"Siban got to Karakorum nine days before I left the eastern post," Orda said. He felt no need to bridge the subjects, and moved along with them.
"What’s his opinion."
"Guyuk’s visible operation is exactly what you’d expect, he’s holding informal gatherings in his camp. The minor princes rotate through. Nobody who attends commits to anything formally, but the direction of those gatherings is clear."
Orda reached for the cup.
"The Toluid camp is the interesting one. Siban says it has the look of preparation running under an ordinary surface. Sorghaghtani’s household has been receiving visitors on a schedule that doesn’t match the social calendar."
He looked at Batu steadily.
"Whatever she’s doing, she’s doing it fast. She didn’t arrive at the assembly without a plan."
"That’s useful."
"Siban is useful," Orda said, without inflection, "He has an eye for the difference between an army that’s steady and one that’s actively building."
He set the cup down.
"Now. The Jochid line."
"What do you need from specifically," Batu said.
"I need to know what you’re asking for so I know what I’m standing behind when I stand behind it." Orda said it plainly, without making it a challenge. "The faction requires to know the position before I confirm it in the room."
"Overall campaign command, with real authority over the execution and over what cos after it. The senior Jochid prince running his own theater, not holding a title while Karakorum’s administrators direct the logistics and Subutai makes every decision."
Orda looked at him for a mont.
"Subutai won’t like the framing."
"Subutai will understand it. He and I have the sa professional interest in it succeeding, and it succeeds if the army lets it move at the speed it needs to move. He knows that as well as I do."
Batu kept his voice steady.
"A clean working relationship with Subutai isn’t incompatible."
"The assembly will understand it as claiming it for our line."
"The western campaign is being fought in the western territories. The western territories belong to the Jochid line. So what if we claim it."
Batu paused.
"The question is whether it’s wrong enough for anyone to object successfully."
Orda considered this. He had a calmness in the face that was not distraction but focus, the eyes present but the rest of the attention gathered.
"I’ll stand behind it," he said. "The northern wing I take, sa as we always assud. My tuns advance through the northern steppe into the Kipchak territories and into the Rus from the northeast. We will coordinate with the main body but operate independently."
He paused.
"That’s what I want and it’s what the campaign needs."
"Agreed."
"Siban." Orda frowned slightly, pondering the problem the na put on the table. "He’s ahead at the assembly already, which tells the room he ca without you, which is its own signal. What’s his role in the active war?"
"Administration and intelligence behind the advance," Batu said. "He knows the eastern approaches, the Irtysh border, the relay network between here and the Jochid territories. What’s needed is soone managing the supply line and the information flow who isn’t also trying to command a tun in a forward engagent."
He paused.
"That’s what he’s been working toward since the narrows."
Orda accepted this. He turned the cup in his hands again, the habit he had when assembling a final picture.
"Tangut will want a command," he said.
Batu had expected it. Tangut was their brother, a son of Jochi with his own following and his own claim on the operation’s structure. He had not distinguished himself militarily in the way Orda had or politically in the way Batu had, but he was of the line and a kurultai that handed the western commands out among princes would be expected to assign one to each prince of standing.
"He can have the right flank’s advance riders," Batu said. "The southern Kipchak sweep before the main force moves west. It’s a real command with real opposition and it uses what he actually has."
"He’ll accept that," Orda said. "He won’t like that it’s not equal to mine, but he’ll accept it."
"And Toqa-Timur."
"He’ll want the Crian and northern Caucasus territories," Orda said directly. "He’s been oriented toward that region since before this assembly. Whatever role he gets in the advance, what he actually wants is the administrative authority over that territory afterward."
A pause.
"Give him a command in the southern advance and the promise of the territorial administration when it’s established. He’ll align."
The ger was still. The wind outside ran its continuous note across the plateau grass.
"Berke," Batu said.
Berke’s na ca into the space between them. Orda looked at the table for a mont.
"I don’t know where he is," he said. "He could be anywhere between the Caucasus and the Caspian, and whatever contacts he has left in that country aren’t talking to anyone I can reach."
He looked up.
"If he appears at the assembly, your account arrives first. Karakorum received it months ago. His account, whatever it is, arrives after and against an established record."
"If he doesn’t appear."
"Then his absence confirms it. Both outcos are manageable."
Orda paused.
"What’s not manageable is if he arrives and has enough support from sowhere to make his account compete with yours in the room. That requires him to have been doing political work sowhere we can’t see, and there’s no evidence he has."
He looked at Batu.
"Is there anything from your end that suggests he has?"
"No," Batu said. "Dorbei’s reports have been clean on the southern territory. Nothing moving north that suggests political contact."
"Then we acknowledge the wildcard, accept we can’t resolve it, and prepare to stand on its own rits," Orda said. "Which it does, given what you sent Karakorum at the ti."
The picture was here. The Jochid line had its internal distribution, its unresolved variable nad and set aside where it belonged.
The faction required the Toluid alignnt confird and Arghun moved, and those things were still ahead on ground Batu was about to reach, and the distance had closed.
Orda stood. He had finished what he ca to do and was ready for the next thing.
"I’ll co into Karakorum from the northeast," he said. "Three days after your tun arrives, assuming you’ve maintained the pace."
He looked at Batu.
"Don’t let Guyuk set the pace in the first days."
"I know," Batu said.
"I know you know," Orda said, and for the first ti since the entrance sothing in his voice carried the warmth that only existed between n who had known each other a long ti and had no need to perform anything about it. "I’m saying it because it’s the most important thing and saying it once more doesn’t cost either of us anything."
He walked to the entrance and held the panel open.
Outside the plateau was in the long light of late afternoon, the grass pale and enormous under the enormous sky.
"We’ll drink sothing better than this when it’s done," Orda said, looking out at the open ground.
"We will," Batu said.
He mounted and rode back toward the tun.
Behind him the ger diminished against the plateau’s flat imnsity, a small structure in an enormous landscape. Then the ground’s curvature took it, and there was only the grass and the sky and the sound of his horse and the column’s dust rising sowhere ahead of him.
Karakorum was close now.
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