Silk Road

by Falconer, Colin

  A woman stood in the centre of the circle, holding a plaited leather horsewhip in her right hand. She was young and sturdy, and there was a knife thrust into her belt.

  A young man rode out from the camp and the crowd parted for him. His trousers were tucked into his leather boots, in the fashion of the people of these mountains, but his chest and back were bare.

  ‘What are they doing?’ William whispered.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Josseran turned, saw Khutelun standing a few yards away, her eyes bright with excitement.

  The man rode slowly, circling the woman, who hefted the whip in her right fist, testing its weight. What was happening? Was this some sort of tribal punishment? If it was, the victim seemed cheerful enough.

  ‘He is going to let her whip him,’ William said, with sudden realization.

  Josseran nodded. And then he added mischievously: ‘It is not too late for me to find you a horse. Perhaps you could join in.’

  He left him and went to join Khutelun. As he turned his back he heard the whip crack.

  There was such a look of savagery on her face. Not a woman at all, as I have known them, he thought. She is a primitive. A true lady does not take her pleasure in such spectacles.

  ‘What are they doing?’ he asked.

  ‘She is testing him.’

  ‘Testing him?’

  ‘He has asked her to marry him. It is now her right to discover if he would be suitable as a husband. He has to prove himself. What use is a weak husband? A woman cannot feed her children with kisses and endearments.’

  The whip cracked again. Josseran turned around. The young man was still upright in the saddle, riding steadily. But already there were two bloody stripes across his back.

  ‘How long does this go on?’

  ‘Until she is satisfied.’

  ‘And if she does not want him for a husband?’

  ‘Then he must decide how long he can endure the whip. If he falls from the saddle he loses any claim to her. She is not expected to marry a man with no courage or strength.’

  The whip cracked again and again. The young boy allowed no outward sign of pain to show. But the blood ran freely down his back now, staining his trousers. The girl wielded the whip once more.

  The crowd cheered with each slap of the whip. The young man had slumped a little in the saddle, Josseran noticed. His back was a lather of blood. But he kept the horse settled, and did not try to swerve out of range.

  The girl waited, watching the rider as he made a complete lap. Then she yelled aloud and put all her weight behind another blow. The boy flinched, but kept his balance in the saddle. Flecks of blood sprayed along the horse’s flank.

  ‘If she loves him she will stop now,’ Khutelun said. ‘He has proved himself.’

  ‘And if she does not love him?’

  ‘Then it would be better if he is not too brave.’

  But as Khutelun predicted, the girl tucked the whip back into her belt and raised her arms, her ululating cry rippling through the wild mountains. The watching family members rushed in and gathered around the pony to congratulate its rider, who grinned back and accepted their plaudits, although the smile was really no more than a grimace.

  ‘As a woman, I would expect any man to do as much for me,’ Khutelun said. ‘As a princess I would expect much more.’

  He felt as if she was issuing a challenge.

  ‘In your country are you considered a brave man?’ she asked him.

  ‘What does a man have if he does not have honour and valour?’

  ‘Are you a good horseman also?’

  ‘One of the finest.’

  ‘How many horses do you own?’

  The Tatars took twenty horses with them on a campaign, more horses than any knight could ever hope for, more than many rich lords possessed; and he himself was anything but rich. How could he explain to her that he had sold much of what he owned to travel to the Holy Land? How might he describe the circumstances of his service to the Order of the Temple?

  ‘I have three horses,’ he said, which was only partly true, for though he rode them in battle they in fact belonged to the Temple.

  ‘And how many wives?’

  ‘A man can only have one wife, by God’s law.’

  ‘One wife if he has no appetite. As a man will drink just one bowl of koumiss if he is not thirsty.’ And she laughed.

  Josseran could not believe his ears. It was as well that William could not understand what was being said.

  She was close enough that he could smell her scent, a savage alchemy of leather and curds and female musk. He felt himself stir.

  ‘What are your women like?’ she said. ‘Are they great horse-women?’

  ‘None of them compare to you.’

  ‘Then what can they do?’

  ‘A noble maid is supposed to be beautiful and gentle, with a soft and mellifluous voice.’

  ‘This is what you look for in a wife?’

  ‘She should also be versed in music and tapestry making. The paragon is Our Lord’s mother, Mary.’

  ‘I agree that a woman should be able to sew and cook. The yurt and the children are her province. But in times of war or misfortune she should also be able to fight and hunt.’

  ‘Fight?’

  ‘Of course. What else do you Christians look for in a wife?’

  ‘Modesty,’ he said, using the Tatar word for correctness, politeness.

  Khutelun frowned.

  ‘She must be . . . unbroken . . .’ he added, trying to explain it to her as delicately as was in his power.

  ‘You mean she must have the blood veil?’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered, astounded at her forthrightness.

  ‘I lost my blood veil a long time ago,’ she said. ‘Like every good Tatar woman, I gave it to my horse.’

  And she turned away from him and strode back to the camp.

  XXVIII

  JOSSERAN AND WILLIAM became objects of curiosity about the camp. Children dogged their heels, laughing and shouting, one occasionally accepting a dare from his fellows to run up and touch the hem of their jackets before rushing off again. The adults, too, stared at them with undisguised curiosity, would sometimes approach and demand Josseran’s knife, or William’s silver cross. They did it shamelessly, not as beggars, but with the attitude of lords who took whatever they wanted as a matter of right. Several times Josseran, goaded beyond endurance, was on the point of reaching for his sword.

  It was Tekudai, Khutelun’s brother, who saved the situation. He adopted them as his personal charges and escorted them wherever they went. The demands and the begging stopped abruptly.

  Tekudai was endlessly curious about them, about their religion, their methods of warfare, their castles. He wanted to know if Christian – the Tatars thought their religion was the name of their country – had endless pastures where a man might graze horses; what the punishment was for adultery; what they used to make arrows. Josseran realized that Tekudai was more than simply curious, and that Qaidu had probably ordered him to spy on them, and so he was always cautious in his replies.

  If Tekudai was Qaidu’s spy he was not a good choice, for he liked to talk as much as he liked to listen, and Josseran gradually drew him out.

  ‘What is your religion?’ Josseran asked him. He realized he did not know the word for God, or even if the Tatars had such a word. So he tried to say, as best he could: ‘What do you believe in?’

  ‘The world and everything in it comes from the Spirit of the Blue Sky,’ Tekudai said, as if he was astonished that Josseran should ask such an obvious question.

  ‘Does he give you your laws?’

  ‘The khan makes the laws.’

  ‘The khan, your father?’

  ‘He makes laws for our tribe here in the valley. But there is a khan who is higher than him in Bukhara, and then there is the Khan of Khans in Qaraqorum.’ Tekudai explained that the last Khaghan, Möngke, had just died, so a council would be held in Qaraqorum to choose a new Kh
an of Khans. This was known as the khuriltai, and by the time Josseran and William arrived at the Centre of the World they all expected Mongke’s son, Ariq Böke, would be elected.

  ‘And he makes laws for everyone?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The Spirit of the Blue Sky does not give you laws?’

  He laughed. ‘The Spirit just is.’

  ‘But if the Spirit does not give you laws, how do you know if you are living a good life?’

  ‘Because I will be victorious over my enemies and have many children with my wives.’

  ‘Wives? So you have more than one wife? Like the Mohammedans?’

  ‘Of course. We can have four wives if we can afford them. After that, only concubines.’

  This was godless, of course. But for a man, it was also intriguing. He asked Tekudai the same question he asked certain Mohammedans that he knew in Acre. ‘But don’t they all fight with each other? Is there not jealousy?’

  ‘No, why should they be jealous? They are all looked after just the same. My father, for instance. He even sleeps with the old, ugly ones now and then, just the same as the new ones. He is a good man, my father.’

  ‘But what about when he dies? What happens to his wives?’

  ‘Well they will come to my ordu, my household. I will look after them. There is one of them, she has eyes like a deer. When my father dies, I can’t wait. She will be first into my bed.’

  ‘You will sleep with all your father’s women when he dies?’

  ‘Not my mother, obviously.’

  ‘So a woman is never . . .’ He realized there was no word for widow: ‘. . . she is never left unprotected.’

  ‘Of course not. What do you think we are? Barbarians?’ Tekudai then asked him what happened to women in Christian. Josseran tried to explain to him that a man might only have one wife. But when he also tried to explain about widowhood, about old or barren women being sent to live in monasteries, and about men disowning children borne by women other than their wives, Tekudai shook his head in disgust and astonishment.

  ‘And a woman cannot even own her own goat?’

  ‘All possessions belong to the husband.’

  Tekudai pointed to Khutelun, who had just emerged from Qaidu’s yurt and leaped on to her horse. ‘I do not think she would make a very good wife in Christian,’ he said. ‘You try and tell that one she cannot have her own goat. Try and tell her anything and she will whip you all the way to Bukhara.’

  Josseran pointed to the silk belt she wore around her waist.

  ‘What does that mean?’ he asked, trying to appear as artless as he could.

  ‘When a woman has a silk sash like that it means she is unmarried.’

  Unmarried.

  Josseran pushed the absurd thought from his mind. May God forgive him; his duty lay with God, not in the loins of some Tatar savage from the steppes.

  As if such a thing were possible, anyway.

  He watched the Tatars as they went about their daily lives; the women milking cows, or sitting in groups outside sewing skins or making felt, scolding children or chopping up meat for the pots; the men shaping bows or filing arrowheads, or shouting and whooping as they trained their horses. Others poured mare’s milk into leather bags, which they then suspended from wooden frames and beat with long sticks. They would do this for hours on end, to separate the whey from the curds. Tekudai told him they were making koumiss.

  The more he saw of the Tatars, the more he was impressed with their fighting ability. ‘Show me how you use this bow,’ he said to Tekudai when he found him practising at the butts.

  It was double-curved and made from bamboo and yak horn, bound together with silk and resin. To release the string, Tekudai used a leather thumb ring. Josseran had never seen one before.

  ‘How do you use this?’ he asked him.

  ‘Try it,’ Tekudai said. Josseran had never thought of himself as a great bowman, but using the ring he was able to release the string with a better snap than he ever managed with his bare fingers, and hit the centre of a target from over two hundred paces.

  Tekudai laughed and slapped him on the back. ‘If you weren’t so big and ugly, you would make a fine Tatar warrior!’ he said.

  He showed him the arrows he used, one for fighting at distance, another with a larger blade for fighting close in. He also showed him a blunt signal arrow. The arrowhead was not pointed but instead had a round iron ball, drilled with small holes, affixed to the shaft. It made a whistling noise as it flew, he said, and they used it for communicating with each other in a battle.

  ‘These Tatars are the most extraordinary warriors I have ever seen,’ he said to William later that afternoon. ‘Their discipline and organization is greater than anything we have at the Temple. In battle they form themselves into fighting groups, ten men part of a hundred who are part of a thousand. They each coordinate with each other with flags and arrows. There is not one of them who is not an expert bowman and horseman by the time they are ten years old. They are virtually unbeatable.’

  ‘But we have God on our side.’

  ‘We would need more than that,’ Josseran muttered, under his breath.

  But until now he had only been allowed mere glimpses of the Tatar’s martial capabilities. If he had been impressed thus far, he was struck with awe when, a week after their arrival, Qaidu allowed him to ride with them on a hunt.

  XXIX

  IT WAS STILL dark when Khutelun’s mingan – a Tatar army of one thousand riders – left the camp. Josseran woke during the night to the thunder of the hooves as they rode out on to the steppe.

  Soon afterwards, Tekudai came to fetch them. ‘You must come,’ he said. ‘The hunt has begun.’

  It was bitterly cold; Josseran threw on his del and boots. William followed him out of the yurt. Even he had now succumbed to Tatar ways; he had surrendered his sandals for stubby, felt boots and wore a thick Tatar robe over his black cloak.

  They saddled their horses and followed Tekudai to the hill overlooking the camp. Qaidu was waiting for them, surrounded by his bodyguard, and hunched inside a great ermine coat. He wore all the trappings of a khan; his leather cuirass was richly studded with silver and there were carmine trappings on his horse and his wooden saddle was studded with jade.

  ‘We honour you,’ Qaidu said to Josseran as they rode up. ‘No barbarian has ever seen this.’ I have been on hunts before, Josseran thought. He imagined returning that evening with a few boar, perhaps some antelope. He had not the faintest idea of the slaughter that he was about to witness.

  They rode hard for several hours, in the Tatar way, without a break. Kismet kept up the pace; she was in better condition for the rest at Qaidu’s camp and fattened by the feed she had found on the plain. Josseran was relieved; he had feared that he might lose her.

  They reached the crest of a low hill. The blue-white peaks of the mountains surrounded them, like the rim of some giant bowl.

  In the dawn light he made out a dark line of Tatar horsemen spread across the valley. These must be the cavalry he had heard leaving the camp. Suddenly the line broke, the flanks galloping forward in two separate horns across the steppe.

  A herd of antelope darted ahead, more than a hundred score of them, caught between the advancing wings of the cavalry. He heard their queer, quacking bleats as they stampeded across the frozen tundra. Some of them leaped high into the air above the backs of the herd, like fish jumping out of the sea. William gasped and pointed to the right where a pack of wolves were also running; they were joined by two snow leopards, panicked and howling, padding over the ice on the flank of the charge.

  Now a herd of goats darted ahead, corralled by the horsemen.

  ‘In the name of God,’ Josseran breathed.

  He had hunted stag and boar in the forests of Burgundy but he had never seen a hunt on a scale such as this. It was performed with startling precision. In France they used beaters and hounds to chase down their prey; when a quarry was sighted it was up to the
lord or the knight to hunt it down and kill it. Compared to this, such sport was child’s play.

  Here the Tatars used their entire army, acting in unison.

  The horns of the Tatar advance were about to close, encircling the animals on the plain below.

  ‘This is how we drill our soldiers,’ Tekudai said. He had to shout to make himself heard above the drumming of hooves on the frost-hard ground. The riders themselves made no sound, wheeling and turning in total silence, their movements coordinated by the messengers who streaked between the commanders on their ponies, by signal flags, and by the occasional singing flight of an arrow.

  ‘Nothing may be killed until the khan himself gives the signal. If a single hare is lost from inattention that man is put in the cangue and given a hundred strokes of the cane.’

  Josseran had been raised to believe that battle was a series of individual combats. Personal courage and skill was everything. It was only when he joined the Templars that he was trained to charge and wheel and turn about in unison with the rest of the cavalry. It was this iron discipline that had set the Templars and Hospitallers apart from all others as a fighting force in the Holy Land.

  But it was nothing compared to what he witnessed now. When you fought the Tatar, he realized, you fought the entire horde at once. The lightness of their armour and their weapons was in stark contrast to the heavy chain mail and broadsword of himself and his fellow Templars. Individually, these wild horsemen would be no match for a Frankish knight; but fighting and moving as a unit, as these men were doing now, they would carry all before them.

  If he did not somehow return to Outremer with a truce, he could envisage the whole of the Holy Land being swallowed up by these devils.

  Qaidu nodded to the lieutenant who attended him. The man took an arrow from his quiver. It was one of the signal arrows that Tekudai had showed him. The man fired it into the air and it whistled as it fell towards the warriors on the plain below.

  It was the signal for the killing to begin.