Zaya awoke to the murmur of voices.

  Inside the cramped tent, cooking pots were lined up along the walls. Water skins and leather bags of kumis hung from the poles, and baskets were stacked one atop another.

  “This one’s good. All right, put that over here.”

  Her grandmother tasted the food as she spoke, directing where each dish and drink brought in by Boraqchin’s attendants should be placed. The tent was overflowing with food.

  “The queen wishes this porridge to be eaten while it’s still warm,” said another attendant, arriving with a steaming pot.

  “Now hold on,” her grandmother cried. “There’s no way anyone could eat all this. Go tell Her Majesty to come back to her senses.”

  Zaya pulled the blanket up to her nose and stifled a laugh. Her foster mother’s excessive worry was both absurd and deeply touching, and her eyes burned with sudden warmth.

  Batu had been conferring with his senior commanders, Subutai among them, discussing troop placement, weapons, and strategies for each city. When one of Boraqchin’s attendants reported that Zaya had awakened and was recovering, Batu finally allowed himself to relax.

  Tea and sweets were set out on the table. As he raised his cup, Batu spoke to Subutai.

  “Thank you for bringing back the women and children.”

  Subutai waved a hand dismissively.

  “Those who attacked us left us no choice. But those who did not resist—I did not know how you would wish them handled.”

  “If they were dead,” Batu said calmly, “they would be nothing more than food for birds. Alive, they may be put to work as servants, sold as slaves, or given as gifts.”

  Subutai fell silent, thinking. Batu’s way of thinking was not the Empire’s way. The Empire killed what it could kill and destroyed what it could destroy. That had always been its method.

  Then Subutai realized that Batu’s thinking was not so far from his own, and he began to speak of the past.

  “When I was young, I joined Chinggis Khan’s army with my older brother. He was a far better warrior than I ever was. But he died. After that… even I began to find war somehow empty.”

  Batu studied Subutai’s face. The man’s life had been nothing but battle after battle. Even now, he was an active general preparing to march west.

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  “So I began to think,” Subutai continued, “that war should be ended as quickly as possible.”

  Batu felt he understood what Subutai was trying to say.

  “Losses are inevitable,” Subutai said. “But losing a thousand men and losing ten are not the same. If the enemy can be made to realize defeat quickly, the war will end quickly.”

  Bitter memories surfaced in Subutai’s mind—of the fall of the Jin dynasty, which had refused to accept defeat and continued fighting at terrible cost to both sides.

  Even after the king’s head had been cut off and displayed, the pale faces of the people revealed nothing. There was no peace of mind. He had believed them to be a people who would fight until every last one was dead.

  But Yelü Chucai—once a high official of Jin—had said otherwise.

  The Jurchen, he explained, were loyal to their king. Without a king, governance became easier.

  So Subutai had eradicated the Jin imperial family. Yet he could not be certain that none had escaped. If even one remained, they would raise another king and become a threat to the Empire once more. No claimant had yet appeared, but if one did, Subutai knew his task would not be finished until that bloodline was extinguished.

  “I see,” Batu said quietly. “If the war ends sooner, losses on both sides are fewer. And that means taxes can be collected sooner—and troops levied.”

  Subutai smiled faintly.

  “A war-minded fool like me thinks only of keeping my own army intact. A king must think of what comes after the war.”

  He went on.

  “I believe you have the makings of a king, Batu. How do you intend to conduct this western campaign?”

  “I would prefer to avoid fighting altogether,” Batu replied.

  “If three out of ten must be sacrificed as an example, seven will remain. That is enough, in my view.”

  Subutai’s gaze sharpened.

  “And you have the resolve for that?”

  Batu’s expression hardened.

  “Without such resolve, how could I ever prove the legitimacy of my grandfather Chinggis’s blood?”

  Subutai nodded deeply.

  He remembered Batu’s commanding presence at the kurultai.

  Chagatai had long questioned the legitimacy of his brother Jochi. Fearing that the brothers’ discord would split the Empire, Chinggis had sided with neither and instead named the mild-tempered ?gedei—who worked tirelessly to mend their relationship—as his successor.

  That choice had been unavoidable. Yet Subutai felt that Batu possessed the qualities needed to lead the Empire.

  Even so, though Batu had reconciled with Chagatai, he would not wish to sow new seeds of conflict between their houses.

  Batu’s reasoning was sound. But few, for now, seemed willing to support it.

  Politics could not be cleanly divided. War was simpler.

  Subutai thought this—then remembered that this western campaign would be led largely by the next generation.

  This would be the age of men like Batu.

  Slaughter, destruction, and plunder brought only short-term gains at too great a cost. The Empire’s way of doing things would have to change.

  Subutai could feel it.

  That resolve would be tested sooner than expected.

  An uprising had broken out among the local tribes east of the Jochid ulus.

  At dawn, Zaya awoke.