LITMIR.BIZ

      Hoelun sensed something was wrong the moment she sighted the two boys returning to the camp. Khasar and Temuge sat with her and little Temulun lay on a scrap of cloth near the fire’s warmth. Hoelun rose slowly from kneeling, her thin face already showing fear. As Temujin came closer, she saw he carried Bekter’s bow and she stiffened, taking in the detail. Neither Temujin nor Kachiun could meet her eyes, and her voice was just a whisper when it came at last.

      ‘Where is your brother?’ she said.

      Kachiun stared at the ground, unable to reply. She took a step forward as Temujin raised his head and swallowed visibly.

      ‘He was taking food, keeping it for himself …’ he began.

      Hoelun let out a cry of fury and slapped him hard enough to knock his head to one side.

      ‘Where is your brother?’ she demanded, shrilly. ‘Where is my son?’

      Temujin’s nose was bleeding in a red stream over his mouth, so that he was forced to spit. He bared red teeth at his mother and the pain.

      ‘He is dead,’ he snapped. Before he could go on, Hoelun slapped him again, over and over, until all he could do was curl up and stagger backwards. She went with him, flailing in a misery she could not bear.

      ‘You killed him?’ she wailed. ‘What are you?’

      Temujin tried to hold her hands, but she was too strong for him and blows rained down on his face and shoulders, wherever she could reach.

      ‘Stop hitting him! Please!’ Temuge called after them, but Hoelun could not hear him. There was a roaring in her ears and a rage in her that threatened to tear her apart. She backed Temujin up against a tree and grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking his thin frame with such violence that his head lolled weakly.

      ‘Would you kill him as well?’ Kachiun cried, trying to pull her away.

      She tore her deel from his grasp and took Temujin by his long hair, wrenching his head back so that he had to look her in the eye.

      ‘You were born with a clot of blood in your hand, with death. I told your father you were a curse on us, but he was blind.’ She could not see through her tears and he felt her hands tighten like claws on his scalp.

      ‘He was keeping food from all of us, letting us starve,’ Temujin cried. ‘Letting you starve!’ He began to weep under the onslaught, more alone than he had ever been. Hoelun looked at him as if he was diseased.

      ‘You have stolen a son from me, my own boy,’ she replied. As she focused on him, she raised a hand over his face and he saw her broken nails shiver above his eyes. It was a moment that lasted a long time as he stared up in terror, waiting for her to tear at him.

      The strength in her arms faded as suddenly as it had come and she collapsed in a limp pile, senseless. Temujin found himself standing alone and shivering in reaction. His stomach cramped, forcing him to retch, though there was nothing in him but sour yellow liquid.

      As he stepped away from his mother, he saw his brothers were staring at him and he shouted wildly at them, ‘He was eating fat marmots while we starved to death! It was right to kill him. How long do you think we would have lived with him taking our share on top of his own catch? I saw him take a duck today, but is it here to give us strength? No, it is in his belly.’

      Hoelun stirred on the ground behind him and Temujin jumped, wary of another attack from her. His eyes filled with fresh tears as he looked at the mother he adored. He could have spared her the knowledge if he had thought about it, perhaps inventing a story of a fall to explain Bekter’s death. No, he told himself. It had not been wrong. Bekter had been the tick on the hide, taking more than his share and giving nothing back while they died around him. Hoelun would see that in time.

      His mother opened bloodshot eyes and scrabbled to her knees, moaning in weary grief. She did not have the strength to come to her feet again and it took Temuge and Khasar to help her up. Temujin rubbed a bloody smear on his skin and faced her sullenly. He wanted to run away rather than have her look at him again, but he forced himself to stand.

      ‘He would have killed us,’ he said.

      Hoelun turned an empty gaze on him and he shivered.

      ‘Say his name,’ she said. ‘Say the name of my first-born son.’

      Temujin winced, suddenly overwhelmed by dizziness. His bloody nose felt hot and huge on his face and he could see dark flashes in his vision. All he wanted was to collapse and sleep, but he remained there, staring up at his mother.

      ‘Say his name,’ she said again, anger replacing the dullness in her eyes.

      ‘Bekter,’ Temujin replied, spitting the word, ‘who stole food when we are dying.’

      ‘I should have killed you when I saw the midwife open your hand,’ Hoelun said in a light tone more frightening than her anger. ‘I should have known then what you were.’

      Temujin felt he was being torn inside, unable to stop her hurting him. He wanted to run to her and have her arms wrap him against the cold, to do anything but see the awful vacant misery that he had caused.

      ‘Get away from me, boy,’ his mother said softly. ‘If I see you sleeping, I will kill you for what you’ve done here. For what you have taken from me. You did not soothe him when his teeth came in. You were not there to draw out his fevers with herbs and rock him through the worst. You did not exist when Yesugei and I loved the little boy. When we were young and he was all we had.’

      Temujin listened, dull with shock. Perhaps his mother had not understood the man Bekter had become. The baby she had rocked had grown into a cruel thief, and Temujin could not find the words to tell her. Even as they formed in his mouth, he bit down on them, knowing they would be useless, or worse, that they would rouse her again to attacking him. He shook his head.

      ‘I am sorry,’ he said, though as he spoke, he knew that he was sorry for the pain he had caused, not the killing.

      ‘Take yourself away from here, Temujin,’ Hoelun whispered. ‘I can’t bear to look at you.’

      He sobbed then and turned to run past his brothers, each breath hoarse in his throat and the taste of his own blood in his mouth.

      They did not see him after that for five days. Though Kachiun watched for his brother, the only sign of him was in the prey he brought back and left at the edge of their small camp. Two pigeons were there the first day, still warm, with blood running from their beaks. Hoelun did not refuse the gift, though she would not speak about what had happened to any of them. They ate the meat in miserable silence, Kachiun and Khasar sharing glances while Temuge sniffled and wailed whenever Hoelun left him alone. Bekter’s

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