With a sickening jolt, Chagatai’s horse had its leg broken by a berserk warrior standing at Jochi’s side. The animal went down sideways and Chagatai could not free his legs from the stirrups. He screamed as his shin snapped and almost passed out from the pain. He felt his sword kicked roughly away from his hand and, when he looked up, Jochi was standing there, a terrible triumph on his face.

Chagatai’s tuman howled as they saw him go down. They lost all caution then, hacking at the last of Jochi’s men in berserk fury.

Jochi could feel his spattering blood leeching out his strength. He struggled to bring his sword up as he stared into Chagatai’s eyes. He did not speak as he chopped it down. He did not feel the arrow that took him in the chest, spinning him around before the blow could land. His awareness drained away and he did not know if he had killed the brother who wanted so desperately to kill him.

Chagatai yelled fresh orders and, if anything, the fighting intensified as more and more of Jochi’s tuman flooded in. The fighting continued and hundreds died to revenge their fallen general, or save him. They did not know. A knot of Jochi’s men broke free with his flopping body held between them, the arrow still sticking out. As they pulled back, senior men blew the signal to disengage on both sides.

Snarling and in pain, the tumans wrenched apart and at last there was clear ground between them. Minghaan officers bullied and kicked their men away, using their sword hilts to knock down more than one who tried to dart around them. The chain of command reclaimed them and each jagun of a hundred, each arban of ten had its officer growling at the men to hold.

The tumans stood panting, aghast at the dead and what they had done. The name of Genghis could be heard in whispers and every man there feared what would happen when the khan heard. No one moved while Jochi was checked by his men, then a ragged cheer echoed across the bowl of hills. The arrow had not penetrated his armour. He lived yet, and when Chagatai heard he spat on the ground in fury at the luck that followed the rape-born whelp. He endured his leg being splinted with a shard from a broken lance, biting his lip as the swollen flesh was bound to wood in three places between knee and ankle. His men helped him to mount and they echoed the cheer to see him alive, though it was muted and echoed in fear. The battle had been won and now they would leave the bowl of hills together, a blood feud begun that could only be bled or burned to see an end to it.

In the night, Chakahai walked her grey pony through dark streets, with darker men riding beside her. The air was warmer in the city than in the camp, as if the stones of the street kept the heat to breathe it out slowly in darkness. It was easy to be fanciful as she made her way to the palace on a hill, where Genghis waited for her. The city was full of birds, murmuring on every ledge and rooftop. She wondered if they had been disturbed by the movement of soldiers, or always came to sit on the warm tiles of Samarkand. For all she knew, it was a benign, natural thing, but she felt uncomfortable at their presence and could hear fluttering wings overhead.

Away on her right, a woman cried out, unseen. She could see the dim glow of torches as warriors without wives went to the racetrack and took young girls from the arms of their fathers and husbands, leaving the rest for Genghis’ judgement the following dawn. Chakahai winced at the thought, feeling for those who could expect rough hands in the dark. She had lived among the Mongols for many years and found much to love in the people of the sea of grass. Yet they still took women from those they conquered and thought nothing of it. She sighed to herself as she reached the broken wall that gave onto perfumed gardens. It was the tragedy of women to be lusted after and stolen in the night. It happened in her father’s kingdom, in Chin lands and Arab. Her husband saw nothing wrong in the practice, saying that raids for women kept his men sharp. Chakahai shuddered to herself as if a sudden chill touched her bare arms.

She could smell death over the scent of flowers in the shah’s gardens. Bodies still lay in huge piles by the wall, already beginning to corrupt in the heat. The air there seemed boiled and old and could not refresh her as she breathed through her nose and tried not to think of the staring eyes of corpses. The odour carried disease, she knew. In the morning, she would make sure Temuge had them taken away and burned before some plague ripped through her husband’s army.

With the armed guards, her horse walked carefully up wide steps designed for men to the palace that loomed blackly on the crest of the hill. As she went, she mulled the question Genghis had asked and what it could mean. She did not understand it and could not shake a sick feeling in her stomach as a result. Surely Kokchu would not be there when she spoke to her husband. If he was, she would ask to see Genghis in private. The thought of the shaman’s fierce eyes boring into her made her illness worse. She sighed, wondering if she was pregnant again, or whether it was just the result of so much grief and anger around her for so long.

Her friend Yao Shu was no great hand with medicine, but he knew the principles of rebalancing. Chakahai resolved to seek him out when she returned to the camp. The Mongols did not seek inner peace and she thought the concentration on violence and hot blood was dangerous to maintain for long periods. There had to be rest and calm, though they knew nothing of the teachings of the Buddha.

Chakahai dismounted as the steps opened into a walled courtyard. Her guards handed her over to others waiting there and Chakahai followed them through dark corridors, wondering why no one had bothered to light the lamps she saw. Truly, her husband’s race were a strange people. The moon rose outside, casting a grey light through the high arched windows, so that at times she felt like a ghost walking with dead men. She could still smell the corpses on the sluggish air and struggled to remain calm.

Chakahai found Genghis on a throne in a great vault of a room. Though she wore soft slippers, her steps still echoed like whispers on all sides. The guards remained at the doors and she approached her husband, looking nervously around for sign of his shaman.

Genghis was alone in the shah’s throne room, staring out over the city revealed to him through a great arch. The moon made Samarkand look like an intricate model, stretching away in all directions.

Chakahai followed his gaze and stood for a time in silence, drinking it in. Her father had ruled from such a palace and the view brought a surprisingly powerful pang of nostalgia. No doubt her husband would move on soon and she would return to a life in the gers, but here, for a time, she could remember the peace and beauty of a great palace and forget the dead who littered the ground around it.

‘I am here, husband,’ Chakahai said at last.

Genghis turned to her, stirring from his reverie.

‘Have you seen?’ he said, gesturing to the moonlit city. ‘It is very beautiful.’

Chakahai smiled and nodded.

‘It reminds me a little of the Xi Xia and my father’s capital.’

Genghis nodded, but she could see he was troubled, his mind barely with her.

‘You sent a man to ask me a question,’ Chakahai prompted.

Genghis sighed, putting away his thoughts on the future. The day had begun so well, but it had ended with Jochi and Chagatai fighting in front of the men, ripping wounds in his army that even he would struggle to close. He turned weary eyes on his second wife.

‘I did. We are alone here,’ he said. Chakahai glanced at the guards still standing on the edges of the room, but Genghis did not seem aware of them as he went on. ‘Tell me why you cannot look on Kokchu without thinking of my sister. What did you mean by that?’