I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade: Chapters 6–11

At summer’s end, with the sheep shorn and goats combed, the woolly bundles piled high inside our ger awaiting trade, my father broke his silence.

A palace once used by the Khan himself stood there, in the purple shadows of the Hangay Mountains and guarded by a giant stone tortoise the size of a horse.

In his palm, shimmering in the firelight, lay my dowry: long silver earrings ablaze with coral and mother-of-pearl.

Just as awkwardly I lurched around the fire, surprising him by throwing my arms around his neck and almost choking him with my happiness.

From somewhere out in the darkness a horse whinnied. My heart rose in answer, its joy spilling forth in an exuberant shout that rushed across the land into the night.

From all directions lumbered glowing white, ger- laden oxcarts, pinning themselves in great hems around the city that was Karakorum.

But, as if with a heat of its own, I felt the misshapen foot curled beneath me and knew that no young, good-looking boy would choose me.

With reckless energy I sewed haphazard stitches into a stirrup leather that had torn during our journey to Karakorum.

Now, I didn’t tell you that I had brought my cat, Bator, with me to the festival, but let me say that he just crouched nervously on my bed the whole morning, round eyes staring yellow-green at my unbridled fretting.

My gaze passed over sorrels and duns and pintos.

The sunny blond mane of a high-spirited chestnut filly made me stop again. She was young, probably not having seen two whole years, and the strange odors and noises were making her prance and snort.

How easily I pictured myself astride her in my red silk del, matching strides with the antelope darting across the steppes.

But I just had to see all the horses, so, squeezing my legs, I pushed the roan on. Past grays and goldens. Past blacks and bays.

Even before reining him to a stop I slid off, plunging into the dust storm stirred up by angry hooves.

In the center was a ragged old white mare who had taken the brunt of the beating.

The mare on the right was a dappled gray, middle-aged, with a shiny black mane and tail.

Grasping her halter, I spoke to her for a few minutes, trying to calm her.

Tears blurred my eyes as I thought how I had wasted my chance for a champion on an old, crippled horse that could barely plod to the pace of an ox.

The hard beating of grouses’ wings reached my ears as a pair was flushed from beneath the cart’s path.

The animals of the steppes, even though hidden from my eyes, were suddenly made known to me by their loud bustling. The grasslands were practically roaring with hooves tromping, wings flapping, claws digging, bills snapping.

I threw the leather water bag over my shoulder and meandered toward the stream.

The raucous laughter of ravens spilled from the ger.

“Well, if you already knew, then why did you let me tell you?”
“To see if you knew,” said Udbal, her lips making chortling sounds deep in her tea bowl.

Before my eyes, gnarled fingers closed, one by one, over the amulet and when they opened once more, Echenkorlo’s palm was empty.

Udbal turned my palm upward and pressed her face close to it. A yellowed claw on her other hand drew a trail through the grease, prodded at the fleshy mounds.

Then, admonishing me sharply to listen, Echenkorlo pressed her face to my ears and whispered for a long time about the many sicknesses and healing of horses.

Night after night I fondled its few prizes: a large, curving fishhook with a line of sinew knotted to it; a short dagger, elegant in its jewel-encrusted handle, deadly in its pointed hardness; a small iron cooking pot, big enough for just one meal of mutton stew; a silver-mounted steel for sparking a fire; three long needles; and one small leather bag, stiff and discolored from much use.

Shuraa doted on her two boys, never scolding them for tasks poorly done or even left unfinished.

She tried to include me in her coddling. Placing her hands on my waist, she would steer me onto a cushion the way one helps an old person with weak bones.

They were the nonsense of a dream long forgotten, the babble of a child.
Until a blustery morning in early spring when the winds blew strong and straight from the Hentei Mountains in the east.

And then a horse’s familiar scream shot through the clamor, so shrill that my own scream was drowned.

She tore along magnificently, plunging and bucking, while the rider tried in vain to bring her to a halt.

I watched through eyes brimming with tears as the soldiers tied more ropes around her, even haltering her to a horse already standing quietly. Bayan finally gave up resisting and stood quivering and nickering fitfully.

He carried in with him on his black uniform the pungent odor of sagebrush, of dung smoke and leather oil.

He jerked the boy’s wrist to emphasize his point, then, with a cursory glance around the ger, one that swept over my head, the large man turned and left.

I reached for the gold figurine, brought it close to my face, and studied the curving form. A loop at the top, molded into the design, told it was an adornment for a belt or a horse’s harness.

Shuraa clawed at my hand and shouted, “They’re killers, Oyuna! My own father died in the Khan’s army. And my first husband. You don’t know the danger!”
But there were so many noises buzzing in my head that I could not heed Shuraa.

“All is well,” she crooned.

“It is jade. So that her flanks may loosen and the filly gallop from her as easy as the spring breeze.”

“As Tengri sees all,
 granddaughter, you chatter like the starlings. Now, which do I answer first?”