Shike by Robert J. Shea (the reading list txt) 📕

you?” During the years of the war with Arik Buka, Taniko had learned to play the Chinese thirteen-stringed lute. She always brought it with her wher she visited Kublai.

“I am not troubled.”

“I am happy to hear that, Your Majesty.”

“You may play for me.”

Taniko plucked out a tune called The Fisher Boy Urashima, singing in her own language, which Kublai did not understand but enjoyed hearing. This was the first time she had seen him in months. They were in his bedchamber in the Great Khan’s palace in the new city, Khan Baligh. Kublai had just moved his women down from Shangtu for the winter. Taniko had been longing to see him and was delighted when he sent for her, but since her arrival he had sat sipping golden wine, staring at a painted screen and hardly speaking.

The song finished, she tried to make conversation. “Many of your people are said to be shocked at your building a new capital in China instead of reigning in Karakorum. As for me, I am happy to be in a new palace in a new city. Is it true that the buildings in Karakorum are made of mud?”

Kublai smiled faintly. “To a Mongol, a mud building is a very solid and permanent thing.”

Taniko shook her head. “I cannot imagine that the Emperor who dwells here would be pleased with a mud palace.” The room they were in was similar to his bedchamber at Shangtu, but larger. Green silk draperies hid the walls and made a tent of the ceiling. Most of the cushions on the bed were green. And in one corner of the room there was a screen as tall as Kublai depicting a range of golden mountains, one behind the other, topped with clusters of dark green trees.

“I am sure the houses in your homeland are all quite beautiful.” He was forever teasing her about the supposed superiority of things in the Sacred Islands. It always made her uneasy. Tonight she did not feel like parrying him.

“They are mostly of wood and paper, Your Majesty. But they are very beautiful, yes.”

“Do you miss your homeland very much, Taniko?”

“Yes, Elephant, I do.”

“I could send you back.”

Her heart stopped. She stared at him, unable to speak. What was he hinting at? Did this have anything to do with his strange manner tonight? Or was he just toying with her?

“I don’t think there is any place for me in the Sacred Islands,” she said. “Horigawa brought me all this way to get rid of me, and my family is doubtless thoroughly ashamed of me. Has Your Majesty grown tired of me?”

“Ear from it. But I find myself wondering how you feel towards me.”

That was a surprise. How could a man like Kublai Khan ever concern himself with the feelings of just one of his hundreds of women? True, he had always been considerate. He had been careful in the beginning not to lie with her until he felt she would receive him with pleasure. She had enjoyed their occasional unions over the four years since then. She had even started to hope that she would conceive, knowing that under Mongol custom he would then have to make her a wife, improving her status among his women and guaranteeing her a secure place in Mongol society.

“If you talk about sending me away, it must be that I no longer please you, Elephant.”

“I only pointed out that I could send you back to your homeland, if you wish. After all, you were brought here against your will.” “Why this sudden concern for my happiness?”

“Do you know a monk named Jebu?” He was leaning forward, his face thrust so close to hers that she could feel his breath hot against her forehead.

At first Jebu’s name was a meaningless sound, it had been so long since she had heard it uttered. It sounded doubly strange on Kublai’s Mongol tongue. Then it penetrated her consciousness. Jebu. He was asking about Jebu. Her body went cold from head to foot.

Kublai said, “It’s hard to tell under that powder you wear, but I believe your face has gone white.”

Her heart was hammering and her hands were trembling. It was not only fear of Kublai. Not only that. It was Jebu suddenly becoming real for her again, when for so long he had existed in her imagination.

But it was fear of Kublai, too, that possessed her. The memory of her first sight of the Mongols rose in her mind. The maid raped and beheaded on the road to Wuchow. Kublai’s talk of massacres. The children who would only starve to death if they hadn’t been killed, too. A Mongol officer had tried to kill Jebu when he was only an infant.

She stared at the huge form beside her. Cruel, unpredictable, vengeful. She was in his power, and so was Jebu. Perhaps Jebu was dead already.

“It is startling to hear a name from one’s distant past,” she said, trying to sound noncommittal. “Yes, I knew the monk Jebu. He is a member of the Order of Zinja. About twenty years ago, when I was a very young girl, he escorted me from Kamakura to Heian Kyo for my wedding to Prince Horigawa.”

All those years I have known he was somewhere in this land of China, she thought. To protect both of us, I have been careful to avoid seeing him or even trying to find out anything about him. And what good, has it done? It has only brought us to this moment. We were probably both doomed from the moment his stepfather, Taitaro, spoke to me in front of Bourkina.

“The monk Jebu is partly of my race,” said Kublai. “That accounts for his red hair and grey eyes. My grandfather, Genghis Khan, had the same hair and green eyes. I did not inherit them. Mongols who have that colouring are known as the Borchikoun, the grey-eyed men. Jebu’s father, Jamuga, was a Borchikoun. He was Genghis Khan’s cousin, his blood brother and his enemy.”

Taniko nodded. “To while away the time on our journey to Heian

Kyo, Jebu told me a tale of a Mongol warrior who came to our islands to pursue and slay his father. That warrior was red-haired and blue-eyed.”

“Arghun Baghadur,” said Kublai. “Owing to several odd turns of fortune, this Jebu is now part of my army. After our defeat of Arik Buka, Arghun tried to have Jebu killed, and there was very nearly a second battle. The matter was brought to me for judgment. Jebu had served me well, and I withdrew the condemnation of his family pronounced by my Ancestor. The monk then had the colossal effrontery to ask me to give you to him.” He continued to watch her closely.

Eor the first time in many months Taniko whispered the invocation to Buddha. Kublai’s account of Jebu’s boldness delighted her. But it sounded more and more as if he had brought disaster down on both of them.

“Were you even aware that he was in this part of the world?” Kublai asked her.

Doubtless Kublai knew everything that Bourkina knew, and the two of them had probably guessed at a good deal more. Nor was there any way of knowing what Jebu had told Kublai.

“The night you were elected Great Khan, I saw his stepfather, who told me that Jebu had been at Kweilin and was well. Elephant, Jebu means more to me than I have admitted to you. He was the father of one of my children, a girl. She was killed by Horigawa. Drowned.”

Kublai nodded. “That was your husband’s right.” His voice dropped to an almost-gentle whisper. “Tell me, Taniko, do you wish to leave me and go with this monk?”

Her next words, she knew, might condemn both herself and Jebu to death. So hard did her heart pound that she could scarcely breathe. To deny the truth now would mean spending the rest of her life imprisoned in a lie. She had often wondered why she did not feel drawn to suicide, as so many samurai men and women were. Even now she could never put the dagger to her own throat. But if Kublai wanted to kill her for what she said now, she was ready to die.

Still, there was no need to be rudely blunt about it. She chose her words carefully.

“Elephant-Your Majesty-I have been truly happy with you. When I was brought to you I was terrified, in despair. Eor five years you have been kind to me. You have been gracious enough to spend hours with me. You have honoured me among the women of your household. If I were to spend the rest of my life with you, I could be content. But, to be truthful, I long to see the monk Jebu more than I desire anything else in my life. If I were to be reunited with him, it would be like being reborn in the Western Paradise of Amida. I cannot imagine that such happiness could ever be mine.”

She paused. Kublai sat looking at her, his dark eyes unreadable. He’s going to kill us, I know it. But I must keep on talking to him anyway.

“I’m not as bold as Jebu, Your Majesty. I do not ask to be restored to him. I make only one request. You may wish to kill Jebu for daring to raise his eyes to a woman of the Great Khan’s household. You may wish to kill me for the longing for Jebu that I cannot help. Let us see each other once before we die. It has been so many years since I saw him last. Grant me this one mercy, if I have ever given you pleasure.”

Still Kublai remained silent. She waited for the death sentence, waited for him to call the guards to take her away. She was no longer frightened. Having spoken aloud her feelings for Jebu, she knew a vast relief and a soaring happiness. Let Kublai do what he wanted.

He reached out and took her small, pale hands in his huge brown ones. She sat beside him with her head bowed. At first he held her hands gently. Gradually the pressure increased until the pain was excruciating. She gasped. Immediately, he let go.

He crossed the room to a silver wine spout in the form of a snake’s head. At his touch a pale stream gushed from the serpent’s mouth into his golden goblet. He drank, walking to the screen.

“When I was eight my grandfather took me campaigning in China. Eor the first time I saw trees. They looked magical to me, like giants with their arms uplifted to Eternal Heaven. When I went back to the steppes they seemed so dry and empty that I vowed I would never live there. Or, if I had to, I would plant trees everywhere. My Ancestor had quite the opposite vision. He wanted to cut down all the trees in China and turn everything into grassland.

“I love mountains, too. The plains where I spent my childhood are so flat. They almost frighten me with their vast distances. Soon I’m going to build my own mountain here at Khan Baligh. I’ll cover it with trees. I will have one of every kind of tree that grows anywhere in the world dug up carefully and transported to my green mountain to grow on it. At the top I will build a green palace for myself and those closest to me.” He turned away from the screen and looked at her sadly.

“You will not see it.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up a hand to silence her, and she bowed her head in submission.

“My moments with you have given me great pleasure. They have