Chapter 105: A Game of Chess
The food went to the side of the table, and the conversation found its real ground.
"Start with Guyuk," Orda said. "Everything else sits around him, and I want to know what you have from the road before I tell you what I have from the north."
Batu described the documents from Samarkand without dramatizing them, a courier carrying intelligence on his movements, intercepted before the passes.
The content was clear on the faction’s members and on the directive language that made the first session’s timing the actual weapon. A plan that gave Guyuk the right to call the vote before the full assembly seated itself.
"I have the same implication from different sources," Orda said, settling forward slightly. "He’ll call it within a day of your tumen arriving, if he’s smart. Before a full attendance gives the other factions a position to argue from."
He paused.
"Which means the question isn’t the vote itself. It’s whether everyone who needs to be in the room before that vote is called has arrived."
"Mongke’s timing matters because of that."
"Mongke’s timing matters entirely because of that, yes." Orda turned his cup in his hands. "He’ll be close."
He set the cup down.
"What’s your opinion on Koden?"
"Ogedei’s son. His vote goes with the Ogedeid line."
"That’s not the end of it." Orda’s voice was even. "Koden has his own standing as a field commander, and he’s aware of it, and Guyuk is aware of it, and those two things together make their relationship considerably colder than family loyalty alone would account for."
He paused.
"I watched them together eight months ago near my eastern post. Neither man is comfortable in each other’s company."
Batu placed Koden in his tallying.
"So his position on campaign command isn’t the same as his position on succession."
"Campaign command gives Koden something to want, and Guyuk will offer him a subordinate role, and whether Koden finds that acceptable depends on how clearly subordinate the role is." Orda spread his hands briefly.
"I can’t tell you where that lands. What I can tell you is that he’s a wildcard."
"The Toluids," Batu said.
Orda looked at him with amusement creeping on his expression.
"You mean whether the Toluid line has decided to be present at this assembly or merely attend it."
"Yes."
"Mongke understands the importance well enough without either of us explaining them to him," Orda said. "The question I’ve been sitting with is whether his mother has moved, because Sorghaghtani Beki decides when Mongke acts on what he understands, not the other way around."
He looked at Batu directly.
"So I’ll ask plainly. Has there been contact?"
"There will be," Batu said.
He said it in the flat tone of a man with plans.
Orda considered it for a moment, then nodded once.
"Good," he said. "Because without the Toluid faction seated before the first vote is called, the margin isn’t there and the exchange we’re having right now is much less interesting."
He reached for a piece of dried fruit.
"Chagatai."
The name landed in the space between them.
"He won’t align with us," Orda said, "but I’ve been wondering whether he aligns against us directly or whether he pursues his own interests and lets Guyuk win by indifference. Those are different problems."
He ate the dried fruit without ceremony.
"What I heard points toward active support. One of his household officials was in Karakorum before Guyuk’s delegation arrived and left after. The visit produced something and the timing makes the purpose clear."
"What’s his interest in supporting Guyuk specifically?"
"Preventing you from controlling the campaign command structure," Orda said, without softening it. "Chagatai’s position on the Jochid line hasn’t changed since before our father died."
"A western campaign under your command vindicates you, and that’s what he’s spent his life arguing against. This runs deeper than Guyuk."
Batu absorbed this without reacting to it.
"Buri," Batu said.
"His grandfather’s positions without his grandfather’s plans."
Orda’s voice stayed even. "He’ll say in open session what Chagatai wants said, but louder and without knowing when to stop. The real danger is the permission his voice gives others to say the same things out loud."
"The uncommitted princes."
Orda’s tempo changed. The established names were done. The movable ones carried a different attention, more considered.
"Arghun, from Khasar’s line," he said. "He’s been in a running dispute with the Ogedeid administrative office over the northern pasture allocations. The dispute is legitimate and Ogedeid has been wrong in it and everyone on the northern routes knows it. He hasn’t declared yet because making that choice means picking a side, and picking a side means the losing side remembers."
He looked at Batu.
"He’s a wildcard if he sees a clear alignment with something that isn’t the Ogedeid center."
"Who else."
"Nachugu, from Temuge’s line. Young, no strong position either direction, he’ll observe the room when he arrives and go where it tells him to go."
Orda paused.
"And Yeke Noyan’s younger son. He shared a northern campaign with Guyuk and the relationship is warm. Count him as quietly committed and waiting for the right moment to announce it."
"So Arghun is the figure worth pursuing."
"Arghun is the one worth the approach before the first vote, yes. The others watch power, which means they need to see a clear signal from the room before they’ll move."
Orda looked at him steadily.
"Which is its own problem."
The ger stood in silence for a moment.
Batu let his thoughts mull over the full picture.
Guyuk’s faction had grown since the earlier reckoning. Chaga confirmed, Chagatai’s household actively supporting, Yeke Noyan’s son probably committed.
Against that, the Jochid plurality plus whatever the Toluid line brought in, plus Koden as a variable, plus Arghun if the approach produced what it needed to.
The margin was real and achievable.
It required the Toluid alignment confirmed before the first vote and at least Arghun moved from the undecided faction before the session was called.
Neither was accomplished. Both were possible. Days remained.
"Sorghaghtani first," Orda said. He had run the thoughts and arrived at the same conclusion. "Everything else follows from whether that exchange produces what it needs to."
"Agreed."
"Move quickly when you arrive," Orda said. "Guyuk’s had weeks in that camp and he knows every arrival is a threat to the timing he’s built."
He looked at Batu with the flat gaze he’d been running since the entrance.
"Don’t let him set the pace in the first hours."
The advice was accurate, and Orda had earned the right to deliver accurate things to him.
"I know," Batu said.
Orda reached for more food, and the exchange found its lower volume, two men who had finished their plans and were letting what remained settle between them.