Blog Tour and Book Excerpt for "The Spirit of the Times"

BOOK EXCERPT

CHAPTER 1

The Mirror of Fate

The town of Balasagun in Moghulistan district, Central Orient

4th of October 1336 in the Year of the Rat

The soft rays of the autumnal afternoon sun shone through the crown of the ger onto the Mirror of Fate. There it was, facing Karia on the table, a lit candle on either side of it. A short time ago, as custom dictated, the newlyweds had stared into it, revealing their future.

She had yearned to gaze into the oval-shaped mirror and had waited patiently for the wedding guests to leave the ger. They were outside, shouting and singing, enjoying the feast of meats and sweets, pastries and bread, and dancing to the sounds of the lute and the flute, the drum and the morin khuur, the horsehead fiddle. Among the wedding party, the Christians, but not the Muslims, enjoyed drinking copious amounts of koumiss, fermented mare’s milk.

Now that she was alone, she removed her veil and immediately felt a light burning on her cheeks. Before sitting in front of the mirror, she gauged the atmosphere for any unseen obstacles to her viewing. Ayana, her big sister, was introducing her to the shaman arts of divination and prescience, so this was an opportunity to practise.

She moved her head from side to side, sensing with her cheeks and detecting the subtle, lingering odours in the atmosphere. Initially, she picked up on the aura of warm conviviality left by the wedding guests, but something sinister lurked beneath the surface. It tasted acrid and revealed an undercurrent of fear and anxiety. She knew its source only too well. It was ever-present in their lives. It was the Mongols. Over a century before, Genghis Khan had invaded the tribal lands of her Kyrgyz people and occupied them ever since. To oppose them, the two prominent tribal clans, the Danko and Turgut, both Nestorian Christians, formed an alliance and, to strengthen that bond, agreed to intermarry wherever possible. Today’s marriage joined Bačaq Turgut, one of Karia’s four older sisters, with Sanmaq Danko.

The long alliance had held, at least until yesterday, when on the eve of the wedding, the Danko clan had without warning converted en masse from Christianity to Islam and insisted that, for the marriage to proceed, Bačaq must also convert. These events had precipitated a heated müzakere, a family parley.

“It’s all too sudden,” Karia had protested. “My sister needs more time. We all do. It’s an important decision for her, for the Turgut clan, and for the entire tribe.”

Ayana, the shaman, thought otherwise. “You all know that the wedding day can’t be postponed. That’s because I chose it to align with the will of Heaven.”

With pressure from Karia’s mother and grandmother, Bačaq was given no choice but to convert to Islam. That was last night.

Now that Karia had identified the strands in the undercurrent of anxiety, she felt clear to sit herself at the wedding table, the sofreh aghed in Persian. It was positioned directly beneath the crown of the ger, a gap that allowed in light and warmth, and let out any smoke from the brazier and especially any evil spirits.

At first, gazing into the Mirror of Fate, the aineh sarnosht, she saw her own reflection – an eighteen-year-old woman with curly black shoulder-length hair, bright brown eyes, a firm chin, soft lips, and a light brown silky complexion. That was it. Nothing else. What did she expect? That the future of the world was going to reveal itself to her, just because she demanded it, and that she was Karia? No, it didn’t work like that. How did it work? Now, that was the question.