He made all his preparations the next day, after the riotous feast of rejoicing over the birth of his son. He had drunk mightily, and had had to be carried to his yurt. But the next day he showed no signs of his dissipation either on his face or in his manner.
He consulted all his noyon, and his nokud. But every one knew, by now, that this was pure courtesy. He made all his decisions himself.
With him he would take Chepe Noyon and Kasar. He would leave Jamuga as khan in his place, ably assisted by Subodai. He would also take a few of his nokud, and a detachment of picked warriors. All at once he seemed in an enormous hurry. His voice became quick and strong and impatient. Sometimes he appeared to sink into profound and oppressive thought, from which he emerged with renewed irritation.
Kurelen said: “But is it not strange that thou dost leave Jamuga Sechen in thy place? Thou knowest his incompetence in the matter of organization and the understanding of men.”
Temujin shrugged. “It is the least I can do for him,” he answered.
Kurelen raised a brow at this extraordinary remark, but made no comment.
“Besides,” added Temujin, “Subodai is here, and most of the nokud. Jamuga’s part will be merely the place of honor. I have given orders that he is not to be taken too seriously, though treated with the most elaborate respect and reverence, as my representative. Subodai is subtle; the nokud are intelligent. Jamuga will never guess but that he hath supreme authority.”
Kurelen smiled. Temujin, with his customary generosity, had given away all the coins in the silver basket. He had kept only the cloth of silver for Bortei. Kurelen had had a large share of the gift. Also, his pick of the white stallions. Kurelen brooded happily on all this. He had almost forgotten what he was talking about to his nephew, and heard him say, with surprise:
“Too, there is no one less vulnerable to the suggestions of a priest than Jamuga.”
Then Temujin went to Kokchu, who had taken on flesh the last few months, and had become exceedingly fat.
Kokchu now had half a dozen younger Shamans to assist him in the mysteries of religion, and he had convinced them of his utter sanctity and omnipotence. His yurt was as big as Temujin’s, and far more elaborately and richly decorated and filled. His women were quite as pretty and desirable, his robes woven of silk and embroidered wool, his chest crowded with treasures. He received Temujin with great ceremony and respect.
But Temujin spoke, as always, without preamble:
“Priest, stick to thy gods, and let better men manage worldly affairs. Dost thou understand?”
Kokchu affected at first to be bewildered, and then, seeing that Temujin only grinned at him, affected to be deeply wounded.
“Thou dost not trust me, lord,” he said, in a low grieved voice.
Temujin laughed. “The day a king trusteth a priest that day must he look under his bed for an assassin.” He tapped Kokchu on his fat chest. “Remember, no tricks.”
There was a grim excitement about him, and soon it had infected the entire city of the yurts. The normal uproar became a long roar of confusion, in which every living thing attempted to be heard over all the others. Yet discipline was never relaxed. The nokud came separately, heard their brief orders, saluted, retired before the entrance of another. Subodai came and listened gravely, his beautiful face intent, his eyes fixed on his lord’s stern lips. There was to be a high full moon tonight, and so Temujin intended to leave shortly after twilight.
Jamuga was the last to come. He seemed disturbed. He said: “Temujin, we should have left many days ago for our winter pastures. Now, we must wait thy return, no matter how long it be. This will work hardship on our people.”
“I think not. They have plentiful supplies. The herds may not remain so fat. But that will soon be altered when I return. Besides, three caravans are to pass this way from Samarkand, and I have promised to protect them. But see that thou dost collect the reward before extending the protection.”
Jamuga said nothing. But his perturbation seemed to grow. Temujin observed him with a quizzical smile. Finally Jamuga said with a burst of bitterness:
“Art thou not afraid to trust me?”
Temujin stared, then burst into laughter. He thrust Jamuga roughly in the belly with his clenched fist. “Cease thy childishness, Jamuga!”
The other man flushed painfully. Temujin looked at him, his whole face sparkling with savage mirth. He seemed about to say something more, but evidently thought better of it. So he merely laid his arm for a moment on his anda’s shoulder and remarked that he still had considerable to do.
Jamuga left the yurt and pondered to himself the reason for Temujin’s acceptance of Toghrul Khan’s invitation. At this time of the year, and so soon after a precarious victory, it was a dangerous matter. Too, he was puzzled by the strange violence he had easily detected under Temujin’s easy laughter and careful orders. His eyes, sharpened by love, had seen that violence, seething, throwing up gleams into Temujin’s eyes, like the light that was thrown upward by troubled waves. Others might be deceived into believing that nothing disturbed the young khan, but not Jamuga. There was a wildness and madness beneath the surface of his competent manner.
Jamuga retired to his yurt, sat down, and pondered. He knitted his thin light brows, and returned to the past, when Temujin had been the guest of Toghrul Khan. Carefully, he went over each day. He remembered the night of the feast, and the appearance of Azara, with her soft black eyes and golden hair. Suddenly, his heart quickened. It was true that Temujin was susceptible to women beyond the susceptibility of other men, and he had openly and shamelessly betrayed his desire for the daughter of Prester John. His companions had joked about it, later. But there was nothing to wonder at in this memory, Jamuga decided.
But stay: perhaps there was. All at once he remembered yesterday, and the reading of the letter. He remembered Temujin’s sudden pallor and the malignancy of his eyes, when he had listened to Toghrul Khan’s invitation to the marriage of his daughter. “We must certainly attend this famous wedding!”
With a cry of alarm, Jamuga flung up his head. This whole foolish expedition had something to do with the beauty of a once-seen woman. What mad folly was Temujin contemplating? What suicidal plotting? What did he intend to do? Jamuga had long suspected the envy, the malevolence and hatred, of Toghrul Khan, and the foul hypocrisy. He had been afraid, all during that visit, that Temujin was in some monstrous danger. Some prescience had made him hear evil intonations beneath Toghrul’s sweet and paternal voice. And now Temujin was risking the existence of his people, their safety and security, his own life and the lives of his friends, for some incredibly foolish plan of his own. What could he do? Jamuga knew him well enough to know that nothing would stop him once he had started, no advice, no pleading, no calling to reason. Did he contemplate seizing the daughter of the mighty Toghrul Khan right from under her father’s nose, in his own palace, among the thousands of his retainers? No, this was beyond even Temujin! But was it?
Jamuga hurriedly got to his feet and ran out, seeking Temujin. The blue and saffron twilight had fallen. The earth was swept in shades of umber, rose and yellow. In the distance, towards the east, there was a cloud of dust. Temujin was already gone. Jamuga stared at the cloud of dust, his throat drying, his heart beating with sickening pressure. Then he turned and went to the yurt of Kurelen.
Kurelen, he observed with distaste, was eating again, sopping up rich dark gravy from a bowl with a wedge of bread, and sucking noisily and with enjoyment as he did so. The faithful Chassa, a stout middle-aged woman now, with a big bosom and graying hair and a round placid face, was watching Kurelen’s feasting with the indulgent smile of a mother. At intervals, she refilled the bowl with gravy and morsels of good mutton, and also refilled his silver goblet with excellent wine. She kept making solicitous noises, urging him to eat more, when he lagged in repletion. She frowned at the wan Jamuga when he entered, indicating by her manner that, now he had interrupted, her child would no longer stuff himself, to his sad lack of nourishment.
Seeing Jamuga, Kurelen invited him to join him. Jamuga refused shortly. He glanced sternly at Chassa, who stubbornly refused to see his glance, and again refilled Kurelen’s bowl. Kurelen smiled, patted her cheek.
“I have enough, Chassa. And now, do thou leave us for a moment. But not for long.”
After Chassa, with a scowl, had retired, Jamuga still refused to sit down and join the feasting. He stood beside Kurelen, and looked down at him with feverish eyes. Kurelen, for his part, looked up at the thin slight body of the young man, and also studied his pale and rigid countenance.
“What ailest thee, Jamuga? What misery is burning thy bowels now?”
He chuckled a little. He was increasingly amused by Jamuga. He was an old man now, more emaciated than ever, more bent and twisted. His straight black hair had turned a dull gray. His features were sunken. But his black eyes were as vivid and malicious as in his youth.
Jamuga said abruptly: “I do not know what assistance thou canst give me. But I must tell thee the truth: Temujin is enamored of the daughter of Toghrul Khan. He lusted after her openly, when we visited the camp of the Khan. Yesterday I read him the letter of Toghrul, in which he was invited to the marriage of this girl to the Caliph of Bokhara.”
Kurelen cocked an eyebrow. “If I remember rightly, Temujin is continually becoming enamored of some wench or other. He hath a harem to inspire the respect of a minor sultan. I see no reason for thy perturbation.”
Jamuga said inexorably: “When I read him the letter, he suddenly turned white as bleached wool. His eyes became full of violence, and evil. He was like a madman, trying to hide his madness. I am convinced he is going to this wedding in order to seize this girl.”
He waited for Kurelen to make some exclamation or remark. But Kurelen merely fixed his eyes piercingly on his and said nothing. His expression was inscrutable. All at once, Jamuga was driven to frenzy by this silence and calm. He squatted down beside the old man, and gripped him by the arm.
“Dost thou not see everything?” he cried fiercely. “Toghrul Khan, the mighty ruler of the Karaits! The Caliph of Bokhara, lord of military legions and a hundred cities and limitless power and wealth! These are to be affronted, to be made the remorseless enemies of a small barbarian chieftain with a handful of warriors and a roaming band of women and children! They will kill him, and destroy us, as easily as a man steppeth on a hill of ants. Let Toghrul Khan give the word, and in a day we shall drown in our own blood. The whole Gobi will be on us like a sea of steel! All that we have gained through such suffering and hardship, such enormous pain and fortitude, lost for a woman’s pink body and a man’s uncontrollable lust!”
Kurelen turned aside his head and gazed thoughtfully at his bowl. After a long moment, during which Jamuga’s thin panting filled the yurt, Kurelen picked up another wedge of bread, sopped it, lifted it to his mouth, and chewed. Then he slowly, still chewing, turned his face on Jamuga again, and the inscrutable expression was thicker in his eyes. But now there was a penetrating gleam in them, also.
He spoke softly: “Jamuga Sechen, Temujin hath made thee temporary khan in his place. What orders thou dost give shall be obeyed. Thou canst, for instance, give orders that we leave immediately for the winter pastures. If we move rapidly, and at once, we can be far from here by daybreak, and immensely far by the time Temujin doth commit his—folly. So far, indeed, that it would be hard to find us.” He added, even more softly: “Thou art the khan, Jamuga Sechen.”
A silence like that following a flash of lightning and a deafening crash of thunder filled the yurt. Kurelen’s eyes shone like fire as they fixed themselves on Jamuga’s rapidly paling face. He saw the sudden convulsive lift of Jamuga’s thin and pallid lip. He saw the sudden flash of Jamuga’s light blue eye. The student of men felt nothing but the most intense curiosity and speculation. He leaned forward a little, the better to see the young man in the gloom of the yurt. He smiled slightly. His whole expression became subtle and dark and watchful. He thought to himself: I have not been mistaken. In that cold and dedicated breast is the bloodless man’s insane passion for power and mastery, which he believeth can avenge him on the world of warmer men.
Suddenly Jamuga stood up, as though pricked by an intolerable pain. He turned his back to Kurelen, as though he could not endure the reflection of himself in the knowing eyes of the old man. He leaned heavily against a high chest. His head was bent on his breast.
Kurelen huddled deeply in himself, as he squatted on his cushions on the floor. He began to smile with irrepressible amusement and enjoyment. He asked himself: Will Jamuga, in his aroused lust, find some noble excuse to follow my suggestion? He will always need a noble excuse, this man without violence and loins, to accomplish the passion of his pale but vitriolic heart! Never again shall he have this opportunity, and he doth know it! He must decide between a love and loyalty which have never brought him anything but humiliation and bitterness and envy, and a last chance of seizing what he hath dreamed in his soul in his nights of impotence and livid longing.
To Kurelen, the conflicts and struggles and battles that raged in a man’s spirit were more entertaining and more exciting than those that raged about him in the external world. He knew to the utmost what Jamuga was suffering in his temptation, and he understood that if love and loyalty prevailed it would only be because Jamuga had finally conquered, subjugated and destroyed himself. And this death of the inmost heart would be a death indeed.
But he felt no pity, only amused curiosity and wry mirth.
At last he heard a deep, almost shuddering sigh. Slowly, Jamuga turned back to him. His thin and ghastly face was bedewed with cold moisture. His eyes were those of a drowned man, who had died in agony and despair. He staggered a little. He had to catch hold of the chest beside him to keep from falling. But his expression was quite calm, and when he spoke, his voice was also controlled and calm.
“Perhaps what thou hast suggested is the wisest course for all of us, Kurelen. But it cannot be. If Temujin doth perish in his folly, then we must perish, also. There can be no life for us if he doth die. He is our heart; we are only his body.”
Kurelen smiled ironically. He studied Jamuga’s face with a curious mixture of contempt and respect. He shrugged imperceptibly. He filled a goblet of wine and held it up to the young man. Jamuga took the goblet. It almost slipped from his nerveless fingers, and he had to seize it in both his trembling hands. He put it to his lips and drank deeply and desperately, as a man must drink the poisoned cup of execution. And all the time Kurelen watched him with his venomous and speculative smile.
When Jamuga had handed back the goblet, Kurelen said coldly, noting the utter exhaustion and prostrated pallor of the young man: “Jamuga, torment thyself no longer, and take a little comfort to thyself. Thou hast thought of the danger which Temujin may bring down upon himself and upon his people. Do not underestimate him: he hath, doubtless, already thought of this, himself. I grant thee that he is reckless and violent throughout all his nature. But he is no fool. Thou dost grant he is no fool?”
He waited, smiling, for Jamuga’s answer. But Jamuga was beyond speaking, beyond noticing the sardonic lift of Kurelen’s brows. He merely nodded.
“Women are precious and delightful to Temujin. But not so precious nor delightful as himself, and his own life. I can assure thee that he will return to us safely, perhaps a trifle scarred, but return he will. And he will still have the friendship of Toghrul Khan. So, comfort thyself, and be at peace.”
Jamuga bowed his head. He seemed utterly broken. He turned towards the door of the yurt, as if to go. Then he halted. He suddenly turned back to Kurelen. Something appeared to have snapped in him. He began to speak in the incoherent and rapid voice of a man who cries out because of his inner torment:
“How can we understand such a man as this? He doth understand nothing of us!”
Kurelen laughed, lightly and derisively. “Do not deceive thyself, Jamuga! He understandeth us, but we do not understand him.”
Jamuga made a disordered and abandoned gesture, the gesture of one who is utterly prostrate and broken.
“But who can read his thoughts—the thoughts of such men? They are cruel enigmas, stony faces of eternal mystery, brutal visages without tenderness or mercy!”
And then Kurelen understood that the icy fastnesses of Jamuga’s spirit had been shattered, and that he stood before him, naked and terrified and despairing, as he had never stood before another man. For a moment Kurelen was filled with rare compassion and pity. His expression became gentle and a little sad.
“Surely, Jamuga Sechen, we can never understand such men by attempting to decipher their souls by our own code. If we do, we come upon confusion. We cannot use their own code, because it is a secret one, never to be understood by us. If we even vaguely guessed, we would be stunned and incredulous, and believe that we are having a bad dream, where shadows have become light, and light, shadows. But do not try to comprehend, lest thou go mad.”
Jamuga suddenly sat down beside him, as though his legs could no longer support him, and also because he must speak now or lose his mind because of the old pressure upon it.
“I do not comprehend! I cannot understand! I have tried to, for years, and only the gibbering face of madness hath confronted me! But what can I do?”
His words were a cry of misery and despair. He looked at Kurelen with the stark and naked face of a man whose last defenses have gone down, and who must turn to any one for help, no matter whom.
Kurelen looked at him intensely in a long silence. Pity rose in his dark and twisted heart. He no longer felt contempt for Jamuga, nor amusement.
Finally he asked gently: “What dost thou want?”
Jamuga gazed at him with dreadful despair, without speaking. And then, because he could no longer endure the understanding in the eyes of the old man, he dropped his head on his chest.
Kurelen laid his hand affectionately on his thin shoulder. It moved under his hand, and then was still.
“Jamuga, thou hast been born either too late, or too early. If the former, seek comfort in the Persian poets. If the latter, hang thyself. But, if both, go to Cathay. For what Cathay hath been, so must the world of the future be, if men are to survive.”
Jamuga, without lifting his head, asked dully: “And what hath Cathay been?”
Kurelen, without answering, reached over and opened one of his chests. He withdrew an ancient manuscript, tied with a ribbon of gold. He unrolled it. It crackled dryly. Kurelen drew a silver lamp closer on its tabouret.
He began to read quietly and slowly:
“Where is the perfect State, where man’s heart shall be at rest, and his soul at peace, and where he can live with his fellows and not long to destroy them?
“Seek this State in thine own heart, O Man, and when thou hast found it then shall it exist in all the world.
“What shall be its attributes?
“The condition where all men shall pursue perfection, but never fully attain it. Where there is gentleness with dignity, kindness with reason, learning with aristocracy, love with pride, peace with strength, mercy as wide as the earth, wisdom with humility, and knowledge with wonder.
“Respect another’s soul, O Man, and demand respect for thine own. Despise a fool above all other men. If thou be a ruler, be the first servant of thy people, without hypocrisy. Delight in what is beautiful, and be horrified by what is evil. Discipline thyself gladly for the sake of thy fellows. Love truth, for falsehood is the tongue of the slave. Speak not of money, but of friendship and God. If thou be a priest, serve God, and not men.
“Dishonor not thy soul, and thou shalt dishonor no other. Have faith, for without faith a people must perish.
“Be at peace. Be just. Remember that the world before thee is only thine own dream. Thus can no man injure thee, though he doth destroy thy body.
“Love God, and seek Him ever, with thine every breath and thine every thought and thine every word and act. He alone will not betray thee nor fail thee. In Him is the only reality.
“Believe all these things, and the perfect State is thine, and the whole world’s.”
Kurelen had finished. He waited for some word from Jamuga. But none came. But on the young man’s face there had come a quietness, like that of a man who is sleeping after great pain.
When he had finally gone away, Kurelen thought:
“Jamuga hath lost the whole world, but hath finally found his soul.”