knew why they waited. They were waiting for Jamuga, the anda of Temujin. As time passed, and Jamuga Sechen did not come, Kasar’s simplicity glowed with anger. How dared his brother’s anda affront him this way? He looked about him, his nostrils distended, his eyes glaring, as though he challenged them all. But Temujin’s expression was tranquil. None knew the perturbation that quickened his heart. He thought to himself: If Jamuga hath not come before the dawn, then I know he hath violated our brotherhood. But this realization saddened instead of enraging him. If Jamuga did not come, he would suffer the greatest loss he could ever suffer. Sorrow grew heavier in him, like lead. He could not endure the thought of losing the love and friendship of Jamuga. At last, all the power of his nature was concentrated in a wordless cry that Jamuga come to him, if only to reproach him. He no longer cared for Jamuga’s forgiveness; he did not want his understanding. He wanted only Jamuga’s physical presence.
The dawn was already running in a pale ragged fire along the eastern horizon when Jamuga finally came. He came so silently that they were not aware of his presence until he stood among them.
Temujin was aware of him first. When he looked up at his anda, standing there so motionlessly before him, his heart gave a quick leap. And then he saw that Jamuga was whiter than a corpse and that he looked like a man who had been suffering intolerably over a long period. His own lips moved several times before he could speak, for there was something in Jamuga’s dry and steadfast eyes that shamed him.
He said: “Jamuga, I had no enmity against Bektor.”
Jamuga continued to gaze at him unmovingly. Then in a faint voice, he asked:
“Temujin, didst thou try to poison Bektor a night or two ago?”
Temujin stared at him with unfeigned astonishment.
“Poison Bektor? Art thou mad, Jamuga?”
He stopped, for Jamuga had suddenly burst into tears. He waited, still astounded, as Jamuga slowly knelt before him. Jamuga gazed at him with his streaming eyes.
He said simply: “Thou art mine anda.”
And he took his place at Temujin’s right hand.
Again they waited, in silence. Temujin waited for the Shaman.
At first, he had thought of going to Kokchu himself. And then a moment’s swift reflection pointed out the danger. If he went to Kokchu, then Kokchu would be the final victor. Dawn was bright in the skies, when Temujin said to Chepe Noyon:
“Go to the Shaman and tell him to come at once to me.”