In the cold months, Batu could not have had scouts out for weeks at a time without them losing fingers and toes to the frost. Bayar was not surprised to see isolated stone houses as he led his men down from the high hills. From a great distance, he could see smoke drifting up from dwellings with thick walls and sharply angled roofs, designed to let the snow fall rather than build up a crushing weight. He could also see riders galloping away from them as they caught sight of the tumans, no doubt to inform Batu of the threat. Bayar had broken his last yam station some miles before, taking the furious riders with him. Kublai’s orders no longer applied, now that he had made contact. Arik-Boke would soon hear, as they wanted him to hear, and he would know his northern lands were cut off. Bayar hoped Kublai and Uriang-Khadai had reached Samarkand. Between them, they would isolate Karakorum, snatching away the two great suppliers of grain and herds to the capital.
With battle horns droning, Bayar picked up the pace, his thirty thousand men moving well as they dragged the tail of spare horses behind them. At the far rear, he had men with long sticks to force the herds on when they wanted to stop and graze. They would get a chance to rest and eat when he was done with Lord Batu.
Bayar was able to judge the man he would face by the speed of his response to the incursion. He had to admit it was impressive how fast Batu’s tumans appeared. Even without the warning from yam lines, in a long-settled land with no close enemies, Bayar made barely ten miles across a valley of ice-rimed grass before he heard distant horns and saw black lines of galloping horses coming in fast. Kublai’s general watched in fascination as the numbers visible kept growing, pouring into the valley from two or three different directions. The Batu khanate was barely a generation old and he had no idea how many men could take the field against his incursion. He had planned for a single tuman of warriors, possibly two. By the time they had formed up in sold ranks, blocking his path, he suspected they almost equalled his force - some thirty thousand men ready to defend their master’s lands and people.
Kublai had been away from home too long, Bayar realised. When he had left for Sung lands, Batu’s khanate had barely registered in the politics of Karakorum. Yet Batu’s people had bred and taken in many more over the years. For the first time, Bayar considered that he might not be able to bring crushing force against the man. He had seen the way the tumans moved, recognising the shifting patterns of smaller jaguns and minghaans in the host. It was no wild horde he faced, but trained men, with bows and swords just like his own.
Bayar halted his tumans with a raised fist. He had been given a free hand by Kublai, but for the first time in years he felt his inexperience. These were his own people and he did not know instantly how to approach them as a hostile commander. He waited for a time in the front rank, then breathed in relief as a group detached on the other side and rode into a middle ground. They bore the red flags of the Golden Horde khanate, but also pure white banners. There was no one symbol for truce among the khanates, but white was gaining ascendancy and he could only hope they thought it meant the same as he did. Bayar gestured to his bondsmen.
‘Raise white banners. Two jaguns forward with me,’ he said, digging in his heels before they could move. He focused on the others as he rode forward - wondering if he could think of them yet as the enemy. There was an older man at their centre, surrounded by warriors in full armour with bows in their hands. Bayar headed for him, knowing his men would be forming behind him without further orders.
The tension seemed to swell in the air as his two hundred closed on the detachment. Bayar felt himself shudder slightly as he passed the point where he knew he was in arrow range. He wore layered scale armour in the Chin style, but he knew as well as any man alive that the long Mongol arrows could pierce it. He felt sweat trickle from his armpits and showed them only the cold face. Kublai depended on him.
At a hundred yards, Bayar wanted to call a halt, but it was too far to speak with whoever led them and he forced himself to ride on as if he didn’t face armed men able to send shafts down his throat at that distance. Batu’s detachment watched him come with no expression, though they shifted their bows in growing tension as he came to barely twenty paces. In the sudden silence, he could hear the banners in the wind, furling and snapping. He took a deep breath, controlling his nerves so his voice would be strong and steady.
‘Under flags of truce, I seek Lord Batu Borjigin,’ he shouted.
‘You have found him,’ the man at the centre responded. ‘Now why have you come onto my lands with tumans? Has the great khan declared war on my people?’
For an instant, Bayar fought not to smile. He faced death in a heartbeat and his physical reaction was to grin.
‘I do not know what the pretender is doing, my lord. I know Kublai Khan offers you peace in exchange for loyalty.’
Batu’s mouth fell slightly open. He spluttered as he spoke, his dignity forgotten.
‘What? Kublai Khan? Who are you to come here and talk of Kublai?’
Bayar laughed at the man’s confusion, finally letting out some of the tension in him.
‘Offer me guest rights in your camp, my lord. I have ridden a long way and my throat is dry.’
Batu stared at him for a moment that seemed endless, until Bayar’s threatening laughter grew still in him. The man was around fifty, Bayar judged, with hair that had gone dark grey and heavy lines around his mouth and eyes. He wondered if he resembled Genghis as he waited, memorising the face.
‘Very well, I grant you guest rights for this evening and no longer. Until I have heard what you have to say to me.’
Bayar relaxed slightly. He would never be completely safe, even after such an offer, but it was never given lightly. Until the following morning, Batu would be his host, even to the point of defending him if he were attacked. He dismounted and nodded to his men to do the same. Batu followed the action and came stalking over the frozen grass, his face full of curiosity.
‘Who are you?’ Batu demanded.
‘General Bayar, my lord. Officer to Kublai Khan.’
Batu shook his head in confusion.
‘Send your men away and have them camp in the valley two miles to the east. I won’t have them frightening my villages. There will be no looting, or contact with my people, general. Is that clear?’
‘I will give the orders, my lord,’ Bayar replied.
The older man seemed to be studying him, his expression still astonished. Bayar watched as felt rugs were laid out on the grass and tea put on to boil. He sent word back to his tumans and then settled himself. He only hoped he could find the right words to impress the man who sat across from him.
Batu waited until Bayar had taken a bowl of tea in his right hand and sipped it, tasting the salt.
‘Now explain, general. You know, I almost hope you are a madman. That would be a better thing than the news I think you have brought.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Samarkand was a beautiful city, with white mountains in the distance and walls so thick that three horsemen could ride abreast on the crown. Blue towers showed over the sand-coloured walls, but the great gates were closed. Kublai’s tumans had driven farmers and villagers ahead of them like geese, the crowd growing as they rode the last few miles. Unable to enter the city, they sat and wailed in front of it, raising their hands to those within. Kublai’s warriors ignored them.
All along the walls, armoured Mongols and Persians looked down in stupefaction. No army had besieged Samarkand since Genghis. Yet there were many still alive who remembered the horrors of that time. Hundreds, then thousands of the inhabitants climbed steps on the inside to stare at the tumans.
Kublai looked up at them, sitting comfortably on a thin horse as it nuzzled the ground for anything worth eating. His face and fingers still ached from the cold he had endured in the mountain passes. Though the sun was strong, he knew he would lose skin on his cheeks, already darker than the rest of his face as it began to peel and crack.
Zhenjin trotted his mo
unt over to his father, though he did not speak as he too looked up at the great walls. Kublai smiled to see his son’s expression.
‘My grandfather took this city once, Zhenjin,’ he said.
‘How?‘ the boy replied, in awe. He barely remembered Karakorum, and Samarkand was designed to impress exactly the sort of force Kublai commanded.
‘Catapults and siege,’ Kublai replied. ‘He did not have cannon then.’
‘We have no cannon, father,’ Zhenjin replied.
‘No, but if I must, I will have the men build heavy machines to break the walls. It will not be quick, but the city will fall. That is not why I came here though, Zhenjin. I have no interest in killing my own people, unless they force my hand. There are faster ways, if they know their history.’
He signalled to Uriang-Khadai and in turn the man snapped an order to two of the warriors. They leapt from their saddles and began to unpack equipment from spare horses. Zhenjin watched as they took rolls of material and spars onto their shoulders, grunting at the weight.
‘What do they have there?’ he asked.
‘You will see,’ Kublai replied, smiling strangely to himself. The scholar he had been was very far away at that moment, though he took joy in the story of his family and the history of the city. History was more than just stories, he reminded himself as the men walked forward with their burdens. It taught lessons as well.
Under the eye of their khan, the men worked quickly, heaving layers of cloth onto a wooden frame and hammering pegs and ropes into the stony ground. They had walked into arrow range and their stiff backs showed how they tried to resist the fear that someone would put a shaft into them as they worked.
When they stood back, the tumans broke into a roar of challenge, unplanned, a crash of sound that echoed back to them from the walls. A white tent stood before Samarkand.
‘I do not understand,’ Zhenjin said, shouting to be heard over the noise.
‘The senior men in the city will,’ Kublai replied. ‘The white tent is a demand for surrender, a sign to them that the khan’s tumans have declared war. As the sun sets, if their gates remain closed to me, a red tent will follow. It will stand for a day before their walls. If they ignore that, I will raise a black tent before them.’
‘What do the red and black tents mean?’ Zhenjin asked.
‘They mean death, my son, though it will not come to that.’
Even as he spoke, the huge gates began to swing open. A cry of hope went up from the crowd of terrified refugees around the walls. They streamed to that one point as if a dam had burst, pushing each other in desperation and getting in the way of riders trying to leave the city. Kublai grinned at his son.
‘They remember Genghis still, at least in Samarkand. See there, my son. They come.’
Lord Alghu was sweating heavily, though he had bathed in cool waters as the sun rose. He had been called from his palace rooms by senior men, their faces white with fear. He could still hardly believe the sheer size of the army that had gathered before Samarkand. For the first time in his life, he understood how it must have been for the enemies of the nation to wake and see tumans waiting for them. He wished his father Baidur still lived. He would have known what to do in the face of such a threat.
Alghu had rushed up to the crest of the wall, sagging against a stone pillar as he stared out into the distance. Had he offended Arik-Boke in some way? Lord Alghu swallowed painfully, his throat dry in the breeze. If the khan chose to make an example of him, his beloved cities would be burnt, his people slaughtered. Alghu had no illusions about the destructive strength of a Mongol army in the field. The tumans before Samarkand would tear through the Chagatai khanate like an unstoppable plague. He saw his own death in the fluttering banners.
His senior men had climbed the sandstone steps to see and they looked to him to give orders. Lord Alghu summoned his will, forcing himself to think. He led them all and their lives were in his hands. He did not blame his daughter. Aigiarn was young and headstrong, but whatever insult Arik-Boke believed he had been given did not warrant sending an army. He would send her away from the city so that Arik-Boke’s malice would not fall on her. Lord Alghu shuddered at the thought.
‘My lord, I cannot see the khan’s banners out there,’ one of his men said suddenly.
Lord Alghu had been turning to the steps to go down. He stopped.
‘What do you mean?’ he said, coming back and peering out again. The day was clear and he could see a long way from the height of the walls.
‘I don’t understand,’ Alghu muttered as he confirmed it with his own eyes. Arik-Boke’s banners were missing, but he did not recognise the others flying there. They seemed to have some animal embroidered on yellow silk. It was too far to be certain, but Lord Alghu knew he had never seen those flags before.
‘Perhaps I should go out and ask them what they want,’ he said to his men, smiling tightly.
Their expressions didn’t ease in reply. All of them had family in Samarkand or the cities around it. The Chagatai khanate had not been attacked for decades and yet they all knew the stories of slaughter and destruction that had come with Genghis. It was impossible to live in the khanate and not hear them.
A small group of warriors walked forward from the tumans in front of his city, each man bearing rolls of cloth. Alghu stared down in confusion as they approached the walls. One of his soldiers began to bend a bow nearby, but he snapped an order to be still.
Thousands watched curiously as the white tent began to take shape, the men below hammering pegs and stretching ropes to hold it. It was not as solid as a ger and its sides fluttered in the breeze. When Lord Alghu recognised it, he fell back a step, shaking his head.
‘It can’t be,’ he whispered. Those who remembered stood in shock, while their friends demanded to know what it meant.
‘Ready the gates!’ Lord Alghu shouted suddenly. ‘I will go out to them.’ He turned to his men, his expression sick with worry.
‘This has to be a mistake. I do not understand it, but the khan would not destroy Samarkand.’
He almost fell as he ran down the steps, his legs weak under him. His horse was on the main street into the city, waiting with his personal guards. They knew nothing of what he had seen and he did not enlighten them. The white tent was a demand for total surrender and it had to be answered before the red tent rose. As he mounted, Alghu told himself he had a day, but he could hardly think for fear. The red tent would mean the death of every male of fighting age in the city. The black tent was a promise to slaughter every living thing, including women and children. The city of Herat had ignored Genghis when he threatened them in such a way. Only lizards and scorpions lived in that place when he had finished.
‘Open the gates!’ Lord Alghu roared. He had to answer the demand immediately. His soldiers removed the great bar of oak and iron and began to heave them apart. As a line of light showed, their lord turned to one of his most trusted men.
‘Go to my sons, my daughter. Take them safely to …’ He hesitated. If the khan had decided to destroy his line, there was no safe place in the world. Arik-Boke would hunt them down and no one would dare give them shelter for fear of the khan’s vengeance.
‘My lord, the village of Harethm is a hundred miles to the north and west,’ the bondsman said. ‘I lived there once and it lies within the borders of the Hulegu khanate. No one will know they are there but you. I will protect them with my life.’
‘Very well,’ Alghu replied, breathing in relief. ‘Go now, from another gate. I will send for them if I can.’
As the gates opened further, Lord Alghu saw a crowd of men and women pressing in, their hands outstretched in panic. His soldiers began to shove them back to let their master pass. Lord Alghu had no eyes for them as they streamed around his men. The city was no safer than their place outside it.
He stared out at the dark lines of the tumans waiting for him. Fear was a knot in his stomach as he dug in his heels and began to trot forward. As he pas
sed under the shadow of the arch, he saw his bannermen begin to unfurl his personal flags.
‘White banners,’ he snapped, close to panic. ‘We go out under truce.’
His men stared at him, seeing his fear. They had no white flags, but one of the refugees wore a white robe. In an instant, the unfortunate man had been clubbed to the ground and stripped, his garment raised to flutter on a spear as Lord Alghu rode out.
‘Would you like to come with me?’ Kublai asked his son. Zhenjin grinned, showing white teeth. In answer, he dug in his heels and his horse lunged forward. Kublai nodded to Uriang-Khadai and the orlok whistled to the closest jagun of a hundred warriors. They detached from the ranks, forming up on both sides of the two senior men. Kublai’s bannermen came with them, carrying yellow flags with Chinese dragons on them that caught the sun and glittered.
‘Be silent and listen,’ Kublai murmured to Zhenjin at his side as they closed on the force from the city.
‘Are we going to kill them?’ Zhenjin asked. The idea did not seem to trouble him particularly and Kublai smiled. He had seen the white flag flapping above them.
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