Mongke looked sharply at her. Perhaps only he could have heard the subtle emphasis of the last words, but her eyes gleamed. He nodded just a fraction in answer. Among the generals, it was already accepted that Mongke would be khan. He had only to declare himself. He took a deep breath, looking around him at the honour guard Sorhatani had assembled. When he spoke, it was with quiet certainty.
‘Not to the city, mother, not to this place of cold stone. I am the khan elect, grandson to Genghis Khan. The decision is mine. I will summon the nation to the plain of Avraga, where Genghis first gathered the nation.’
Unbidden, tears of pride came to Sorhatani’s eyes. She bowed her head, mute.
‘The nation has drifted far from the principles of my grandfather,’ Mongke said, raising his voice to carry to his officers and the Guards. ‘I will drag it back to the right path.’
He looked through the open gate to the city beyond, where tens of thousands worked to administer the empire, from the lowliest taxes to the incomes and palaces of kings. His face showed his disdain, and for the first time since she had heard of Guyuk’s death, Sorhatani felt a whisper of concern. She had thought Mongke would need her guidance as he took control of the city. Instead, he seemed to look through Karakorum to some inner vision, as if he did not see it at all.
When he spoke again, it was to confirm her fears.
‘You should retire to your rooms, mother. At least for a few days. I have brought a burning branch back to Karakorum. I will see this filthy city made clean before I am khan.’
Sorhatani fell back a step as he remounted and rode through the gate towards the palace. His men were all armed and she saw their grim faces in a new light as they followed their lord into Karakorum. She began to cough in the dust of their passing, until there were fresh tears in her eyes.
By the afternoon, the scented braziers had burnt low and the city was beginning the formal period of mourning for Guyuk Khan. His body lay in the cool basement of the palace, ready to be cleaned and dressed for his cremation pyre.
Mongke strode into the audience room through polished copper doors. The senior staff in Karakorum had gathered at his order and they knelt as he entered, touching their heads to the wooden floor. Guyuk had been comfortable with such things, but it was a mistake.
‘Get up,’ Mongke snapped as he passed them. ‘Bow if you must, but I will not suffer this Chin grovelling in my presence.’
He seated himself on Guyuk’s ornate throne with an expression of disgust. They rose hesitantly and Mongke frowned as he looked closely at them. There was not a true Mongol in the room, the legacy of Guyuk’s few years as khan as well as his father before him. What good had it done to conquer a nation if the khanate was taken over from within? Blood came first, though that simple truth had been lost to men like Guyuk and Ogedai. The men in the room ran the empire, set taxes and made themselves rich, while their conquerors still lived in simple poverty. Mongke showed his teeth at the thought, frightening them all further. His gaze fell on Yao Shu, the khan’s chancellor. Mongke studied him for a time, remembering old lessons with the Chin monk. From Yao Shu he had learned Buddhism, Arabic and Mandarin. Though Mongke disdained much of what he had been taught, he still admired the old man and Yao Shu probably was indispensable. Mongke rose from the throne and walked along their lines, marking senior men with a brief hand on their shoulders.
‘Stand by the throne,’ he told them, moving on as they scurried to obey. In the end, he chose six, then stopped at Yao Shu. The chancellor still stood straight, though he was by far the oldest man in the room. He had known Genghis in his youth and Mongke could honour him for that at least.
‘You may have these as your staff, chancellor. The rest will come from the nation, from those of Mongol blood only. Train them to take over from you. I will not have my city run by foreigners.’
Yao Shu looked ashen, but he could only bow in response.
Mongke smiled. He was wearing full armour, a signal to them that the days of silk were at an end. The nation had been raised in war, then run by Chin courtiers. It would not do. Mongke walked to one of his guards and murmured an order into his ear. The man departed at a run and the scribes and courtiers waited nervously as Mongke stood before them, still smiling slightly as he gazed out of the open window to the city beyond.
When the warrior returned, he carried a slender staff with a strip of leather at the end. Mongke took it and rolled his shoulders.
‘You have grown fat on a city that does not need you,’ he told the men, swishing the air with the whip. ‘No longer. Get out of my house.’
For an instant, the assembled men stood in shock at his words. It was all the hesitation he needed.
‘And you have grown slow under Guyuk and Ogedai. When a man, any man, of the nation gives you an order, you move!’
He brought the whip across the face of the nearest scribe, making sure that he struck with the wooden pole. The man fell backwards with a yelp and Mongke began laying about him in great sweeps. Cries of panic went up as they struggled to get away from him. Mongke grinned as he struck and struck again, sometimes drawing blood. They streamed out of the room and he pursued them in a frenzy, whipping their legs and faces, whatever he could reach.
He drove them down the cloisters and out into the marshalling yard of the palace, where the silver tree stood shining in the sun. Some of them fell and Mongke laughingly kicked them to their feet so that they stumbled on with aching ribs. He was a warrior among sheep and he used the whip to snap them back into a group as he might have herded lambs. They stumbled ahead until the city gate loomed, with Guards looking down in amusement from the towers on either side. Mongke did not pause in his efforts, though he was running with sweat. He kicked and shoved and tore at them until the last man was outside the walls. Only then did he pause, panting, with the shadow of the gate falling across him.
‘You have had enough from the nation,’ he called to them. ‘It is time to work for your food like honest men, or starve. Enter my city again and I will take your heads.’
A great wail of distress and anger went up from the group and for a moment Mongke even thought they might rush him. Many had wives and children still in the city, but he cared nothing for that. The lust to punish was strong in him and he almost wished they would dare to attack, so he could draw his sword. He did not fear scholars and scribes. They were Chin men and, for all their fury and cleverness, they could do nothing.
When the group had subsided into impotent muttering, Mongke looked up at the Guards above his head.
‘Close the gate,’ he ordered. ‘Note their faces. If you see a single one again inside the walls, you have my permission to put an arrow in them.’
He laughed then at the spite and horror he saw in the crowd of battered and bruised courtiers. Not one had the courage to challenge his orders. He waited as the gates were pushed closed, the line of sight to the plains shrinking to a crack and then nothing. Outside, they wailed and wept as Mongke nodded to the Day Guards and threw down the bloody whip at last, walking back alone to the palace. As he went, he saw thousands of Chin faces peering out from houses at the man who would be khan in spring. He grimaced, reminded once again that the city had fallen far from its origins. Well, he was no Guyuk to be baulked for years in his ambition. The nation was his.
The smell of aloes wood had faded since the morning. The city reeked again, reminding Mongke of a healing tent after a battle. He thought sourly of festering wounds he had seen, fat and shiny with pus. It took courage and a steady hand to drain such a wound: a gash and a sharp pain to let the healing begin. He smiled as he walked. He would be that hand.
The entire city was in uproar by the time darkness came. On Mongke’s orders, warriors had entered Karakorum in force, groups