Daughter of Xanadu - Dori Jones Yang [94]
“The sun rises each day, even after we have lost a loved one,” she said.
So she knew of my suffering. I looked away. Suren had been her grandson, but she could not possibly feel his loss as deeply as I did. Still, I appreciated her compassion. We rode on in silence.
“In a few days,” she said after a while, “the young emperor of China will arrive in Khanbalik, with his mother and grandmother.”
“Will they be executed immediately?”
The Empress gazed into the blue sky. “That decision is up to the Great Khan. I have spoken to him about this matter. I hope he will change his mind and not kill them.”
I couldn’t believe her words. “But they resisted our troops for so many years. Thousands of our soldiers died. Won’t the Khan need to punish them?”
“The boy emperor had no part in these decisions. His grandmother, the Empress Dowager, chose to spare the lives of her people by surrendering without a fight.”
“But … won’t our people insist on an execution, to celebrate our victory?”
Chabi sighed. “One day, our dynasty, too, will come to an end. How would you want our descendants to be treated?”
It had never occurred to me that our dynasty would come to an end. We Mongols, the strongest and the best, ruled the world because Tengri had decreed we should. The Khan’s destiny was to complete this conquest. How could his empress even imagine the day when Mongol rule would end?
“The Khan seems to like foreigners,” I said. “That worries many men at court.”
The Empress sighed and looked to the horizon again, her bulky body swaying gently with the amble of her horse. “Many men at court do not understand the Great Khan. I knew him as a young man. He was as impetuous and battle-hungry as the next warrior. Like you, he killed many enemies in battle. But over the years, he has developed a different way of thinking.”
It was hard to imagine my grandfather as a young man. I had always known him as old and fat, barely able to walk.
“Yesterday’s enemies are today’s subjects,” she continued. “Some of them have years of accumulated wisdom, stored in scrolls. Some have centuries-old religions, ways of understanding Eternal Heaven that go beyond our Mongol lore. That is why the Khan invites men of different religions to debate in front of him. He believes men from every country have wisdom to offer.”
“Some say …,” I dared to interrupt, almost afraid to speak yet not willing to remain silent. “Some say he has become too … too much like the Chinese.”
Chabi laughed. “Yet he has killed more Chinese than most Mongols. As he ages, the Great Khan is not more Chinese, but wiser. He is not rejecting his Mongol heritage but expanding upon it. He has allowed the Chinese to return to farming, instead of taking over their land for pasture. He has stored excess grain for famine years.”
I had never thought of the Great Khan as benevolent.
“The Great Khan no longer sees the world as a conflict between Mongols and foreigners, us against them. He can already envision a world at peace, unified under one ruler. Eternal Heaven has granted the Mongols a mandate to rule the entire world. Should not we use all the wisdom Heaven has given the world?”
I was struck dumb. This vision was much wiser and far-reaching than any I had imagined. Since his youth, the Khan had changed and grown in his thinking. I suspected that Chabi had influenced him.
“So one can be loyal to the Khan,” I said, “to our Mongol heritage and our right to rule forever, and still …” Love a foreigner, I wanted to say but did not dare. She would be shocked to know of my love for Marco. “And still respect foreigners?”
“Absolutely,” said my grandmother. “To be loyal to all humankind does not mean giving up your loyalty to your people.”
I rode in silence awhile, trying to understand. In my experience, loyalty to my people directly contradicted this wider vision of compassion for others. These ideas were grand and