‘Jihad, lord? There are better jihads than China.’
Temur looked at him darkly. ‘She has told you to say this?’ He nodded towards Shulen.
Mohammed Sultan shook his head, his eyes on the carpet beneath him. It was patterned as a garden with intertwining trees’ branches. A solitary pear adjoined his toe.
‘Anyway, it’s too late,’ said Tamerlane, putting the empty goblet back on to a tray. ‘I’ve been planning it for years. The spies have done their work. Barley has been sown on the route of march and castles built on the border.’ He smiled and looked straight at his grandson. ‘And the elephants have been trained.’
Mohammed Sultan was amazed. ‘All this has happened?’
Tamerlane nodded, stretching out his oiled leg. ‘General Allahdad was sent north two years ago to make maps and develop the land.’
Mohammed Sultan sat back on his heels, his head very still. ‘So you never intended to attack Bayezid?’ He paused. ‘What if Bayezid now comes for you?’
‘I don’t think he’ll do that. I’ve scared him enough with Sivas.’ Tamerlane scratched his knee and examined the oil beneath his fingernails. ‘And the letters have stopped.’
‘But, Grandfather, he is on the point of taking Constantinople, and when it falls …’
‘… he will go further into Europe,’ finished Tamerlane testily. ‘Why do you think I have my Jerusalem oil from Pope Boniface and those pretty stallions from King Charles of France? They know where he’ll go next.’ Tamerlane sank back into his cushions. ‘Don’t be angry with me, Grandson. We cannot have the Greeks deciding what we do.’
Mohammed Sultan stared at his grandfather. That he, Temur’s heir, should be so publicly humiliated. He got to his feet and bowed stiffly. ‘Lord, if you will excuse me.’
‘No,’ said Tamerlane, ‘not yet, at least.’ He signalled for more wine and leant forward from his cushions. ‘I want you to go to Samarcand.’
Mohammed Sultan stared at his grandfather.
‘I want you to go and see how Allahdad fares. He’s there now. I want you to tell him that we will march in forty days’ time. Can you leave now?’
Mohammed said nothing for a while. Then he nodded. ‘Of course, Grandfather.’
Tamerlane’s heir bowed, turned and walked back through the treasure, looking at the ground. Three of the Varangians had got to their feet, ready to follow him. Luke stayed on his knees.
‘You wish to stay?’ Tamerlane was peering at him. ‘Very well.’ He waved his hand. ‘The rest of you go.’
When his friends had left, Luke found himself the focus of Tamerlane’s full attention. He forced himself to stay calm, to smother the fury he felt that it had all been in vain, that this old man would fight his last battle in China rather than Anatolia. The horror of the past year, denied for so long, engulfed him, revulsion filling every part of his being. He clenched his fists.
It’s all been pointless. All the slaughter, everything.
Tamerlane was smiling, his leather cheeks pushing up his glasses. Whatever he could see in Luke seemed to be pleasing him. ‘I wish you to go with my grandson to Samarcand,’ he said. ‘You are good for him.’
Luke didn’t reply. He felt numb.
Tamerlane was looking at him with curiosity. ‘You have done him service. Me as well.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps he’ll need your baskets again.’
Luke steadied himself, his fingernails dug deep into his palms. Suddenly, waves of fatigue rolled over him and he could think of only one thing he must do: leave this madness and go to Anna.
Keeping his voice steady, he said: ‘If I and the other Varangians have done you service, lord, then we ask to be released from our oaths. We ask to go home.’
Tamerlane’s smile wavered, then turned to a frown. He shook his head. ‘By no means can you be released, Greek. I want you on the campaign. I still favour you.’
‘Then let me go home,’ said Luke quietly. ‘I have nothing more to give you.’
Tamerlane’s voice sank to a growl. ‘Nothing more to give, Greek? You’ve just begun. You’ll go where I tell you to go: with my grandson to Samarcand.’
Luke opened his mouth to speak. He didn’t care any more; he was so tired. He glanced at Shulen. She was staring at him, minutely shaking her head. It was a message, but what? She rose and, placing her hand on Temur’s forearm, bent to whisper in his ear. ‘Lord, my friend is tired. Let me speak to him.’
The old man turned and blinked at her. Then he grunted, nodding. ‘Speak sense to him. Go.’
Shulen swept from the dais and took Luke’s arm and half pulled him from the tent. She walked him to where they could be alone. She let go of his arm. ‘That was foolish. You nearly lost your head.’
Luke was standing with his eyes closed. He said: ‘Shulen, it’s over.’
‘No, Luke. It’s not over. We can still do this.’ She paused and took his shoulders in her hands, forcing him to look at her. ‘You must do it – for Byzantium.’
‘But do what? You heard him: he’s going to China.’
‘Not yet,’ she replied softly. ‘Go with Mohammed Sultan and I will join you later. This is far from over.’
*
Important news travelled fast, not just for Tamerlane. The Ottoman Empire, only a century old, was as alert to Tamerlane’s every movement as a lion guarding its prey. Its spies watched the flurry of activity in the Mongol camp, and its direction east, and carried their interpretation back to Bayezid. Only a month later, the Sultan had had it confirmed.
‘The Mongol goes to China.’ He was sitting in the throne room at Edirne and before him stood his three sons: Suleyman, Mehmed and Musa. He could barely conceal his glee. ‘A million Chinese will destroy his army and he will die of rage and shame.’
Suleyman nodded. It was six months since Anna had left Edirne and gone into Constantinople. She hadn’t come out with the other hostages who’d been released at the end of the truce with Manuel’s answer that Constantinople would not surrender. After his fury and grief had subsided, Suleyman had set his mind on being the one to take the city. After all, Mehmed’s attempts had all failed and his brother’s fears about a Mongol attack seemed now to be unfounded.
He said: ‘And the news has gone further. Venice wants to give us cannon again.’
Bayezid wrinkled his nose. ‘Those dogs point with the wind but this one will blow them away. You talk to them?’
The news of Tamerlane’s move on China had reached not only the Doge in Venice but also Pavlos Mamonas, as had Suleyman’s visit to Constantinople. The plan had all the hallmarks of his daughter’s genius. He’d deduced that Suleyman was on his way back into favour and had immediately reopened negotiations with Venice. The cannon would arrive at the siege by the summer. Suleyman glanced at his brothers and said: ‘Yes, I talk to them as I talked to Manuel in Constantinople.’
Suleyman smiled at his father. ‘Give me back the siege, Father, and I will take this city one month from the cannons’ arrival.’
Bayezid frowned. ‘What of Sigismund? He’s raising another crusade.’
Suleyman had heard this. The news had reached them a month after Anna had entered Constantinople. ‘But how long will it take to come, if at all? What appetite will the Christian Kings have to fight us after Nicopolis? All it will do is give the Byzantines new heart. But it’s too late.’
Bayezid looked hard at the man who was still his heir. Then he nodded. ‘It is your last chance, Prince Suleyman.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE ROAD TO SAMARCAND, SPRING 1402
The ride to Samarcand took three weeks and would have been shorter if Luke hadn’t insisted on keeping Eskalon. To begin with, they’d ridden with an escort of gautchin but Mohammed Sultan had dismissed them on the Persian border and they’d ridden on alone. For the first time in his life, Luke was glad not to be with his friends.
The two men rode south down the shoreline of the Khazar Sea until they came to the trade road and then turned towards Tabr
iz. The way was busy with wagons of plunder going east and soldiers west to join the Conqueror of the World. But for Luke, no distance was great enough to separate him from Tamerlane. The bustle around him belonged to another world; his was scorched by fire and drowned in blood: red road, red dust, red sun spilling blood across the evening sky because the earth had soaked up all it could manage. In his dreams, the sun was masked by the endless smoke of burning and the only sound was one long scream of agony. He dreamt of destruction and awoke with its smell still with him: the smell of fire, of horse, of fear, of blood. The smell of Tamerlane.
Luke hardly spoke throughout the ride, finding no words to describe the scale of his torment. He wanted to shout out to those they passed that their world was inverting, that the creatures of hell were coming up to the surface while all that was good was being buried for ever. He wanted to tell them to tear down their churches because neither their God nor the angels could see them through their tears. Perhaps he did shout out, for the people backed away as they passed. They were used to armies and wagons of plunder but not a fair-haired giant with madness in his eyes.
For the most part, Mohammed Sultan let him be. He saw the endless washing of the hands when they stopped to rest and understood. He knew that only time would wash away the blood. Only time or something else.
They reached Samarcand and rode through a city embraced by scaffolding. Blocks of stone and marble, sheets of copper and brass were piled everywhere and between them were vast pits dense with workers of every nation. The streets were full of masons dressing stone and the air was choked with the smoke of furnaces working at full blast. Even from afar, Tamerlane’s all-seeing eye watched everything and the fear that hung over his enemies was above Samarcand too.
They spent a week in Samarcand and, while Mohammed Sultan talked with Allahdad, Luke slept. Then the three of them rode east towards China, through the rich Fergana Valley where the water of the Syr Darya sparkled in the sunlight and the fields were full of women sowing wheat and barley for the army to come. The road was the main trade route into China and Allahdad had filled in its holes, built new yams and created whole villages full of warehouses, barracks, bakeries and pens for thousands of horses. They spent two weeks riding east and during that time Luke remained silent. It was only when they’d arrived back in Samarcand that Mohammed Sultan finally confronted him.
‘Get up,’ he said. He’d entered Luke’s bedroom in Tamerlane’s palace to find his friend awake, staring at the ceiling. ‘We are going somewhere where we can talk and you can mend.’
*
The forty days were up and the Mongol army still had not marched. The first flowers were knotting themselves into a carpet that would unroll across the valleys to welcome the coming of spring, and still Tamerlane’s gers remained in the fields of the Qarabagh.
Tamerlane was ill.
It was night and inside the imperial ger it was stifling. Four Damascene braziers stood at each corner of an enormous bed raised high on a dais, throwing up snakes of flame to add to the heat cast out by the iron stove. On the bed, naked save for a loincloth sodden with sweat, lay Tamerlane, his eyes closed and his grey hair matted to his skull. His body was criss-crossed with scars, some old and puckered, others still livid. Every battlefield was there, every sword stroke of an enemy that had got too close. His bed resembled a pyre.
The ger was simple considering its occupant’s wealth and power. On its walls were hung the pelts of different animals, all claws and teeth. On the floor were plain carpets of coarse weave, piled one on top of the other. The furniture was sparse: a table of mother-of-pearl that was also a chessboard, the pair of elephant incense burners, two sitting lecterns, one holding the Kama Sutra that had made Shulen blush so, and a tall perch on which stood Temur’s eagle, its head sunk deep into its neck and its eye fixed malevolently upon the snow leopard lying at the foot of the bed. Next to the animal knelt Khan-zada and in her hand was a bowl and sponge.
The light played its uncertain fingers over this scene, summoning from the dark one tableau after another to tell the story of this sickness. The man on the bed was covered in boils, seeping yellow fluid that gave off a putrid stench until wiped clean by the hand of the Princess. There was the sound of the ger door opening and Khan-zada turned. ‘Close it quick!’ she whispered. ‘We must keep the heat in.’
Her second son had entered and with him was Tamerlane’s greatest general, Burunduk. They stood for a while looking at the emir and then began to untie their deels. Pir Mohammed spoke: ‘Is this heat right, Mother?’
She put down the bowl and soaked the sponge in the water, wringing it between her hands. ‘I don’t know what is right,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what afflicts him. That’s why we need her.’ She pressed the sponge to Temur’s forehead. ‘Are they here?’
The general nodded and stepped forward to the other side of the bed so that he was facing the Princess. ‘They are waiting outside with the horses, highness.’
‘And no one knows how Temur is?’
‘No one except those in this room.’
Khan-zada looked over to her second son. He was quieter than his brother and inclined to melancholy but he was good and strong and would do what was right. He had Jahangir’s kind eyes, eyes that had always been wise beyond their years. He was Temur’s second heir and she prayed every day that he would never have to become his first.
‘And Miran Shah? How long can we keep him from this tent, do you think?’
Pir Mohammed knelt down by the side of his mother. He took her hand in his. ‘We’ll find a way, Mother,’ he said gently, ‘until she returns. Now we must go to the Varangians. There’s not much time.’
They rose and walked outside the tent, Burunduk behind them. In the darkness were Matthew, Nikolas and Arcadius, each holding a horse, each dressed for riding. Khan-zada went up and kissed them in turn. She looked from one to the other, seeing how young they were, younger than her sons. ‘Go, and ride harder than you have ever ridden. Use your paizis to change horses wherever you can. Go like the wind.’ She turned to Matthew, taking his hand. ‘And bring her back to us,’ she whispered. ‘Only she can save him now.’
*
It was evening when Luke and Mohammed Sultan reached the church of the rock. They had followed the road west from Samarcand, then turned south into the hills. As the sun was setting, they came to a giant fist of sandstone on top of a hill into which hundreds of caves had been dug. A rough path led up to it.
‘Tombs,’ said Mohammed Sultan. It was the first time he’d spoken since waking Luke. ‘Thousands of years old. And a Christian church on top of them.’ The Prince had turned his horse on to the path and spoke over his shoulder. ‘My mother used to bring us here when we were young. To worship.’
With the sun gone, it was suddenly dark and cold. Luke unstrapped his deel from the back of his saddle and put it on. He saw his breath rise before him. ‘To worship?’ he asked.
‘My mother is a Nestorian. It was a sect of your church that came east many centuries ago. Many Mongols are Nestorian.’
‘You?’
‘No longer. I’m to be the Sword of Islam, after all.’
Luke fell silent. In another mood, he’d have been more surprised at this revelation. Now he merely nodded and looked above him at the beehive necropolis – honeycomb and catacomb – and the cave at its top, which had pillars and steps framing its mouth. When they reached the church, they dismounted and lit torches that they’d brought with them. Luke entered first and raised the flame to see pictures of saints on the rock walls, their colours faded with age. He swung the torch around. The church was empty and had an earthen floor, raised at one end with a niche in the wall behind. Luke walked over to it.
‘What was here?’
Mohammed Sultan joined him. ‘When I used to come here, a statue of your Virgin Mary. Before that? Who knows? Cybele, Matar – they’re all the same.’
Luke turned. ‘This was a place of pagan worship?’
&
nbsp; ‘Of course.’ Mohammed Sultan gestured towards the niche. ‘Before your Virgin was installed, Cybele would’ve sat there on a throne with two lions at her feet. She would’ve been fat and many-breasted, giving eternal birth while her worshippers danced to two-piped aulos.’
Luke looked around the church again, half-rock, half-building. It was a place of whispers and the tremulous echo of ancient prayer. He suddenly felt very cold. He said: ‘We should build a fire.’
Mohammed Sultan rose and led them out of the church and along a path that followed the contour of the hill. The evening was cold but clear, with a million stars emerging in patterns of winking light. Luke turned to look out over the landscape below. He could see a patchwork of grey sewn together with black: the tapestry of old, old fields and broken walls. In between, the road wound its way down the valley, silver and sinuous. They walked to the bottom of the hill where there were trees and gathered wood.
An hour later they were sitting on the floor of the church, a fire between them, their rolled bedding and saddlebags set behind them as cushions. In silence they ate food they’d brought with them, each finding some comfort in the fire. Eventually Mohammed Sultan looked up at Luke, seeing only his face through the flames. He said: ‘Luke, the slaughter had nothing to do with what happened in Georgia. What we did there was right and will be remembered.’
Luke made no reply. His eyes were alight, but dull.
‘And you did what you could at Damascus with Ibn Khaldun. If the fools hadn’t attacked us, they’d still be alive.’
Still no answer. Mohammed Sultan leant forward and picked up Luke’s sword, which was lying between them. He raised it into the firelight, turning it, examining the blade, then the hilt. The dragon scales were rapids of silver in the flickering firelight. ‘You told me that something was written on the blade. What is it?’
The Towers of Samarcand (The Mistra Chronicles) Page 33