The Secret History of the Mongol Queens - Jack Weatherford [90]
The European historian Edward Gibbon, who evidenced little respect for any of the steppe tribes, described the Mongol homes and their habits with ostentatious contempt. “The houses of the Tartars are no more than small tents, of an oval form, which afford a cold and dirty habitation for the promiscuous youth of both sexes.”
The sexual and political dynamics of Manduul’s court produced much confused commentary and speculation. Initially the senior khan seemed infatuated with his young heir and refused to see anything wrong in what he did. Bayan Mongke seemed eager to please the khan and keep his support. As a child whose survival often depended on ingratiating himself to more powerful people around him, Bayan Mongke understood the importance of this role.
Bayan Mongke may have been inexperienced in warfare and international diplomacy with the Chinese court, but he understood the dynamics of the Mongol court. His hold on power in the short term derived from pleasing his uncle, but in the long term it depended on the favor of Manduhai or Yeke Qabar-tu, since as the heir he had to marry one of them, preferably the senior wife, to become khan after his uncle died. It behooved him to cultivate favor with one of them now, but it was a dangerous path in controlling precisely how far the relationship should go while the old khan still lived.
Manduhai had no reason to like or trust the young prince. He had essentially replaced her at court. Her husband confided in the prince, not in her. Her husband lavished gifts and power on him and had made the young prince co-ruler, a position that should have gone to the younger and heretofore favored wife. The dashing prince in his golden robes and belt on his chestnut horse attracted everyone’s attention, and those around her pushed her toward an amicable relationship with him in the hope that she might eventually marry him and produce heirs with him.
Manduhai’s misgivings about the young prince were shared by General Une-Bolod. The prince had replaced Une-Bolod as the heir. A political alliance can be made on a mutual attraction, but it can just as easily be made on a shared antipathy. Because the young prince’s presence threatened both of them, Manduhai and Une-Bolod had a natural alliance in their dislike of him. Soon, gossip linked the two romantically as well.
General Une-Bolod was a descendant of Genghis Khan’s younger brother Khasar. The lineage of Genghis Khan and the lineage of Khasar had perpetuated the sibling rivalries of the two brothers. The two branches of the family usually worked closely and amicably together, but occasionally the relationships ruptured out of antagonism into hostility. The descendants of Khasar never forgot that he was a better marksman with a bow and arrow, and they repeatedly complained about the lack of credit and material reward for their ancestor’s role in creating the empire and for the family’s continuing contribution to the nation through the rise and fall of the centuries.
Manduul’s unwillingness to trust Une-Bolod completely was based in a two-hundred-year-old dysfunctional relationship between the two lineages within the Borijin clan. Genghis Khan and his descendants frequently suspected Khasar’s line of plotting against them and of being so envious that they might betray them and try to seize the office of Great Khan. Aside from the direct competition between Genghis Khan and Khasar, rumors of amorous rivalry and adulterous betrayal also plagued them. Genghis Khan heard repeated reports of an affair between his main wife, Borte, and his brother