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“Jelme told me that that was untrue. Kaidu had sent her off with cattle, sheep, horses, three slave girls, and household furnishings. Not that she’d come home rich, but she’d been far from poor.”
Achikh sighed, hands behind his head, gazing at the dull glow of the coals reflected from the ger’s roof. “You need to have known my mother when I was young,” he said. “She was always loving, more than most mothers. And she really loved my father, who was good to her. When he died, though, Dokuz was terrible to her, and it changed her, made her deeply bitter. I could not stand to live in the same ger, certainly not in winter, when one is inside so much.
“It was typical of Kaidu to let her go. Perhaps he did refuse her twice, but if he did, I am sure it was because his mother insisted. To release my mother was like letting her slap Dokuz’s face, and I’m sure that Dokuz didn’t accept it without being unpleasant to Kaidu too. She’d know her other daughters-in-law and her maids would talk about it behind her back.
“So Kaidu was generous, and I cannot reject him. But it grieves me that I must refuse my mother her request. I am her only son.”
They all lay silent then awhile. Baver thought how cruel people could sometimes be, but in a culture like this one, so bound by tradition . . .
“Achikh, my anda,” Nils said, “it is sad indeed that your mother was so changed. But you have done well to decide as you did. To reject Kaidu would be unjust, as you said, and it would feed your mother’s hatred without satisfying it. For she has clearly lost her sanity, and would hate as much afterward as before. Also, what she asked would hurt you and Kaidu, while you know as I do that it would not hurt Dokuz. Dokuz would use it to justify what she’d done.”
My anda. Baver was impressed. The word was equivalent to “soul brother,” and the impression he’d gotten was that, beyond adolescence, it was used very selec-
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tively. Once before Nils had said they’d become “like andat,” but this time he’d said “my anda.”
After Nils had validated Achikh in his decision, the Buriat warrior told them other things he’d learned from his Uncle Jelme.
The congress here was centered around a council, which consisted of the chiefs of all four tribes and the twelve principal clans. So far the council had dealt with routine matters: feuds between clans of different tribes, disputes over grazing and water—that sort of thing. They would also, perhaps tomorrow, discuss matters related to who, if anyone, should be Great Khan of all the Buriat. Only two chiefs contended for the position, Burhan Rides-the-Bear, who was chief of the Red Spear Tribe, and Kaidu Long Nose. Burhan did not seem avid for it, but he did not want Kaidu elected. And Kaidu almost surely would be, if unopposed, for just now among the Buriat there was a ferment to unite under a strong khan. They were concerned about the Chinese, actually the Sino-Tibetans, to the south, who had conquered the Uighurs and more recently the Koreans. And it seemed to most that only united under a Great Khan could the Buriat long survive.
Kaidu had earned much attention, a year earlier, by proposing that the tribes unite to make war on the Yakut-Russ, to the north, and take from them the wild and rugged forest region below the great lake called Baikal. There were grazing lands intermixed there, and much wild game. The Buriat had hunted in that country for as long as men knew, though the Yakut-Russ sometimes harassed and attacked the hunters. Possessing that land, the Buriat would have a place of retreat, should a great Sino-Tibetan army come to the steppes to enslave them, . as they’d enslaved other peoples. And from the shelter of the endless forest, they could strike and harass any Chinese conqueror.
This Kaidu had proposed. Others had been quick to say that it was easier proposed than done; the Yakut-Russ
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were thinly scattered, but they were formidable fighters. Others had suggested how they might beat the Yakut-Russ and hold the land, while others yet had found fault with their reasoning. Still others had said that the realm of the Yakut-Russ was immense, and the region below Baikal a very small part of it. That mostly the Yakut-Russ were reindeer herders, and since the region below Baikal was not well-suited to reindeer, it was not important to them.