by Dan Davis
He looked at me. “We had word today. Hulegu has left Hamadan. They approach.”
I asked Abdullah. “How far is that from here?”
The Saracen lord, this Feth-ud-Din, answered instead. “With so many men, with their wagons and siege weapons? We expect three or four months.”
Hassan laughed without mirth. “Whatever you expect, you will be wrong. They will come sooner than that.”
“Perhaps,” Feth-ud-Din said, revealing only a little distaste at addressing a heretic. “There is another Mongol and allied army coming from the north. I believe they will seek to cut off armies coming to our aid from the west.”
“You are expecting help?” I asked. “From the Mamluks in Egypt? From Damascus?”
“The Caliph has requested aid,” Feth-ud-Din said.
“Will they come?”
His face alone told the story.
“Is that why you want us?” I asked him and glanced at Hassan. “You seek allies. Any allies, even heretics like the remaining Assassins in Syria.” I almost laughed. “You are even willing to consider asking the Kingdom of Jerusalem for aid, through us?” I gestured at Thomas, who could not understand what we were saying.
“I will do anything, explore every path, pay any price, to save the City of Peace,” Feth-ud-Din said.
“We will help you,” I said at once. “If you swear to help us to kill Hulegu.”
He looked at us, one after the other. He must have seen a strange group of people. Franks, heretics, Mongols, all thin and filthy.
Feth-ud-Din snapped his fingers at one of his men and commanded something too rapidly for me to catch. The man handed over a dagger and Feth-ud-Din held it up balanced on the fingers of one hand.
“Your weapons were taken. My men recovered this from a guardsman who was already attempting to sell it for a considerable price. It is fine work. Armenian, is it not?”
“It is mine,” I said.
He pursed his lips at my impudence and his men stirred beside him but after a moment he inclined his head and held it out to me. “Indeed.”
I took it, bowed, and thanked him, for it was truly a noble gesture. “If you return our weapons also, we shall all fight for this city, and we will cut off the head of the snake.”
“I will keep you safe in my home,” he said, shaking his head. “And you will begin drafting letters asking for aid.”
He was desperate indeed.
Thomas and I knew that all Christian states would rejoice at the destruction of Baghdad and would find the notion of helping them in any way to be laughable. Indeed, the Christian kingdoms of Georgia and Armenia formed a large contingent of the army approaching from the north.
But we went through the motions while we regained our strength and health in the enormous, opulent home of the powerful general Feth-ud-Din, hidden away from Vizier Ibn al-Alqami. We wrote letters that were passed to messengers who were to rush to Acre, Antioch, Tripoli, and even Constantinople. Thomas was sincere in his pleas to the Templars, writing on behalf of the Christian population of Baghdad even though they were Syrians and other peoples.
“Will your brothers and the Master not be confused,” I said to him, “when they read both your letters and reports of your death?”
Thomas waved it away. “Like as not William of Rubruck is still in Karakorum. And if he has returned, I doubt his first concerns will be writing to the Master of the Order of my fate. Even if he has done so, it is likely his report of my death will be disbelieved when they read my letters.”
More likely they will consider the letters a Saracen or Assassin trick and so ignore them.
But I said nothing and he sent off his letters to Castle Pilgrim, the White Castle, Tortosa, and further afield to Cyprus and beyond.
And in the end, it was all too late.
The great military minds of the caliphate confidently predicted that the Mongols would take four months to surround the city so that the siege would begin in early spring. In fact, it took less than six weeks. By late January 1258, the Mongol vanguard approached from the east.
***
Living in that great lord’s home had chafed on me. The Saracens, even the soldiers and servants, considered themselves to be above me and all of us, because we were Christians, heathens or heretics, and their continued condescension for those six weeks had driven me into a tightly-woven ball of frustration. Thomas also had been driven close to mad by the continued proximity of his lifelong mortal enemies.
So it was with some excitement that I urged our host for news of the recent expedition of his forces. For Feth-ud-Din had returned from a few days away from the city and then summoned me to his private quarters even before he had washed or changed his clothes. There had been a steady, light rain for two days and his robes were spattered in mud thrown up by the hooves of galloping horses. He first wanted to know if any of us had received word from the messengers we had sent off just six weeks earlier. It was absurd to hope for such a thing and revealed the desperation of the man. I ignored his question and asked my own.
“You rode out to meet them?” I asked Feth-ud-Din. “What happened?”
“We were forbidden to take forces from the city,” Feth-ud-Din said, in response to my question. He looked exhausted. His eyes wide and staring, rimmed with red and his household guards could not hide their concern for their master.
“Was that an order from the Caliph?” I asked. “Or the Vizier?”
He chose not to answer, which was confirmation in itself. The word in the household was that Feth-ud-Din and some other commanders had defied the order and taken a huge force out to stop the Mongols before they even reached the massive walls of Baghdad. I wondered if the man who sheltered us would now fall to internal politics before the battle itself began.
“You have done as I asked and written to your lords in Dar al-Harb,” he said while his servants hovered around him. “Before the siege begins, you may take your people and go.”
He turned away as if expecting me to hitch up my robes and run from the room.
“We do not wish to go,” I said. “We want to fight. Why do your people not?”
He turned on me, full of rage. I was sure he would draw his sword. “We did fight. At Ba’qubah. Two days ago. Our men won a victory against the Mongol vanguard. Twenty thousand of our men smashed them, drove them back.”
I resisted scoffing at his supposed victory. I could well imagine it. The Mongols feigning retreat or simply withdrawing and the foolish Saracens calling it a triumph.
But it was far worse.
“Then why do you look as if you suffered a defeat, my lord?” I asked.
He did not turn away. “We took the position that they had held and fortified our camp for the night. Ba’qubah is low ground. Somehow, in the darkness, they destroyed the levees and dams. They massed their forces on the high ground and cut off our retreat. Most drowned in the flood waters.”
I was astonished. The Mongols had somehow baited the Saracens into a trap set on their own home ground. I had never heard the like of it.
“How many men did you lose?”
Finally, his strength of will failed and he turned away. “Fifteen thousand. Perhaps more. Mostly cavalry. Some of our strongest forces. Survivors are yet trailing back but they are so few.”
A true disaster. There was nothing to be said about it.
“What will now be the plan to defend the city?” I said.
“The Caliph has given orders that citizens be armed and trained. Also, that the walls be repaired where they have been neglected.”
I could barely believe it. The Mongols were a day or two away and there was no time for these orders to be enacted. It was farcical.
There was perhaps still time to flee but Hulegu and William were close, and I could not in good conscience run away from my oath yet again.
A city under siege was a dangerous place and that danger was not only from the enemy beyond the walls. The populous would be in the highest state of anxiety,
full of well-founded fear and to be an obvious foreigner at such a time would invite attack. I knew from experience that a mob of angry citizens could be almost as deadly as a horde of Mongols.
“If my people leave your home,” I said, “we will be set upon by the people of this city. Let my people fight for you. Equip us, as you would your own men, let us fight by their side when the assault comes.”
General Feth-ud-Din agreed, ordered his secretary to organise our equipment, and then dismissed me. His servants led him away so that he could bathe, and he seemed already like he was broken. Every time the Mongols fought, their enemies were left stunned in this way. Disbelief, their world shattered by a foe that seemed centuries ahead of them.
I recalled something that Thomas had said to me, a long time before, on the steppe.
These Tartars. They are masters of war. And we are children.
***
Four columns of Mongols and their allies converged on Baghdad. In every direction to the horizon, enemy forces filled the fields and villages. The city of Baghdad may have been the largest in the world, but it had been surrounded by the largest armies on Earth.
One army occupied what had been a commercial quarter, on the west bank of the Tigris. Hulegu’s force established itself in the Shiite suburbs beyond the eastern walls, and the Sunnis inside the city spoke in bitterness of their easy capitulation.
The rattling of their innumerable carts, the bellowing of camels and cattle, the neighing of horses, and the wild battle-cry, were so overwhelming as to render inaudible the conversation of the people inside the city. It was a sound like the continuous crashing of a vast wave against a rocky shore.
In less than two days, the enemy dug a ditch and rampart to protect their siege engines from attack by the Saracens within the walls. No such attack was forthcoming.
On 30th January 1258, the bombardment of the city began.
I gathered my people together on a section of the inner eastern walls just before it all started. There was a pause, a lull from both sides as if they were both taking a deep breath before plunging onward to death.
Thomas was remarkably unhappy. I know that he was cursing the day that he ever met me, that he ever asked me to accompany him on his quest to Batu.
“All that is left for us is to protect the Christians of this city,” he said.
Hassan and his men, Abdulla, Orus and Khutulun all looked at me and I felt the pull between them and us. Eva and Stephen were aware of the gulf within our company, even as Thomas remained oblivious, staring out at the mass of forces.
“Our agreement,” I said to Thomas, “between all of us here, was to work together to bring about the death of Hulegu, William my brother, and the immortals that they have made.”
Thomas dragged his attention away from the cacophony beyond the walls. “I mean no offence when I say this. But how can we hope to carry that out, now? In the face of this.” He gestured unnecessarily at the Mongols. “There is no chance of us reaching him.”
Stephen, keen as ever to find a solution despite his fear, spoke up. “Perhaps Hulegu will enter the city when it falls?”
I looked to Khutulun. Her understanding of French had come on leaps and bounds. Still, she furrowed her brow as I rephrased the question.
“Hulegu never come here,” she said, shaking her head. “Inside here? No, no.”
Orus agreed with her, and I did, too.
“It will be madness when it happens,” I said to Stephen. “A city of this size would take weeks to subdue.” He stared at me, nodding slowly. “Do you understand what I mean when I say subdue, Stephen? I mean that they will kill every living soul.”
“I know that,” Stephen said, bristling.
“The only people who may just live through it,” Thomas said, “is the Christians. We all know this. Does anyone deny it? Well, then, perhaps we should help to protect them in order to help bring that about. And, they may then even shelter our friends here who are not Christian.”
Hassan rolled his eyes. “I will not hide amongst the Christians. Nor will my men. And neither would they protect us.”
“I do not believe,” Abdullah said, “that the Mongols will spare the Christians.”
Thomas was about to argue but I had heard it from both sides a dozen times already for weeks, so I cut him off before they all started again.
“William may come into the city,” I said.
They all looked at me.
“He loves death. He loves chaos. He creates it, and he is drawn to it. It is no accident that he is here.” I nodded out at the masses of enemy. “He helped to make this happen, did he not? He would not be able to control himself while the blood flows within. Perhaps he will bring some of the immortals with him.”
For the first time in months, Hassan smiled. “We can lay an ambush for them. These buildings all around are ideal. We can lay in wait upon the roofs, inside upper windows. Come at them from the front and rear, and from above.”
His grin spread between all of us as we imagined catching our enemies in an enclosed space.
“This city has how many gates?” Eva said. “And how many breaches will they make with their stone throwers? There are hundreds of thousands of people within these walls, and a hundred thousand or even more outside. Richard, you know that I want to kill him as much as you do, but we will never find him amongst the chaos.”
I growled and clenched my fists, and my teeth. Frustrated at every turn, for weeks and months and years now. “There must be a way.”
“What about…” Stephen started, staring out at the Mongols. “No… never mind.”
“Do not be so bloody coy, Stephen. Out with it.”
“I was wondering if you could make a banner,” he said. “Something that William might recognise. Something that would draw him to you. Or to where you wanted him to go. But I recall that you do not have any personal emblem that would be known to him, and any other possible symbol such as a cross would only serve to bring the soldiers of both sides down upon us in a rage.”
His mind worked in ways that mine never could. So many times now, his suggestions had helped me, from Karakorum to Alamut and in a thousand ways ever since. It annoyed me that a man such as he had a wit so superior to my own but I could deny it to myself no longer. He was useful to have around.
And we were about to face an assault more terrible and more massive than anything I had ever known. Perhaps more than the world had ever known, for when before had such a force ever been assembled? We had done what we could to teach him the sword and how to use a shield but it was not his forte and in the face of even the most useless Mongol, Stephen would be instantly slaughtered.
There remained one way to grant him the speed, strength and heartiness that might just give him the chance to survive. It would also bind him to me, or so I believed, in a way that would allow me access to the wisdom and knowledge that I sorely lacked.
“Stephen,” I said, placing my hand heavily on his shoulder. “Do you still wish to become an immortal?”
His mouth smiled but his eyes were filled with hunger. I wonder if it was the first flush of what he would become, or if I had simply seen his mask slip. He had told me his ambitions for England, for the English people, to make us into a great nation that would rival or exceed France. Such an ambition might be suitable for a king but for a lowly jumped up villein like Stephen it was gross pridefulness and certainly sinful in the extreme. Eva had told me Stephen was a wolf, that he would enthusiastically partake in cannibalism for the sake of ambition. All the warnings were there but out of selfishness, I ignored the unease that I felt.
Hassan stepped forward. “It is time for me, also.”
I nodded. He had done well to last so long while maintaining his authority, being as he was so much weaker in body than Jalal, Radi and Raka, the men who he commanded. But then, the Assassins were a highly disciplined people who obeyed their superiors without question. An admirable trait in general but one which had helped enable their des
truction.
As much as I did not wish to bring more blood-drinkers into the world, promising it to each of them came easy after I had already granted the Gift to so many. Not only that, as I looked out over the uncountable multitude of savages covering the plains all around, I did not expect all of us to survive the coming assault.
And so it was on that night that I turned Stephen and Hassan.
I made Stephen swear an oath to serve me for the rest of his life but even as he dutifully repeated my words, I recalled how easily he had thrown off his life as a brother of the Order of Saint Francis.
As for Hassan, I asked him only to follow my orders until Hulegu and the immortal Mongols were dead. He also agreed, and I remembered how he would draw on taqiyya, and promise me one thing while intending another. What a sad thing it was, I reflected, that I had ended up surrounded by such men so far from my homeland, a place where oaths were binding and held a sacred power.
For half the night, I sat watching their bodies fight the blood within them. For a time, Stephen appeared so pale and still and cold I thought he would not make it. But their hearts were strong and at sunrise they were welcomed into the strange brotherhood of the blood that I had created. The Assassins knelt before their lord, while Stephen was clapped on the back by all of us. Khutulun kissed him hard on the mouth and he blushed like a maid.
And the next day, the siege continued apace.
The Mongols demolished homes, farms, commercial buildings in the suburbs beyond the walls and used the stones as ammunition. They even uprooted the massive plantations of palm trees and flung entire tree trunks at the walls, and over them. The trebuchets were enormous. The largest machines I had ever seen, indeed, that any of us had ever seen.
The Saracen military response was appalling. The thousands of soldiers and militia inside the city were struck with inactivity or carried out ineffective training that only served to demonstrate their poor morale. We urged anyone who would listen to ride out and make assaults on the enemy positions. Burning the enemy equipment would slow them down, and we knew that the Saracens had naphtha and incendiary weapons. And many captains and soldiers would agree with us to our faces. Yet they would do nothing. Indeed, it seemed that the soldiers grew ever less visible on the walls and I suspected that they were either hiding in their quarters or even deserting within the city. That is, throwing off their armour and slipping away back to their families in the vain hope of avoiding violence.