"Five sons had Mother Hö'elün, and one she raised on human flesh."
-An ancient Mongol proverb
Mongolia, 1159 AD
The cart is bad. It trembles and bounces as it moves, rattling your teeth. The thin black tarp draped over the roof of the cart holds out light, but little else. The air is heavy with the first breath of winter, which burrows knifelike through your furs and skirts. You can see little past the opening in the tarp -- a slash of red sky, a sliver of pale horizon, and the swaying of the camel leading the cart. The camel is itself led by a tall, broad-shouldered young man upon a horse.
Periodically, he twists in his saddle to glance back at you. His gaze is furtive, almost embarrassed, and when he sees you looking at him, he straightens in his saddle and sets his face forward. He has said perhaps ten words to you since he took you from the place where your father had lain his tents, and each time his voice was so soft that the words were almost lost in the wind. His name is Chiledu. He hails from the clan of the Merkits. He is the first of nine brothers, and it is said he is the fastest rider among them. Men say that he races eagles, and that he has sharp eyes which can see for many miles.
He is to be your husband.
Twelve days ago, he drank from the same cup with your father and your brothers, and swore his heart to them. You were not there for this, of course -- you were busy being prepared by your mother and her women, who cleaned you and braided your hair ten times and painted your face. You were presented to him as he was about to leave, already seated in the cart, already shivering under the tarp. You have said nothing to him since -- and of course, you cannot until he has led the cart and the camel to the place where his people have lain their tents, and there makes you his wife.
You have not spoken to him, but you have watched him. You have watched him clean his catches delicately, carefully, and cook them to tenderness before passing them to you. You have watched him labor in the sun, fruitlessly, to fix the bad wheel, that your teeth might not rattle. And, of course, you have watched him watch you -- quietly, with those dark eyes.
You have have met many men in your nineteen years, but none quite like him. You do not think you will mind being his wife.
Through the slash in the tarp, you see something flicker across the darkening sky -- wings, broad and wide, silhouetted dark against the setting sun. A hawk. It circles once, twice, thrice, then vanishes behind a pair of distant hills.
Chiledu sees it too. With a low whistle, he calls his horse to a stop. The camel trots on a moment more before coming to a slow, confused halt.
For a moment, the world is still. Then, on the hills, there is a rider -- like the hawk, he is dark against the setting sun. The shape of a bow rises like a single black wing from his shoulders.
Childeu's mare snorts, and stamps warily. The man himself has grown as still as a rock, his gaze fixed on the distant figure. Slowly, he raises a hand to his mouth.
"
AIIII-YA!" The shout rings across the steppe, bouncing into the growing shadow. It is swallowed up by the land, and there is no response. The rider on the hill does not stir, but two more shapes appear beside him, dark too, with bows like wings. There is another moment's pause, and then, as one, they begin to move, dark figures against a dark land, speeding towards your cart.
Chiledu's breath is heavy now. He reaches for his own bow, a dark and curved length of wood hanging from the side of his mare. The broad shoulders shake.
"Chiledu." It is the first time you have ever said his name, and you wonder at that. Your voice is clear and sharp. Though you do not raise it above the wind, you know that he hears you, for he pauses in the saddle. "Come here."
The young Mongol hesitates only a moment, then turns his mare and leads her at a trot towards you. Behind him, the dark figures grow larger and closer. You can almost see the face of the first now, cast into shadows by the red sun at his back.
"Those men will kill you." It is not a question.
Chiledu does not respond, but his face has become like stone.
"As long as you remain alive, there will be women in the black-covered wooden carts, riding from the tents of their fathers. If you live, perhaps you will find another girl for yourself. If she has another name, you may call her Hö'elün. I will not mind."
He swallows, and his lips part as if to make a response. There is something terrible in his eyes.
You draw your hand out from under your furs, holding out your shirt. The wind is like ice now, but you do not shake, not even a little.
"Save yourself. And while you live, keep this. Smell my fragrance, and think of me."
The riders are almost upon the cart. Their hoofbeats are like thunder on the steppe, and you can see all of their faces clearly. The foremost is tall, with a pale face, and a black beard that hangs to his chest. There is death on his face, for killing is no new thing to him. He has already drawn his bow.
Chiledu leans over his horse and takes the shirt, clutching it to his chest as if to staunch a wound. Those dark eyes meet yours a final time -- and then Childeu cracks his hand sharply on the thigh of his mare. With a vicious whinny, both rider and horse are gone.
You have a final moment to think of Chiledu of the Merkits, who was the first of nine brothers, who shared milk with your father, who fixed a bad wheel in the sun -- and then the riders are upon you.
Their leader is the tall one with the pale face. He holds himself with an easy cruelty. There is a smile on his lips which does not reach his eyes. The other two riders thunder past him, after your bold young Merkit, but he pulls to a stop before the cart. He thrusts his hand out like a dark spear, and the hawk settles on it, a cruel statue.
"Why do you cry, woman?" His voice is like wood dragging on hard sand. You touch a hand to your face, and realize with some shock that it is wet.
You meet the rider's eyes, but you do not dignify him with a response. You have met many men like him.
He laughs, a long and wolflike thing.
"The one you cry for is not dead. He has already crossed many ridges. Even now, his mare makes for the rivers. But he is not dead -- so there is nothing to mourn. And however much you cry, he shall not see or hear you, and he shall not return. So I ask you, why do you cry?"
Your tears are hot down your face now, but you do not reply to him. Not then, or for a long time. But you make yourself a promise:
-[] Revenge: You sit in the dark cart and shiver in the cold, and promise yourself: you will kill this laughing Mongol, no matter the cost.
-[] Strength: You swear you will not be here ever again -- bound, helpless, before wolflike men. Many girls go weeping in the dark carts -- but not Hö'elün, not ever again.
This is how Yesügei of the Borjigids took for himself the Lady Hö'elün.
This is a tale of Old Mongolia, in the days before the coming of the Chinggis Khan, when the Mongols were many but were not yet one.
It is a tale of boiling milk and the stamping of hooves on the wide plain. It is a tale of blood and those things which are deeper than blood, and more righteous still. It is a tale of the people of the horses, and the things they did, both to their foes and to each other, under the wide-open sky so very long ago.
It is a tale of Hö'elün of the Olkhunut people, whose father was Kuyuk, who had his tents in the forest between the Onon and the Shilka rivers. In her nineteenth year, she was to be married to Chiledu, a prince of the Merkits -- but it was not to be. Her black-covered cart was overcome as she and her groom passed the hills beyond the Onon river, and she was taken as wife by Yesügei, of the Borjigin clan, who was tall and strong and had a pale face like death and a black beard like night.
Yesügei was of noble blood, for his uncle Qutula Khan was in his time lord of all the Mongols between the Onon and the Tuul, to whom the seven clans submitted and sent a third of their sheep every year. Yesügei was a mighty lord, and many were his tents; when his people rode it was as a wave of man and horse upon the steppe, and the dust of their passing blotted the sun. He had slain five men with his own hand before he was a man grown, and so the Mongols called him Yesügei-baghatur, he-who-is-a-terror-in-battle, he-who-killed-before-his-beard, and he rode before all the hosts of the Khan. Yesügei-baghatur was all of these things, but she hated him still.
He had other wives, who had born him sons already, but he took the Lady Hö'elün into his yurt, and offered her milk under the moon. In this way she became the first of his wives, and her children his rightful heirs under Heaven, who took his sheep and his tents and his horses when he went into the sky. But she hated him still.
In time, she would bear him four sons. The legends of the Mongols would hold long after that she reared one of them on human flesh, so that he had a hunger to swallow all the world. This one she named
Temüjin, and he would be in his time lord of all the Mongols above and below the Onon, and lord of all the Tatars and the Kariyats, and lord of all the Naimans and the Merkits, and lord also of all under Heaven.
But in her nineteenth year, when she was taken to the tent of Yesügei-baghatur and made to drink milk under the moon, she knew none of these things. She drank the milk, and to her tongue it was bitter, and she hated him still.
It is said in the secret histories of the Mongols that Yesügei-baghatur possessed a reason to take Hö'elün so close to himself, beyond her great beauty or her bright eyes.
This was the terrible gift of Hö'elün, which she did not pass on to her ever-hungry son, but which he prized above all others even when the whole world sat like a ripe fruit in his hands:
[] It was said that Kuyuk's daughter was touched by Heaven and by the white spirits of her ancestors and the Khans who have gone into the dirt, so that when she slept she dreamt of things long gone and things which were yet to be, so that fair winds were ever at her back, so that she woke before the sun and found her horses ever sturdy. It is said that they whispered to her all her life of mastery and strength, of horses and thrones, of horns ringing lonely on the steppe.
[] There were those who held that Hö'elün could speak with the baser dead, with the ill-fated warriors and the unjudged thieves and the walkers-in-the-forest, that when she curdled milk and poured it into open graves the dead visited her that same night, that she was touched by the black spirits, who cursed her enemies and littered their path with stones, who whispered to her ever of secrets and half-truths, of blood dark on the mountain, of struggle and war and crueler things yet.
[] Mother Hö'elün was born of the forest, and the legends of the Mongols say it never left her. Wherever she set her camp, there was heard the baying of wolves, and when she stood at the source of a river or the base of a mountain, no man could tell her a lie, or approach her with foul intent. She could calm any beast with a whisper, even a wild stallion on the plain, and the many birds were her many eyes.
