Silk Road by Colin Falconer Page B

said, using the Tatar word for correctness, politeness.
    Khutelun frowned.
    ‘She must be . . . unbroken . . .’ he added, trying to explain it to her as delicately as was in his power.
    ‘You mean she must have the blood veil?’
    ‘Yes,’ he answered, astounded at her forthrightness.
    ‘I lost my blood veil a long time ago,’ she said. ‘Like every good Tatar woman, I gave it to my horse.’
    And she turned away from him and strode back to the camp.

XXVIII

    J OSSERAN AND W ILLIAM became objects of curiosity about the camp. Children dogged their heels, laughing and shouting, one occasionally accepting a dare from his fellows to run up and touch the hem of their jackets before rushing off again. The adults, too, stared at them with undisguised curiosity, would sometimes approach and demand Josseran’s knife, or William’s silver cross. They did it shamelessly, not as beggars, but with the attitude of lords who took whatever they wanted as a matter of right. Several times Josseran, goaded beyond endurance, was on the point of reaching for his sword.
    It was Tekudai, Khutelun’s brother, who saved the situation. He adopted them as his personal charges and escorted them wherever they went. The demands and the begging stopped abruptly.
    Tekudai was endlessly curious about them, about their religion, their methods of warfare, their castles. He wanted to know if Christian – the Tatars thought their religion was the name of their country – had endless pastures where a man might graze horses; what the punishment was for adultery; what they used to make arrows. Josseran realized that Tekudai was more than simply curious, and that Qaidu had probably ordered him to spy on them, and so he was always cautious in his replies.
    If Tekudai was Qaidu’s spy he was not a good choice, for he liked to talk as much as he liked to listen, and Josseran gradually drew him out.
    ‘What is your religion?’ Josseran asked him. He realized he did not know the word for God, or even if the Tatars had such a word. So he tried to say, as best he could: ‘What do you believe in?’
    ‘The world and everything in it comes from the Spirit of the Blue Sky,’ Tekudai said, as if he was astonished that Josseran should ask such an obvious question.
    ‘Does he give you your laws?’
    ‘The khan makes the laws.’
    ‘The khan, your father?’
    ‘He makes laws for our tribe here in the valley. But there is a khan who is higher than him in Bukhara, and then there is the Khan of Khans in Qaraqorum.’ Tekudai explained that the last Khaghan, Möngke, had just died, so a council would be held in Qaraqorum to choose a new Khan of Khans. This was known as the
khuriltai
, and by the time Josseran and William arrived at the Centre of the World they all expected Mongke’s son, Ariq Böke, would be elected.
    ‘And he makes laws for everyone?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘The Spirit of the Blue Sky does not give you laws?’
    He laughed. ‘The Spirit just is.’
    ‘But if the Spirit does not give you laws, how do you know if you are living a good life?’
    ‘Because I will be victorious over my enemies and have many children with my wives.’
    ‘Wives? So you have more than one wife? Like the Mohammedans?’
    ‘Of course. We can have four wives if we can afford them. After that, only concubines.’
    This was godless, of course. But for a man, it was also intriguing. He asked Tekudai the same question he asked certain Mohammedans that he knew in Acre. ‘But don’t they all fight with each other? Is there not jealousy?’
    ‘No, why should they be jealous? They are all looked after just the same. My father, for instance. He even sleeps with the old, ugly ones now and then, just the same as the new ones. He is a good man, my father.’
    ‘But what about when he dies? What happens to his wives?’
    ‘Well they will come to my
ordu
, my household. I will look after them. There is one of them, she has eyes like a deer. When my father dies, I can’t