He returned in gloom to his splendid chambers. But Chepe Noyon and Kasar were not there. A slave told him that they were amusing themselves in the garden, with the women graciously assigned to them by their host Temujin stood on the open colonnade, and somberly surveyed the greenness and beauty of the gardens. But he did not see them. He saw only Azara. His heart was like a great burning coal.
Apparently, he admitted, there was no hope. But he did not believe this. Never, in his life, did he ever truly believe there was no hope for him. But he fumed. He bit his lip. He looked at the blue and shining sky, and remembered the evil gods of his ancestors, who lived in the mongke tengri, the Eternal Blue Sky. He remembered the stories of the black and frozen gods, who lived in the kanun kotan, the land of everlasting ice. He invoked their aid, with mingled anger and derision, for he did not believe in them. He wanted only their wicked and mysterious power. He inhaled deeply, feeling that he inhaled with his breath the power of the gods of his people.
Everything was smooth and quiet and in order. But suddenly he knew that an extensive search had been made of these quarters, minutely, and that Chepe Noyon and Kasar had been lured away so that the search could be thorough. His keen animal instinct smelt the subtle odor of the enemy. He smiled darkly, knowing for what the searchers had been seeking. He put his hand to his breast and felt in it the lock of black hair and the necklace of the Taliph’s favorite. So long as he had these talismans she dared not betray him. But he needed a better hiding place. He might be overpowered in some corridor and forcibly searched by some of the lady’s servants, or he might be drugged, and robbed in his sleep. That night he would give them to Azara, and she would conceal them in her own chamber.
The thought of Azara came to him like a sharp and bitter pang, compounded of despair and longing and love. He stood motionless, enduring the onslaught of his pain. He tried to reason with himself. She was only a woman. Kurelen had told him that the Chinese regarded women as the world’s greatest danger, an immortal threat to the peace of men and empires. It was said that he who looked too long on a woman’s face lost his manhood, and became, thereafter, a weak slave in silk, her handmaiden. Too, the Mongols despised women, though they lusted after them as no other men lusted. They were valuable only as breeders of men, as servants, as weavers and makers of felt. All at once he had a vision of Azara milking the mares, and the vision was grotesque. He laughed aloud, shortly. She was not even valuable for that small and domestic purpose. If she bore sons, they would be lords of the cities, sitting in their gardens, and watching the sun on their foolish artificial lakes, and listening to music, and delighting in the shameful contortions of dancing women. He felt the hatred and contempt of the desert-dweller for those who lived in the cities, painting flowers and leaves on silken panels, and mouthing their little philosophies of impotence and corruption. “The hat-and-girdle men” were not men, but deformed women dressed in men’s garments.
He remembered what his father had said: that men should lust for women, but never love them. A man might love his horse, his saber, his strong-bow, his sons, his friends. This love added strength to his strength. But should he love a woman he was lost. His strength left him like water. He was bound with chains of bright hair, and lacked even the will to break them.
So he reasoned with himself, muttering aloud his disgust for his own folly. Walking up and down the room, his cat-green eyes blazing, he stamped his feet in their boots of hide. He loathed himself for his weakness, for his captivity to a woman, which could bring only death to himself and annihilation to his people. He was a traitor.
Yet, the great burning coal in him brightened and smoldered only the stronger. The more he argued against Azara, the sweeter and clearer became the image of her face in his thoughts. He was full of helpless and infuriated wonderment. For now he dimly perceived that a man might feel something more for a woman than lust, and this thing he felt was more terrible than an army, more powerful than the gods themselves. It was a mystery, not to be defined. But it was the life-giving air of all the world, the passion before which other passions were small and worthless.
“I have been bewitched,” he thought, and knew that there was no potion that could relieve his hunger, this sweet and painful thirst of his heart.
He sat down, and thought with fury. He must take Azara. Without her, there was nothing he desired.
Once his final decision was made, he felt strength, and was amused. The old men were wrong: those who loved women were made doubly strong, and felt no fear. He would take Azara to his own people, and she would bear his sons. She would learn to milk the herds, and would sit at his left hand, his favorite wife. Bortei would serve her, and his mother. He would heap her chests with treasures. He would cover her beautiful body with the finest furs and the softest silk. He would hang jewelled necklaces about her white throat. Her sons would be his bodyguard, his keshik. The world would give them honor. He would make them kings over many nations. This Persian girl, who was a Christian, would be the goddess of the Mongols, and from her womb would come a race of warriors and khans. He woud guard her like a precious gem.
He trusted to his destiny. The spirits who loved him would find a way for him. Perhaps in Azara’s body the seed of his first son was already swelling. Her mother was a princess of a noble people, her father a mighty kahn. Destiny had given her to him. Destiny would not betray him, nor mock him.
The curtain was drawn aside, and Taliph, elegant in a tunic of golden silk and red silken trousers and silver boots, his turban nodding with plumes, stood there, graciously smiling at him. Temujin scowled, then his annoyance evaporated. For he saw, in Taliph’s smile, a strange resemblance to Azara, whose smile was radiant.
“Greetings, my lord,” said Taliph, his face humorous. “It is sunset. I thought thou mightest desire to accompany me through the city. I love the city at sunset, more than at any other time.”
Temujin was pleased at his coming. He felt a kindness for the brother of Azara, and a lofty contempt for the man whose favorite wife was a wanton. Kurelen had once told him that the best kindness was that which was tinged with a secret sense of superiority. He was prepared to be amiable.
He accompanied Taliph to the courtyard, where two immense white camels were waiting, surrounded by servants in scarlet-and-blue garments. The western sky was deepening into a crimson hue. The air was warm, scented with jasmine and roses, and full of voices and bustle. But its perfume, Temujin perceived, was the perfume of the city, compounded of the stench of decay and the odor of sweet corruption.
They majestically lumbered through the narrow streets, rolling in slow dignity from side to side. They were shielded from the hot late sunlight by small red awnings fringed with gold. About them moved the camel-drivers, uttering shrill or hoarse cries to clear the way, carrying staffs in their hands.
Temujin stared with interest at the low white houses with their flat roofs, their white walls protecting gardens of which nothing could be seen except the fronds of palms. The sunlight splashed the walls with feathers of orange. Now they were entering the streets of the more luxurious inhabitants. Here the houses were built on the opulent Persian pattern. Black-and-brown pillars, enormous and intricately carved, guarded doors of bronze and bright brass. The walls were low, in order to afford the passerby the glimpse of great green gardens, blue artificial lakes and ponds. But the large latticed windows were all closed to the street. Guards, trousered and turbaned and dark of face, stood by each gate, with bare swords. The air was increasingly filled with flower scents and the clashing of the palm leaves in the wind which was coming strongly from the west.
Near the western gates of the city was the great bazaar, open to the winds and the burning sunlight. Temujin’s keen nose discerned it by its mighty stench at some distance, long before his sharp eye saw it or his ears heard it. This stench overpowered the sweet odors of the orchards he was passing, the fresh odor of fountains and grottoes. But he was excited by it, for it was pungent and strong, and lusty with life.
The bazaar, sprawling for many acres, did not disappoint him. He had heard much of the bazaars of the cities, but his imagination had not encompassed them. The noise was deafening, though they were merely approaching the outskirts. The last sunlight glared down upon it. As though they realized that religion must share in life and lustiness and noise, the colorful vivid bazaar was surrounded by mosques with gilded domes and minarets and the slender towers of the muezzin, the small squat austerity of Jewish synagogues, the curious pagodashapes of the Buddhist and Taoist temples, and the little nondescript churches of the Nestorian Christians. Beyond these crowded temples lay the bazaar, veiled by clouds of golden dust, odoriferous, rowdy, clanging and filled with noise of cymbals and laughter and multitudinous voices.
The ground was hard-packed clay, beaten into smoothness by thousands of feet. The bazaar seemed a small town in itself, threaded by crooked narrow streets, which were lined with the open booths of busy craftsmen and raucous traders, by tall flimsy structures of cheap gay brothels, by slave markets and horse and mule and camel stalls, by open shops selling carpets, jewelry, poultry, fruit, silken shawls and garments, musical instruments, sweetmeats, wines, military weapons, games, sandals, leather girdles, turbans, fans, and a thousand other articles. The uproar was deafening, the stench overpowering. Flies swarmed in black insistent clouds over displayed dates and figs, grapes and sweetmeats, and other delicacies. The tradesmen, wearing monstrous turbans, their dark faces shining with sweat, their avaricious eyes glinting over the throngs, sat crosslegged in the doorways of their tiny shops, or by their open stalls, haranguing and wheedling or insulting the passersby, and hoarsely laughing at some sally of a neighbor or a young man or impudent girl. Here and there a shouting youth sauntered on the outskirts of the crowds, carrying on his shoulders, his arms, and even his head, brilliantly colored birds, attached to him by strings. The birds squawked, lifted their red, blue, white and yellow wings, flapped them in the faces of unwary passers. Girls, insolently unveiled, or very nebulously veiled, held out baskets of flowers and dates, and called in ribald words to possible customers. Here, too, were snake charmers and magicians and conjurers, and even a whirling dervish.
There were discreet shops, rather haughty, selling Persian, Turkish and Chinese manuscripts to the discerning. The proprietors did not sit outside, but waited inside, like erudite spiders among their busily copying clerks. The perfume shops were also discreet and withdrawn, but from their dark low doorways issued the hot and swooning aura of their precious scents.
But few walked in the streets of elegance. The crowds were concentrated in the rowdier streets, where slave-girls with naked breasts contorted on platforms, to the licentious music of flute, drum and cymbal, flinging out their arms, shaking their anointed torsoes, and tossing their long black hair. Their masters kept up a discreet but insistent harangue, offering strange pleasures for a small sum within the curtained purlieus. At intervals they struck small cymbals of their own, and eyed the dancing maidens with well-feigned expressions of delight and sly lust. There were puppet-shows also, surrounded by crowds of laughing men and boys, who watched the antics of the puppets with glee. The slave-markets attracted considerable attention also. Here pretty girls, guaranteed to be virgins by their turbaned and black-faced Turkish proprietors were discreetly and modestly stripped at intervals, but only a little, in order to whet the appetites of potential purchasers. The girls were very young, most of them only children, and much frightened. They had been seized in raids, and one saw strange faces here, fair or golden, with dark curls or yellow hair, brown, gray, green and blue eyes. Some of them bore an Egyptian stamp on their delicate features, though their skins were black and polished as ebony.
But Temujin found the brawling throngs themselves worthy of observation. Motley, composed of many races, they moved, sweating and pushing, through the streets. Here were tall fierce Afghans, mustached and hugely turbaned, and stinking; here were Buddhist and Taoist monks, in red and yellow garments, their wide-brimmed hats throwing purple shadows on their cool ivory faces, their hands holding prayer-wheels; here were subtle, severe-lipped and burning-eyed Jews, carrying their manuscripts of prayers, and glancing about them shrewdly or austerely; here were visiting desert-dwellers in their deerskin boots and fur caps; here were dignified Chinese, Tibetans, Hindoos, Karaits, Uighurs, the Merkit, Turks, and even tall blue-eyed men from the frozen wastes, the reindeer people. There were Persians, also, elegantly clad and bored, feeling vastly superior to these mongrel crowds. Here all Asia met its neighbor, and despised him, especially his religion. In a certain section swine were slaughtered and sold, but this section was far from that occupied by Moslems and Jews. Temujin found them fascinating, for he was interested in mankind, and these alien faces excited him. He even liked the monstrous stench and the dust. When he passed the horse-stalls, he insisted on stopping and getting down. The seller could not understand his language, nor he, his, but that did not prevent them from getting into fierce arguments and scornful exclamations, as Temujin expertly examined the animals. The argument must have been more vehement that ordinarily, for a crowd gathered, gleefully ribald and full of suggestions, while Taliph sat on his camel and watched with enjoyment. Finally Temujin pushed his way contemptuously through the crowd and mounted his camel again. “Not even fit to eat,” he said disdainfully, departing in a shower of curses and imprecations from the owner of the beasts.
He stopped at the camel stalls, and looked them over with a critical eye. “Fly-blown,” was his verdict. He insisted upon stopping at a wineshop, and went within, though Taliph would not accompany him. There he drank quantities of wine and rice-wine, and had to come out, asking for payment from Taliph, for he carried no coins with him. At his heels, darkly suspicious, came the proprietor, deftly catching the money tossed him by Taliph, and thereafter bowing deeply to the ground in the wake of the contemptuous white camels.
Now there was a sudden uproar, and the confusion of a fight. It appeared that some gay young men had bought a pig, and were dragging the squealing animal through the streets occupied by the booths of some Moslems and Jews. This was a sacrilege. The younger Jews and Moslems came roaring out of their stalls and set upon the youths, who soon had delighted allies. Most of them were Christians and Buddhists. It was a religious and racial row, now, and fought with gusto, and a hearty lack of discrimination. Now police appeared, armed with staves, and laid about them with democratic impartiality. The pig, in the meanwhile, had been discreetly stolen by some one who had no objection to the meat of pigs. Within a few minutes, the merchants had retired to their stalls, and had resumed their shouting, the fighters settled their hats and turbans on their heads, the crowds moved on. Peace was restored, and every one was happy.
They came upon an open space where three gray elephants, gigantic and solemn and obviously filled with ennui, were performing lumbering tricks under the whips of their trainers. Crowds of children watched. Their parents indulgently tossed coppers to the trainers, who caught them in the air without ceasing their hubbub for an instant. The elephants performed with philosophic detachment; their tiny eyes were bored and sardonic, their great heads covered with little caps fringed with bells. They were females, and very superior. Temujin found them vastly amusing. He rocked with laughter on his perch. But it was not their solemn tricks which he found so titillating. They reminded him of fat old women.
Beyond the crowded domes, minarets and palms and flat white roofs of the city, the western sky was blood-red. The sun was an immense crimson ball, slowly drooping. Temujin had bought a silver necklace and bracelets for Bortei, a woolen cloak for his mother, and a Chinese manuscript for Kurelen. All with Taliph’s freely given money. “Baubles,” said Temujin, disdainfully, but watched them with a wary eye as a servant carried them.
He was beginning to be fatigued by the clashing of the cymbals and the shrilling of the flutes, and the hubbub of the marketplace. But he was not tired of looking at the strange alien faces.
When they arrived back at the palace of Toghrul Khan, Taliph asked him what had impressed him most in the sight of the crossroads of the world. Temujin considered a moment, then answered:
“The facelessness of the people.”
Taliph was surprised, but awaited enlightenment.
“In the barrens,” said Temujin, “every man hath his soul. It doth look from his eyes and speaketh distinctly in his voice. His face is his own. But in the cities every man speaketh with the voice of his neighbor, and looketh through his eyes. There is no strength in him. He is not a soldier.”
“Perhaps the cities despise the soldier,” remarked Taliph.
Temujin shrugged. “That is because of their envy. Only the soldier knoweth life in its richness and excitement. The townsman must have strange pleasures and vices in order to make his drab life endurable. His soul is the anonymous and mean soul of all his neighbors.”
And then he said something which made Taliph think for a long time:
“Cities should be easy to conquer, for no man hath in them anything of value, and nothing to defend.”
But he was already distrait. For tonight he would see Azara again.