Conn Iggulden - Conqueror (2011)

He held out the jug, but Ochir put his hand over the cup, shaking his head. The younger man was visibly nervous at having Guyuk stand over him, but he spoke firmly, refusing to be intimidated.

‘My father served yours loyally, Guyuk. Yet there are others. Baidur in the west …’

‘Who rules his own lands and has no claim here,’ Guyuk snapped.

Ochir hesitated, then went on. ‘If you had been named in your father’s will, it would have been easier, my friend. Half the princes in the nation would have given their oath by now.’

‘It was an old will,’ Guyuk said. His voice had deepened subtly and his pupils had become large, as if he saw only darkness. He breathed faster.

‘Then there is Batu,’ Ochir added, his voice growing strained, ‘the eldest of the lines, or even Mongke, the oldest son of Tolui. There are others with a claim, Guyuk. You cannot expect …’

Guyuk raised the stone jug, his knuckles white on the heavy handle. Ochir looked up at him in sudden fear.

‘I expect loyalty !’ Guyuk shouted. He brought the jug down across Ochir’s face with huge force, snapping his head sideways. Blood poured from a line of torn flesh above Ochir’s eyes as he raised his hands to fend off further blows. Guyuk stepped onto the low couch, so that he straddled the man. He brought the jug down again. With the second blow, the stone sides cracked and Ochir cried out for help.

‘Guyuk!’ one of the companions called in horror.

They were all on their feet, but they did not dare to intervene. The two men on the couch struggled. Ochir’s hand had found Guyuk’s throat. His fingers were slippery with blood and Ochir could not keep his grip as the jug came down again and again, suddenly shattering so that Guyuk held an oval of the handle, jagged and rough. He was panting wildly, exhilarated. With his free hand, he wiped blood from his cheek.

Ochir’s face was a red mash and only one of his eyes would open. His hands came up once again, but without strength. Guyuk batted them away easily, laughing.

‘I am the khan’s son,’ Guyuk said. ‘Say you will support me. Say it.’

Ochir could not speak. His throat was closed with blood and he choked violently, his body spasming. A gargling sound came from his broken lips.

‘No?’ Guyuk said. ‘You will not give me even that? That small thing? Then I am finished with you, Ochir.’ He shoved the jagged handle down as his companions watched, appalled. The noise died away and Guyuk stood up, releasing his grip on the shards of stone. He looked down at himself in disgust, suddenly aware that he was covered in blood, from spatters in his hair to a great slick down his deel robe.

His eyes focused, coming back from afar. He saw the open mouths of his companions, three of them standing like fools. Only one was thoughtful, as if he had witnessed an argument rather than a killing. Guyuk’s gaze was drawn to him. Gansukh was a tall young warrior with a claim to being the best archer in Guyuk’s command. He spoke first, his voice and expression calm.

‘My lord, he will be missed. Let me take him away from here while it is still dark. If I leave him in an alley of the city, his family will think he was attacked by some thief.’

‘Better still they do not find him at all,’ Guyuk said. He rubbed at spots of blood on his face, but without irritation. His anger had vanished and he felt completely at peace.

‘As you say, my lord. There are new sewage pits being dug in the south quarter …’

Guyuk raised his hand to stop him.

‘I do not need to know. Make him vanish, Gansukh, and you will have my gratitude.’ He looked at the other men. ‘Well? Can Gansukh manage on his own? One of you must send my servants away. When you are asked, you will say Ochir left us earlier.’ He smiled through the smeared blood. ‘Tell them he promised me his vote in the gathering, that he gave his solemn oath. Perhaps the fool can benefit me in death as he would not in life.’

His companions began to move and Guyuk walked away from them, heading to a bathing room he could reach without crossing a main corridor. For a year or more, he had not washed without servants, but the blood was itching his skin and he wanted to be clean. The troubles that had enraged him earlier that evening seemed to have fallen away and he walked with a light step. The water would be cold, but he was a man who had bathed in freezing rivers from a young age. It tightened the skin and invigorated him, reminding him he was alive.

Guyuk stood naked in an iron bath of Chin design, with writhing dragons around the rim. He did not hear the door open as he upended a wooden bucket and poured water over his head. The cold made him gasp and shudder, his penis shrivelling. As he opened his eyes, he jumped at seeing his mother standing in the room. He glanced at the pile of clothes he had thrown down. Already the blood on them had mingled with the water, so that the wooden floor ran with red-tinged lines.

Guyuk put the bucket down carefully. Torogene was a large woman and she seemed to fill the small room.

‘If you wish to see me, mother, I will be clean and dressed in a few moments.’ He saw her gaze fall to the swirl of bloody water on the floor and he looked away, picking up the bucket and refilling it from the pink water in the bath. The palace had its own drains, specially constructed in fire-hardened tile by Chin experts. When he removed the stopper, the incriminating water would vanish under the city, mingling with the night soil and filth from the kitchens until no one would ever know. A canal ran by Karakorum and Guyuk supposed the water would empty into that, or into some pit where it could soak. He didn’t know or care about such details.

‘What have you done ?’ Torogene said. Her face was pale as she stopped and picked up his tunic, sodden and twisted.

‘What I had to,’ Guyuk replied. He was still shivering and in no mood to be questioned. ‘It does not concern you. I will have the clothes burnt.’ Guyuk raised the bucket again, then tired of her scrutiny. He let it fall back and stepped out of the bath.

‘I called for fresh clothes, mother. They should have been brought to the audience room by now. Unless you are going to stand and stare at me all day, perhaps you could fetch them.’

Torogene didn’t move.

‘You are my son, Guyuk. I have worked to protect you, to gather allies for you. In a night, how much of my labour have you undone? Do you think I don’t know Ochir was invited here? That he has not been seen leaving? Are you a fool, Guyuk?’

‘You have been spying on me, then,’ Guyuk replied. He tried to stand tall and unconcerned, but the shivering grew worse.

‘It is my business to know what happens in Karakorum. To know every deal and argument, every mistake, such as the one you made tonight.’

Guyuk gave up the pretence, exasperated at her lofty tone of disapproval.

‘Ochir would never have supported me, mother. He is no loss to us. His disappearance may even be a gain, in time.’

‘You think so?’ she demanded. ‘You think you have made my work easier? Did I raise a fool, then? His families, his friends, will know he came to you unarmed and that he disappeared.’

‘They have no body, mother. They will assume …’

‘They will assume the truth, Guyuk! That you are a man who cannot be trusted. That alone among the nation, your offer of guest rights cannot make a man safe. That you are a wild dog capable of killing a man who has drunk tea with you in your own home .’

Overcome with anger, she left the room. Guyuk barely had time to consider what she had said before she was back, thrusting dry clothes at him.

‘For more than two years,’ she went on, ‘I have spent every day courting those who might support you. The traditionalists who might be approached on the grounds that you are the eldest son of the khan and you should rule the nation. I have bribed men with lands, horses, gold and slaves, Guyuk. I have threatened to reveal their secrets unless I receive their votes at a gathering. I have done all this because I honour your father and everything he built. His line should inherit, not Sorhatani’s children or Batu or any of the other princes.’