The evening after the third day’s racing had a looseness the prior evenings had not.

The games period was done. The demonstrations were behind them. What remained was tomorrow and the formal sessions, and every man in the assembly camp knew the difference and was spending the time between accordingly.

Siban was the first to arrive after Batu got back to the ger. He came in carrying a skin of airag that was already partially depleted and sat down without ceremony and handed it across.

"Been some productive days," he said.

"Did you join any competitions?" Batu said.

"No. I was happy to stay in the crowds, watching."

"Anything relevant."

"Yes. Some more than others." Siban drank and passed the skin again. "You’re surprisingly competent for wrestling, for one."

Orda arrived while they were still on that drunk, then Tangqut, then Toqa-Timur. Berke came last, later than the others by enough that his arrival made a small stop in the conversation.

He sat partially isolated, with a cup he’d brought himself and did not say anything for a time. The others had found their positions with a familiarity expected from blood brothers.

Outside the ger, the camp was not done with the day. Sound came from multiple directions, other fires, other groups working through the end of the games in whatever way suited them.

"I have to say, brothers, I might have fathered many children this last couple days." Toqa-Timur said in a casual tone.

"As if you didn’t have enough already," Tangqut said.

"Come now, you are just jealous."

"You wish. I’m much more comfortable with what I already have." Tangqut’s cup was empty and he was looking at the skin with clear intent.

Orda said, "Instead of women and heirs, you two should be worrying about the campaign to come."

"There’ll be that for that tomorrow, brother. Now it’s precisely the time to worry about women." Toqa-Timur said.

"That’s only for you two." He leaned forward and reached for the skin. "Siban has been watching the camp this entire time. And Batu... is Batu."

"Don’t bring Batu into this. He’s not even married yet!" Tangqut said.

"That will change." Batu drank. "Soon."

The matters of marriage and heirs were not one that Batu was oblivious to. Until now, it could be explained that he had been focused on administrating his late father’s khanate, but if it continued for long his legitimacy and the respect of his men would diminish over time.

"I see," Orda said. He was the only present that knew the implications.

"And just like that?" Tangqut said. "Way to break the news, brother."

"That’s just the way brother is," Siban said. "We won’t know about it until we should."

"It’s good that you know," Batu said.

"Damn. What an ass-" Toqa-Timur complained.

"Whatever the case, each man household is his business only." Orda intervened.

Then, Berke cut the conversation, from his position a bit away, "What do my brothers expect from Europe."

It landed in the conversation and it came out slightly differently than the other exchanges had. That was a genuine question, pitched a degree more seriously than the room’s jokingly banter.

Siban looked at him. "What do we expect from Europe?"

"What is it like," Berke said. "What have you heard."

Orda said, "Great cities made of stone. Larger than anything we’ve been through."

"Stone throughout?"

"Stone for the walls and the important structures. Wood and lower materials inside."

"What are they worth," Berke said. "The cities."

"In trade goods?" Tangqut said. "You’d need the merchants for the numbers."

"In anything."

Siban said, "Nobody can say for sure. The whole point of the western campaign is to discover and see those by our own eyes. Europe’s riches, Europe’s lands."

"Europe’s women!" Toqa-Timur said. He was the one most likely to have thought about this specifically. "I wonder if there is any princesses I can entice to join me as my concubines. Surely my name has some weight out there."

"Surely," Berke said.

"The Europeans also have many secrets." Tangqut turned his cup in his hands. His cup was partly glass, something he’d acquired from a western merchant three seasons ago and kept because of it. "There are cities in western Europe that haven’t been touched by anything that’s come from the east. What’s in them are centuries of secrets."

Berke looked at the cup and then at the fire.

"That’s what you’re riding for," he said. Not quite a question.

Siban said, "We’re riding because that’s what we are born to do."

"You’re riding because you want to," Berke said. "It’s different."

A pause came that was not quite comfortable. Siban looked at him, deciding whether to push past something or let it stand. He let it stand.

Orda said, "What have you heard about the western cities?"

Berke considered this. "Different things than you’ve heard, probably." He didn’t elaborate and nobody pressed him on it.

Outside, the noise of the camp calmed down into the lower volume of people who had been at something for three days and were ready for it to become something else.

Tangqut said, "The minor princes at the feast today. The Oirat men. Are they committed yet?"

"Arghun’s still wavering," Orda said. "He’ll move when the assembly opens."

"And before it opens?"

"Before it opens he’s uncommitted." Orda said it without frustration.

"He’s waiting for the votes," Siban said. "He’ll watch the count and and when it’s clear enough he’ll step to the winning side. That’s what he is."

"Which means he’ll be useful after and useless before," Tangqut said.

"Every assembly has them."

Batu looked at Berke.

Berke was sitting with his cup and looking at neither the fire nor the men around it, at something slightly past both.

He wasn’t gone. Ff you spoke to him he’d come back immediately, answer and mean what he said. But there was a difference between his position in the group and wherever his attention actually rested, and it had been there since he arrived, and it would be there when the evening ended.

Batu had seen this in men who had changed something in themselves that the people around them had not changed. It did not make them unreliable. It made them slightly different from everyone in the room and aware of it, and the awareness was what made it obvious.

He was still their brother. He would be with their faction in the session tomorrow, carry the mingan command in the Jochid position, and move when the vote required it. That was what he’d said in the dark outside Batu’s ger and Batu believed it.

That was also what brothers were, Batu thought. Not only the ease of Siban’s entrance with a half-depleted skin, or the way Orda led into a room and organized it without appearing to organize anything. Also this. A man sitting at the end of the group with a cup he’d brought himself, his attention somewhere the others couldn’t see, and still present, still in the room, still going to ride.

"Tomorrow," Orda said.

"Tomorrow," Siban said.

Berke said, "Tomorrow," a beat after the others, and drank.