The Tiger Queens by Stephanie Thornton

Author:Stephanie Thornton [Thornton, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Paid-For, Retail, Amazon
ISBN: 9780451417800
Amazon: 0451417801
Barnesnoble: 0451417801
Publisher: NAL
Published: 2014-01-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

1211 CE

YEAR OF THE WHITE SHEEP

We built the School of Healing and I learned to welcome foreign ambassadors in my husband’s stead, entertaining the Jurched and Song ministers with anecdotes from my newly discovered favorite books on travel and medicine while negotiating higher tolls for the use of our roads to carry their priceless silks and spices to the West. The Onggud bent unwilling knees to me, a result of my continuing role as Ala-Qush’s official wife, but it was Jingue’s constant presence behind me in the Great House that dissuaded the Onggud from attempting to depose me. Despite my gains in their language and the building projects I’d undertaken, I was still an outsider set above them, and they loathed me for it.

Boyahoe I loved because he reminded me of a young version of Ogodei, and Enebish and Orbei tolerated me, but it was Jingue—the thoughtful religious scholar—who seemed content with me as I was. The longer I spent with Ala-Qush’s eldest, the more I came to appreciate his quiet approach to the world, so different from my own quick-blooded temperament. I told myself it was only because I was lonely here in Olon Süme that I anticipated the sound of his laugh with such eagerness or enjoyed the hot thrill of his hand brushing against mine, but I relished them all the same.

We’d lived with Ala-Qush’s illness for more than two years, and it was a fair autumn afternoon when I managed to drag Jingue from under his pile of books for an impromptu archery competition on one of the last warm days before the frosts came. The golden grasses rippled and the breeze played with his hair as he nocked a quarrel and sent it flying, narrowly missing the center of the rice bag we’d set dangling from a willow tree.

I smirked and drew an arrow from my quiver. “You realize you’ll owe me an accounting of the tolls after I win this shot?”

“I’m still waiting for my pot of rabbit stew after I beat you last time.” Jingue leaned against the tree, dappled sunlight playing on his face. “Although I’m not convinced you didn’t let me win then.”

I hadn’t let him win. I’d only lost because I’d been more interested in watching him and had aimed my last shot so poorly I’d almost shot his horse. “Suit yourself,” I said. “I warned you my cooking was more punishment than reward.”

“I find it difficult to believe that a woman who can speak three languages, ride, and shoot as you do would be cowed by making a simple stew.”

It was true that I now spoke Mongolian, along with passable Turkic and Khitan, yet I still struggled to make yogurt that wasn’t too thin or cheese that wasn’t so salty it puckered one’s lips.

“I am a woman of many talents,” I said. “Unfortunately, cooking is not one of them.” A disturbance on the horizon saved me from saying anything else, a fast-moving rider coming from the roads that led to the west.

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