The World полностью

As her Ossetian prince won his victories for ‘the goddess whom David the sun serves’, Tamara now ruled an empire that stretched from the Black Sea to the Caspian. Meanwhile the marriage of Tamara’s sister Rusudan into the Komnenoi could hardly have been more ill-starred.

The Basileia Romaion was about to fall apart. but the real change would come from the east where the rising Mongol chieftain Temujin faced an unbearable prospect. ‘My wife’, lamented the future Genghis, ‘has been raped.’ And she was pregnant.

TEMUJIN BOUNCES BACK

Temujin learned that Börte had been given as war spoils to a Merkit prince. He appealed to his patron Toghril (his ‘father-khan’) and blood brother, Jamuqa, who attacked the Merkits at night. The Merkits, warned of the ambush, fled helter-skelter into the steppe. The rescue, told in Genghis’s family history, reveals a rare side of Temujin. ‘As pillage and rape went on, Temujin galloped through the fleeing Merkits, crying out “Börte! Börte!” Recognizing his voice, she got off her cart and ran towards him, grabbing his reins. It was moonlight; he recognized Lady Börte, and they fell into each other’s arms.’

Yet she was eight months pregnant. Temujin did not reject her, and she gave birth to Jöchi, whom Temujin treated as a son. But together they had three more sons, Chagatai, Ögodei and Tolui, and five daughters. When Tolui was five, a Tatar tried to kidnap him from the family camp, but he was saved by his sister Altani who held the kidnapper until the bodyguards killed him. The guards claimed credit but Temujin promoted the girl to baghatur.

Gradually Temujin’s exceptional character was recognized – he was ‘tall, vigorous, sturdy, with cats’ eyes, possessed of a focused energy’. He had black hair and a steely constitution, with the rare ability to listen, and the superabundant vigour and invincible confidence, fortified by sacred mission, essential for transcendent leadership. He was a spotter of talent and a winner of loyalty. Three cousins from the House of Khabul declared that ‘Blue Heaven has ordained that Temujin be our khan,’ promising to bring ‘beautiful virgins, palatial tents, fine-rumped geldings’, and in return he praised his early henchmen, telling them, ‘When I had no companions other than my shadow, you were my shadow. I’ll promote you.’ Followers began to call him Genghis (Fierce) Khan.

When the Jurchen emperor of northern China asked them to attack the ferocious Tatars who were raiding across Chinese borders, Toghril and Genghis killed the Tatar chieftain – vengeance at last for Genghis’s father. The emperor made Toghril wang-khan (king-khan) and Genghis keeper of the frontier: both still recognized Jin authority. Genghis promised loyalty to Toghril: ‘Like a falcon I flew upon the mountain, for you I caught the blue-footed cranes.’

Massacring many Tatars, Genghis took two girls as concubines and captured a privileged, literate boy called Shigi, wearing a gold nose-ring and silken sash, whom he gave to his mother to bring up and who later became his chief judge. When the tribes elected Jamuqa as Gur (Universal) Khan to lead them against Toghril and Genghis, it became likely either Genghis or Jamuqa, boyhood pals, would end up as ruler of the steppe. In 1201, Jamuqa and his coalition of tribes attacked Temujin, who was backed by old Toghril. The Battle of the Thirteen Sides was so closely fought that their armies slept almost propping each other up. Genghis’s horse was shot, then he himself was hit in the neck by a poisoned arrow. Jelme rescued him, sucked out the poison, then crept across the battlefield to steal bean curd and water for him from the enemy camp. At dawn, Genghis recovered – ‘my eyes feel bright again’ – and recognized that Jelme had ‘saved my life thrice’.

After the victory was won, the archer who had shot his horse was brought before him, admitting what he had done. Remorseless yet empathetic, Genghis forgave him, granting him the name Arrow – Jebe – and adding, ‘I’ll use him as my arrow.’ Jebe would soon be one of his paladins.

Now the relationship between the old khan Toghril and young Genghis soured: when Genghis proposed marrying his son Jöchi to Toghril’s daughter, the king-khan refused, perhaps because Jöchi was not really Genghis’s son.

In 1203, Toghril joined forces with Jamuqa: ‘Let’s seize Temujin and kill him,’ they agreed, and hunted him down. Genghis only just escaped, but he noticed his son Ögodei was missing. When the boy was brought in, wounded by an arrow in the neck and hanging over his saddle bag, the khan wept. Vanishing into Transbaikal (Siberia), Genghis recovered, then re-emerged. At the Battle of the Burning Sands, he defeated the ailing Toghril, who fled and was beheaded.