Shortly after dawn, Jamuga, finally overcome by exhaustion, fell asleep. He did not dream. His collapse was too profound. So it was that Subodai had to call him several times before he awakened. He sat up. The sunlight was warm and brilliant as it streamed into the yurt.
Subodai’s pale face was shining with joy. “Our lord hath returned!” he cried. “Our sentinels have sighted him to the east!”
Jamuga stood up; he staggered. He almost fell. Subodai helped him to put on his coat and buckle his belt. The young paladin’s hands were sure and calm, and he smiled. They went out together.
The camp was already in a state of intense excitement and joy. Everything was forgotten, save that Temujin had returned. The people thronged the narrow winding streets between the yurts. The dogs barked furiously. The women began to sing and the minstrels strummed their fiddles, and boys began to beat drums. Kokchu emerged from his yurt, attended by his young priests. He was gorgeously arrayed. Kurelen, smiling wryly, stood beside him. Only Houlun was not there, nor Bortei. But finally Bortei appeared, clothed and tranquil, but colorless. Even in his fury, Jamuga had remembered to spare her face, and it was untouched. She held her child in her arms, wrapped in a white fur robe.
On the eastern horizon was a cloud of swiftly approaching dust. It caught the sun and shone, a golden halo of drifting light. They could hear the faint drumming of hoofs.
“The lord hath returned!” chanted the minstrels and the women. “He hath come unto his people, like the sun out of the heavens! He hath given us the light of his countenance, and the glory of his smile! What have we feared in the darkness? What have we dreaded? We do not remember; we have forgotten! The lord hath returned!”
The yellow river glinted in the sunshine. A string of gray geese moved across the sky. The herds were excited, and bellowed, and the horses neighed.
The people surged out to meet their khan. The warriors held their lances, and sat monumentally on their horses, their faces graven. The children screamed.
The simple people had indeed forgotten. But there were a few who had not. Kurelen, Subodai, the nokud, Bortei and Kokchu, waited, watching. Was the Persian woman with Temujin? They were chill with fear and alarm. If so, then this joy was but a respite before horrors and death and endless flight from vengeance.
Now, through the golden dust they could see the galloping horsemen, and the glittering tips of the lances, and the fluttering of the banners. But no woman was with the horsemen. They rode alone.
Kurelen drew in a deep whistling breath of thankfulness. He turned to Jamuga, rigid and gray-lipped, beside him. “Our fears were groundless,” he said in a low voice.
But Jamuga said nothing. He had fixed his eyes ahead.
Temujin and his warriors were greeted with shouts and cries of joy, which the brown and purple barrens flung back, ringingly. The whole earth seemed to rejoice. The people surged about the returning men; women seized the bridles of the horses, and looked up, their faces streaming with tears and bright with happiness. The warriors, laughing, dismounted, and embraced their women and their children. The air resounded with the babble of voices and the great excitement. The minstrels shouted louder, and the drums beat on the ears.
Temujin, dust-stained and unsmiling, dismounted from his horse. Kurelen and the nokud, Jamuga and Subodai and Kokchu, approached him, pushing their way through the excited throngs. Kurelen looked at Temujin, and thought: He hath aged. His flesh hath dissolved from his bones. This is a man who hath suffered awful agony, and who will never rid himself of its scars. But he smiled at his nephew and embraced him.
“Welcome, my nephew. Never have I rejoiced more than now.”
Bortei approached. She smiled languidly, and laid her hand on Temujin’s arm. He looked down at her as though he did not see her. His lips moved in a slight convulsion. Then he received the greetings of his nokud and his paladins. He seemed bemused, and though he kept inclining his head it was evident that he heard little. Before Kokchu had finished his elaborate speech of greeting, Temujin began to push his way towards his yurt. Chepe Noyon and Kasar remained behind.
Kurelen plucked at Chepe Noyon’s sleeve. The others gathered about, furtively, making a small island of conspiracy in the midst of the colorful and laughing people.
“What!” whispered Kurelen. “No woman?”
Chepe Noyon shook his head. He glanced swiftly after Temujin’s retreating back. The young noyon did not smile.
“No woman,” he said briefly.
But Kasar, the simple, was not so taciturn. He was caught up in the general excitement and glad to be at home.
“She killed herself,” he said loudly and frankly. “She sacrificed herself for our lord.”
“Hush!” said Chepe Noyon sternly. “Hush!” cried the others, glancing fearfully over their shoulders. The people near at hand, sensing some drama, looked at them hopefully and curiously.
Chepe Noyon spoke in a loud and casual voice.
“Toghrul Khan gave us no women. But he filled our hands with treasures. Is that not enough?”
The people laughed pridefully. They forgot the small group standing together, with stiffly smiling faces.
Kurelen said: “Come with me.” Subodai, Chepe Noyon, Jamuga, and Kasar, followed him. They did not speak until they were inside Kurelen’s tent, and then they sat down and drank his good wine.
“Now, tell us,” said Kurelen, briefly.
Chepe Noyon told them in short words, Kasar excitedly supplying any missing details. When he had finished they all sank into silence. Kurelen appeared much moved, and enormously relieved. He shook his head.
“From what thou dost tell me, Chepe Noyon, this was a beauteous and wise woman. But tell me this: is Temujin inconsolable?”
“He hath not spoken her name since she died.”
Kurelen sighed deeply. “Ah, that is bad. His eyes are sleepless. He hath been stricken to the heart. I doubt he will fully recover.”
“The world is full of beautiful women,” said Chepe Noyon.
Again, Kurelen shook his head. He seemed to speak to himself:
“But there doth come a time in a man’s life when there is only one woman. Temujin hath known this one. He will have many others, but none shall take her place. I suffer with him.”
Chepe Noyon, who believed this pure sentimentality, raised his brows and shrugged.
“She had hair like the morning sun,” said Kasar, with solemn relish. “Her face was like a flower, in the spring, when the desert doth bloom. I saw her but once, and I knew that she was a dream among women.”
“Oh, thou art a chattering and vulgar goat!” remarked Kurelen, absently. “But tell me, Chepe Noyon: who doth know of this besides thee, and Kasar?”
“None. The warriors know only that Azara died, and there would be no wedding.”
Kurelen regarded Kasar sternly, and the young man winced like a child.
“Hold thy tongue, Kasar, thou babbler! Tell no one of this.”
Jamuga, despite his own preoccupation with his miseries, felt a deep sadness and compassion. Now that Azara was no longer a menace, he could regret the death of so much beauty and love, and he could feel an answering anguish for Temujin. He wanted to go to Temujin, but remembered that Temujin had spoken to no one, and had gone to his yurt like an animal that has been mortally stricken. And then he remembered his own precarious and wretched state, and was again preoccupied.
Bortei gave it out that the young khan was greatly tired from his journey, and wished to sleep. Even she was forbidden his yurt. A double guard was posted about the tent, to warn away exigent visitors. But Temujin was not sleeping. He was not even lying down. The guards could hear his hurried and stumbling footsteps within, going back and forth for hours. They could hear his sighs, his low incoherent exclamations. They exchanged impassive glances, but no words.
At sunset, he called for food, but ate it alone, inside his yurt. When the sun finally stood like a red plate on the horizon, he sent for Subodai and his nokud, for their reports. They found him pale and worn, but calm. His feverish eyes sparkled greenly in the lamplight. He noticed Jamuga’s absence, and inquired the reason. It was Subodai who replied, tranquilly and straightly:
“Much hath happened in this time, my lord. And Jamuga hath requested me to tell thee, myself.”
Temujin stared. He gazed at Subodai over the lip of his goblet.
“What is the matter? And why is Jamuga such a coward?”
Subodai hesitated. “Jamuga is no coward. It might have been better had he been so.”
Temujin grunted. He put down his goblet. “Well, speak,” he said shortly.
Alone in his yurt, Jamuga waited. The sun fell, and darkness came out with its bristling stars. The moon rose, filled with light. The howling of distant wolves came on the endless wind. The campfires blazed, then died down to smoldering ruins. The city of tents fell into silence.
Jamuga’s heart was beating now with a cold terror and despair. He still waited. The hours were filled with menace. He did not know what he feared, but he was paralyzed with his fear. Now he was sure that Temujin would never forgive him, and that he was torturing him tonight as a prelude to worse torture.
Some one was plucking at the flap of the yurt. Jamuga started, and his face streamed with sudden water. Subodai stood there, smiling.
“Our lord doth request thy presence in his yurt, Jamuga Sechen.” And then seeing Jamuga’s agony, he laid his hand on his shoulder.
“Calm thyself, Jamuga. It is not so very bad.”