Silk Road

by Falconer, Colin

  XIII

  THEIR PROCESSION SNAKED across the hills, past villages with curious beehive-shaped mud-brick houses. Yusuf rode in front, Josseran and Gérard behind, the packhorses and carts spread along the trail behind them, Bohemond’s soldiers at the centre. William followed at the rear, head stooped, already exhausted by the journey.

  Josseran found a grim satisfaction in the priest’s suffering.

  They followed an old paved Roman road that cut through the rocky wastes, as it had since the days of the Book. Josseran was glad of Bohemond’s soldiers, for the country was perfect for ambush, and he was sure they were being watched from the hills by Bedouin bandits. Not that he supposed they looked much like a rich Christian caravan, certainly not from their dress.

  He and Gérard wore simple tunics made of mosulin, a fine cotton the Crusaders traded from the Turks in Mosul, and they had Mohammedan scarfs wrapped around their faces to keep the sun from burning their skin. Josseran had offered similar comforts to Brother William, who insisted instead on keeping the heavy woollen cowl he had brought with him from Rome. His face was already beet red.

  They enjoyed their suffering, his lot.

  By late afternoon, their journey had settled to drowsy fatigue; Gérard and William dozed in the saddle, lulled by the heat of the sun on their backs, the creak of the wagons and the dull clip of the horse’s hooves. The stony Syrian hills stretched away all around them.

  They smelled them before they heard them. Their ponies reacted first, twitching and stamping their hooves. Yusuf reined in his horse and twisted in the saddle.

  ‘What is wrong?’ William shouted.

  They appeared suddenly and from nowhere. Their helmets flashed in the sun, their red and grey standards whipped from pennant lances. Yusuf shouted an oath. His eyes were wide, like a horse running from a fire.

  But the horsemen had already outflanked them, in an expert pincer movement, executed at the gallop. Gérard instinctively reached for his sword but at a sharp command from Josseran he sheathed it again. Bohemond’s soldiers, too, had been taken by surprise and sat docile in their saddles, watching.

  Josseran looked around at the friar. William sat calmly in the saddle, his face a mask. ‘Well, Templar,’ he shouted over the thunder of hooves, ‘let us hope your Grand Master’s faith in you was not misplaced.’

  Kismet stamped her feet, excited by the charge and the foreign scent in her nostrils.

  The horsemen whooped like devils as they completed the encirclement and then rushed towards them. There were perhaps as many as a hundred in the squadron. For a moment it seemed they would gallop over them but at the last moment they reined in their broad-shouldered ponies and stopped.

  Then there was deathly silence, save for the occasional snort of a horse and jangle of traces. Josseran spat out their dust.

  So. These were the dread Tatars.

  Their stench was more horrible than their appearance. Their cheeks were the colour of boiled leather and without exception they had dark eyes that seemed to slant, and coarse, straight black hair. They wore little body armour, either a coat of mail or a cuirass of leather covered with iron scales. Each soldier had a lobster-tail helmet of leather or iron and a round, leather-covered wicker shield. In hand-to-hand combat they would be no match for a heavily armoured Frankish knight, Josseran thought. Yet he supposed, looking at the bows they carried with them, and the box-like quivers of arrows on their belts, they would never allow a superior enemy to get up close.

  Their horses were scarcely bigger than mules; ridiculous, ugly animals with blunt noses and large shoulders. Was this really the most feared cavalry in the world?

  One of the Tatars, wearing a gold-winged helmet, walked his pony forward and looked them over. Their officer, Josseran supposed. His eyes were golden and almond-shaped, like a cat. He had a wisp of a black beard and carried a battleaxe in his right fist.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said, in passable Arabic. ‘Why do you approach Aleppo?’

  Josseran removed the scarf he had coiled around his mouth and he saw a moment’s surprise in the eyes of the Tatar officer at seeing his fire-gold beard. ‘My name is Josseran Sarrazini. I am a knight of the Order of the Temple, assigned to the fortress of Acre. My lord is Thomas Bérard, Grand Master of the Order. I have been sent as ambassador to your prince, the lord Hülegü.’

  ‘And what of the crow perched on the brown skeleton behind you?’

  The crow. Josseran smiled. In his black habit, it was exactly what William looked like. ‘He is a fellow ambassador.’

  ‘He does not dress like one.’

  ‘What does he say?’ William said.

  ‘He wishes to know our business.’

  ‘Tell him I have a missive for his lord from the Pope himself.’

  ‘Be patient and let me do the talking for us.’

  ‘My name is Juchi,’ the Tatar officer said. ‘I will escort you to Aleppo. Hülegü, Khan of all Persia, will meet with you there.’

  Josseran turned to William. ‘They are going to take us to Aleppo to meet with Hülegü.’

  ‘Good,’ William said. ‘I have had enough of this horse and your company already. I do not think I could stand another day of it.’

  XIV

  THEY HEARD ALEPPO long before it came into view.

  The city was in its death throes. Only the citadel, with its great barbicans and paved glacis, perched on a rock high above the town, still resisted the Tatar onslaught. Below the fortress, the town itself was already in the hands of the invaders, who had exacted swift retribution for the people’s intransigence. Smoke rose from the gutted remains of the mosques and madrassahs, the pale blue sky merging with the yellow haze, streaked with smoke from burning fires.

  It was the greatest siege army Josseran had ever seen. Herds of sheep and goats and packhorses and camels seemed to fill the entire plain. Even from a distance the booming of the Tatar kettledrums seemed to make the ground itself vibrate. He heard the braying of horses and camels and the screams of men fighting and dying below the walls as another charge was flung at the gates of the citadel.

  ‘This could be Acre,’ Josseran murmured. If their great enemy could be routed so easily, what chance would they stand against the barbarians?

  They rode through the streets of the old bazaar, passed the smoking, blackened timbers of a merchant warehouse. The cobbles below their horses’ hooves were slick with blood. The Tatar massacre had been chillingly efficient. Men and women and children lay where they had fallen; many of them had been beheaded and mutilated. The corpses had bloated in the sun and were covered with swarms of black flies that rose in murmurous clouds at their passage.

  The stench of death was everywhere. Josseran thought he was accustomed to it, but even he had to swallow back the bile in his throat. William put a sleeve across his mouth, began to gag.

  The Tatar soldiers stared at them with pure hate. They would rather cut our throats than parlay with us, Josseran thought, A regiment of Armenian foot soldiers trotted past, urged on by a Tatar drummer mounted on the back of a camel, beating a naqara, a war drum. This is why Hülegü found the alliance with Bohemond so useful, Josseran thought. He needs cannon fodder for the walls.

  The dark, brooding presence of the citadel loomed above them. The sun had fallen behind the barbican, throwing the streets in shadow.

  Squadrons of Tatar archers, armed with crossbows, were firing volleys of flaming arrows over the battlements. Nearby, huge siege engines had been drawn up. Josseran counted more than a score of them, great ballistae that hurled massive blocks of stone the size of houses. The walls of the fortress were pocked and battered from the daily assaults.

  ‘Look!’ Gérard hissed, pointing.

  Instead of stones the engineers were loading one of the lighter siege engines, a mangonel, with what appeared to be small, blackened melons. It took him some moments to realize what they were: not melons, or stones, or weapons of any kind. They were loading the sling with scores of human hea
ds. They would not bring down the Saracen walls but he could imagine the effect these grisly missiles would have on the defenders’ morale.

  The sling was released, with a hiss, and its gruesome cargo arced towards the burning walls.

  A detachment of horsemen approached them through the smoke, the now familiar red and grey standards whipping from pennant lances.

  Bohemond’s soldiers had already dismounted and were kneeling beside their horses. Josseran and the others were slow to respond so Juchi’s men dragged them from their saddles.

  ‘What is happening?’ William shrieked.

  Josseran made no effort to resist. It was pointless. The Tatars forced them to their knees. From somewhere behind him he heard their guide, Yusuf, sobbing and begging for his life. William began to recite a prayer, the Te Deum.

  Beside him Gérard had his face pressed into the dirt, a Tatar boot on his neck. ‘Do they wish our heads for their catapults?’ he whispered.

  ‘If they do,’ Josseran answered, ‘the friar’s will make a particularly fine, heavy one. It may even make the breach in the wall that they have been hoping for.’

  He could feel the drumming under his knees from the hammer of the horses’ hooves. Were they to die then, their faces in the dirt?

  XV

  THE HORSEMEN STOPPED no more than twenty paces away; to a man they were armed with battleaxes and iron maces. Two of the Tatars walked their horses forward. One of them had a gold winged helmet and a leopard-skin cloak.

  Hülegü.

  Juchi fell to his knees. He said something to the khan and the general who attended him in a language Josseran had never heard before. Josseran used the moment to study this Tatar prince who had so easily accomplished what the Christian forces had failed to achieve – even with God’s help – for almost two centuries; the rout of the Mohammedan world. He was an unlikely scourge, a small man with a smooth rounded face, a pug nose, and those same curiously almond-shaped eyes so distinctive of the Tatars.

  This was not the meeting he had anticipated. He had imagined a great pavilion, where he would be presented before Hülegü’s throne in formal court, not like this, thrust face-first into this blood-reeking street.

  The sounds of the battle carried to him from the gates of the citadel, not two crossbow shots distant. A blast of trumpets signalled another attack, followed by the screams of men dying, and dying badly.

  Hülegü’s general addressed him, in imperfect Arabic. ‘My captain says you are an ambassador from the Franks. You have come to make a treaty with us?’

  ‘My name is Josseran Sarrazini. I have been sent by Thomas Bérard, Grand Master of the Order of the Temple, from his fortress at Acre in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. We have a common enemy, namely the Saracens, and my lord ventures to send his congratulations on your many successes and extends his hand in friendship.’

  The general began to laugh, even before he had finished. Hülegü listened to the general’s translation, his face impassive, and then spoke again in the strange new language.

  ‘Our khan is not amazed that your lord extends his hand in friendship,’ the general said, ‘otherwise he may find it cut off.’

  Josseran swallowed his anger at this insulting reply. But pride is not easy to maintain when you have your face next to the ground. ‘We have no quarrel with your khan,’ he answered carefully. ‘Indeed, we may find common cause.’ Josseran thought of Rubruck’s reports that Hülegü’s wife was Christian, that the Tatars had paraded a wooden cross through the streets of Baghdad. ‘We Franks, too, are Christian.’

  ‘What is going on?’ William hissed.

  William, of course, could not know that Josseran had just proposed the very treaty that so many of the Haute Cour opposed. It was a decision that had been reached by Thomas Bérard alone, on behalf of the Templars, before Josseran had left Acre. It would not be the first time the Templars had made a treaty independent of the other states. Yet this was the most dangerous game of any they had played. Once you took a bear about the neck, Josseran thought, you had best be sure you had a firm grip.

  ‘He wishes to know what we want here,’ he said to William.

  ‘Have you told him I have a Bull for him from the Pope himself?’

  ‘I doubt if this creature has even heard of the Pope, Brother William.’

  ‘Then you must explain to him that the Pope is the leader of the Christian world and has sent me here to bring him and the rest of these barbarians to salvation!’

  Josseran turned away. He intended no such thing. The Tatars might have their heads at any moment and he had no wish to die like this, grovelling at some savage’s feet. He had promised himself that when he finally met his end it would be with a sword in his hand, in the service of Christ. It would at least make some recompense for his sins.

  Hülegü was watching them, and Josseran imagined he saw uncertainty on his face.

  ‘My lord Hülegü wishes to know what is this common cause you speak of,’ the general asked.

  ‘The destruction of the Saracens.’

  The general laughed again. ‘Like this, you mean?’ He waved a hand in the direction of the town. ‘As you can see we have destroyed the Saracens without the help of your Grand Master, as you call him.’

  ‘Now what is he saying?’ William shouted again, almost trembling with frustration.

  ‘I do not think he is interested in us overmuch.’

  ‘But he must hear the Bull from the Holy Father!’

  Hülegü whispered something to his general. ‘What is that creature and what does he say?’ the general asked.

  ‘He is one of our holy men, my lord.’

  ‘Does he have magic to show us?’

  Josseran was startled by the question. ‘Magic? I fear he does not.’

  The general passed this information to Hülegü, who seemed disappointed. There was another long conversation between the two Tatars.

  ‘The great khan wishes to know if your lord will become his vassal, as the lord of Antioch has done, and pay him annual tribute.’

  Josseran masked his surprise. This was not the relationship as Bohemond had described it. ‘What we seek is an alliance against the Saracen. In return for our military aid we would have Jerusalem . . .’

  Hülegü did not wait to hear the rest. He murmured a few words to his general and turned his horse away.

  ‘The great khan says he cannot talk to you of an alliance. That is something only Möngke, the Khan of all Khans, can decide. You will be escorted into his presence. You may take your holy man with you. The rest of your party will stay here as hostage until your return.’

  The general spoke rapidly to Juchi in the Tatar tongue and then he wheeled his horse away and followed the khan back to the walls of the citadel, their escort following in tight formation. The audience had been brutally swift, and was now, apparently, concluded.

  They were all hauled back to their feet.

  ‘What is to happen?’ William shouted. ‘What has taken place?’

  ‘He says he does not have the authority to hear us. It seems there is a lord even higher than he. We are to be taken to him.’

  ‘Where is this lord? How much further must we travel?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  He saw Gérard and Yusuf staring at him, their eyes wide. Unlike William, they had understood all that had been said.

  ‘So,’ Juchi laughed. ‘You are to see Qaraqorum.’

  ‘How many days travel is it?’

  ‘Days?’ The officer repeated what he had said to the rest of the Tatars and there was a howl of laughter. He turned back to Josseran. ‘If you ride hard you might be there in four moons. With that elephant you ride you will be fortunate to arrive in eight!’

  Josseran stared at him. Four months? It might take a man on a good horse so long to travel from Toulouse to Constantinople, the very breadth of Christendom. But eight months, twice that distance, heading east through and beyond the land of the Mohammedans, was simply inconceivable! They woul
d fall off the edge of the world!

  ‘And if we do not wish to go there?’

  The Tatar laughed again. ‘What you wish is of no account. It is what the khan wishes. And if he wishes it, then it is done.’

  William was tugging at the sleeve of his tunic. ‘What did they say? You must not make mystery of this!’

  Eight months in the presence of this damnable churchman! If he survived. ‘Just get on your horse,’ he growled. ‘We are going east. To some place called Qaraqorum. That’s all I know.’

  XVI

  Fergana Valley

  A SKY AS grey as a corpse, mountains hidden behind a veil of cloud, with sleet drifting across the steppe. Wooden wheels crunched on the frost-hard earth. Two carts arrived, laden with tribute from the Kazaks at Almalik: furs of ermine and sable and two young girls for the harem.

  Qaidu watched their arrival astride his favourite horse, the black stripes on its hind legs singling it out as a mare not long tamed from the wild herds that still roamed free on the northern steppe. A corona of fur wreathed his head and there were droplets of ice in his beard. He looked at the stacked furs and the two girls shivering on the back of the cart, his eyes hard rather than greedy, assessing their value as tribute with the practised gaze of a conqueror.

  ‘Do they smell?’ he said to Khutelun, turning his gaze to the women.

  ‘They are sweet enough,’ she answered. ‘But although they are the prettiest of their women, they are only a little more comely than the yaks they have been herding. The Kazak are not a pretty people.’

  Qaidu nodded, but she could see his mind was not on the women, but on politics.

  ‘Chinggis’s grandson Khubilai remains in Cathay fighting the Soong,’ he said, reading the question in her eyes. ‘Ariq Böke has called again for a khuriltai in Qaraqorum.’