Manduhai had no reason to like or trust the young prince. He had essentially replaced her at court. Her husband confided in the prince, not in her. Her husband lavished gifts and power on him and had made the young prince co-ruler, a position that should have gone to the younger and heretofore favored wife. The dashing prince in his golden robes and belt on his chestnut horse attracted everyone’s attention, and those around her pushed her toward an amicable relationship with him in the hope that she might eventually marry him and produce heirs with him.
Manduhai’s misgivings about the young prince were shared by General Une-Bolod. The prince had replaced Une-Bolod as the heir. A political alliance can be made on a mutual attraction, but it can just as easily be made on a shared antipathy. Because the young prince’s presence threatened both of them, Manduhai and Une-Bolod had a natural alliance in their dislike of him. Soon, gossip linked the two romantically as well.
General Une-Bolod was a descendant of Genghis Khan’s younger brother Khasar. The lineage of Genghis Khan and the lineage of Khasar had perpetuated the sibling rivalries of the two brothers. The two branches of the family usually worked closely and amicably together, but occasionally the relationships ruptured out of antagonism into hostility. The descendants of Khasar never forgot that he was a better marksman with a bow and arrow, and they repeatedly complained about the lack of credit and material reward for their ancestor’s role in creating the empire and for the family’s continuing contribution to the nation through the rise and fall of the centuries.
Manduul’s unwillingness to trust Une-Bolod completely was based in a two-hundred-year-old dysfunctional relationship between the two lineages within the Borijin clan. Genghis Khan and his descendants frequently suspected Khasar’s line of plotting against them and of being so envious that they might betray them and try to seize the office of Great Khan. Aside from the direct competition between Genghis Khan and Khasar, rumors of amorous rivalry and adulterous betrayal also plagued them. Genghis Khan heard repeated reports of an affair between his main wife, Borte, and his brother Khasar. She certainly knew him well, and as a young bride she had lived in the ger with Khasar and the rest of Genghis Khan’s family. Though never confirmed, the suspicions constantly plagued their relationship and continued to intrigue their followers long after all the parties had died.
Yeke Qabar-tu, Manduul’s first but unloved wife, sided with the Golden Prince. Manduhai was her rival for power as well as his. Soon rumors circulated through the royal encampment about the relationship between the senior queen and the young prince. Someone provoked a servant of the prince to report their relationship to the khan. The servant told the khan that the Golden Prince was plotting to do evil to his uncle and that he was attempting to “rob” the khan of his wife, but he did not state specifically that they were already engaged in a sexual union.
For a boy to have sexual relations with the wife of his uncle did not constitute a crime. So long as the female in-law had a senior position to him, as both Manduhai and Yeke Qabar-tu did in regard to Bayan Mongke, no taboo was broken. The adultery would not be an issue unless it represented a possible conspiracy by the older woman and young prince to replace the khan. The implicit politics far surpassed the sex act in significance and potential impact.
When summoned to answer the charge, instead of flatly denying it, the Golden Prince objected to the khan that he would not listen to slander from a servant. Under Mongol law, his accusation, even if true, constituted a capital crime of betrayal. Several times in history, Genghis Khan had executed people for similar offenses of betraying their master, even when the betrayal was done with the purpose of aiding Genghis Khan himself.
The khan sided, once again, with his nephew. He turned his wrath on the servant and accused him of seeking to create “trouble between two brothers and to divide them.” The khan ordered his guards to slice off the accuser’s lips and nose for having made the statement. After this punishment, they killed him.
The khan’s response to the first accuser demonstrated clearly where his affection and trust lay. The Golden Prince came first. No one else in the court dared to raise an objection or voice a criticism of the khan’s favorite.
The plotters against the Golden Prince had been deterred, but not defeated. They needed to find a person outside the court, someone who was not a vassal. They also needed an eyewitness to offer direct testimony of sexual infidelity. Simply trying to “rob” the khan of his wife had not been sufficient.
Events in the south kept Beg-Arslan preoccupied expanding his control of the Silk Route ever eastward toward the Chinese border at the Gansu Corridor. Too busy to personally manage the affairs of the Mongol tribes in the north, he sent his young protégé Issama, called Ismayil in the Mongol chronicles, to Manduul’s court to maintain his influence over the royal family.
Beg-Arslan had been taishi, the overlord of the Mongols, but now Ismayil assumed the office. Ismayil immediately took command of the Mongol army. Une-Bolod, who had been the former commander, retired from court life and returned to his own home area. With Une-Bolod out of the way, Ismayil now needed to rid himself of the other contender for power, the Golden Prince.
Ismayil was a young warlord on the rise, and soon he was looking for ways to increase his own power independently of Beg-Arslan. He devised a plan against the young prince, but one that also could cause a rupture in Manduul’s relationship to Beg-Arslan by implicating Yeke Qabar-tu, the senior queen and Beg-Arslan’s daughter, in a plot to overthrow Manduul.
First, Ismayil confronted the Great Khan privately with direct evidence, which he claimed he had seen with his own eyes. He insisted that the charges made by the servant against the prince were true. “Out in an isolated place,” he informed the khan, “the Golden Prince and your wife met in conjugal embrace.” Ismayil wanted to give the khan time to reflect on the charges, and he did not attempt to push the khan into any type of decision or action. Having successfully injected the poison of doubt into the khan’s mind, Ismayil left him to fret alone.
Then Ismayil, posing as a friend and ally to both sides that he was working to turn against each other, approached the prince to warn him that he had lost favor with his uncle the khan. Ismayil reported to the prince that his uncle Manduul had learned the truth about the charges made by the dead servant; he knew that the prince was having an affair with his uncle’s wife. Not only had the khan turned against the boy, according to Ismayil, but he intended “to do evil” to the Golden Prince to prevent him from forcefully removing the old man.
The prince refused to believe Ismayil’s warning that his uncle could turn against him. Ismayil advised the prince to be cautious and to be watchful because someone was about to trick him. He told the gullible prince that “the proof” of his uncle’s anger would soon be on its way to him when a messenger would arrive from the khan. He said that the khan would send someone to question the boy’s loyalty and to trick him into saying something that could be used against him.
The allegations against the Golden Prince weighed heavily in the old khan’s mind. It seemed not to matter to him that his wife Yeke Qabar-tu may have betrayed him, but it deeply bothered him that the boy, whom he loved so much and whom he had made his heir, might have rebelled. “This is the second time that I have heard the charges,” he was quoted as saying. He began to reconsider the earlier statements made by the now dead servant against his “younger brother.”