MAIDEN FORGOTTEN features the Father in Twelve Dancing Princesses, the one who locks his daughters up in the Tower. Now what would happen if your father happened to be Genghis Khan?
However, I really did not want to write a novel about Genghis Khan. Instead, I wanted to talk about the women who surrounded him, including his five daughters. And so MAIDEN FORGOTTEN focuses on one of his daughters who was a magnificent ruler in her own right. She started off by ruling a kingdom along the Silk Road. And was so successful (despite the fact that these people tried to murder her), he asked her to rule northern China for him.
We don’t know her name. But her title was Alakhai Bekhi, which can be translated as Princess Excellency. Of course, no-one remembers her because she is lost in the blaze of glory and all the legends that surround Genghis Khan.
She is the “Maiden Forgotten” of the title.
But didn’t Genghis Khan have sons?
What about them?
Indeed he did, but something must have gone very wrong if he was promoting his daughter at the expense of his sons. For, as you can see, it is notable that he asked his daughter to rule northern China, not one of his four sons.
So who were they?
Jochi, the eldest son, is blighted by illegitimacy because his mother was captured by a local clan lord. By the time Chinggis Khan was able to get her back, she was pregnant. None of his sons will accept Jochi as his successor even though he is the eldest son, especially not his second son Chagatai.
Should Chagatai be his successor? But he is hot-headed and impulsive, and would destroy his father’s empire in no time.
The third son Ogedei is a shrewd politician, and would probably be able to handle the conflicting claims of the various tribes Chinggis Khan had to bring to heel to create his empire. But he is so often lost in an alcoholic haze.
Then there is Tolui, the youngest son, a military genius like his father, but without his father’s shrewdness or charisma.
Chinggis Khan, rules a huge empire that stretches from the Great Wall of China to the grasslands of Hungary. He needs worthy successors. So why are all of this sons—to a greater or lesser degree—alcoholics?
Why are they utterly unworthy successors?
Because Genghis Khan came from abject poverty. Because his family was abandoned to die by their tribe after the death of his father. Because, despite all of this (which should have sent him into oblivion), Genghis Khan succeeded, soaring above all of these difficulties to rule the largest empire the world has ever known.
All this family history cast a blight upon his sons Jochi, Chagatai, Ogedei, and Tolui. For how could they compete with a father like that? It is no surprise, therefore, to discover that they were utterly unworthy successors. That they were addicted to alcohol. And that all of them died from alcohol poisoning.
Most fathers, in the 1200s, would have given anything to have four sons who grew to adulthood. But Genghis Khan had a real problem on his hands.
What to do?
Chinggis Khan finally decides to marry four of his daughters to powerful war lords whose kingdoms are strung along the Silk Road.
But what will happen after his death?
Will his daughters continue to rule?
Or will their brothers snatch their land from them?
