by Dan Davis
Thomas took a deep breath. “I was like you, back then. We all were. We saw those small horses and the riders on their backs. Some of them were so close to the ground, I swear their toes brushed the grass as they rode. And many were mounted archers, with these short bows. And no matter the stories we had heard, how they would shower us with arrows while we advanced, we trusted our armour to protect us.”
“What went wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Thomas said. “We were held in reserve, my brothers and our mounted sergeants and our bondmen soldiers. I had rather a good view from the right of the battle, on a rise, looking out across the fields of the plain. It was a cold day, and we had to keep our horses warm. Tartars roamed and wheeled about, coming close and pulling away again. It was difficult to discern their positions, where they were strong or weak. It was clear they had some sort of order to them but my brothers were convinced the heathens were a disorganised rabble. The Poles sent their levies forward while the thousands of knights waited for a chance to charge. But the levies came under attack from the mounted archers, who simply withdrew as the levies advanced with their spears. Of course, Duke Henry sent his archers and crossbowmen to engage with the horsemen but the Tartars did surprisingly well, riding in and out from all directions to pour their own arrows down on the Poles. Somehow, we lost hundreds or even thousands and yet the Tartars seemed almost untouched. And then, amongst all the wheeling of horse archers, their lancers appeared through a sudden gap.”
“Lancers?” Bertrand said, his voice almost a growl. “They do not have lancers, Thomas. Have you seen a single lance amongst them?”
I silently agreed with the Frenchman.
The Templar ignored him. “There must have been a thousand of them, formed up in ranks and riding knee to knee. Their horses were larger than the others we had seen. The men wore mail and steel helms. They smashed into the ranks of the levies and crossbowmen from the flank and routed them immediately. Exactly what the knights were waiting for and they descended on the Tartar lancers. The Poles were elated. Finally, the heathens would pay for the destruction they had wrought. But the heathen lancers turned and fled at the sight.”
“They did not stand?” I said, interested that the terrifying Mongols would be so cowardly.
“Ha!” Bertrand said. “They could not stand against the Poles. They would certainly die under the hooves of the French, am I correct, Thomas? Not the English, though.”
Thomas was not amused. “The Poles are as fine as any knights in Christendom, and they were well led that day. But the Tartars fled, seemingly in panic. The mounted Poles charged until they were stretched out and separated into groups, the horse archers shooting into the knights and their horses which killed them and disrupted their communication. Further and further, they retreated and our army became disorganised as the lords of Poland tasted victory and charged again and again, but their lances found few targets.”
“What were the Templars doing?” I asked.
“We were on the right, pushing forward in an attempt to keep pace with the greater body of the army. Pushing our levies along with us. Many of my brethren believed that the Tartars were about to be crushed, and they rode on, eager to be part of this great victory. None would listen to councils of caution.”
Stephen Gosset spoke up. “You knew it was a trap?”
“Knew? No. Suspected. I felt only dread.”
“Why?” Stephen asked.
“You are not a knight, Stephen,” Thomas said. “You have not seen a battlefield. You cannot comprehend the disorder. Trumpets are used to sound a unified advance, or sometimes to initiate a more complicated manoeuvre. But men do not often obey, for one reason or another. And battles are loud. Louder than you could imagine. Chaos reigns. But the Tartars, for all their wheeling about and dashing hither and thither, were not disorganised. Their commanding lord sat far to the rear and never once approached the fighting. Instead, his men waved flags upon enormously long poles and the companies of Tartars would discern meaning in those flags. It seemed to me that they differed by shape and colour, and the height or distance from the top of the pole. Orders could thus be relayed immediately across the entire field of battle.”
I could scarcely believe it. “These heathens? These men who cannot build a simple stone wall or a solid timber house? These men with their stinking, meagre food? They are utterly witless folk.”
“My brothers felt then as you do now and urged our men on so that we could slay some heathens ourselves before they all ran away or were killed by the Polish.” Thomas tilted his head back and looked to the darkness above. “Their retreat had been carefully planned in advance of the battle, for there was suddenly a huge cloud of dense smoke drifting across the field. The Tartars had lit enormous fires, with many green branches and pine leaves so as to make a thick smoke. Riders galloped across our front dragging piles of burning brush so that fires burned everywhere. Quickly, we could no longer discern the other side of our army. Soon after, was when they attacked.”
“They turned around and charged?” I asked.
“From the front, yes. But also from the flanks. Thousands more of their forces had lain in wait. That part of the field, many miles from the first clashes, had been chosen by them and they had led us straight into it. By that time of the day, our horses were exhausted from charging. You know destriers and war horses have no legs for a prolonged pursuit. Knights were strung out over miles, even separated from their squires and friends.”
“But man to man,” Bertrand said, outraged. “Man to man, our knights would destroy theirs. Our weapons and armour are vastly superior. And our skill at arms is unmatched in all the world. Look at the Saracens, and they are far richer than these impoverished raiders.”
“We were slaughtered,” Thomas said. “Thousands of men at arms killed. Knights and great lords. Duke Henry himself was killed. Our defeat was total.”
“Bad luck, that is all,” Bertrand said. “Anyone can lose a battle like that. The important thing is that our knights are bigger, stronger and fight better, man to man.”
Stephen, showing signs of arrogance even then when he was so young and naive, spoke up, his voice rising in pitch with indignation. “But they were outmanoeuvred by the heathens. The enemy fought with intelligence and wisdom and—”
“You know nothing, monk,” Bertrand said, shouting him down. “What do you know? Nothing, you know nothing.”
The dying fire cracked and popped as the lit branches collapsed into the coals.
Thomas said nothing for a while. “Have you ever seen a knight train a young page in the sword? The page will swing and thrust while the knight presents his unguarded chest or head only to dance aside, parry the blow and send the sword flying. Perhaps kicking the page in the rump while the other boys roar with laughter.”
I snorted. “I have been both the page and the knight in that situation. Many a time.”
Thomas nodded, slowly, staring at nothing. “We Christians were the page, against the Tartars. They toyed with us. I tell you this, as a knight who has been fighting at the frontiers of Christendom my entire life. I tell you, these Tartars. They are masters of war. And we are children.”
***
And so we came to the ordus of Batu Khan.
After seeing a number of Mongol camps, I assumed Batu’s would be simply a larger version. And it was. But it was much more besides.
It was a city, only one unlike any I had ever seen or even conceived of before. It was a city of tents. The great white tents of the Mongols, their gers. And what is more, it was a city that moved. Hundreds of enormous gers on the backs of wagons so big that their axles were the size of ships masts. Mongol women stood on their own wagon, in the doorway of their ger, holding the reins of the teams of oxen that pulled the massive wagons so that it was like seeing fleets of ships sailing across the great grass sea.
Each ger belonged to a woman, and she belonged to a man. One man may have many wives, but each wife controls her ow
n household, with her children and her servants tending to their home and to the animals that the household owned. And there were many animals. Mostly horses. Hundreds and thousands of horses, everywhere one looked. But cattle, too, and other creatures. It reeked worse than any city in Christendom, worse even than Jerusalem or Paris, and possibly even Rome. A hot, shit-stench that filled one’s throat so thoroughly that the fear was you would never get it out.
Batu Khan’s ordus covered the land from horizon to horizon. And it seemed at first sight to be chaos and disorder. But, like Thomas’ battle, that was deceptive. It was because I could not see what the Mongols saw. I could not understand their organisation, their hierarchies. But when their city stopped moving, each ger was set down in its proper place, to east and west. All doors faced south, as that was the holy direction for those people, and the Khan’s ger had no other to obscure the view in that way. Their homes were set down by order of seniority but more than that, I could not understand, no matter how much Abdullah explained it to me. I suspect that he did not know himself but a scholar would rather lie and invent falsehoods than admit to his own ignorance.
The ger of Batu was not large enough to contain his court. The man was perhaps the greatest lord of the Mongols, other than the Great Khan Mongke. He was of the oldest generation and had proved his mettle by leading countless battles. And Batu was the eldest son of the eldest son of the legendary Genghis Khan, the first and greatest Mongol Khan. We were not the only visitors to the court. There were ambassadors from almost every kingdom and city from Central Asia to the Danube and so the Mongols were not impressed by us in the slightest and they made no special efforts for us.
We were made to wait, half-ignored, for two days, for the ordus to set itself down in its new location and then for the court to assemble. Not simply for the attendants and petitioners to gather but for the structure itself to be strung up.
In place of a ger, they erected a tent the size of a cathedral. Not in height, but certainly in length, made from poles taller than any tree and ropes as thick as any on the most massive of ships. It was large enough to hold a thousand people at least beneath the vast canopy overhead, and, at the head of all the assembled masses, sat Batu Khan.
Eva waited at where our wagons were parked, with the other two squires and Nikolas. She was under guard by the men who had guided us but still, I had no wish to leave her alone amongst thousands of barbarians.
“If they try anything,” I said to her, “do whatever you must to resist them and scream bloody murder. Send the boy to find me.”
She looked me square in the eye. “I will kill as many as I need to.”
“Try to avoid killing them,” I said. “If you possibly can.”
“I promise nothing.”
She made quips only when she was nervous.
I bent to Nikolas. “Are you well, lad?”
His eyes were wide and his mouth hung open. He had spent his short life inside Constantinople and the wonders of that place were like nothing to him. But the wide plains and vast sky had cowed him and now the city of tents, peopled by strange barbarians were more than he could comprehend.
“I am well, sir,” he said.
“Listen, Nikolas,” I said, and took a knee in front of him, placing one hand on his shoulder. “I must leave you and my lady, now. I will be going to see this Tartar prince. Can you keep a look out? Look for any trouble and should any trouble happen, you run and find me.” I pointed north. “I shall be in or around that giant tent in the centre of the camp. The heathens may try to stop you, may shout at you. But you will not stop for anything, will you, Nikolas?”
Eyes wide, he shook his head and his hand drifted to the white, ivory dagger I had given him, which he now wore suspended from his belt so it hung on his hip like a tiny sword. I could see the beautiful carving of Saint George with his lance running the dragon through as it writhed in coiled agony.
He swallowed and spoke solemnly in his thick Greek accent. “I shall protect her with my life, sir.”
I kept a straight face. “Do not fight anyone, Nikolas. You have the heart of a knight but not yet do you have the stature of one. You come find me instead, understand?”
Eva was afraid by the masses around us. She felt as trapped as I did, only now I was leaving her alone. I would not be far, as the crow flies, but we had rarely faced danger apart from the other for thirty-five years. I took her hand in both of mine for a moment. Her eyes spoke of their love and concern for me, and I felt the same.
We brought Abdullah with us to translate our words.
“They say to not step upon the ropes of the structure,” Abdullah said, as our guides gesticulated wildly and babbled at us. “The ropes surrounding the entranceway represent the doorway and threshold of a typical ger. If any of us tread on the ropes, we will be removed from the camp, and banished forever. Another one of these men is disagreeing with his colleague, and claims that we would at once be executed in a most terrible fashion.”
I shoved away the hands that pawed at me. “Tell them to cease their damned fool gibbering, Abdullah.”
He said nothing of the sort. Mongols were everywhere around us. Hundreds of them, thousands. Some staring, others talking at us, many seemed to me to wish to do violence. With all my will, I remained outwardly calm. As well as I could.
We were all checked for weapons once again, and led in and seated together on the left side, sitting upon the patterned carpets laid thickly upon the ground. The monks were the ambassadors and sat in front of us, who were seen as the attendants. A hearth was at the centre of the tent, and a raised dais with benches to the north, opposite the entrance.
On the bench, sat Batu. A large man, broad-shouldered with a wide face and a massive forehead. His complexion was truly awful, grey and with terrible pimples and pockmarks. He looked to be in his later middle age, fifty or so, perhaps. Dressed just as any Mongol would be, in a voluminous tunic, and thick belt and trousers. Yet the cloth was shimmering, dark silk and embroidered with swirling patterns.
“Lord Batu,” Friar William muttered.
“Prince Batu,” Thomas corrected.
“Batu Khan,” Abdullah said.
Friar William looked around at me, eyes wide. “He is of a size with my lord John de Beaumont, would you not say?”
“I would indeed,” I said. To this day, I have no idea who he was talking about.
There were so many men within the vast space. Even though the sides of the huge tent structure were open, the air beneath the fabric roof hung heavy and stank of sour sweat. Across from us, were a small group of women, and some children were there.
We were given kumis to drink, and very gratefully did we receive it. Abdullah drank an unseemly amount until I squeezed his shoulder and whispered in his ear.
“Consume no more, you drunken heathen, else I shall gut you from beard to stones when we leave this place. Do you understand?”
William turned over his shoulder and scowled at me. “You shall do nothing of the sort,” he said. “Not without my express permission. Nevertheless, Abdullah, if you do not control yourself, I shall be forced to abandon you here amongst the heathens when we return to the Holy Land.”
“No, lord, no,” Abdullah wailed, quietly.
Stephen hissed. “People are looking at us.”
Many people were brought forward, close to Batu and there was much talking, and back and forth. Men from many kingdoms, in many modes of dress, speaking many tongues. Some went away happy. Others were grim-faced as they were escorted out from Batu’s presence.
In time, it was our turn and they called us forward.
A herald or some such functionary asked us, through Abdullah, what we had brought in gifts for Batu Khan.
“We are but poor monks,” Friar William explained. “Who have taken vows of poverty. All we can offer is some wine, and some foodstuffs, not as gifts but as blessings. Tokens of our good intentions.”
The Mongol herald was horrified. “But you have ma
ny furs in your wagons. This will be your gift to the Khan.”
“Those furs are for trading with,” William said. “We are a long way from our own lands and all we wish is to survive through exchanging those furs, piece by piece, for food and other necessary items.”
The herald was unmoved. “Those furs belong to Batu Khan, now. Come forward and speak your purpose here.”
We were all required to take a knee, and then Friar William unleashed his holy nonsense upon the Khan. How he wished only to preach the word of Christ to the Tartars, and how him and his two brothers were praying they could meet Batu’s son, Sartak who was a Christian himself.
Batu’s face, already hideous and devoid of civilised niceties, darkened further when William’s words were translated.
“The Khan says that his son is no Christian,” Abdullah said, voice shaking. The Saracen was hunched over, his shoulder’s rounded, like the cowering slave he was. “His son Sartak takes an interest in all gods, all religions, as is right and proper.”
William was angry. “Tell him that there is only one God, and He is the God of the Christians.”
Whatever Abdullah said to Batu, it was certainly not William’s words, nor even his sentiment.
Batu Khan replied. “Do you wish to go? Or do you wish still to speak of your Frankish Christian words to the Mongol people?”
“We wish to spread the word of God, my lord,” William said. “But there are many—”
Thomas stepped forward, in front of William, and bowed. “My lord,” Thomas said. “We are also ambassadors from the King of the French. I carry with me a letter from him, to you.” From within his tunic, William produced the parcel I had seen him hoarding for months and handed it to the herald. “The words are repeated in Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Persian.”
It caused quite a fuss with the Mongols, and they busied themselves right there and then, with a group of squabbling scribes jostling to make a translation into their own version of written language. We were ignored while they did so and our group turned in on itself for a time.