LITMIR.BIZ

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been away for years. The last time he had stood on that spot, his father had been vital and strong, a certainty in all their lives. It was just not possible to think that world had gone and could not be recalled.

      He stood stiffly in the open, looking out over the gers of the families. He could have named every man, woman and child with just a glance at the design of their door. They were his people and he had always known his place amongst them. Uncertainty was a new emotion for him, as if there was a great hole in his chest. He found he had to summon all his courage just to enter the ger. He might have stood there even longer if he had not seen the people beginning to gather as the sun’s rays faded. He could not bear their pity, and with a grimace, he ducked through the low door and closed it against their staring faces.

      The night felt had not yet been placed over the smoke hole above his head, but the ger was stifling with heat and a smell that made him want to gag. He saw his mother’s paleness when she turned to him and his defences crumbled as he rushed to her and fell into her embrace. Tears came beyond his control and she rocked him in silence as he gazed on his father’s withered body.

      Yesugei’s flesh shuddered like a horse twitching at flies. His stomach was bound in crusted bandages, stiff as reeds with old fluids. Temujin saw a line of pus and blood move like a worm across the skin and into the blankets. His father’s hair had been combed and oiled, but it seemed thin and there was more grey than he remembered in the wisps that reached down to his cheekbones. Temujin saw the ribs were starkly outlined. The face was sunken and dark in hollows, a death mask for the man he had known.

      ‘You should speak to him, Temujin,’ his mother said. As he raised his head to respond, he saw her eyes were as red as his own. ‘He has been calling your name and I did not know if you would come in time.’

      He nodded, wiping a silvery trail of mucus from his nose onto his sleeve as he looked at the one man he had thought would live for ever. The fevers had burnt the muscle off his bones and Temujin could hardly believe it was the same powerful warrior who had ridden so confidently into the camp of the Olkhun’ut. He stared for a long time, unable to speak. He hardly noticed his mother wet a cloth in a bucket of cold water and press it into his hand. She guided his fingers to his father’s face and, together, they wiped the eyes and lips. Temujin breathed shallowly, struggling against revulsion. The smell of sick flesh was appalling, but his mother showed no distaste and he tried to be strong for her.

      Yesugei shifted under the touch and opened his eyes, looking directly at them.

      ‘It is Temujin, husband; he has come home safe,’ Hoelun said gently.

      The eyes remained blank and Temujin felt fresh tears starting.

      ‘I don’t want you to die,’ he said to his father, beginning to sob in spasms. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

      The khan of the Wolves took in a sharp breath, so that his ribs stood out like a cage. Temujin leaned over him and pressed his hand into his father’s. The skin was impossibly hot and dry, but he did not let go. He saw his father’s mouth move and dropped his head to hear.

      ‘I am home, father,’ he said. The grip tightened enough to hurt. Temujin brought his other hand over to hold his father’s fingers, and for a moment their eyes met and he thought he saw recognition.

      ‘The Tartars,’ Yesugei whispered. His throat seemed to close on the words and the pent-up air released in a great sigh that ended in a dry clicking. Temujin waited for the next breath, and when it did not come, he realised the hand he held had fallen limp. He held it even harder in a rush of despair, aching to hear another breath.

      ‘Don’t leave us here,’ he begged, but he knew he could not be heard. Hoelun made a choking sound behind him, but he could not tear himself away from the sunken face of the man he adored. Had he told him? He could not remember saying the words and he had a sudden fear that his father would go to the spirits without knowing how much he had meant to his sons.

      ‘Everything I am comes from you,’ he whispered. ‘I am your son and nothing else. Can you hear me?’

      He felt his mother’s hands on his own.

      ‘He waited for you, Temujin. He has gone now,’ she said.

      He could not look at her.

      ‘Do you think he knew how much I loved him?’ he said.

      She smiled through her tears and for a moment she looked as pretty as she must have been when she was young.

      ‘He knew. He was so proud of you, he used to think his heart would burst with it. He used to look at me whenever you rode, or fought with your brothers, or argued with them. I could see it in his smile then. He did not want to spoil you, but the sky father gave him the sons he wanted and you were his pride, his private joy. He knew.’

      It was too much for Temujin to hear and he wept unashamedly.

      ‘We must tell the families that he is gone at last,’ Hoelun said.

      ‘What then?’ Temujin replied, wiping his tears. ‘Eeluk will not support me to lead the Wolves. Will Bekter be khan?’ He searched her face for some reassurance, but found only exhaustion and grief returning to cloud her eyes.

      ‘I do not know what will happen, Temujin. If your father had survived a few more years, it would not matter, but now? There is no good time to die, but this …’

      She began to weep and Temujin found himself drawing her head against his shoulder. He could not have imagined giving her comfort, but it seemed to come naturally and somehow it strengthened him for whatever was to come. He felt his youth as a weakness, but with his father’s spirit close, he knew he had to find the courage to face the families. His gaze flickered around the ger.

      ‘Where is the eagle I brought for him?’

      His mother shook her head. ‘I could not care for it. Eeluk took it to another family.’

      Temujin struggled with a rising hatred for the man his father had trusted in all things. He drew away from his mother and Hoelun rose and looked down at the body of Yesugei. As Temujin watched, she leaned over her husband and kissed him gently on his open mouth. She seemed to shudder at the contact, her whole body quivering. With shaking fingers, she closed his eyes, then pulled a blanket over his wound. The air was sluggish with heat and death, but Temujin found the smell no longer troubled him. He breathed deeply, filling his lungs with his father’s essence as he too rose to his feet. He splashed water from the bucket onto his face and then rubbed it away with a scrap of clean cloth.

      ‘I will go out and tell them,’ he said.

      His mother nodded, her eyes still fixed on a distant past as he walked to the small door and ducked out into the sharp air of the night.

      The women of the families raised wailing voices to the sky father, so that he would hear a great man had passed from the plains. The sons of Yesugei gathered to pay their last respects to their father. When dawn came, they would wrap him in a white cloth and take him to a high hill, leaving his naked flesh to be taken into the hawks and vultures that were dear to the spirits. The arms that had taught them to draw a bow, the strong face, all of him would be torn into a thousand scraps to fly in hosts of birds under the sky father’s gaze. He would no longer be tied to the earth as they were.

      As the night wound on, the warriors met in clusters, moving from ger to ger until all the families had spoken. Temujin did not take part in the process, though he wished Bekter were there to see the sky burial and the recitals. As much as he disliked his brother, he knew it would hurt him to have missed the stories and tales told of Yesugei’s life.

      No one slept. As the moon rose, a great fire was built in the centre of the encampment and old Chagatai the storyteller waited while they gathered, a skin of black airag ready against the cold. Only the scouting party and the lookouts remained on the hills. Every other man, woman and child came to hear and weep openly, giving Yesugei honour. They all knew that a tear shed into the ground would one day become part of the rivers that quenched the thirst of the herds and the families of all the tribes. There was no shame in weeping

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