The Secret History of the Mongol Queens - Jack Weatherford [92]
Then Ismayil, posing as a friend and ally to both sides that he was working to turn against each other, approached the prince to warn him that he had lost favor with his uncle the khan. Ismayil reported to the prince that his uncle Manduul had learned the truth about the charges made by the dead servant; he knew that the prince was having an affair with his uncle’s wife. Not only had the khan turned against the boy, according to Ismayil, but he intended “to do evil” to the Golden Prince to prevent him from forcefully removing the old man.
The prince refused to believe Ismayil’s warning that his uncle could turn against him. Ismayil advised the prince to be cautious and to be watchful because someone was about to trick him. He told the gullible prince that “the proof” of his uncle’s anger would soon be on its way to him when a messenger would arrive from the khan. He said that the khan would send someone to question the boy’s loyalty and to trick him into saying something that could be used against him.
The allegations against the Golden Prince weighed heavily in the old khan’s mind. It seemed not to matter to him that his wife Yeke Qabar-tu may have betrayed him, but it deeply bothered him that the boy, whom he loved so much and whom he had made his heir, might have rebelled. “This is the second time that I have heard the charges,” he was quoted as saying. He began to reconsider the earlier statements made by the now dead servant against his “younger brother.”
“I myself am not in good health,” he reasoned. “I am without male descendants, and after I am dead, my queens and people will be his.” The charges, rumors, and conjecture churned in the khan’s mind. “Maybe they are true,” he speculated to those around him. The khan wondered if the boy was rushing too quickly ahead, as though he had already replaced the khan and need not respect him any longer. “It is bad that, starting now, he should have such excessive desires.”
Wavering in his opinions, the khan sent another person to talk to the young prince, to tell him that a second set of allegations had been made against him. The khan wanted his young heir to defend himself, reaffirm his loyalty, and remove the stain of the charges against him.
“The khan asks,” said the envoy, “what reasons do you have to be against me?”
The prince immediately remembered the warning of Ismayil that a messenger would come to trick him. The prince became highly tense and agitated, but in his confusion he did not know how to answer. Having always depended on his charisma and good luck to solve his problems and propel his interests, he had no education and no words with which to devise a strategy or argue his own case. The prince merely stared nervously at the messenger and said nothing.
The envoy reported back to the khan about the prince’s frantic state and that the prince refused to answer the chargers.
The khan accepted the silence as guilt, and he now convinced himself that he had been betrayed by the young prince. “It is like this, it is true that he has evil intentions towards me,” he said. The khan openly deliberated on the plight of the Mongol nation and the most appropriate action to preserve it. The khan considered the painful consequences for the nation if it had no khan. Yet, perhaps in confusing his own emotions toward the prince with the needs of the state, he concluded: “The people do not need a ruler like him.” The boy had strayed too far, too fast. “So saying, the khan became enraged.”
Since the days of his infancy when his great-great-grandmother Samur had saved him from the wrath of his grandfather Esen, flight had been the only response that the prince had learned in the face of grave danger. The Golden Prince heard about the khan’s anger, and without trying to explain his case or clarify his actions, he impulsively fled the royal camp in fear.
Ismayil waited, and then the khan came to him with his decision. He told Ismayil