Reincarnated as Genghis Khan's Grandson, I Will Not Let It Fall-Chapter 15: The Morning Meal

Siban arrived on time.

Batu had noted the habit in the administrative record without being able to attach meaning to it. Supply requests submitted before deadline. Inspection reports filed the morning they were due, not the evening.

A man whose paperwork arrived early could be efficient or could be performing efficiency for whoever was reading. The distinction required more than a record.

Siban was perhaps thirty, lean through the face, with the kind of composed bearing that came from having spent years in rooms where composure was currency.

He sat down across from Batu without waiting to be invited, which was either familiarity or a statement. His aide had already withdrawn.

The food was standard camp fare. Neither man commented on it.

Siban looked at the food for a moment. "The northeastern detachment’s grain request went in last week. I wanted to flag it in person. The eastern pasture stores are lower than the tally shows. One of the supply riders miscounted the autumn allocation."

"Orel has it," Batu said. "He’ll send a rider to confirm the recount before approving."

Siban nodded. He poured from the pitcher between them and set it back without offering. Another signal.

"I heard the Sarat action went well," Siban said. "Nine hundred and forty against five hundred. That’s a favorable outcome on any ground."

"It produced the result it needed to," Batu said.

Siban looked at him with the mild expression of a man who had expected that answer and found it confirmed something. "The western clans are talking. The Burjin elder sent a rider to the Ulus headman two weeks ago. Word of Kirsa’s situation has been moving since before the column came back."

"What are they saying about it."

"That you kept a Merkid commander alive and unbound." Siban broke a piece of flatbread. "Some of them find it interesting. Some of them find it unsettling. The ones who find it unsettling are mostly the older sub-commanders whose fathers fought the Merkid campaigns."

Batu watched him eat. The information was accurate. The framing was neutral.

Siban was giving him something real to establish that he had access to real information, which was a specific kind of opening move.

"The administrative direction," Siban said. "The written rulings. The toll guarantee for the Bulgar merchant." He paused. "It’s a different approach than what we’ve run before."

"Yes."

"The sub-commanders on the northeastern line have been asking what it means for tribute collection. Whether the written ruling model extends to their territories or whether it’s specific to the western clan situation."

"It extends," Batu said. "Tell them that."

Siban nodded. He asked it the way a man asked something he already knew the answer to, and the fact that he already knew told Batu he’d been discussing the administrative direction with someone who had direct access to the command quarter’s internal workings.

They ate in the way of two men who were using the meal as cover for something else.

"Mersek’s boundary situation," Siban said. "I heard it was resolved yesterday."

There it was. Casual, positioned between two bites, the name dropped as if it had come up naturally.

Batu looked at him. "It was."

"He’s a capable officer. His unit runs well." Siban refilled his own cup. "I’ve spoken with him a few times when I’ve been through the northeastern sector. He has a clear read of the supply line vulnerabilities between here and the Irtysh."

Supply line vulnerabilities. Between here and the Irtysh. The northeastern approach road that Siban’s own detachment sat on.

"When were you last through the northeastern sector," Batu said.

"Five weeks ago. Before I came here." Siban met his eyes with the easy steadiness of a man who had prepared for this question. "Routine inspection of the border detachment positions."

Five weeks ago was before Batu had returned from Sarat. Before the column came back with Kirsa. Before the Borte-Qol channel confirmation. Before Batu had pulled the operational log and found Mersek’s name.

Siban had spoken to Mersek five weeks ago.

Batu took a piece of flatbread and broke it.

"How familiar are you with the Tergesh tributary terms," Batu said.

Siban answered without hesitation. "Standard tribute, penalty levy of a hundred horses, road passage rights for supply trains through Tergesh territory." He said it with the ease of a man reciting something he’d read.

"The road passage clause was the notable addition. It wasn’t in the original terms."

The road passage clause.

Batu looked at the table between them.

The road passage clause had been discussed in the command tent the night before the Tergesh operation. Five men had been present. Torghul, Khulgen, Odun, and two senior council officers, one of whom was Mersek.

The clause had not gone into the general security summary. It had not moved through the camp’s normal information flow. Kirsa had confirmed the mystery rider knew it. Batu had identified Mersek as the source.

Siban had just recited it across a breakfast table as if it were common knowledge.

It was not common knowledge.

Batu kept his face where it was. He finished the piece of flatbread and looked at Siban with the same expression he’d been wearing for the past thirty minutes.

"The tributary terms are being standardized across the western clans," Batu said. "Orel has the full record if your sub-commanders need reference."

"I’ll have them speak with him," Siban said.

The meal ran another ten minutes. Siban asked two more questions, both genuinely administrative, and Batu answered them both.

The conversation stayed in the register it had been in since Siban sat down. Pleasant, functional, two men discussing camp business over food.

Siban stood when the meal was finished and expressed the right amount of gratitude without being effusive. His aide appeared at the tent entrance as if he’d been waiting for the sound of chairs.

"It’s good to finally meet properly," Siban said. "I’ve been meaning to present myself since before the Sarat campaign."

"I’m glad you did," Batu said.

Siban left.

Batu sat alone at the table for a moment.

He ran through what the meal had produced. Siban knew the road passage clause. Siban had spoken with Mersek five weeks ago, before Batu returned, when Mersek would have had no reason to think his access to the command quarter was being reviewed.

Siban had dropped Mersek’s name mid-meal to test whether it landed differently than a casual reference should. And Siban had arrived at this camp at this specific time, after the Sarat action, after the Kirsa situation, after the western clans had begun talking.

The Mersek situation was larger than one compromised officer making poor decisions.

Siban had been cultivating him long enough to extract specific operational details, which meant the eastern network had reach into the command quarter that predated the Sarat campaign.

Batu stood and walked to the tent entrance.

The camp was running its morning routines. Torghul’s training cadre was already on the eastern flat. The horse lines were being worked through the morning allocation.

Siban’s aide was walking toward the eastern officer quarters at a pace that suggested Siban had already gone ahead.

A capable man who managed his administrative record carefully, who spoke with Mersek five weeks ago, who knew the road passage clause, who arrived on time and ate breakfast and asked reasonable questions and left pleasantly.

Batu found Khulgen at the command tent.

"I need something fed into the camp’s information flow today," Batu said. "Something that will reach Mersek before the evening meal and give him a reason to move before tomorrow morning."

Khulgen looked at him. He didn’t ask why the timeline had compressed.

"What kind of information," Khulgen said.

"Something that makes staying still more dangerous than moving," Batu said. "A development, not a threat. If it looks placed he won’t move."

Khulgen thought for a moment. "Temur."

Batu looked at him.

"Temur has been in the eastern holding pen for two months. If word moved through the camp that his situation was being reviewed, that a decision on what to do with him was coming this week, a man with a reason to worry about what Temur knows would find that very difficult to sit with."

Batu considered it.

Temur had named Guyuk. If Mersek was feeding information east, the last thing he’d want was Temur’s situation becoming active again, because an active review meant Temur might name more than just Guyuk. Might name anyone else in the chain Temur had been aware of.

"Let it move," Batu said. "Naturally. Through the supply rotation conversation, not through anything that looks placed."

Khulgen nodded and went.

Batu looked at the eastern officer quarters across the central ground.

Siban was in there, or already gone to inspect something, or speaking to someone. Pleasant, capable, politically aware, and connected to a thread that ran through Mersek and through the road passage clause and through a mystery rider who had reached Kirsa before the Sarat coalition formed.

Before the day was out, Temur’s name would be moving through the camp.

By tomorrow morning, Batu would know whether Mersek was going to sit still or move.

He was expecting him to move.