A great kuriltai was convened at Karakorum to decide the Western Campaign that would finally fulfill the will of the Great Khan Chinggis. The great felt pavilions of the princely houses, the senior commanders, and the chiefs of the powerful clans ringed the plain, their banners snapping in the wind until the grasslands around Karakorum seemed buried beneath silk and horsehair.

  Batu had first attended a kuriltai not long after his father’s death, when the assembly met to confirm the enthronement of the present Great Khan, ?gedei. He had been eighteen, perhaps nineteen then—still little more than a youth, overawed, surrounded by men older than himself, burning with a mixture of pride and embarrassment.

  Ten years had passed since. He was no longer a mere youngster. His body was hardened, his will firm, his experience and confidence both well tested.

  Yet from the moment he arrived in Karakorum, nothing had gone smoothly. The neighboring ger had been pitched so close that there was no space to set his followers’ tents around his own. The servants had scrambled to rearrange everything, and by the time Batu managed to present himself at ?gedei’s great orda at the appointed hour, the feast had already begun.

  He offered his apologies to ?gedei and to the qatun, D?rgene, then took his seat. When he glanced down at his cup, a black horsehair floated on the surface.

  He grimaced involuntarily and asked the serving girl to bring another. He had heard that D?rgene, who governed Karakorum, was a wise woman and attentive to details, yet with so many guests packed into the city, mistakes and small oversights were inevitable. The hair might simply have blown in on a draft. Batu persuaded himself to accept that explanation.

  In such a fashion the kuriltai began—ill-omened in small ways. As Batu had expected, many voices spoke against allowing the House of Jochi to take sole charge of the Western Campaign. The Chagatai princes insisted that Chinggis Khan’s will was the will of the entire empire, and that such a vast expedition must be undertaken by all the houses together.

  If that argument was to be made, Batu had an answer of his own. The western lands had been given into Jochi’s hands by Chinggis himself, to govern and to guard. If they were to appeal to the Great Khan’s will, Jochi’s house could do so no less.

  Through it all, ?gedei sat listening to the exchange between Batu and the Chagatai princes with an oddly constant smile. That expression was what Batu could not fathom.

  Old Chagatai, Batu thought, would be about his father’s age had Jochi lived. They were clearly brothers. Even now Batu felt an echo of his father’s face when he looked at him.

  Suddenly ?gedei cut across the discussion.

  “Come now, you two, do not grow too heated. We have all drunk, and the night is late. Let us leave the rest for tomorrow. Elder brother, anger will not be kind to your health. Batu, humor your uncle and grant him this much.”

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  With a snort that said “very well, if you insist,” Chagatai tossed back his cup. “Ah, the Great Khan settles it with a single word,” the elder commanders murmured approvingly around the tent.

  Batu could not help tilting his head. As far as he could tell, he had been speaking calmly enough. The Chagatai men, too, had not seemed on the brink of real fury.

  It made little sense. Still, the matter would be resumed tomorrow. Batu forced himself to let the thoughts go and returned to his own ger.

  His steward was waiting at the entrance.

  “What is it?”

  “The water hole assigned to us…” The man bowed his head. “Someone has thrown horse dung into it.”

  “What?”

  Only then did Batu truly understand.

  They were not welcome here.

  Without warning, he remembered his father’s back—smaller than he had once seemed. Jochi had never spoken of it, but Batu had heard the stories from others: the slanders without cause, the quarrels with the House of Chagatai that had turned into open enmity. In the end, their grandfather had been forced to separate the brothers in body if not in blood—sending Jochi to the western lands, Chagatai to Transoxiana.

  From that time on, his father had kept his distance from Karakorum. He ignored summons from the Great Khan so often that Batu had worried for him. Then illness came. Soon after, Jochi was gone.

  So. That was how it was. The House of Chagatai meant to continue the quarrel.

  Batu felt something in his chest begin to splinter. Still, he straightened his shoulders and went with the steward to inspect the fouled water.

  Chagatai, too, found his thoughts returning to Batu’s face.

  Yes. There was a resemblance. When the young man smiled, the lines around his eyes would surely mirror those of his dead brother. He had become a fine man—clear, controlled in his speech, holding his ground without bluster. The strange tribes of the western steppe were said to be firmly in hand, and the Jochid ulus prospered under his rule.

  Even now, Chagatai could not bring himself to believe he had been wrong. One who did not carry Chinggis Khan’s blood should not stand and claim that blood as his.

  And yet… he no longer had the strength for the kind of fierce argument he had once waged with Jochi. His brother had been dead for many years. Whatever their father had been, they had been born of the same mother.

  That night Chagatai dreamed of his elder brother for the first time in a long while. In the dream, the two of them rode side by side, urging their horses across rolling green steppe, going wherever their hearts pleased.

  In D?rgene’s pavilion, ?gedei lay awake, remembering the exchange between Batu and Chagatai.

  Batu had grown more like his eldest brother. He spoke plainly, tried to lead the men around him, bore himself as one born to command. A leader’s cast was in his bones. Chagatai still insisted, stubborn as ever, that Jochi was no son of Chinggis. In truth, ?gedei had never cared much about that. Brother was brother.

  What mattered to him was this: for the first time in a long while, every eye in the tent had turned toward him as he stepped between the two and drew the quarrel to a close.

  How many times had he done the same—slipping between eldest and second brother, stilling their clash with a few well-chosen words? The part had settled into his flesh so deeply that he felt he could play it even in his sleep.

  Warm with that old, familiar sense of satisfaction, ?gedei drifted at last into slumber.