The Secret History of the Mongol Queens - Jack Weatherford [77]
Esen remained suspicious of his grandmother and his daughter. Knowing that the boy remained in danger, Samur had the baby brought to her own ger. She was still a queen, the daughter of a Great Khan, the descendant of Genghis Khan, and the wife and mother of khans. Even her own grandson would not violate the sanctity of her ger.
In place of the boy, they substituted the infant daughter of a serving woman. This time, when the inspector returned to the mother’s ger and opened the baby’s clothing, he carefully examined the genitalia to make sure that there could be no deception or mistake. Again, he reported back to Esen that his grandchild was definitely a girl.
Such a trick may have temporarily preserved the boy’s life, but word of the deception quickly spread across the steppe, and in fulfillment of his worst suspicions, Esen learned the truth. Samur might be able to shelter and protect the boy for a while, but at her age she could not personally stand guard over him every moment of every day. Esen repeatedly tried to locate the boy and kidnap him through trickery without harming Samur.
Esen wrote to his grandmother and pleaded with her to surrender the baby to his men. She mocked her grandson for being afraid of an infant, his own grandson. “Do you already begin to fear,” she angrily wrote back to Esen, “that the boy when he grows up will take vengeance on you?”
On one occasion, she hid him inside an overturned pot over which she heaped dried dung. The intended fate of the heir became clear when the soldiers found another baby boy that they thought might be the child they wanted. After stripping him naked to ensure that this child was truly male, they wrapped a cord around his neck in order to strangle him without spilling any blood. At the last moment, the soldiers realized he was not Bayan Mongke and spared him but continued their hunt.
After three years of struggle and deceit, Samur knew that such defiance and clever ruses could not continue successfully for long, and now, probably somewhere in her eighties, she might, at any moment, be incapacitated or die, thereby leaving the child to face a nearly certain death. She also realized that her grandson Esen had become increasingly desperate and unpredictable in the bitter rage that he felt toward her clan. He had already broken so many ancient laws in the last few years and killed so many descendants of Genghis Khan that he might even strike directly at her.
In her final act of service to her nation and clan, Samur decided to send the three-year-old baby far away from the area controlled by her grandson and entrust him to loyal Mongols for safekeeping. Such a plan posed grave danger. Even if the child survived the escape and the long journey, who could be certain what fate might await him on the other side of the Mongol nation?
A group of men loyal to the family of Genghis Khan, or at least seeing a route to future honor and riches, agreed to spirit away the boy under the leadership of a commander who had entered Esen’s service at age thirteen but felt unappreciated for his many military achievements.
After hearing of the flight, Esen became angry but sensed the excellent opportunity to finally capture the child. He sent out a new squad, and soon the pursuers overtook the men fleeing with the infant. In a free-for-all skirmish over control of Bayan Mongke, the two sides began shooting at one another. In an effort to protect the baby or to confuse the pursuers, the men carrying him tied him tightly in his cradle and hid him.
For whoever captured him, the infant heir constituted