Chapter 1 - A Gift to the Great Khan

“You see before your eyes Xanadu, Princess Altani,” the Captain of Five Hundred said, proudly, as we rode side by side over the low ridgeline, pausing a little after the crest to gaze down into the great valley before us. The Great Khan’s Summer Palace, Xanadu, lay spread below, vast beyond anything I had imagined. My escort, my guards, they reined in behind us as I halted, shielding my eyes from the red-gold glare of the setting sun reflected from the gilded roofs. There, before me, was my destination. My fate.

Xanadu.

That was the name the Captain of my escort used for this sprawling city of stone built around that great Palace and the verdant park enclosed within those inner walls that I could see even from here. Shangdu. 上都. That was the name used by the Han for this place. My people, the Hu, we whom the Han named Xiongnu and the Mongols called Hunnu and others called Hun, to us this was the City of Stone, for my people had no cities, no buildings.

We were people of the steppe, our homes our yurts, our beds the ground, our roof the blue sky. People of the Wolf, we called ourselves, for we were wolves. Wolves of the plains, the great steppe that went on without end. But I, I was to be a wolf of the plains no longer.

I had been sent as a gift to the Great Khan, the Khagan, here in his Summer Palace.

His Xanadu. His Shangdu. His City of Stone.

Call it what you will, this great city constructed from the bones of the earth loomed before my eyes as we rode towards it at a fast trot, for dusk came down fast and we were at the end of our long journey. This night, this night that I had feared and dreaded over all these long weeks of travel, this night I would find myself within this city of Xanadu, no more travelling across the steppe and of that I was almost glad, for winter was falling fast. Snow lay sprinkled thinly on the ground now, white on the brown autumn grass and Xiongnu though I was and inured to hardship, winter is no time to be riding across the great steppe.

Xanadu.

This was that city to which I was dispatched. I, my father’s only daughter, gifted as a concubine to the Khagan. The Great Khan, ruler of all the steppe tribes, ruler now too of the great empire of the Han, for the Han had fallen in defeat as had my own people a generation ago. Slaves, all were slaves to the Great Khan and though we Hu were of the steppe, my people had not escaped that fate. The Mongols had defeated us and I, I who was a Princess who fate might have destined to rule, now I was a mere gift.

Gifted to the Great Khan by a fool. I, a princess of the Hu, we that the Han named the Xiongnu and the Mongols named Hunnu and others called Hun. Bitter were my thoughts as I gazed down on those great walls of stone. Walls that stretched high and impassable across the grassland before me as we rode towards great wooden gates set in a fortress-like tower, one of half a dozen great towers that I could see.

Although my thoughts in that moment were bitter, I rode on without hesitation, my escorts on their shaggy steppe horses following in a long column for bitter though I was, I would show no fear. I would ride into this City of Stone, this Xanadu, this Shangdu, at the head of my escort, proudly riding beside the Captain of Five Hundred. I would ride at the front of my escort, not dragged or carried in as if I were reluctant, unwilling, forced.

I would not enter this city as a prisoner. I would enter as a Princess of the Xiongnu, leading my escort, fearing no-one, riding my great black stallion, my sword at my side, my bow in its leather case before me, my arrows slung across my back in their leather quiver, my steel-tipped spear in my hand.

I would ride into this City of Stone on my stallion, woman though I was, for I was no effete Han girl to be carried in a palanquin or to ride seated in a cart as the Mongol women were carried. I would ride, or I would walk on my own feet, for I was Xiongnu and in that knowledge there was pride as merchants and peasants drew aside to give us passage, turning their heads to gaze after me. Pride that turned to anger as Jiang Shunfu kicked his gelding ahead of me on the stone road, and the bearers of the palanquin that had travelled with us from the start jogged at his tail.

“Woman, you must take your place in the palanquin. It is unseemly that a woman of the Khagan’s should ride into Shangdu seated on a horse and carrying weapons.” Jiang Shunfu ignored my rank, my title, as he had ignored my rank and my title from the very start of this long journey.

He eyed my great black stallion askance, as he had eyed Aranjagaan askance from the moment I had been given over to his authority. He knew my title. He knew I was daughter of the old Chanyu. He knew my name. He knew Aranjagaan was a part of me for we were inseparable, as inseparable as a mother with her child. He knew all of that, and yet Jiang Shunfu showed no respect for me and I, I had showed none to him before and I would give him no respect or obedience now.

Jiang Shunfu.

How I cursed that name.

How I cursed my older brother’s name.

My older brother, now Chanyu, the ruler of our people. It was he who had sent me to the Khagan as a gift. Sent me out of fear, for with a husband at my side, all Hu knew in their hearts that I would be a far more capable ruler than my older brother, the fool. Thus, when this minor emissary of the Khagan, the Great Khan of the Mongol overlords, had arrived with a Han “princess” gifted to my brother as a wife, the fool had seen his opportunity to rid himself of the threat I posed to him.

Publicly, before all, he had gifted me to the Khagan in return.

“I am handing over to your protection my sister, the Princess Altani, as a gift to the Khagan.” Those were my cursed brother’s words to Jiang Shunfu, the Han emissary, but that twist of his lips, that malevolent smirk, that had been for me. A gift. A concubine. Not given even as a minor wife, but as a gift and a concubine; and the insult in his words brought a flooding rage and I would have killed my brother there, on the spot, but for his guards. There had been too many of them and my bloodlust had gone unquenched.

My brother had not been fool enough to stay and provide me with any further opportunity. Before the sun had set on that inauspicious day, my people were on the move, that pitiful Han “princess”, beautiful enough to please my brother but more than likely only some minor noble’s daughter who would forever weaken the bloodline of my father, carried weeping and wailing across the steppe.

“Curse that motherless fool,” were my parting words as the dust of my people clouded the horizon.

The Captain of Five Hundred had understood enough to chuckle. In my heart, I was well aware that no doubt the Khagan’s servant, this Jiang Shanfu, had another motive for separating me from my people for the Han was observant.

He had made his own assessment of my fool of a brother, of that I was sure. Perhaps he had made an accurate assessment of me, perhaps not, for women were of little regard to the Han. It mattered not, I was more than certain he had determined my older brother was a fool, and a fool leading the Xiongnu, that would serve the Khagan’s purpose well. Subtle indeed were the ways of the Khagan’s Han advisers and servants and in the end it made no difference to my fate.

Once gifted to the Great Khan, that gifting could not be undone, and Jiang Shunfu came with an escort of five hundred Mongol warriors commanded by their Captain. Only a fool would resist, only a fool would flee; and I, I was no fool. I knew, as my brother well knew that I knew, any resistance on my part, a call to those warriors loyal to me, and there were many; that would bring the wrath of the Great Khan down on the Xiongnu now that I had been gifted.

And so, cursing myself for not having foreseen the cunning of the fool and making myself absent, I sat my great black stallion, Aranjagaan, watching my people depart. Not a few of them glanced over their shoulders at me as they rode, and I promised myself to remember those faces, to remember who was yet loyal to me.

Weeks of riding had followed, endless league upon league across the great steppe, threading the high mountain passes, crossing the vast desert of the singing winds, the endless desolation where nothing lived and there was only sand and rock and more sand. I endured the long days, the freezing nights, the sudden sandstorms, drinking the brackish water from wells and oasis pools, struggling over the endless dunes, enduring the burning heat that I prayed would boil Jiang Shunfu’s brains within his misshapen skull and always, always I had ridden my great black stallion. Ridden when the Mongols had ridden. Lead my horse when they had lead theirs, walked when they had walked.

Never showing weakness. Never.

I was Xiongnu, and to weaken was to lose honor. Twas better to die than to lose honor.

“Keep your people’s ways to yourself, Han.” I had scorned Jiang Shunfu when he had thought to place me in a tent identical to his own on that first night, with guards at every corner as if he feared that his companions would kill him in his sleep. What use were those guards then? Who did he distrust? I knew not, and I cared not.

I had laughed in his face as I displayed my trust in my escort from the very first, placing my bedroll alongside the warriors who now guarded me as my father’s warriors had once guarded me. Sleeping on the ground as they did, warmed by the bodies of the men to either side of me for I was no Han, unused to hardship. Brushing the frost or the early snow from my covering in the morning, for winter was closing in now.

Out there on the great grasslands, my people, the Hu, the Hun, the Hunnu, the Xiongnu, call them what you will, they would be camped in sheltered valleys, feasting, singing our songs of courage and victory and glorious death in raids and in battle and of the stealing of Mongol and Tatar women and of the feuds that had gone on for generation after generation.

None here would have the temerity to attempt my virtue, close to them as I lay, for I was gifted to the Khagan. It would not have mattered if any had made the attempt. My knife would have ripped the throat out of any who attempted such an act, as I had ripped the throat from men of my own people before for such offences against me, smiling as their blood spurted onto the grass while my father laughed and praised his only daughter’s skill with weapons. My brother had had good reason to dispatch me thus, for assuredly his blood would very soon have fertilized the grasslands if I had remained with my people.

The Captain of Five Hundred had chuckled at Jiang Shunfu’s outraged protests. Chuckled, and silenced him with a look and a hand to the hilt of his sword, for all knew who were the masters and who were the servants in this great Khanate of the Khagan’s. The Captain of Five Hundred knew well that no warrior of his would dare touch me, for I was gifted to the Khagan, whether the Khagan knew or not; and I would come to the Khagan with my virtue intact.

I had laughed at that Han woman who thought he was a man as I rode my horse through the autumn snow, scorning the meals that the Han’s cook prepared. Instead, I took my food from the iron pots my guards shared, eating as they ate, drinking milk, hot and fresh from the teats of the mares, guided to my mouth by my own hands, drinking mare’s blood, thin and hot and fresh, my lips pressed to the pulsing neck vein as I sucked at the nourishing blood, staining my lips redder than any artifice those fragile and timid Han girls used to tempt men.

Smiling with those reddened lips at Jiang Shunfu, smiling as he recoiled in horror, smiling as I tore at the dried meat with my pearl white teeth while we rode, and in the evenings I wrestled with the men, as I had wrestled with my father’s warriors. Never did I win, for they were men and they were warriors; but often I forced them to exert all their strength and skill before I was defeated; and the Captain of Five Hundred oft silenced Jiang Shunfu’s incessant whining with a single gesture of his hand when his voice was raised yet again in protest.

“This must stop, it is unseemly for this woman to fight men.”

This as I gave Arslan a butt to his nose with my forehead that had the hot blood spurting onto my face and his, and in this I had an advantage, for none of these warriors would risk the wrath of their Captain or of the Great Khan by inflicting permanent damage on me. An advantage that I shamelessly used, and they knew it.

They knew it, and they knew that I knew, and they laughed, for my bravery and my skill and deceit at the wrestling and my skill and unerring speed and accuracy with the sword and at the archery won their admiration. Their admiration, but not their loyalty. They would kill me in a moment if the Captain of Five Hundred ordered it so, for these men were hand-picked men of the Khagan’s, loyal only to him. Loyal by blood and by oaths sworn; but I, I was gifted to the Khagan, the Great Khan, and their duty for now was to guard me. I had their admiration, they knew their duty well, and I was as safe with them as their own sisters would have been. Safer perhaps than their sisters, for they were, after all, Mongols.

“She is of the Hunnu, the Hu, the Xiongnu, the People of the Wolf, Han.” The Captain of Five Hundred deigned to respond. “She is of the Xiongnu, she is trained as all the Xiongnu women are, to fight as a warrior would fight, and she is a gift to the Khagan. We will deliver her to the Khagan as she is,” and the Captain was smiling as I took Arslan with a kick to the head that staggered him backwards and a second that almost took him down.

He recovered, he closed with a sudden rush, ignoring my knee and elbow strikes as I attempted to strike him to the ground where I should have danced backwards, and I cursed myself for my overconfidence when he grappled with me even as I doubled him over with a knee strike to his guts and an elbow to the back of his head. Despite those blows, he managed to fling me to the ground so that the blood burst from my own nose and I saw the stars even though the darkness of night had not yet fallen on the great grasslands.

“I give you best, Arslan,” I groaned, lying there watching the stars circle as he pushed himself to his hands and knees while I still lay there and he took my hand and pulled me to my feet and almost I fell and I would have had he not supported me.

“Almost she took you, Arslan,” Basan laughed, standing, taking my other arm. “Sit here, Princess.” For these Mongol warriors, they gave me honor and respect where the Han did not. “A bucket of water is coming. The shaman brings the tea for the bleeding.”

“Unseemly,” Jiang Shunfu hissed, making no pretense that his words were not meant to be heard and my sword hand itched to hew his ugly head from his scrawny shoulders. *** And so the days and the weeks had passed, riding, always riding, east towards this fabled Xanadu of the Khagan’s. Now I was here at last. Seated on my great black stallion, gazing at the stone walls of this Xanadu. The sun was low in the sky, a great red ball of fire sinking towards the distant horizon and those walls of stone now loomed before my eyes, my long journey nigh over and once through those gates, I would be fortunate ever to leave.

My heart quailed, my anger at my fate grew, and before me, his gelding blocking my path, Jiang Shunfu was insistent. No doubt he felt that here, at the very gates of Xanadu, about to enter the city of the Khagan, the man to whom my brother had given me as a gift, whose concubine I was destined to be, he could force his will on me where he could not do so on the endless steppe.

“Dismount and seat yourself in your palanquin, woman.” He raised his voice as none but my father had ever dared raise their voice to me. “Or I will have you punished.”

He smiled and that smile was that same smile worn by a thousand such Han emissaries as they worked their sly tricks on my people. As they worked their “diplomacy,” playing one tribe, one clan against the other. As this Jiang Shunfu had played my brother for a fool. Or perhaps not.

Perhaps he was aware of the danger I represented, but if he was, then more fool him for threatening me here and now where I sat Aranjagaan still with spear in my hand, sword at my waist, bow in its bow case slung from my saddle, for no man other than my father or my husband would punish me, and the cold anger rose within me for there would be no husband now.

A gift, that was all I was.

A gift, I was destined to be a mere concubine. That was what I was and this Jiang Shunfu, if I could not have my brother’s head, I could have his.

My Mongol escort sat their horses impassively, their commander, the Captain of Five Hundred, saying not a word, sitting unblinking as his eyes met mine and there was no clue there as to his thoughts for he wore the cold face and perhaps that was a clue in itself. Perhaps. Dare I? I looked at Jiang Shunfu, considering him, and then I spat on the ground at the feet of his horse.

A horse? A gelding. A horse for a slave-woman, or a man who was a woman.

A sham of a horse for a sham of a man such as this Jiang Shunfu was.

“I am the daughter of the Chanyu of the Xiongnu. I am to be concubine to the Khagan. I am not to be commanded by some effete Han whose hands have never held a sword or a spear or drawn a bow.”

“Woman, you are about to enter Xanadu. You will do as you are commanded, or it will be the worse for you.”

I shrugged. The Captain of Five Hundred watched, unblinking, waiting, but I knew these Mongols. In the past my people had fought them and often we had defeated them, as at times they had defeated us in the raids and warfare of the steppe tribes. Now we were ruled by them, but this Captain, he and I we knew each other, as we both knew the Han, and I was no Han. I was no servant to be commanded by this woman in men’s clothing. This rider of a gelded horse that a child of the Xiongnu would be ashamed to be seen on.

My name was Altani.

I was a princess of the Hu, the Hunnu, the Xiongnu. A princess of warriors, trained in the ways of war. Trained to kill men, and my hand itched to wield my spear even as horsemen rode up from behind us, a hunting party, parting the merchants and the tradespeople and the laborers on the road before them as if they were water.

“Wait, Princess.” The Captain of Five Hundred did not move, but he knew me as I knew him and in that moment I knew he would not have objected but for this interruption. His voice was flat and this fool of a Han had no idea how close to death he was.

“What is this?” The voice at my back was harsh.

A voice such as my father, the Chanyu Attila, had once had before the sickness took him. Harsh. Commanding. A voice to be listened to and obeyed instantly. Before me, the Captain of Five Hundred and all his men instantly bowed low over the necks of their horses whilst the bearers of that thrice-cursed palanquin flung themselves on their faces, heedless of the snow and the ice and the mud.

Before my eyes, this Han woman who thought he was a man half fell from his gelding to prostrate himself in the snow and mud beside the road of stone leading towards those great gates. I did not take my eyes from the Han but my hand moved to grip my spear the better to drive it through the Han and the blood-rage filled me as I looked down on him considering where best to pin him through as I would have pinned the misshapen frog he resembled.

“Who are you, woman, who considers the death of my servant so eagerly?” that harsh voice said, curious now. Forcing the blood-rage back, I turned my head. I looked.

“Bow to the Khagan, Princess,” the Captain of Five Hundred hissed, his face next to his horse’s mane.

“I am Altani, Princess of the Xiongnu and sent by my brother, the Chanyu, as a gift and as a concubine to the Khagan,” I said. Only then did I bow my head, to the same degree as the Captain of Five Hundred and his men. “And this woman in men’s clothing on the ground before us has insulted me.”

Around us, nobody moved. Nobody. It was as if the very air had turned to ice.

“If your brother is now the Chanyu, your father, the Chanyu Attila must now be dead, Princess Altani,” the Khagan said. “And that is news to me, but first, Chingay, we will discuss this insult.” The Captain of Five Hundred. Chingay. In all those weeks and months of travel, he had never revealed to me his name, and out of his armies, his men in the hundreds of thousands, the Khagan knew his name. “We will also discuss why a Princess of the Xiongnu who is sister to the Chanyu, and a daughter of the Chanyu Attila, is sent only as a concubine and a gift.”

“Lord.” The Captain of Five Hundred sat upright and while the Khagan’s attention was on him, I ran my eyes over this Khagan, this feared ruler of the steppe peoples and of the Han, and, too, ruler of my own people, seated on his horse.

This man, he was my destiny whether I chose or not. My fate, my life, my future was in his hands, and I eyed him with, yes, both curiosity and fear, for it was wise for all men and women to fear the Khagan; and my brother the fool had gifted me to this man. This ruler of all.

“Who is this?” the Khagan said, eyeing Jiang Shunfu, prostrate in the snow and icy mud.

“One of your bureaucrats, Lord,” Chingay said, and he spoke as a warrior of the Xiongnu would have spoken to my father. Forthrightly, but with respect.

I knew now what manner of man this ruler of these Mongols was. What manner of man this Khagan was. A man such as my father had been before he had sickened. A man such as this, a ruler such as this, there was no dishonor in this for me as a concubine, but even for him I would not swallow my pride, for I was Xiongnu, and honor and pride were everything. Without honor, without pride, I was nothing. Less than nothing.

“A servant who was sent to deal with the Xiongnu in the past. We were detailed to escort a bride to the Chanyu, as has been the custom of these Han. The Council in their wisdom decided to continue the custom. A woman was sent. When we arrived, the old Chanyu was dead and a new one had been acclaimed. The women was given to him, for the decision said nothing of which Chanyu and it was of no great importance.”

“Ah. Yes. I recall the decision. And this one?” The Khagan glanced at me, but my face was the cold face, the stone face, giving away nothing.

“Her brother, the new Chanyu, sent her to you, Lord.” Chingay allowed a chuckle to escape. “Her brother feared her. He is a fool, Lord, but not that much of a fool for she would have made a better Chanyu than he by far. He offered her as a gift to you to rid himself of her and insult her.”

My eyes regarded the Captain of Five Hundred in a new light. He played no second fiddle to Jiang Shunfu, this Chingay.

“Is that so?” the Khagan said, eying me now, and I looked back, my eyes meeting his, giving him the cold face, for I was Xiongnu and no whimpering Han lapdog, and this Chingay, this Captain of Five Hundred, he was correct. My brother was a fool, but not enough of a fool to allow me to remain with our people if he wished to continue to draw breath.

Now I smiled and I spoke, unbidden but with respect. “He would not have lasted the winter, Lord, and there would then have been a Chanyu who required no Han princess for her amusement.”

“Still, you are here, Altani, Princess of the Xiongnu, and your brother’s gift is acceptable in my eyes.” The Khagan was amused.

“The Han?” Chingay asked, his voice flat, his face the cold face as I glanced at him, and I did not smile, but I knew the Han, this Jiang Shunfu, he had no friend in Chingay and my heart warmed.

“An insult to a concubine of the Khagan is as an insult to the Khagan himself,” the Khagan said at last, and his face was the stone face, the cold face, as was mine. “Princess Altani of the Xiongnu, you may do with my servant as you believe an insult to the Khagan deserves.”